Embrace The Lace:
The Kitchen
The following morning, Van bounced out of bed with a smile on her face. “Okay, reboot. Today I am going to be productive. I am going to coalesce into my environment, and I am not getting into any more trouble.” She gave her reflection a firm nod in the mirror and waggled her finger in warning. “No. More. Riots.” With no sign of Mrs. Norris, she struggled into her gown and slippers by herself. She managed the stairs at a moderate pace, her bruised posterior reminding her of the slipperiness towards the bottom.
“Madainn mhath, my lady,” Jeanie said, dropping into a deep curtsy. “Will ye break yer fast? Cook has made…erm…a new manner of parritch…this morn.”
“Good morning yourself, young lady, and yes, please – I’m starving,” Van said with a smile, causing the little girl to color with flushed pleasure and scamper towards the kitchen. She took her same seat, steeling herself not to be disappointed at the emptiness of the chair beside her. Jeanie returned almost immediately with a bowl of oatmeal, cream, and honey, placing them on the table with an apprehensive look on her young face. Van dug in, amazed at her robust appetite. The appetite evaporated like the morning mist; once she got a mouthful of the lumpy, tasteless paste, she swallowed hard and prayed she did not choke.
After a few deep breaths, she braved a second spoonful, then a third. As she ate, she glanced around the hall at the men gathered in small groups, muttering over their own porridge. She also noticed the glances she received in return, dark and distrustful. She quickly looked down, decided she could not stomach one more bite, and pushed the bowl away.
That idea must have looked appealing because only a few seconds passed before the men did the same, rose, and stomped out of the hall. Van stared after them and sighed, then shrieked when Jeanie popped up in front of her like an enthusiastic gopher. “Can I bring ye aught else, my lady?”
“Nope, I’m good,” Van blurted out as she rose from her seat. “Yep. Real good. Where’s the kitchen? I think I’d like to meet your…ah…chef.”
With a solemn expression, the little girl gestured towards the heavy wooden doors of the kitchen. “Through there, Milady…but ‘tis not safe at the moment,” she said in a worried whisper. “Mrs. Norris and Cook are going at it hammer and tongs.”
Van gathered her skirts, hopped off the dais, and took off for the kitchen at a lively sprint. Using both hands to pull the heavy door, she staggered back and nearly fell when it swung open easily. With an embarrassed snort, she poked her head in just in time to see Mrs. Norris sidestep a skillet swung by a round, ruddy-cheeked woman. “I doona presume to tell ye how to run this castle, but ye’ll not come into my kitchen and…”
“Yer kitchen? The utter nerve of ye. 'Tis the laird’s kitchen, and I oversee what comes out of it. And of late that is naught but…”
A quick glance around told her the kitchen staff had vacated ahead of the impending storm. “Hi!” Van called out, perhaps a bit too loudly, as both women jumped. “Is there anything I can do to help? I, uh, heard the yelling…actually, I think the whole castle heard it.” Gathering up her courage, she strode in and took up a seat on a nearby wooden stool. “So – what’s all this about?”
“What it’s about is her inability to produce anything edible out of this kitchen,” Mrs. Norris sniffed.
“I’ll show ye inedible, ye clot heided…,” the cook yelled, snatching up a heavy wooden stirring spoon. She drew back with it and waved it in the air next to her head like a magic wand. “Why, I oughta…”
Van quickly stuck two fingers in her mouth and gave a deafening whistle, startling both combatants into silence. “What we have here is a failure to communicate. Let’s all just take a deep cleansing breath and-- “
“Ill-tempered COW!” Mrs. Norris shrieked, ducking to avoid the spoon slicing through the air like a rapier. She snatched up a long-handled ladle and drew back to deliver a mighty blow. .
Van jumped up to seize the ladle handle, along with the opportunity to make peace. “Ladies, please - let’s sit down and talk about this…I have a couple ideas you may be interested in.” Her gaze darted around the large kitchen, taking a fast inventory: wood stoves, large preparation tables, fireplaces with bubbling cauldrons suspended from moveable metal brackets, and a myriad of iron pots and utensils hanging on the walls and from the ceiling. She did not, however, see the one item she was hoping for. “Ok – here’s what I think, Mrs. Norris, Mrs…I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name?”
“’Tis Mrs. MacDonald, Milady,” the cook said, dropping into a deep curtsey.
“Mrs. MacDonald,” Van nodded, encouraged by the pause in fighting. “I believe we need to add a little bit of variety to the daily menu, but we have to install some additional equipment first.”
Both women looked at each other in evident confusion, then turned their attention back to Van. “Eq…equipment, Milady?” Mrs. Norris stammered.
Van looked around the kitchen and rubbed her hands together. “Who does the metal work around here? I’ve got an idea that’s gonna rock your whole world.”
Intrigued by that announcement, the ladies took off for the blacksmith’s shop under the white flag of temporary truce. It looked just as Van had pictured it would – large open windows to allow in the available breeze, raw bits of metal strewn about, wagon wheels, swords, and plow shares in various stages of completion piled haphazardly, a few finished pieces hanging on the walls of the wooden portion of the building. The massive hammer and anvil near the forge looked well-used, and a full water barrel sat next to the window. Upon closer inspection, Van realized that a metal drain trough came through the window and emptied into the oak barrel itself, indicating gutters in place to catch the rain on the roof. The drain had an L-shaped attachment with a closure that could reroute the overflow back outside when the inside barrel was full. Andy’s handiwork, no doubt, she thought with growing admiration. The stone forge itself was immense, and the heat it threw off came in waves, courtesy of the sweating young man working the bellows. He spared them a quick glance and grinned as they entered, jerking his head towards the rear of the shop.
“Now ye just stand yer ground, Milady,” Mrs. Norris whispered just before the loud crash. “He can smell fear, ye ken.”
“’Ere now, ‘ere now! Nae womenfolk in me shop! None! Ever!” An older wiry man burst from the shadows, his sparse grey beard sticking straight out and bristling with agitation. “Whatever are ye thinkin’, just strolling into a dangerous place such as this like yer out for a summer day lark – ye could be hurt, ye know. Or worse, ye could get in – me – way. Off with ye, now! Why I doona -”
“Haud yer wheesht, Farley,” Mrs. Norris interrupted firmly, stepping aside to give Van a slight shove forward. “This is Milady Van, and she has a task requiring yer skills. Ye will see it done or it is me ye will answer to, aye?”
It took a lot of explaining, a couple of diagrams, and several heated exchanges before Van got the surly old smithy to understand what she wanted him to create. “A smooth slab o’ iron with wee legs that’ll sit on top of the stove, aye? Fer cooking on?”
“Exactly,” Van agreed.
“A daft idea, to be sure, but naught else to be expected from a female, I reckon. I have nothing else pressin’ this morn with the soldiers gone. I suppose I could spare ye a bit of time to hammer out this foolishness,” he muttered under his breath.
A quartet of hours later saw the job done, and two of the smith’s helpers carried it back to the kitchen, followed by a growing crowd of curious onlookers. It took a bit of wrangling, but once there, the boys released it with a loud krang as it fell into place.
A big cheer went up, and there was a smattering of applause. “So when will we get to see what this thing does?” Farley demanded, the corners of his mouth quirking into what was almost a smile.
“Tomorrow morning,” Van nodded, throwing companionable arms around Mrs. Norris and Mrs. MacDonald. “Now shoo. We girls need to get busy.”