Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01] - D'Shai (6 page)

“Now, we are going to work on the beef strips. Do you think the loin is cold enough? Well, you’re wrong, it is—if we leave it on the ice any longer, the ice will steal some of the flavor. No, we don’t want any flavor stolen. It’s different with those ham-and-roe balls—they have to be absolutely icy for their flavors to balance out right, when we wrap them in the hot duck skin.

“So. I’ll have to do the beef myself. Be quiet now. Yes ...

“I’ve been thinking about getting the potter to glaze a plate with writing on it. You should be able to read through the beef, it should be so thin. Ah. So good you are with the knife, you think you can slice the beef so thin, so thin—look at this: as it sits in my hand, you can see the lines of my palm through the redness. Mmm ... dodn’t tasht bed—lemme swillow. There. I was saying that it doesn’t taste bad either.

“So. We slice the beef thinly, and carefully deposit it on the plate, fanning out from the center. The first ring will take about twelve slices—yes, I’m leaving a space in the center. While I do this, you will start the sauce.

“Beat the egg and the sunflower oil together. A pretty oil, isn’t it? Vigorously, now, put your back into it. Good. Add a squeeze of lemon, and beat some more—you forgot to taste it, see if the balance is right. Let me taste. Mmmm ... no, that egg had started to turn. Throw it out, and do it again ...

“Better. A bit more lemon, and then the ground mustard, and the mustard seeds. Very good, and very well. Now you do the last ring of beef slices, and I’ll get the basil leaves out.

“Sloppy cutting, but I’ve seen worse. We’ll try a couple of rolls now, and see if it’s right. Do it in this fashion: take a basil leaf in one hand, and set a beef slice on top of it. Good. Sprinkle with a bit of pepper, and roll it up. I’ll dip it in the mustard sauce, and then, we taste.

“I’d say that everything’s in balance, wouldn’t you?

“Oh, you would, would you? You think everything is in balance, you young fool? What, tell me, what is so balanced about that duck that’s about to burn in your so-called medium oven?â€

 

W
E WERE OUT
to steal what time we could; I met NaRee in her father’s garden.

The storm was moving in, the setting sun obscured by dark, oily clouds. From our usual place by the south wall, we probably could have seen the far-off lightnings, instead of merely being disturbed by the distant roars of their thunder cousins as the cold wind breathed against our faces.

For a long time, we sat on a bench quietly, and I just held her. That was enough, for a while.

“Tell me,â€

 

H
E HAD BEEN
the last noble in the castle to sleep, but Crosta Natthan was the first to awaken.

That was part of the secret of his success: even before his joints had started to ache with advancing age, he had never needed more than two hours of sleep a night, and always woke toward the end of the hour of the dragon, the hour before dawn, and was well in possession of his faculties and his day before the hour of the cock.

Now, he couldn’t sleep through the night. But that was acceptable; sleep had never been as satisfying as his work.

His hair still damp from his ablutions, he stalked the dim halls in the predawn light, a harsh eye alighting on an ill-dusted nook here, a stained spot on a rug there.

Being servitor, even chief servitor, is not one of the fifty-two kazuhin, but Lord Crosta Natthan, great-grandson of peasants, didn’t mind.

His grandfathers had been the first of their families ever to rise to the middle class: his maternal grandfather had been a tradesman; his paternal, a pewtersmith. Crosta Natthan was a noble, and while his shrewish wife had long been banished from both his life and Den Oroshtai as an unpleasant distraction from his work, his sons were both nobles, and his daughter was married to Lezear Ahulf, a favored retainer of Lord Nerona of Oled.

It was worth some effort to be worthy of this, he reminded himself, then chuckled, quite silently, at his own D’Shaian hypocrisy.

Being worthy of it had nothing to do with his passion for his work. He enjoyed all of it, even this, the first pass through the castle.

The guards at the door of Lord Toshtai’s morning room were alert but appeared tired as Crosta Natthan opened the door and passed through, shutting it silently behind him. Of all those in the castle, there were only three who could pass through any door, at any time, without let or hindrance: Lord Toshtai himself, old Dun Lidjun, and Crosta Natthan.

Not too bad for the grandson of a pewtersmith, the great-grandson of a dungfooted peasant.

The morning room was dark and cramped in the dull light, but it would brighten in but a few moments, as the dawn came on. A pitcher of ice-water, the proportions of ice and water correct, waited next to Lord Toshtai’s chair, and a yellow silk robe was neatly folded over the back of the chair. Ignoring the pain in his right hip as he moved, Crosta Natthan bent and sniffed—yes, it was freshly washed, and lightly scented with rose and lemon.

Crosta Natthan examined the straight razor, the shaving bowl, and the soaps over by the washbasin. Yes, all were ready, although he would want to strop the razor a few times before running it over Lord Toshtai’s countenance. Nobody else, not even Dun Lidjun, was permitted to hold a razor near the lord’s throat, and Crosta Natthan took that responsibility, as he did all of his responsibilities, with the utmost seriousness.

There was really one too many apples in the porcelain bowl; it
looked
overstocked. As a matter of policy, Crosta Natthan didn’t formally break his fast until after he had finished his morning rounds, but what is not seen is not, after all. He selected one with a slight green tinge, and tucked it into his pocket as he left the room; when he rounded the corner and passed out of the view of the guards, he took the apple out and bit into its tart sharpness as he slowly, painfully made his way up the steps to the second floor, pride preventing him from leaning on the wall. Stairs were the hardest, and it was best to walk them when nobody else could see his weakness.

He liked the apple. It tasted like retribution.

When he was but a boy, careful matchmaking had matched his elder sister, Ilda Verken, to a true bourgeois, an orchardman. Ilda Verken and Trevan Idn Abeta had looked down on the little middle-class boy, and had shunned him when he had entered Lord Eveshtai’s service.

But that was long ago, and now the best of Trevan Idn Abeta’s son’s apples graced his table, and—every once in a while, when his duties allowed—Trevan Idn Abeta’s young niece, one of the bourgeois attendants to Lady Walasey, warmed his bed. Altogether a perfectly pleasant arrangement, he decided, slightly disappointed that there was nothing requiring his attention on the second floor.

He took a last bite of the apple and set the core in the salver on a hallstand. It would be gone within the hour. It had best be gone within the hour.

He made his way to the third floor, and stopped outside one of the rooms assigned to the acrobatic troupe.

The guard was sitting in the chair across from the strange contraption of plaster and wires that the wizard had put up. That was acceptable; there was no need for him to stand when he could do his job sitting.

But the carpet!

Crosta Natthan shook his head. It wasn’t that Lord Toshtai would ever see the dirt on the carpet; the lord of Den Oroshtai hadn’t been above the first floor of any wing of either donjon in Crosta Natthan’s memory, and Crosta Natthan’s memory was perfect.

But it was a wrongness, and would have to be corrected. Even though the acrobat-peasants would dirty the carpet again that night, it would have to be rolled up and taken out back to the laundry to be gently beaten, cautiously washed, carefully shade-dried, and then replaced.

Still, as his father used to say, in every bruise there was a lesson to be learned: Crosta Natthan would wait until midmorning and see if old Varta Kedin noticed by, say, the hour of the hare.

She was getting old; it might be time to retire her, send her back down to the village to live with her children and grandchildren, have her drive her daughters and daughters-in-law mad with her insistence on polishing already well-polished woodwork.