Chapter 14
“I said earlier, but we need more people.”
After finishing my share of the dishes and returning, I said that, and Elysia stopped the hand holding the money pouch.
It was the night not long after the Marquis and Marchioness of Reinfeld had left.
The smell of candle wax and herbs still lingered in the parlor, while in the kitchen, Marie was losing the meaning of life in front of a mountain of dishes.
The servants were washing plates, and Uncle Bernard was recording the extra pouch the marquis and marchioness had left in the ledger.
The money had come in.
The problem was that everyone was on the verge of collapsing.
“People?”
“Yes. Whether it’s an assistant chef, a kitchen hand, or someone in charge of washing dishes, we need another pair of hands in the kitchen.”
“Can’t we manage with the people we have now?”
“No. Marie has to serve as well, and the servants have their duties at the manor. If we also make them wash dishes, prep ingredients, haul water, tend the fire, wash knives, and scrub the floor, someone will collapse within a few days.”
Elysia set the money pouch down on the table and fell into thought.
In the past, the very idea of hiring someone new would have been impossible.
But now we had some money.
Of course, the debt remained.
There was one especially frightening misconception in the restaurant business.
The misconception that sales coming in meant you had made money.
But sales were sales, profit was profit, and debt was debt.
The moment you confused the three in your head, the business went under.
I’d seen it far too often in my previous life.
Restaurants that looked busy, but made you shed tears of blood when you checked their bank accounts.
Restaurants where customers lined up, but the owner couldn’t sleep while scrambling to pay the card bills.
Restaurants that celebrated getting on TV once, only to be crushed to death by ingredient and labor costs.
So we had to be even more careful from now on.
But we had to hire someone.
“Uncle Bernard.”
“Yes, Kyle.”
“Do you know anyone trustworthy who’s worked in a kitchen? Someone from a noble household’s kitchen would be ideal, but someone who held out in an inn’s kitchen would do as well. They just can’t be slow with their hands or talkative.”
Uncle Bernard thought for a moment.
“There is a young kitchen assistant who worked briefly during the previous baron’s time. I heard they work at a small inn near the market now.”
“Why did they leave?”
“Because their wages were delayed.”
“Would they come back?”
“If we paid them on time, there’s a chance.”
“Then please call them. Tell them we’ll pay on time, but also that I’ll fire them if they can’t do the job.”
Elysia looked at me with concern.
“Do you have to put it that strongly?”
“If we call them in after saying only nice things and they come into the kitchen and cry, it’ll be hard on both of us. A kitchen doesn’t become heaven just because it pays.”
“Then what is it?”
“A hell where you get paid.”
Elysia closed the ledger.
“All right. I’ll look for an assistant chef. But what about Duke Kalden?”
“We have to prepare.”
The air shifted slightly.
Duke Kalden.
They said he was the man who had planned to take Elysia away if Monbel fell.
Just hearing that made me dislike him, but he was also a good customer.
Being a good customer didn’t mean he had a good personality.
It meant he paid.
“The duke needs a different approach from the marquis and marchioness.”
Elysia nodded.
“The marchioness liked stories.”
“Yes. She was a customer who responded to an emotional arc. Beginning, seeds, heat in the ashes, resurrection. She was someone who would follow that progression.”
“What about Duke Kalden?”
I thought for a moment.
“We can’t approach him delicately.”
Elysia asked with an intrigued expression,
“Then how should we do it?”
“We have to go straight at him. Sweet, rich, powerful, and immediately comprehensible flavors. The moment he sees the plate, he should think, I’m eating something expensive, and the moment he takes a bite, he should be under the illusion that this belongs to me.”
“That sounds like him.”
“We have to match the duke’s pride. We mustn’t make him pity our downfall. If we showed the marquis and marchioness that Monbel was breathing again, we have to show the duke that Monbel still has the strength to bite.”
“The strength to bite?”
“Yes. A house that isn’t being devoured, but one that can bite its opponent instead.”
Elysia was silent for a moment.
She knew Duke Kalden.
She probably knew the looks and rumors that had circulated through high society.
And she knew how the duke had viewed her.
A banquet served to someone like that couldn’t end as merely a delicious meal.
It had to show its teeth at least once on the table.
“All right. The duke is coming to eat us, isn’t he?”
“That’s right.”
“Then let’s make the table look as though we’re eating the duke first.”
“My lady.”
“Yes.”
“That is an excellent way to put it.”
Elysia smiled with satisfaction.
Apparently, Duke Kalden’s course was going to take a dangerous turn.
At dawn the next day, I went to the market again.
This time, I had a clear list of things to buy.
Meat with a decent amount of fat, sweet root vegetables, rich butter, honey, strongly flavored liquor, and ingredients that could properly soak up oil.
We couldn’t serve a plate that was too delicate to a man like the duke.
Rather than someone who followed the fragrance of a piece of fruit, he was more likely the sort of person who compared the power on the plate with his own power.
A customer like that had to be approached with force.
Of course, we couldn’t go at it crudely.
Intense but not vulgar. Sweet and rich without becoming cloying.
Direct, but leaving him with something to think about at the end.
Easy to say, but actually doing it could kill a chef.
“How much for this duck-like thing?”
“Expensive.”
“I asked how much.”
The merchant named his price.
I immediately frowned.
“Did it dance when it was alive?”
“The meat is good.”
“I know the meat is good, but this costs enough to go to the emperor’s table and then some.”
“Chef of Monbel, I hear you’re making money these days?”
Rumors spread disgustingly fast.
I glared at the merchant, then picked up the meat.
It was in good condition. The fat beneath the skin was decent, and it didn’t smell bad.
If I roasted it crisp with the skin on and coated it lightly with honey and spices, I could make a plate suited to the duke’s tastes.
In the end, I bought it.
My gut fucking twisted.
But the duke needed richness.
People’s tastes resemble their personalities.
Give delicate people room, and give those drunk on power intensity.
The duke probably wanted to see submission even on a plate.
So instead of serving a submissive plate, I had to serve one he would have no choice but to acknowledge with his own mouth.
When I returned to the manor, Uncle Bernard had brought a young man with him.
He was a young man just over twenty.
He had a lean build and sturdy wrists, and his fingers bore knife cuts and burn marks.
His face looked tired, but his eyes weren’t dead.
“This is Thomas. He worked briefly in the old Monbel kitchen and has been working in an inn kitchen until now.”
Thomas awkwardly bowed his head.
“I’m Thomas.”
I looked him over from head to toe.
“Can you use a knife?”
“Yes.”
“Can you clean fish?”
“Small ones.”
“Do you know how to tend a fire?”
“I was in charge of stews at the inn.”
“What about washing dishes?”
Thomas hesitated for a moment.
“I can.”
“Good. That’s the most important thing.”
He looked flustered.
Many people who enter a kitchen mistakenly think cooking is the glamorous act of waving a pan over a flame.
But in reality, it’s washing dishes, prepping, organizing, cleaning, and washing dishes again.
If you can’t endure that, you can’t even begin cooking.
I tossed an apron to Thomas.
“You start working in the kitchen today. If you’re slow, I’ll curse you out; if you stand around blankly, I’ll curse you out even more; and if you pretend to know something you don’t, I’ll kick you out. If you don’t know, say you don’t know.”
Thomas stared blankly for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes.”
“Good answer. Marie!”
“Yeah?”
“Show Thomas where the plates are and where to wash his hands.”
Marie nodded with the expression of someone who had suddenly become a senior.
“Follow me.”
The girl who had said just yesterday that she felt like she was going to throw up while carrying plates was taking a new recruit under her wing today.
People really do change quickly. Especially when someone comes in below them, they suddenly become adults.
I began designing the duke’s course.
The first bite had to be small but powerful.
Thinly sliced fruit had suited the marchioness, but it would be too weak for the duke.
Instead, I would place rich butter, sturgeon roe, and a tiny amount of spice lightly steeped in honey atop a small piece of bread.
Salt, sweetness, fat, and fragrance had to hit all at once.
The appetizer would be shrimp lightly cooked in oil with a sweet root-vegetable purée, and I planned to make it smooth and rich.
The soup wouldn’t be clear; I would give it a little more body with roasted onions and bone stock.
Sweet, fatty aromas would rise, followed by a slight kick of red spice at the end.
The main course would be a duck-like game bird.
Crisp skin, fatty meat. A rich sauce reduced from honey, liquor, and bone stock.
Sweetness would come first, fat would fill the mouth, and acidity and spice would clean things up at the end.
A man like the duke preferred clear satisfaction to complicated emotions.
It had to be delicious the instant he chewed. We could make him think afterward.
Elysia came into the kitchen, listened to the explanation of the course, and said,
“It’s very blatant this time.”
“You said the duke was a blatant man.”
“That’s right. If you phrase things delicately, he pretends not to understand, and if you speak directly, he thinks he’s won.”
“Then the plate should go that way, too.”
“Are you going to make him think he won?”
I answered while stirring the sauce.
“Yes.”
When Elysia’s expression hardened, I immediately added,
“Only in his mouth.”
“And after that?”
“We win on the bill.”
Elysia stared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing.
“I like it.”
“The duke probably likes the feeling of having eaten something expensive. So today, it’s richness rather than empty space. Not elegant hunger, but controlled greed. We’ll make him feel that he dominates this table while he’s eating, then make him pay for that sense of dominance at the end.”
“Controlled greed.”
Elysia slowly repeated the words.
“Let’s use that as the title for this course.”
“Another title?”
“It’s important. Nobles like named sins even more.”
“That sounds true enough to make me uncomfortable.”
It suited Duke Kalden so well that it was irritating.
The kitchen grew busy again.
Thomas was clumsy at first, but his hands were quick.
In particular, he was reasonably fast at peeling root vegetables.
I cursed him twice and nodded once.
Thomas looked more surprised by the nod than by the cursing.
Marie said quietly to him,
“When Kyle nods, that’s enormous praise.”
“That?”
“Yeah. By the standards here.”
The two of them were already creating a strange workplace culture.
It was a good sign.
When there’s a workplace culture, the people below me will chew each other out on their own when I need to chew someone out.
By afternoon, the outline of the duke’s course had taken shape.
The aromas of butter and honey, roasted onions, bone stock, and game-bird fat filled the kitchen with a heavy richness.
If the kitchen during the marquis and marchioness’s meal had smelled of herbs, red spices, and clear heat, today’s kitchen was much more blatant.
Sweet, rich, and powerful, but it couldn’t be dirty.
I took a spoonful of sauce and tasted it.
Sweetness came first, followed by the rounded flavor of fat.
‘It’s a little short on acidity at the end.’
I added a tiny bit of raspberry vinegar and stirred again.
“There.”
Elysia asked from beside me,
“Is it good?”
“Yes.”
“What does it taste like?”
“The kind of flavor a rich bad man would like.”
Elysia nodded with satisfaction.
“Then it’s right.”
As evening approached, the carriage from House Kalden arrived.
The air in front of the main gate was different.
Even the attendants’ footsteps were heavy, and the horses’ decorations were excessive.
The carriage door opened, and Duke Kalden stepped down.
He was as solidly built as I’d heard at the social gatherings, and his face suggested he had little intention of hiding his desires.
His gaze swept over Monbel Manor.
The old walls, the quiet garden, Uncle Bernard waiting, and Elysia standing at the entrance.
The corner of the duke’s mouth rose.
Watching that expression from inside the kitchen, I thought,
‘Yes. Keep smiling like that.’
Today, we would serve that man’s pride.
Sweet, rich, intense, and direct.
And at the end, we would put a price tag on that pride.
As I finished the first plate, I said,
“Marie.”
“Yeah.”
“Keep today’s explanation short. If you say too much to the duke, you’ll look weak.”
“Got it.”
“Thomas.”
“Yes.”
“Keep an eye on the sauce. If this burns, I’ll put you in the hearth and burn you alive.”
“Wait, what?”
“Does that sound like a joke?”
Thomas’s face went white.
I placed butter, black roe, honey, and spices on the plate.
A small, rich, blatant first bite.
It was the beginning of controlled greed.
“Let’s go.”