“I mosthumblybeg your pardon, madam,” the stout woman said, with gratifying obsequiousness. “How might we be of service to you, madam?”
“I just wanted to have a little chat,” Gretsella said. “And some coffee and cake, I think.”
“Ofcourse, madam,” the stout woman said. Then she hissed, “In the office!” at the nearest hapless young person before leading Gretsella through a discreet door in the corner.
The office was a small, dark, uncomfortable room with lots of very large furniture crammed into it and a strong smell of stale tobacco in the air. It must have once been the den of aman, Gretsella imagined: Men were known for their love of dark corners and stagnant air. It was also extremely messy, as if someone had been rummaging around for something and then neglected to put anything back in its place.
“I’m reallyverysorry,” the stout woman said. “This isn’t my office. It was the butler’s, and since he left, I’ve been doing my best to mind things. I’m the cook,” she added, in a gesture toward clarification.
“You certainly look as if you mind things very much,” Gretsella said. She had never in her life seen such a flustered and harried-looking woman. Gretsella very rarely minded anything at all, and she was of the belief that her complexion had only benefited in consequence.
“Thank you very much, madam,” said the visibly gratified cook. “I do my best. Did you want to talk about the dinner menus, madam?”
“I absolutely donot,” Gretsella said. “I want to gossip. What’s your name?”
“Prune, madam,” Prune said. A wary look had crept across her face. “Amelia Prune. I’m never one to gossip, madam, especially about my betters. It’s a very wicked thing to gossip,especiallyabout one’s betters, and I’m an honest, God-fearing woman.”
Gretsella did her best to avoid a too-obvious wince. “But I’m not your better, Prune,” she said. “I’m almost certainly your worse. And I came all the way down here for cake and gossip and will beverydisappointed not to receive either.”
Prune hesitated. A girl came in with cake and coffee, deposited the tray atop a pile of papers on the desk, and went out again.
Prune glanced around herself as if worried about spies, then leaned forward. “Who did you want to hear about, madam?”
“My son,” Gretsella said. “What do the servants think of him? How has he been managing things? Who in the palace likes him, and who would like to see crows pecking his eyeballs out?”
“Oh, I’m sure that no one would ever think such a thing about His Majesty!” Prune said. “Although…”
“Dotell,” Gretsella said. Then she whispered, “Is there someone at the door?”
Prune turned to look. Gretsella took the opportunity to sprinkle a little Powder of Volubility into her coffee. Prune turned back. “I don’t hear anyone,” she whispered.
“Oh,wonderful,” Gretsella said, and picked up her own cup to take a very pointed sip. “Then we can have a lovely chat about people of our mutual acquaintance, as female friends who are absolutely not witches frequently do.”
Prune looked somewhat stunned, which Gretsella took as evidence of her being very taken in by Gretsella’s performance as a perfectly ordinary woman who would make an excellent confidante. “I, uh…yes, very nice,” she said, and drank some coffee. Within a moment, her eyes had gone a little too bright. “You wanted to hear about how the new young king’s been managing things, you said?” she asked, and then launched into a recital of Bradley’s flaws so lengthy and detailed that Gretsella began to regret the strength of her own Powder of Volubility formulation. She did, at least, learn a great deal about the sheer extent to which Bradley’s hand at the helm had immediately sunk the entire royal household into chaos. Many members of the staff who hadn’t been fired for suspected loyalty to the previous king had quit shortly after Bradley’s coronation, and the ones who’d stayed on were—as far as Gretsella could make out after sifting through all of Prune’s editorializing—either too old to want to find a new position or too incompetent to look for one.
“That was the majordomo you saw out there, drunk as a lord shouldn’t be,” Prune said. “The only man worth an ounce of flour left around here is Old Herman in the stables.”
“Ah, indeed,” Gretsella said, and finished the last bite of her cake. It was chocolate cake, and very good. “This was a wonderful slice of cake, Mrs. Prune. Please give my compliments to the baker.”
Prune looked extremely gratified to hear it. “But that’smyrecipe!”
Gretsella expressed surprise and delight. Prune expounded upon her joy. “What will my friends say when I tell them that the king’s own mother likes my chocolate cake?!”
“There should be something to put up on the wall for that,” Gretsella said.Thatmight be a way for Bradley to improve his standing among the populace: by handing out little signs that saidSupplier of Finest Cakes to the Kingor something like that. She would bring it up to Bradley. Or Janet, more likely. Janet would be the more practical choice. “You said something about a man in the stables?”
“Yes, madam, Old Herman,” Prune said. She was beginning to get the droopy-eyed look that people took on when the Powder of Volubility started to wear off. “The stablemaster, madam.”
“Thank you, Prune,” Gretsella said. “You’ve been very helpful.” Then she got up and left Prune there to slowly nod off into her cake.
Gretsella made her way down to the stableyard, which was located in a courtyard at the near center of the palace.Nearcenter because the palace had no actual center: It was so wildly asymmetrical that, from above, it resembled a pancake made by a small child with a weak grip on the bowl of batter. The place had been the clear victim of centuries’ worth of kings who’dbeen convinced that the architectural styles of previous eras were hideous and out of date, while the fashions of theirowneras were clearly timeless and would easily withstand the scrutiny of future generations. The result was an ever-expanding architectural muddle, with each king’s new additions and refurbishments patchily enveloping the modernization efforts of the previous three or four decades, like fungus overtaking a log. Among the infelicities were hallways that switched building materials and design styles halfway through before ending abruptly at blank walls; rooms with three round windows and one rectangular floor-to-ceiling window; and, in one notable instance in one of the two east wings, a turret stuck smack on top of another, larger turret. It was enough to drive a normal person into a state of absolute despair.
Gretsella liked it.
Whatever one thought of this baffling architectural compost heap, the stableyard was at the near center of it, and looked, mostly, like the stableyard that a sensible king might have built about eight hundred years ago—at least, that is, if one disregarded the sculptures of hideous fat cherubs that someone had added here and there above the doorframes. Gretsella disregarded them with extreme prejudice and marched into the stables to try to find someone who looked as if he might know what he was doing.
At first, she found just horses, which she could only assume were fine exemplars of their genus. Then she found a young man. “Excuse me,” she said. “Could you direct me to Mr. Herman’s office?”
“Ol’ Herman? He’s over there, ma’am,” the young man said, and gestured toward a gray-haired man who was doing something very delicate-looking to the hoof of a horse.
