Chapter 8 Plots and Pastries
Plots and Pastries
She’d always loved the kitchen, though she rarely spent time there.
It was the warmest part of the castle. The far wall was wholly committed to crackling fires beneath bread-ovens and stove-tops.
The light of the fires caught on the metal pots and pans hanging on the walls, dancing like rubies.
Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling within easy reach while more dried in the cold cellars below.
Nyven’s firm hand kept the space tidy as could be, but there was always some project or other under way.
Just now a ball of dough rested in a bowl on the central table, a wooden rolling-pin beside it.
Steam roiled off a stock-pot, scenting the air with onion and bay leaf.
Something buttery and nutty baked in the oven.
Nyven and Sarella stood with their backs to Ayla, having a conversation she couldn’t hear from the doorway. Unease churned in Ayla's stomach as she watched the quick shake of Nyven’s balding head and the stiff lines of Sarella’s thin shoulders.
They didn’t notice she was there, standing like a wraith in the doorway, until Sarella turned with a bowl of cut mushrooms and yelped. The bowl dropped; Sarella dove and caught it without spilling anything.
“Thank goodness it’s just you. You startled me, lady,” Sarella said, as Nyven turned, knife in hand, then relaxed and went back to chopping. “How long have you been there?”
“Only a moment,” Ayla said apologetically. “What can I help with?”
“Nothing, nothing. Just relax,” Nyven ordered. Ayla stepped forward to perch herself on one of the stools around the central cooking table.
“I haven't cleaned there yet. You’ll get your dress mussed,” Sarella warned her, sitting the bowl of mushrooms on the same counter. At fourty-four, the lines on Sarella’s face were just starting to become noticeable.
Ayla shrugged. She doubted the knight, no matter how villainous his plans for the country, cared if she got flour or jam on her fine clothes. Or if she spent time in the kitchen. He’d set nobody to guard her.
“Is all well?” Ayla asked quietly, as Nyven passed Sarella a bowl of cut leeks. Sarella shrugged awkwardly and upended the bowl of dough onto the table in front of her.
“The only trouble so far, lady, is trying to feed and serve all yon soldiers with just three sets of hands,” Nyven informed her. “They’re hungry men, those ones.”
As if summoned by his words, the third cook who’d stayed behind struggled through the left-hand doorway.
Isalde’s thin arms strained under the weight of a large haunch of meat from the cellar.
She was new to the castle staff, and young, freshly fourteen, a girl who’d grown up in the town just outside.
“Not that one,” Nyven said quickly. “Honestly, girl—have your senses left you? We’re making stew, not a roast.”
The girl panted at him, strands of hair fighting their way loose from her blonde braid, before she nodded and turned to stumble back down the steps.
Shaking his head, Nyven cracked open one of the metal oven doors and peeked in.
Satisfied, he swung it all the way wide and grabbed a wooden paddle.
The head cook expertly pulled out a metal tray of folded pastries and set them on the counter.
With his bare fingers he tossed one onto a plate, so fast it couldn’t burn him.
Leaning across the table, he pushed it in front of Ayla.
“Tell me if that isn’t the best you’ve had, Lady,” he instructed.
“Nyven?” the younger maid’s call came, muffled, from down the pantry stair. “I can’t tell…”
With a cluck of his tongue, the cook trotted down to help her. Sarella shook her head with a thin smile.
“Sarella?” Ayla asked, as she tugged the plate closer to herself. The golden-brown pastry smelled heavenly.
“Lady?” Sarella’s eyes met hers for a moment before she went back to rolling the dough in front of her into a thin rectangle.
Ayla picked at a fleck of the pastry, nearly burning her fingers.
“Did Ditmar go into the lower pantry for anything yesterday?” she forced herself to ask.
“The pantry?” Sarella frowned. She swiped at a loose curl with the back of one hand, leaving a smudge of flour just below the mole in the middle of her cheek.
“Of course not. Why would he—” her eyes widened.
Her hands drifted off the rolling pin and settled on the wood counter to either side of the dough. “Don’t tell me he…?”
Ayla nodded. “Someone must have told him, then,” she whispered.
“None of my girls are that foolish,” Sarella said firmly. “And they know that back-shelf is off-limits to them. I told them we keep things there for feast days, not regular meals.”
“Well, he found out somehow,” Ayla said grimly as Sarella chewed her lip. Ayla shredded off a corner of the pastry, blew on it to cool it, and carefully placed it in her mouth. The almond paste filling melted on her tongue. Nyven had outdone himself.
“I’ll figure it out,” the kitchen maid said fiercely. “Whoever it is…”
“No,” Ayla sighed. She fought the urge to rest her chin on her fist, and instead kept her posture straight. “There’s more to worry about, just now. And whoever told him is probably outside the walls anyhow.”
“Are you alright, though?” Sarella asked quietly.
Ayla shrugged, and gave her a wavering smile, then a nod. She had no right to complain, when the servants had given up so much to stay with her. Nyven, a perpetual bachelor, had lived in the castle as head cook, but Sarella and the others had families in the surrounding town.
Sarella abandoned the dough and skirted the corner of the table.
“Oh, you don’t need—” Ayla started, but Sarella pulled her tight in a hug around the shoulders. She resisted a moment, then leaned against the maid, feeling guilty that Sarella was the one comforting her.
“I’m getting flour on you,” Sarella apologized.
“I don’t care,” Ayla said, as Sarella let go and Ayla straightened, blinking away the water in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“I hope that knight kills him,” Sarella whispered.
“Sarella!”
“What?” the maid shrugged and leaned against the counter. “I’m not saying I hope he wins his war. Just that, well, something good comes out of this.”
Ayla pursed her lips and pulled her cloak tighter. She refused to allow herself to wish for the same thing. She didn’t want anyone dead. But a small part of her, a larger part than she wanted to admit, couldn’t help it.
It would solve at least one of her problems.
Nyven came back through the door, carrying a tough cut of meat with the new maidservant following sheepishly on his heels. As Ayla lifted the pastry to him with a nod of approval, he flashed her a grin. The cook set his burden on the far counter with a heavy thump and wiped his hands on his apron.
“I don’t see why you’re planning to feed them so much better than we normally get,” Ayla informed him.
“Yon knight said he wanted a proper feast. I’d as soon as keep my head on my shoulders,” Nyven informed her with good humor.
“I have to cut all of it?” Isalde asked quietly, staring reproachfully at the haunch of meat.
“Yes, and small pieces, mind,” Nyven told her. “No wider than your thumbnail. And mind what I told you about handling that knife carefully.”
“She shouldn’t have stayed,” Ayla told Sarella under her breath. “Her parents must be worrying themselves sick.”
Sarella shrugged as Nyven turned and gave her a look, one eyebrow arched.
“I think she was confused by us staying,” Sarella whispered, and went back to working the dough.
“None of you should have stayed. You put yourselves in danger when you could have escaped. And what about your wife?” She took another bite of the pastry, the flaky dough breaking apart in her mouth.
Sarella shook her head as a bolt of pain passed over her face.
“I’ll bet we’re a good deal warmer than those outside the wall,” Nyven interrupted. He walked past them on his way to the stock pot, pausing to poke at the dough Sarella was rolling out. She gave him an impatient look. He ignored it and nodded approvingly at the texture.
“Still,” Ayla muttered. She took another, bigger bite of the hot pastry.
She knew they’d been heading out the door when Lord Niel said she was not allowed to leave.
And now she was to be ransomed, while they…
what? Would stay behind under a traitor’s command?
Would they be punished for willingly staying to serve him, when she was the reason they’d stayed at all?
Ayla doubted Ditmar would listen if she told him they were all loyal. She did not even know if he'd let her get the words out.
“Begging your ladyship’s pardon: the politics at the top are a concern of the big folk, not us,” Nyven said, with a nonchalant air she didn’t quite believe, after his joke about keeping his head.
If she didn’t know better she might think Nyven was just trying to keep the other servants calm.
“Everybody eats. And nobody wants to piss off the folk making your food. Or you’ll get unsalted soup and burnt bread.
We’ll be safe enough in the kitchen, I wager, no matter what oaths yon knight broke to the Queen. ”
Unsalted soup, burnt bread… or poison, Ayla thought abruptly, as she licked a bit of almond paste off the side of her thumb.
Ditmar wouldn’t punish any of them for staying if they got rid of the threat from the inside, would he?
Well, he’d still punish Ayla, maybe, but that was a foregone conclusion; it was the others she worried about.
And perhaps he'd be gentler on her if the knight was dead.
Could she really poison someone? She knew plenty of things in the castle were deadly, if need be. And Lord Niel had waged war on them. Even as peaceable as that war had been so far in Blackfell. The only person he’d killed was his own man.
“Lady Ayla?” Sarella asked. Her voice was soft, her brow knotted with worry. “You’ve got that look in your eye.”
“Sorry.” Ayla shook her head.
“Is there something you want us to do?” Sarella asked. “It’s your command, you know.”
The idea that she was in charge of anything was laughable. She didn’t even oversee the household; Ditmar had kept a steward for that, who was now outside the walls. Nyven looked quickly over his shoulder, soup-ladle in hand and alarm on his face.
“No,” Ayla said quickly, and the head cook’s expression softened, no longer frightened she was about to order him into unspeakable acts of war. “Keep your heads down and do nothing to anger him. Who knows what a traitor like that is capable of.” Nyven, facing the other way, nodded.
Sarella’s head jerked up, her eyes wide and on the doorway behind Ayla.
“I am capable of many things, Lady Blackfell,” the knight’s deep voice said behind her.
Despite his size, his approach had been silent.
She jumped quickly from the chair, turning and falling into a curtsy that she held, head dipped down in submission.
Ink stained his hands from the letter-writing.
She could feel him staring at her, but she didn’t allow herself to look anywhere but his large, scuffed, black leather boots.
There was a dagger strapped to his calf.
“My lord,” she whispered hoarsely. “I…”
“Far be it from me to interrupt a lady’s meal,” he said, eyeing the half-finished pastry on her plate. “That looks good. Give me one.”
“Yes, your lordship,” Nyven murmured. The cook reached for a clean plate from the stack. Ayla slowly straightened from the curtsy.
She waited a moment longer to see if the knight would say another word or threaten a punishment for her insolence.
But his square jaw was turned towards Nyven, his posture easy, apart from the hand resting on the pommel of his sword.
She could not tell if that was simply a comfortable pose or if it was a warning.
Either way. She fled.