Lucavion let the click finish before he stepped closer.
Up close, the display was less cheerful than its banner. The paint said picnic. The table said campaign.
Maps covered the back panel, previous expedition routes traced in three colors of ink through forests, river valleys, and a stretch of coastline annotated tide-dependent. Jars of preserved ingredients lined the front edge, each labeled by region and season: pickled roots, dried river fish, a salt the color of rust.
Beside them sat bound records of unfamiliar dishes, drawn in careful ink, with margin notes on who had cooked them and which village had permitted it. A notice board listed travel equipment, field preparation, and escort requirements, the last underlined twice.
Cuisine, fieldwork, and hazardous travel. It struck him as an elaborate method of becoming hungry somewhere inconvenient.
'Escort requirements. For soup.'
He smiled at that for about three seconds.
