Magic Banquet by A.E. Marling

didn’t
surprise Aja. They both had eaten of the kraken, and Aja would do
the same when she laid hands on the Plum of Beauty.
    All the guests but Old Janny turned to
Solin. With grey in his hair, he had to be the next eldest. He
moved beside the line of fruit, his good foot touching down
followed by two bronze-capped crutches. Their pole ends sank into
the carpet. The silver stitching had become a garden paradise with
explosions of sterling flowers and birds feathered in extravagance.
Aja thought it the best design yet.
    Solin approached her plum. Aja told herself
not to fear. She wouldn’t worry. He probably wouldn’t choose it,
though he had passed almost all the fruit. The tiger-striped melon
would be his, or the pear, or the cherries. Yes, the Cherries of
Happiness . He needed those.
    His crutches stopped in front of the plum.
He swung himself around to face the fruit.
    Next he would turn, lean, and reach for the
cherries. He had to.
    He removed the plum’s casing.
    “No!” Aja reached out.
    The Chef said something about the Plum of
Beauty. Solin raised it to his lips. He inhaled as if smelling a
flower.
    “Don’t.” Aja had to say something, anything
to make him choose a different fruit. “It…it’ll turn you into a
woman.”
    “Could the plum have such power?” Solin
asked.
    “No, that’s the Cumquat of Transformation,”
the Chef said. “Was no one listening?”
    Solin was gripping her plum. She knew he
would bruise it, waste it. Outrage steamed up Aja’s throat and
seared her tongue.
    “Eat it then,” she said, “it’ll make your
leg less ugly.”
    Aja clapped a hand over her mouth, but it
was too late. She couldn’t take it back.
    Solin didn’t look angry, only sad. He
lowered the plum from his nose. He tucked it into a belt pouch.
    “You’re saving the fruit?” The Chef
asked.
    “Might give it to someone more deserving.”
Solin’s eyes flicked halfway to Aja.
    She gulped down the greasy heat inside her.
He meant to give the plum to Aja. If—if I bring him a hair from
the empress.
    Aja’s gaze crossed from the empress to her
swordsman. He drummed his fingers against the breadth of his arm.
“If saving and giving is allowed, then which of these snacks was of
‘health’?”
    The Chef spread two arms toward a sphere of
sunrise under glass. “The Orange of Health was protected from the
unworthy by a river of snakes and a bramble of claws.”
    The swordsman picked up the orange, tossed
it overhead, and caught it.
    “My turn! My turn!” The empress ran to the
largest glass case. It covered a blueberry plant that grew in a
kettle of engraved gold.
    “The Blueberries of Muse were grown in a
goddess’s enchanted cauldron.” The Chef assisted the empress in
lifting the glass. He touched the metal pot. “In this she brewed a
potion of poetic insight, but a servant stole her labor by
swallowing the first three drops. After that, the elixir turned to
poison.”
    “Mine!” The empress licked the bush. She
fumbled a few of the blueberries into her palm. Each looked like a
bead of sky’s horizon. She raised them to her lips.
    The swordsman caught her hand. “Did these
berries grow in poison?”
    “The caldron was cleansed.” The Chef tapped
its etched motif of sea cliffs. “The enchantment in it renews every
fruiting.”
    The swordsman let go of her hand, and the
empress popped a berry into her mouth. She made a sound between a
squeak and a gasp. “It tastes of rain and sadness and honey
mint.”
    The Chef nodded to Aja. She was the
last.
    Aja faced the dragonfruit. Leaves curled
from it like green flames. If she couldn’t have the plum, she would
have this. One day she’d stand at the center of scholars. Her
maturity would impress them all. The scholar who once taught her at
the Wayward House would be proud.
    She didn’t think her choice impressed
everyone. The lord clicked his tongue in disappointment. Aja
ignored him. The glass case seemed to weigh nothing. She cupped