The Metaphorager.

WHEN SOMEONE THREATENS YOU WITH a knife at close quarters, your options may not be so limited as you might think.

“Do you know who I am?” the intruder asked.

“You mean, aside from my potential assailant?” Prosatio Silban replied.

It was a cool, late night in the city of epicurean Pormaris, and the beefy cook had made the mistake of answering his galleywagon door by opening it all the way instead of just unbolting the upper half. But Prosatio Silban was in something of a jolly mood, and not only from a celebratory glass of white duliac. He had just earned a sizable coin pouch by catering a special dinner for the Heir Second Vajang Chorl, Pormaris’ governing noble.

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IT ONLY CAME ONCE A year, but for Prosatio Silban, once was almost too much.

His galleywagon was parked in the small marketplace at the village of Whistleshoe, and he had begun this particular day by staring into his berth-side mirror. A bald, somewhat round and middle-aged face looked back at him with a forced smile. The twenty-second day of the month of the Mouse, in the Year of the Haunted Oyster. Happy Natal Day, he thought to his reflection. And many, many happy returns. At least, one or two.

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IT WASN’T OFTEN THAT PROSATIO Silban cooked and sold something he didn’t like to eat in a place he didn’t want to visit, but when one was near-penniless in stony-hearted Tirinbar – that least forgiving of the Three Cities of the Uulian Commonwell – one must be creative.

Through a combination of circumstances, he found himself standing behind a small portable roaster in front of Tirinbar’s Arena of Martial Virtuosity – a fancy name for the downtown stadium devoted to staged battles and other pugnacious sports. Great sums of money were wagered on the capable combatants, but few of those proceeds were making their way into his coin pouch. At least, so far.

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SOMETIMES, THE PERFECT INGREDIENT IS just beyond a cook’s grasp. And when that happens, said cook must either go without – or make good use of both resourcefulness and perseverance.

Prosatio Silban frowned at himself. He had been experimenting with a new recipe for fidget-hen confit, but it hadn’t been going well – and that was a disappointment, since he was developing the recipe for a new, moneyed, and potentially generous client. What it wants is a bright and briny note, he decided, and considered his jar of preserved lemons.

But where was it?

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A JASMINE-SCENTED NIGHT BREEEZE carried the distant buzz of an enthusiastic if slightly off-key hurdy-gurdy through the open half-door of Prosatio Silban’s galleywagon, ending and re-beginning amid a cloud of applause and children’s laughter.

The small umber man – a saucemaker by trade who, like the rest of his curious people, bore no formal name within his community and only a vocational one among outsiders – put down his fork with a happy sigh. “Delicious as always, my friend, and many thanks. My people know how to cook, but only yours elevate food to the level of worship.”

Both laughed at the old joke, and Prosatio Silban pushed back his folding stool with a soft creak.

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