'At least until they catch you at it,' Jadrek warned, echoing Kethry's thought, with a chuckle. 'Last holiday within a fortnight they had it figured that your game of 'hide and hunt' was nothing more than practice in tracking.'
'Well, that's your fault for breeding such clever children,' Tarma retorted, as she strode off in the direction of the stables. 'You should have been a little more careful.'
Kethry laughed, and hugged Jadrek's arm, reminded again how grateful she was that her she'enedra and her beloved were as fond of one another as the best of siblings. 'To think that I was once worried about how you two would get along!'
Her husband arched a slender, silver eyebrow at her, and she braced herself for something witty, funny, or both. 'Do you think that for one scant moment I would even contemplate doing or saying anything to offend our best unpaid child-tender? Perish the thought, woman!'
'I know, how foolish of me.' She released his arm with a kiss on the back of his hand. 'I am going to go do something nonmagical, frivolous and feminine; I'm going to go brew up some perfume in the still-room. I've spent so much time making bruise-ointment and salve for the little hoydens that I haven't done a thing with the roses I harvested this summer, or the sentle-wood and amba-resin that I bought from that trader this fall.'
'Mmm,' Jadrek replied absently, as his mind apparently flashed elsewhere. I think he just realized that he's going to have whole stretches of time without interruptions for the next moon. 'I've got a translation I promised to young Stefansen that's been giving me some problems.'
Kethry made a shooing motion with her hands. 'Go do it, then but set the candle-alarm for three marks, or you won't remember to eat luncheon, and I'm certain that Cook is already planning something a bit more experimental now that the children are gone.'
This would make another pleasant change; on the whole, children bolted food without paying much attention to it, and looked upon things that they didn't recognize with suspicion. It was only when no one was in residence but 'the family' that Cook made anything other than good, basic fare. And Cook looked forward to the holidays with some anticipation for that very reason.
'Well, I wouldn't risk my marriage by offending Cook either,' Jadrek laughed, and kissed her forehead. 'Now don't you forget to set your alarm-candle!'
They went their separate ways, and Kethry immersed herself in the intricacies of creating her own signature perfumes -- a light floral, rich with roses, and a heavier, more incense-like scent, both with hints of cinnamon. The still-room was one of her favorite places in the manor, pleasantly dim (some essences reacted poorly to sunlight), cool in summer, warm in winter. There was just enough room for one person to move about, so no one came here unless invited. She puttered happily with oils and fixatives, flagons and pestles. When her alarm-candle burned down the allotted three candlemarks and released its little brass ball to clang into the copper basin, she came to herself with a start.
She cleaned up and headed for the table, to find Tarma, Jadrie, and the twins making serious inroads on Cook's latest creation. It involved finely-chopped meat and vegetables, cheese -- something vaguely like sheets of pastry -- and there Kethry's knowledge ended.
'Pull up a plate and tuck in,' Tarma urged. 'I haven't a clue what this is, but it's marvelous!'
The twins looked up with full mouths and slightly-smeared cheeks, nodded vigorously in agreement, and dove back in. All of the 'home children' were used to eating things they didn't recognize and were prepared to enjoy them, partly because of their cheerful tempers, and partly because they had always been used to eating things they didn't recognize. They had spent their entire lives shuttling between the school-manor, with fairly ordinary fare, and the Dhorisha Plains. Shin'a'in cuisine was not something that most Rethwellans would be at all familiar with, and there often was not much choice in what they were offered when on the road.
Cook came in with a loaf of hot bread and a pot of butter, wearing a look of anxious inquiry on his face. 'Tasty dead horse, Cook!' Jadrie called, and ducked as he mimed a blow at her. It was an old joke between them, since the time when Jadrie had pestered him as a toddler, wanting to know what was in each dish he made. He had finally gotten annoyed at her incessant questions and snapped, 'Dead horse! Can't you see the tail?' From that moment on, any time Cook presented them with an experiment, Jadrie referred to it as a 'dead horse.'
'I wasn't certain, before, but I think this would be a good school dish,' Cook said to Kethry. 'It's easily made ahead and kept warm next to the ovens. Do you think the students would eat it?'
'If they won't, I'll eat theirs for 'em,' Lyan said with his mouth full.
Jadrek laughed. 'With that kind of enthusiasm before them, I imagine they will, Devid,' he replied. 'This is definitely one of your better experiments.'
Cook beamed his pleasure, and hurried back to the kitchen to supervise the cleaning up. The rest of the meal proceeded in pleasant silence as the mystery dish and the hot bread and butter vanished away like snow in sunshine. Even Kethry, who normally wasn't all that hearty an eater, found herself unusually hungry after her work in the still-room, and was absorbed completely in the meal.
It wasn't until she had eaten the last bite that she could possibly hold and looked up that she realized not everyone had come to lunch -- or, apparently, were expected to.
