Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01] - D'Shai (5 page)

 

W
HEN YOU DON’T
know what else to do, go back to the beginning. That’s what my father always taught me, and that’s what I believe.

The beginning.

I stood alone in the dark, in the street outside Madame Rupon’s, the wands and balls and rings scattered at my feet.

The night was cool, and dark, barely lit by the lanterns on the porches of the houses of the Bankstreets, and the stars above.

One ball.

It’s the most basic juggle: you throw one ball up in the air, and let it fall intp your hand. You really only have to control one thing at a time, but you have to control that fully.

You really do.

I threw one ball up in the air with my right hand, and let it fall into my left hand, not snatching it out of the night, but merely throwing and placing it precisely, thinking about each step as I did it. And then I did it the other way, throwing the ball from my left to my right, precisely, perfectly, the way you can do it only with practice or kazuh. It’s important to get the form right. Get the form right, and everything else falls into place.

And then two. First throw the ball in the left hand toward the right, and before it arrives, throw the ball in the right hand toward the left. Then do it the other way: the right hand first. Throw-throw. Pause. Throw-throw. Pause. That pause, that moment of robbed time makes it harder to juggle two than three, but you have to do it in order.

Three. Adding the third ball is simple, and turns a herky-jerky motion into a flow of catch-left throw-left catch-right throw-right.

I reached out my right foot and worked a fourth ball onto my instep, then kicked the fourth ball into the flow. And then a fifth, and a sixth, turning the simple shower into a constant motion of catch and throw.

I held the flow, stayed in the stream of catch and throw until my shoulders began to ache, and my eyes began to hurt with concentration.

So I relaxed my shoulders, and closed my eyes, and kept up the shower as I called for the kazuh of the acrobat, to let it propel my arms for me, to guide my way for me.

Nothing happened, except my arms got more tired, the tendons in my shoulders burning.

I couldn’t find it; it wasn’t there. They say that any problem can be solved with kazuh, or put into proportion. Keep everything in balance, they say, and the rest falls into place.

Hah.

I let the balls fall about me, into the dust, into the night.

“Very deft, young acrobat,â€

 

O
BEDIENT TO COMMAND
as always, I started the investigation, such as it was, the next morning. I didn’t know when Lord Toshtai was going to send for me, and with a bit of luck, perhaps I could find out enough by then to fix the blame on Refle.

I started with the door frame, the place where we ourselves had clamped the cable into place.

The mounting staple was still in place; I didn’t have the tools to remove it, and the Eresthais, who did, were still in town. They would be in sometime in the hour of the horse. I could take a look under it later, and maybe find something. What, I wasn’t sure—perhaps Refle had been considerate enough to impress his signature ring into the wood.

Sure.

I looked down the hall as though I was seeing it for the first time.

In a sense I was; it just hadn’t occurred to me to wonder what the three other rooms down our side of the hall were for. The other side was a long expanse of bas-relief between two circular stairways, broken in the middle by another hall that led toward the central wing of the donjon.

Refle had a residence somewhere in the castle, for certain. If it was one of these rooms, that might be another loop in the knot of his noose.

Down at the far end of the hall, a pair of maids were down on their hands and knees cleaning the floor, one washing, one drying. Members of our beloved ruling class don’t like to slip on marble. Neither do the rest of us, although we all too rarely have a chance to walk on it, to feel the mirror-smooth coolness beneath our feet.

“What are these other rooms used for?â€

 

“N
O, NO, NO
. You get the skin off the duck this way, not that way, not another way. When you’re a master cook,
then
you can do it your way. Not that you’ll want to; you will have learned to do it correctly by then.

“If you’ve survived.

“In the meantime, this is my kitchen, and we will do it correctly.

“ ‘
Which
it?’
Every
it, you fool.

“No, no, it doesn’t matter a fig that the dinner is for both our lord and Lord Orazhi. Concentrate on the thing itself, not on who is going to eat it. Pay careful attention to what you are doing, and let it carry you along. Feel it all. If you do, you will know what to do, most of the time. Yes, yes, timing is everything.

“For example, I can tell you that the stockpot has been over the charcoal long enough now, and it’s near the boil. Yes, yes, you had better slide it to the side and watch it carefully—if it boils, we’ll never be able to make the broth clear again.

“Oh. Idiot. Yes, yes, yes, you know so much, so very much, that I shouldn’t waste your time with your Master’s instructions. Yes, yes, you can clear a broth with egg whites, but that takes the flavor out of it, too. If you want a perfectly clear broth with no flavor, boy, then why bother adding the vegetables and spices and the chicken? Why bruise the peppercorns and toss them in—it would be so
very
much easier your way.

“No, no, you go ahead, you make a tasteless broth—set a bowl of hot water down in front of Lord Toshtai, sprinkle some thyme leaves on its surface, hand him a spoon and tell him it’s soup. I don’t think he’ll be impressed.

“So; you want to do it my way? Very well.

“Good, good, stir the broth, but don’t get your thumb in it. Not so vigorously—let the spirits of the fire do most of the work. Taste it, and try to taste what it will be like when it’s done, not just what it is now. Will it need more salt? No? Correct. Pepper? No? It should need more pepper. Hmmm ... let me taste. Yes, yes, bruise another five of the green peppercorns, I think, and two of the black ones. Add another few thyme leaves, and maybe a carrot. Definitely no more onion.

“Now, where were we?

“Ah. Of course: we were getting the skin off the duck. Just insinuate that tube into the slit, yes, yes, you’ve seen me do it a hundred times before, and now puff in, and watch it pull away from the flesh. Yes, you have to hold the tube in, and if you keep hacking away at the poor dead bird you’re going to have to do more than sew up the rents in order to keep the air in.

“Good. Very nice—the skin is separating, so we sew the hole shut, put the duck in a pan, and pop the pan in a medium oven. Oh, good boy—you think that’s a medium oven? You don’t think that’s a medium-hot oven?

“Well, bank the fire a bit, anyways. Good.

“Next, the fish. Simplicity, simplicity is everything, boy. Yes, yes, you’ve cleaned the trout adequately, but you’ve handled it far too much—all of the slime is gone from the skin. Let’s try it again. Get one from the tank, and set it on the board. Yes, yes, I know it flops around rather a lot, but you gauge it by eye as you pin down the tail and with one whack of the cleaver—there. Without the head, he flops much less, eh?

“Very well. Now, again—notice that I’m just holding it by the tail—with one cut, we open Lord Trout’s belly, and pour out all those nasty viscera. You run the pump for a moment, and we’ll clean out the insides. Good.

“See? Now, into the pan we put the peppercorns, and the juniper berries, and the salt, and cover it with the boiling water, and then add the vinegar. Oh, fundleberry wine vinegar, you think? Perhaps—let’s try it.

“In goes the trout—and see? See how the skin is turning that beautiful blue? Another few moments of this—you can chop some onions while we wait; much of what happens in my kitchen starts with a chopped onion—and Lord Trout is fully poached; we slide him onto a warm plate, garnish with a few carved radishes, and that lemon-butter sauce you worked so hard on. And then, we taste. Mmm ... nice choice of the vinegar, young one. There may be some hope for you, appearances to the contrary. I think a bit more dill and a few mussels as a garnish would make it better, don’t you? Now, the trout doesn’t need to rest—you there: quickly, quickly, bring it out to Lord Toshtai. And you there: start another one for Lord Orazhi.