Torcan had commandeered one of the longhouses for Padric’s use. He entered, leaving the ocean wind, and his guards, outside. The warmth of the longhouse was layered with the smells of garlic, onion, fennel and hyssop, all undercurrents to the savory aromas of roast bream, baked herring and pike steeped in ginger and galingale.

“Did me bonny prince have hisself a fine turn about the beach?” Heggle asked when he entered.

Padric answered with a meaningless sound, which Heggle took for a grand answer, smiling broadly with her wet gums and lone, brown tooth before going back to her chopping, stirring and mixing. The goblin crone had been sent to him from Swinehelm to act as his personal servant, and she seemed to take great joy in her placement. Padric removed his cloak, damp from the spray, and hung it to dry before sitting on one of the benches to watch Heggle fuss around the fire. She shuffled about the hearth, head covered by a shapeless kirtle dyed the same awful blood red worn by the soldiers. Her threadbare shawl was likewise dyed, stretched thin over her sizable hunch. Her large, sagging breasts hung past her waist, swinging beneath her filthy smock. Wrinkled and spotted, her grey skin fell loosely, especially at the neck where it dangled freely under a chin ornamented with long, stiff white hairs. She spoke foully and smelled sour, but, for all her loathsomeness, she was a fine cook and had presented Padric with a never-ending torrent of rich meals and delicacies. He did not possess much of an appetite and pushed most of it away untouched. But, although Heggle hung at his elbow eagerly awaiting his reaction, she never became discouraged at his lack of enthusiasm or praise.

“Heggle’l find what you fancy, sure as shite,” she would say.

“All me lords had their favorite and we’ll tickle yours ere long.”

She kept up a steady stream of chatter while she worked, often about the many litters of fine goblins she had borne over her long life and once remarked that Torcan might be one of hers, but she could not clearly recall.

“I’d still be squattin’ ‘em out, if any o’these gutless wonders had the stones to get on ol’Heggle and grunt. They’s all ‘fraid I eat their pricks off!”

But her favorite subject was the Goblin Kings. From the legends Padric could remember, it appeared as if she had cooked for all of them, and a wistful glow of pride played across her ugly face whenever she spoke about the long dead tyrants.