He Feasts Forever Read online

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  He Feasts Forever – Lora Gray

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Genevieve Undead’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  He Feasts Forever

  by Lora Gray

  In the king’s kitchens, the hearth fires roared. Row upon row of lambs sizzled on spits, their small bodies skinned and dripping. Racks of suckling pigs, their throats knotted with garlic and thyme, roasted high above the coals. Sauces simmered. Stews roiled. In the hazy dimness, snug in the flesh-sweet smoke, the kitchen boys scurried, a clattering chaos of chopping and shouting, cursing and laughter.

  There was nowhere else Dedric would rather have been.

  He was smiling, slicing a tray of goose livers with Milo, the slaughterer, when the kitchen door slammed open with a burst of fresh air and light.

  Hodge hulked into the doorway like a thunderhead, a stag draped over his shoulders, the aborted stumps of its young antlers rattling against the door frame, its broken neck swivelling. Even with the light at his brother’s back, Dedric could see the irritated, impatient set of Hodge’s jaw. For an uneasy beat, the kitchen stilled. Hodge may have been the king’s favourite huntsman, but his temper was as vicious as his marksmanship. It was an unspoken rule that he only delivered his kills early in the morning when everyone but Dedric or the occasional, unfortunate scullion was still asleep.

  Milo elbowed Dedric. ‘Best see what Hodge wants,’ he whispered. ‘Before Old Poldrake crosses him.’

  Dedric glanced over his shoulder to where Old Poldrake stood at the main hearth. The royal chef’s arms were folded. A scowl puckered his jowls and he puffed his chest as he faced Hodge across the hazy kitchen. The king had been gone for months, leading his armies and fighting for the glory and honour of the realm, and Old Poldrake was intent on making his victorious homecoming an event to remember. Every dish was carefully curated, every moment of the preparation meticulously timed. Hodge’s appearance was unscheduled and Old Poldrake’s temper rivalled Hodge’s when the rhythm of his kitchen was compromised.

  A fight between the two of them would do nobody any good.

  Dedric tentatively raised his hand. Old Poldrake’s gaze snapped between him and his brother. With a small snort, Old Poldrake gave Dedric a reluctant nod and then shouted for everyone to get back to work.

  Dedric murmured an apology as he stood, the goose liver slipping, wet and plump, from his fingertips onto the tray. Milo simply shrugged and began slicing it himself. It wasn’t the first time Dedric had been forced to intervene when it came to his older brother.

  Wiping his hands on his apron, Dedric hurried across the kitchen, dodging a pair of scullions scrubbing a splotch of red mud from the tiles beside the door. Outside, the sun was thin, the sky a bright wash of amethyst. Dedric squinted against it as he closed the door behind himself.

  Without pretext, Hodge grunted and moved to shrug the dead deer into Dedric’s arms. ‘For the feast,’ he said.

  Dedric stepped back and shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

  Hodge’s expression sharpened. Dedric knew that look all too well. It meant a clean shot. Or a slap. Or a fist to the gut.

  ‘The larder is full, Hodge,’ Dedric continued quickly, his voice cracking. ‘There’s no space to be had in the smoke house or the kitchens. Old Poldrake is working us sun up to sun down. Nobody will have time to cook it properly.’

  Hodge sneered and crowded Dedric against the closed kitchen door. He was a full head taller and nearly twice as broad as Dedric and his bulk blocked out the sun as he leaned in. The dead stag’s head swung between them, the gamey smell of blood-wet fur smothering Dedric like a damp blanket. He could see himself reflected in the deer’s dark eye, small and cringing against the door, the inky pupil tracking the anxious hitch of his shoulders.

  ‘Then make time, little brother,’ Hodge said. ‘Do you know where I’ll be sitting at the feast?’

  Dedric peeled his gaze away from the stag’s eye and shook his head.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll be at his majesty’s right hand.’ Hodge grinned, but the nasty curve of his lip made the joke sour. ‘Perhaps he’s going to gift me a cup of royal wine. Royal. Wine. Dedric.’ Hodge poked his finger between Dedric’s eyes to emphasise each word. ‘Have you ever even seen royal wine? Red as blood? Sweet and dark? It will be my reward for my loyalty and service to the kingdom. When was the last time the king offered you a cup of royal wine?’

  ‘N-never.’

  ‘That’s right. Never. Because I’m the king’s best huntsman. And what are you? A cook. So do your duty and cook.’ Hodge slugged the deer unceremoniously into Dedric’s arms.

  Dedric staggered, loose bone and wet fur shoving him against the door as his brother strode away from him and across the courtyard.

  Dedric looked down at the dead stag, heavy as a sleeping child against him, its neck twisted round, fur pale as cream. Its mouth was parted. A fly crawled over the pink of its tongue. Its eyes were baleful and cold.

  He tried not to think about the way they seemed to follow him as he went back inside.

  It was well after midnight when Dedric startled awake. The raucousness of the daytime kitchen had been replaced by lonesome clanks as a handful of the youngest spit boys tended the long-roasting meat. From where he was on the opposite side of the huge room, Dedric could barely hear their sleepy murmurs.

  Butchering his brother’s stag had taken longer than he’d expected and by the time he’d finished the duties Old Poldrake had assigned him, Dedric had already been droop-eyed and yawning. Still, he hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and he stood quickly from the corner he’d slumped into, embarrassed; but the younger boys were far enough away from him that none of them seemed to have noticed.

  With a sigh, Dedric returned to the butcher block where he’d been working. He’d already parcelled the stag’s body and steeped the choicest cuts into a marinade to tenderise them. The tang of it pinched saliva from the corners of Dedric’s mouth. He considered pressing a headcheese as well, though it would have been ambitious considering the time he had. He turned the stag’s disconnected head over in his hands, the spine slithering across the cutting board. How best to boil it to softness? How best to scrape out the tongue and pare away the cheeks? But every time he caught the stag’s eyes, wet and gummy in the flickering light, the air felt somehow too thick to breathe.

  Dedric bit back a wave of uneasiness and shook his head, moving to the small hearth where he was boiling the stag’s bones to broth. The scent of marrow and cloves wafted up to meet him as he stirred it, and it was then that Dedric realised he wasn’t alone in his corner of the kitchen.

  Tucked into the shadows between the hearth and the butcher block, was a small boy. For a moment, he was so still that Dedric thought he was a dream clinging to the edges of his exhausted brain. But no, that pale shape was most definitely a boy. His skinny knees were pulled tight to his chest; his round face was upturned. His eyes, glistening and dark as the young stag’s, peered at him with such unblinking intensity that Dedric had to fight the urge to back away.

  Dedric shook himself. He was overworked and his imagination was clearly getting the better of him. It was just a little boy. What harm could he possibly be?

  ‘What are you doing back there?’ he asked, kneeling down to better see him.

  The boy’s eyes followed him, but he didn’t speak.

  ‘Are you one of the new scullions?’ Dedric asked. ‘You shouldn’t be here unsupervised.’

  The boy didn’t move.

  Dedric’s belly curled and the hairs o
n the back of his neck prickled. He worked the moisture back into his mouth. ‘What is your name?’

  The boy simply stared and Dedric felt like he’d been pinned by those eyes, wide and bottomless, urging him to look back. No boy should have had eyes like that. They were wild eyes. Animal eyes.

  Dedric stood quickly and made a show of brushing off his apron as if he could convince himself he wasn’t as unnerved as he felt. It was just a boy. Just a boy. ‘I suppose I’ll have to fetch Old Poldrake, then, won’t I? He hates untended children fiddling about in his kitchen. Why, the last one who–’

  ‘Don’t you remember me?’ The boy’s voice slid over Dedric like cold air in a draughty room.

  Dedric fought a shiver and cleared his throat. ‘So you are one of the new scullions. Though I can’t say I recall having met you before.’

  The boy’s eyes narrowed. ‘We’ve met.’

  Dedric tried to tell himself that the malice in the boy’s expression was a trick of the light. ‘Where?’

  ‘The Eastern Road.’

  Dedric frowned. ‘The Eastern Road?’ The bone broth bubbled fitfully and he gave it a quick stir. The stag’s bones clinked softly against the cast iron.

  The boy flinched, his attention flickering to the pot for a quick moment as he tugged his legs closer to his body. ‘I was with my family,’ he said. ‘My mother. My father. My sister.’

  ‘You came here to apprentice?’

  ‘No.’ The boy’s voice was brittle as he looked towards the stag’s head on the butcher block, dark, unblinking eyes fixed on dark, unblinking eyes. ‘I was lost.’

  Dedric gripped the spoon tightly. ‘We should tell Old Poldrake. Perhaps he’ll know where your family…’

  The boy’s gaze moved slowly back to Dedric and, yes, there was malice there, sharp as a cleaver. ‘They’re dead. They died on the Eastern Road. You don’t remember?’

  ‘I have never travelled the Eastern Road.’ There had never been a reason to leave the castle. Dedric was perfectly happy here in the kitchens surrounded by his friends and the beautiful chaos of the feasts, familiar smells and sounds. It was comfortable. It was home.

  But there, niggling at the edge of his thoughts, was a memory, a watery impression of a golden road stretching out before him. It was just a single, hazy vision. He couldn’t remember much else. He couldn’t recall much of his past at all, he realised with a jolt. Just this castle. This kitchen. Before that, nothing.

  The room felt unsteady around him. The floor wavered beneath his feet. Sweat blossomed on Dedric’s forehead and upper lip. He felt clammy. Sick. And that boy was still staring at him, swaying in time with the spoon Dedric was using to stir the bone broth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

  ‘Dedric!’

  Dedric started so badly, he dropped the spoon. Broth splattered into the coals, the fire flaring and sputtering. One of the spit boys had finally spotted him from across the room. Dedric’s heart was thundering so loudly in his ears, he almost didn’t hear him.

  ‘That the stag your brother killed?’ the spit boy asked. ‘I heard tell it was a good one. You roasting it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dedric’s voice shook in spite of his efforts. He opened his mouth to ask if anyone knew anything about this strange, orphaned boy crouched in the shadows beside him, but when Dedric turned, the boy was gone.

  Dedric was gathering herbs at the edge of the field, where the courtyard met the wasteland, when he saw his brother emerge from the forest. He watched him for several seconds before gathering the courage to speak.

  ‘Hodge!’

  ‘What?’ Hodge’s voice was pinched as he turned to look at Dedric from across the grey field, the castle towering behind him.

  Dedric was certain Hodge had seen him crouched in the tall grass. He was equally certain by the way Hodge’s hand tightened around his bow that he didn’t want to talk. His quiver was full and he was clearly on his way to a hunt.

  But Dedric had to ask. He’d been haunted by the memory of the strange boy all day. Where had he gone? Was he following him? Paranoia crept over Dedric in waves, the world around him mercurial with his exhausted delusions. An eagle circling overhead seemed as intent on him as a vulture over rotting meat. A palm of rosemary seemed like a handful of fingernails. Fennel became shavings of bone, the fronds smooth as shaved marrow.

  And every shadow held a pair of dark, unblinking eyes, whispers of the Eastern Road Dedric should somehow remember.

  Except that Dedric couldn’t recall much of anything, let alone how he’d come to this castle. It was as if a curtain had been drawn over his memories and he couldn’t, for the life of him, see past it, except for those hazy impressions of a golden road.

  That strange boy had seemed so certain when he insisted that they’d met there.

  Dedric gathered his courage and stood, his satchel clutched to his chest like a shield as he faced his brother across the grey field. ‘Do you remember how we came to the king’s castle?’ Dedric asked. ‘Was it by the Eastern Road?’’

  A tendon corded dangerously on the side of Hodge’s neck as he clenched his teeth. ‘Go back to your weeds, little brother. I have work to do.’ He shrugged his quiver higher on his shoulder and turned to continue towards the forest.

  ‘I remember a road,’ Dedric continued, his voice trembling. ‘A golden road. But nothing else. Nothing but this castle. No childhood, no family, except for you.’

  Annoyance snapped through Hodge’s posture as he turned and strode towards him.

  Dedric flinched and shrank back, his voice small. ‘We can’t have been here forever. Where are our mother and father? Surely there is more to our lives than this place.’

  Hodge was on him so quickly, Dedric barely had time to react. He grabbed Dedric by the wrist, wrenching his arm behind him before grabbing the scruff of his neck with his free hand. He forced Dedric’s body down, yanked his head up.

  It was as if somebody had ripped the curtain in Dedric’s head aside. Memory flashed through him, a clawed hand on the back of his neck, digging into his skin, that golden road splayed all around him. Someone forced his jaws apart. Everything smelled like blood. There was screaming, high-pitched and ragged. Pale figures crowded around him. Monsters. Monsters opening his mouth, shoving raw meat past his lips. Dedric clenched his teeth, but gore spurted between them and filled his mouth, his throat. He choked. Heaved. Blood gushed over his lips, a long vein slithering over his chin. On the ground, there was a pile of raw meat and a severed, human hand. Dedric’s heart hammered him away from the terrible vision.

  ‘Look at it.’ Hodge tightened his grip.

  He wasn’t on the golden road. He was in a field and Hodge was forcing him to look up at the king’s castle, looming dark against the amethyst sky.

  ‘What more do you want?’ Hodge growled in Dedric’s ear. ‘Are you saying his grace isn’t good enough for you? That you’d rather be elsewhere?’

  ‘No,’ Dedric whispered. His eyes watered and even he wasn’t sure if it was from the viciousness of his brother’s grip or the memory that had snapped through him.

  Hodge pinched Dedric’s neck mercilessly and wrenched his arm until pain lanced through the socket. ‘I couldn’t hear you.’

  ‘No!’

  Hodge shoved Dedric and he stumbled, losing his balance and landing on his hands and knees, the herbs he’d gathered scattering in the tall grass. Rosemary. Thyme. Bones. Fingernails. The tall grass was grey. The earth beneath was red as wine. Red as blood. Dedric closed his eyes and tried to swallow the sick creeping up his throat.

  ‘I’m in the king’s favour, Dedric,’ Hodge said, his eyes narrow, his teeth bared. ‘If I ever hear you disrespect what he has given us again, if you ruin this for me, I’ll cut out your tongue, you ungrateful little cuss.’ Hodge turned, his shoulders drawn to his ears, and stalked across the field towards the forest.

&nbs
p; Dedric watched him leave, his breath tight in his chest. For a moment, he had seen fear in his brother’s eyes. There had been a twinge of panic in his voice that had nothing to do with Dedric ruining his brother’s position as the king’s favourite huntsman.

  Dedric knew, with a horrible certainty that curdled in his belly like sour milk, that Hodge couldn’t remember how they’d come there either.

  It was night by the time Dedric returned to the castle. He was so distracted by the memory of the golden road, the way the taste of uncooked flesh seemed to cling to the roof of his mouth, that he hadn’t managed to collect all the herbs he’d needed. His satchel was only half-full. Tugging the cowl of his cloak more securely around his face, he tried to distract himself with the few herbs he’d managed to find before the sun went down. He didn’t want to think about sinew squishing through the gaps of his teeth or the thick river of blood flowing down his throat.

  The kitchen was strangely empty when he opened the door. The cook fires were crackling but abandoned.

  All was quiet.

  Only there, beside the butchered remains of Hodge’s prized stag, was that strange boy, that horrible boy who’d pulled the memory of the Eastern Road from Dedric’s head, who had no business in the kitchen in the first place. He stood, still as stone, beside the hearth, his arm immersed in the boiling bone broth.

  ‘Get away from there!’ Dedric rushed forward. The boy was burning himself! Scalding himself! Spoiling the broth!

  Before Dedric could snatch his arm away, the boy pulled back. His flesh was whole, seemingly unhurt. His hand was dry as he stepped to the other side of the hearth, his eyes steady and furious.

  Dedric grabbed a spoon from the rack beside the hearth, brandishing it for a moment, before frantically stirring the broth as if he could somehow purify it. Bones bobbed to the surface, but the femur there was too long and too thick for a deer’s leg. Where were the hooves? Instead, there were small, flat ankle bones and… wrists? Knuckles? Fingers?

  Dedric rounded on the boy. ‘What did you do?’

  The boy didn’t move. ‘What did I do?’ His lips curled and Dedric wasn’t sure if he was smiling or snarling. ‘What did you do?’