The Reckless Oath We Made - Bryn Greenwood Page 0,53

which was a goddamn bow and a bag of arrows.

“You seriously killed three pheasants and the Easter bunny with a bow and arrows?” I said. Gentry looked down at his homemade instruments of death. Was he embarrassed?

“Oh, ay. Sir Gentry is a skilled hunter,” Rosalinda said.

“I’m impressed.” I really was. Less so with the actual dead things, but that he’d got them dead with arrows. I was even more impressed that he was the one who cleaned them, brought them back to the fire without their fur and feathers, and put them on a spit to roast. I’d worried that might turn out to be huswifery, and I didn’t want to skin and gut a rabbit. My people are citified white trash. We’re more familiar with opening dented cans of off-brand Spam from the food bank than skinning varmints.

Once the animal parts were cooking, Rosalinda put some actual soup on to cook, and Gentry chopped up some vegetables. I hoped it would turn out to be edible, because I’d apparently time traveled too late in the day to get breakfast.

While we waited for lunch to cook, Gentry sat down beside me on the log bench I’d been occupying all morning.

“Thou art well, Lady Zhorzha?” he said.

I was tempted to answer with Rosalinda’s “Oh, ay,” but I didn’t want him to think I was making fun of her. Even though I was.

“I’m okay. Thanks. And thanks for this, um, dress thing, I guess. I mean, thanks for sure, but I can’t remember what it’s called. I’m gonna shut up now.”

“’Tis a cotehardie. And hearen thy voice me liketh. Thou seemest well,” he said down into his chest. “Wouldst eat of an apple?”

“Oh god, yes. I’m starving.” I was so hungry I couldn’t even be polite about it.

“Dame Rosalinda offered thee no bread to break thy fast?”

He didn’t make me answer, because it was obviously no. He took a knife off his belt and an apple out of his pocket. He cut it in half, flicked the core into the fire, and pared a slice off for me. While I ate, he kept cutting slices and passing them to me on the tip of his knife.

“You don’t want any?” I said, as I scarfed another piece.

“Nay, lady. I regret thou wast famished this day. ’Twas not my wish.”

“It’s okay. I’m fine.”

Right then it was true. I ate the whole apple, and I sat in front of the fire, not thinking about anything. After the meat was cooked, everything got ladled into bowls, and I could see that our medieval midday meal was ramen. Seriously. Ramen noodles in soup with grilled vegetables and meat on top.

Since there wasn’t a table, I spent a few minutes watching Gentry’s technique, which was resting the bowl on his leg while he used chopsticks for noodles and things. In between he picked the bowl up and drank the soup.

“So, did they have chopsticks in medieval times?” I said.

“I should think in Asia they did, though certainly neither Saxon nor Dane had them. We take an ecumenical approach to our reenactment,” Edrard said, which didn’t exactly answer my question and added a vocabulary word I didn’t know.

“I thank thee, Dame Rosalinda, for this meal,” Gentry said.

“Nay. I thank thee, Sir Gentry, for having secured meat for our soup,” she said.

“I declare this mystery meat ramen most excellent,” Edrard said.

“It’s not exactly a mystery,” I said, even though I’d been trying not to think about that.

“A staple of medieval Japanese cuisine: phabbit ramen. And now for a recitation. Things which Sir Gentry hath killed and eaten, parts one through nineteen.” Edrard hummed a little note and then half recited, half sang: “Pheasant, rabbit, bison, songbird. Prairie chicken, lesser and greater. Catfish, trout, carp, duck, duck, goose. Rattlesnake, quail, vole, elk, deer, moose. Unicorn, selkie, ogre, dragon. Pegasus, phoenix, elf, and griffin.”

“Nay, Sir Edrard. Thou makest me a great villain. I have ne killed ne eaten so many creatures,” Gentry said, but he was laughing. That was new. He was normally pretty serious around me.

After lunch, I got to see the inside of Mud Manor, when I helped Gentry wash dishes. It was sort of half hut, half trailer park. The inside walls were made of the same mud-looking stuff as the outside, except they were painted white. There was a fridge and a kitchen sink, but no stove, unless I counted the fireplace. Helping Gentry mostly involved me standing there with my sleeves sewn closed while he washed and