Chapter 1: The Kitchen
The hearth in Highever Castle’s kitchen threw a golden, grasping light across the flagstones. It was a cavern of warmth and industry, all stone and simmering copper, the air thick with the scent of roasting venison and the yeasty promise of rising bread. Nan moved through it like a current, her hands—knotted with veins but never trembling—plucking herbs, testing broth, her presence the steady heartbeat of the place.
The door to the yard thudded open, and a draft cut through the warmth, carrying the scent of cold steel and hard travel. He had to duck under the lintel.
Kerr was back from the raids. A young lad, but all of 6’4", 240 pounds. Tales of his battle prowess had reached Highever even before he did, whispers of a bear of a boy who moved like a shadow. One could only wonder what he would end up achieving. Now, he stood just inside the doorway, his frame seeming to swallow the light, his eyes adjusting from the autumn grey outside to this fiery interior.
“There you are,” Nan said, without looking up from the pile of carrots. Her voice was warm, a spoon stirring honey. “Your mother sent word. You’re with me until your head’s back out of the clouds and your hands remember something besides a sword hilt.”
He nodded, a slight, respectful dip of his chin. “Nan.”
He shrugged off his heavy outer tunic, hanging it on a peg, and rolled up the sleeves of his linen shirt. The forearms he revealed were corded muscle, mapped with pale, fresh scars. He found the basin, washed his hands methodically, and stood before her, waiting.
“Onions,” she said, pointing to a sack in the corner. “All of them. Fine dice.”
He set to work without a word. And she watched, her own hands never stopping. He was quiet and effective. Far too coordinated for a male his size. The knife, large in anyone else’s hand, looked like a toy in his. His movements were economical, precise. A swift rock-rock-rock and an onion was reduced to a perfect, tiny cube. He didn’t spill. He didn’t fumble. The pile grew with swift, silent efficiency.
The serving girls, Eline and Maida, giggled from where they were plucking a pheasant, their eyes wide and fastened on the ripple of Kerr’s shoulders as he worked. Nan clapped her hands once, sharp as a whip crack. “Eyes on your work, girls. Feathers in the broth and it’s you I’ll be boiling next.” They jumped, snickering subsiding into hushed whispers.
She did not need to be hard on him. He always loved her, was always so sweet, and didn’t need to be scolded. He was already so hard on himself. His concentration was like nothing she had seen; a wall of pure focus separating him from the room, his whole world the blade and the onion. He finished the sack and, without being asked, moved to the side of venison hanging near the cold locker. He butchered it flawlessly, separating joint from socket, carving neat red steaks from the haunch with an understanding of anatomy that was frankly unsettling in a kitchen.
He was just sweeping the trimmings into a bucket for the dogs when the side door from the barracks hall swung open and two of his father’s men-at-arms, Donnal and Rikkard, slouched in, looking for ale.
“Ho! The hero returns!” Donnal boomed, his voice too loud for the stone room. He clapped a hand on Kerr’s back. Kerr absorbed the blow without swaying, a faint smile touching his lips.
“No hero,” Kerr muttered, wiping his hands on a rag.
“Modest,” Rikkard laughed, dipping a cup into the small ale barrel. “Not what we heard. Heard you left a trail of bandits from the Coastlands to the Waking Sea that’ll fertilize the crops for a decade.”
Kerr shrugged, turning to scrub the butcher’s block. Nan pretended to be engrossed in her pastry.
“Aye, but that’s not the best tale, is it?” Donnal said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial grumble that carried perfectly in the quiet kitchen. “Remember after we took that watchtower? Cold, miserable night. We sent the young wolf here in to get warm with the Madame of the Pearl. Thought we’d have a laugh, you know? See what everyone struggles with the first time.”
Nan’s fingers stilled in the dough.
Rikkard snorted. “Aye. Joke was on us. Silda—the one with the crooked tooth, works the stables now—she told me the Madame herself came down at dawn looking like she’d been ridden through a war and loved every second of it. Said the lad kept her up all night.” He took a long drink, shaking his head with a kind of reverent disbelief. “Said he had her cumming until she passed out.”
A sudden, vivid, and entirely unwanted image flashed in Nan’s mind. Sweet Kerr? The boy who used to follow her, stealing honey cakes? Sure, he was formidable now, a mountain of a man. And he had always been very well endowed, even as a lad. She’d bathed him often enough as a child, seen him grow. Now that she thought about it, his cock was—her mind supplied the word—ridiculous. Hugely, impossibly so.
Heat flooded her cheeks. She shook her head sharply, as if to dislodge the thought from her skull. Embarrassment burned her ears. It was a soldier’s crude tale, nothing more. They exaggerated everything.
Kerr had finished scrubbing. He’d heard them, his back still turned, but his neck had gone a dull red. He said nothing, just hung the rag to dry with exacting care.
“Come on, lad,” Donnal said, his mood bright. “Leave the scullery work. Drink with us. You’ve earned it.”
Kerr looked at Nan, a question in his eyes. That simple deference, after what she’d just overheard, nearly undid her. She managed a nod, a tight smile. “Go on. You’ve done more than enough. Kitchen’s spotless.”
He gave her that slight, sweet bow again. “Thank you, Nan.”
Then he turned, and the three of them left, Donnal and Rikkard steering him out, their arms around his shoulders, praising him for a hero. The door swung shut behind them, cutting off their laughter.
The kitchen was suddenly, immensely quiet. Just the crackle of the fire and the slow bubble of the stew. Nan stared at the spot where he’d been standing, at the perfectly diced onions, the neatly stacked steaks, the spotless block. She placed her hands, dusted with flour, on the cool stone of the counter and let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. The warmth of the hearth felt different now, clinging to her skin. The image of the Madame, cumming until she passed out, echoed in the silent room, a rude ghost now haunting her pristine, orderly domain. She felt a confusing, protective ache for the sweet boy, and a sharp, unsettling curiosity about the man he had so clearly become.