Nothing like the well-being and hospitality that emanated from Otik's inn back in Solace, Kit reflected, feeling a momentary pang of homesickness. She shook her head.
"Must be my aching body and empty stomach taking over," Kit muttered to herself as she dismounted and led Cinnamon around to where she supposed the kitchen entrance must be.
After tying her horse to a post, Kitiara secreted Beck's sword among some bushes. Squaring her shoulders, she knocked on the door, determined not to appear to be a beggar. A fat man with a thick, slack jaw, wearing a grease-stained apron, answered. Taking his time, he looked Kit up and down. One of his ears was clotted and misshapen, no doubt the souvenir of an altercation.
"Well, you look a little worse for wear, m'lady. Lover's quarrel was it? I likes 'em sassy, meself, but not too lippy. Now, what can I do for you?"
The man hadn't budged from the doorway. His considerable bulk filled the frame, blocking Kit's view of the interior. The smells wafting out, while no comparison to Otik's famous fare, were tempting enough to make Kit fight down the immediate revulsion she felt for this oaf and reply civilly.
"I'm passing through your town and have lost my purse along the road. Is there some work I could do in return for a meal?"
The man's attitude toward Kit took on a more calculating edge. "Know your way around a kitchen, do you?"
Kit, who had been hoping for some more physical chore, got a sinking sensation in her stomach, but hunger impelled her. "Yes, I can wash dishes, and in a pinch I can cook." The man startled Kit by grabbing her arm and yanking her inside the door. "I do the cooking, m'lady, but if you can wait tables and wash dishes you can pitch in. The fellows who work here need all the help they can get. We don't get many ladies helping out, cuz the ladies in this town don't waste their time with kitchen work. They've turned their talents to more profitable ventures, if you know what I mean." He threw his arm familiarly around Kit's shoulders and steered her toward one corner of a long table in the middle of the messiest kitchen Kit had ever seen. Dirty dishes, pots, and pans covered every available space. A gigantic black iron cauldron filled with something or other bubbled away over the fireplace, splattering into the flames and onto the hearth. Spilled water, grease, and all manner of foodstuffs glinted on the floorboards under which ran a shallow crawlspace. Gaps between the boards allowed most of the spillage to run off below. And from the rustling she heard beneath her feet, Kit surmised that none of it was going to waste.
"Piggott's the name, as in 'Piggott's Hospitality.' Hey, Mita, get the new girl some of that stew you're burning," Piggott yelled to a slightly built teenage boy skulking in the corner. He turned back to Kit. "Work the dinner shift, and we'll see how it goes. One bowl now, all you can eat afterward. Them's my rules. If you work out, we'll see if I can think up anything else for you to do." He leered at her meaningfully before heading toward the doorway that led into the public room and tavern.
"What about my horse?" Kit called out after him. "She's tied up in the back." Piggott paused to glance over his shoulder at Kit. "If you want me to feed your horse too, then count on staying through breakfast tomorrow. I'm not running a charity. One way or another—" he winked lewdly at her "—you'll have to pay for what you get." Kit was too tired and hungry to shoot him the insult he deserved. She sank wearily onto a bench at the table. The boy named Mita brought her a bowl of some stew, setting it down in front of her. Kit spooned it up hungrily even though it was so hot it burned her tongue. It was tasty, though.
Mita hovered at the edge of the table. He had yellow hair that bristled like cornstalks, a pockmarked face, and a pink slab of a tongue.
"Well," Kit said after several mouthfuls, "if you're waiting for me to tell you how good this is, it's decent enough, but could use more pepperoot. My father always said, when in doubt, add pepperoot. And Piggott is right. You've burned it." Seemingly disappointed, the boy's pink tongue disappeared, and he turned away silently. As he walked toward the hearth, Kit noticed that he limped slightly. For some reason, she was reminded of Raistlin and immediately warmed to the boy. It makes more sense to have him as an ally than an enemy in this place, Kit thought reasonably.
"My name's Kitiara," she called after him, her tone more congenial. "You aren't that clodhopper's son are you? I hope not. I'd rather be his slave than his kin." Mita turned and cracked a wan smile. He was almost as grubby as the kitchen surroundings, but his smile was sweet and genuine. "I get paid a little, and my meals. I stay in the barn."
"Tonight," said Kit, returning his smile, "the barn'll be my home, too." She returned to her stew, and for the next several minutes gulped the rest of it down. Mita went out to tend to Cinnamon for her, and when he returned, Kit was already getting started, dumping dishes into an empty wooden tub.
"Start filling this with water from the well out back," she ordered. "Carry two buckets at a time if you can. We've got to get organized here."
Mita hesitated for a minute, as if deciding whether to challenge Kitiara's assumed authority. He was about her age, maybe a year or two older, in fact. Just then the rumble of voices from the
