“Now without further ado, let’s eat,” the general announced.
Chapter 16
Fern
“If you’re quick, I can get your orders in first.” The serving woman we’d chattered with before had returned to our table, her eyes on the main one up on the dais. “Supposed to serve the officers first?—”
“Lance is an officer,” Sparrow reminded her brightly.
“A junior officer,” he amended hastily.
“Well, whatever the rank, tell me what you want quickly.” Maggie eyed Sparrow. “I’ll make sure you get the good cuts of meat. So what’re you having?”
“Want me to order for you?” Sparrow asked. I nodded gratefully. She turned to the serving woman, rattling off instructions. “Don’t bother with the soup course,” she told the woman. “The kitchens do a mean soup, but everyone in the know skips the first course.”
“Fills you up too fast so you don’t have enough room for the good stuff?” Lance replied with a smile.
“Exactly!” Sparrow cried. “So we’ll have the roast meats.” A quick glance our way to confirm her selection, but Lance and I just shook our heads in amazement.
“I think we’ll bow to your expert opinion on these matters,” he told her.
“Wise choice, rider.” Sparrow turned back to the serving woman. “Roast meats, those little milk bread rolls. You know the ones?”
“Tied in knots and then glazed with milk?” The serving woman shook her head. “I might’ve seen a few of them today.”
“So milk bread, honey glazed carrots, roast potatoes…”
“Ahh, Sparrow?” I said, alarmed at the number of dishes she seemed to be ordering.
“Pumpkin, oh, and those balsamic onions? Did they make them tonight?”
“They certainly did,” the woman replied. “Some of those as well?”
“That and lashings of gravy.” Sparrow settled back in her chair, a look of anticipation on her face. “Though maybe put that on the side.”
“The other diners don’t like to drown out all the flavour of their food by smothering it in gravy?” The woman shot Sparrow a wry smile. “Coming right up.”
“I’m not sure I can do justice to that amount of food,” I said, as the serving woman bustled over to the doorway leading into the kitchen. “After days of eating whatever Auren caught and just lettuce and chicken breast before that…”
My voice trailed away. What had happened with my mother felt both a million years ago and just hours old.
“Lettuce and chicken breast?” Sparrow stared at me quizzically. “I thought you were a toff, Fern. Don’t you lot have cooks that make all the fancy dishes for you?”
“I…”
Before I could explain, the serving woman returned.
“There you go.” She set a plate before all of us and my eyes went wide at the sheer amount of food there. “I hope you enjoy your meals.”
Enjoy? When was the last time I’d actually enjoyed food? Glancing down at my plate, I was already mentally sorting thefood on it into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ piles. The carrots should’ve been ‘good’, but the glaze of butter and honey relegated them into the bad book, according to my mother.
Which had me grabbing my utensils.
Sparrow had already tucked in, making small sounds of pleasure as she chewed, but Lance sat there, knife and fork poised, obviously waiting on me.
“Is the meal to your satisfaction, Fern? We can send the plate back and order another if you’d prefer something else,” he said.
Something with less butter, less rich sauces, that was my automatic reply, but it wasn’t mine. I could almost conjure my mother from the thin air, her words echoing around in my head.“A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”Her tutting lasted only as long as it took for me to slice into a potato. The crunch, the softness inside, it exploded in my mouth as I took a bite.
