Chapter 4: Where is the Meat (Part 1 of 2)
Amelia woke in a cloud of warmth and comfort. The soft bed furs wrapped her in a cocoon so snug she almost fell right back into her sweet slumber... until reality hit her like a slap to the face. Like the slap she'd bestowed upon Drake's face. She groaned into her pillow as images of the wedding ceremony and celebrations flashed through her memory and reminded her cruelly of her new status as a married woman.
But she wasn't just any married woman. She was also the Emira of Steersberg, and she had work to do.
It took her a long while to dress and fix her hair—wig, rather. Her movements were slow and unpractised, yet she couldn't bring herself to waking Marge, who was forced to sacrifice her sleep to help her lay out strings of firecrackers. This was all Drake's fault and he shall pay for it!
By the time she had readied herself and stepped out of the bedchamber, the house was still asleep. Well, not for long.
"COOK!" Amelia screamed as she rounded the hallway and headed down the manor's spiralling staircase. Several servants and guards, still deep in their sleep, laid along the cold stone wall of the stairs. She bent at the waist to grab at the collar of a guard and shook him until his eyelids slowly lifted. "Where is the cook?"
"Uhh..." the guard muttered, rubbing the sleep in his eyes. "In... in ze kitchens, miss."
Dropping the guard's collar, Amelia continued down the stairs and hallways, yelling "COOOOOOK!" with every dainty little step.
Already, the house was coming awake with the tired groans and confused murmurs of servants and guests.
Amelia's sure footsteps halted at the entrance to the kitchen as she took in the massive disarray of scattered bowls and pots. For such a wealthy lord, she had expected his manor to be better managed. She followed the rich smell of abundant wine to a sleeping giant, sprawled out on a pallet next to overfilled sacks of flour and rice.
She nudged his round belly with her foot. When he did not move, she bent down and screamed into his ear, "COOOOOK!"
The large man stirred and opened an eye. "Who are ya?" he grumbled sleepily.
"I am your new Emira. Are you the cook?" she asked, looking down at him with her hands on her hips.
He raised himself—mightily sluggishly—to a sitting position. "Aye, init that what ya just called me, miss?" He scratched his scalp of unkempt brown hair, confusion written all over his pudgy, bearded face. "What's a ladyship like ya gotta do wit' me this early in the mornin'?" he asked impatiently.
Amelia raised her brows in surprise at the cook's begrudging manner. In the household of a callous Southern lord, he might have just lost his head.
"Get up, you... uh. What is your name?"
Pushing himself to a standing position proved to be quite a mission for a giant with tubby limbs and a fat belly that got in the way. "'Tis Tom, miss." He chuckled when Amelia dropped her jaws at the sight of him at his full height. "What d'ya need?"
Amelia clutched at her skirt nervously as she craned her neck all the way to gaze into the laughing brown eyes of the seven-foot man, whose head almost reached the wooden beams of the ceiling. No Southern lord would be beheading this one. "Who plans the meals in this house?"
Tom walked right past Amelia, leaving her stunned in place. Seconds later, he brought back a long wooden bench in one arm and plopped himself down before her. "No 'un. I cook. They eat."
While some members of nobility might find Tom's lack of reverence discourteous, Amelia was glad she could now relax her neck. "If the daily meals are anything like the sort of food at the feast yesterday, I would like the menu changed," she demanded bluntly.
Tom's thick brows crossed into a knot. "Aye? M'lord never had a problem wit' ma food."
"'Tis good food, Tom. I enjoyed it very much. Truly." His meaty cheeks blushed pink at her praise. Clearly, soft speech was the way to this big man's heart. "But lamb pies, stuffed eels, roast pork, beef, venison... So much meat cannot be good for my lord husband."
"Why not, miss? M'lord trains wit' his men. He needs meat—"
"How much does your lord mean to you, Tom?"
"Everythin', miss," Tom replied without hesitation. "I wouldn't have a place ta live wit'out m'lord." The way his eyes shone bright with admiration and loyalty for Drake struck a chord in Amelia's heart. It was clear Drake's people held him in high regard, the same way the people in Marlborough loved and respected her father. She couldn't help but cast a genuine smile at the honest cook.
"Tom, what I am about to tell you is very important. It concerns the welfare of Steersberg's people," Amelia spoke in a grave tone, looking straight into his widening eyes. "It concerns Drake's life."
Tom inhaled sharply. "Wh-what can I do?" Sweet Goddess, loyal servants are easy to fool.
Amelia turned her face to the ceiling and sighed. "Back in Lyons, I learnt some tricks from a healer. She taught me how to gauge a man's health from the colour of his face." She lowered her gaze back to Tom, squinting as though she was examining him. "You see, I can tell you drink aplenty and sleep little. Your liver will deteriorate should you continue so."
Whilst it was true that healers read the signs of a man's health from his colour, Amelia had never possessed such skill. The empty wine jars beside the pallet and the darkness beneath Tom's eyes however, were clues enough. His answering gasp affirmed her guesses.
"Still, you are much better than Drake. He is... he is not well. His colour is not natural. Last I looked, it was a dull, green hue, with blue and white spots beneath his skin. Have you not seen?" Tom shook his head stiffly. "Well, it is not natural," Amelia insisted, lowering her head and raising a silk handkerchief to dab at invisible tears. "It is the colour that belongs to a man who might... who might..." Her voice turned to a near-sob, leaving the cook to assume the worst.
"B-b-but m'lord looks well. Sh-should we not summon a h-healer?" Tom looked so mortified that Amelia almost felt a pang of guilt. Almost.
"No, no, we mustn't do that. If word gets out about my husband's poor health, can you imagine what would happen to his silk business? He has no heir yet, Steersberg would be in uproar, and the outlaws would think this the perfect opportunity for an attack!" Amelia switched on an expression of desperation. "Please, Tom. I need your help. Your lord needs your help."
Tom nodded slowly in understanding. "Aye, yer right, miss. M'lord is blessed ta have ya as his wife. I will do anythin' ya ask o' me."
* * *
"Say that again?" Drake hissed, glaring up at his wife across his desk.
"The night before our wedding you said, 'I look forward to you bringing more colour into my life'. So I did just that," Amelia explained with a shrug.
He closed his eyes and breathed. Deep. After the madness she single-handedly conducted yestereve, he had expected an apology of some sort when he confronted her. Even if she tried to shift the blame to his lack of attention towards her, or to Skar's strong wines, he would force himself to forgive her. She was young and she was his wife, after all.
But as it turned out, there was no apology—for humiliating Isabella, for striking him, for setting off darned firecrackers all around the manor. Not even an inkling of shame. How dare she turn this on him. Each minute he spent with her was a test of patience; the precarious grip on his temper slipping as rage bubbled and threatened to burst from within.
"You could have hurt somebody," Drake growled low, "could have caused a fire, could have blown—"
"Oh please, they are harmless little things that make big noise." Placing both hands on the desk, she leant towards him. "Or were you scared?" she taunted, her voice full of mockery.
He rubbed his forehead. There was no talking sense to a stubborn lady who thought she knew it all.
"First, you robbed every one of our guests of their good night—"
"I robbed you of a good night. What better time to fornicate with another woman than on our wedding night?" She rolled her eyes. He narrowed his.
"Then this morning, you scream for the cook—"
"As the new lady of this house, it is my responsibility to plan and oversee the meals." Amelia crossed her arms and looked down her nose at him as if she was speaking to a lowly subject. A sparkle of emerald on her left hand caught his eye and reminded him, oh-so-painfully, that he wedded a witch.
Drake rose slowly from his chair and glowered at her. "My people laboured all day and night for our feast and celebrations." He fought to keep his voice calm. He must make her see reason. "I am sorry for what I did with Isabella. I truly am. If you wish to slap me again for it, just say so. But must you wake every man, woman and child up at sunrise when your firecrackers disturbed their sleep so late?"
Yet his generous offer did not seem to appease her. "As the new lady of this house, it is my responsibility to ensure that we do not breed a house-full of lazy maggots that waste precious hours of the day in slumber," she said with a tilt of her chin, exposing more of her white slender throat.
Oh, the nerves of this woman. How his fingers itched to close around that throat and wring her neck. "They are not maggots!"
Amelia responded with another one of her casual shrugs. He saw that one coming.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, as the new lady of this house,"—Gods, he was sick of that line—"I have many responsibilities to attend to." With that, she turned on her heel and exited his study, her large layered skirt bobbing stiffly as she padded out of his sight.
A confused and worried frown etched itself onto Drake's brow. He wasn't aware of any responsibilities she had to attend to. William was more than capable of managing the house and they had done just fine before she arrived. More importantly, he wasn't sure he wanted her to be responsible for anything to do with his house.
Drake slumped back down into his cushioned chair and released a tired sigh. Firecrackers. He could still hear the ringing in his ears from the goddamned blasts.
And for some accursed reason, he felt there was more coming.
* * *
"Oh, you should have seen him, Marge!" Amelia clapped and giggled. "He was exactly like papa when he was angry! I swear I almost saw flames coming out his nostrils!"
She remembered feeling so triumphant when Drake came banging and yelling at her door last night, while she muffled the sounds of her own laughter under the fur covers. The fact that a tall Northern lord such as he was rendered helpless by the small lock on her door made it all the funnier.
Now, she felt even more victorious after all the growling and seething she'd earned from him. How furious he was. How useless his fury was against her. What would happen if she did slap him again?
"My lady, what has the Emir done that you must torment him so?" Marge asked with a soft sigh, her hands still busy with delicate needlework on a dress.
"Torment?" Amelia snorted. "He is putting me through torment by keeping me here!"
"You make it sound as though you are a prisoner."
"I am a—" Amelia shot a slanted glare at her maid. "For the twentieth time, Marge, are you on his side or mine?"
"Mmm." Marge held up the green velvet gown and tilted her head sideways to inspect its hem. "You need to stop growing, my lady. I've let the hem down as far as it could go."
Amelia stared at the gown for a moment before lowering herself to the rug beside her maid. Her expression softened as she gingerly touched the soft fabric of her favourite gown with the back of her fingers and recalled the countless times she had pretended to be an elegant and graceful lady in the gown that once belonged to her mother. Except, she was no lady material.
Each and every time, her ladyish act fell apart when the sight of blooming flowers and flittering butterflies distracted and enticed her to run in the fields and stain the dress with mud. Each and every time, Marge had to clean and mend it. It was a wonder that after so many years, the gown was still perfect, and far more beautiful than these stiff, puffy dresses she must now wear.
That's right, she must wear them. She must make Drake hate her. She must return home.
"My lady, what did you want the cook for this morning?" Marge turned her accusing eyes to Amelia, for she, too, was amongst the miserable ones who lost sleep because of her lady's morning screeching.
The mention of her kitchen 'conquest' brought back all of Amelia's wicked grins and giddiness.
She eyed Tom, her voice dropping to a grave whisper. "Vow you will not repeat any of this to another, not even to Drake. I do not want him to worry.
"I vow. No other will hear o' this from me."
She smiled a smile of gratitude. "I have reason to believe my dear husband's poor health is due partly to his diet. At the feast yesterday, I saw him eat entirely too much meat. He must have more vegetables and herbs."
"How? M'lord takes however much he wishes ta—"
"No more. Give us our own plates of food. Call it the 'Cook's Special' for the lord and lady, if you like. Only, his soup shall have no more than potatoes and vegetables, his pie shall have more mushrooms than beef, and his roasted lamb shall have more rosemary and thyme... than lamb."
Tom frowned. "M'lord will have ma head fer this."
She patted his large shoulder. "Do not worry, Tom. How could he take your head for trying to save his life? You are a good cook and a good man. Do this for me, for your lord, and for the good of Steersberg."
The big friendly giant blushed and nodded his consent.
"You shall see, Marge. You shall see." Amelia smiled in satisfaction.
The maid shook her head and sighed again.
———
Author's Note: It is indeed possible to tell a person's general health (i.e. whether they have poor liver, heart, digestion, etc) from their skin colour/complexion, and it was one of the measures by which healers in some ancient cultures diagnosed their patients.
Additional Author's Note: I have seen many comments about how hypocritical Drake is because he cheated. It is absolutely hypocritical to our modern minds, but do take this into account: in Middle Ages Europe, fidelity in marriage was only required from women; there was no stigma attached to cheating by men. Likewise in Imperial China, men were expected to have concubines and frequented brothels with friends, etc. In other words, women had to be loyal in marriages, whilst men... not so much. In fact, a wife would be criticised for being jealous/selfish if she made a fuss about her husband being with other women.