Kitchen Magic

I wrote this to lilfluff's fourth prompt.

The wizard had out his shingle.  Night and day in rain, hail or shine it read, “Wizard for hire.  Spells at reasonable rates.  Payment plans available.”

The wizard had customers, many customers.  Merchants, noblemen, innkeepers and the women folk of all of them.  Not not everyone who knocked on the front door was prepared to pay the wizard’s prices which were, in fact, reasonable for what he was being asked to do.  Of course, what his clients wanted wasn’t always reasonable.  Some who refused his prices rode off to the west where the Glamoran witch plied her trade for her reputation with poison apples was unsurpassed.  Some went home and advertised for a hero.  A few tried to force the wizard’s help and found themselves among the region’s cat and frog population, at least until they changed back.

There were some though who had listened to gossip and rumour so instead of leaving they went round the house to the back door where the peasants went straight away.  There were no shingles there, just a kitchen garden, a compost heap and a wood pile.  Inside the back door was a kitchen, clean, scrubbed and presided over by the wizard’s mother, wife and daughter while Prince Boris, who’d refused to turn back from being a cat, twined around ankles.  There you could get philtres, advice, stew or thick soup with bread, and scrying done.  The thick, cloth-bound book they consulted had yellowed pages and might have been a recipe book but it was somehow more impressive than any tome his clients saw the wizard with.

The prices for help from the kitchen were different.  Adding chopped wood to the wood pile.  Fetching wood for the wood pile.  Taking a basket of comforts to a bedridden friend.  Bringing home a friend’s daughter from a visit to friends.  All of those could lead in unexpected directions

The wizard worked for payment, his kinswomen were paid in completed quests.