The Marriage Test (14 page)

“I have been instructed to begin my duties with you tomorrow,” she said when the introductions were finished. “This evening, I will simply watch and learn how you are accustomed to working.”

“What a disaster,” Julia said later, kicking off her shoes and sinking onto the side of her bed in the spacious chamber reserved for the head cook. “They drop, they dribble, they slop and clump … they eat out of the pots, hack at meat like they are chopping firewood, and slap a boat of pureed peas and mustard seed on the table and call it a sauce.”

“Well, at least you won’t have to worry that they’re set in their ways.” Regine settled beside her. “They’re so old they can’t recall what their ways are.”

Julia chuckled in spite of herself, relieved to be able to shed some of the evening’s tension. “How will I ever get them to work for me? Every time I pulled out my tasting spoon, they flinched as if they expected a whack.”

“They’ve had quite a few new masters over the last several years.”

“Nine,” Julia said, glimpsing the ramifications of that extraordinary number in human terms.

“And many cooks believe that ‘if you spare the rod, you spoil the stew.’ ” Julia sagged under the enormity of the task ahead.

“I have to manage to please His Lordship, feed this entire household, and train a staff to do it without me after I’m gone.” It was a daunting slate indeed.

They sat side by side in silence, watching the flicker of the tallow lamp on the nearby table.

“Well, you know what
my
advice would be,” Regine said with a determined smile.

“I do?” Julia looked at her in confusion.

“If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, just imagine where the path to a
cook’s
heart must lie.”

Inspiration dawned. “Oh, Regine—you’re wonderful!”

The plump sister smiled with un-nunlike pleasure.

“The obvious. It’s my gift.”

When the main kitchen staff arrived in the kitchens the next morning—tottering stiffly, stretching arthritic limbs, and rubbing bleary eyes—they were stunned to find their new cook present, freshly scrubbed, and wearing a pristine apron … already hard at work.

The lamps were all lighted and she had already taken stock of the larder and pantry, organized a number of spice boxes she had brought with her, and selected and set out bowls and tools for the day’s work. She had roused the fuelers and fire tenders early and had substantial fires going in two hearths. She had claimed the first new loaves of the day from the bakers, pulled up butter and cider from the cold well, and found some fruit preserves in the larder. Before their disbelieving eyes she arrayed the warm bread, butter, and jam on the table on trays, and returned from one of the hearths with a pot of freshly boiled eggs.

“Be seated,” she ordered the lot of them, pointing to benches she had instructed the fuelers to carry to the work tables from the sides of the kitchen. When they were a bit slow to comply, she added in no uncertain terms:
“Now!”

“Once a week we will break fast together and I will give you your assignments,” she declared when the scramble for seats at the two long tables had finished. “You will carry out those duties until our next breakfast.” They muttered about which duties they would and would not accept. She drew her tasting spoon from her belt and folded her arms so that it stood upright … the symbol of her authority.

“Anyone who disagrees is free to leave.” She met eye after eye. “Those who agree may break open those loaves, peel those eggs, and make a good start on the morning.”

There was a pregnant moment as they looked at each other, then at the warm, fragrant loaves, sweet, creamy butter, and still steaming eggs. Then Old Albee the Fryer grabbed one of the loaves and tore it in two. The potboys, who were used to having to wait until everyone else was fed before receiving the scraps, dove eagerly into the pile of loaves and grabbed at the butter and jam with their fingers. Their horrified betters began to smack their hands and box their ears.

“Everyone eats their fill today. Everyone,” Julia said, striding into the fray. Then she looked down at the boys. “And everyone uses manners. If you don’t know what manners are, watch your elders and copy them. Now
sit!”

Clutching their warm, fragrant prizes, the boys sank onto the benches, tore open their loaves, and filled their mouths as if they hadn’t been fed in years. Soon, the rest of the kitchen staff was doing the same … pouring cider, spreading butter, and piling on precious jam they served regularly in the hall but never got to enjoy themselves.

As they peeled their eggs, Julia strolled around the tables, pausing and holding her hand over each naked white oval. A twitch of her fingers released a pinch of salt mixed with ground pepper. They stared in amazement at the flecks of spice on their eggs, inhaled the familiar scent, and melted with pleasure.

By the time she handed out assignments for the week and roused the servers to carry huge baskets of bread and eggs and sliced bacon to the hall, for the rest of Grandaise’s hall to break fast, the kitchen staff were disposed to give her direction and methods a try.

Thus, when she had them heat water in sizeable cauldrons and drag out bags of hulled wheat berries from the pantry, they were puzzled, but complied. She measured out grains, sent runners to the dairy for fresh milk and to the chicken roost for more eggs. The kitchen workers knew now that she planned to make frumenty. But they were confused by the apparent quantity, considering that in the hall, frumenty was usually for breaking fast or eaten as a side dish. Where was the meat for His Lordship’s meal?

When Cheval the Roaster, who was assigned to continue “roasting” for now, asked about the rest of the menu, she gave him a piercing look and told him to warm his hearth for a few birds. A few birds? The workers shook their heads. They had at least a hundred mouths to feed, morning and night.

Griffin heard his stomach growling as he sat in his great chair in the hall, sipping watered wine and waiting for his dinner. He hadn’t eaten since that infuriating display of culinary ineptitude last night, and it was well past none. He had already sent his steward twice to check on when the food would arrive. Twice Arnaud had come back saying that they would be served soon. Each time the suspicion that something was amiss gnawed deeper into his empty stomach.

Then the first course arrived. He sat forward eagerly. A simple round loaf of bread was put before him … not trimmed of crusts as was usual in bread presented to a lord. They just plopped a crusty loaf down in front of him for him to cut himself.

Probably on her orders. Brazen chit.

Shifting irritably in his chair and feeling the stares of a dozen knights and four times as many men-at-arms … not to mention his steward, bailiff, head vintner, head taster, head vintager, and estate wardens. He thought of the shock and dismay on the faces of his kitchen staff the previous afternoon. He should have stopped by the kitchens earlier to see that she was taking things in hand.

But, in truth, he hadn’t wanted to see her taking things in hand … hadn’t wanted to see her at all. It was a damned relief to be back in his own bed and at his own table, not having to look across a campfire each night and see her sitting with her chin up and eyes adamantly averted. Or to look back at his men and find them clumped around her cart, basking in her smiles. Or to have to fight the urge to look every time she stepped from the cart and bared a leg …

He wanted her to keep to the damned kitchens and be totally invisible as she worked her culinary miracles. If he could stuff her in a damned barrel for the next year, he would!

He ripped off a piece of that fragrant loaf, dipped it in his wine, and stuffed it into his mouth. Up and down the main table and the lesser boards, his men followed his example.

Shortly, a number of pairs of servers came rushing up from the kitchens bearing massive crocks of something steaming and headed straight for him. The tightness in his middle eased … until they began to ladle out a lumpy, thin golden pudding with dark bits floating in it.

“Frumenty? That’s what I get for a first course?” He nearly choked.

But in the interest of order and dignity, he seized a spoon and made himself try it. It was faintly sweet, seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg … and the floating lumps of color were raisins, apricots, and dried cherries. It was like a fruit and rice pudding, made with shelled wheat. Suddenly he was looking at the bottom of the bowl and licking his lips. He signaled the servers and they quickly brought him more.

Pacified, if not entirely satisfied, he sat back and waited for the next course to arrive. When some time passed, he beckoned to the closest server.

“Where is the main course?”

“Pardon, Yer Lordship. Ye just ate it.”

“What?”

“That’s it. Frumenty. Ye want some more?”

He tore his napkin from his lap, shot to his feet, and strode for the service passage. The kitchen door at the end of the covered walkway was barred and after rattling it for a moment, he set the side of his fist to it, demanding entrance.

Moments later, as his temper hit a rolling boil, he heard the bar being drawn back and Julia of Childress slipped outside and closed the door securely behind her.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing—barring me from my own kitchens?” he demanded.

“A regrettable but necessary measure, milord. I am having to assert proper discipline and teach some of these old heads the very basics of cooking.”

“Frumenty? I pay a king’s ransom for you, haul you all the way from the brink of Normandy, allow you to spend a bloody fortune in Paris—”

“A very
fine
frumenty,” she inserted defiantly.

“—and all I get is
porridge
for dinner?” he finished in a bellow.

“Simple though it may be, frumenty is the most nourishing dish known to humankind.” She folded her arms with her tasting spoon sticking up like a royal scepter. “And a perfect dish to test the working of a kitchen.”

“What kind of
test
could you possibly—” Deciding to see for himself, he stepped around her to reach for the door handle, but she stepped into his path.

“Dammit.” His face flamed. “I would have a word with my cooks.”

“I’m
your cook, remember? For you to charge into the kitchens now would undo everything I’ve worked to accomplish this day.” She stubbornly raised her chin, despite the fact that it brought her face closer to his. “I must be allowed to run my kitchen free of interference, even from you.”

There was a moment, as she raised her face to him, that he felt a delicious trill of panic at being so close to her. It was all he could do to keep from wheeling and running back down the passage to escape.

“Your kitchen?” He almost strangled on the words.
“Your kitchen?”
He teetered on the edge of an explosion for a moment. For the first time in his life he had no idea what was sensible or reasonable or even sane! The chit pulled every usual standard of judgment he’d relied upon from under his feet. Giving her free rein in the kitchens might be the wisest thing to do or the most foolish. And he had no idea which. What the devil was happening to him?

Then he looked into those green eyes. Warm. Open. Beguilingly clear.

“Dammit, woman—”

Charging back down the passage, he ran into Reynard, Axel, and Greeve holding back a tide of others who had streamed out of the hall to witness the confrontation. Servants, men-at-arms, and retainers flattened themselves against the passage walls to allow him to pass, then followed him back to the table.

Reynard again took his place at Griffin’s right hand; he frowned at the bowl of tepid wheat berry pudding in front of him.

“A whole dinner of just frumenty?” he said with a wince.

Griffin gave him a look that could have seared a side of bacon.

“It’s good for you. Shut up and eat it.”

The kitchen staff had stopped stock-still to listen to their head cook’s confrontation with their lord and looked at each other in wonder. Any cook who had the nerve to serve the Count of Grandaise
frumenty
for dinner had to be either very brave or quite mad and they had yet to decide which applied to their mercurial new cook. Their confusion deepened as the afternoon wore on and she continued to have them carry, clean, and rearrange the kitchen to suit her … and perform the most basic of kitchen duties.

She had the kitchen staff, from the most experienced to the greenest beginner, demonstrate how they measured, blanched, ground, peeled, seeded, chopped, grated, strained, larded, sliced, pounded, and fileted … while she watched and assessed their abilities. There was considerable mumbling … until Sister Regine cheerfully tried her hand at each … with such ineptitude that she had many of them laughing at and with her.

While the younger staff practiced such mundane skills, she had the position cooks create some of the mixtures and substances basic to the cuisine of noble houses: almond milk, pea puree, soured cream, mustard sauce, strong dough, soft dough, aspic from a marrow bone, rose water, fruit sauce, and sundry colorings. They, too, grumbled and chafed at being required to demonstrate their competence at tasks they had been doing for years.

But all was forgiven when the demanding new cook sailed around the kitchen seizing various chopped, ground, diced, blanched, roasted, and mixed ingredients they had just produced and carried them to a cleared center table. There, with winning deftness of hand and eye, she rolled dough and assembled luscious-looking chicken and vegetable pasties dusted with a savory fine spice. The cooks’ and workers’ mouths watered as she slid the packets of dough into the hot grease of Old Albee’s frying pans and tended them until they were golden brown. As each batch came out, she dusted them with herbs and salt and piled them up on her work table beside crocks of yellow mustard in wine and soured cream into which she had stirred garlic and spices.

They could hardly tear their eyes from the pasties long enough to hand the crocks of reheated frumenty out the doors to the waiting hall servants. Quickly, they closed and barred the doors, as she ordered, and huddled around the center table of the kitchen, staring at her flushed face.

“The tasks you carried out today were boring, each unto itself. But taken together, the results of your separate labors”—she picked up one of the cooling pasties and held it aloft for all to admire—“the diced chicken, chopped spinach, grated carrots, strong dough, ground spices, and snipped herbs have created a beautiful and delicious dish. Fit for a fine lord.”

She could see the wistful hunger in their eyes, and the disappointment dawning. She smiled.

“But as our Lord Jesus said, when He was here on earth: The first shall be last and the last shall be first,” she declared resoundingly. “I think it only fair that you taste firsthand the delight you will be providing for His Lordship and those who dine with him in the hall. Dig in!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, they seized the pasties and dipped them in the sauces. The kitchen filled with groans and titters of pleasure and excitement. Their lord was having frumenty in the hall while they were eating like kings in the kitchen! By the time the last pasty was consumed, most of the staff were pinching themselves to make certain it wasn’t a dream. One or two, however, were scowling in disapproval at what they saw as a scandalous use of food that rightly belonged on their lord’s trencher. She saw those scowls and the sly, speculative looks of the wily potboys.