Read Online Valdemar 03 - [Collegium 01] - Foundation by Mercedes Lackey - Free Book Online Page B

little table off to the side and well away from all the activity, then went over to the hearth and fetched a bowl waiting there, keeping warm.
    When he brought it back to Mags, the boy saw it was full of porridge with little dark things scattered over the top of it. “What’s those?” he asked, a bit apprehensively.
    â€œCurrants. Dried ones. They’re sweet, you’ll like them, and they are good for you.”
    Reassured that they weren’t rabbit droppings or something else that didn’t belong in food, Mags dug in. The Healer was right, he did like the currants, he liked them a very great deal. Half the time the porridge he’d been fed by Master Cole hadn’t even been made with salt; this had been sweetened with honey as well as the berries.
    While he ate, the Healer talked in an undertone to the cook, who was a large, balding man with enormous biceps. In fact, so far, Mags hadn’t seen any women here at all. Which was interesting, because Master Cole had very firm ideas about what was “man’s work” and what was not, which meant there would have to be an awful lot of men doing “women’s work” here if there were no women about.
    :Cole Pieters is wrong about most things.: Dallen sounded amused. :And the few he is right about, he is right entirely by accident.:
    Mags nearly choked on his porridge, which caused one of the kitchen staff to make a detour, fetch a mug and pour it full of something, and plunk it down next to Mags, all without missing a beat in his other task. Mags looked at it. It wasn’t water . . . it was hot.
    :Herb tea. You will like it. Be careful not to burn your mouth.:
    The novel sensation of drinking something hot—and flavored—was startling, and a pleasure he had never expected. For that matter, being able to drink water that was fresh and clean, not out of the sluice and full of silt, or stale from sitting in a mildewed bucket all day, or metallic-tasting mine water, had been an unanticipated pleasure. The only time he had ever been able to drink clean water was when he had escaped for a bit to hunt wild food and got a drink from the stream where he went to hunt cress.
    The food was doing more than just fill his stomach, it was filling his senses. His nose was so full of the aroma of the tea, all sweet and green, that he felt as if he was floating in it. The porridge had left the flavor of honey and currants in his mouth. And this all seemed to be waking up his thoughts, too. He found himself with a newly-aroused smoldering anger at Cole Pieters. How hard would it have been to give the kiddies clean water to drink? How hard would it have been to give them hot water to drink in the winter? It didn’t even need any flavoring in it, and the fires were going for the cooking already. That simple device would have cost nothing, yet would have made such a difference. . . .
    :Cole Pieters is a vile, cruel man,: Dallen said, his thoughts gone cold and hard. :And no one was aware just how vile and cruel he is until now. He will be dealt with.:
    Dallen gave him nothing more, shutting off the thought, leaving Mags wondering just what “dealt with” meant.
    Mags was carefully scraping the last little bit of the porridge out of the bowl and sucking the last of the sweetness off the spoon when Herald Jakyr came ambling into the kitchen. He was immediately greeted not only by the Healer, but by the cook as well, and his presence evoked smiles from the rest of the staff. He seemed to be a great favorite—the helper in charge of the bread pressed a roll hot from the oven on him, the one in charge of soup begged him to taste it, and the cook himself carved a bit off a haunch of bacon and fried it then and there, to add to the roll. Mags was ignored, which was exactly the way he liked it. He sat and sipped his tea while the adults discussed him as if he was not there.
    â€œThe boy’s not fit to travel, Jakyr,” the