“They have carrots?” Rigolard asked, leaning casually against Lign. His saddle was already on and fastened, so presumably, Rigolard had been up early.
“The exact same.”
Koradan nodded. “I saw some in the stew Lynette made. I thought that’s what they were.”
“Humans have carrots. How odd is that? I don’t recognise any of their other foods.”
“There are rumours that hundreds of years ago, there was open trade between Chalandros and this world. Maybe some generous human gave the Chalandrians some carrots and they decided they liked them, so we started to grow our own?”
“Or maybe the reverse was true,” Melowin suggested. “Maybe the humans got them from us.”
“That’s entirely possible.”
“Are you going to eat that, or should I give it to Melowin?” Sigmore asked Rodgard, who still hadn’t eaten the tomato.
Rodgard held it out. “He can have it.”
“You didn’t much like dinner, then?” Koradan guessed.
Rodgard made a gagging face. “We had soup that reeked of some horribly pungent herb. I still can’t get the taste out of my mouth.”
“Should have eaten the tomato then,” Sigmore said, handing it to Melowin. Melowin bit into it and his eyes grew almost comically wide.
“Great gods… that’s amazing.”
Sigmore smirked. “Isn’t it just?”
“Well, I think I’ve discovered the secret to eating bread,” Koradan told them, hefting Ashd’s saddle up onto his back. The vreki lay down flat on the ground to make it easier for him. “You have to dip it in some kind of liquid. Gravy, soup, stew, whatever. It’s actually quite good if it’s wet. Oh, and I found a replacement for gerian!” he said, suddenly remembering the evening’s other surprise. “They call it whisky. Lynette gave me half a bottle of it. Once we get the mine sorted out, we can have a pyre and burn a cup for Vingarin and Badj.”
“That would be good,” Melowin agreed. “I keep feeling guilty about paying so little attention to their deaths, but we’ve had so much to do here.”
“It’s okay,” Koradan told him, feeling just as guilty – or perhaps even more so, given his role as the group’s leader. “As soon as we get the mine sorted out, we’ll take care of a proper funeral.”
The five of them went back to sorting out their equipment for the day, until Sigmore – ever the talkative one – asked Rigolard, “What did you have for dinner?”
The latter was being his usual reticent self, and answered the question as laconically as possible. “Mushrooms.”
“Just mushrooms? Come on, what else?” Sigmore pressed.
Rodgard snorted. “Mushrooms would do me. I’d take plain mushrooms over the swill I had to eat any day.”
“There was goat meat and some roasted vegetables. Orange and purple and white, all a bit soft and pasty. Nothing too unpleasant. But the mushrooms were nice.” That came as no surprise. Mushrooms had once been a Chalandrian delicacy, but none of them had eaten any in at least five years. “We had eggs for breakfast,” Rigolard added, in an attempt to be chatty. “That was pretty good.”
“Hetti made eggs as well,” Sigmore said. “And she gave me some lunch for us all. Meat and vegetables wrapped in flat bread. It looks like it might be better than the fluffy kind of bread, but if not, we can at least eat the filling and toss the wrapper.”
“Hetti seems a little shaken up about the whole thing,” Rodgard said. “She didn’t panic about having a ‘demon’ in her house?”
“She seems more concerned about what Markon would think. She wants to be hospitable, so he doesn’t think she’s being rude to the village’s guests, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to offer us too much help, in case Markon decides we’re evil and need to be driven away.”
Rodgard rolled his eyes. “What did you say to that?”
“I told her that honouring her husband’s wishes is a noble thing to do, but that she should also think about what she wants, and what she’s comfortable with. Then I offered to leave, if she really didn’t want me there.”
“And then what happened?” Koradan asked. He’d been the one to send Sigmore to Hetti’s house, convinced that Sigmore’s open and genial nature would charm the nervous woman. He was eager to know if he’d been right.
“And then she told me to stay for dinner. While she was cooking, I told her children a story. The one about the little hadathmet boy who outwits the spirit of the water. You know the one; he goes home with a basket full of fish at the end of it.” They all nodded. Each of the Chalandrian species had their own folk tales, but that one was well known by almost everyone. “The kids loved it, and Hetti said she was glad she’d made the right decision in letting me stay.”
“One small step in the right direction, then,” Koradan said, knowing there were still plenty of villagers who objected to their presence. By now, he’d finished fitting Ashd’s saddle, and Ashd stood up, swishing his tail in an eagerness to get going.
