Saga of Menyoral: The Service by M.A. Ray Read Free Book Online

well, if it isn’t Wally,” said the older woman, as Dingus wiped his hands and the bone handle of the knife. Her voice sounded friendly in his ears.
    Wallace straightened. “Happy Longday, Pearl,” he said politely, nodding to the Master.
    Braids looked over her shoulder. Her smile took over her face, too. “Hi, Wallace.” She was even prettier than Dingus remembered, but maybe the relative lack of clothing messed with his head.
    “Francine,” Wallace said. Dingus didn’t have to see his face to read his pleasure and interest: he squared his shoulders and put his fists on his hips. “You’re a sight for weary eyes.”
    She laughed and cut around the hog’s thing—they had a boar, too—and Wallace gave a gulp Dingus could hear over the sounds of his own work: cutting flesh around the spine so he could get the head off. His mouth twitched. Probably wouldn’t be a good idea to laugh at Wallace just yet.
    “Who’s your busy friend?” Pearl asked, pointedly.
    “Eh?”
    “Dingus,” said Dingus, and gave the head a hard twist. It didn’t come off, and he put the knife in, looking for cartilage he could crack.
    “Right, right—Vandis’s uncut diamond,” Pearl said.
    Dingus looked up. “What?”
    “You, kid. He hasn’t stopped talking about you since we all got here .” He must’ve shown his anxiety, because she lifted her hand and said, “Don’t worry. Us Masters know better than to take that sort of thing seriously. You’re his first, and it’s your first Moot, so he hasn’t had a chance to show off a Squire before now. He’s just making up for lost time.”
    “Oh,” he said, swallowed, and turned his attention back to getting the head off the hog while Wallace went around to the back and prepared the hind legs for the hoist. He didn’t want to be showed off, especially after last night. He wanted to get his leaf and pretend he was invisible the rest of the time.
    “Hey, I remember you now. You were at Elwin’s Ford late last summer,” Francine said suddenly.
    “Uh, yeah.”
    “I—” she began, but what she’d been about to say, Dingus never knew.
    “Oh yeah,” said Horsetail Arkady, from the hoist to the other side.
    Dingus thought, Oh hell , but he just pretended he didn’t hear and switched to the heavy brush knife for the front trotters.
    “I didn’t recognize you without the bruises,” Arkady went on, and his tone said it wasn’t an improvement.
    One of the hog’s trotters popped off under a particularly forceful blow. Dingus had to stretch out to get it and toss it in the hide pan. The Master with the muttonchops said, “Take it easy, Arkady. That was unkind,” but Arkady didn’t seem to take note.
    “What’s he mean?” Wallace asked, pulling dow n the hoist and hooking it into the hind legs.
    Arkady started to explain. “When—”
    “My face was messed up when I was at Elwin’s Ford,” Dingus said, because he wasn’t about to let Arkady explain anything about him. “I was—when Vandis found me, I was getting—beat up.” He hacked off the other trotter and stood back for Wallace to raise the carcass, just in time to see Arkady rubbing his neck with a bloody hand, wearing his nasty smirk. Dingus wanted to hit him.
    “Er,” Wallace said, “you said you’d—”
    “Yeah, I got it.” Dingus stepped forward to do the job Wallace hadn’t wanted to, and then sliced the skin around the hind legs and down through the fork.
    “Here, I’ll take the back, since you did that bit. I don’t mind the pooper, they’ve all got that, y’ ken?”
    “Yeah,” Dingus said. Wallace was definitely okay, and the grins he kept sending over to Dingus made it hard to stay angry. He busied himself with skinning the belly. Wallace did the back.
    “Elwin’s Ford, that’s Wealaia, ennit?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Should’ve figured, you being an elf and all.”
    “That’s okay.” Any one of the People could tell the difference at a moment’s glance, but humans didn’t