She dressed in brilliant greens
and lavenders, dramatic against her white skin and black hair. She pulled cookware out of the storage compartments of Lyons wagon, hefting gear with no visible effort while she rattled off directions a little faster than Tim could follow.
'Teapot. Cook pot. Randall, Hal, get these on the fire and fill them with water. Add the turkeys when the big pot boils. You cleaned them? Good. Wok. Wok. Tim, you want both of these? And take this.' She didn't hand it to him; she pointed.
Two flattened cylinders half a meter tall, both glossy glaring red, in a niche beneath Lyon wagon. Tim wrapped his arm around one and caught a familiar scent.
'The speckles always comes back here. Always.'
Tim said, 'Right.'
'That fire, that's yours to work on. The yutzes have the eggs and the veggies are in Dodgson wagon. Boardman, you're with Tim. Tim, any questions?'
'Why did the founders thaw these flies?'
Laughter shook her whole body. 'They must have been crazy. Anyone want ovens?'
Randall took the pots and moved briskly away. Bord'n gathered up cooking tools, forks and knives and spoons and spatulas, and set them in a flat shell that must have come off the back of a record-sized shark. He followed Tim, towing the shark shell.
Cookware stored aboard ibn-Rushd and Lyons wagons was little different from what Tim had practiced with in Twerdahl Town. That was a relief. Vegetables were what the merchants could buy in towns and carry in wagons. Meat was what they could kill. Yutzes and merchants had been out hunting while the wagons were in motion.
Lyons wagon's two woks were bigger than he was used to. No problem: a big wok could cook the same omelet as a small one. He was given oil. Yutzes from other wagons had the vegetables he needed. Bord'n had brought knives, spatulas, a whirring thing to whip eggs.
But the eggs were tremendous. He asked, 'Bord'n, is this some Destiny sea thing?'
Bord'n grinned. 'Ostrich eggs. Big bird supposed to be from Earth. Lot of 'em running around here. You maybe saw the mom, and maybe you'll eat her tonight, 'cause we shot three this afternoon.'
'Damn. What do the eggs taste like?'
'Better cook one first and find out. Hi, Rian!'
'Boardman.' The merchant girl nodded regally. 'Tim.'
He smiled at her. 'Evening.'
'How goes dinner?'
'Just another damn intelligence test,' Tim said. 'I never saw ostrich eggs before.'
Rian smiled and moved on.
One ostrich egg was bigger than a ten-egg omelet. The taste was different, and Tim used more seasoning after his first attempt. Speckles, of course. A little lemon rind? Yes.
Veggies and eggs never stuck to the woks.
Other chefs were at work around other fires. Quicksilver winked out below the setting sun.
As in Twerdahl Town, people passed carrying food, gave him slices of fruit and big flat grilled mushrooms and ostrich meat, and carried away sliced-up veggie omelets. Ostrich was delicious. Heavier woks, heavier omelets: Tim was working harder than he was used to. He thought of himself as strong, big-shouldered, but this was wearing him out.
Shireen ibn-Rushd accepted a wedge of omelet. She tasted it. 'Tim, isn't it? Yes. You have a nice hand with eggs.' She put something in his hand, smiled, and wandered off.
Dried cherries.
He noticed tents being pitched and beds laid within. The tents were many-lobed, and flaps were generally left open. Some of the merchants were already asleep before sunset.
As in Twerdahl Town, cooking ended at sunset. He'd wondered. But now cookware had to be carted to the river, washed, part-filled with water, and set back on the fires to boil clean.
Damon led him away to the ibn-Rushd tent. He would not have found it on his own, in the dark. It was a cross, four lobes meeting at a communal circle of cushions, Shireen snoring in one of the lobes. In the center, a low table. Damon and Senka wanted to talk, but they must have seen he was ready to collapse.
He rolled himself in blankets in one of the lobes and persuaded himself he was asleep.
But their voices ran through his dozing mind, telling merchant secrets, and the memories came back in later years.
9
Between
Rows of fine contoured legs run down each side. Teeth rim the broad mouth, each splitting into a myriad points. A long prong on the skullcap shell forms a beak or, more aptly, a ram: the cap butts against the main shell for greater strength. They're air breathing. They can come right up the beach at you.
-James Twerdabi, Flightcaptain, Cavorite
In the morning Bord'n reached through an open flap and shook Tim awake to make breakfast.
Dawn was a red glare above the mountains. Tim was stiff and tired. He did what the other yutzes were doing.
Blow up the ashes and add wood. Wipe out the woks and add dough that has been rising through the night. Cover them. Set the woks on the coals. Now a Destiny seaweed forest is rising from the waves, and it's back to the roofs while the chugs feed.
Chugs move up the beach. Sharks follow as far as the seaweed. No shots are fired. When the sharks return to the sea, the chugs have reached the wagons and the bread is done.
The bread never sticks to the woks.
While merchants get the wagons ready and hook up the chugs, the chefs and yutzes put away the cookware. They pass out bread along a wagon train already in motion.
He met Rian walking back to ibn-Rushd wagon. Almond eyes, dark oval face, intricately shaped hair. Lovely and strange. She studied him, then said, 'You look worn out.'
'Where do we go next?'
'The Shire. Little town.' She turned and was walking with him toward the front of the caravan.
'Does the Shire have a graveyard?' 'I'd think so.'
'Just drop me off there,' Tim said. 'Here, have some bread.'
'Thank you. Tim, you can sleep once the bread's handed out.' But the tents were already stowed. 'Where?'
'On the roof.'
He smiled. Two more wagons, four loaves to hand out, then sleep.
Just past noon, it rained. Six people crowded the wagon's dark, steamy interior amid cookware brought for sale and strange stuff collected in trade. The chugs plodded on while rain played flurries of drumbeats on the roof.
The rain left little time for hunting up dinner. Nobody found any eggs that day. Come evening, Tim and the other yutzes worked vegetables with yesterday's red ostrich meat and served it over barley.
Wrestling the heavy wok was no easier the second night. When he tottered off to ibn-Rushd tent, yutzes and merchants were playing musical instruments and having a wonderful time. He wondered how they did it.
He felt his way through the tent by touch and hearing: toward Shireen's snoring, then turn left. Curled on blankets, eyes closed, he listened to the merchants' music. It came to him that he was learning more about cookery than about the path of Cavorite... and then it came to him that he was being watched. He opened his eyes.
