“Aye, half the town heard, with that circus coming up from the harbor,” Wen agreed, shooting Remin an amused glance. It had been a bit of a debacle, with all those carriages coming over the river. “Best watch those girls at the house, or you’ll have trouble. The laundresses were noising about it when they came to fetch their supper. Inmykitchen.”
That was Wen’s real objection. Not that the laundresses were coveting Miche already, but that he had been forced to listen to it.
“Miche wouldn’t trouble them,” Remin said dismissively.
“It’s not abouthimtroublingthem,”Wen said, waving a ham-like hand. “But as ye please, Your Grace.”
“He brought a lady back with him, as it happens,” Remin said, segueing carefully into this dangerous subject. “The cook from Aldeburke.”
“Did he now?” Wen began to inflate, like a toad swelling up to warn off enemies.
“Seventy if she’s a day, and trained in Segoile,” Remin said, with an edge to his own voice. He was willing to tolerate Wen’s tantrums to a point. “You’re always saying you need help in the kitchen.”
“Seventy.” Wen snorted and turned away, knife flashing as he sliced fresh bread into thick slabs. “Set in her ways and full of capital notions, I wager.”
“Then you should understand each other perfectly,” Remin retorted.
“And ye won’t have her in your kitchen, even if she has her Segoile seal,” Wen said shrewdly. “Do ye think I’ll change me mind, Your Grace?”
“You could name your price.” It was not the first time Remin had made this offer.
“And I’ve told ye, I’m not fit for a lord’s household. This suits me,” the cook said, gesturing at the long, narrow kitchen, with its stacks of tin pans and raw wooden shelves. “No one bothers me. And if they do, I yell at ’em ‘til they go away again. Ye wanted to be a lord, Your Grace, well, ye got what ye wished for, and the blessings of the stars go with ye. I’ll give her a bit of counter, if you want her away from ye. But it won’t solve your troubles.”
Well, he was just exploring options, Remin told himself as he gathered up the large breakfast hamper, along with a jug of Wen’s cure for Juste and Miche. It was true that he had eaten Azelma’s cooking in Aldeburke for a week, with no ill effect. But then, he had had one of his knights observing every step of the preparation, from the kitchen to the dining table.
And he was the Duke of Andelin. It was his right to have his food made however he liked by whoever he wanted and delivered in whatever way he preferred. But as Remin stepped outside to find snow falling, he was reminded again of the impracticality of the situation. And no, Wen was not likely to change his mind. He did not like people.
Resolutely, Remin shoved this problem away and swung up onto Lancer, pulling the heavy black hood of his cloak over his head. The snow was drifting down in huge, soft flakes like feathers. It looked like the first real blizzard of the season.
“It’s snowing!” Ophele exclaimed as soon as he arrived back home, appearing at the top of the landing in a simple blue morning gown. “Are you feeling all right? I was worried last night.”
“I saw it,” Remin said dryly, shaking his cloak outside the front door before he stepped inside. “I’m well enough, I’m sorry I troubled you, wife. It looks like a blizzard. Have you seen Miche and Juste about?”
“Yes, they’re both in the solar. Shall we have breakfast together?” she asked, brightening.
The prospect also pleased Remin. Usually, he and Ophele took breakfast alone, at first because Ophele was not ready to face a cookhouse full of people first thing in the morning, and then because they could hardly invite guests into their bedchamber. But it was pleasant to see Juste and Miche shuffling through the door of the solar and offering greetings to Ophele, even if they were still squinting and green.
Lady Verr was also there, but only because it would have been a gross insult to exclude her.
“I’ll do that, my lord,” said Juste, plucking the hamper from Remin’s hand to set the table.
“Have you ever seen a blizzard, Lady Verr?” Ophele asked, watching the huge flakes falling through the windows with delight.
“Not a blizzard, Your Grace,” Lady Verr replied. “We sometimes had snow on my father’s estate, but rarely more than a flurry. Will there be so much more here?”
“A great deal more,” said Juste, as Miche and Remin nodded their agreement. All three men were eating cautiously, making a trial of bread before attempting anything crazy, like bacon. “The clouds come up against the mountains and then linger. We will not fare too badly on this hilltop, but it will be up to the eaves of the cottages in town.”
“A pity there weren’t any sledges in Aldeburke, or I would have taken those, too,” remarked Miche. “There’s a few put by in the storehouse, but with so many folk in town, we’re like to need more. Or maybe we ought to just dig out Eugene Street, for common travel.”
“We’ll need the market road and the barracks road cleared, too,” Remin said. He wasnotcalling it Goose Road. “It’ll be heavy work.”
“That’s why the stars gave you soldiers,” Miche said placidly.
It was pleasant, and homey, to be sitting safe and warm inside the house as the snow fell, listening to Miche tease Ophele and talking about other men shoveling snow. But however intoxicated he might have been the night before, Remin had not forgotten any part of their conversations, and he knew that many of his people werenottucked away, safe and warm by a fire.
“Some of the Third will stay here,” he said. He had forgotten all about his iffy stomach and was heaping eggs, bacon, and fried tomatoes onto a thick slice of bread. “But the rest aregoing to Isigne and Selgin to see what has become of Huber and the folk of those villages.”
“Who will go with them?” There was a warning glint in Juste’s eyes.
