Page 9 of Valdemar

Tonight we eat pork, indeed.

There must have been an abundance of those huge piglets, because by the time Kordas cleaned up, dealt with the afternoon’s mixed business of reports from his Seneschal Jase Krane and urgent petitions directly to him, the aroma coming from the kitchen was enough to drive a person mad. The other giant boars they had dispatched since founding Haven had all been single males, and had been . . . gamey. Not that they were not appreciated, especially in the first three lean years, but the meat had that sour, musky taste adult wild game tended to have. Not inedible, especially not to people who were hungry for meat, but it had taken a lot of Tayledras hot peppers and something they called “strong sage” to make it enjoyable. And the smell while it had been cooking had been . . . distinct. It reminded people that they were hungry enough to eat about anything, really. It was a good thing that the butchered portions had still been so large that all the cooking had been done in pits outside.

This aroma, though—this was utterly delicious, and it seemed to Kordas that more than just two suckling pigs were being dealt with down in the kitchen area.

And in fact, when he finally joined the rest of his family and all the “Court”—otherwise known as all those highborn families living within his manor right now, plus their personal servants—there was a handsome, crisp-skinned, golden-brown piglet the size of a full-grown Valdemaran sow on each of the six tables in the Hall, surrounded by vegetables glazed in the juices. With that scent wafting all through the manor, no one was late for dinner tonight.

It was past sundown, so the Hall was lit by mage-light, with a few sage-scented candles on each table for atmosphere. The candles had been made and gifted by Lady Justine, who was not, by any means, the only one of the highborn to take to practical crafting in order to contribute to their mutual comfort. Lord Neuland and three of his eldest children were making some simple but stunning furniture, slowly replacing all the simple trestle tables and stools here in the Hall with pieces lovingly pegged, fitted, and polished that showed both mastery and enjoyment of the craft. And a good many of the highborn ladies had taken to the loom and to knitting.

Isla and the boys were already in their places at the head table on the dais that Lord Neuland had insisted on building, together with Hakkon, Delia, Alberdina, and a selection of the mages. He couldn’t help but reflect, as he hurried to take his seat, that no one back in the Empire would have thought this gathering was of anything but a group of well-off craftsmen and prosperous farmers. Their clothing was much, much simpler than these same folks had been accustomed to wearing back before the escape, with very little in the way of ornamentation, and no jewelry except pieces that had sentimental value or significance to the wearer. The colors, mostly of the natural fibers, were attractive to his eyes, but subdued. Trim was limited to simple card-, stick-, or finger-woven patterns in the same subdued colors, or to stuff that had been cut off garments too faded or worn to wear by the original owner. Nothing was ever discarded, of course. If a garment could not be cut down any further, it would be unraveled for the colored threads for embroidery or woven trim. Same for the scraps from the re-tailoring. Truth to tell, he liked how it all looked, like a harmonious whole, even if his folks were not always harmonious in fact.

A quick glance over the tables, combined with the fact that by this time he knew these people as well as he knew his own family, told him that, for tonight at least, there were no active quarrels.

Then again, probably the smell of juicy, succulent suckling pig had buried all feuds for at least as long as it would take to eat and sleep it off. Meat was no longer a once-a-week treat. There was meat on the manor table at dinner most nights, if only in soup or stew, but no one had eaten suckling pig except when hunters found wild (normal-sized) sows with piglets, and those were so small that, shared out, the portions were quite meager.

For once, no one really noted his entrance, except with relief that now they could all finally eat. Not that he blamed them. His stomach let out a distinctly un-Baronial growl as he sat down, and there was a strong temptation to just reach out with his bare hands, grab a piece crowned with that glistening, amber skin, and tear it off to cram in his mouth.

He didn’t, of course. This was a Court dinner. Manners above all. He sat down, nodded at the carver to begin, and all through the hall the other carvers put wickedly sharp knives to their charges and began the serving.

There would have been seven piglets, of course, not six. The cook would have kept one back for the kitchen staff, given such an abundance of meat. The kitchen staff and servers ate first; that was the way it always had been in the Valdemar household, and he’d been shocked to discover that wasn’t the case elsewhere, that the Imperial staff only got what was left over after their masters had eaten—or worse, were fed “inferior” meals while every scrap of the master’s meal was used in pies and the like the next day. How unfair was that? It would have been folly to say that out loud at the time, though; he’d been held as a hostage in the Imperial Palace, and any empathy shown for mere servants would have brought him ridicule at best, and signaled the then-Duchy out for suspicion at the worst.

That’s how the Emperor liked things. Why treat anyone as a subordinate, when one could treat them as an inferior, too? Keep them ambitious enough to try harder, but never let them think promotion or reward was at hand.

As the carver handed around plates loaded with meat and roasted vegetables, Kordas could not help noticing that his errant son’s attention was split. Partly on the food about to reach him, and partly on his father.

You’d better not be asking for a reprieve, young mischief. You won’t be getting it.

“Well,” he said, signaling the start of “polite conversation.” “You can see what Restil and I were up to today. Do you want the details now, or later?”

“Where there are piglets there are sows, so I expect the battle was exciting, but given the result, brief,” Isla said sensibly. “Let’s have the details over dessert. It’s going to be jam tart. Hakkon has something he wants to ask you before we hear about your hunt.”

Kordas’s plate reached him, and he put a forkful of pork in his mouth and made sure to extract every particle of pleasure from it before replying. “Well, Hakkon?”

The floodgates opened.

“One of the lurchers whelped and I helped and SerKellan the Houndmaster said I can have one if you say yes and I know I said horrible things but please please please please please may I have apuppy?”

Fortunately Kordas was, by now, well acquainted with torrent-speech from his middle offspring (who, when excited, nervous, or both, tended to blurt everything out at the highest speed possible to get it all out at once) and had no trouble deciphering the fact that one of the lurchers—or staghounds—had just had her puppies, Hakkon had gotten right in there with the messy business, and as a consequence, SerKellan, who certainly knew his business, had deemed Hakkon worthy of a pup.

This sort of pleading might have seemed immature for a lad of fifteen . . . and Kordas was immediately struck by it. It occurred to him then that Hakkon never had seemed to have the “feel” for horses that both his eldest and youngest did—and that, due to the complicated situation while they were growing up back in the Duchy, and then all of the work every one of them had been doing since then, none of them had ever had a pet dog. Sydney-You-Asshole the cat was . . . well, not like a dog. Cats do not “do” unconditional love.

It appeared that Hakkon had just been smitten.

Well, that will certainly teach him responsibility. A horse teaches a man self-control. A dog teaches him kindness.Come to think of it, he had only had a pet dog when he’d been home with his father as a child, before being hauled off to the Capital to serve as a hostage for his father’s good behavior. Never since then. His whole world had been horses, and he hadn’t felt the need for a dog—but part of the wonder of dogs is that whoever’s dog was nearest is generally yours for a while, too. Dogs that are not bred to be guard dogs tend to be generous with their affection.

Not to mention that I think Isla would have had strong objections to sharing our bed with the kind of mastiff or lurcher I’d prefer as a pet.There was no way a pet dog stayed out of your bed. That was a given. And that’s as the gods like it.

“You shan’t have one as a pet until it’s weaned and housebroken,” he pointed out.

Hakkon nodded, still so excited he was slurring his sentences into a single word. “But SerKellan says I should come play with it everyday.”

“So you should. You need to let your pup know that you are going to be his pack leader when he grows up, and that he can trust you to care for him and love him. You can even begin training it a very little from the beginning, just as Delia trains her horses. And you’ll have to know how to train it, because we won’t allow it in our rooms until it is housebroken and knows not to chew on things that are not toys.” Good luck with that last, but it’s not as if Isla and I are going to be too fussed about a little puppy-destruction.

“Yessir,” Hakkon said, his eyes going very round and bright as he realized his father was going to allow the treat.

“Do you know which one you want?” Kordas kept his face as expressionless as he could, because ultimately the real decision would be SerKellan’s.

“Yessir! The runty one, Father! He’s all gray with a white front! SerKellan said he’s a good choice for a pet because he won’t be so big as to get in the way indoors. I already love him, Father, and he loves me, I can tell!”