Bab 14: 14. Cú Brings Home Dinner
"Yo, Caster, give me a hand up here!" called Cú from the ground floor above. Jack, who had been listening to Ritsu ramble about the orphans she'd adopted from neighboring regions while Ren brushed her hair, once again tensed up, moving between Ren and the exit.
"That's Cú Chulainn," said Ren reassuringly. "He's also part of our team. He went to hunt down some meat."
Merlin, who had been listening to Ritsu talk about her ordinary life with the same rapt attention as Jack, slipped his mantle and jacket off once more, leaving them hanging on his freestanding staff. As he moved to the exit, he cocked his head and said, "He's already put some of his kill in the kitchen. Maybe Jack could…" he trailed off, studying the girl. "On second thought, best wait until there's a bath available before having her ply her skills." He turned to look out the door, and grinning, said, "What's that? Were you calling me, Lancer? Eheheh, I was sleeping!"
As Merlin vanished down the hall, Jack, Ritsu and Ren all exchanged looks. "Why is he such a liar, Ren?" pleaded Ritsu.
Ren, who had been thinking about this off and on since meeting Merlin that dawn, said, "I think it's because otherwise we might rely on him too much." She remembered when he'd woken her from her nap. "Although maybe he just really enjoys pissing people off that much. Let's go see what's in the kitchen."
Four rabbits, field-dressed but unskinned, had been laid in a row on the stone table, along with two medium-sized ground birds. Jack and Ritsu both lit up at the sight of the game. Ren, although hungry again, had less enthusiasm. Her general store of knowledge expected meat to come in packages, not still wrapped in its own feathers and skin. "Um, do you two know how to handle game?"
"I can cut it up," suggested Jack. She pulled out two of her butcher's knives.
Ritsu shook her head. "We have to get the skin and feathers off first. But where's Mr. Cú?"
"Ah, I'll go find them," said Ren. "Ritsu, you're in charge of the meat."
"Mommy?" Jack looked worried.
Ren said, "I promise I'll scream if something bad happens, and then you can come and gut whoever did it." At Jack's single nod, Ren ducked out of the room and headed up to the ground floor.
To her shock, the courtyard, previously containing only rubble, now had… stuff: some furniture, some barrels, a couple of chests and small sacks. There was a distinct lack of Cú and Merlin, although Ren could smell Merlin's telltale flower scent everywhere.
She wandered a moment between the objects, opening one barrel to find it a quarter full of withered apples, while another had grain of some sort. A small chest contained a selection of vials containing fragrant powders.
"What do you think, my lady?" asked Cú from behind her, and she startled wildly, flinging three vials in the air as she lost her grip on the box.
Cú caught the three vials effortlessly, while the box landed in the crook of Merlin's arm. Ren put her hand to her chest and tried to calm her racing heart. "Where did all this stuff come from?"
"The burned houses in the village. The fires were started outside, so a lot of stuff inside was in good shape," said Cú easily. "Nobody's living there anymore. Everything stank of smoke but I thought the flower mage could probably do something about that." He raised his eyebrows at her expression. "Night soon falls and I didn't like the thought of you huddled on the floor with only a thin blanket."
"I would have happily kept her warm if you—" began Merlin, and, as Cú looked at him, hastily said, "Well, it doesn't matter now that she's summoned that terrifying child spirit."
Cú moved past Ren, handing her the spice vials before hefting up a rocking chair. "Yes, I sensed that you'd decided to summon another Servant after all." His voice was absolutely neutral.
"The portal was acting up so I wanted to burn off the extra energy," said Ren, watching him anxiously. "I think Jack has very different strengths than you."
"That's good," said Cú, but there was something dark in the look he gave her as he strode past her into the fortress.
Ren stared after him worriedly until Merlin plucked the spice vials from her hands and replaced them in the small chest. Softly, he said, "You're very attached to him already."
"I've always liked him," Ren said in a small voice. "I want him to like me too."
"Like you? Or respect you?"
Ren frowned at the question and Merlin patted her on the head before hefting up one of the barrels. As he strode into the keep, Ritsu and Jack burst past him.
Ritsu looked around, chewing on her lip. "I know some of this stuff." Merlin paused, turning and raising an eyebrow, clearly just as interested as Ren in how Ritsu would take the theft from her village, although probably only so he could laugh later.
But slowly Ritsu's expression hardened. "For all I know some of it might have come from the Castle originally. Somebody certainly took all the stuff that a keep is supposed to have. And the villagers aren't helping any other way. Maybe this way my orphans can come live here too."
"Don't put the cart before the horse, little miss," said Cú, remateralizing next to the last of the big sacks. "We need to deal with that Saber possessing your sister before we do anything else."
"Oh, Serendipity has a plan," said Merlin, with malicious glee. "We three will take her down while the children stay here. Ren tells me having her there from the start will make all the difference."
Cú gave Ren that determinedly neutral look again, and inwardly Ren quailed. She could tell that he didn't trust her, and that, she realized, was what she really wanted. She'd wanted a plan that wouldn't leave Cú feeling betrayed, and—
_I was a little worried that you'd… placed your faith in me for the wrong reasons. That would have pissed me off._
Ren slowly let out her breath as she remembered what Cú had said as she'd brushed his hair. She hadn't understood it then, but now a bit of his meaning glimmered at her.
Slowly she stood up. She needed time to think, so she announced, "Let's get everything inside and figure out how to make a meal. We can discuss my plan after we've all eaten."
"Sure," said Cú, and picked up a chair Ritsu had seated herself in with one hand. Ritsu squealed and held on tightly. Ren looked around and found a smaller sack of onions she could carry, while Jack lifted a barrel larger than herself over her head.
Once everything from the courtyard had been moved into the keep—mostly into the kitchen or the drafty great hall above—there was some confusion over who actually knew how to cook the rabbits that had already been skinned and sectioned by Jack under Ritsu's supervision.
Cú suggested the 'meat on a stick' approach. Merlin agreed that they might as well, since he could make anything taste like anything. Meanwhile, Ren wanted to prepare something more substantial—and delicious—for herself and the girls. But while she felt confident she could make a stew, she wasn't too thrilled at cooking on an open hearth using half-rusted iron pots, and Cú hadn't acquired much in the way of eating utensils.
Ritsu nudged a big rusted cast iron frying pan with her boot. "If I had actually finished cleaning any of these, I could at least make pancakes." She gave her guests a guilty look. "That's the only thing I really know how to cook."
Decisively, Ren said, "That'll be a start. We can have savory pancakes and then I can panfry the rabbit and we can wrap the meat in the pancakes."
"But the pan will take hours to clean," protested Ritsu.
Ren glanced at Merlin and Cú. "Must it?"
Merlin smiled in a distant wise-man way and said, "I think that's more the Sage of the Forest's department than mine."
Cú wrinkled his nose at the name but said, "Yeah, I can clean them up." He crouched down at the big hearth, scratching something into the stone with a knife. "All right, pile in all the rusted pots and then stand back." Once that had been done, he drew an angular shape in the air, and the hearth burst into flame.
Even standing back, the rush of heat felt like it crisped Ren's eyebrows. But when the flames died away a few moments later, everything in the hearth was fine white ash except the iron pots and pans.
"Let 'em cool a while," said Cú. "Then wipe the ash off and rub the rabbit fat all over them, or at least the one you're using tonight. Don't get the others wet before you can coat them with oil." He shrugged as the girls all looked at him wide-eyed. "Rusty metal is rusty metal. Do you want me to do anything else?"
Breathlessly, Ritsu said, "Firewood?"
As Cú nodded and left, Jack said, "I can chop more things." She pointed at Merlin. "What's he going to do?"
Merlin beamed. "I'm going to stay right here under the young lady's eye. Unless she'd rather I wander off and entertain myself?"
Ren gritted her teeth, because she actually had been planning on demanding he stay in the kitchen where she could keep an eye on him. But perhaps he was right. Cooking, keeping an eye on Jack, and figuring out her plan would take up enough of her attention; having Merlin lounging in the corner grinning at her would only make it worse.
"How about you wander off and do something useful instead?"
"Of course. Maybe I'll study the magic in the portal room," he said, executing a bow, and departed.
"Good riddance," muttered Jack, and found the bag of onions.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone