Stargazy Pie

by Victoria Goddard

  I glanced at the pie. The crust was a rich burnished gold, as beautiful a pie as I’d ever seen—except for the fish heads sticking up out of the pastry. And tails. There were tail fins sticking out, too. I swallowed. “No … Dominus Gleason was crossing the square, and a stranger in a grey cloak … Dame Talgarth and her sister were in the bakery, but I left before them.”

  “Well, no matter.” She cocked her head at the bookcase tucked beside the door to the back room. “I don’t think you’ve had a chance to look through the cookery shelves yet, have you?”

  I might as well do the thing properly, I thought, and brought her coffee over. “No, Mrs. Etaris. How are they arranged?”

  “Badly,” she sighed, pulling out Household Hints of Mont-Brisou-of-the-Snows and replacing it next to Fanciful Dishes of the Lesser Arcady. “At one point I had them by region, but people kept asking for them by type of food, and then I received half the library of the Honourable Mrs. Waverley, who collected cookbooks for fifty years, and my previous assistant put them on the shelves all higgedly-piggedly, and everything got even worse out of order.”

  She considered the shelves for a moment. This was the first I’d heard about a previous assistant. I wondered who it had been and what had happened for him not to be there any longer, apart from being bad at sorting books.

  “Perhaps you might spend some time next week re-arranging them.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Etaris.”

  She sipped her coffee, then sneezed delicately as a soft cloud of dust rose up out of Vegetable Entrées of the Farry March.

  “The Lady preserve you,” I said solemnly, backing up a step, but the dust didn’t set me off again. In Morrowlea we’d started to say … well. Not that little piety. During my first episode of nasal congestion (as the physicker called it), my friends had instituted a kind of competition for what to say, which rather took off, as the sensitivity to whatever-it-was, alas, continued.

  One particular young lady had led the teasing, arm wrapped fondly around mine, laughing over books and ideas and the endless witty conversation that followed them both—

  I winced away from the thought. I’d promised myself I’d stop thinking about that—about her—when I returned to Ragnor Bella, once I finally got the spring’s horrible influenza out of my system and was able to think straight.

  Apart, that is, from the lingering sniffles and propensity for sneezing … and companion headaches, aching bones, lack of appetite, and occasional disconcerting fits of trembling …

  Sometimes I felt I hadn’t been able to think straight since long before leaving Morrowlea.

  “Thank you, Mr. Greenwing. Now … let me think … well, we might as well use this as an example of doing research for a customer. Who would have fish pies?”

  I forced my thoughts back to the matter at hand. “Coastal regions? Fiella-by-the-Sea?”

  “I was raised there, I’m sure I should have heard of a pie like this.” Then she stopped and smiled ruefully. “Not that that helps with our hypothetical researcher, does it?”

  “Ghilousette, perhaps?”

  “Good thinking. Could you step on the ladder and see what’s on that higher shelf, please? I believe there are several Ghilousetten works out of Harktree there. Next to the one with the orange cover.”

  I climbed up the brass ladder and reached up for the top-shelf cookbooks. While I was lunging after one on the far side of the shelf the shop door opened.

  I jerked in surprise at someone crying, “Halloo the house!” in a huge voice, and toppled off the ladder nearly onto Mrs. Etaris, only to be caught by someone with strong hands amidst a gust of air smelling like wet wool and stable muck.

  A big buoyant laugh followed.

  “Steady there, man! You’ll crush the bookmistress if you light on her!”

  I caught my breath and relaxed my death grip on the cookbooks, which Mrs. Etaris probably cared for more than whether or not she’d be crushed if I fell on her, given the consideration with which she took them from me. In the middle of the store, filling the space between the main shelves and the inglenook, stood a large young man.

  About my age—twenty-one—he was tall and broad-shouldered and had dark blond hair done up in the curling Beaufort style that in Morrowlea said dandy and in Ragnor Bella old money. He wore hunting breeches in a scarlet that must have been bought before the Fall, since I’d not seen anything that splendid a colour in the haberdashers of the Rondelan duchies on my tour. He had quite tremendously muscular thighs.

  I blinked up from his mud-spattered boots, which raised enormous envy in me—I’d never be able to afford riding boots of that quality, any more than the horse or the groom or the valet that would go with them—past the hunting dagger at his belt with its gold hilt inset with red carbuncles, and up to where he was beaming at Mrs. Etaris with an expression between affable pleasure and amused befuddlement.

  “Now, what did I come in here for?” he demanded to himself, and belatedly I recognized him. The expression had not been anything like I remembered from three years past, nor the clothes, and he seemed to have put on about fifty pounds of musculature. I supposed I’d grown some while away at university, too, though nowhere near that much. “Gadsbrook! It’s gone straight out of me head.”

  Mrs. Etaris smiled at him. “Would you like a cup of coffee while you consider, Master Ragnor? Mr. Greenwing, would you fetch another cup, please?”

  There was a pause; I was obviously going to have to get re-accustomed to them. And then: “Mr. Greenwing!” said the Honourable Master Roald Ragnor, heir to the barony, with hearty amazement. “I didn’t see your face as you toppled off the ladder! When did you get back from Morrowlea?”

  “Earlier this week,” I replied, and, at a glance from Mrs. Etaris, added, “sir.” Then I did my little bow and went into the back room.

  I returned to find him lounging in my chair (well, all right, it was the chair for customers) and poking at the pie with the tip of his dagger. Mrs. Etaris was flipping through the indices of cookbooks, looking, I supposed, for a recipe for fish pie. I passed the Honourable Master the cup and started through another pile of them.

  “You found this on the lip of the fountain, I hear?” he said, with another booming laugh. “Just laying there?”

  I wondered what he’d ended up taking at Tara. I could perhaps have asked … but we were neither friends nor social equals any longer. Even if I had gone to Morrowlea. The University of Tara vaunted itself the oldest and best university of the Nine Worlds, and did not look kindly on other contenders, even the other Circle Schools.

  I shrugged. “Someone was leaning over it. I couldn’t see whether they’d left it there or were just curious.”

  “Didn’t think to ask? Pretty girl, was it?”

  “Someone in a cloak. Sir.”

  “Now that’s an old-fashioned style.” He patted his exceedingly to-the-mode riding coat, which was as beautifully tailored as the rest of his clothing, sleek and slimming and black as a beetle.

  A jewelled gold ring he wore on his signet finger caught the light in the facets of its red stones. The little flower wasn’t a sigil of Ragnor, and I wondered what it signified to him. A token of affection from a lady?

  “Not much use out riding in a wind, cloaks,” he went on. “What did you get up to at Morrowlea? Hunt much?”

  There was a whole history in that question, one I’d have preferred not to bring up. I tried to keep my voice level. “We preferred other activities. Sir.”

  “It was all falconry or fishing around Tara,” he said, “but up in the mountain estates there was better game—”

  Mrs. Etaris made a soft exclamation, and we both looked at her. “My apologies for interrupting, Master Roald. I’ve found a Ghilousetten recipe for a fish pie of this description.”

  “Heads and all?” said the baron’s honourable son, sticking the tip of his knife into one of the eyes and drawing it out. He considered it for a moment. The eye was a horrible white orb with a squamous gli
tter. I could smell eggs and bitter saffron under the fishiness, which didn’t help my stomach any. Nor my nose.

  Though I probably shouldn’t admit it, I wasn’t altogether unhappy that the attack of sneezes prevented me from explaining why he might not want to eat any of it.

  Master Ragnor popped the eye into his mouth and crunched down on it happily before plucking out the next. “Want one?”

  “No, thank you,” I managed.

  “Gone squeamish, have you?”

  “Stargazy Pie,” Mrs. Etaris said. “Calling for pilchards, saffron, hard-boiled eggs, potatoes …”

  I swallowed another mouthful of coffee. Master Ragnor had muck on his fancy boots and had tracked it all over the floor of the bookstore and onto the rug laid before the wood stove. I’m sure it never once would occur to him to worry about such things. I probably wouldn’t have, either, before Morrowlea.

  He swallowed another fish eye with every evidence of pleasure. “These ain’t pilchards, Mrs. E. Any fisherman could tell you they’re herring—Oh! I remember, I wanted that book on coursing by that Scholar from Birckhall, whatsisname. Merganser. No, that’s a duck. Merkleman?”

  Mrs. Etaris said, “Mr. Greenwing, I think you were looking at the sporting titles earlier this morning. Did you come across The Art of the Greyhound?”

  I’d already gotten up. I had to edge behind Master Ragnor, who’d shoved his chair well back towards the wall. He was leaning forward and jabbing at the fish heads with his knife again. “Look here, Mrs. E., the size of this jaw—that’s no half-grown sardine!”

  “Is it a north coast herring?”

  “Either that or Fultoney red—open ’er up and we’ll see the shape of the fins. Am I in your way, Mr. Greenwing? You’re working here, are you, now?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, having squeezed past his chair to the bookcase between it and the window.

  “’S a good job to get, eh? Good lad!”

  I bit my tongue. “I believe I see your book. Melanger’s Art of the Greyhound. We also have his Otter and Badger Hounds of the Rondelan Duchies, if you should be interested. Sir.”

  “Otter hounds! Gadsbrook, I haven’t hunted otters in ages. Bung it over, Mr. Greenwing, and I’ll see if I can roust up a few men to bring some dogs up from the Erlingale bottomlands. We’ve otters in the Rag. I’ll bet Sir Ham—” He stopped there, whether because he’d been about to voice an illegal wager or because he was about to name my father’s cousin, I didn’t know.

  He covered the moment by jerking his chair forward. Since I didn’t have to suck in my gut to avoid catching the buttons of my waistcoat on the back of the chair this time, I decided not to push for the rest of the sentence. Instead I went over to the counter to wrap the books in brown paper, the second thing Mrs. Etaris had shown me that morning, the location of the coffee cups having taken priority.

  Mrs. Etaris, with a slight air of condescension that made me rather like her, asked, “Do you think it’s a Fultoney or a north coastal, Master Ragnor?”

  “Oh, Fultoney red,” he said, “You can tell by which of the dorsal fins is foremost. And what a colour in the scales! Like Crastor kippers.” He started to point out something else about the fish, but the door to the shop opened and his sister walked in, and I didn’t hear what he was burbling on about.

  She glanced around with a slightly pained-looking frown. The Honourable Miss Jullanar Ragnor—or so she had been; I didn’t know her married name—was older than the Honourable Master Ragnor and me, in her late twenties, and as superbly beautiful as I remembered, like an incarnation of the Lady of Summer.

  “Sister!” cried Master Ragnor, with a grin. “Am I so very late?”

  “Nearly,” she said, with near perfect disinterest. “The Baron has called for luncheon at the hotel, and Dame Talgarth and her sister are returned.”

  “I was distracted from my mission by a little mystery our lad here’s discovered.”

  After a moment I realized I didn’t warrant an introduction, but something seemed required, so I bowed silently. She didn’t look at me; didn’t look at the pie; barely looked at her brother, instead keeping her attention focussed on her kid-leather gloves. “Come along, Roald, we are due at noon.”

  He winked at me as he got up. “It’s good you’ve a suitable hobby, Mr. Greenwing. I’ll be most eager to hear what you discover of your herring pie’s origin, purpose, and point.”

  I cut the string on the honourable master’s books with an unnecessarily extravagant motion. This unfortunately sent the scissors flying out of my hand.

  Mrs. Etaris caught them with a quick gesture before they walloped her on the head, and shot me a sharp glance. I tried not to sigh. She said, “Master Roald, the books will be two bees and a silvertun.”

  He tossed her a wheatear from out of his waistcoat pocket and grinned at his sister’s obvious disapproval. “To get Mr. Greenwing hobnails on his boots,” he said, laughing. “Keep him from falling off any more ladders.”

  And still laughing, he slung on his coat with an easy motion, thrust the parcel of books into one vast pocket with another, licked his knife clean and re-sheathed it with a third, and took his sister’s arm with a gracious gesture that caused her annoyance to melt into a fond smile, though it didn’t stop her from a sharp comment about the muck on his boots as they went back out into square.

  Mrs. Etaris passed me the scissors. “Beg pardon,” I said belatedly. “My grip was loose.”

  She began putting the cookery books back on the shelves. “I seem to recall hearing you and the Honourable Master Ragnor and Mr. Dart of Dartington kept each other’s company quite often, before you went to Morrowlea.”

  “And they went to Tara and Stoneybridge,” I said, and let the schools’ rivalry stand in for any further need of explanation, such as the fact that the Honourable Master Ragnor and I had parted ways a good few months before we left the barony, the result of one too many arguments about what it was reasonable to gamble and with whom.

  I picked up the rug and shook it out the front door, Mrs. Etaris watching me with a bright interest I found disconcerting. After I placed the rug back in its position before the wood stove I stopped, staring at the pie.

  Half-mangled so that we could examine the fish—excuse me, Fultoney herring—it looked even less appetizing. “What would you like me to do with the pie, Mrs. Etaris?”

  “Oh, you’re the one who brought it in, Mr. Greenwing. Will you have it for lunch?”

  She was laughing, eyes dancing with amusement. I took a deep breath. I knew better than to let people rile me up. I smiled back and kept my voice light. “Not when the baron’s son has asked me to find out its nature and history.”

  “Ah! In that case, then, you might wish to take some time over your lunch hour to ask the fishmonger who bought herring. It may well be the beginning of great things for you, Mr. Greenwing.”

  I bowed to her with all solemnity. “I had not thought of asking you advice on derring-do.”

  Mrs. Etaris laughed and gestured at the crowded shelves of her bookstore. “My dear Mr. Greenwing, if there is anything I know about, it is how to have an adventure.”

  Chapter Three

  I jammed my hat on as I went out the bookshop door, and slammed straight into someone walking along minding his own business.

  I swallowed half of a Morrowlea curse. “My apologies, sir. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “Jemis! Mr. Greenwing!” said the man, grabbing my arm and embracing me roughly. “You’re back!”

  I took a step sideways to get back underneath the store awning. Before me was a young man in clothes as well-tailored as the Honourable Master Roald’s, if less brilliant in colour: dark grey wool coat, plum breeches, high polished riding boots. Silver buttons engraved with a family crest showed wealth and breeding. Snapping brown eyes under thick eyebrows suggested a temper, belied by the wide grin; the trim auburn beard startled me into blurting, “Good Laurre of the Summer, man, face fur!”


  He rubbed his beard with great solemnity. “Mr. Greenwing, I shall have you to know that this is all the rage in Stoneybridge. Or was,” he added, starting to laugh, “four months ago when I left. They might well be on to something else by now, fickle feckless fools of undergraduates as they are. What about you? Your stepmother said you’d gone off on a walking tour of Rondé with the Count of Westmoor. You haven’t written me in months.”

  “Mrs. Buchance isn’t really my stepmother, Mr. Dart,” I said, and caught a glimpse of Mrs. Etaris looking at us through the shop window. She made no gesture, merely continued on moving books around.

  I didn’t remember writing to tell Mrs. Buchance who my walking companions were—though I didn’t remember much of the first part of the summer, to be honest, between the influenza and the headaches and the drinking parties that had undoubtedly contributed to both.

  I coughed. “And Marcan—ugh! His Grace the Count—only came as far as the top end of Erlingale before he had to go back to Lind.”

  “And the dearth of letters? The sad state of the post, I assume?”

  “Well—”

  “Or perhaps you were preoccupied sauntering around Rondé looking for revolutions, is that it?” said Mr. Dart. “Before coming back … when did you get back to Ragnor Bella?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Tuesday! You sent no word. And I’ve heard nothing of late from the good gossips.” He made a face. “Not that I would. I’ve been thoroughly occupied with the harvest—I’m land agent for my brother, have you heard? I couldn’t well write when you were off a-wandering. He was finally able to dismiss that ogre of a steward when I came back.”

  “That’s wonderful news,” I said heartily, knowing that though Mr. Dart had a strong academic calling, he was also his much older brother’s heir, and he’d been hoping the Squire would find a position for him.

  Perhaps I spoke too heartily, for he gave me a sardonic glance. “And what do you here, barrelling out of the bookstore with that positively fetching hat from a foreign haberdasher?”