Shelling nuts, grinding loaves of sugar into dust, churning milk to butter, chipping chocolate off blocks shipped south from Seheron—when the ovens cooled, their fires quelled and ashes swept out, the tasks turned to the intricacies of finer foods for the days ahead.
Diplomatic ties across Thedas all demanded different sweets: bite-sized stacked sponge for Orlesian nobility, Rivani nut-and-honey treats wrapped in paper-thin sheets of dough, cakes cooked on swiveling spits for dwarven dignitaries. Even the blacksmith, soot-stained, his voice roughened by coal-fire, had come to them one morning and asked if they might think to make a type of steamed pudding speckled with dried fruit, if they had the time, if it was no trouble.
It was enormous trouble, but, boiling on the stovetop for hours, they'd made it for him.
Mornings were simpler; when the ovens were stoked they cooked the more delicate pastries, then the day's bread baked when the fires were hotter. But when the other cooks, all knives and fire, bones and broiling, left for the evening, the bakers remained.
The apples from three days before had been cooked into everything from sauce to stuffing. Now Bri mixed dough to rise in the chill air overnight while Lille ground almonds, bearing down on the pestle and gritting her teeth. Raspberries, once frozen in a crisp of ice, simmered softly on the stovetop; steam curled from the pot as Fabien stirred.
"Check the sugar," Fabien said with a sharp sigh. Lille pulled back a laugh into a tight-lipped frown. She put down the pestle, unstoppered the jar, and dug a few grains out with a finger and laid them on the tip of her tongue.
"Sweet!" she said, triumphant. He snapped his fingers for it and she put the jar in his hands, rolling her eyes. He stirred spoonfuls into the pot of stewing fruit. Lille took the sugar back to the shelf when he had finished.
"Can't you just talk to her, Fabien?" Lille cooed, and laughed at the little wrinkle of his nose she took such delight in eliciting.
"Why, because we're both elves?" he asked, his eyes still on the pot. She shrugged; he shook his head. "She hates elves."
"So do you," Lille said. "That's what I meant—you have so much in common."
"That is not true." His voice had sharpened. Bri looked up from her kneading, glancing to Lille—she had gone back to gleefully smashing down the almonds into dust.
"It is," she said between knocks of the pestle. Fabien didn't answer, only watched as the sugared berries bubbled and spat. Then he took a cheesecloth and strained the syrup from the mixture into a jar that steamed with the heat—the little seeds and bits of red flesh he threw into the scrap bucket with such force that it teetered.
"Finish the dough and clean up—I'm leaving," he said, wiping his hands on his dirty smock and, with a sharp glance to Bri, he left through the door to the cellars.
Lille watched with wide eyes as the door slammed behind him.
"You tease him too much," Bri said, frowning.
"Well, someone's got to tease him or else I swear his head would get so big he'd float away." The almonds had been ground finely, sticking at the edges of the mortar. Lille tipped the grains into a bowl and threw a cloth over them.
"I know, but—maybe not about that. Here, pit the cherries." The fruit had thawed by the fire and now lay in a bowl on the table, dark red skins glistening in the low light. Lille took the knife from her apron and set upon them; she hummed as she worked. Bri turned back to her dough and punched it down against the worktable.
The rough accumulation of flour, yeast, water, and salt—first stringy and full of lumps—now slowly worked into a smooth, even dough between her hands. In the summers they'd make the dough the same day as the bread but the cold that seeped into every dark room of the castle made it rise so slowly they could leave it for hours. She pinched a piece between her fingers, pulling it out and holding it to the dim candlelight; it shone through, cloudy but clear—it was kneaded enough.
Leaving it in a clean bowl covered over with cloth, she moved to make another. Every day since she arrived, a month or two after the Inquisition began rebuilding after the destruction of Haven, she had made loaves of bread alongside Fabien. Lille came later, sent to help as the Inquisition grew in size and with it its demand for fresh-baked bread and pastries. Always short-tempered, always punching at the dough with the heels of his hands as though he fought with it, Fabien had barely spoken to Bri until Lille joined them. Now he snapped and scolded and shouted like the head cook.
"You know," Bri had said to Lille a few months after she had joined them, "the only other elves in the kitchen are the scullery maids and that boy who sweeps the ashes out in the evening."
"Yeah?" Lille had answered, wringing out a kitchen cloth over the basin.
"I think it bothers him."
"Who?"
"Fabien." Lille had simply laughed, a short shock of sound.
"Everything bothers Fabien."
But Bri had heard both knife-ear and flat-ear since she had arrived. The other elves, servants or officers, kept to themselves—Fabien was never among them.
"Oh!" Lille said, nearly jumping from her seat—Bri turned to look at her, a ball of half-kneaded dough in her hands.
"Lowri's told me the cat's had her kittens." Lille said, and pricked a pit from a firm-fleshed cherry and smiled.
"When?" Bri asked.
"A week ago," she said, "Desmond found them in the corner of one of the stalls, they nearly got stepped on by a horse. He tried to move them but she hissed so loud he just moved the horse."
"Why didn't Lowri tell us sooner?" Bri asked.
"Because Desmond didn't tell anyone until today. Simple boy."
"Ah, he's not that bad," Bri said, turning back to the worktable. She'd seen him, sometimes, practicing his letters in the hayloft before the day's work started.
"Oh, I see," Lille said, slipping another pit from its place. "Talked to him much?"
"Not really," Bri said, hesitating between the words. Lille turned in her seat.
"You never come out with the rest of us. You should!"
"I don't like going to the tavern," Bri said, shrugging.
"Then don't come to the tavern. Come with us to the valley sometime. Come to the village with us on your days off. Do something, Briony!"
"Maybe someday," she answered idly. Lille rolled her eyes. The pitted cherries piled up in the bowl beside her.
"It's so strange being the only one who knows you," Lille said. Bri's fingers stilled, sank into the pliant dough. Lille turned to look at her in the silence that followed, without even the rhythmic roll of kneading.
"Ah, I'm sorry, Bri," Lille said,
"It's all right," Bri said.
"I didn't mean to, well—" She dropped her eyes, glancing about, then dug her fingers into the bowl beside her. "Here, have a cherry."
She held it up to the light, her fingertips stained red, grinning. Bri shook her head; Lille's smile slipped; still, she popped it into her mouth, then another.
"Maker," she said, "You know, I haven't eaten a cherry since the summer."
"You shouldn't," Bri said, but she gave a light laugh when Lille winked at her and so she smiled again, scooped up a small handful, and tilted it into her mouth.
The door to the cellars jerked open. Lille nearly fell from her stool; she swallowed the stolen fruit and wiped her hands on her apron.
The head cook stood by the dying fire. Bri turned, and stood with her hands held neatly behind her back, tense, attentive.
"How are things?" He asked, almost pleasant—his eyes did not rest on them, but lightly surveyed the room.
"Bread's mixed for tomorrow, the almonds are ready for the macarons, raspberry syrup is cooling," she began, and listed the rest of the evening's tasks, nodding between each one. He walked to the table and lifted the cloth from one of the bowls of dough, then replaced it without comment. Then he turned to Lille.
"Does the Inquisition pay for fruit to be shipped from Antiva directly into your mouth, Lille?"
"I—" she stuttered, wiping her lips again with her sleeve.
"Cherries, plums, a pot of custard, two jars of honey," he said, his voice even. "Do you think these things grow here, in the middle of winter?"
"No, but I—"
"Come here, Lille."
The air was still, heavy. He would wait for only a moment.
"Master Don—"
"I'm not talking to you, Briony." His eyes had snapped to her and she had fallen silent in an instant. Now he looked back to Lille. "I said come here."
A heartbeat of hesitation, eyes wide, but then chin raised, shoulders held back, she marched to the far wall where the switch sat on the shelf—long, cruel, knife-thin—and brought it to him. Her hands were presented with the solemnity of a Chantry sister taking vows.
She had been hit before; he raised the switch. She bit her lip at the first descent, the sound catching in her throat before she allowed it to escape. The second was the same, held tight in her chest. The third, fourth, fifth, she muffled them with gritted teeth, her fingers trembling. The sixth was when she yelped, cheeks red, eyes glazed with unshed tears. He stopped. She hid her hands in her skirts, twisting them up in the rough linen—a hard breath with an open mouth.
"You are not in this kitchen to steal," he said shortly. "It is not for you. It is the Inquisition's. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Lille said. "Yes, Master Donatien."
He looked about the room, as though Lille's transgression had unsettled every jar and pot in the kitchen.
"Where is the elf?"
"Fabien's left for the night, Meserre," Bri answered.
"Tomorrow morning tell him I want to see him."
"Yes, Master Donatien."
He turned, placed the switch back in its spot on the shelf, and left the same way he came.
A log, cracked, burnt to ash, broke and sent up a hiss of sparks in the hearth. Lille's fingers were criss-crossed with bright red welts—beside the cherry juice a smear of blood stained her smock, welling from the backs of her knuckles. Her crying was silent, like falling snow—her cheeks so often creased from smiling were slick with tears. Bri wiped her hands and went to her.
"Lille," Bri said, her voice a whisper. She simply shook her head. The cherries were unfinished, the halves in the bowl split and bleeding. Lille took up her knife and moved back to them—Bri stopped her with a hand at her wrist.
"No," she said, frowning. She moved and covered the cherries. "We're done for the night. Let's go. Fabien can pit the cherries himself."
"But—" Lille said, but Bri slipped her smock over her head and hung it up with the others. Lille sighed and did the same, untying the knot at her back with swollen fingers. Together they pulled on their winter clothes and left.
The door shut on the kitchen. The moon was a pale coin in the sky; the snow gleamed an unnatural light, piled against stones washed in silver. They descended the steps to the lower courtyard. A thin layer of frost had fallen the night before but it had been trodden into the earth over the course of the day. They walked across the frozen path; the merchants' stalls had been packed away, tarpaulins pulled down over empty tables. The portcullis, too, had shut to the night; two guards stood their shift by the keep's heavy doors, beside torches whose flame looked dull in the cold illumination of the night's sky.
The moon, low, skimmed the castle wall—there was a shadow against its borrowed light, a figure crouched on the battlements—a guard keeping watch, or a few of the ravens huddled together; Bri stared as she walked, curious, until Lille, in the corner of her vision, stopped at her side, hid her face in her hands, and sobbed.
"No, no," she whispered, and gently lead Lille by a soft touch at the shoulder to sit with her on the stone steps to the upper courtyard.
"Here," Bri said, and scooped up a handful of snow to knot it in her handkerchief. Tenderly Bri pressed it to Lille's knuckles. She hissed, tense, then her shoulders slumped and she pressed her chin to her chest.
"I didn't take any of those other things," Lille said, "I didn't."
"I know," Bri said. "Donatien just wants someone to blame."
"It's always me," Lille cried, wincing as she repositioned the cloth-wrapped snow to her other hand.
"That's not true," Bri pleaded. "Fabien would have been hit over the salt he poured on the meringues if we hadn't realised they'd been switched on purpose."
"That's different," Lille said between clenched teeth. Bri swallowed thickly, twisting at the hem of her skirts with her hands.
"Do you remember?" Bri said, and leaned against Lille's shoulder, forcing herself to smile. "When Donatien came down in a rage? 'You stupid elf, you used salt instead of sugar!'" She affected the head cook's tone poorly. "Fabien was so embarrassed. He looked like he wanted to sink into the floor and die."
"Donatien still didn't hit him," Lille said, her voice sour. Shifting back in her seat, Bri's eyes slid away. She cracked a patch of ice on the step with the heel of her shoe.
"I'd have got the same for ruining those cakes. We're lucky no one said anything about the bread that day."
Above them, in the upper courtyard, there was a drift of distant laughter. Points of light burned by windows shut tight to the cold, clear winter's night. Lille placed the kerchief in her lap, rubbing at her hands; the red had faded, but the hair-thin cuts remained. They'd heal back to nothing—no marks, no scars, just the stinging memory of Donatien's switch.
"I'm always just trying to keep up," Lille said, "you and Fabien are the bakers. I just clean." Her voice steamed and disappeared, light as air, as she spoke. Bri shook her head.
"That's not true," Bri said, "everything you do is important. And even if it wasn't, without you I think Fabien would have stabbed me by now."
Lille was silent.
"We all help in our own way," she offered. "Where would the Inquisition be without you, without me?"
"Breadless," Lille said shortly.
"Not just. No more lemon cakes," Bri said, putting the words into a cadence, "no more petit fours, no more profiteroles, no more brioche. No more pitted cherries for their tarts. What would they do?"
"Not eat those things," she answered, rasping. "Like the rest of us."
Bri clamped her jaw tightly shut. Lille sighed—heavy, hollow, a sound so unsuited to her. Bri looked up again, searching the sky—the silhouette had gone. The stars were distant, obscured by the light of the moon, cold comforts in the darkness. Bri put an awkward arm around Lille's shoulders; she was still under the tentative touch.
"We could—go to the tavern, see if anyone's there?" Her voice was unsure, then she brightened. "Oh—do you want to go see the kittens?" She squeezed Lille lightly to her side. Lille smiled, finally, low and soft, and nodded.
Together they stood, arm in arm, and crossed the courtyard to the stables. The horses stood at the back of their stalls, heads sunk in sleep; the pair of them peered into each stall until they spotted the cat, the thin black mouser, a streak of shadow that stalked the halls. It had grown fat and sluggish and disappeared the week before—now it lay on its side, blinking and purring, as four jet-black kittens suckled from their mother in the hay.
Moving into the stall, Lille reached out and stroked the mother's head with three cautious fingers, scratching behind its ears as they twitched.
"I've never seen her let anyone but you do that to her."
"She likes me," Lille answered, a proud smile at the corner of her mouth. "Some days, at least."
"You really can get anyone to like you," Bri said. Lille shrugged.
"Not Master Donatien. Not Fabien."
"They don't like anyone at all."
The cat pressed its cheek into Lille's palm. The kittens, full of need, coiled close to their mother. Lille stroked the length of the cat's back, its tail twitching in delight. The red lines along her skin were forgotten for the moment.
Lille was young—younger than Bri by a year at least. She swept and washed and never complained, burned her fingers so many times on hot pans that now she laughed whenever it happened, sang songs when she plucked pips from endless piles of fruit or cracked the shells off nuts. Her smile was bright and genuine, her laugh easy, her joy—last Wintersend she had grabbed Bri by both hands and twirled her in the kitchen until even she joined the other celebrants. Bri watched as Lille stroked the beast that had bitten Fabien so many times he'd skin it if he could catch it. She smiled, and sighed—soft, relieved.
"Lowri said there were five," Lille said, wrinkling her brow, "do you think one's wandered off?"
"I hope not," Bri said. Wagons trundled through the lower courtyard, horses stomped their hooves, servants walked with careless determination through the snow, which piled treacherously high beside the walls.
"Should we look?" Lille said, turning to her. She nodded.
"Check the merchants' stalls," Bri said, "I'll look in the stable."
Lille pulled her rough cloak closer and went back the way they had come. Bri turned and moved into the barn; the moonlight diffused into shadow, the fire pit in the centre of the room burned down to ash-coated coals. First she looked in the corners of the room, pushing aside bales of hay and spare wagon parts. A worktable at the far end held a congregation of toy soldiers, some carved with armor and scabbards while others, rougher, were barely more than blocks of wood. Bri squatted beside the table and squinted, then moved to the haypile beneath the stairs.
A shift of dry straw, a flash of reflected light—she clapped her hand over her mouth and jumped back. It was that same boy, straw stuck to his sewn-up shirt, the brim of his hat tilted to obscure his face, standing in silence in the shadows under the stairs. He held out his hands, and between them was the squirming black kitten, biting at the tips of his fingers with a toothless mouth.
"Oh," she said, glancing to it. Quietly, she took the kitten from him. It mewed, hard, high-pitched, plucked too soon from its hiding spot.
"He likes the hay," he whispered. His voice was soft, light, his breath hardly stirring into steam in the cold air. She nodded, solemn, holding the kitten to her chest.
He stood there for a long moment, still and silent as though incapable of making a sound. His hands—long, thin fingers—were splayed at his side, and he crouched as though he would sprint away if she made any movement. Though he never lifted his eyes, never shifted so she was in his sight, she felt like she was being watched—like a traveller raising a lantern to the glowing, frightened, starving eyes of a wolf in winter.
"Thank you."
A trembling whisper from her lips. The moment passed; the edge of his wide hat lifted to a narrow chin and lips turned up in a smile.
"Did you find it?" Lille called—Bri turned, then looked back; he was gone. The kitten gnawed at her knuckle with its gums and she shook her head, turning back to where Lille crossed to meet her.
"Is there someone back there?" Lille asked.
"No, no one," Bri said, and pushed the squirming kitten into Lille's hands. "Here—I found him."
"Oh!" Smiling, she cooed at the little thing.
"He was in the hay," Bri said.
"Maker, this one's so small," Lille said, and laid a wet kiss to the tiny round of its head. It mewed, pitifully, its little eyes closed tight, its pinprick paws clinging to Lille's fingers.
"We should put it with the others," Bri said. They went back to where the kitchen cat lay with its litter, settled in the straw. Lille crouched to place the kitten among its siblings. Bri reached out, too, but drew her hand back when the cat swiped at her hand.
"She really is a mean one," Bri sighed, wringing her hands.
"Like Donatien." Lille picked at the straw. "Like Fabien."
"She looks like Fabien," Bri said, watching as the cat's pointed ears pinned back to its head. Lille laughed—light, shallow, swept up by the wind that rushed through the stables. She shivered.
"Let's go inside," she said, "I'm sure tomorrow Fabien will hiss and spit as much as the cat does, anyway."
Bri reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently, wary of the marks that split her skin.
"You're all right?" she asked. Lille shrugged, then nodded.
"It's nothing," Lille said. "Not any worse than anything else, right? But—thanks for bringing me out. It's good to have you as a friend, Bri."
She leaned in and gave her those quick Orlesian kisses of fondness that only masked people would perform; a careful press of the cheeks, one then the other, light as if to avoid scratching the paint.
"You really helped," Lille said, and the smile Bri knew crept back again.