Polgara the Sorceress (88 page)

‘And I yours, Mistress Pol,’ he replied, ducking his head slightly in a sort of bow. ‘I’ll take you up to meet Faldor. We can hope that his column of figures all added up today.’

‘Does he have trouble making them come out?’

‘All the time, Mistress Pol. All the time. Faldor’s a very good farmer and the best master in this part of Sendaria, but arithmetic’s not his strong point. He gets grouchy when his numbers don’t add up.’ Durnik pointed at the main house. ‘His quarters are upstairs over the kitchen and dining-room. I don’t envy him that. The smells coming out of the kitchen lately haven’t been too appetizing.’

‘That’s sort of what I’m here to talk with him about, Goodman Durnik.’

‘Are you a cook, perhaps?’ His brown eyes grew hopeful.

‘I can boil water without burning the bottom of it, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Praise the Gods,’ he said fervently. ‘Poor Nala can’t even manage that any more. Can you imagine what burning water smells like?’

We both laughed as we crossed the compound to the large kitchen door. ‘Wait here,’ I told my goat. I knew that it was probably a waste of breath. She’d go exploring as soon as I was out of sight, but I was sure that I could find her again.

The kitchen was well-designed, I saw, with work-tables and cutting boards in the center, stoves and ovens lining the walls, and the storage bins and pantries at the back. It was very cluttered, however, with knives and pans littering
the work-tables rather than being hung back up where they belonged. There was definitely a problem here, and its source was snoring in a chair by the stove. It was fairly late in the afternoon, but supper hadn’t even been started yet The kitchen was disorganized, and the kitchen helpers were wandering around aimlessly while the head cook snored. It was clear that Mistress Nala wasn’t taking her job seriously any more.

Farmer Faldor was a tall, lean, horse-faced man with a long nose and an even longer chin. As I was to discover, he was a devoutly religious man who felt it to be his duty to look after the well-being of his employees, physical as well as spiritual. When I first saw him, he was struggling with a column of figures. One glance told me where he was making his mistake, but I didn’t think I should point it out to him until I got to know him better.

This is Mistress Pol, Faldor,’ Durnik introduced me. ‘She wanted to speak with you about the possibility of employment in the kitchen.’

‘Mistress Pol,’ Faldor greeted me, politely rising to his feet.

‘Farmer Faldor,’ I replied with a little curtsey.

‘Have you had much experience working in kitchens?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I replied, ‘a great deal of experience.’

‘Our kitchen certainly needs help right now,’ he said mournfully. ‘Nala used to be very good, but she’s older now and putting on a lot of weight. It’s slowing her down. She just can’t seem to get started any more.’

‘It’s an occupational hazard, Master Faldor. It has to do with tasting.’

‘I didn’t exactly follow that, Mistress Pol.’

‘A good cook has to check the quality of what she’s preparing. The only way I know of to do that is to taste it. If a cook isn’t careful about that, every sip or nibble goes straight to her hips. How many are you feeding currently?’

‘Fifty-three right now,’ he replied. ‘There’ll be more when we get into the planting. Do you think you could handle that big a kitchen?’

‘Easily, Master Faldor, but why don’t we wait until after supper before we make any permanent decisions? You
might not like my cooking, and it’s good business to examine the product before you buy it.’

‘That makes sense, Mistress Pol,’ he agreed.

Just then Garion started to fuss a bit. I put him over my shoulder and patted his back to make him burp.

‘Your baby, Mistress Pol?’ Faldor asked.

‘My nephew,’ I replied sadly. ‘His parents died.’

Faldor sighed. ‘Tragic,’ he murmured.

‘Yes. I’ll step around Mistress Nala rather carefully, Master Faldor,’ I promised. ‘From what I gather, she’s served well and faithfully here, and it wouldn’t be proper to just push her aside.’

‘I’m glad you understand that, Mistress Pol,’ he said gravely.

‘That’s assuming that my cooking doesn’t make everyone sick,’ I amended with a slight smile. ‘How many kitchen helpers are there?’

‘Six – counting Nala herself. Would that be enough?’

‘More than enough, Master Faldor. Is there someplace where I could put my belongings? It’s a little late, and I’d better get to fixing supper if we want to eat before midnight.’

‘Why don’t you show her to that vacant room up on the west side, Durnik?’ Faldor suggested. Then he sighed with some resignation. ‘And I guess I’d better get back to my addition here. This thing refuses to come out even.’

‘Would it help at all if I told you that twelve and nine makes twenty-one and not twenty-two?’ I asked him mildly.

He stared down at his figures and then carefully counted it out on his fingers. ‘Why, I
do
believe you’re right, Mistress Pol,’ he said. ‘It
does,
doesn’t it?’

‘It always has before.’ Then Durnik and I left.

‘Is he usually that pliable?’ I asked Durnik as we went on downstairs.

‘I didn’t quite follow that, Mistress Pol.’

‘He didn’t ask where I’d worked before, he didn’t really ask if I knew anything at all about cooking, and he didn’t even ask where I’d come from.’

‘Mistress Pol,’ Durnik said, ‘the kitchen here is sort of a
continuing disaster – like a fire in the barn or an epidemic of cow-pox. Faldor’s not pliable so much as he’s desperate. If Torak himself showed up claiming to be a cook, Faldor’d hire him without a second thought.’

‘I see. Well, I guess I’ll have to fix that’

I dropped off my bundle in the small room Durnik showed me, asked him to round up my goat and put her in the stables, and then I went back to the kitchen. Nala was still sleeping, and the other kitchen helpers were sort of aimlessly going through the motions of getting ready to start on the evening meal. ‘I’m the new kitchen helper, ladies,’ I told them. ‘My name’s Pol, and I think we’d better get started on supper, don’t you?’

‘We can’t really do that until Nala wakes up, Mistress Pol,’ a thin, pale girl with a runny nose told me, sniffing. ‘She might get offended.’

‘We won’t actually be doing anything but just getting things ready,’ I lied,’– you know, peeling carrots, cutting up vegetables, putting water to boil – that sort of thing.’

‘Oh,’ she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘That might be all right, I guess.’ I saw immediately that I had a long way to go here. Nala’s semi-comatose state had encouraged a great deal of laxity in the kitchen.

I decided that stew would probably have to do for this evening. There wasn’t really enough time for anything else. I took an oblique approach to the other kitchen helpers. After I’d stowed Garion in an out-of-the way vegetable bin, I started making ‘suggestions’, usually prefaced with ‘would you like to–’ or ‘Don’t you think that –’ or ‘shouldn’t we perhaps –’. Then, when I’d managed to put them all to work, I went into the spice pantry to inventory the condiments. I was muttering darkly even before I was finished. The spice jars were all there, of course, but half of them were empty. I threw a furtive look back over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t being observed, and then I cheated.

Nala awoke when we started braising the stew meat. ‘What’s going on here?’ she demanded.

‘We were just getting things ready to start fixing supper, Nala,’ the girl with the runny nose reported. ‘Mistress Pol
here thought it might be a good idea. You know how Faldor is when supper’s late.’

‘Mistress Pol?’ Nala asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

‘I just came to work here this afternoon, Mistress Nala,’ I said to her with a polite little curtsey. ‘Enna here said you were feeling a little under the weather.’ I put one arm familiarly around the shoulder of the red-nosed girl. ‘I didn’t think we should disturb you. What do you think? Would stew be all right for this evening?’

Nala pretended to consider it. ‘Whatever you decide, Mistress Pol,’ she consented with a little shrug. What else could she say? Everything was ready to go into the stew-pot.

I looked at her rather closely. ‘You don’t look at all well, Mistress Nala,’ I said with mock concern. Then I laid the back of my hand to her forehead. ‘You’ve got a fever,’ I told her. ‘We’d better do something about that just as soon as we get the stew to simmering and the biscuits in the oven.’

‘I
do
feel a little feverish, Pol,’ she admitted.

Of
course
she felt feverish. I’d just elevated her temperature with the back of my hand. I
really
wanted this job.

The vegetables and braised stew meat cascaded into the large bubbling stew-pots, and then I compounded a mixture of ordinary cooking spices to counteract Nala’s ‘fever’. After that, I hovered over the stew-pots with my collection of seasonings.

The stew we served that evening was barely adequate in my opinion, but Faldor and his farm hands went at it like starving men, some of them even going so far as to pour the last dribblings of gravy over biscuits.

‘Oh, my,’ Faldor said, groaning and putting his hands on his belly. ‘I think I ate too much.’

‘You’re not the only one, Faldor,’ Durnik agreed, also groaning. Then he gestured toward me as I stood in the doorway with Garion in my arms. ‘I think we should keep her, don’t you?’

‘Um,’ Faldor replied. ‘I’ll tell you what, Durnik. As soon
as you’re able to walk, why don’t you just nip across the compound and close and lock the gate? We wouldn’t want to let her get away, now would we?’

And that was how I cooked my way into a permanent place at Faldor’s farm. As I mentioned, the stew wasn’t really all that spectacular, but it was several cuts above what Nala had been offering.

As soon as supper was over, I beckoned to Enna, the pale blonde girl with the red nose. ‘Yes, Mistress Pol?’ she said, coming obediently.

I reached out and touched her nose. ‘How long have you had the sniffles?’ I asked her.

‘Weeks,’ she said, rolling her eyes upward.

‘I rather thought you might have.’

‘If s not a cold, Mistress Pol,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel achy or feverish.’

‘No, if s not a cold. It’s spring, Enna, and there are some things in bloom right now that don’t agree with you. Let’s fix that right now.’

‘Are you a physician, Mistress Pol?’

‘I wouldn’t go all that far, Enna,’ I replied. ‘I know a few home remedies is about all. Let’s dry up that nose of yours. We
do
work around food, after all, and – well, I’m sure you get my point.’

She giggled and then she sniffed.

Though we all still deferred to Nala, her instructions became increasingly vague. By the end of the week, I was the one who was really running the kitchen, but I’d still periodically carry a spoonful of whatever we were preparing to her for approval. It didn’t really inconvenience me that much, so I spoon-fed her.

Within a month, the goat, Garion and I were all settled in, and I’m sure that in the minds of Faldor, Durnik and the other farm workers we’d always been there. I cleaned and straightened up our little sleeping room, but Garion spent most of his time in that vegetable bin. I always knew just exactly where he was, even when my back was turned to him.

I was very comfortable at Faldor’s farm. These people were Sendars all the way down to the bone, and in a very
real sense, I’d created the Sendars, so coming here was much like coming home.

It was midsummer when uncle Beltira stopped by, ostensibly to ask directions to Upper Gralt. I took him just outside the gate and pretended to be pointing out the way while we talked.

‘We’ve been tearing this end of Sendaria apart looking for you, Pol,’ he said. ‘I’d have walked right by if I hadn’t caught sight of your goat. Why didn’t you get in touch with us?’

‘I’m trying to stay out of sight until father tracks down Chamdar. Is he having any luck with that?’

‘He hasn’t told us so yet. He’s in Tolnedra right now. The last time he talked with us, he and that young Prince Kheldar were hot on the trail of Asharak the Murgo. We’ve been out of touch for a few weeks, so we can’t be sure if they’ve succeeded yet or not.’

‘Well, I’d better stay under cover until they find him and start shipping pieces of him back to Ctuchik. Get word to father about where I am, but you’d probably better have Drasnian intelligence carry the message. As long as Chamdar’s still all in one piece, I’d rather not have my location echoing off every hilltop.’

He nodded. ‘You seem almost happy here, Pol,’ he observed.

‘I like what I’m doing, and I like the people here on this farm. I wouldn’t exactly say that I’m happy, though. That might change after father and Silk dispose of Chamdar.’

‘Who’s Silk?’

‘Prince Kheldar. It was his nickname at the academy. I’d better get back to the kitchen. My helpers all mean well, but they need a lot of supervision. Give my best to uncle Belkira.’

‘I will, Pol. We love you, you know.’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do – and I love you too. Now scoot.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ And then we both laughed.

Garion started crawling shortly after Beltira’s visit, and my life suddenly became much more interesting. He
was
in a kitchen, after all, and a crawling baby underfoot in a
place where there are knives, cleavers, pots of boiling water, and scurrying kitchen workers added a certain amount of excitement to my life. I could never be exactly sure of where he was. Dear Gods, that little boy could move fast! I soon became adept at herding him around with my feet. I’m sure I frequently looked like an acrobat – pinching a pie-crust with one hand, seasoning a bowl of dressing with the other and scooping a very active little boy out of harm’s way with my foot. Garion thought that was lots of fun, but it didn’t entertain
me
all that much. I really wasn’t looking forward to the day when he started walking, and I began to give some serious consideration to putting him on a leash or something.

Harvest time on a farm is the busiest part of the year for the people who grow food for a living, and my kitchen was no exception. Notice that I could call it
my
kitchen now. Mistress Nala’s legs finally went bad on her, and so she went off to live with her youngest daughter on the northern end of Lake Medalia. Anyway, Faldor’s farm hands had to be fed four times a day during the harvest, and that kept my helpers and me busy from well before dawn until several hours past sunset. I think everybody on the farm was very happy to see the last wagonload of turnips come in out of the fields.