The Wise Man's Fear Read Free Page A

into the wooden cider press and spun the top down until it no longer moved easily.
    Kote cuffed up the long sleeves of his shirt past his elbows, then gripped the handles of the press with his long, graceful hands and pulled. The press screwed down, first packing the apples tight, then crushing them. Twist and regrip. Twist and regrip.
    If there had been anyone to see, they would have noticed his arms weren’t the doughy arms of an innkeeper. When he pulled against the wooden handles, the muscles of his forearms stood out, tight as twisted ropes. Old scars crossed and recrossed his skin. Most were pale and thin as cracks in winter ice. Others were red and angry, standing out against his fair complexion.
    The innkeeper’s hands gripped and pulled, gripped and pulled. The only sounds were the rhythmic creak of the wood and the slow patter of the cider as it ran into the bucket below. There was a rhythm to it, but no music, and the innkeeper’s eyes were distant and joyless, so pale a green they almost could have passed for grey.

CHAPTER TWO
    Holly
    C HRONICLER REACHED THE BOTTOM of the stairs and stepped into the Waystone’s common room with his flat leather satchel over one shoulder. Stopping in the doorway, he eyed the red-haired innkeeper hunched intently over something on the bar.
    Chronicler cleared his throat as he stepped into the room. “I’m sorry to have slept so late,” he said. “It’s not really . . .” He stalled out when he saw what was on the bar. “Are you making a pie?”
    Kote looked up from crimping the edge of the crust with his fingers. “Pie s ,” he said, stressing the plural. “Yes. Why?”
    Chronicler opened his mouth, then closed it. His eyes flickered to the sword that hung, grey and silent behind the bar, then back to the red-haired man carefully pinching crust around the edge of a pan. “What kind of pie?”
    “Apple.” Kote straightened and cut three careful slits into the crust covering the pie. “Do you know how difficult it is to make a good pie?”
    “Not really,” Chronicler admitted, then looked around nervously. “Where’s your assistant?”
    “God himself can only guess at such things,” the innkeeper said. “It’s quite hard. Making pies, I mean. You wouldn’t think it, but there’s quite a lot to the process. Bread is easy. Soup is easy. Pudding is easy. But pie is complicated. It’s something you never realize until you try it for yourself.”
    Chronicler nodded in vague agreement, looking uncertain as to what else might be expected of him. He shrugged the satchel off his shoulder and set it on a nearby table.
    Kote wiped his hands on his apron. “When you press apples for cider, you know the pulp that’s left over?”
    “The pomace?”
    “ Pomace ,” Kote said with profound relief. “ That’s what it’s called. What do people do with it, after they get the juice out?”
    “Grape pomace can make a weak wine,” Chronicler said. “Or oil, if you’ve got a lot. But apple pomace is pretty useless. You can use it as fertilizer or mulch, but it’s not much good as either. Folk feed it to their livestock mostly.”
    Kote nodded, looking thoughtful. “It didn’t seem like they’d just throw it out. They put everything to use one way or another around here. Pomace.” He spoke as if he were tasting the word. “That’s been bothering me for two years now.”
    Chronicler looked puzzled. “Anyone in town could have told you that.”
    The innkeeper frowned. “If it’s something everyone knows, I can’t afford to ask,” he said.
    There was the sound of a door banging closed, followed by a bright, wandering whistle. Bast emerged from the kitchen carrying a bristling armload of holly boughs wrapped in a white sheet.
    Kote nodded grimly and rubbed his hands together. “Lovely. Now how do we—” His eyes narrowed. “Are those my good sheets?”
    Bast looked down at the bundle. “Well Reshi,” he said slowly, “that depends. Do you have any bad