Month 2, Day 5
I lifted the lid off the third kettle and leaned back from the steam. Rain came down hard on the stretched hides above me. It had been like that since dawn.
Our row had five iron kettles, each over its own fire pit, in a straight line under the hides. The cutting tables stood behind us, and a drainage ditch ran along the front. We cut in the back, cooked in the front, and carried the food out when it was ready. That was the whole kitchen.
Ours was one row among many. Under the next hide, a crew turned meat over open coals. Past them, flat dough slapped onto hot stone. Voices called back and forth in languages I'd never learned, and I understood every word anyway. Runners came through with sacks, took full pots away, and never stopped moving.
Daisuke's chart hung on the corner pole, out of the rain: three pieces of bark covered in charcoal numbers. He'd scaled our cook-off stew by forty before the hunt. Across the top he'd written THE STEW. OFFICIAL. DO NOT GUESS. Daisuke himself was up on the wall with his forty people. It finished today, and he wasn't going to stir soup while that happened.
The woman running our row read the chart at dawn, then checked the water level in the kettle. "Should come up to the fourth knuckle," she said. "Whose knuckle, though?"
"His," I said.
"He's not here."
"Then mine. They're close."
She read the chart's warning out loud: "Do not guess." Then she checked the water against her own fist and guessed anyway.
Stirring cost more than it should have. Three days of hauling carcasses on ropes had rubbed both palms raw, and the two blisters from the wooden sword sat right where the paddle pressed. I wrapped a dry cloth around the handle and pushed with my arm instead of gripping hard.
Carmen had told me I was going to the feast with her, first weeks ago at our fire, then again three nights ago after I came back from drinking with Rafi and Daisuke. That second time she'd said she was looking forward to it. I still didn't know if she meant it the way I wanted her to. Between stirs I did the arithmetic anyway: if the serving started on time, I'd be out before full dark. I caught myself stirring faster and made myself stop.
Rafi ran the row next to ours, three kettles on higher ground, and he ran it loud. His stew had the mountain herbs in it, and every runner who passed his fires heard about them.
"People are asking which pot is mine," he called across the lane.
"They're asking which pot is done."
"Which is MINE. Ask the runners."
The runners, when asked, wanted to know when anything would be done.
Amina came down the line with a board hugged to her chest and two lists going soft at the corners. Supply had assigned her to the east kitchen. Our row was part of the east kitchen. So she stopped at our row, and neither of us knew where to look while she did.
"This row receives one more grain sack before midday," she said, eyes on the board. "The meat allotment is complete. Confirm receipt."
"Confirmed. Yeah."
She held the charcoal out, and I signed the mark. Her thumb stayed on the top list a moment.
"Your row was first up this morning. You..." She squared the sheets against the board. "Nine more rows. Excuse me."
Rafi arrived before she'd taken a step.
"You're the list girl. Amina, right?" He put his hand out, all warmth. "Rafi. The stew with the herbs is mine, the one everyone's asking about. Come by at the serving, I'll set a bowl aside for you."
She shook the hand once, let it go, and looked back at her board. "Portions are standard at the serving."
"Sure, standard, but mine's the good pot. First ladle. For the supply department. As thanks."
"The supply department doesn't take thanks in stew."
"Okay. What does it take?"
"Signatures." She turned the board around, held it out, and waited. Rafi signed something he didn't read. "The sack comes within the hour," she told me, and went down the row.
Rafi watched her go, hands on his hips. "That went well. That was rapport."
I gave the stew my whole attention.
Mirae worked the near end of the cutting tables, cutting the roots with short, even strokes: one pile of clean roots, one of skins. When her bucket filled, she carried it to the kettle herself, tipped the roots in, and tasted the stew off the paddle on her way back.
"Salt's right," she said, mostly to the pot, and returned to her table.
When the wind turned, I could smell the tanning racks on the far side of camp, where the hides from the hunt had gone.
After midday, I caught the smell of my own sleeve. Smoke, fat, and old sweat had soaked deep into the cloth. Carmen would come in her soft sweater, clean. Standing next to her, I'd smell like the whole east kitchen, and there wouldn't be time to wash more than my face before the serving. I put my arm down and kept stirring.
The rain picked up in the afternoon, and the ditch couldn't carry it away fast enough anymore. Water came in under the back edge of the hides, crossed the muddy ground in one wide stream, and poured straight into the fire pits. Three of our five fires died into wet ash before the shout finished. The kettles above them went cold, the meat inside still pale and raw.
"Wood off the ground!" the row lead called. "Lids on!"
The wood racks went up onto stones, out of the wet, and the lids went on. Everyone just stood there, looking at the three dead fires. The serving would begin at the horn, and pale, raw meat couldn't go into anyone's bowl.
Across the lane, on higher ground, Rafi's three fires were still burning strong. His kettles were already cooked and coming off.
I looked at his fires, then at our two working pits, and I knew exactly what to do. Saying it out loud was the hard part.
"The fire stones," I said, too quietly, and then again, to the row lead. "Our two good pits are full of hot stones. Lift some out and put them into the last cold kettle. They'll cook it from the inside. The two fullest cold ones go across to Rafi's fires, his kettles are coming off anyway. And people swap places instead of everyone carrying everything at once."
She looked at me for one breath. Then she pointed and started saying names.
"Take mine!" Rafi already had his last kettle swinging off its fire. "All three! The good stew's coming to me, everyone note the direction!"
"It's still my stew."
"It's a guest on my fires now. That earns a share."
The stones went first. We lifted them out with tongs and lowered them into the cold kettle one at a time, slow, so the broth didn't splash. Then we ran poles through the handles of the two fullest kettles, four people to a pole, so nobody had to lift alone. My blisters flattened under the pole, and I held on anyway. The cooks from the drowned pits crossed the lane and took over at Rafi's fires. Rafi's own people stayed where they stood and fed the flames for us.
The horn sounded while we were still under the last kettle. One long note from the gate.
The shouting started far off and moved toward us through the rows. Someone at the cutting tables called out that they were setting the beam. Nobody at our row put anything down.
We set the kettle down on Rafi's last free fire, slow and level. By the time my hands were empty, the cheering was everywhere at once, hundreds of voices with more joining in. I stepped sideways and looked for the gate. Steam filled the whole lane, and past it I could only see wet backs and raised arms. Between two of them I caught a strip of the gate leaf and the end of the locking beam sliding into its stone bracket. Then the shoulders closed together, and there was only the cheering and the rain.
The wall was closed. I'd mostly heard it happen.
Back at the kettle, I put the paddle in.
By late afternoon, our five kettles had reached the serving stands.
Carmen found me beside the wash tubs while I worked grease from my forearms. She wore the same soft sweater under a short oilcloth cape, and both sleeves were already wet below it.
"There you are," she said. "I've checked your fire, your hut, and half the kitchen rows. One of the cooks finally pointed me at the tubs."
"Sorry. We had a problem with the fires."
"I heard. Rafi's telling everyone your stew crossed the lane on poles and his fires saved the feast."
"His fires were dry. That's most of what they did."
"He tells it longer. Come on, wash your face. The food's going out, and I told the others we'd meet them near our fire."
I reached for the cloth beside the tub, then stopped. Carmen had already turned toward the opening.
For a second, I watched her keep walking. Telling her now meant hearing her answer before the feast. I could wait, meet Lenya after the meal, and hope Carmen never asked when I'd agreed. Lenya had asked me clearly. Carmen had too.
"Wait. I need to tell you something."
She looked back. "Okay."
"Lenya asked me to go with her. To the feast." My left hand tightened around the wet cloth. "I said yes."
Carmen stared at me. Water dripped from the roof edge.
"Lenya," she said. "Who's Lenya?"
"A girl I met at the mess square a few nights ago."
"And you said yes."
"Yeah. But you said we were going together first, so I... I should've told you because I thought today meant..."
"Wait." She stepped closer. "You thought I meant just you and me?"
Grease floated on the water in the tub. "I didn't know what you meant."
"Aleks, I meant the old group. All of us arriving together, eating together. We always end up at the same fire anyway." Her eyebrows pulled together. She watched my face. "Come on, you're my family here. Of course I wanted you there."
I had wanted her to mean just us. She hadn't.
The cloth slipped out of my hand and fell into the tub. I reached into the water with my left hand and caught it before it sank.
Bent over the water, I watched the grease. My jaw hurt from holding my teeth together, and I waited until I could keep my voice even.
"Okay," I said.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. My hands." I squeezed water out of the cloth and kept my eyes on it. "So I can eat with you, then meet Lenya after?"
"Yes, obviously. Eat with us, then meet her." Carmen looked at the water, then at my palms. "Those look terrible, by the way."
"Ropes. They're fine."
"Wash your face." She took the cloth from me, wrung it out properly, and handed it back. "Then eat before you go looking for her."
I nodded and bent over the tub. Carmen kept listing where the bowls were and who had saved a bench while I scrubbed grease from my face. Then she went ahead toward the fire.
I didn't follow her.
Behind the supply tents stood a rain barrel, filled to the rim and running over. I pushed my sleeves up and washed my hands in it, then my face, twice, cold enough to sting. On the other side of the tents somebody tested a drum, three hits, then three more.
She'd called me family, warm, meaning it as a gift. It was also an answer to a question I'd been carrying around since that evening at our fire, and the answer was no. Nobody had lied to me. Carmen had never promised anything past a bench and a bowl. The rest I'd built myself and never checked against anyone.
And by the drum stood a girl who'd asked me out loud, with nobody making her, and was probably wondering by now if I'd show.
I stayed by the barrel until the cold left my face. Lenya was going to get a real evening, not what was left of me after the wash tubs. She'd asked for an evening, and an evening was what she'd get.
I pushed my wet hair back and went to find her.
By dark I was in dry clothes with my oilcloth cape over them. The rain had eased, but it stayed cold. Small drops crossed the firelight, and every bench had to be wiped before anyone sat. The wall crews had laid boards over the worst mud near the musicians. Water came up between them whenever too many people crossed at once.
Fires burned in raised braziers along the inner wall. Somebody had strung oil lamps on cords between the tent poles, and the light reached further than on any normal night. Food lines filled the open ground between our old fire and the gate. One group folded chopped meat into thin grain dough. Another served dark roasted roots with sour leaves. I passed pots of rice, flatbread, thick soup, fish, and three foods I couldn't name.
Two drummers sat on crates at the edge of the boards, and an elf with a long-necked stringed instrument stood between them and switched which drum he followed. Hollow wooden pipes started up somewhere in the food lines, a different song entirely, and nobody minded. The black trunk rose above the camp and blocked a section of the night sky.
I found Lenya near the musicians before I sat down to eat. She had her cup in both hands and one damp strand of brown hair stuck to her cheek. Nora stood beside her, arguing with the unnamed girl about which food line moved fastest.
"Hey," Lenya said. "You came."
"Yeah. The people I arrived with saved me a place by our fire. They expect me there first, but... I didn't want you waiting here and wondering where I was. After that, I want to meet you. If you still want to."
Lenya looked at me over the rim of her cup. "I still want to."
"Okay."
"Go eat. I'll be by the drum when you're done." She touched her left boot against a board, and water came out around the sole. "I need to empty this first anyway."
"Do you want our place by the fire?"
"Then the water in my boot will be warm. I'll survive it cold."
Nora bent to inspect the boot while Lenya pulled it off. I went back to our fire before I found a way to stay there and make it awkward.
We had two tables beside the old fire for the night. Carmen put me between her and Jonas. Rafi sat opposite with Mirae, and Nikita took the far end with his plate. The place Amina used to have stayed empty. I saw her twice in the food lines with the supply workers, board still under one arm.
Rafi set his cup down and addressed both tables. "Three kettles finished on my fires. I want that in the record before anyone toasts. Moral victory. I'm taking it."
"You lent out empty fires," I said.
"Dry empty fires. Dry was the whole achievement today."
Jonas shifted his leg under the table. "Give him half a win. Please. He's been explaining it since the gate closed."
Daisuke arrived an hour into the eating with mortar dust in his hair and almost no voice left. His section had reached the last gap first, and he told us so twice, in a rasp, before Carmen pushed him onto the bench with a cup.
"The chart," he got out. "Did it hold?"
Mirae tasted the stew, looked into her bowl, and took another spoonful. "Third kettle wanted more water."
"Noted." His voice cracked on the word, and he grinned anyway.
Jonas had brought a plate from the far lines, pale strips under a dark sauce, and made it go around the table. Mine tasted of smoke and vinegar and something I gave up trying to name. I finished it anyway, and Jonas took that as a review and went for more.
Carmen pushed a cup of brewed grain drink toward me while Rafi argued his moral victory a second time. I finished it with the meal. Nikita looked once at my raw palms, then moved the bread plate within my reach without saying anything.
The first dance started before our bowls were empty. People took the boards near the musicians in uneven groups. Some knew the steps and tried to teach them. Others moved whenever the drums got loud enough.
Rafi finished first and took his cup to Nora's table. Nora and the girl whose name I'd missed turned toward him while he described the flooded fires with both hands. Daisuke followed and waited for a gap.
"Did you ever get anyone to make those burned potatoes?" he asked Nora.
She leaned toward him. "What?"
He started again, but Rafi reached the part about his dry fires. Both girls turned back to Rafi. Daisuke pushed his glasses up, took a drink, and stayed beside them.
When I stood, Carmen caught my sleeve. "She's by the drum?"
"Yeah."
Carmen released my sleeve. "Then go. She's waiting."
Lenya had her boot back on. She waved when she saw me and made room on the bench beside her. I wiped the open end with my sleeve while she collected two small plates from a nearby table. Two people asked for the space before she returned, and I told both of them it was taken.
She checked the dry patch. "You kept it."
"Of course. You said you'd be back."
She set the plates between us. I went for a second cup of grain drink. Hers stayed between both hands.
"Try this," she said, holding out one of the plates. "Nobody could tell me what's inside."
"That didn't stop you?"
"It stopped Nora. I got curious."
The dumpling held chopped roots and enough hot leaves to make my nose run. Lenya watched me finish the bite before taking her own.
"You knew," I said.
"I knew after mine. Then I wanted to see what happened when you tried it."
"Did I?"
"Your eyes went wet."
"That's the rain."
"We're under an awning."
She laughed and gave me the other half anyway. We tried food from three more lines. Lenya opened each piece first to inspect the filling, then ate it.
At the last stall, I saw flatbread covered with crushed brown nuts and took one before Lenya chose anything. "You said milk chocolate with hazelnuts. This has nuts."
She looked at the flatbread. "And no chocolate."
"I couldn't find that part."
Lenya looked at me. "You remembered, though."
"Yeah."
She tore the flatbread in half and gave me the bigger piece. Somewhere in there I remembered, on my own this time, that I was allowed to ask things back, so I did. She worked the drying racks by the tanners and hated the smell with her whole face when she named it. Her tent stood in the west rows, third from the end, beside a man who sang in his sleep in a language she hadn't placed yet. When I asked about home, she looked at her boots and said maybe another night. I let it go, and she bumped her shoulder into mine for letting it go.
The second drink made my face warm. I finished it before the next dance and set the empty cup beside hers at Nora's table. Lenya put her own cup down too.
"Do you know this one?" she asked.
"No."
"Good. Neither do I."
She took my hand and pulled me toward the boards. The drummer kept a quick rhythm while one of the camp's elf women near the front called steps nobody around us followed for long.
I watched Lenya's feet and tried to copy them. That worked until the people beside us turned in the other direction. My boot landed on the edge of hers.
"Sorry."
"You said that before you did it."
I moved my boot and nearly caught hers again. "Give me a second."
She laughed and pulled me back into the next turn. I stepped on a board gap, caught myself, and kept going. After that she counted under her breath. I joined her on the wrong number, which made her lose the step completely.
We left the boards laughing and breathing hard. Lenya held our place while I filled two cups at a water stand near the boards. I handed her one and drank mine too quickly.
"Slow down," she said. "Nora doesn't need a story about you choking on water."
I wiped water from under my nose. We stayed there through another song.
"What did you call the one where everyone turned left?" I asked.
"The river step. No, wait, that was the slow one. The fast one was..." Lenya stopped with the cup near her mouth. "I made the names up."
"All of them?"
"Most of them. You were following me, so I couldn't tell you halfway through."
"I was following your feet."
"That explains the boot." She laughed and changed two of the names again before the song ended.
Across the square, Antoine set two cups on a crate beside the dance boards. Carmen joined him on the boards. He watched the drummer for a few beats, placed one hand at her side, and led her into the turn.
His feet landed on the boards without slipping. When Carmen lost a step, he caught her elbow and moved them to the drier side. She laughed, put her hand back in his, and stayed when the next song began.
I meant to look for a second. Two turns later I was still looking.
Beside me, Lenya had stopped talking. She followed my eyes to the boards and found Carmen there, and her face changed. The laughing from the dance went out of it. She finished her water without a word.
"Come on." She stood and picked up her cup. "There's too much drum here. Let's find somewhere quieter."
We returned the cups and followed the inner wall away from the musicians. The rain was louder there, striking the stone cap and the awnings tied beneath it. People still passed us with food and fuel, but nobody stayed.
Lenya stopped near a stack of covered baskets. She rubbed both hands down her wet sleeves and looked at me.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Yeah."
"If I hadn't come looking for you the other night, would you have asked me to come here?"
"I came here. And I said yes."
"After I asked." She waited. "Would you have picked me?"
"We barely knew each other before that night. I thought we could..."
My mouth opened, and I pressed my teeth together before anything else came out.
Lenya folded her arms against the cold. "Could what?"
"I don't know." With my head lowered, I watched the rainwater between our boots. "You asked me, and I liked it. Somebody wanted me here, and I liked that too. Nobody had done that before, and I thought... I wanted that to be enough."
"Enough for what?"
"I don't know. Enough that I could... I thought the rest might happen after."
She looked toward the food lines. Rain collected on her hair and ran from the ends.
"You had three days to work that out before tonight," she said. "After that, you saved me a place, remembered the chocolate, and kept trying after you stepped on my foot." She rubbed both sleeves over her cheeks. "The whole evening, I thought you were here because you wanted me."
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah. I know." She lowered her sleeves. "I had a good time, Aleks. You did too, I thought." She waited, then shook her head. "You could've told me when you found me by the drum. Or after we ate. I shouldn't have had to watch you looking at somebody else and ask."
Without answering, I gripped the wet edge of my cape in my left hand.
Lenya nodded once without looking at me. "I'm going back to Nora. Don't follow me."
I left the feast behind and walked to the river inside the wall. At the old log, the knot on my oilcloth cape took three tries. Twice my fingers missed the loop and pushed the wet cord against my throat. After I got it loose, I knelt beside the water.
My left hand went into the mud when I leaned too close. After rinsing it, I washed my face and drank from my left palm. Then I sat with my boots braced against the bank.
She'd asked whether I'd have picked her. I pressed my palm against my knee until the blisters hurt.
Rain made small rings across the river. I stayed until my thighs went numb beneath my wet trousers, tied the cape again, and took the main path back toward the huts.
That route passed the main arsenal and the closed gate. Music still came from the center of camp behind me. Ahead, one of the gate guards had opened the viewing shutter and was calling into the dark beyond the outer lights.
"West Two!" he shouted. "North path, answer!"
Nobody answered. Another guard raised his spear and told someone below to keep the locking beam in place.
Movement crossed the far light line. The guard moved half a step aside when he saw me. I looked through the shutter past his shoulder. Large horned bodies entered the next band of light one by one, each carrying a rider.
I counted six Grivars. Their saddles had high backs and straps I hadn't seen in camp. The upper sides of the blankets were dark with rain. Beneath the saddles, protected folds held dried gray mud and white salt crusts.
Every rider carried a visible weapon. Two held spears upright. The others had blades or bows tied within reach. Nobody wore the marks used by our patrols.
The first Grivar stopped outside the final light line, and its rider stayed bent over the saddle. He looked along the new wall, then toward the music beyond it.
"We followed that tree expecting ruins," he called. His voice was hoarse. "Who commands all these people?"