The kitchen smelled of boiled winter barley, dried leek ends, and the scorched iron rim of Hobb’s favorite broth kettle.
Tessa Dene stood by the scrubbed deal preparation table, her salvage bread knife flashing steadily through the tough skin of a basket of cellar turnips. Each turnip yielded three firm strokes—top, tail, and a peeling curl that dropped into the slop bucket—before the pale root split into quarters with a clean, wood-like snap. She had her sleeves pinned above her elbows with brass safety wire, and through the low stone arch leading to the courtyard, she could hear the intermittent rattle of harness brass as Milo and Sura unhitched the two covered wagons.
Across the table, seated on a three-legged ash stool that wobbled whenever she shifted her weight, Hesta Quill scraped the bottom of a chipped yellow clay bowl with a pewter spoon. The traveling player had not taken off her patched crimson stage cloak, though the room was thick with kitchen warmth. The hem of the cloak was dark with valley mud, and along the right sleeve, someone had mended a torn seam with coarse fisherman’s thread where silver braid had once run.
“Still too much leek,” Hesta said between swallows, speaking around a mouthful of hot groats. “Always did throw half the garden into the pot when he had an audience, that one. Thinks if a stew smells loud enough, nobody will ask how much mutton was in the butcher’s parcel.”
