The Song of the Winns (22 page)

“Me neither,” said Alice. “Ouch!” A drop of blood appeared where a thorn had pricked her finger. “But maybe there's something important about purple flowers.”

“Well, if there is, we're hardly likely to learn about
it out here,” said Alex. “How are we meant to discover palace secrets from out in the garden?”

“That is a problem,” Alice admitted. “We'll just have to be on the lookout for opportunities.”

They worked for several hours in the garden bed, learning nothing more than the many ways in which thorns could prick, scratch, stab, and puncture, before Fiercely Jones returned and escorted them to a courtyard at the rear of the palace, directed them to wash their hands under a pump, and showed them into the kitchen through the back door.

Inside, the gardener removed his hat and gestured to the mouse standing by the stove. “This is Cook. She prepares the food for the palace staff and servants, and she'll be giving you your meals.”

Cook was a stout mouse with long fur the color of milky tea, partially covered by a voluminous white apron.

“Who are these two then?” She was looking at Alice and Alex, but her question was directed at Fiercely Jones.

“Raz and Rita,” he said. “They're the kids of one of the Queen's Guards. Were the kids, I should say. Orphans now.”

Cook, far from looking sympathetic, glared at Alice and Alex resentfully. “So now I'm expected to feed Sourian brats out of our meager share? Why can't they eat in the mess with the guards?”

Fiercely Jones looked around nervously. “Now, now, Cook. Mind your tongue, eh? Lester said they're palace staff, same as us.”

“Hmph,” Cook responded, turning her glare on Fiercely Jones, but she didn't say anything more.

Fiercely turned to Alice and Alex. “Right, I'll see you two in the morning. At the garden shed by five.”

“Five in the morning?” Alex squawked.

“That's what I said.” Fiercely Jones gave Alex an even stare, then pulled on his battered hat and left by the back door.

“We start work at five in the morning?” Alex repeated, with a wounded expression.

“I suppose you young Sourians aren't used to hard work.” Cook set two bowls down at one end of the kitchen table and put two ladlefuls of soup into each. “I'd advise you to get used to it. We've no room for slackers around here.”

Alice picked up her spoon and dipped it into the bowl and Alex, looking subdued, did the same—only to drop the spoon immediately. “This—this isn't soup,” he said in disgust. “This is nothing but hot water.”

“That's what servants eat around here,” Cook returned smartly. “And many in Gerander would think us lucky. Of course, if you were a Queen's Guard like your dad you'd get three hearty meals a day—delicious apple pies and spicy carrot soup and fish fried in butter and cheesecake with raspberries. . . .”

Alice found it hard to continue sipping at the watery soup while this recitation was going on.

“But that's not for the likes of us. Gerandans, and Sourian servants, get this soup. And if you don't like it, all
the better,” hissed Cook, bringing her face down close to Alice and Alex. “My grandchildren will be dining on your leftovers.”

Alice dropped her spoon with a gasp.

“What is it, girlie?” asked Cook. “Surprised?”

Alice was about to express her outrage at the miserable treatment of Gerandans by the Sourian occupiers when she remembered the role she had to play. “I certainly am surprised,” she said. “Everyone in Souris warned us about how awful Gerandan cooking is, but I never believed it could be as bad as this.” She turned up her nose and pushed her bowl away. “I'd rather starve.”

“That can be arranged,” Cook muttered darkly under her breath.

“Yeah,” said Alex, catching on. “We might be servants here, but we're not just any old servants; we're the children of a Sourian hero of the Queen's Guards. I'm sure our father's old colleagues wouldn't be pleased to hear how we're being treated by the Gerandan servants.”

Alice winced inwardly to hear how his voice dripped with contempt when he said the word “Gerandan,” but she had to admit his performance was brilliant. She thought she saw a flash of fear in Cook's eyes as she turned back to the soup pot.

“All right, all right, there's no need to be telling tales, boyo. I think I've found a bit of fish at the bottom of this pot after all.”

She tipped the watery soup from their bowls back into the pot simmering on the stove, gave it a stir, then refilled
the bowls. This time, their portions were thick with chunks of potato and pieces of fish. It still wasn't quite enough to assuage Alice's hunger, but she suspected it was as good as a servant—even a Sourian one—was likely to get.

She tucked into her soup as Cook went back to her pots and pans, clattering them with unnecessary force it seemed to Alice. For a while the only sounds in the kitchen were clattering and slurping, so that Alice was startled to hear a smooth voice close behind her say, “Settling in all right, then?”

It was Lester.

Cook paused in her work, her back stiffening.

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” Alice murmured, and Cook's shoulders relaxed.

“Cook, the Deputy Head of Banqueting will be calling on you in the morning. We will be holding some very large banquets in the near future, and that will mean some changes to staffing levels.”

“Changes to staffing levels? I should think so. I've only got one kitchen hand,” Cook complained, “which won't do at all if you're talking large banquets. It's hard enough to—”

Lester held up a hand to silence her. “More kitchen hands will be arriving from Souris shortly, along with a highly accomplished Sourian chef.”

Cook seemed to whiten under her milky fur. “A Sourian chef ? There's no need for that,” she objected.

“I'll be the judge of what's needed in the palace.” Lester's voice was hard.

Cook swallowed. “Of course, sir.”

Lester slipped out the door as silently as he had arrived, only to ooze back in almost immediately.

“Your father, Jaz . . . was he a tall mouse with small ears?”

Alice realized with a start that he was addressing her and Alex.

“Our father's name was Jez,” she corrected. Was Lester's mistake deliberate? she wondered. Was the question about his ears a trap? She tried desperately to recall what Jez of Tornley had looked like but found she couldn't. Her mouth felt suddenly dry. There had been a photo in the file, she remembered. Why hadn't she paid more attention?

“Big ears,” said Alex calmly. “Our father had big ears.”

“Is that so?” said Lester. “I must have been thinking of someone else.”

Alex continued eating steadily as Lester slipped out the door. The clink of her spoon against the bowl alerted Alice to the fact that her hand was trembling. Fortunately, Cook didn't appear to notice. She was bent over the stove, her shoulders shaking.

“A Sourian chef ?” she was saying to herself. “They can't mean to—to let me go. Cooks have always run the palace kitchen, even after the Sourians took over. My mother cooked for King Martain; it near broke her heart when the old king was forced out. And I always thought that a Cook would run the kitchen for Zanzibar one day.” She suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth as if aware of what she was
saying. As she turned to see if she had been overheard, Alice dropped her head to stare into her soup bowl.

Alex, still slurping, gave no sign of having heard Cook's treacherous words.

“Cook, where does that door go?” he asked when he noticed Cook's gaze directed their way. He was pointing not toward the door that Lester had used, but to one on the other side of the hearth.

Cook turned to look where he was pointing.

“Oh that.” She sniffed dismissively. “Servants' staircase. In the old days, when King Martain lived in the palace, servants moved around via their own passageways so as not to disturb the royal family and their guests. Out of bounds now. The Sourians want us out in the open where they can see us.”

“Isn't it better this way?” Alice asked. “Wouldn't you rather use the same stairs and passageways as everyone else?”

Cook lifted one broad shoulder. “Perhaps,” she said. “But these days I find that I don't care about disturbing the guests; it's the ‘guests' who disturb me.” She gave them a meaningful look, then said, “Right, I'll show you where you're to sleep, then I'm off home to my family. The little ones will be waiting for their supper.”

She ushered them out the back door into the cobbled courtyard and pointed to a wooden staircase climbing the outer wall of the palace. “You'll find a room up there.”

Alice, who was looking forward to sinking into a comfortable bed, led the way up the stairs. One flight.
Two. Three. The staircase grew more and more narrow, the steps more rickety. By the time she glimpsed a doorway at the top of the sixth flight of stairs, Alice's hopes of a comfortable bed had faded.

When she pushed open the creaking door a couple of minutes later, her heart sank.

“It's a good thing the attic is warm,” she remarked as they stood in the dingy room under the eaves regarding two pallets of straw. “I'd hate to rely on this.” She held up a blanket so worn that it was transparent in parts.

“Warm is an understatement,” said Alex. “It's stifling in here. I wonder if this window opens.” It was impossible to see through the grimy panes, but with a few tugs Alex managed to get it open, and they both breathed welcome drafts of fresh air.

The view was mostly of palace rooftops, but they could see the lights of the city across the river. Somewhere out there, Alice thought, were mice just like them. And with this comforting thought, she lowered herself onto one of the pallets and fell into an uneasy sleep, aware every time she rolled over of the straw digging into her side.

Sometime in the night she woke abruptly to a growling sound. After a few anxious moments, she identified the sound as her stomach. She turned to see if her brother was awake—but his blanket was tossed back and the pallet was empty.

“Alex?” she whispered into the dark room. “Alex, are you there?”

There was no reply.

Rising, she went to the open window, thinking he might have climbed out onto the roof to escape the heat, but there was no stirring in the shadows. Where could he have gone? For a moment she considered going to look for him, but the thought of wandering alone through the dark, perhaps happening across the oily Lester. . . . She shivered and sank back onto her pallet. She couldn't.

She lay wide awake in the dark, fretting over the whereabouts of her brother, for what seemed like hours. When at last Alice heard the door squeal on its hinges and then the rustle of straw of the pallet next to her, she reached over and punched at the sound.

“Ow!” said Alex. “That was my arm.”

“Where were you?” Alice demanded.

“Exploring,” said Alex. He turned to face her, his eyes shining in the dark. “This place is enormous, sis.”

“I know that,” said Alice huffily, still cross. “I read about it in the files. Two hundred and forty-three rooms, seventy-three chimneys, one hundred and eighteen bathtubs, thirty-nine staircases, blah blah blah.”

“And that's just the stuff they want you to see,” said Alex.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that those are only the rooms that the royal family lived in. Then there's all the places the royal family never set foot in. Sis, there are dungeons here, and heaps of other attic rooms, and you can even climb out onto the roof and walk all over it. There's all these underground cellars and miles of hidden staircases and passages for the servants.”

“Alex,” Alice groaned, “I can't believe you went in there. You heard what Cook said. Imagine if you'd been caught.”

Alex seemed unconcerned. “But I wasn't. Anyway, stop your griping; I brought you a present.”

Something hit Alice's shoulder and bounced onto the thin blanket. It was a piece of cheese.

“Where did you get this?”

“I was hungry, so I paid a visit to the kitchen.”

Never had a piece of cheese tasted so delicious, Alice thought as she lay on the hard straw pallet nibbling the piece of cheddar. “Still,” she said, “you shouldn't steal food. If anyone catches you we could be sent away before we've had a chance to find anything out.”

“I don't know what we're going to find out from the gardener besides the names of every purple flower under the sun,” Alex said. “Anyway,” he grumbled, “if I don't steal food we'll starve on what that horrible Cook feeds us.”

“True,” Alice said, thinking of the watery soup Cook had first dished up. “Though once we reminded her we were Sourian, the food improved a—oh no!” She sat up.

“What?” said Alex. “Here, I found some strawberries too.”