Tag: Fictions

IT IS SAID THAT WERE it not for the leather-lunged hawkers of epicurean Pormaris, the sun would not know when to awaken. But whether or not that’s as true as it sounds, the great island-city’s markets are indeed its economic heart.

Before they open, however, they must be supplied. Sturdy fisherfolk, each armed with breakfast-pail and lantern, constellate like fireflies along the docks and jetties at Pormaris’ southern edge. They climb aboard small craft, some mounted with triangular sails, others with only oars, and fan out across the vast iridescent Teardrop Lake in a web of light, alert for finny treasure. Continue reading “Day’s Life (A Prosatio Silban Tale)”

FROM THE INEXORABLE RULES OF mercantile interplay comes the inescapable principle: “There’s Always One.”

“With what may I please you?” Prosatio Silban asked the stoop-shouldered man sitting down at one of two tables-and-chairs in the lee of the beefy cook’s galleywagon. The portable venue was assembled in one of cosmopolitan Soharis’ livelier marketplaces, and the milling morning crowd had promised – and delivered – a variety of hungry (and moneyed) clientele. Take the present customer: long in years, dapper of dress and mannerism, but wearing a face creased by a thousand petty disappointments. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Difficult Patron”

THERE ARE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES to every collegial association: protective fellowship on one hand, and tedious bureaucracy on another. And as a more-or-less “free spirit,” Prosatio Silban sometimes found it a difficult balance.

The beefy cook was also a Freehander – a member of the Uulian Commonwell’s fluid middle class, those who profit by their own labor. He was happy and content to be both, as they respectively provided him with autonomy and social standing. Thus, he was surprised (and a bit taken aback) by a gnarled Cook’s Guild auditor late one busy afternoon in the village of Tollingdrum.

Although his visitor wore the same traditional green apron as Prosatio Silban – a symbol of the Commonwell’s cooking sector – the latter did not know exactly who he was until after offering his signature greeting, “With what may I please you?”

“You may please me by shutting down operations,” the Guild representative announced in an authoritative baritone. “At once.” Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Professional Contretemps”

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. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Dread Reckoning”

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. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Birthday Party”

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. Continue reading “Circus Bred (A Prosatio Silban Tale)”

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? Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Perfect Ingredient”

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. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Saucemaker’s Tale”

HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR a layman’s questioning, Prosatio Silban might never have learned of the Hidden God.

“What’s with all the filled fare?” he overheard someone say, on a day when the beefy cook was browsing cosmopolitan Soharis’ thronged street-food marketplace. The question was directed to the owner of a food stall whose offerings included dumplings, wraps, hand pies, and a dozen other examples of the stuffed-with-deliciousness kind. Continue reading “Small Packages (A Prosatio Silban Tale)”

“WHO MAKES UP THE RULES for which goes with what?” asked m’Lady Phytan Gorrista’s eldest son. “Eating meat with a fork, soup with a large spoon, or drinking yava from a ceramic mug? What about combining oil of olives with garlic? Ham with eggs? Fidget-hen with pungentine?”

“One might as well ask why the sun doesn’t fall out of the sky,” replied Prosatio Silban, handing him a steaming bowl of fruited porridge. “The Flickering Gods, in Their wisdom, have decreed it from before creation – indeed, They built it into creation’s very fabric. Our happy task is to simply enjoy all of these things, in all of their combinations, rather than to break our heads and palates over how and why they came to be. It is one more example of life in this, the most interesting of all possible worlds.”

(If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.)

THERE ARE SOME RECIPES A cook was not meant to know.

It had begun innocently enough, in epicurean Pormaris’ enormous Archive of Gastronomic Artifice. This beloved institution was holy to two of the six-hundred-thirteen Flickering Gods: Toth-Ar the Divine Scribe and Scofi, Patroness of Culinary Inspiration. Prosatio Silban made a point of perusing the Archive at least once a year to research new recipes or rediscover old ones. His latest visit had begun much like the others – a pleasant morning’s browse through stacks of scrolls and shelves of codices collected from the Three Cities and Thousand Villages of the Uulian Commonwell as well as the surrounding Exilic Lands. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Shunned Fragment”