children here dropped a pot of hot oil?”
Wincing, Tor explained that oil floated, even if it was on fire, so they spread fuel all over the room with each splash of a bucket coming in. Richard, who’d been calling for more and more water, orders that everyone else kind of had to follow, closed his eyes and winced hard himself.
“I see. Oops.”
Tor snorted.
“Yeah, oops indeed. Well, you get it now, so live and learn, right? I’ll leave some devices that can help with things like this in the future.” Why not? It wasn’t like it cost him anything. Even if they hated him, it wouldn’t help if the palace burned down.
Taking a deep breath the Queen looked at them all a little desperately. “Now we have over a hundred people coming in less than two hours and the kitchen is functionally down. We have a backup kitchen, two of them in fact, but not enough personnel to get everything done in time. I have to go help, I’m afraid; I was going to show the Ambassador around for a while but…”
Mutta bowed low to the Queen again.
“Were my skills such, I would aid you in the kitchens, but alas, I am but a physician by trade and never learned the domestic arts well at all.” The woman actually sounded humble about it, as if a little embarrassed by her lack of skills.
Tor looked around slowly, taking stock of the situation. Half the kitchen staff was sitting down having wounds dressed. None hurt as badly as the children maybe, but bad enough. Burns, even minor ones, hurt when you got near heat at all. Like ovens and stoves, or even hot dishes. Making them go back to cook injured like this would be worse than cruel. Barbaric.
“I can help with the baking at least and whatever else I’m told to do. Varley… You can follow instructions right? So, um, go get Rolph and Karina as well as any of the house servants that are willing to try and help out and let’s see what we can get done, alright?”
This got a soft gasp from the Queen for some reason.
“Tor… We can’t ask you to do that, not after everything…” Connie walked over and gave him a hug or at least tried to. The shield held her away again. Richard seconded that, his tone going a lot warmer suddenly than it had been before. So it was Mutta the King didn’t like?
“She’s right Tor. Someone tries to kill you with cyanide and then… Well, yes, we need to talk about everything later, but pushing you until you drop isn’t exactly what we had in mind for your visit.”
Wrinkling his nose and closing his eyes a little he told them that he’d be fine.
“I’ll only push right up to the brink of death, then take a short break and get some water before starting again.” He marked this out with flat hand gestures, marking each bit of his plan in space.
At least Mutta thought it was funny. She had a rich and warm laugh. Almost fake sounding, but she knew enough to try, so that counted, right?
Getting the house staff organized was easy in a way. All Tor had to do was stand back and give baking instructions and make sure everyone got where they needed to be in the kitchen. He also watched the bread. The starter the palace used was mild, an almost sweet form that he’d have loved to steal a culture from if he was going to open his own bakery ever, but he didn’t need it right now, because the dough for the rolls and small loaves had already been made earlier in the day and about sixty percent of the baking was already done, in another building too, so it wouldn’t all taste like smoke. He and his crew definitely had the easy job. Some of the diner dishes had to be restarted and at least two replaced all together, since the food was too damaged to be used and took too long to make to simply redo in time.
One of them was a dessert, a custard that took about six hours to make, so Tor made hand pies using Debbie’s recipe to replace it. They were all apple raisin, since he had limited time to get the apples peeled and raisins soaked in apple juice, much less do several kinds of filling, but there were about ten people that could be put to the coring and peeling task. For some reason he got all the royals on his team, including the Queen.
Tor figured it out pretty quick.
They were there because no one else wanted to try and tell them what to do. They were good enough workers, especially Rolph, who started off with the idea that they had to hustle. Varley caught on pretty quickly, and worked with a will after being shown what to do. Karina was a lot better with a knife than he’d figured too, quick and efficient, not timid at all.
The Queen sucked at it, but only because she kept trying to run off and manage the kitchen, which largely meant getting into the cooks way. The woman was biting her tongue so hard Tor worried for a bit she’d sever it. But then, she couldn’t exactly take the Queen to task for getting in the way could she? Someone had too though, or nothing would get done. Tor sighed. Ideally it should be Rolph or one of the girls, since it would be hard to order their deaths, but none of them seemed to see any problem at all, not knowing anything about how a kitchen actually functioned.
“Connie!” Tor finally mock roared at her. “Sit down and do your own work. Your cook is one of the best in the kingdom, but if you keep ordering her to do different things, nothing’s going to get done in time. She’s the expert, and in this she knows what to do better than you do. This is her kingdom and she rules her. Now help with the apples, like a good kitchen girl or we’ll never get done.” Connie blinked, smiled, and sat down. Then she started peeling carefully. Laura, the cook, didn’t even crack a grin, just took a deep breath, nodded once at Tor and got back to work.
He focused on the light pastry dough and then making the filling, getting them all in the oven just in time for Burks to show up and stare at him meaningfully. The man stood out, being at least as pale as Tor was. Behind him were three other servants, all looking at their errant royals the same way. It sent a message, even without words.
Tor tried to claim that he needed to stay, but one of the real bakers for the palace came in and told him to go ahead and get ready, since all the hard work had already been done. Trying not to seem desperate, Tor explained the icing and made up a quick batch for demonstrations purposes which got a perfunctory nod. Tor had an odd feeling that the baker thought he was another of the house servants needed for his real job. Possibly dish washing, given how he was dressed.
Well, as long as they didn’t burn the pies, it would be all right. They’d even be fine without icing if it came to that. Not as good, but some people liked them a little less sweet. Even Debbie made both for her shop. The iced ones sold two to one over the others though.
Burks didn’t pull him all the way back to a real room, instead he found a small space that was about five foot square inside in a small corridor next to the kitchen. Without hesitating the good looking black haired man made him strip and change right there.
Well, the guy had already seen him naked, so no big thing, right? Embarrassing, but…
Apparently it was an issue.
“You’ve lost weight. A lot of it. I’d suggest that you eat more… sir, if that can be worked into your schedule?” Burks sounded a little sour about it, as if Tor had done it on purpose or out of pure neglect for his own health. It was half true, but still…
Tor snorted out loud, making his face as wry as possible, a little half grin and raised eyebrows.
“I’ll work on it, but between work and getting poisoned like I was, it’s been hard. Still, as far as I know, from now on I have nothing but time.”
“I’d not heard you were poisoned sir. Has the… culprit been apprehended yet?” The voice that had been a little disproving, and maybe playful, was suddenly deadly serious and sounded cold, as if the man intended to see justice done himself if need be.
“Nope. Sucks too. I mean, two months ago I didn’t think that anyone in the world would more than dislike me a little, maybe call me names, now I keep having to look at everyone like they plan to kill me. I’ll let you know as soon as something breaks, if anything does. You can help me bring them to justice.” Tor had tried for playful, but it sounded odd and serious when it came out. It was how his voice resonated still, he decided, with the slight rasping and popping.
“Very good sir. I shall stand ready to assist in any capacity needed.” The man sounded so sincere that Tor just nodded. Every time he turned around here the man was doing something to impress him, apparently without even trying. Tor felt himself almost tear up for a moment. It was humbling to see someone so good at their job. Probably why he worked at the palace. Cream of the entire kingdom for sure.
