Kingfisher(22)

He seemed oblivious; he only said, “I’m glad you brought this; it explains a lot. I had no idea what I was asking the other night. I don’t want to cause worse feelings by taking you away from the Kingfisher. Maybe we could work something out part-time? Let’s think about that. No decisions yet. But while I’ve got you here, let me show you what I do. I have some bites left over from lunch you might be interested in. Can I bring you a taste?”

“Sure,” she said dazedly.

“I don’t use menus, but I have written down a few of my recipes. Let me bring those, too; they’ll give you an idea . . .”

He vanished into the old bank vault. She waited thoughtlessly, amazed at the notion of snacking on the ideas of the best cook in the county. He returned with one arm lined with small plates, papers under the other arm. He let the papers splash on the table, and arranged the little plates like offerings around her. They held treasures, she saw with astonishment: geometric shapes of this and that layered on one another, unexpected colors catching the eye, orange topping cranberry topping an airy cloud of licorice, another of chocolate, none of it, she suspected, tasting anything like the fruit or meat or sweet that the colors might suggest. Stillwater pushed a plate toward her, a tower of diamonds and squares and circles of the thinnest, brightest colors topped with a coiled ruby garnish, like a designer hat.

For an instant, as she raised her eyes from the lovely little makings to smile in amazement at him, she saw a stranger’s eyes gazing out of what suddenly seemed the mask of a beautiful face. Tree-bark dark, they were, flecked with gold and luminous with an ancient light that had long since faded from the world she thought she knew.

He lifted the plate.

“Eat.”





PART TWO




   WYVERNBOURNE





7


In Severluna, the youngest son of King Arden IX tied on his apron deep beneath the intersection of Severen Street and Calluna Way, and edged behind the water bar of the ancient cave. The apron was striped blue and green, the colors of water and moss, of the river goddess Calluna, from whose warm, steamy, smelly fountainhead within the stones behind the prince, the infirm, the depressed, and the curious had come for millennia to drink.

Prince Daimon picked up the sacred water pitcher, toasted the comely ticket-taker who sat on a stool at the cave entrance. He began to fill the little blue and green paper cups lined along the bar. The water, at least, was free. The god Severen, whose river began in the great, jagged snowy peaks to the east and crossed the land to merge with the Calluna and the bay, was worshipped for the precious metals he carried in his waters. His shrines were everywhere, even there at the holy birthplace of the goddess. His gold, silver, and copper changed hands upstairs at the ticket window, the coffee bar, and the ice-cream bar whose specialty was blueberry-pistachio in honor of the goddess. Below, near the entrance to the sanctum, there was the small prayer pool in which pleas to the goddess were accompanied by gifts of coins and the occasional semiprecious stone. Despite the heat, the strong mineral odors, the depths to which visitors must descend seeking the goddess in her underworld beneath the streets, the domed and tiled antechamber seldom stayed quiet long.

Raised voices on the stairs, a gabbling echo of high-pitched bird cries, indicated a busload of young schoolchildren gamboling down the steps. Daimon brought up more cups from underneath the bar as the first of them exploded into view. A couple of tour guides from the upper regions divided them expertly, took one group through the jagged stone opening into the ruins of antiquity around the pool, while the others tasted the holy waters in the cups. The children made the usual gagging noises after a sip of warm liquid laced with lithium salts. Daimon showed them the spittoon-shaped vessel in which to pour the dregs or spit the unswallowed mouthful, while their gimlet-eyed chaperons watched.

“Skylar, either swallow or spit into the pot—don’t you dare spit that at Sondra.”

Finally, the second group snaked through the narrow opening; for a moment, there was peace under the dome.

Daimon took a mop to some spilled water on the mosaic floor, which had been painstakingly repaired a century earlier after the streets had been laid down above the river, and somebody got around to wondering where the goddess’s cave had gone. One of the chaperons, who had lingered in the quiet, took a second look at the young man behind the water bar.

“Prince Daimon!” she blurted. “What are you doing down here?”

“Serving the goddess,” he answered, and wrung the mop sponge into the spittoon. He recognized the woman: Lady Clarice Hulte, whose elderly husband, Sir Lidian Hulte, was one of the king’s knights. Her daughter, a plump, prim little girl with pigtails, had dumped her water into the hair of an obnoxious boy scrabbling for coins in the prayer pool, an action which the goddess, who had issues with the greedy Severen, would surely have approved.

Lady Clarice, whose pale, protuberant eyes her daughter had inherited, transferred her stare to the mop handle. “You’re a noble of the realm, not a housemaid.”

“We choose the weapons that best serve the goddess,” Daimon said mildly. “I was in my father’s service last week, putting his weapons to use. This week I’m in the queen’s. She asked me to work in the shrine, learn the rituals of the goddess.”

“But she is not your—” Lady Clarice began, addicted as she was to arguing points of protocol. Then her mouth snapped shut; she flushed an interesting shade of plum. Behind her, the ticket-taker caught her lips between her teeth and stared raptly at the floor.