Chapter 270 - Cooks and Crooks II
Breakfast was already cooking by the time Claire awoke. She could hear something or other sizzling away in the usual pan as the flames gently crackled through the yet lightless morning. The house itself was slowly heating up as the dish’s herbal aroma spread, tickling her forked tongue with faint hints of its flavour. It was not Sylvia or Natalya working the stove. Both were still sound asleep, with the fox curled up beside her, and the cat in the other room.
It wasn’t Boris either. As funny as it was to imagine the lizard standing upright, his metallic body adorned with an apron and a chef’s hat, she knew that he was far too lazy to even make the attempt. And with all the other possibilities eliminated, she found herself slowly recalling that Arciel had mentioned something about being present on the shop’s opening day. They were scheduled to unlock its doors after an early lunch, when traffic in the city was at its busiest, and the lyrkress surmised that the squid had likely ordered someone to prepare the early lunch in question. Perhaps even the personal chef she had selected soon after she declared the castle her home.
After taking a moment to make herself presentable, and another to magically remove any waste from her body, the lyrkress slowly navigated her way through the freshly minted building and headed downstairs. The first thing she saw was a plethora of ingredients, a veritable buffet of uncooked goods set out on the table, fancy meats, some fresh and some cured; vegetables and grains, many of which were unfamiliar; and a whole kitchen’s worth of spices, all haphazardly stacked together.
The former princess was the only figure present in the space, standing over the pot with a pair of tongs in one hand and a heavily embroidered ladle in the other.
“Good morning, Claire.”
She was wearing an apron atop her usual attire. Unlike most everything else, it was not one of the luxury goods she had prepared for the occasion, but rather something already in the kitchen. The evidence of its ownership was clear from the cat-shaped paw prints running along its hem.
“Good morning.” The lyrkress stared blankly for a few seconds before finally tilting her head. “I remember you saying that you didn’t know how to cook.”
“And you would be correct,” declared the witch, with all the confidence in the world. She flipped the handle upside down and brought it to the bottom of her face, as she often did with her fan. “However, I have learned to craft a specific dish for the occasion.”
Claire slowly shifted her eyes between the squid and the ingredients.
“This is a waste of food. You should’ve brought one of the castle’s chefs.”
“How rude,” huffed the queen. “I would have you know that I have spent every night under the tutelage of my personal cook, just so that I might personally prepare a full course meal that might satisfy your palate.”
It was a statement that immediately saw the bloodkraken’s forehead greeted with a flick.
“Nice try. I’m not joining your harem.”
“It was not my intention to make an appeal,” said the squid, with a cough.
“Liar.”
Another flick.
Finally satisfied with the glowing red mark on the squid’s forehead, Claire crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Where’s the bug? I would’ve expected you to bring him.”
“And I would have,” said the queen, with a small frown, “had he not been in the midst of recovery.”
Claire tilted her head, slowly bringing it to an incline of exactly 17.6 degrees. “Recovery?” It was difficult to imagine the mantis being injured. There wasn’t much that could put a dent in a rhiar warrior over five hundred, let alone leave him in a state requiring rest and recuperation.
“There is no need for concern. He has simply undergone an operation to become a eunuch, such that he may be left in charge of the management of my harem.”
“Oh.”
Claire was not unfamiliar with the concept of using a cursed weapon to mutilate a trusted retainer’s genitals. While it was not practiced in Cadria in particular, the rear palace system was one of the more popular. Paunse, Ingrand, and Svensland were just a few of the many northerly countries that maintained the custom to the present day. The thorae had once sported something similar before they were taken into the Cadrian fold, and even now, traces of it remained; the rich and powerful among the insectoid ogres still kept three or four wives at a time.
So long as the eunuch in question was in a god’s good graces, it was unlikely for the injury to be truly permanent. Any high level priest could remove it with a simple third tier blessing. The ease naturally led to the conclusion that the system was not secure, but rarely was the loophole a problem. Most experienced clergymen knew better than to risk the wrath of a monarch, and refused to fix a eunuch’s wounds lest the request was accompanied by written permission from the associated harem master. There was also generally a tacit understanding between master and servant, wherein the eunuchs were allowed to extract and wed girls from the harem, so long as they weren’t the ruler’s favourites.
“Shouldn’t you have asked someone else to do it?” asked Claire. “Like the child-molesting admiral.”
Arciel mirrored the moose’s held tilt and blinked a few times before finally smacking her ladle into the palm of her hand. “Matthias is the perfect candidate. I had forgotten that you were not aware, though I suppose I should not have assumed, given the rarity with which he speaks of anything but combat, but he does not plan to have any more children.”
“Any more? He has children?”
“Seven of them,” said the squid, with a giggle. “It is certainly rather difficult to imagine, given his youthful appearance and irresponsible behaviour, but he has been a knight for a very long time, and he has been serving me personally since the early days of my childhood.”
“Oh.” Claire pursed her lips into a frown. “I had a knight like that too. But he wasn’t anywhere as respectable.”
Arciel raised a brow as she idly tended to the contents of her pan. “I would not have expected your father to have assigned you a weaker guard, but neither do I find it beyond the scope of my imagination. It certainly does seem rather Cadrian for him to have entrusted you with your own safety.”
The snake shook her head. “Father is the only one stronger than him.”
“Then it was the strength of his character that was to be called into question?”
“He was a lazy pervert that had the gall to lecture me.”
“Oh, how very traumatic.” The squid’s sarcasm immediately earned her another flick.
“Shush. I don’t want to hear it from someone with a trustworthy knight.”
Claire assaulted the queen with a barrage of similar attacks, hitting her at least a dozen times before she finally let her off. It was only then, after a few much lighter prods, that she peered over the taller girl's shoulder and looked at whatever it was she was working to prepare.
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Her first impression was one of red. It was something with a watery consistency dyed a deep scarlet by a strange fruit. There were several spices mixed in, but she struggled to identify them at a glance.
“Is that supposed to be some sort of jam?”
“It is a sauce.” Ciel lifted the pot off the flame and set it aside. After carefully placing it atop a fireproof cloth, she replaced it with a particularly large pan filled with large, round globs. “And I shall be cooking these meatballs in it shortly. Now, before you find yourself too tempted to spy and criticize, I suggest that you go elsewhere so that you might not ruin the surprise.” The umbral witch grabbed one of Claire’s shoulders with her tongs and spun her around. She was given a bit of a push, a light shove that guided her out of the dining room and back into the hall.
“Fine.”
Lips pursed into a frown, the lyrkress walked into the living room as she pondered a way to spend the time. Her first thought was to go on her morning flight, but the fox was still asleep, and she was sure to kick and scream if she was left behind. There was always the option to meditate and work on her magic and divinity, but she changed her mind when she spotted Boris out of the corner of her eye. The lazy lizard was already awake, slowly blinking at her from across the room.
She returned the greeting, slowly blinking back at the extraneously leggy snake before throwing him over her shoulder and walking out the front door.
It took roughly ten minutes of wandering for her to reach her destination. The matriarch’s house was located smack dab in the middle of the erdbrechers’ half of the suburb. It was easily distinguished from surrounding buildings by virtue of its size; the property was nearly a whole acre, fenced off completely with thick boards of wood.
There was a storm of metal clangs coming from within the backyard, or more specifically, the large, open-concept gymnasium situated behind the main building. The custom-built structure had a large slanted roof that offered some protection from the elements, but no walls to speak of, only large pillars that ran around its outer edge.
Claire considered hopping the fence, but soon determined the behaviour too unladylike and made her way to the front gate instead. The door swung open before she could approach or knock and revealed a somewhat familiar-looking elephant. The matriarch’s heiress wasn’t wearing her usual fishnet-stockings, but Claire could still pick the rogue out thanks to her unique physique and demeanor. She was much thinner than most of the other females, her tusks were only half-grown, and her face was forever adorned with an awfully fake smile.
“Good morning. Can you come back some other time? We’re in the middle of our morning drills right now.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “You’ll be doing your afternoon and evening drills later.”
The elephant people had been assigned the duty of keeping watch over the town, but there had been a series of complaints when they were first deployed. With so many police roaming the streets, the citizens had found themselves feeling less safe. A few careful reassessments later, it was decided that the three branches, namely the Vel’khanese, the Cadrian, and the Erdbrecher police forces would each only deploy a third of their number on any given day.
And with nothing else to do, the off-duty mercenaries had defaulted to their regular training regimen. Each day, they would spar and practice from dawn till dusk, with their mealtimes serving as their only breaks.
“Exactly.” The corner of Ayla’s lips twitched. “Please leave. Go bother the birds instead.”
“No.”
Claire squeezed through the open door before the long-nosed land gar could close it and made her way across the lawn. The erdbrecher grabbed the moose’s tail, but she failed to restrain her. Alya was dragged around instead, seemingly with no effort on the intruder’s part, as she walked around the building and located the training grounds behind it.
Crossing her arms, she looked past the rows of men and women practicing their forms and located the erdbrecher matriarch. Emelia was in the middle of the crowd, pacing back and forth through the various lines as she corrected the stances and swings of those she passed. She noticed Claire right away, but she didn’t approach until she was finished with the trainees in her block.
For someone confronting a would-be killer, the smiling elephant was awfully serene. It was almost like she didn’t quite care that Claire would have happily choked her to death without any last-minute intervention.
“Sorry, Boss.” Alya lowered her eyes and shook her head. “I couldn’t stop her.”
“That’s quite alright.” The older mercenary slowly shook her head before turning her eyes back on the intruder’s frame and looking her up and down. “You seem a lot different when you’re not trying to kill us.”
Claire tilted her head. “I look the same. I pay close attention to my appearance.”
“Your aura, I mean,” said Emelia, with a raised brow. “It was less sane the other night, more monstrous.”
“I’m always perfectly sane.”
It was their first time meeting since the incident. Emelia had visited the house a few times for some business or other, but Claire hadn’t bothered leaving her room to greet her.
“Of course.” The elephant produced a handkerchief from her front pocket and lightly dabbed away the sweat on her forehead. “Did you need me for something?”
“A spar.”
The ice cold request drew a number of eyes from across the training grounds. Elephants of all shapes and sizes perked up, with many of the young males immediately breaking into gossip and the older females shutting them up with smacks to the back of the head. The matriarch herself was largely unperturbed. If anything, she was entertained; there was a big smile on her face and her trunk was folded under her tusks.
“I’d love to, but a certain someone happened to throw my magic-resistant amulet into the sea, and I doubt I’ll do all that well without it.”
Claire shook her head. “No magic this time. Only shapeshifting.” She drew her lizard, transforming him into a dull blade mid-draw. “I need to work on my close combat.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place,” said the elephant, with a flaccid trumpet. “Refining our technique is what we do.”
___
The training session lasted for roughly two hours. For the lyrkress, it was a struggle. The mercenary was already familiar with her weapon and fighting style, and she could use none of the vector magic that allowed for her physics-defying maneuvers. The gap only opened further with time, with her opponent learning more of her tricks with every round. The final fight was the most damning; the elephant ended on a dominating performance wherein she emerged completely unscathed.
“I don’t get it,” Claire mumbled to herself as she fiddled with a cup of cold water. “She was the only one that got any better.”
Everyone else was drinking greedily from a communal tub, with some spraying the icy liquid all over their bodies and others guzzling like their lives depended on it. The matriarch was no exception. She drank something in the realm of ten litres in five minutes, with her midsection, which was otherwise incredibly chiselled, expanding drastically to accommodate.
Evidently, the woman’s giant ears weren’t just for show. After filling her trunk again, she walked over with a grin and sat down next to the lyrkress, her back against the wall and one arm resting on top of a propped-up knee.
“Looks like it’s my win,” she said.
“I know. You didn’t need to rub it in.”
“Come on, you don’t have to be like that.” The middle-aged woman took a sip from her nose before shaking it free of any excess water and taking a deep breath. “Want to know why I managed to read you so easily?”
Claire narrowed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t want your charity. I’ll figure it out myself.”
“It wasn’t going to be charity,” said the elephant. “I’ll tell you if you sign up and join us. You might not be much of an erdbrecher, but you’d probably make for a decent merc. And a decent mount, too, if you’re any good at holding that giant snake form.”
“I’m not joining,” said Claire.
“Shame.”
“And that other form is my true form.”
The elephant raised a brow. “Then why are you trying to learn to fight like a humanoid?”
Claire didn’t immediately respond. She looked down into her cup instead and stared at her reflection. “It’s easier to fight if I’m the same size as whatever I’m fighting.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” said the matriarch. “Bigger things tend to be harder to take down. You sure you’re not just doing something wrong?”
“I might be.”
The elephant pressed her hands onto her knees and got to her feet. “We can try it for a few rounds, and I’ll tell you what I think.”
Claire shook her head. “Not today. It’s time for me to go back.” The space in front of her began to shimmer right as she finished speaking. It wasn’t a prediction. The forces had simply started to distort before there was any visual indication. “I’ll come again.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it.”
With one last exchange of nods, the moose entered the magical foxhole and greeted the familiar faces waiting on the other side.