Stonefather

Then it all came clear. Someone had been living up here until just recently. These were his leftover fleas. If he had happened along just a bit earlier or later, the job would have been taken.

He wondered why his predecessor had been dismissed. He asked to sleep on the ground? Or he tried to learn magery? Or he spoke slightingly of Lark’s purity? Any of these offenses seemed near fatal, as far as Runnel could tell.

Since it was still broad daylight outside, and he hadn’t eaten anything, and neither had anyone else, judging by the smells coming from a kitchen somewhere on the property, he figured he wasn’t meant to try to sleep right now, though he was tired enough. If he was to get along well here, he’d need to show himself a hard worker — that was about the only thing that could ever postpone Father’s wrath, so it was worth trying here.

The trouble was, he had no idea what tasks he ought to do. Nor did he want to bother anybody with asking. But unless he asked, he’d. .

No point in thinking any longer. He headed for the stairs and set his foot on the second-from-the-top step and felt it tremble under him and all at once he was as dizzy as if he’d just spun in circles for a dozen turns, the way they all used to do as little kids, until somebody threw up.

He sat on the top step. There was no railing. Going up had been easy enough — he only had to keep his eyes on Lark ahead of him, a sight that was engaging enough that he hadn’t really been aware of the drop-off on either side. Now, though, he had neither companion nor handrail nor distraction, and he was only able to make his way down the stairs by sitting on a tread, extending his legs to a lower one, then sliding his buttocks down to the next step.

The rest of the stairs were much easier, since there was a wall on one side or the other, and a railing as well. But the house never stopped trembling, and Runnel never felt secure until he was on the ground floor.

Which was foolish, he knew, since there was a cellar beneath that floor, so it wasn’t truly the ground under his feet even now. But being level with the ground seemed to be enough. Maybe it was just that the floor beams rested on stone foundations instead of wooden walls.

How would he find out what work he ought to do? Without asking Lark or bothering Demwor? It was easy to guess that he shouldn’t go in search of Lord Brickel.

He ended up following his nose to the kitchen, a stone building behind the main house — far enough that if the kitchen burned down it wouldn’t take the house with it, but close enough that hot food would still be hot when served, even after being carried through the coldest weather.

The cook turned out to be cooks: a tall, lean black man and a fleshy woman with slanting eyes. As he approached the kitchen, Runnel could hear him calling her Sourwell — a watername — and her calling him Nikwiz, which wasn’t a word he knew, any more than Demwor’s name had meant anything to him. Their tones were quiet, and when Runnel entered the fire-dried room — so hot that he thought having an oven was redundant — they ignored him and kept speaking to each other.

“Ready for that.”

“Steady with the salt.”

“Taste it, you’ll see.”

“Old.”

“But edible.”

“Perfect.”

If Runnel hadn’t been watching, it wouldn’t even have sounded like a conversation, but he could see that “ready for that” led to her handing him what looked like a large spoon, but with holes in the bottom so that when he shook it over the steaming pot, white granules came out. “Steady with the salt” was said after he made his second pass with the shaker. “Taste it, you’ll see,” led to Sourwell dipping a finger into Nikwiz’s pot as she passed on an errand of her own; she nodded and he made yet another pass with the shaker.

“Old,” she said when she picked up a couple of turnips and eyed them skeptically. He didn’t even look — he was busy now mincing an onion — so he must have bought the turnips, because his “but edible” sounded authoritative. By then she was on to the oven, where she slid out a long tray with two round loaves on it—”perfect” was pronounced as judgment on the bread.

Neither of them had yet shown a sign of knowing Runnel was there, but as Nikwiz scattered the onions into a hot pan, making the grease in it sizzle, he said, “If you’ve come to beg for scraps, no. If you’ve come to steal, I promise you dysentery.”

“I’ve just been hired, and I came to ask if you’ve any work for me,” said Runnel. “My name is Runnel.”

“Can you cook?” asked Sourwell.

“Anyone can cook,” said Nikwiz. “You just climb into the oven.”

It took a moment for Runnel to realize that this was a joke — Sourwell didn’t even break a smile, and yet Runnel could see that both she and Nikwiz were both shaking with mirth at the remark.

“My mother never let me near the cooking. Or knives. My sisters—”

“Fascinating,” said Sourwell in a tone that meant the opposite.

“Put the owl on the roof,” said Nikwiz, “to scare the birds and mice away.”

And they were back to cooking.