Chapter 4: The Wager

I dug in my pocket.

I had one copper penny to my name. I'd been saving it for a ribbon for two years.

I held out my hand for the chalk.

Dulcie gave it to me slowly.

At the very bottom of the slate I wrote "Clem," and next to it, "Never."

Then I put my penny on the shelf under the slate with the others.

The cook stopped chopping.

"Bold," she said.

"Stupid," said Dulcie.

"We'll see," I said.

"It's not a bet if you can just stay to win it," Dulcie said. "That's cheating."

"Then I'm cheating."

The cook laughed so hard she had to sit down on a flour sack.

They gave me a room up in the west tower.

It had a real bed, a real fire, and a window over the dead orchards.

I didn't know what to do with a whole room. I sat on the edge of the bed for an hour.

Then I went back down to the kitchen, because I didn't know what else to do with my hands.

"Out," said the cook. "Brides don't peel."

"This one does. What's for supper?"

"Turnip soup. It's always turnip soup."

I looked in her stores.

She had turnips, barley, a string of onions and half a ham hock gone hard.

"Do you have any thyme?"

She stared at me. "Somewhere. Why?"

By the time the bell rang for supper, we had barley with the ham hock boiled in it.

We had onions browned in the fat, and bread toasted on the coals.

She'd sworn at me four times. Each time she was smiling.

Supper was in the hall at the long table.

There were only five of us: the Beast at the head, Dulcie, the steward, the cook and me.

The steward was an old man with one eye who kept smiling at me because of his six days.

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