Tag: The Cook For Any Price

ACCORDING TO THE WISE, REPUTATION is everything. But that’s not always a good thing.

“I would like for us to enter into a commercial arrangement,” said Idino Tarz to Prosatio Silban. “You have a solid standing throughout the Three Cities and Thousand Villages of the Uulian Commonwell. And I would like to leverage that standing into a profitable enterprise.”

The pair were sharing a modest bottle of white duliac over the amiable late-evening din inside Pelvhi’s Chopping-House, where epicurean Pormaris’ professional hospitality-class came to relax and conduct occasional side-business. Idino Tarz was well-dressed and open-faced, two essential qualities in a wishful merchant, and his voice was the proper mix of confidence and flattery.

The beefy cook cocked his head. “What sort of ‘enterprise?’” he asked. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Wavering Line”

(THIS TALE IS FOR THOSE who have wondered about Those Who watch over, and occasionally interfere with, the residents of the Uulian Commonwell. Read it in good humor.)

Prosatio Silban finished his evening meditations, stood up on his ornate braided rug, and drew back the black silk curtain dividing his sleeping-berth from the rest of the galleywagon. A long busy day brings both profit and rest well-earned, he quoted to himself, and climbed in. Drawing up the parrot-down coverlet, he exhaled a long and grateful sigh, reached out to his collapsible night-table for the well-thumbed book sitting there (Barbatus the Elder’s Poetries’ Emotion) , thought better of it, and curled up on his left side. Good for the digestion, this, he thought, and closed his eyes in prayer as much as in lassitude. O Galien, the All-Mother; Hopmon, God of the Ever-Full Purse; and Scofi, Goddess of Culinary Impartation; thank You for yet another full day of life. May I be worthy of Your attention for a good night’s sleep. O my gods, mysterious and sublime: through all my prayers, I have yet to see Your face or hear Your voice. If only I could, I … I would … would … Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Divine Gaze”

AND THEN CAME ONE OF those days which every culinarian dreads.

“Master Cook? Master Cook!” called a well-dressed old man. He was sitting at one of the two tables-and-chairs Prosatio Silban had set up in the lee of his galleywagon, in the unassuming village marketplace of Boggy, not far upriver from many-harbored Soharis. The morning was bright with sunlight and promise, and the cook-errant fixed a professional expression on his face as he hurried over.

“Yes, sir?” he asked with practiced servility.

“This meal,” the man said with a frown. “It is unacceptable. Please bring me another.” Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Senseless Struggle”

THE SCULLERY MISTRESS HELD A brimful cup to Prosatio Silban’s waiting lips; he sipped, swallowed, and paused.

“It is good that I am blindfolded,” he said with a triumphant smile, “or else I’d see the nutmeg before tasting it.”

“That would defeat the purpose of this experibent,” Plerus Barja chided. “You are supposed to tell be what else is id this dish.”

Prosatio Silban nodded. “Egg yolk, cream, milk, cane-sugar, egg whites, vanilla, sweetbark. And of course, the nutmeg. In exactly that ratio.”

“Unbelievable,” said the scullery mistress.

“I bow to your expertise,” said Plerus Barja. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Tournament Palatine”

ON THEIR WINDING WAYS BETWEEN Here and There, the rammed-earth roads of the Uulian Commonwell often offer mystery – and sometimes, adventure.

Prosatio Silban was driving his galleywagon from Treefall to Kissing Bridge near the many-harbored city of Soharis. It was a fine summer’s morning: bright, not too warm, drowsy with the hum of distant insects, and fragrant from colorful splashes of sun-kissed flowers among a road-bordering light forest of pungentine-trees. The beefy cook clucked encouragement to his quaint lumbering dray-beast, Onward, and sang to himself a traveling-song:

“I wander the throughways and byways
Looking for I know not what.
I know it is out there, somewhere
Because it is nowhere else. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Sincere Runaway”

(A sequel to Prosatio Silban and the Revealer of Secrets.)

CLOTHES DO NOT ALWAYS MAKE the man. However, they, or at least their concomitants, can certainly help.

Prosatio Silban rolled out of his galleywagon’s sleeping-berth, yawned, scratched, and stood up on the ornate braided rug. He had parked his portable-home-and-livelihood the previous evening in one of epicurean Pormaris’ more eclectic marketplaces, in advance of accommodating Heir Second Vajang Chorl’s annual Dependent-Welcoming Festivity, and was looking forward to tomorrow’s task and the substantial coin it would bring. He dressed with some haste (green kneebreeches, white tunic, grey long-vest, black shoes and fez), his thoughts coalescing around the acquisition of ingredients for dishes and garnishes, and automatically reached for the artificial eyebrows that were an important piece of his daily costume.

But where were they? Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Purloined Eyebrows”

CASTING AN APPREHENSIVE BACKWARD GLANCE, Prosatio Silban flicked the plaited yak-hair reins to hurry his quaint lumbering dray-beast. He was passing through rough and rocky countryside, and wanted to reach his destination at speed – as befitted a pursued man on an urgent mission.

Let us wind back the calendar three days, to when that mission was first laid before him. The beefy cook’s galleywagon had been parked in the marketplace at Machar’s Rest for longer than he wanted it to be. If I can’t soon attract any custom, I will die in this village, he thought with a wry, if wan, smile. His dire economic situation wasn’t due to a lack of diligence or inventiveness. But what is one to do when the only passersby are as destitute as oneself?

Just as he began to despair in earnest, the Flickering Gods (for those who believe in them) lent a hand. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Sentimental Voyage”

PROSATIO SILBAN SIPPED AT HIS glass of white duliac, savoring the wine’s herbal essence, and continued to enjoy the Arrow-and-Wheel’s boisterous patrons.

Rustic farmers occupied most of the plank tables, discussing the weather, the prospects, whose cows were ill and why, whose cart-zebra kicked whom (and why), and assorted small family matters. Many were drinking from deep clay mugs of the local ale, while a few attacked with gusto great wooden bowls of rich stew and plates of fragrant olive-bread paired with wedges of sharp yellow cheese.

Is there anything more soothing for the spirit than a happy noonday colloquy at the village inn? he thought. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Revealer of Secrets”

“A CHANGE OF CLOTHES IS not a change of man,” goes the old Uulian proverb – and neither is it a change of cultures.

Prosatio Silban wiped the copious sweat from his hairless brow and sighed. He and his quaint lumbering dray-beast, Onward, were making their way with difficulty through the infamous Emerald Incessance – that vast, reed-thick wilderness bordered on the west by the decadent Uulian Commonwell and to the east by the forbidding Blacktooth Mountains.

The beefy cook’s galleywagon swayed from side to side as it rolled over bumpy loam and through overtowering vegetation, following a barely discernible footpath. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Ersatz Indigene”

SOMETIMES, EVEN AN ENCHANTER NEEDS a bit of mundane help.

Prosatio Silban was sitting, chin in hand, at one of his galleywagon’s two tables-and-chairs in cosmopolitan Soharis’ eastern marketplace, watching potential customers walk by and wondering what he could do to tempt them into spending some time (and coin!) at his portable establishment. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Proportional Mystery”