Chapter 14

Mages spell components were both odd and slightly disgusting, I decided, as I picked through the inn keeper’s kitchen. It was a large room, used not just for the preparation of food, but for much of the family’s time.

The walls were lined with shelves holding everything from crockery to buckets, and the roof was strung with hocks of meat and drying herbs. Rivyn had to duck to avoid some of the beams, warped and roughly shaped, they seemed to sag in places. The floor was stone, scattered with thresh and debris from the cooking, resulting in a less than savoury scent if it was kicked up underfoot.

A bench was set along one wall, and shelves on the other. The shelves held a fascinating array of jars and items I could not even begin to identify. From the dust that gathered around and on top of most of the items, I imagined the innkeeper’s wife could not identify them either.

In the centre of the room was a large table made of roughly shaped and knotted wood, worn smooth and almost shiny in places. The table held an array of food ready for the innkeeper’s wife and daughters to prepare for the day’s guests. Carrots by the bushel, zucchini, potatoes, chickens, fresh herbs, and freshwater fish. Rivyn had complained that they were not from salt water, despite the village being inland and such a thing being nigh on impossible to achieve. The mage, I thought, had some odd ideas.

The inn keeper’s plumply pretty wife and daughters, one unfortunately taking more after her father than her mother, watched in entertained bemusement from the doorway.

“Why three fisheyes, not four or two?” I muttered.

“The rule of three,” Rivyn replied mildly as he sorted through the herbs. The little earth ware jars clanked as he forced the seals open in order to look within. “Ah, good, marjoram. It’s old, but the seal was good, so it will do.” He had an array of small pottery jars lined on the scarred benchtop before him which had passed the initial inspection, and he was in the process of transferring the contents into many little pouches from his bag.

“Why am I in charge of fisheyes and you’re finding marjoram?”

“Why must you complain about everything?”

“Three fisheyes,” I put them down on the bench next to him. “What’s next?”

“Thank you. Next,” he flicked his eyes over the ingredients on the table. “Chicken tongues.”

“I didn’t know chickens had tongues.”

“Of course, they have tongues,” he looked up at me, his eyes bright with amusement. “If you will, Siorin.” He was revelling in giving me the disgusting jobs, I thought, enjoying my reaction to the tasks as I performed them.

“And what are you finding?”

“I am going to go look outside for poisons. Unless you think you’re more qualified?” He arched his brows. “It sounds more pleasant than it is. I’ll probably come up in a rash from contact with their sap.”

“I’ll get the chicken tongues,” a rash did not sound pleasant.

“The whole of the tongue, not just the tip,” he said lightly as he ducked out the doorframe into the sunlight.

Once he had stepped out the kitchen door and wandered down the path, the inn keeper’s wife sidled closer. “How long have you been married?” she asked eagerly. She was much intrigued by Rivyn’s beauty and our errand in her kitchen.

“Some days it seems like forever,” I evaded the question as I cracked open the beak of one of the chicken corpses that she had on her table ready to cook. “How do you even... ha! Ah, that’s sort of,” I had to look away and swallow heavily. “Disgusting.”

“He’s very handsome,” she murmured, giving me the side eye and a knowing smile.

“Yes,” I agreed under my breath. I had woken with his arm around me, and his big body curled around mine, and it had been ridiculously pleasant to lie there in such a way, and very tempting to turn around and slide my hands through his hair and meet his lips with mine.

I had the feeling that Rivyn held a wealth of experience in the secrets of love and passion within him, and that if I took the step to invite him to show me, he would not hesitate to do so. But it was one thing to speculate that my reputation had been utterly ruined by his absconding with me on the road, quite another to actively invite ruination, no matter how tempting the man.

“But a lot of trouble,” I added.

“Is he a lord, or a mage?” she wondered. “Or both?”

“A mage,” I did not know about the other. He might just be a Lord, for all I knew, he certainly had the mannerisms of someone used to more than I was. I did not know if there were Lords in the Fae court, or whether half mankind Fae would be eligible for titles. “Chicken tongues.” I went to the door. “What next?” I called out to him.

“That’s it,” he replied, startling me with his proximity. He had a clump of weeds in his hand. “Madam, if I may?” He took up one of her knives with an arched eyebrow.

“Of course, my lord,” she was fascinated, by the man and the magic.

“Make sure you wash this knife very well after,” he cautioned her. “Wash, rinse, and wash again. And be careful not to nick yourself on the blade.” He wielded the knife proficiently, cutting the leaves from the stems, and then the whole into a fine paste which he scraped off the kitchen surface into a jar. “Athucco.” He shook the jar, and the paste became a fine dust.

The inn keeper’s wife and her daughters all gasped in amazement. Rivyn met my eyes with amusement. He put all the ingredients into his various pouches. “We are done. Madam,” he handed her another coin from his seemingly limitless supply. “Siorin, my dear, let’s depart.”

Rivyn tipped the stable boy as he mounted Coryfe before pulling me up before him. He settled me against him in a way he found comfortable and took control of the reins. “Are you at all curious as to why I didn’t seduce you last night?” he asked conversationally, as we rode.