Page 126 of Last of His Blood
“I’m fine. Thank you,” he added, in a touching and unsuccessful effort to look less forbidding. Ophele knew he wasn’t actually glaring at Azelma, but an outside observer could only conclude the old lady had offered him some mortal insult.
“Azelma was the one who taught me to make tea,” Ophele went on, pouring herself a cup and sitting in an armchair positioned diplomatically between the two of them. “I used to sneak into the kitchen at night when she was baking bread, and she always had me manage the kettle.”
“It kept you out of other mischief,” Azelma agreed, adding sugar and a dribble of milk to her own cup. “Can’t go too wrong with a pot of tea.”
“I just wanted to help,” Ophele protested. The injustice still rankled. “It looked like fun, kneading dough and making buns.”
“It’s certainly a dangerous business when you liked to stuff dates and sultanas and cloves of garlic and the stars know what all else into it the minute my back was turned, mercy me,” Azelma said tartly. “She did that with the apple bread once, my lord, studded it up with cloves like it was a haunch of ham. I’ve no idea how I missed it, but sure enough, up it went for breakfast the next morning.”
“The Hurrells ate it?” Remin looked interested in spite of himself.
“They did indeed, sir, and all but seared the tongues right out of their heads,” Azelma replied, to their mutual satisfaction.
For all that she had borne the brunt of Lady Hurrell’s fury after that incident, Azelma often repeated the tale, especiallywhen she wanted to forbid Ophele from doing anything interesting in the kitchen. And this really was working just as Mionet had said it would; Ophele knew the sorts of stories Remin liked to hear, and the sorts of stories that Azelma liked to tell, so all she had to do was give her an opening to do it.
It was also theperfectopportunity to show Remin how well Azelma ran a kitchen, though that was definitely secondary.
“And the cheese man, you remember him?” Ophele prompted. “Remin, there was this one cheese merchant that used to come to Aldeburke, but he could never fool Azelma…”
“Well, it was as plain as my nose that he wasn’t sellingrealNorgrede cheddar,” Azelma said, flicking her fingers. “You can smell it, Norgrede cheddar has a sharpness. He used to come every other month, peddling his fraudulent cheeses, and every time it was something new, red rinds on blue cheese or him trying to sell me on the new virgin Lein cheese. Virgin, says he, because the rennet came from unspoiled sheep. And here’s this one next to me in the door,” she said, nodding to Ophele, “wanting to know what’s a virgin sheep.”
“I trust you didn’t explain it,” Remin replied, with an amused flick of his black eyes to Ophele. He knew better than anyone how woefully ignorant she had been about all species of virgin.
“Indeed not, fouling a child’s ears with that sort of talk,” said Azelma indignantly. “She wouldn’t stop asking for days, I had a little shadow pattering after me in the kitchen, wanting to know did we have virgin sheep, and were they different from regular sheep, and why couldn’t we make virgin sheep cheese ourselves.”
This was notquitethe sort of story Ophele had meant for her to tell.
“But at least you never bought any of the nasty cheeses…” she interjected, trying to shift course back to the original subject, but Azelma was already off to the races.
“My stars, Your Grace, I think I spent half my life trying to guess what she might take into her head next,” Azelma confided, as Remin scooted forward in his chair. “I think she was…twelve, maybe, when we had a sudden plague of squirrels in the kitchen garden, and no idea where they had come from or why. Into everything, making off with the tomatoes, I didn’t know squirrels would eveneatbroccoli. Though they never did touch the peppers.”
“They don’t like spicy things,” Ophele tried to explain. “The book just talked about them hoarding nuts for the winter, but I wanted to know what they ate for the rest of the year…”
And she had also been trying to train them to do her bidding, but she was hardly about to admit that now.
“Squirrels again?” Remin asked, and then of course he had to tell Azelma about the afternoon in the hazelnut grove, though he did omit certain key events. Azelma rocked with laughter.
“Oh! A legion of squirrels!” she chortled, wiping her eyes. “It was rabbits one year, as I recall, I found a nest of newborns in a basket under my bed one night, ugly as moles. But if youdoroast hazelnuts yourself, Your Grace, mind you crack the shells first. That was one of the more spectacular of Her High—Her Grace’s experiments.”
“I saw you roasting peanuts and you didn’t crack their shells,” said Ophele, wounded.
“Peanut shells are porous. Hazelnut shells go off like they were fired from a crossbow,” Azelma replied in tones of infinite patience. “And it was so hard to catch her, she was soquiet!I swear, half the time I never even saw her at her mischief. I would just wonder why all my measuring spoons had gone, or find a cat half-shaved in the pantry, or one fine day we’d have hazelnutssuddenly exploding in the fire. Kitchen boys scattering, scullery maids shrieking, you’d have thought there was a war on.”
That actually made Remin laugh out loud.
“Shaved cat?” he repeated, looking expectantly at Ophele.
There was a breed of dog in Sachar Veche whose fur was often dyed and shaved in interesting ways. Resigned, Ophele confessed to the crime and then gave up trying to divert them, munching on a gingersnap and wondering idly how onedidcorrect a conversation that had veered so wildly off course. It was worth it to hear Remin laugh.
This small dream was all Ophele wanted: that the two people she loved best in the world would get along. The evening flew by, and all too soon Azelma was glancing at the moon rising through the window and rising regretfully to her feet.
“It is a little late for a baker, my lord,” she apologized, straightening cautiously. Azelma always said she stiffened up like lumber if she was still for too long. “I thank you for the invitation, and for indulging an old lady for an evening. Her Grace is very dear to me.”
“It was a pleasure.” Remin looked surprised to find he meant it. “I am glad to know that she had such a friend in that place.”
“I am glad that she has come to this place,” Azelma replied, unusually somber as she accepted her cloak from Ophele. “Good night, my lady.”
“Good night.” Ophele moved to embrace her, wrapped at once in the comforting smells of the kitchen.
