A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [79]
“Really?” I pitched forward in my chair.
“It was 1615. War hadn’t broken out yet, and the French king had married a Spanish princess that no one liked—especially not the king.” When I smiled, he smiled back, though his eyes were fixed on some distant image. “She brought chocolate to Paris. It was as bitter as sin and as decadent, too. We drank the cacao straight, mixed with water and no sugar.”
I laughed. “It sounds awful. Thank goodness someone figured out that chocolate deserved to be sweet.”
“That was a human, I’m afraid. The vampires liked it bitter and thick.”
We picked up our forks and started in on the venison. “More Scottish food,” I said, gesturing at the meat with my knife.
Matthew chewed a piece. “Red deer. A young Highlands stag from the taste of it.”
I shook my head in amazement.
“As I said,” he continued, “some of the stories are true.”
“Can you fly?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
He snorted. “Of course not. We leave that to the witches, since you can control the elements. But we’re strong and fast. Vampires can run and jump, which makes humans think we can fly. We’re efficient, too.”
“Efficient?” I put my fork down, unsure whether raw venison was to my liking.
“Our bodies don’t waste much energy. We have a lot of it to spend on moving when we need to.”
“You don’t breathe much,” I said, thinking back to yoga and taking a sip of wine.
“No,” Matthew said. “Our hearts don’t beat very often. We don’t need to eat very often. We run cold, which slows down most bodily processes and helps explain why we live so long.”
“The coffin story! You don’t sleep much, but when you do, you sleep like the dead.”
He grinned. “You’re getting the hang of this, I see.”
Matthew’s plate was empty of everything except for the beets, and mine was empty except for the venison. I cleared away the second course and invited him to pour more wine.
The main dish was the only part of the meal that required heat, and not much of it. I had already made a bizarre biscuitlike thing from ground chestnuts. All that was left for me to do was sear some rabbit. The list of ingredients included rosemary, garlic, and celery. I decided to forgo the garlic. With his sense of smell, garlic must overpower everything else—there was the nugget of truth in that vampire legend. The celery was also ruled out. Vampires categorically did not like vegetables. Spices didn’t seem to pose a problem, so I kept the rosemary and ground some pepper over the rabbit while it seared in the pan.
Leaving Matthew’s rabbit a little underdone, I cooked mine a bit more than was required, in the hope that it would get the taste of raw venison out of my mouth. After assembling everything in an artistic pile, I delivered it to the table. “This is cooked, I’m afraid—but barely.”
“You don’t think this is a test of some sort, do you?” Matthew’s face creased into a frown.
“No, no,” I said hurriedly. “But I’m not used to entertaining vampires.”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” he murmured. He gave the rabbit a sniff. “It smells delicious.” While he was bent over his plate, the heat from the rabbit amplified his distinctive scent of cinnamon and clove. Matthew forked up a bit of the chestnut biscuit. As it traveled to his mouth, his eyes widened. “Chestnuts?”
“Nothing but chestnuts, olive oil, and a bit of baking powder.”
“And salt. And water, rosemary, and pepper,” he commented calmly, taking another bite of the biscuit.
“Given your dietary restrictions, it’s a good thing you can figure out exactly what you’re putting in your mouth,” I grumbled jokingly.
With most of the meal behind us, I began to relax. We chatted about Oxford while I cleared the plates and brought cheese, berries, and roasted chestnuts to the table.
“Help yourself,” I said, putting an empty plate in front of him. Matthew savored the aroma of the tiny strawberries and sighed happily as he picked up a chestnut.
“These really are better warm,” he observed. He cracked the hard nut easily in his fingers and popped the meat out of the shell. The nutcracker hanging off the