26. Kew and Frin Go to the Kitchen and Assist with the Baking of Bread

26. Kew and Frin Go to the Kitchen and Assist with the Baking of Bread

As they left the Oculus, another announcement was just ending.

— shall abstain from the eating of damsons .

Kew's head ached and he did not spare a thought for this. Frin was glad that they had already given away their food, just in case. He had to lead the way up the stairs, for Kew only stumbled along, wondering what in North's name he was supposed to do now.

They were dizzy with hunger, and more than once Frin took the vial of honey out and pondered it, licking his lips. But Thistle honey was a powerful thing. It came from the time of songs. The flowers that went into it no longer existed. The bees that had made it were of a legendary, extinct lineage. And then of course when they had fed a drop to the musician, something strange had begun to happen before they died. There would be food somewhere in the tower. There would be no more Thistle honey.

Soon the smell of baking bread wafted down the stairs toward them. Their mouths watered, and even Kew found his pace quickening. If the map was accurate, the kitchen was not far above the Oculus. They only needed to keep going a bit longer.

On this twelfth day of the third month of the three hundred and fortieth year of the Willow Era, Her Ladyship has decreed that every resident of the palace must be still for half an hour, in memory of the first Willow Lady and her death in the one hundred and tenth year of the Willow Era.

The boys unwillingly stopped. Their stomachs were practically turning inside out, and a top was spinning in their heads, but the decree had been made. Why had these decrees never reached the rest of the palace? Frin assumed the squabbling fiefs outside the tower had kept messengers from going out. Kew assumed Grey was too neglected by the other towers to be worth communicating with. But they could not compare notes.

As the staircase had no clock, they waited for a go-ahead to move. A shaft of light came through the window a short ways up the stairs. They watched it move, sliding fingerwidth by fingerwidth. Meanwhile their stomachs ached and they were so hungry they nearly vomited.

At last Kew stood up. It may have been long enough, it may not have, but Frin was drooping noticeably. If either of them stayed on the stairs a minute longer, they would have no energy to keep on. He tugged Frin up to a standing position and fairly pulled him step by step toward the smell of bread.

There was a narrow wooden door, bound with bronze, and beyond it was the clatter and bustle of cooking. The smell of bread was so strong and sweet, it practically fed them just to breathe it. Kew pushed the door open and dragged Frin into the kitchen of Black Tower.

Like the Ballroom, it seemed to fill an entire level. They stood between two pillars, on either side of which were iron stoves. Cooks in tattered white jackets were stirring pots of sauce and soup. They ignored the boys, even as Kew and Frin tried to get their attention. One ladled up a boat of some red gravy and passed it to a person in a grey jacket, who hurried it deeper into the kitchen. The boys followed.

White pillars filled the kitchen, hung with utensils and vessels and built around with work tables where meat was sliced and salads composed. The grey-jacketed person turned aside, revealing a table where bakers in blue jackets were kneading bread. Beyond that were ranks of roaring ovens where loaves were shoveled in and out. The aromas were so delicious the boys could hardly stand it.

One of the cooks shoved a platter of sliced pork into Kew's arms. Another passed Frin a bowl of delicately arranged lettuce and tomato, garnished with bright nasturtiums. They looked at each other, shrugged, and dug in. In Grey, when food was passed to you, the implication was that it was for you. In the court of the beekeepers, all food was shared. It never occurred to either of them that they ought not eat it, until a massive hand descended on each of their heads and jerked them into the center of the kitchen.

"Thieves," said a deep voice, as the hands rotated their heads up to look at the speaker. "Thieves in my kitchen?"

The person was large and round, with no hair, only a scalp of red rind. Their eyes were dark and bright as dewdrops, and their limbs were thick and powerful from years of kneading and chopping and stirring and carrying.

Frin shook his head emphatically. Kew followed suit. The person's eyes flashed over them, taking in every detail of their travelworn clothing and dust-streaked hands and faces.

"Travelers from down-tower?"

They shrugged and nodded.

"Don't you know?"

Kew pointed toward one of the windows.

"From outside ?" said the person, their voice rolling with surprise.

They nodded.

"Then I'll forgive you provisionally. Why are you here?"

Kew took the piece of paper from his pocket. The person read it and guffawed. "You're off to Her Ladyship? Have you left your senses?"

They shook their heads.

"Oh, of course you don't think so. But you have, if you think the Lady will see you." They put out a hand to each of them. "I am Kestrel, chef of Her Ladyship's kitchens. To make up for your theft, you will help prepare the banquet. If you do a good job, I might let you stay, or I'll point you to the throne room. Though that would not be much reward. Do you agree?"

Since there was no other choice, the boys nodded.

"The ovens need tending," she said. "That's labor unskilled enough for you. Mynah will show you where the wood is. Be off with you."

Mynah, a man as short and thin as Kestrel was tall and fat, took them over to the ovens. An alcove nearby was stacked floor to ceiling with cut wood.

"Softwood for the pastries," said Mynah. "Hardwood for the bread. Only feed the fires when asked. I'll tell you when to rake them."

This part is not exciting. We only need to know that they did well, both boys having been raised to follow orders. We might also state that it was torture watching the bakers at work. There were cream puffs, large and golden and crisp, that were taken away and filled with cold custard and topped with pink icing. There was white bread, its crust crunchy and brown, its insides as soft and warm as love. There were swirls of pastry full of dragonfruit and pomegranate conserve and glazed with sugar. There were knotted rolls well flavored with rosemary and sprinkled with coarse salt. There were tiny tarts filled with sliced strawberries and piped cream. There were cakes the size of sparrows, covered with pastry cream domes and sheets of emerald-green marchpane. There were little meat pies steaming with the good brown smell of their gravy. There were bigger pies of songbirds with herbs. There were subtleties of crisp dough baked in individual pieces: scrollwork and oblongs and feathers, assembled to form towers with birds perched atop them. And most delicate of all, one baker drew out a cheese soufflé, shining and as light as a child's joy.

In the ovens just down the way there were joints and roasts sizzling. Potatoes had been set to roast and were taken out for buttering and salting, then browned under salamanders and sprinkled with herbs. Whole chickens were slipped out on trays, basted, and put back in to become crackling and golden. Fish were nestled among onions and lemons and broiled. Skewers of larks turned on rotisseries, and freshly drowned ortolans were put in little clay dishes to cook delicately.

Running from a window down the middle of the kitchen was a broad wooden table. There was some mechanism under its center that Kew could not discover the purpose of, but it was semicircular and had a lever. Upon the age-polished surface were set the finished dishes, all in fine porcelain or upon gleaming silver. Tureens and covered dishes marched along its length, with smaller plates and baskets around them like the courts clustered about the towers. Crystal bowls of honey-preserved fruit were put out. Glasses of wine and cordial were poured and set out, bright and sparkling, as if the banqueters would eat in the kitchen.

The sun was going down. Music played somewhere above the kitchen and came in through the open windows. The festal atmosphere excited the boys. There must be a holiday on, of some sort peculiar to the Great Tower.

Kestrel bustled around the table, making minute adjustments, garnishing things with parsley, sliced lemons, or chives. The businesslike delight she took in her work was beautiful to see. She went around the ovens and stoves, tasting everything and telling everyone how to fix the food. (Mostly she recommended more salt.) Everyone took pastries to her for finishing touches. She would fan out sliced poached quinces atop tarts, or add a little cream or a drizzle of honey. When she only told them to put it directly on the table, the baker whose work was so approved looked as happy as if the Lady herself had complimented it.

As the boys labored, they were fed. Crunchy ends of roasts, half-burnt or misshapen pastries, the scrapings of saucepans. It was more food than they had ever seen in one place. Feasts in Grey Tower meant everyone got more porridge than usual. Feasts in the Obsidian Lady's court meant white bread rather than brown. The boys' fingers were sticky and their mouths smeared with sauce. They shared glances of satisfaction and laughed for sheer joy.

At last everything was ready. The cooks and bakers and sauciers assembled at the head of the table, facing the window. Kestrel stood at the center, near the mechanism. Kew and Frin were both flushed with excitement, eager to see what marvel would send the food up to the feasters. Or perhaps they were the feasters. How wonderful that would be!

But everyone else looked sober. All the kitchen staff seemed apprehensive. They shifted uneasily, looking at the floor or each other, not at the food. Kestrel alone looked at the food. Why was her face sad?

The music played on. The sun dropped behind the hills. Still they waited.

A door opened, and someone came in. They wore dingy black livery with a gold medallion in the shape of an eye, and their long, spoon-shaped face had the slight frown of a person discharging a mildly disagreeable duty for the thousandth time.

"The feast will not be required today," they said, as if reading from a paper. "The Lady thanks you for your service."

They waited. Kestrel, her face expressionless, pulled the lever. The table tilted toward the window. All the fabulous dishes slid out, cascading down, down, down into the West Passage. The wind of their going blew back into the kitchen, delicious and sad. Where anything still clung to the table or windowsill, the cooks swept it off.

"Well," said Kestrel, "that's that. Mynah, Swallow, Blackbird, I commend you on another job well done. Let's plan the menu for tomorrow. Sir." She bowed to the newcomer, who returned it and left. The three of her staff whom she had named followed her toward a little office built out from the side of the tower. A desk and several chairs were set there.

Unsure what else to do, the boys followed. They stood in the office doorway as Kestrel settled into an armchair with a sigh, and her cooks took their own seats.

"Instead of varied courses tomorrow," she said, "I say we do something with apples. Roasts with applesauce, apple tarts, that kind of thing." She uncorked a bottle of something and poured it into heavy earthenware mugs that she passed to her staff. "May it tempt her appetite."

"May it tempt her appetite," they said, raising their mugs. As they drank, Kestrel noticed the boys.

"Well, friends," she said, slamming down her drained cup. "Do you feel up to talking now that you've fed?"

They demonstrated that they could not.

"I see," said Kestrel. "Well, no matter. I cannot say the ovens were the best-stoked they've ever been, but you served well enough, and freed some of our apprentices up for other tasks. You can stay if you wish. And you should, if it were my advice you asked. The throne room is not kind to those from out-tower."

Kew took out the piece of paper and pointed at it emphatically.

"A pity," Kestrel sighed. "Can't say I'll be sorry to lose you, exactly, you being so new, but I'm always sorry to see anything happen to soft fools. Mynah, have one of your folk guide them as far as the grand stairs. Friends, if you ever turn back this way, drop in and say hello."

Mynah accompanied them back to the kitchen and called a little apprentice in a grey jacket over as their guide. He had Frin open his pack and filled it with extra rolls, a few heels of bread, and a flask of water. Then, hesitating, he added a jar of honey. Apple blossom honey, Frin could tell, and from the viscosity, a very good year.

"If you speak to the Lady," he said, "ask her just once to taste our food. We daren't speak. But you—"

He did not say they were expendable, though he clearly thought so. To make up for it, he gave them little flaky pastries filled with sweet cheese. These they ate as they followed the apprentice back into the narrow stairs, up just a short way, and out.

For the first time since the Ballroom, the boys saw the proper inside of Black Tower. A long, vaulted corridor stretched before them to a broad staircase, lined with lamps. Above the stairs was a round window of blue, red, and yellow glass arranged like lily petals. On either side of the corridor were iron doors, each marked with words so old Kew could not read them. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all onyx so dark that it was like walking on the back of a black cat.

The apprentice took them to the stairs but refused to go farther.

"I can tell you're no-names like me," she said. "Be careful. I've never been upstairs, but they tell stories about it in the kitchen. The Library's always open, so I think you just go in. You mustn't touch anything there. At the end of the Library is the Great Way. I don't know how you go up it, but at its top is the throne room. But you must be so careful. The Sparrows guard the throne room, and they are not kind to bakers. They upset our baskets and eat our crusts and laugh at us."

She bobbed a curtsy, and they bowed, and she flitted away back to the kitchen. After their long day, the boys were exhausted, so they crawled into the corner of the stairs and slept. The throne room could wait.