Zaziphos Lake Soup

Defi considered his first impression of the lake town. "I thought it would be smaller."

Sarel made an acknowledging sound, watching the dockboys haul up baskets of zaziphos. "The arable area around the lake is small, and most of it is close to town; there are no outlying villages to spread the farmers. Then there's sable crab in the lake. Catching even a small one will earn a fisherman enough to feed his family for half a year. More fishermen than farmers here."

Once the dockboys finished, they loaded the baskets onto pullcarts and followed Sarel into the gravel-paved streets.

Defi took one look at the household of Sarel's usual buyer and immediately turned his feet to explore the town before she could induce him to stay. It was an orphanage, and sounded full to the brim with crying children.

"Summer fevers," he heard a man say to Sarel. He quickened his steps. He could feel Sarel's glare on his nape. He left her to the monstrous dangers without regret.

The town was very different from an Ontrean town. Ontrea built in stone and brick, pillars and towers rising high. The houses here were wood and straw, and the roofs curved in arches above houses not more than three levels above the ground. Most were built with only one or two levels. There was rarely stone in the town architecture and no evidence of brick. There was likely no quarry near, but the mud of the river was plentiful so why not use it to build?

A raft of voices suddenly rose, taking his attention from the architecture.

"…not buying without a guild certification, girl."

"Why would I need something so stupid?" demanded a rather young voice.

Defi peered past the houses. A small wharf, one of many in the town, was tucked between two lakeside houses, by a paved footpath that wended its way along the lakeside.

"I'll tell you this, you bring it to the guild and register it or I buy it for twenty klaud." He could recognize the tone of smug victory when he heard it.

"It's worth ten times more than that!"

The man grinned, leaning forward, and Defi froze at the face exposed to his sight. It was the man from the docks in Stahlchausses. Hot anger roiled through him. Did that mean that the pirate captain was here too?

"Not if I say it's not," he said. "You know why? Because you don't have a choice, and this is a buyer's market."

He breathed in. This man had not been part of the crew. Possibly only a factotum, a goat leading lambs to the slaughter, a procurer.

He breathed out. His anger chilled with every breath.

The man would not recognize him. He stepped forward, cleared his throat.

The two whirled.

There was a very large crab hung from the small girl's back. It was nearly bigger than her torso, and it was still alive, twitching in the woven grass string that held it immobile. She was trying to sell it?

A crab for twenty klauds?

That seemed a bit much.

This was the sable crab that Sarel mentioned then. It was of a dark coal color, spots of white only on the underside and parts of the claws. In that case, twenty klauds was too low.

Sarel said a small one would cost half a year's food. Garun once said that to feed three slaves cost two silver a year. That was a fifth of a whole gold finger. Marmon Chacort had exchanged one gold finger to five solstices. From that, he could logically surmise that half a year's food would be ten crescents or half a solstice. But the crab was not small. A whole solstice for it would likely be a justified price, wouldn't it? That was twenty times the price that this procurer was forcing on the girl.

"Who the Bridge-burner are you?" The girl eyed him warily.

She was barely half his age, Defi supposed from her stature. "I find myself craving crab for my next meal."

"Get lost," scoffed the man. "Like a mudboy would ever even see that kind of money, much less touch it."

Defi just looked at the girl calmly, ignoring the man.

"Did you hear me, mudgrubber?"

Defi supposed that was a reference to his skin. It was the tanned color of those that worked in the sun. Was he to be shamed about that?

The girl studied him a long while. "Alright," she said simply.

"Hoi!"

Defi gestured to the street and the girl went with only one look at the older man. He followed.

"Are you ignoring me?" The outrage was clear for all to hear.

A hand grabbed Defi's shoulder, pulled him back with a jerk. Turq nearly fell off.

Defi steadied the slime with one hand, then whirled and planted his foot in the man's stomach. The man wheezed and fell. Defi allowed himself a cold smile.

"Come," he said to the girl. "Your friends also."

The girl's breath hitched, but she slowly turned and signalled to the other two children watching from under a bush. They moved uncertainly to Defi's side.

He smiled at them all and led the way to the orphanage.

He could barely wait. The sable crab was famous, wasn't it? That meant it was more delicious than any lesser crab. It was nearly midday, and Sarel was conveniently in a place with a kitchen. She would like to cook this famous crab, surely?

*

*

"Sarel, I've found a crab."

It was only through narrow-eyed study and weeks of proximity that Sarel could see the excitement bubbling in the boy's voice.

He was pointing at three grubby, malnourished children hovering uncertainly in the doorway of Lergen's already child-infested house. A crab? She eyed the children, who looked nothing like crab.

"If one of them is the crab," she said sardonically, "I'll cook them for you."

"You will?"

He sounded thrilled, in that stoic way of his. She squinted at him. Had he fallen into the river again and struck his head on a rock? Did that slime of his accidentally suck out his brains?

"Yes," she said slowly, "soup sounds just the thing."

He waved the children inside, to her irritation. This was her disease-free room. "I've never had crab soup before."

She fixed him with a flat look. She had thought he was overly enthusiastic about her food, but equating people with food was never a good sign. That path led to cackling and Imperial oversight. "Defi."

That was the moment the disease-carrier in the center of the trio pulled a mid-weight sable crab from behind her and put it on the table.

She stared. "This isn't the season for crab."

The girl and the older of the two boy children snorted. She glowered at them. They huddled closer together.

"What do you think?" Defi was looking at her, eyes expectant.

She mentally gave up. Cooking was soothing. After being in this place for an hour, her skin was already crawling. "Soup. Why not? It's been a while since I had sable crab."

He nodded in satisfaction. Somehow that irritated her. She caught his head in a vice-grip between elbow and arm. The slime bounced to sit on the kitchen table. "Now why would you bring these brats here?"

"They were carrying my crab!"

That was the reason there were now more snot-nosed noise-makers in her vicinity?! She squeezed his head tighter.

A knock sounded on the door. It was in fact still open, and the professional-looking people peered in without reserve. The one in the lead saw the crab and brightened.

Sarel had a bad feeling.

"Did you buy this crab?"

"No," Defi's voice was slightly muffled.

The official looked taken aback. "You didn't? But I see it right here!"

Ah. The fishers guild. The three children inched into a corner, looking worried. The picture became clearer to her. Selling sable crab was regulated in the Lowpool. She nearly scoffed. Bloody forsaken guilds.

Sarel released Defi and leaned back against her chair, curious how he would deal with it.

"It was a gift."

"A what?"

"These three wanted to be introduced to the orphanage, and when we came here, decided to gift the crab to the rest of the children in the place."

Sarel saw the girl about to object and sent a quelling look. The girl subsided reluctantly, a rebellious air around her.

"That's not what we were told."

"And was the person who told you listening at the windows of this house?"

A man shouldered his way inside. Sarel frowned. An occasional dockworker, if she remembered correctly. "You said you were going to buy it!"

"When did I say that?"

"I heard you!"

"Really, because all I remember saying was that I wanted crab for my next meal."

The man's mouth opened. Closed.

"I explained to the girl that she needed papers from the guild before she could sell but, as she did not want the hassle at her age, she decided that eating it with the children here would be of more immediate benefit. Summer fevers, you know. We were discussing soup with Sarel when you entered. Without invitation."

The chill in the boy's words was not immediately evident due to the façade of courtesy that he all but radiated into the space around him. Sarel wished he would stop doing that. Even with sun-tanned skin and ordinary clothes, this particular overly-courteous mask and too practiced elocution gave the game away.

Sarel studied the dockworker again. She had not seen the boy this angry since the first day. Who was this person and what had he done to Defi? She resolved to keep an eye on him.

"It was necessary, you see, as some unscrupulous soul was trying to get her to sell it to him for twenty klauds or he would bring her to the guild."

"What? I said nothing about bringing her to the guild!"

The guild official's face went through a raft of angry emotions, ended in eyeing the dockworker in distaste. The two behind him had lost the geniality in their expressions.

The man saw these expressions and his face grew ugly. He stared at Defi and said, lowly. "We are not done, you and I."

He pushed his way outside.

Sarel saw Defi's eyes flash momentarily.

The official turned to them stiffly. "I apologize. We were misinformed. The crab is of course, viable to be given as a gift to the children. In celebration for these three joining the orphanage, I imagine? I will report it so."

He nodded at them all and left.

There was silence for a moment.

Sarel sighed audibly, made for the inner door. "I'll get Lergen to bring out his biggest pot."

"Wait," said the girl-child, who had paled as the guild and the idiot entered. "I…the crab was…"

"I hear your relatives left you with one solstice, in care of this orphanage, to be used to benefit your future," said Defi calmly. "The people running the place would be happy to give you an accounting."

The girl stared at him. "Yes."

Her companions sighed in relief. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Defi looked away.

Lergen appeared in the door with a large pot. "I hear we have crab?"

She rolled her eyes at him, almost childishly. How long had he been listening? She couldn't be bothered.

Her mind was already going through available ingredients. Lergen had salted some fish recently, hadn't he? There were the fruits, too.

Zaziphos Lake Soup, she contemplated. It sounded good.

*

There were ten children in the orphanage. The added three certainly did not make a dent in the fact that every corner Sarel could see was crawling with children.

The dinner of vitality-rich soup only made the situation worse, as the children started recovering from the summer fever and rushing energetically about the place.

Defi took a seat at the table and sprawled over it with a familiar air of exhaustion. Turq the slime bumped him in commiseration. "You come here every sennight?"

The disbelief in his voice soothed her. At last, there was someone who understood. She hummed her agreement, in a better mood.

"You've made an enemy," she murmured. Are you sure, she did not ask.

"He was enemy long before this day," he said quietly. "I merely made certain he was informed."

Informed? She nearly laughed. The boy's stance on honor could be strange at times. "I'm not fishing you out of the river twice."

"If I wait at the banks of the river, will my enemies float past?"

"It's 'live'," she said tartly.

"What?"

"Do not pursue enmity, but live a life by the river long enough to watch the bodies of your enemies float by."

He was silent.

They watched Turq methodically roll over remnants of sable crab and fish. It was slower than normal. Defi offered it a scoop of the delicate green roe rarely found in sable crabs.

Sarel sighed. "That roe is more expensive than the crab itself, you..."

Didn't he know that the roe had the highest concentration of vitality in a sable crab?

"Turq is my good-luck charm. Didn't you say I was lucky to buy such a wonderful crab for only a solstice? Turq deserves the best food."

Oh well. Let the youth be idiots, didn't someone say? Let them be idiots in the present and see wisdom grow in the future.

The slime glowed as it finished the roe. She leaned back in reflex, to see the also bewildered look under the watchful serenity of Defi's face.

The glow split. And then there were two slimes on the table.

One was obviously Turq. The other was a greener, smaller slime, with a smattering of black spots down its laterals.

They stared.

"I'm sorry," Defi said at last. "Next time, I'll feed them outside?"

She stared at him blankly, shook her head. The luck of idiots was unfathomable.

**

Chapter End

**

*

Notes:

In Ascharon, the cost to feed a single person for 1 year (364 days) to a healthy standard (3000 calories a day including all basic food groups) using common ingredients is about 40 bronze klauds.

To feed a family of 5 for a year (2 adults, 3 children) to the same standard costs around 1 gold solstice.

Disclaimer: These calculations are only an approximation based on current market prices for common ingredients. As the average Ascharon family often grows their own food and also at times purchases mystic ingredients, the actual cost to feed the average family fluctuates.