Deeds of Honor

by Elizabeth Moon

  When she woke in the pre-dawn, she knew the house was astir, but no one had said when to serve breakfast. The stirred the fire, checked the dough—not quite risen enough—and lit the kitchen lamps. One of the soldiers looked in; she asked about breakfast.

  "The captain—the Duke—is eating with Sir Valthan," the man said. "We have our own rations, for now."

  "Then I will cook for the children," Farin said. Soon enough, her helpers showed up, wide-eyed and eager to pass on the gossip from the servants' quarters.

  "She is a Verrakai," Jaim said. "But they cut her out of the family rolls—"

  "Because she ran away," Kolin said.

  "And then she went to Chaya and became a knight, and a mercenary and she's fought in Aarenis with the Duke they call the Fox."

  "Why did she run away?" Farin asked. "And stir that porridge, Kolin; don't let it scorch."

  "She didn't say. The oldest nurserymaid, she remembered seeing the new Duke as a girl, and she was always in trouble, but why she ran away Cynta doesn't know."

  Or Cynta would not say. Not to Kolin. Farin kept that thought to herself and checked the dough again. Now it was ready. She shaped it all into loaves, that being easier, and plain bread more suitable for children and servants than fancy rolls.

  "And Methlin says the new Duke made all the ladies undress to the skin and put on servants' clothes—Methlin was wearing a lady's dress one of them took off—"

  "Enough chatter," Farin said. She didn't know what to think of that. "Those ladies are still mages, and still nearby."

  That quieted them down, for a time. Farin put the dough in the oven, and turned the ladyglass on its shelf.

  "Porridge is ready," Efla said. Jaim stood back with a sigh of relief.

  "Go up and tell them to send down the bowls on a tray," Farin told him. "It's early, but it will keep the children from running down to see what is happening."

  By the time the children's food had gone up, and the empty dishes come back for washing, Farin and the others had eaten a bowl of porridge each, and a slice of bread—more than usual and Farin hoped they would not be punished for it. She ignored the noises from the front of the house, merely nodding when one of the other servants reported that the mageladies and most of the troops had gone away, turning north on the other side of the ford.

  Then three women came to the kitchen, escorted by one of the remaining soldiers. "They were prisoners in the dungeon," he said. "They say they can cook and want to work here."

  Farin looked at the women, dressed now in finery from the mageladies' closets. Did they really know anything about cooking? But it did not matter, if it was the Duke's orders. She nodded; the man left, and the two women stood almost leaning on each other.

  "Come on in," she said. "You'll need aprons over that—Kolin, fetch them aprons. I am Farin. Who are you?"

  Suli, Varnin, and Meris had some knowledge, she found, but had never cooked beyond their own families. They were willing to do anything, they said, and Farin assigned them the simplest chores: picking over redroots and cutting out the black spots, stirring another pot of porridge, sweeping the floor. From them she learned that the new Duke had freed all the prisoners, treated the dead boy's body with honor, and sent the boy and his father—who died in the night—home to be buried in their village.

  "An' she had us all fed and washed and given clothes right away, and she spoke soft to us and then bade those soldiers treat us well. An' they did. An' any of us who want to stay here can stay—Sella and Nandin are going to make over the mageborn's clothes so they're not as obvious. She said there might be other Verrakaien who weren't here to be captured, who might hurt us."

  Farin thought that over, along with the other things the new Duke had done—some she had seen herself—but she still could not believe that a Verrakaien mage could be trusted. Let her temper be tested, and the new Duke would be just like the previous. Yet, though she had given orders to kill, she had not taken anyone into the tower to torment them. In the meantime, Farin told Efla to start a pot of soup for the servants, using more vegetables and a precious jar of beef broth instead of water, as a treat. Perhaps the new Duke would not come to the kitchen again, and the women who had been prisoners needed more food.

  Later in the day, the Duke herself came into the kitchen, looked around, nodded to them, and came directly to Farin. "Farin, I know that some medicines are given in food, and in some houses the cook prepares them. Do you know of such things?"

  Farin felt cold. Yes, indeed, this Verrakai mage was all too like the others. She answered respectfully, eyes lowered, leading the Duke to the dry pantry and pointing to the box of special herbs.

  The Duke had the keys—she must have taken them from Lady Verrakai—and tried them until one opened the box. "Do you know which is which?" she asked.

  Farin nodded. She pointed to the packets and jars one by one, naming what was in each and how it was prepared, and then at the box within the box, also locked. "And that box has powdered deathwish, from something grows on rotting logs in the forest. Only the Duke is allowed to use it."

  "For suicide?" the new Duke asked, as if she did not believe it.

  "No," Farin said. She explained; the new Duke listened without showing any reaction, even when Farin's tongue ran off with her again and she let her resentment show that only the mageborn had an inevitable death eased with it. She rushed on to the other drugs in the box. "Now that there is boneset, you put it in sib if someone's broked a bone and it's said to heal faster. And that's lungwort, steep it in hot water—" The new Duke asked no questions until Farin ran out of things to describe.

  "And you mixed these things with food and drink, here?"

  Farin repressed a shudder. This was coming close to things she would rather not remember. She answered, explaining that she had never handled deathwish. Her worst dreams, in which she broke that little box open and poisoned all the Verrakaien, except that it didn't work and they took her to the cells...she pushed that back.

  The new Duke looked thoughtful, then asked more about gnurz and its effect on magery as well as panic or rage. Farin explained what she had done—a pinch in the children's porridge the day before, to calm them. It did no harm Farin had ever heard of, just kept the childer easier to manage for the nurserymaids. The Duke nodded and told her to continue it another day or two.

  When the Duke turned to go, Farin dared her own question. "And for your dinner, my lord? You haven't said what you want. And if I could know what you need for tomorrow—?"

  The Duke looked around the kitchen again, her expression almost blank. "What are you making for the children and yourselves?"

  "For the children, my lord?" What else did anyone feed children for their supper but milky porridge and rusks, with a honeycake to follow at bedtime? She said that, and "Soup and bread for the servants," and the Duke paused, a slight frown on her face. Farin thought perhaps she did not know what foods were in the pantries, or what the cooks could do, so she went on, explaining that she had not started a roast—could not, without orders—but could cut a steak quickly enough.

  "Soup and bread will do well enough. And cheese."

  Servants' food? A lord—a Duke—would dine on bread and soup and cheese? That was different. Duke Verrakai-that-was, he had wanted a clear soup now and again—and it must be perfectly clear, not a speck in it—but otherwise soups were "that mess" to the Verrakaien.

  The Duke left the kitchen then. The children's supper went upstairs; the Duke sent word the captain was back, and she would be glad of a meal when it was ready. Farin sent it in, and the dishes came back later, empty, the bowls wiped dry. Well. Whatever that meant.

  The next morning, the new Duke appeared while Farin was just starting breakfast, and asked for hot water. She wanted to bathe, she said, but she chose the servants' bath over those upstairs. What a strange person! Of course, she had been a soldier, and away from the family. Perhaps that—Farin was still mulling over the possible reasons for the woman's strang
e behavior when she came back into the kitchen in clean clothes, the dirty ones in her arms. She looked not much different—relaxed perhaps—so Farin dared to tell her what to do with the dirty clothes, and guide her to possible choices for the day's meals. The Duke accepted the suggestions, and after breakfast stopped by the kitchen to say it had been a good meal, and thank them.

  A change indeed. If only she could trust it. The morning ran quietly enough; extra hands in the kitchen did make lighter work, and fewer ladies to feed meant stores were not disappearing as fast. The mood in her kitchen had lifted; the three women were sharing stories of their families; the younglings were listening.

  Then the horror began. Cries and bustle from far up in the house, where the children were. Farin moved to the kitchen door, then to the foot of the back stairs, listening. Then down the stairs came the new Duke, carrying the limp body of a small girl bleeding from nose and mouth. Her captain and one of the soldiers followed, each with a child.

  The look on the new Duke's face told the story, as Farin had thought. The children angered her, and she had struck them down. Child-killer. She was a child-killer, and nothing could be worse than that. Too many children had died in this house, in the years Farin had been there. And now more children, three in one day....

  "Where—?" Her voice caught in her throat as the Duke looked at her.

  "Leave us," the Duke said. Farin backed away, then turned and hurried back into the kitchen. She said nothing to the others. Knowing what she had seen could only endanger them. One of the nurserymaids ran in and whispered that the sickly boy had come to the crisis that morning, and might not live. Then she hurried away. Farin bit her lip. It was not the sickly boy she'd seen carried out, and if the nurserymaids said nothing about those children...she shook her head.

  At midday she had one of the older women take the pastry she'd made earlier to the dining room, and then find the Duke. She did not want to see the Duke again, at least not this day. The Duke ate, the woman told her, then hurried away upstairs, and the captain said it was because she worried about the child.

  Which made no sense. Why would she kill the likeliest children—for all three, Farin knew, had been healthy and active—and spend time on the sickly one who would probably die? Soon after that, she heard the nurserymaids in the passage again, leading a file of children toward the front of the house.

  Later in the afternoon, the Duke came in, leading the sickly boy, who, the Duke said, was hungry.

  "Beef broth and dry bread," Farin said. "That's best for young'ns been sick." She quickly warmed a pan of broth and sliced bread, then set them before the boy as he perched on a stool. He began eating at once. Farin stepped away from the table, watching the Duke and trying to read her expression. She looked concerned, but what was she really thinking? "Had the crisis this morning, I heard," she said, when the Duke said nothing. "'S fever's gone so fast—is that real, or—?"

  "I believe it to be real," the Duke said. "Falk's grace, I call it."

  Farin stiffened. Falk? The servant prince? "Falk! None of the—I've never heard my lords and my ladies talk of Falk's grace."

  "You will hear me do so," the Duke said, smiling. She touched a red stone on her collar. "I am a knight of Falk, remember."

  She did not remember any such thing, or know what it meant, but she did know Falk and Gird were names never mentioned without a curse in this house. "Does that mean...no more of those with the...?" She made the gesture of the horned chain.

  "No more priests of Liart, no more blood magery," the Duke said. Farin felt her own heart pounding; no one could say that name but one of the Bloodlord's priests. Evil would come, would swallow them all. "No more!" the Duke said, more loudly, without a hint of fear in her voice. "I am your Duke and my word is your law, but my word is founded on Falk and the High Lord, not those scum."

  That did not sound like a child-killer and yet...four children were dead, for she had heard about Restin, the older boy, from one of the maid who told her about the sickly boy's crisis. Someone who killed children...what did she really want with this boy, Mikeli? Unless the others had done something terrible...but what could a child do, to deserve killing? Yes, they were mage children, but so young—they had no real power yet, surely. And if this Duke went looking for Liartians, every servant in the house bore the Horned Chain tattoo. Were they all to die?

  "But—but I—" Efla dropped a bowl that cracked on the floor, spilling flour. "I—they made me swear—"

  "Be quiet, Efla!" Farin said, crossing her fingers behind her back. Alyanya save the girl; she had suffered enough already and it wasn't her fault...

  The Duke's voice was quiet, almost soothing, so like Lady Verrakai's that Farin shuddered. "Efla, what did they make you swear?"

  Tears poured down Efla's face, and the words rushed out, a confession that would, Farin was sure, get her killed then and there.

  The Duke reached for Efla, pulling her close. Farin closed her eyes. Now it would come, the blast of magery or the poisoned knife. But instead, the Duke's voice: "Child, the gods forgive such oaths. You are not bound to Liart..."

  Farin heard no more of what the Duke said; those words repeated in her head, over and over. The gods forgive such oaths...forgive? You are not bound to Liart...not bound to Liart? Could that be true? For all of them? And for herself—she knew she had sworn falsely, not the first or last of her own lies, all told to save herself or those she cared for, every child she had trained in this kitchen—were those lies forgiven? She shook her head, tried to hear again.

  Efla was telling the Duke about the child she carried, her fear that it was Liart's, a demon child. Farin thought of her own; they had told her the same thing, that it was not the seed of the man who raped her, but that of the Bloodlord himself. And she had never seen it...

  Now this strange Duke, this woman who had been a soldier, who had killed children this very day in this very house, comforted Efla as if she were also a mother. Bade her sit down, told Farin to bring a wet cloth. Farin wrung out a kitchen cloth into the bucket and dredged up her weakening conviction that this was a magelord, a Verrakai magelord, like any other, and soon enough she would show that, as she had with the children she'd killed. Just like Lady Verrakai, pretending gentleness before causing pain. And Efla, silly weak Efla, was taking it all as truth.

  She handed Efla the wet cloth. "Wipe your face," Farin said to her. "What a silly girl, to bother the Duke with all this. And I still think you wanted it, only you got caught and made up that about being forced—" The safer tale, the one that might keep Efla from more punishment. Efla, predictably, burst into tears again, protested her innocence. Drat the child; she would not learn.

  "I want to hear all her story," the Duke said, and then told Farin to watch the boy she'd brought down to the kitchen, lest he eat too much. Which he was trying to do, about to pour the whole pot of honey on a loaf of bread.

  Farin plucked the honey jar from the boy's fingers, patted him on the head, then sliced the bread and allowed him a slice with a spoonful of honey on it. All the while she listened to the Duke—she could not hear Efla, but she'd heard the story before and didn't need to. The Duke was reassuring her—about the child, about the oath she'd given. Efla pulled aside the top of her dress, even showing the Duke the Horned Chain tattooed on her shoulder. The Duke nodded.

  "You can't undo what's done, or unsay what's said," the Duke said, still in that steady, calm voice. Try as she might, Farin could not hear madness in it, or cruelty. If any Verrakaien—if any magelord—could be...different...this one was. But could it be? She looked around the kitchen; the others were edging nearer, clearly listening as intently as she had.

  In a moment or two, the Duke would notice that, and have more questions. Farin moved back along the table; she should take the risk, not the others.

  "They said we all had to," she said. "They said once we swore, the Bloodlord would know and we could never get away." She laid her hand on her own marks, the one here, the other on
e there.

  "That's not true," the Duke said. "Anyone can turn from evil if they want to; the gods act through people—through us." Her glance went from Efla's tear-stained face to the rest of them, one by one, coming back to Farin again at the end. "Anyone," she said softly, so only Farin and Efla could hear. "You, Farin, protecting your people in this kitchen. I have searched you, Farin Cook, and I find no evil in you." Then she stood, patted Efla on the shoulder, and walked out.

  Farin stood, unable to move for a long moment. It was not the weight of magery holding her in place, but the lack of it—the lightness as years of fear lifted, leaving her dizzy with relief. She argued with herself: the Duke had killed children. But seeing the boy, healthy again and eating his bread and honey, and Efla's face and the others, their eyes shining, she could not bring back the steadying weight of fear.

  "Well, now," she said. "Time we got to work. Our Duke will want her dinner, eh? And someone must clean that floor...Efla, you spilled the flour; you sweep it up. Put it in the bucket for the pigs' dinner; they won't mind a little dirt."

  And that night, Farin went upstairs to the servants' garret, and slept sound in a bed.

  The End

  Authors's Note on "A Parrion of Cooking"

  A "parrion" is something stronger than a talent for a craft or art, though it's related to our understanding of talent. A parrion is talent plus commitment, a choice and a belief that this craft, art, or trade is a fundamental part of identity, approved by whatever gods the person believes in. Some would even argue it's a lesser form of magery. The term—and the belief in parrions—comes from the northern "Old Human" culture, not the mageborn, and is seen most clearly in Surrender None, set in a time when Old Human beliefs were still strong among the peasants of magelord estates despite centuries of oppression. In the "now" of book-time, parrions are mostly understood in terms of women's talents but in the past men also claimed parrions and some still do. This story shows how a parrion can help someone maintain their sense of identity, their integrity through severe trials—and how hard it can be to believe in real change. Farin Cook appeared in Oath of Fealty, the first volume of Paladin's Legacy, trailing her past behind her.