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It was shaping up to be another dark and cold October, but the Count of Provence had taken his battered armies off to sulk through the winter, and Yusuf had finally found himself a warmer cloak.
He was comfortably wrapped up in it now, though it was late afternoon, and the fire was already lit in their stuffy little house. He was packing away his armor – shouldn't need it until spring, Andromache had said with a shrug, and he hoped that this time she was right.
Andromache looked over from oiling her knives. The blades glinted in the smoky shadows, like little lethal sparks, and she was laughing at him. "Sure you're cozy enough over there?"
"If you're that chilled, come here and you can take over the stirring," Quỳnh put in from the hearth where she was poking at the stewpot.
Yusuf and Nicolò had been travelling with Andromache and Quỳnh for a hundred years or so, and Quỳnh had spent most of that time happily maneuvering them into doing her share of the cooking. It had taken Yusuf nearly as long to catch on.
"A kind thought," Yusuf said, giving Quỳnh the most grateful face he had in his repertoire, "but I am trying to harden myself up for the cold."
Andromache snorted under her breath, and Quỳnh straightened up. Yusuf was looking forward to hearing what she was going to try next, but before she got a chance Nicolò banged in, a swirl of fresh chilly air eddying in the door with him. He was humming under his breath, which usually meant he was busy thinking about something, and his face was alight. He dropped a brace of rabbits by the hearth next to Quỳnh.
"Oh, Nicolò, do you – " she said, and whatever line she was going to use to inveigle him into taking her place at the stewpot got cut off when he took her by the hands and swung her around in an enthusiastic dance step.
"You'll step on my knives," Andromache said, "and then I'll have to clean them again."
"Sorry, sorry," Nicolò said, not sorry at all. He dropped a handful of something hot and clattery into Yusuf's hands and sank down beside him.
"It's chestnut season," he said, and the smile he gave Yusuf was all boyish delight. "Go on, they're good roasted. No, here, like this – "
He cracked them expertly, and passed the meats back to Yusuf. Yusuf tried one – it was weirdly chewy, almost floury, which he wasn't expecting. A little sweet.
Andromache cleared her throat pointedly. Nicolò laughed, and threw her some. "You can crack your own."
"These are good," she said to him, and smiled. "I didn't know you were so fond of chestnuts."
He was a little pink around the edges with embarrassment, and said anyway, "We had a chestnut festival, in Genoa. I hadn't realized how much I missed it."
Yusuf felt a great wash of fondness for Nicolò, and ate two more chestnuts on the strength of it.
"You just eat them plain like that?" said Quỳnh, drifting over from the hearth.
Yusuf squinted at her suspiciously. Surely Quỳnh had had more than enough time to learn everything there was to know about what the people this side of the Mediterranean did with chestnuts. "They're good like this," Nicolò said earnestly, "but they are excellent in soup – "
"Oh, is that right?" said Quỳnh, and not very much later Nicolò was scraping chopped rabbit meat into the stewpot while earnestly discussing what he did and didn't remember about his mother's soup.
Yusuf gave up. It was hard to protest, anyway, when Nicolò looked so happy.
Andromache nudged him. "Are you going to finish those?" Yusuf silently passed his last few chestnuts over.
"You didn't like the chestnuts," Nicolò murmured later. He was solid and warm against Yusuf, and their blankets were cozy, and Yusuf was starting to feel less grouchy about the lurking prospect of winter.
"I liked them!" Yusuf said. Nicolo huffed, a little sound of fond disbelief, and Yusuf admitted, "They're okay. I miss dates."
Nicolò wound one of Yusuf's curls around his finger. "I like chestnuts. But more than that, it's that it's been so long – I used to eat them every autumn, it was what you looked forward to, you know? The days got shorter, the cows came in from pasture, the chestnuts were ripe...." Yusuf made a soft encouraging noise, and Nicolò went on, "We used to smoke them dry in these little stone houses, then grind them up for flour. That was always my job, to make sure the fire was burning properly... that's the only thing I know how to do with chestnuts, really. I have no idea how to make – castagnaccio, or chestnut soup, or – or any of the things we used to eat." He sounded far too wistful, in the dim firelight, and Yusuf did not like it at all.
"Now here you are in a little smoky house and the only nuts you have are mine," Yusuf said. "Truly a tragic fate."
Nicolò half-laughed, half-groaned. "I will grind you into bits," he threatened, and rolled on top of Yusuf.
That was much better. Yusuf ground up against him, a joke and a challenge at once. "This kind of grinding? How dreadful. Do go on."
Nicolò pushed him down. "You are awful," he said, and kissed him. He was laughing, so the kiss was terrible. He rested his head on Yusuf's chest and said, "Thank you."
"I will remind you that you said that next time you complain about my jokes." Yusuf ran his hand up Nicolò's back.
"I always loved the chestnut festival," Nicolò went on. "Maybe they'll have one here." He propped himself up on one elbow and smiled at Yusuf. "If they do, you'll have to dance, you know. It will be more even this time, since I won't know the steps either."
"Now you are just getting revenge for the time I made you do the camel race."
"No, no, I asked for that one, fair is fair," Nicolò said. "But, fine. What does autumn remind you of? We can do that too."
What the creeping cold of northern autumn mostly brought to mind for Yusuf was that horrible first season with Andromache and Quỳnh, trudging up and down mountains trying to stop people from dying in some vicious local grudge match. Mostly futilely, was what Yusuf remembered, and that he never felt warm; and the clash that he spent bleeding out on the ground on top of the fallen leaves. Bright red leaves on top, and older faded ones below, his spreading blood adding to the tableau, and the whole time he was dying he was furious, about how chilly he had to be even while he was dying, and about how utterly uselessly ham-handed the metaphor was. There was no way to even get a good poem out of it. Death was something he had become well-practiced at, but that didn't mean he was ready for it to be trite.
He looked up into Nicolò's face, soft with nostalgia, and did not want to put that memory between them.
"Do you remember," he said instead, and it was not a lie, because this was just as true. "That inn we spent a month at – I think it was Trogir? The one where Quỳnh liked the fish."
Nicolò tilted his head slightly: no, but go on.
"They had grapevines, in the courtyard. You were in the courtyard, I don't remember exactly what you were doing, but you looked up at me and smiled, and behind you the grapevine was so beautiful, all red and orange against the stone – "
"And then?" Nicolò's voice had a smile in it, the tone of someone who knows exactly where the story was going.
"Let me remind you," Yusuf said, and pulled him down for a kiss.