Spice & Wolf 11 by Hasekura Isuna

Author:Hasekura Isuna
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316324274
Publisher: Yen Press
Published: 2014-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

The soup had plenty of bread in it, along with beans, onion, and the leftover meat from the previous night – two big bowls of it and one would be able to skip meals for two days. On top of such hearty fare had been laid a generous amount of roasted cheese.

Such a dish would not have been out of place coming from the large kitchen of a fine manor somewhere, but it was very like Bertra to manage the feat shorthanded and with a much smaller kitchen.

And since the house of Bolan operated on such a meager budget, she had become quite adept at making do with cheap ingredients. Even the seasoned merchant Olar had been stunned into silence when told how much they had cost, which was no mean feat.

When it came to cooking, none wielded a ladle the way Bertra did.

“The bread was rejected by the town inspector, so I got them to sell it cheap. It was stale and hard and couldn’t have been eaten the way it was, but look what happens when you put it in soup. I got the onions from the lady of the house three doors down – traded her some herbs I grew for them. The meat came from a chicken I found wandering about the garden.”

As a child, Fleur had always been forbidden from wandering into the yard behind the manor, and when she had learned that this was because of the traps set to catch ingredients for dinner, she was quite impressed.

Of course, those traps had been set by the elderly gardener, but Bertra had evidently been watching and had imitated him, so both Fleur and Olar were perfectly aware that the chicken had not been simply “wandering about the garden.”

But in a town thick with edible animals like pigs, sheep, goats, and rabbits, no one was going to complain about a missing chicken or two.

Olar’s constant admiration of Bertra’s craft was not unusual.

What was unusual was the way Fleur failed to praise or compliment the dinner’s flavor in any way as she ate it.

“Milady?”

Fleur nearly dropped her spoon at the unexpected address. All their silver had long since been sold, so it was a cheap tin utensil. Bertra would occasionally complain that she missed polishing the silver, but for Fleur’s part she found the tinware easier to use and much preferred it.

“O-oh yes. It’s delicious,” she said hastily, which made Olar and Bertra both regard her dubiously. “Very,” she added. Olar and Bertra shared a look.

Fleur picked up a piece of bread and put it in her mouth. It was hard to chew, but that meant it would be that much longer before she was expected to speak.

“So what did the Post lad have to say?”

Fleur heard the quiet hammering of her heart. She was sure they could hear it, too, but averted her eyes and took another bite of bread before she had finished chewing the first one.

“Oh, have you started working on another trade?” Bertra was preternaturally sharp when it came to housework but could still be rather insensitive.

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