Interlude: The Cake and Ledger

Interlude

The Cake and Ledger

The inn was delightfully quiet. The morning sun was creeping in, slow and steady. Roen sat in the common room, counting the minutes, not for the bread to be ready but for a certain boy to come down. He was, though, unequivocally opposed to admitting that.

The August heat had pressed in, thick and heavy. The kitchen was already sweating, so Roen had propped all possible doors open with a stone, considered a wind ward at the entrance to help the air move, but decided against it at some point. A cake waited on the counter, a large version of the cardamom honeycakes that Milo loves, the cake pieces larger and cut flat and layered in three rows with frosting, thick dark mountain bee honey dripping down the sides, walnuts scattered on top, blackberries circling the edge like a crown.

It was clearly too much cake for the six people currently in the inn. He knew that, of course, but it absolutely, completely didn’t matter.

Bess came in from the back at some point in the early morning. She stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, looked at the cake, then at Roen. She put her basket down and crossed her arms.

“That,” she asked, “is for one boy?”

“It’s for everybody at the inn.”

“There are, she counted on her fingers, six of us in this inn right now, and one of us is a child. That’s a summer festival cake.”

“It’s nothing more than a generous breakfast.”

“It’s the most generous breakfast anyone’s seen in this kitchen. And it’s not even Hearthmother’s Day* yet.”

He kept his eyes on the frosting, which was slightly, in his eyes uneven along the side, and nudged it back with a large flat knife.

Bess watched him do it for a long second, smiled softly, picked up her basket and went to the wash basin, saying nothing else.

Sera came down at seven.

She was carrying something wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine. She brought it through into the kitchen and set it on the chair Roen had left clear without thinking about it.

She looked at the cake.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“It’s just a cake.”

“Three layers, the honey from the mountains, walnuts…This is what a rich noble child would have.”

“It seemed right, he deserves it.”

“It is right, and he does.” She took the kettle off the hook and set it on the hearth. “I bought him a pen as well. From the clerk in Aldham who does the brass nibs and the black lacquer handles. I told myself I wouldn’t, and then I did.”

“Show me.”

She undid the wrapper. Inside was a small ledger in dark green leather of the highest quality with pages already ruled fine, a ribbon marker sewn into the spine, and a slim pen wrapped in cloth beside it. The ledger was thin enough for Milo’s hand to hold open one-handed. And the pen was the perfect weight to hold steady without tiring the hand out.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

She then opened the ledger to the first page and slid her fingers over the page to an instruction she had written:

For Milo. So the numbers have somewhere proper to live. — S.

Roen read it twice. He took the pen from her and added, in his own slower hand, underneath:

Do not use this for goat expenses.

Sera looked at it, then looked at him, at his small grin full of self-satisfaction.

“Roen, you ruined my inscription.”

“I improved it.” He said, crossing his arms. With a little, confident smile on his face.

“You ruined the depth of it…”

“He’ll laugh.”

She made a sound that was almost exactly that and tied the paper loosely back around the ledger.

• ••

Milo stumbled down the stairs later in the morning, barefoot, one sleeve still bunched, hair smashed flat on one side. He walked towards the bar, stopped, and blinked at the cake. Looked at Roen, his eyes then shifted to Sera, and back at the cake. Like he was trying to figure out if it was real.

“You’re late,” Roen said.

“For breakfast?”

“For your birthday. Happy birthday, Milo.”