The veiled throne, p.74
The Veiled Throne, page 74
“The chef?… Not available.”
Crushing disappointment.
“Is he too busy designing the menu?” asked Dandelion. “We need to ask him questions about hygiene practices.”
“Uh, um, that is to say—”
Before he could answer, the child, who had seen the strangers coming into the kitchen, climbed down from the platform and ran over.
“What is this?” she demanded of Giphi. “Your instructions were not to disturb the kitchen staff while we’re practicing for the competition.”
“Oh…” Giphi bent down and whispered in her ear.
Kinri and his team examined the child with interest. She had the smooth black skin of a native of Haan, and thick, curled hair framed her handsome face. Her large green eyes surveyed the inspection team with suspicion.
When Giphi was done with his explanation, she reluctantly said, “We don’t have time for questions. They can look around, but I want them to stay out of our way.” She turned and began heading back to her platform.
“Can we taste some of the amazing creations here?” asked Widi.
“No,” said the child, her tone brooking no argument. She didn’t even slow down as she strode away.
“Who is she?” asked Dandelion again, her face turning red at the rudeness.
“Your Honor, don’t waste your anger on a mere menial,” begged Giphi. “She’s just a child from the countryside unused to polite society.”
“I bet she’s related to Mozo Mu,” whispered Dandelion to Kinri.
Kinri nodded. “Maybe we can get her to give us some hints of what Mozo Mu is planning. Should be easier to get a child to talk.”
Rati noticed Widi’s eyes roaming around the kitchen, the look of hunger and craving as obvious as a wolf’s slobber. To be so close to such wonderful food without being able to taste was torture to him. There was no telling what he would do if they left him here.
“Why don’t I go inspect the storage pantry and cellars?” said Rati. “Diwi, you come with me. Dadéluon, you stay here to inspect the kitchen.”
Giphi apologized a few more times and led Rati Yera and Widi Tucru away, with Mota Kiphi pushing the wheeled chair. Widi looked back with every step, silently bidding farewell to the culinary wonders that fate refused to acquaint him with.
That left Dandelion, Kinri, and Arona in the kitchen.
“I guess we should at least pretend to be doing a compliance inspection,” said Arona. The three of them began to stroll purposefully around the kitchen while staying out of the way of the cooks and servants buzzing about.
“I wish Widi were here,” whispered Arona. “He’d probably be able to pick out a lot of interesting information just from all the smells and ingredients on display here. Still, I’m sure he can glean more knowledge from the pantry and cellar.”
“You make it sound like he’s the only one with eyes and nose,” said Dandelion, clearly peeved. “Who says we can’t figure out things on our own? Maybe I’m an expert on cooking too, and I just haven’t told you.”
Arona looked at her, amused. “Really? Then tell me, what sort of vegetable is that man chopping?”
Dandelion squinted at the green stalks, biting her bottom lip. “Are they… leeks? No, don’t tell me. They must be… pipe scallions?”
Princess Fara had always prided herself on being a gourmet, having sampled all kinds of excellent dishes in Pan’s most expensive restaurants, not to mention the Imperial kitchen. Indeed, she often designed the menus for her own dinner parties at the palace. But her knowledge of food was limited to ordering and consuming, having never set foot inside the kitchen herself or seen raw ingredients before they were transmuted through the art of cooking.
“Really? You think those are pipe scallions? I hope you never make me a soup. How about that fruit there? What’s that?” Arona pointed at another cooking station.
“I… I’m pretty sure that’s a winter melon? Wait, maybe winter melons aren’t so small. Is that a… a kind of soft-shelled coconut?”
Arona covered her mouth with her hands as her body shook with silent laughter. Tears spilled from her eyes.
“All right, you’ve made your point,” said a dejected Dandelion. “I know how to use the writing knife a lot better than the kitchen knife. Satisfied? I’ve never liked to read about cooking, and the em—my aunt wouldn’t let me go into the kitchen anyway. So I don’t know what anything looks like uncooked. But I can at least tell you what tastes good.”
“I’m sure a girl like you has had a surfeit of fine dining,” said Arona. “Whereas I’m plenty happy with a drumstick and a gourd of cheap beer. But to not know the difference between mountain chives and pipe scallions, or to confuse a winter melon with a sponge gourd…” Arona shook her head in amazement.
“Don’t be so proud just because you can identify a few common ingredients,” said Dandelion, her cheeks flushed. “How about I test you on a few things?”
“You’re on,” said Arona. “I can’t claim to be a great cook either, but I know what food looks like.”
Dandelion looked around the kitchen, trying to find something to stump Arona with. Suddenly, her eyes lit up. “What kind of fish is being cleaned over there?” She pointed to a woman standing by a wooden tub, scraping the scales from a fish with a flat, bony head and a slender tail that flared into long fins. “And what are those fruits over there?” She pointed to a bowl on the counter behind the woman.
Arona walked closer to the woman and pretended to be examining the cooking station for signs of accumulated grime. The actress’s brows were furrowed in concentration.
Dandelion smiled. She had picked that particular fish because there was only one like it, and the woman seemed to be taking particular care. Similarly, the fruits were placed in an expensive-looking porcelain bowl instead of a wooden one. This probably meant that the ingredients were rare and precious. She hoped the actress wouldn’t know what they were.
But when Arona walked back, she looked triumphant. “I have to admit, you almost got me. That fish is a moonbow trout, which is only found in Lake Toyemotika on Arulugi. The ‘fruit’ is actually a smooth-skinned taro, cultivated in Tan Adü.”
“How do I know you aren’t just making these up?”
Arona laughed. “You’re welcome to ask the cook for confirmation. I recognize them only because we’ve traveled all over the Islands, and I enjoy going through markets to see what people in different places eat. To know something about the food of a place is to know something about its soul, and that helps when I have to portray people from there.”
“You’ve been to Arulugi and Tan Adü?”
Arona nodded. “We like to learn all that the Islands have to teach us. The art of Arulugi’s smokecrafters is perfect for the stage, and the Adüans can sing with their throats and lips at once, producing multiple notes.”
Dandelion looked envious. “I’ve rarely been outside of Pan….” Abruptly, her eyes narrowed. “Wait. The trout and the taros… those aren’t local ingredients.”
“So insightful, Miss Dandelion. I see that you’re not only a master identifier of edible fauna and flora, but also a credible geographer—”
“Would you stop making fun of me for a moment?” Dandelion stomped her foot. “This is important.”
“What’s important? Of course Mozo Mu would source ingredients from all over Dara. The distinguishing characteristic of Suda Mu’s style of cooking is fusion of many styles—”
“No! The point is that both of these ingredients spoil pretty fast.”
“How do you know that? You didn’t even know what they look like.”
“But I read books! Nakipo of Amu has a poem in which she compares inconstant lovers to the eyes of the moonbow trout: ‘Clouding over in a single hour.’ And Luan Zyaji wrote of how quickly the smooth-skinned taro shriveled once pulled out of the ground. Can you tell how fresh they are?”
Arona looked. The fish had clear, bright eyes, and the mud on the taros appeared wet.
“That fish was probably alive this morning,” said Arona. “And the taros… probably dug out no more than two days ago.”
“Considering how far Arulugi and Tan Adü are from here, the only way they could get them this fresh is with airships,” said Dandelion. “Even my house—um, I’ve heard that even the wealthiest restaurants in Pan can’t afford to ship many ingredients fresh by airship.”
With the only source of regular lift gas on Rui under Lyucu control, Dara had had to adapt by using airships powered by fermented manure gas. The flammability and reduced lift of these ships meant that air travel and transport were quite costly, and well out of the reach of even wealthy and noble households. The Splendid Urn did ship some ingredients in by airship, but very few.
“I see your point,” said Arona. “But this isn’t exactly a surprise either. We know the Hutos are rich, and that they’re willing to spend to win this competition.”
“It’s more than that,” said Dandelion. “Weren’t you just telling me about the importance of stories? A contest, no less than a play or a disguise, is about a story.”
“Stories? Where’s the story here?”
“There are many ways to spend money, and the choices matter. There is a story that’s being told by this restaurant: the use of gold paint everywhere; the ostentation of the jeweled friezes outside; the lack of respect for the needs of the less mobile; the domineering attitude of a staff that thinks nothing of practicing with ingredients that are out of reach for the kitchens of dukes—there’s nothing graceful about any of it. I don’t quite know what it means yet, but knowing the story the enemy is trying to tell is the first step to defeating them.”
Arona now looked at Dandelion with a newfound respect. “I’ve never quite thought of it that way, but I do believe you’re right. Look at you, already surpassing your not-quite-teacher.”
They laughed. The two women then realized that Kinri hadn’t said anything for a while. They looked around and saw that he was standing a little ways off, muttering to himself.
“What are you doing?” asked Dandelion, going up and elbowing him in the ribs.
“Aw! What’s that for?”
“Arona and I have been trying to learn all we can about this place,” said Dandelion. “What about you? Slacking off? This whole thing was your idea.”
“While you’ve been arguing, I’ve been listening to that girl.”
“What has she been saying?” asked Dandelion with interest.
“Well, that’s what’s odd,” said Kinri. “She’s been quoting the Ano Classics to herself.”
“What?” Dandelion looked at Kinri, astounded. “You know the Ano Classics?”
“I… I’ve picked up a few snippets here and there; anyway, that’s not important. She was shouting directions to the cooks—you know, chop this, dice that, don’t put in the fish until the bubbles in the oil are as big as the nail on your pinkie, and so on—the sort of thing I can’t really make sense of. But once in a while, she’ll stop and start muttering to herself, almost like she’s trying to remind herself of something. Just now, I heard her say:
“A thousand scales fell at a single stroke.
A thousand ships launched for a promise.
A thousand pearls gazed at the fall
Of the grandest walled treasure-hall.
“I know I’ve heard those lines before, but I can’t remember from where.”
“Oh, I know where they come from,” said Dandelion. “They’re from Para’s poem about Séraca, the hero who fought against Iluthan with a fleet of feather ships during the Diaspora Wars. Not one of my favorites, honestly. I’m not a big fan of these war-and-politics epics—”
“But the poems must be related to the dishes—”
“How?” asked Arona.
Kinri hesitated. “I think… they’re kind of like logogram riddles.”
Dandelion looked thoughtful at this.
“I don’t know anything about cooking, but why would she be saying this to herself in the kitchen? Suda Mu wanted to keep his recipes secret, right? So it makes sense that he would only pass them down in the form of a code.”
Dandelion and Arona thought about this. Then they both nodded.
“Can you tell me anything more about this Para?” asked Kinri.
“He was a court poet at Boama,” said Dandelion. “He’s often considered an important figure for the exuberance school of poetry, but I think he tends to write in an excessively decorative style. He taught three students of note—”
“No, no, I don’t mean what he was like as a poet,” said Kinri impatiently. “You said he was a court poet at Boama? When? During the time of the Xana Conquest or before?”
“Oh, long before. I’m not great with dates and wars, though…. Let me see, he studied under the Oyster Poet, who painted Portrait of Three Ladies, which was notable for capturing the expressions of the subjects vividly using just a few strokes, a restraint that Para himself lacked—”
Kinri tried to be patient. “Are these three ladies important? Did they fight in any wars?”
“I doubt it. But they were the wives of three prominent generals of the Tiro state—”
“Wait, you said three generals? Do you mean they were Ladies Faça, Rima, and Haan?”
Dandelion’s face brightened. “Yes, that’s it. Have you seen the painting?”
Kinri shook his head. “But if that’s true, that means Para was a court poet in Boama right around the partitioning of the old Tiro state Métashi into Faça, Rima, and Haan. The court at Boama, prior to the partition, was reputed to be the wealthiest and most powerful in all Dara. Métashi fought many wars against the other Tiro states, and was thought to be on the path of conquering the whole Big Island before it fell apart.”
Arona and Dandelion stared at him.
“What?” asked Kinri defensively. “I like history.”
“I think you’ve got some interesting riddles of your own,” said Dandelion, looking thoughtfully at him. From the moment she’d met him, she had felt an odd sense of familiarity and comfort with him. Indeed, she had to admit that she cared so much about the “fire-breathing spiderweb” comment only because he had said it.
Someone who knows the history of the Tiro states and recognizes the Ano Classics is no ordinary busboy. Maybe thasé-teki really is the right flower for him, because he’s got hidden depths under that gangly frame—which… actually can be pretty appealing in the right light.
Kinri tried to head off more questions by focusing on the task at hand. “The court at Boama sounds a lot like the court at Kriphi at the time Suda Mu cooked there.”
“That is interesting,” said Dandelion. “Since extravagance seems to be the theme in this restaurant, it makes sense that they’d draw from the poet of an extravagant court for coded instructions.”
“But how do we decode the instructions?” asked Arona.
“Let’s just memorize the poems for now,” said Kinri. “We don’t know enough about cooking to understand what we’re seeing in the kitchen, but we can try to figure out the riddle-poems later, just like how I take apart the gizmos I buy at the market.”
“It’s worth a try,” said Dandelion.
The three “inspectors” continued to walk around the kitchen, pretending to look for fire suppression tools and evacuation routes, making notes about the cleanliness of the surfaces and the staff. But they kept their ears open and jotted down the poems recited by the child whenever she paused and muttered to herself.
Abruptly, Giphi ran up to them, his expression one of deep worry. Giant drops of sweat beaded on his rotund, red face, making him resemble a dew-bedecked apple.
“Uh… we may have a problem. Circuit Intendant Suti is missing!”
* * *
The manager had taken the circuit intendant and her staff to the storehouse to inspect the supplies. This was a squat, medium-sized structure used for goods that could keep for a while, like bags of rice and beans, links of sausages, bundles of lotus leaves, and jars of rice beer. But the aboveground portion was only like the tip of an iceberg, for the storehouse sat on top of a giant ice cellar many times its size.
At first, the circuit intendant was content to allow Giphi to direct her around the vast ice cellar, pointing out the straw packed around the enormous blocks of ice, the system of ditches in the floor to drain the meltwater, the creation of different temperature zones for meats, vegetables, fruits, dairy, and so on. The aged official nodded noncommittally in her wheeled chair, clearly bored by the presentation.
Well, bored is good, thought Giphi. Bored means everything is in order.
“What are those screens doing over there?” asked Rati. “They look a little crooked.” She pointed to a set of silk-and-bamboo screens near the wall, which were normally used to give large parties of diners some privacy when they couldn’t afford one of the private suites.
Giphi silently swore at the lazy servants who had done such a poor job of covering up what he was hoping the circuit intendant wouldn’t see. He had whispered urgent directions to his staff before coming out to meet the inspection team and hadn’t had time to check their work.
“Oh, nothing,” said Giphi. “The restaurant hasn’t opened yet, so we’re just keeping the screens here.”
“In an ice cellar?” asked Rati suspiciously. She gestured for Mota, who went over and moved the crooked screens out of the way to reveal the yawning opening of a tunnel leading into the darkness.
Rati looked up at Giphi, her eyes bright and cold as icicles.
“Oh… oh!” Giphi slapped his forehead. “How could I have forgotten! Master Huto intends to use this area as a vault to store some valuables and the earnings from the restaurant. He hasn’t picked a bank yet, and he’s very cautious about thieves and robbers, and… and potential raids by pirates. There’s really nothing in there right now.”
“Can we take a look?” said Rati, leaning forward in her chair to peer into the darkness.
“I really don’t think we should—”
