4.

The Supper They Didn't Order

Requiem City, AGH 133

The corner of pastry came away cleanly. Sifra Noll caught it before it could fall into the coals, blew on her fingers, and ate it.

“Well?” Miri asked.

“Two minutes more.”

“For that one?”

“For the big one. This one's going out.”

She slid the small pie onto her counter. It was low and broad, built for a dwarf to work without having to reach up to everything. The mushrooms had darkened the underside of the crust without soaking it; the barley was swollen and separate, each grain still something to bite. She wanted another piece. Instead she cut the pie into quarters for the ordinary supper trade, brought the next small tin forward, and turned the larger party dish in the oven.

Her bench was clear. The cabbage was shredded, the onions softened for gravy, and six pale apples lay ready under a cloth. She had counted the bowls twice. From where she stood, the covered tables of the South evening-kitchen court looked almost empty, although all twelve stalls were busy with the last work before supper. Someone across the yard was beating a pan against a block to loosen what had baked onto it. The fish cook had already opened her shutter. Sifra could smell the first hot oil.

Miri Hess set a pair of borrowed serving dishes on the rest between Sifra's stall and Avren's. Each had a lid with a little metal pear for a handle.

Sifra dried her fingers before touching one. The dishes were broad and shallow, with room for the pie and enough of a rim to keep its juices away from a sleeve. Under the cover, at Elda Meakin's anniversary supper, the pastry would stay warm until people had finished admiring the dish.

“Don't stack the lids,” she said. “The man was particular about scratches.”

“I heard him.” Miri placed a folded cloth between them. “Both times.”

She glanced toward the clock above the washing station. “I'm still off at nine.”

“I haven't forgotten.”

Next door, Avren Sal raised his shutter all the way. Tall even for a human, he had to duck under it before the catch took; then he straightened, brushed a dark curl off his forehead with his wrist, and lifted two more dishes onto his counter.

Little metal pears shone on their lids.

Sifra stared at them.

Avren looked from his dishes to hers. “He said he had four.”

“He told me they would look distinctive.”

“They do.”

“Together.”

He gave the covers a small adjustment so their handles faced the same way. Sifra stopped looking. He had paid for the loan just as she had; there was nothing she could reasonably object to, which did not help.

Miri went behind her to collect the serving spoons. Sifra moved the flour bin far enough from the wall for the tortle's shell to clear it comfortably. It had been in the wrong place since morning. Miri passed, put the spoons beside the dishes, and returned to the cabbage without a word.

“The anniversary's by the pillar,” Sifra told the young serving hand Avren had hired for the evening. “Pie first. The reunion's at the low bench.”

“Beans first,” Avren added. “Mine are ready.”

The young man looked out at the two tables and nodded.

Both orders had been left to the cooks' judgment. Elda had said that she wanted people to be impressed. Bram Saddler, arranging his reunion next door, had said almost the same thing considerably louder. Sifra had heard Avren promise to come out and describe each course himself. She had kept her own promise to a handsome supper, served hot. There would be time to talk if the food did its job.

Elda arrived carrying flowers wrapped in damp paper. She set them in the tall vase by the pillar, stepped back, then leaned around it to address a guest on the far side.

“Perhaps down this end,” she said.

She moved it. A guest sat where she had meant to put the vase, and she moved it again.

Bram arrived with people around him, still telling a story that had begun outside. The dwarf host set both hands on the low bench. Two of his guests were still standing behind him.

Elda counted his guests, then pointed across at the chairs beside the pillar. She was saying something to him when a regular customer put his elbows on Sifra's counter and asked if the big covered dish was all one pie.

“For a party.”

“How much for a piece?”

She pointed to the small pie. “Same as yesterday.”

“I meant a piece of the big one.”

“The same mushrooms are in this one.”

He considered that. He was an orc with a split in one sleeve that had been neatly mended in the wrong color. He bought supper from her twice a week, always inspecting the neighboring ovens first. Sifra gave him a quarter of pie, a spoon of onions and the unasked-for piece of crust he liked.

Behind him, the two parties changed tables. The flowers went to the low bench; Bram carried chairs to the pillar. Miri came out with a cloth and stopped a chair being set in the serving aisle.

“I need that space.”

Bram lifted the chair, passed it to someone behind him, and knocked a coat to the ground. The coat's owner appeared at once. Sifra looked up at the protest, saw Miri get through, and returned to the coins her customer was putting down one at a time.

While she counted his change, Avren's beans went to the low bench. Elda waved the covered dish into the middle. The young server raised the lid and named the beans, fennel, lemon and oil, and several people leaned forward to smell them.

Miri checked the large pie as Sifra lifted it onto its dish. “Mushrooms, barley, onions, thyme. Butter in the pastry.”

“Yes.”

“Anything in the gravy you haven't told me?”

“Not yet.”

Miri gave her a look. Sifra grinned, put the lid on, and sent the pie toward the pillar. Bram saw the matching pear-shaped handle coming and cleared the center of his table with both arms.

Sifra turned to her cabbage. She had a pleasing stretch of time in which everything was where it belonged. She poured a little water into the bottom of the pan, put it over the heat, and reached for the butter.

“Sifra!”

Elda held up a spoon at the low bench.

“The lemon! I told them. I said you'd know exactly what to do.”

Sifra's hand stopped short of the butter. Beside Elda sat the dish of pale beans, scattered with curls of fennel. At the pillar, Bram was driving a serving spoon through her pastry.

“I've been telling everyone about you,” Elda went on. “They're all going to come.”

She meant the guests, probably. Sifra saw two of them look toward the stall with their spoons still in their mouths. One gave an appreciative nod.

“I thought you'd like something fragrant,” Sifra called.

“Exactly!”

Sifra nodded back. She set down the butter. Then she moved the pan of cabbage off the heat before its water boiled away.

Across the rest, Avren stood quite still, watching Bram eat the pie.

“Avren!” Bram called. “I didn't know you did pastry like this.”

For a moment Sifra waited for Avren to give her name. He looked toward her, then at Elda, who was still talking over the beans.

“I wanted to do something a little different for you,” he called.

Sifra reached for a tasting spoon.

*   *   *

The onion gravy would be wrong with the beans. Sifra tasted it, although she already knew that. It belonged on barley and mushrooms, working its way into the cut edge of a crust. Poured over Avren's white beans, it would turn the whole bowl brown and heavy.

She put the gravy where she could reach it for ordinary orders. The cabbage needed something sharp, and the meal needed something crisp.

“Lemon,” she said to Avren.

He was holding a dish of carrots. “What?”

“Can you spare half a lemon?”

“You've got apples.”

“For later.”

“I've got lemons for now.”

She waited. He looked past her at Elda, who was describing something with both hands over the beans. His mouth moved slightly.

“A light finish?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“To carry the fragrance through.”

“Are you giving me the lemon?”

He put one on the rest. Sifra took it and found herself holding an entire lemon, which was somehow worse than the half she had asked for.

“I'll return what I don't use.”

“Take your time.”

She sliced it and began squeezing juice into a cup, catching the seeds against her thumb. His beans were good. Whenever he lifted a pot lid, the smell made her want bread. She had intended to try them one evening when he was busy enough not to watch her eat. Now a table of people was praising her for them.

“Those crumbs,” she said. “Are you using all of them?”

Avren looked down at the tray by his elbow. He had toasted torn bread until its edges were dark, then broken it smaller. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether you'll miss a bowl of your vinegar onions.”

Sifra glanced at his carrots. Soft, sweet, and about to sit beside a pie already full of softened onion and barley.

“They're quite sharp.”

“I know.”

“You only need a spoonful.”

“For six people?”

“Chop them.”

He held out a bowl. She put two spoonfuls into it, paused, and added a little of the liquor. He took it without making the comment she had prepared herself to dislike.

“Put the crumbs on as they go out,” he said. “They won't stay crisp in the lemon.”

“I know.”

“Just saying.”

Miri set six plates on Sifra's clear bench.

“Are we serving this hot?”

“Warm. Very briefly in the pan, then the dressing. It should still bend back when you bite it.”

Miri put down the first handful of cabbage. Sifra brought the heat up, turned it once, and took the pan away again. The green became brighter. Lemon rose from the warm metal as she added it, and she picked up a spoon to taste.

Too sharp. She added oil and a pinch of salt, tasted again, and loosened the cabbage across the plates so it would stop cooking.

“What am I calling it?” Miri asked.

“A warm garden salad, to continue the—”

“Warm cabbage?”

“Lemon cabbage, with toasted bread.”

Miri nodded. “The beans went to your party.”

Sifra found a long shred of cabbage hanging over a rim and tucked it back.

“I saw.”

“And your pie's over there.”

“I saw that too. I'll explain to Elda.”

Miri glanced toward the tables. “Now?”

“When I bring the next course.”

The next course was the one Miri was putting on a tray. Sifra heard herself, took the tray from her, and reached for the crumbs.

Avren had begun cutting his carrots into smaller pieces. He looked up at the sound of Bram calling his name.

“A moment,” he called back, smiling. “I'm just finishing something for you.”

Sifra carried the cabbage out. She had to stop while a woman from the fish stall took a stack of bowls across the aisle, and this gave her a good view of Elda's supper. People had eaten nearly half the beans. One guest was dragging a piece of bread around the edge of the dish where the oil had collected. Elda held two fingers a little apart to illustrate the exact amount of something.

“You see, it isn't heavy,” she was saying. “That's what I wanted for tonight.”

Sifra put down the first plate.

“Cabbage, with lemon and toasted bread.”

“Oh, lovely.” Elda moved her cup. “There, I said she'd think of it.”

“About the main dish—”

The guest with the bread reached for the cabbage. “Do we put this on the beans?”

“I'd take it beside them. So the crumbs stay crisp.”

He did as she suggested, took a bite, and immediately took another, this time with a small amount of beans.

“Yes,” he said. “Oh, yes.”

Sifra put down the remaining plates. She wanted to taste that combination herself. The cabbage smelled better out here than it had in the kitchen, freed from the smoke and the gravy. Elda was making room for her to stand at the head of the table.

“You were saying?”

“There's more if you want it.”

She collected an empty water jug and walked away with it.

At the pillar, Avren was describing the carrots as a deliberate change of direction. Bram listened with the grave satisfaction of a man whose choice had just been confirmed. Sifra went past with her jug, slowly enough to hear Avren call the pie robust.

“It's light pastry,” she said.

Avren turned. “The filling.”

“Oh.”

“I was speaking of the filling.”

“Yes.”

She carried on to the water point. When she came back, Avren was at his counter and three ordinary customers were waiting for her. She served them pie and gravy, collected two plates, and let a child choose which apple would go under the crumble. The child chose the bruised one.

“Why that one?” Sifra asked.

“It's biggest.”

She turned it over in her hand. It was. She cut away the bruise and used it first.

For several minutes she and Avren worked without looking at each other. Orders came to the shutters, money changed hands, and the party dishes emptied. The lamps over the covered tables came on. A worker passed behind the stalls with a barrow of clean crockery, stopping where someone called for bowls. At the pillar, Bram had begun telling his arrival story again, and someone who had heard the beginning supplied it incorrectly.

Sifra slid the crumble into the oven. Across the rest, Avren was arranging pale cheese beside glossy plums.

“Your carrots looked good,” she said.

“Your cabbage looked expensive.”

“It wasn't.”

“I could hear how you were describing it.”

She almost threw the unused half lemon at him. Instead she set it beside his cutting board.

*   *   *

Elda wanted both cooks at once.

Miri brought the message back with a tray of empty plates. Sifra was scraping the last gravy into a customer's bowl, and Avren had a spoon of plum syrup poised over a dish.

“We can go separately,” Sifra said.

“She said together.”

“Is there something wrong?”

“She wants to thank you.”

Avren put his spoon down.

“I'll take the last carrots,” he said.

“They've had carrots.”

“There's a little left.”

He reached for the spoon again. Sifra slid the carrot dish toward him.

“Then take them.”

He picked it up with both hands.

She went to the oven. The crumble had begun to brown at its back edge. She turned it, told Miri she would be back before it was ready, and wiped her hands very carefully.

The two parties had drawn closer during supper. A small round table now bridged the gap between them, bearing cups, bread and the flowers nobody had wanted in their view. Elda stood beside it. Bram held the last wedge of pie on a plate, showing its cut side to a guest.

“You wouldn't get that anywhere,” he said. “That's why I asked Avren. I told him, do what you're proud of. Don't give us something you give everybody.”

Sifra, who had sold the same pie in individual portions all evening, felt herself grow hot at the ears.

Avren took a breath.

“It's the pastry,” Sifra said, reaching them. “It wants a proper hot oven before it goes in.”

Bram turned with the plate. “Ah. He told you what he was doing.”

“I could see.”

Avren set the carrots down. “You don't want the bottom sitting about before it bakes.”

That was perfectly true. Sifra wished he had said something wrong.

“We're very fortunate,” Elda said. “We have both of them here. Put your plate down, Bram, before you lose the corner.”

He set it beside the flowers. A guest promptly took the corner.

Elda raised her cup, thanked her guests for coming, and said a few words about the evening. Sifra stood with her hands folded across her apron. She had heard other people's parties from behind her counter often enough to know how much of this was usually lost in the kitchen noise. Here she could see a woman tilt her cup to catch a drop running down its side, and Bram shift so the shorter guests could see. Nobody seemed impatient. Elda had chosen well; Sifra wanted that to remain true.

“And to the person responsible for these lovely beans,” Elda said, laying her free hand on their dish.

“Thank you,” Sifra said.

“Thank you,” Avren said, at exactly the same time.

They looked at each other. Elda still had her cup in the air.

“For the evening,” Sifra added.

“For the beans,” Avren said, and stopped.

Bram lowered his cup. He looked at the pie, then at Avren's carrots, then at Sifra.

Miri came along the open side of the tables with a stack of clean small plates.

“The beans are Avren's,” she said. “The pie was Sifra's. Where do you want these? There's cheese and plums, or apple crumble.”

Elda looked toward the serving rest, then at Miri.

“I saw,” Sifra said quickly. “When you called across about the lemon. I knew they were the wrong way round.”

“Oh.” Elda's cup came down a little.

“I was going to tell you.”

Miri shifted the plates to her other hand. Sifra looked at the breadcrumbs clinging to Elda's empty cabbage plate, remembered herself carrying the fragrance through, and laughed. It came out too loudly. She pressed her lips together, failed, and had to start again.

“Then you said how pleased you were, and I didn't.”

Avren rubbed the side of his nose. “I did much the same with the pie.”

“But you explained the pastry,” Bram said.

“I know how to make pastry.”

“Not that pastry,” Sifra said.

“No.” Avren looked at the wedge beside the vase. “Not that one.”

For a moment Sifra thought Bram was angry. His brows had drawn together and he was staring at the plate. Then he reached for the fork of the guest who had taken his corner.

“I hadn't finished that.”

The guest gave him back the fork. Elda sat down.

Sifra wanted to fetch the bean dish and the pie dish and put them where they should have gone. It was absurd now; there was hardly a serving of pie left, and the beans were mixed with crumbs from her cabbage. She took the pile of plates from Miri instead.

“I'll finish here,” she said. “The crumble needs coming out.”

Miri nodded and went back through the aisle.

“There's more beans,” Avren said. “In the kitchen.”

“Good,” said the guest who had tried cabbage with them. “Can I have some?”

*   *   *

The request was followed by several others. Elda wanted a small piece of the pie she had ordered without ordering. Bram wanted to know whether he could have beans as well as the last of his pie, and a woman opposite him asked if the cabbage had all gone.

“Not quite,” Sifra said.

“Take half of this,” Bram told Elda, nudging his pie plate toward her. Sifra gave them a clean spoon to divide it, then fetched the last small counter pie for the others. Avren came back with a pan of beans and put it down without its cover. Bram moved the flowers again.

“I told everyone he was making something particularly for us,” Bram said to Elda while Sifra served her pie.

“So did I.”

“Perhaps they were.”

“They didn't know it.”

Elda's laugh surprised Sifra. It was lower and less restrained than the voice she had used to place the order. She moved her spoon out of the way of a falling crumb and leaned forward to catch it with her mouth.

“This is good too,” she said, after chewing. “I should have tried this.”

“You can come back,” Sifra said.

“Will I get what you made?”

“I'll bring it myself.”

Avren made a sound behind her. She ignored him.

Miri brought the crumble out with the cheese and plums. Sifra named what was in each, and they served the guests who wanted both before they began taking larger portions. The crumble was still hissing at the edges. One woman waited for it to cool; Bram blew straight into his bowl and raised a little cloud of oat crumbs over the tablecloth. He brushed at them while the others laughed. The guest who had stolen his pastry corner offered him a spoonful of plum syrup, and he accepted it with suspicion, tasted, then asked for a little more.

Sifra went back to the counter when someone called to pay. Miri cleared and Avren served his remaining customers. The two parties stayed after their bowls were empty. Once, Sifra heard her own name and looked up, but Elda was only telling someone which stall to return a plate to.

By closing, the borrowed dishes had come back without a scratch. One had a pool of bean juice beneath a broken piece of pastry. Sifra stood over it with a scraper and considered what she had paid for the handsome covers. Avren had set his upside down, their metal pears trapped between folds of cloth. Beside him, the young server counted his pay into a purse.

The washing-station clock reached nine. Miri came through with her last tray and reached for the stack on the rest.

“Miri,” Sifra said. “Leave those.”

“They'll set hard.”

“I'll soak them.”

She counted out Miri's pay. Miri checked it, tucked it away, and untied her apron.

“Same time tomorrow?”

“If you still want it.”

“I said I'd come.” Miri hung the apron on its peg. “Put the flour bin back where it is now. You keep moving it.”

Sifra looked at the gap she had made that afternoon. “All right.”

“Good night, Avren.”

“Good night.”

The washing crew came down the row, collecting what belonged at the common sinks. Sifra handed over the borrowed dishes, then took her own pans back into the stall to soak. The extra cabbage, oil and lemon had used most of what she'd allowed for the last course. She added it up again while she rinsed the pan. Avren leaned across with the small bowl that had held her onions.

“Keep it till morning,” she said. “You've still got some.”

“I didn't use all of them.”

“I know. I ate a carrot.”

He looked pleased. She felt too tired to begrudge him it.

She had kept a bowl of her pie warm at the edge of the oven. When she took it out, the crust broke softly under the spoon. Her stomach tightened at the smell. She brought it to the low table nearest the stalls and sat, stretching her feet under the seat in front of her.

Avren lowered his shutter halfway and came out carrying his beans. He hesitated at the far end of the table.

“Sit down,” Sifra said. “They're still hot.”

He set his bowl between them, pulled a stool back to give his knees room, and sat. A little lemon oil gleamed around the beans. Sifra drew it closer and took the spoon he offered.

She took a mouthful. The beans yielded; the fennel still had a little bite. She went back for more before looking up.

Avren nodded at her bowl.

“What's that supposed to be?”

“Mushrooms. Barley. Onions. There's some crust underneath.”

She passed him her spoon.