Page 4 of The Chef

By the time he had the sauce set aside to simmer, the quadretti was done. Char used a slotted spoon to remove the pasta, halving it into two portions, which he split into the two skillets with the meat.

“That smells...” Roe sniffed, inhaling through her nose for a while, then grinned. “It’s gonna be better than the oatmeal.”

“I hope so,” Char replied. “It would be tastier with fresh ingredients—tomatoes, garlic, porcinis, and bellas—but I think it will still be edible.” Some red wine for the sauce would also help add complexity to the flavor profile, but Char was impressed by the variety of ingredients he did have to work with. He didn’t have to forage, and he wasn’t butchering freshly caught meat, so he wasn’t going to complain.

He gripped the skillet handle and lifted it at an angle, jerking his wrist to make the ingredients flip and mix together. He switched to the second skillet and did the same.

“Isn’t that hot?” Roe asked, reaching out to touch the handle of the first skillet. She yanked her hand away with a hiss before she touched the metal.

Char looked down at his bare hands and shrugged. “I’m a level one chef,” he replied, which should have been enough explanation. At Roe’s blank look, echoed by a number of the fighters around them, he continued. “To reach level one, you have to master the use of magic in cooking.” A chef could be capable of making the most complex, sophisticated dishes, but if they couldn’t master the use of their magic—something inherent in every living creature—the highest they could ever aspire was a level two. “I graduated as a level one, tier five chef and completed my apprenticeship, so I’m a tier three now. Working as an underchef for my cousin will help me pass the tests to achieve tier two, I hope. You have to be tier two of any level to open your own restaurant.”

“I don’t recommend eating at a restaurant run by a level five chef,” Captain Fendle cut in. Level five demarcated an entry student and didn’t even have tiers, but Char got the point he was making. “But eating at a restaurant run by a level two chef—which is the highest a very accomplished chef without magic can get—is an experience.”

“And probably really damn expensive,” Jeorgie added, making everyone laugh.

“If Char’s a level one, doesn’t that mean we’re getting really, really spoiled right now?” Roe asked.

“That’s exactly what it means,” Fendle said. “Don’t get used to it. I doubt our next assignment will include co-opting a chef in the middle of the woods.” He clapped Roe on the shoulder before turning to Char. “How much longer?”

Char stirred the sauce, which had thickened enough he would call it palatable. Not really a proper tomato sauce, but it wasn’t runny, watery soup, so it would have to do. Char poured it over the contents of both skillets, gave them another flip to mix, and then looked at the group.

“Who has the plates and forks?”

Near-absolute silence filled the clearing for the next ten minutes. Only the occasional scrape of a fork on plate, or the slurp of someone licking sauce off their lips could be heard, which only served to punctuate how little other noise there was. Plates had been brought out to the sentries, in addition to the fighters around the fire stuffing their own faces.

Char was pleased with the result. The peas had fully rehydrated, so they gave a pleasant pop when he bit down, the meat provided a nice chew, the salt gave his taste buds a needed bit of zing, and the sauce, while looser than he would have liked, complemented the overall flavors and provided a tart acidity to combat the otherwise plainness of the pasta. As he feared, the dish lacked for wine, and a variety of mushroom types would have elevated it from good to excellent, but Char cleared his plate as efficiently as the rest of the group, regardless. He still finished before the rest, since he didn’t take the extra time to lick his plate clean.

Char left his dishes adjacent to the fire—starting the stack of dirty items to be cleaned—and dug through his bags again. He pulled out the large diffuser and a pouch of one of his specially made travel teas. Dried orange peel for extra vitamins, chamomile for sleep, rosehips to alleviate any saddle soreness, and hibiscus for more vitamins and a punch of flavor. He filled a smaller pot with the still-boiling water from the larger one. By the time he set the small pot down on the ground and hooked the diffuser in place, the water had cooled to the exact temperature for herbal tea.

“If you bring out the cups, we can have some tea before bed. The rest of the water in the big pot is sanitized if you have any canteens or water skins that don’t have purification circles on them,” he added. “I’ll cover it overnight, so whatever we don’t use now, I’ll make breakfast with in the morning.”

While the tea steeped, he moved the big pot off the fire and the grill onto an open patch of dirt to cool. Then, he tossed a couple more logs onto the fire now that the light from crackling flames was more important than the controlled heat of burning coals.

“Lemis, Yaroub, you’re on KP tonight, right? You get dishwashing duties,” Fendle said. “You can have your tea when you’re done.”

Ralph and Clarise didn’t grumble, much, as they got up and collected dishes. Char certainly wasn’t going to complain about not having to scrub skillets in the dark. Instead, he doled out tea into eagerly held cups and relaxed by the heat of the fire, enjoying the first twinkle of stars overhead and the growing chirps of crickets and frogs out in the dark.

*

THE NEXT THREEdays passed in exactly the same way. After a quick breakfast at dawn, they spent the day riding, following game trails and a path only Captain Fendle appeared to know. Lunch was even faster than breakfast, just enough time to rest and water the horses, before it was back in the saddle until the sun started to set. They stopped whenever they found enough space to camp, at which point Char got to work.

Variety wasn’t really an option when supplies were limited to what the donkey could carry. He used cubed potatoes, diced meat, spices, and specially formulated travel oil for one meal. Quadretti, oil, sundried tomatoes and jerky softened for a half hour in water and spices, then seared directly on the grill for another. Even though he was forced to use the same ingredients, Char changed the flavor profile with the spices. Using tarragon instead of rosemary, for example, rounded out the end result in a completely different way. He had plenty of time to meal plan during the day, with nothing else to think about during the long rides. For the third night, he planned to make a hash of parboiled, diced potatoes fried in oil with a handful of every dried vegetable they had rehydrated and tossed in. And some of the meat, of course—since he had a feeling some of the fighters might mutiny if he fed them a vegetarian dish—which he would probably have to mince so it melded in with the hash. He wasn’t looking forward to mincing salt-dried meat with the less than stellar camping knives, but he would make it work.

They finally found a clearing on the third evening. Char dropped off his pony and the donkey at the picket line, grabbed his supplies, and went to the center of the clearing to start the fire. Ralph was on kitchen duty again—they rotated nightly—and was his usual gruff self as he dropped off a pile of wood. Roe had already taken the two smaller pots to the river, by now used toChar wanting the big pot filled with water, by the time Char got the fire going.

“If you can leave that for a moment, I would appreciate a word,” Captain Fendle suddenly said.

Char glanced at the fire, which was burning merrily and would need time to burn down, then nodded.

“Sure. What’s up?”

Char followed Fendle across the clearing to the edge of the trees where they had a bit of privacy.

“Tomorrow evening we’re going to reach Lake Estaral. My second reminded me you would need to know why we’re traveling through the woods fighting mercenary companies if you were going to be part of our mission, even inadvertently.” He trailed off, his hazel eyes shrewd as he studied Char, the intelligence in the mind working behind them clear to see. “You’re really not curious at all, are you? The only time I’ve ever seen you show any emotion is when someone says something negative about your cooking.”

Char flinched, drawing back a step and ducking his head down. He ought to be used to this. Phrases like that from partners, friends, colleagues, and classmates littered his history. “Do you care about anything but cooking?” or “I don’t even have to ask what’s more important to you: me or cooking. Obviously, it’s the damned food.” Char tried. He really did. But cooking was his life and finding time to fit other people in around that was difficult. That left his partners and friends feeling slighted, and so he generally spent his time alone. Just because he often preferred his own company didn’t mean the words didn’t hurt.

Cooking brought him joy, so he focused on that and tried his best to let everything else flow over and around him. Apparently, that was about to bite him in the ass again.

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