Piece de Resistance

Judith Tarr

A tale of feasts and fancy, and the magic of a master chef

I.

“But,” said the king, “I already have a master cook.”

His counselor smiled. “Indeed, Sire, you do: the master of all master cooks. And yet even the greatest master is, after all, a man. He grows old. He longs for his own country. He curses the sun and the dust, and sighs for the soft air of Provence. Could he but return there, enriched for life by the bounty of the King of Jerusalem, how joyful he would be!”

The king sighed. “Ah, Provence!” A frown marred his brow. “But, Amaury, Master Folquet is the best in the world. The Greek said so, what was his name, the one from Byzantium. And the Turk from Cairo, or was it Baghdad? And—”

Amaury coughed. The king stopped. Amaury said very gently, “My lord brother of course is perfectly correct. And why should the High King concern himself with such a trifle as the wishes of his cook? The earth here is the most holy in the world; who would refuse to lie in it for a grave in green Provence?”

The king’s frown deepened. Amaury waited. At length the king struck the arm of his chair with a massive fist. “All right then. All right! Show me this genius who’ll thrust Master Folquet out of his kitchen.”

“Who will help you to grant Master Folquet’s deepest desire,” said Amaury, not precisely as if he were correcting the king.

His Majesty glowered and rose. “Of course, of course. You do all the thinking for both of us anyway. Raymond, tell the groom to saddle my charger. I’ll take a turn or two at the quintain.”

He was gone in royal haste. Amaury smiled, not at all the same smile with which he had favored his liege, and followed in much more leisurely fashion.

oOo

The Mouse swallowed a sneeze. It was infernally dusty behind the arras, which said nothing at all for the king’s servants. Now if Master Folquet had had anything to do with them…

He choked on dust and sudden recollection. Master Folquet was going to be sent away. Back to Provence with money enough to set him up in his own kitchen, serving his own dishes in his own time; the dream he invoked eloquently whenever the purity of his art collided with the reality of his kitchen.

A wave of the king’s hand and he would have what he prayed for.

The Mouse held his breath, listening. Not a sound. With utmost care he crept to the joining of two tapestries and peered through the gap. The room was empty. Quick and quiet as the creature he was named for, he bolted for his hole.

oOo

Master Folquet was in a passion. A passion such as only Master Folquet could muster, quiet, restrained, and civilized. Master Folquet was an educated man; he was never uncivilized. Though once, when one of the scullions had dropped a platter with a crash at the very instant when Master Folquet was completing the final perfect curve of a ram’s horn in marzipan, he had been heard to raise his voice a full degree. The scullions were still pale with the memory of it, and given to starting at shadows.

This was a less splendid passion. The fourth assistant pastry cook, sent for fennel seed, had returned with anise instead. Master Folquet was flaying him slowly in all the colors of his glorious rhetoric. The Mouse slipped invisibly into the line of scullions scouring pans, every one laboring diligently and listening in breathless awe.

“Provence,” sighed Master Folquet. “Lovely Provence! There are fools there; there are idiots; there are mooncalves of truly abysmal stupidity. But none to equal the asses of Jerusalem.”

The Mouse set his lip between his teeth and attacked a stubborn stain, and tried to keep his heart from hammering. One did not—if one was a lowly scullion—one did not venture to address the Master Cook. One was addressed imperially through a parade of underlings, or one was blessedly ignored. One did not have a mind; one did not have eyes except for one’s work; and most of all, one did not have a penchant for prowling hidden passages and eavesdropping on the king.

The Mouse listened to Master Folquet’s glorious voice and scoured pans, and wrestled his conscience into submission. After all, Master Folquet wanted to go back to Provence.

oOo

The king looked the petitioner up and down. The man bowed low for the hundredth time and smiled. His face was made for smiling, vast and round and jovial, with a little fringe of black beard and a pair of eyes sunk deep in the pale-brown skin like currants in a pastry. He was huge; he was magnificent; he was the embodiment of a cook. Even his voice was perfect, a warm smooth voice, dark gold and sweet like Hymettus honey. “I am utterly at Your Majesty’s service, if Your Majesty should deign to accept one as humble as I.”

The king raised his chin a little, to a more kingly angle. His eyes were deep and brooding; his face was awesome in repose. “Amaury,” he said to his brother who stood beside him, “is this a paynim?”

The cook bowed even more deeply than before. “Indeed, most puissant lord, this worthless dog was once a slave of Mohammed. But he has seen the light, oh aye, long since; the blessed Christ is now his master.”

“As the Emperor of Byzantium will attest,” said Amaury smoothly, “along with a truly imperial commendation of his culinary skills. To which also will testify the Doge of Venice, the Lord of the Holy Roman Empire, and”—he paused for an instant—“the lord Pope himself.”

The king frowned portentously. “Powerful testimonials. Yes, very powerful indeed. But, Amaury, what will Master Folquet say to all of this?”

His counselor paused. The cook bowed to the carpet. “If Your Majesty will permit—Your Majesty, after all, is the king. But if Your Highness is troubled, perhaps Your Puissance will deign to ask him yourself.”

Amaury nodded gravely. “The act of a wise and clement king, to be sure, to grant a faithful servant his freedom and his fortune in one noble gesture.”

“Well then,” said the king, “send for him.”

oOo

Master Folquet, sent for, showed no sign of either haste or anxiety. But the Mouse, behind the arras, saw with a shiver that his nostrils were just touched with white.

He did not choose to notice the cook. The counselor won a precise bow, the king one deeper but no less precise. “My lord commands me?” he inquired. The king frowned at him. Beside that magnificent bulk he seemed very slight and very stiff, with a face like a monk’s: thin and ascetic and most alarmingly intelligent. He did not look like a cook at all, nor act like one, nor sound like one. And his hair, though beautifully cut, was thin and going grey.

“Tell him, Amaury,” said the king.

Amaury bowed and turned his pale wise face upon the Master. “Master Folquet, His Majesty has given long and deep thought to the excellence of your service. What reward, he has asked himself, can possibly compensate such fidelity? What gift can he give to reveal to you his deep gratitude? What recompense save that which, in all the world, you most desire?”

Master Folquet waited and said nothing. His lips had thinned. The Mouse trembled.

“What recompense,” repeated Amaury, “but the greatest of them all? Provence, Master Folquet—His Majesty gives you back your homeland, with a barony to set you high in it and a wagonload of gold to secure your place there. Master Folquet, this day is your fortune made!”

It was a ringing conclusion; it rang in silence. Master Folquet moved not at all. He might, perhaps, have been speechless with astonishment.

The Mouse knew better.

At long last he stirred, to bow, to straighten, to say in his precise, trained voice, “I thank His Majesty with all my heart. But I cannot accept his gifts.”

 The king gaped in most unkingly fashion. The cook forsook his smile.

Amaury drew a slow breath. “You . . . refuse?”

“I refuse,” said the Master. “With all due courtesy, and with a plea to His Majesty to remember that I am not a baron or a rich merchant. I am a cook. Have I given His Majesty cause for dissatisfaction?”

Amaury opened his mouth. But the king had recovered most of his wits. “No, sir. No indeed! We’re perfectly satisfied. But you see, Master Folquet, you aren’t getting any younger, and Provence isn’t getting any closer. And here’s this master cook, highly recommended in all the best places, who’s ready and willing to take over for you. After, of course, you’ve gone off to a well-earned retirement.”

Master Folquet drew himself up to his full height. “Retirement, Sire?” he asked very softly.

“Riches,” said the king. “Leisure. Contentment. In blessed Languedoc.”

“Languedoc.” Master Folquet smiled the merest shadow of a smile. “I dream of it. However, Your Majesty, I am at heart a realist. A dream gained is a very feeble thing. Nor,” he said in the gentlest of tones, “can I be bribed with it. If my lord is not content, he may dispose of me as he wills. He need not wrap his displeasure in gilt.”

The king glanced at Amaury, but his counselor was frowning at the floor. “Look here,” he said, “I’m giving you your heart’s desire. And I’ve engaged another cook. Or Amaury has. Can’t you just kiss my hand and thank me, and let it go at that?”

Master Folquet stood perfectly erect and perfectly still. “Very well. I am dismissed. I shall leave directly.”

“Sire!” The cook advanced, bowing and smiling. “Sire, my lord, my good Master, need we part in bitterness? The Master is the prince of cooks, I but an apprentice beside him. Yet if he wishes it, and if His Majesty desires, we may resolve the matter to the satisfaction of all concerned.” He beamed at them. “A contest, sirs! Let us have a feast. Half the courses I shall prepare to the best of my poor ability; to half the Master will devote his famous art. And let a court of noblemen sit in judgment upon us. For the victor, the mastery of His Majesty’s kitchen; for the vanquished, freedom to go wherever he wills, with His Majesty’s commendation.”

The king’s eyes gleamed. “A contest,” he said. “A contest. By’r’Lady, there you have it! What do you say, Master Folquet? Would you settle the score that way? Winner take all and Devil take the hindmost?”

Master Folquet. bowed with perfect correctness. “If so my lord desires,” he said. Deep in his eyes a spark had caught, brighter and fiercer even than the king’s.

II.

It was a rare diversion between battles and tournaments, invasions of Saracens and invasions of pilgrims: a struggle for the mastery of the royal kitchen. Although the feast would not be held until a fortnight hence, at Pentecost, already the curious had begun to gather and the rumors to fly.

By the grace of the king and the graciousness of Jusuf his rival, Master Folquet held sway in his old domain. Jusuf settled near, yet not too near, in the dusty labyrinth that had served the master cook of the first King of Jerusalem. He asked for no aid and no servants; he had his own, he said with his everlasting smile, and would not presume upon the king’s generosity. Later, however, if by God’s will he had the victory. . . He smiled and said no more.

Master Folquet said nothing at all. And did nothing, it seemed, but what he had always done. If he prepared any great masterpiece, the Mouse saw no sign of it. His kitchen lay open to any who dared to venture in; he disposed of the inquisitive with a few scathing phrases, and kept his underlings at their usual work.

Jusuf’s quarter was shut and. barred. The Mouse, loitering about, saw nothing and no one. Sometimes he heard strange sounds or caught a scent as of spices, but that was all. There were no windows to peer through and no hangings to hide behind, and every bolthole was most efficiently stopped up.

But the Mouse had one virtue which even his enemies would admit to. He persevered.

oOo

Which was why, on a starless night very close to Pentecost, one pillar of the old courtyard had a double shadow. The air was breathlessly warm even so late, but the Mouse shivered in his thin tunic. He hardly knew what had possessed him to leave his bed in the comer of the hearth between Ali and the kitchen cat. If there was nothing to see by day, what could he expect to find in the dark?

He tensed. Lights flickered across the court: torches, leaping and flaring as their bearers moved. They could be guards mounting the walls, maybe, or a lord coming late from the city, but guards and lords were noisy with armor or with drink. These made no sound.

A huge shape loomed in the archway. The Mouse shrank behind his pillar. The shape dwindled, became a man laden with a heavy bale. And another came after him, and another, soft on bare feet, flanked by torchbearers. The procession streamed toward Jusuf’s door, which opened silently. A gleam of light stabbed the darkness. The bearers passed within.

The door shut; the light was gone; the Mouse remembered how to breathe.

His brain shrieked at him to dive for safety. His feet carried him through the shadows to the door. Just beyond it lay an old fishpond, empty now and treacherous in the dark, but railed with stone. The Mouse crouched behind it with every sense alert.

For a long while there was nothing. But the nape of his neck prickled; his lips drew back from his small sharp teeth. The air felt different here. It felt wrong.

It had felt that way when he hid behind the arras and watched the stranger-cook bow and smile and protest his unworthiness. Protest, and propose a contest he could not but lose if he told the truth.

The wrongness was stronger here. Maybe it was the dark and the weed-choked fishpond, and the utter silence.

Again the door opened. The light behind it was red. The Mouse had a brief, searing vision of all within, before a man’s shadow blocked it and the door thudded shut.

oOo

The Mouse crouched shuddering under a safe, sane, yellow cresset outside of his own familiar kitchen. Within, he could hear snores and the rustling of bodies on straw. Soon the bakers would be up, beginning the day’s bread.

He could not stop shaking. If he could just stop—if he could just take the few steps through the door—he would be able to rest.

His feet were not his own tonight. They retreated from safety; they stumbled up a steep narrow stair; they brought him through a curtain and into light.

The scullions were certain that Master Folquet never slept. The Mouse had confirmation of it. For here in the black midnight, he sat in his bedchamber with a book in his hand, no whit less impeccable than he was at high noon. He regarded the intruder with an utter lack of surprise.

“Well?” he asked.

The Mouse could not speak.

Master Folquet raised a fine brow. There was a cup by his elbow; he set it in the Mouse’s limp fingers. “Drink,” he said.

One never disobeyed Master Folquet. The drink was honeyed wine; it warmed the Mouse’s cold belly and steadied his quaking knees. He set the cup carefully in its place.

“Well?” Master Folquet said again. “You would be one of mine, I suppose. He of the long elegant name. Abd-al-Rahman Mohammed.”

“Mouse, Master,” he mumbled. “Just Mouse.”

“Mouse, then. It is quite apt. Now, suppose you sit on my bed, which is a good deal steadier than your legs seem to be, and tell me why I should not have you whipped for troubling my peace.”

The Master’s tone was grim, but strangely enough, the Mouse was not afraid. Perhaps it was the wine. He perched on the edge of the narrow ascetic bed, pushed his tangled hair out of his eyes, and drew a long breath. Master Folquet waited in awful silence. Gathering all his courage, he began.

He told everything, from that first day behind the king’s arras to the black courtyard and the open door and the red light in it. “And things,” he said very low. “Things, Master. A cauldron; the red light was under it, not a comfortable kitchen fire—it made me think of the one in the smithy. And the—the man, Master Jusuf, standing by it, and all around him black devils. They were doing things, I couldn’t see what. But Jusuf was smiling, and stirring the cauldron with a long white rod like a bone with words written all over it. I saw them; they moved like bits of fire up and down the rod. And Jusuf smiled.”

The Mouse stopped. He was shaking again. Master Folquet filled the cup and handed it back to him. He drank deep, until his eyes blurred and his head spun. Through the fog of wine he heard Master Folquet’s voice. “And you came to me. Why?”

“Why?” the Mouse repeated stupidly. “Why, Master? He’s a sorcerer. He’s evil. What if—what if he means to bewitch the king?”

“What if he is only preparing a secret masterpiece by firelight, with his servants about him?”

The Mouse sat bolt upright. The empty cup slid from his hand and clattered to the floor; he hardly noticed. “Master, I didn’t tell you everything. There’s something else I saw. The man who came out was . . . was my lord Amaury. And he said something. He said, ‘Remember. For this, you use only the delights of the eyes and of the palate. Later, when we are well rid of that long-nosed clerk who rules my brother’s stomach and hence his brain as well, you, may work your greater magics.’ And he laughed and said, ‘Then shall I be king in name as well as in fact, and you my counselor. Cast your spells well for me!’” The Mouse smote his hands together in desperation. “Please, Master. You have to believe me. You have to do something!”

Master Folquet looked at him. Simply looked. The Mouse should have quailed; would have, if this had been daylight and he his usual self. But there was the wine, and he had seen what he had seen. He met the cold eyes with wondrous steadiness and firmed his jaw and waited.

The Master nodded slowly. “You deserve a proper tanning. Spying indeed! And most of it when you were on duty besides. But this— You realize, boy, that if what you tell me is true, our adversaries may be aware of all we say and do here.”

The Mouse started violently and stared about, wild-eyed.

“However,” said Master Folquet, “I like to fancy that we are protected.”

His glance drew the Mouse’s to the door-curtain. Over it hung a small crucifix carved from olivewood. The Mouse crossed himself quickly.

“A Christian, are you, boy?” the Master asked him.

“My mother was, Master.”

“So.” Master Folquet nodded again. “Tell me what you would do if you were I.”

For a long moment the Mouse was speechless. Master Folquet made no move. The Mouse swallowed and told him.

There was a silence. The Mouse trembled. To his utter and lasting astonishment, Master Folquet laughed. It was an amazing laugh, light and free and very young; it transformed the Master’s face, almost made a boy of him. For a few moments only. All at once he was the Master again, calm and austere and terrible. “Do it then,” he said, “and tell no one at all. If you fail, I shall have only my poor mortal skill to set against the arts of a sorcerer. If you succeed . . . perhaps, just perhaps—if you swear a solemn vow to curb your penchant for eavesdropping on His Majesty—I shall see that you gain the reward you deserve.”

The Mouse threw himself down with bursting heart and kissed the Master’s feet.

III.

The great feast of Pentecost found all the High Court in the king’s hall in Jerusalem. The gathered might of Outremer was resplendent in the silks and jewels of the East, overlaid with the sweetness of Arabian unguents. Here and there was a darker shape, a priest, a pilgrim from the West come to marvel at the magnificence of this kingdom beyond the sea. The king sat on his throne above them all, gold crown glittering on bright-gold hair, and his robe all of cloth of gold. Close beside him sat his brother Amaury in silk as splendid as his ambitions and as dark as his plotting, and close about him the judges of the feast: the queen enthroned at her lord’s side in cloth of silver; the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, all in white save for the scarlet cap of his Order and the blood-red cross upon his breast; the Cardinal Legate of His Holiness the Pope of Rome; and that most celebrated of connoisseurs, the Ambassador of the Emperor of Byzantium, contemplating the scene before him and not quite smiling.

The trumpeters blew the fanfare. A herald advanced, bowed low to the king, and proclaimed, “Your Majesties; Your Excellencies; my lords and ladies of the High Court of the Kingdom of Jerusalem: We gather here on this day of Pentecost to judge a matter of great moment. Master Jusuf of Damascus and of Qum, artist and master cook, has challenged Master Folquet of St.-Geraud in Provence to a contest of skill, the victor to gain the mastery of the royal kitchens, the vanquished to depart and to go where he wills, so that it not be into the kitchens of His Majesty, Guy, High King of Jerusalem. Let this be the way of it, that each Master shall produce three full courses in honor of the perfection of the Holy Trinity; each course shall be constructed about a theme set by His Majesty; and each shall follow the other in due alternation, with first honors to the challenger—unto the culmination, a subtlety which celebrates the glory of the Crusade and the splendor of this eastern bastion of our faith against the foulness of the infidel. Your Majesties; Your Excellencies, my lords and ladies, let the banquet begin!”

The Mouse held his breath. He had chosen an excellent hiding place behind the throne, from which vantage he could see all that the king could. And he had Master Folquet’s unvoiced consent for this last and boldest bit of eavesdropping.

The herald had withdrawn. The court waited, murmuring.

Trumpets rang. Drums beat beneath them. The great doors swung wide. Master Jusuf passed through them in flowing white, with a white turban and a wide white smile. He bowed before the king, bowed to all the judges and to the assembled court, and withdrew smoothly to the side of the hall.

All eyes had long since abandoned him. A long line of slaves advanced to the beat of the drum, each in the ancient garb of Egypt, men and women alike bewigged and bejeweled, their long eyes painted with kohl.

In each pair of hands or upon each high head rode a platter of bronze worked with strange stiff figures and heaped with the delicacies of ancient Khemet. Rich scents wafted through the hall, strange sweets and spices, fine bread and finer cakes, fishes of the Nile roasted in green leaves, ibis clothed in their white feathers, a gazelle with gilded horns borne before the king. And as the court watched and marveled and the servants moved fluidly among them, the crown of the course floated through the gate as if upon air, drawn and followed by Nubian slaves: a great barge of gold and lapis, laden with sweetmeats, its oars fanning the air as it circled the hall. A soft sound sighed under the drums, a muted “Aaahh” of wonder and delight.

The Mouse hated the sorcerer with all his heart.

Master Jusuf stood aside and smiled, and watched the court partake eagerly of all that the slaves offered.

“Interesting,” murmured the ambassador from Byzantium.

At a hidden signal, the slaves withdrew from among the court and departed. The barge followed them, empty now, its oars stilled.

The trumpets proclaimed the second course; shawms and sackbuts joined it in an air as familiar as the stones of Outremer. Here was no  magic, no air of mystery, only pages and squires of the king’s household, liveried as always, bearing the king’s best plate. On it reposed the flower of Master Folquet’s art. Lamb roasted on the spit, stewed in fine herbs, baked into a pie with fruits and spices. A compote of fruits from the East simmered in wine and cinnamon. White bread, unleavened as for the Passover of the Jews. And the subtlety, the lamb of sacrifice, each white curl of its wool wrought in marzipan by Master Folquet’s hand, and all within filled with sweets and pastries. It was exquisite; it was delectable; it was, said the king, quite as good as anything the Master had produced.

“Quite good indeed,” agreed the Emperor’s ambassador.

Master Jusuf smiled.

His challenge came with the wailing of flutes and the tinkling of the lyre, a procession of Greek youths and maidens centered about the great carcass of an ox, roasted whole and wreathed in leaves as for a sacrifice and laid upon a massive platter of worked silver; and with it fish broiled upon coals and roasted birds, olives and cheese, bread and meat and honey scented with thyme. But the subtlety won a sigh which drowned out the flutes. Two and thirty pairs of mules—mules of brass and steel, no larger than the hounds which crouched beneath the tables and howled at them—drew behind them a great fire of gold, the bier of Alexander as it rolled down from Babylon. Every inch of it was wrought of rare and marvelous sugars, and endorsed with saffron that was more precious than gold.

“Charming,” said the Greek, nibbling a bit of golden tassel.

Once more Master Folquet sent in his Frankish lads in the same livery as before, but facing the glory of Greece with the splendors of Rome. Pork baked in pastry; chicken flavored with juniper; tunny and other fishes broiled and sauced with garlic and herbs; a potage of lentils and mustard and spices, at which, the Mouse noticed, the queen was seen to smile and ask for more. But no one sighed or aahed even for the masterpiece, a great wheel of the Zodiac borne by strong young squires. Its fabric was bread baked hard, each sign set in it with colored pastry. And for each sign there was a heap of delicacies: cakes or sweetened fruits or flowers jeweled with sugar, all shaped for the creature of the sign.

The Greek, engrossed in Virgo’s honeyed wheaten cakes, had nothing to say.

But the Mouse heard murmurs. “Tastes good.” “Is good. But not much of a show, eh what? Like a good show, I do.” “What’s a show if it tastes like spiced straw?” “Straw! Where’s your palate, man? In your behind?”

Jusuf, they were saying. And Folquet. And Jusuf, Jusuf, Jusuf.

Amaury permitted himself a small smile.

A swift drumming, the fierce cry of a shawm, brought more than one war-hardened knight to his feet, groping at his belt for his sword, but no man in the hall bore any weapon. The battle music of the Saracens brought with it a march of slaves in the robes of the desert, bearing their people’s delicacies. Young kid simmered in its own milk; lamb stewed with dates; capon stuffed with figs and spices; great bowls of figs and dates and raisins of the sun, with flat bread and sharp goat’s cheese and dark olives in their own oil.

The music paused. The drums slowed. All eyes turned to the gate. A new band of Jusuf’s servitors bore upon their shoulders a great pyre redolent of spices, cinnamon and ginger, cloves and saffron and cardamom, pepper, allspice, and grains of paradise. Upon this priceless bed reposed a marvelous bird, a creature of flame and gold with eyes like living coals.

The slaves set their burdens before the king, and bowing, drew away. The bird stirred and stretched its wings, and bowed as if in homage. And the pyre burst into flame, a blaze of spices engulfing the bird of fire. Its body strained, shuddered, and was consumed.

The flames died. There at the heart where the fire had been hottest glowed a great egg, hot gold. It cracked; a fiery serpent-head wove up through the opening, and a body after it, a snake of flame. It coiled amid the shards of its egg, laying down its head as if to rest.

Suddenly it writhed and swelled and bloomed. The bird of fire took wing from egg and cast-off serpent skin, soaring through the hall in an aura of fire and spices. Sweets fell from its beak into laps and a few bold hands.

The circuit came back to its beginning. The phoenix settled upon the pyre of its rebirth, tucked its head beneath its wing, and slept. The slaves bore it away.

This was no sigh of wonder; this was a full-throated cheer.

Master Folquet’s lads gave it time to die down before the foremost sounded a hunting horn. His companions served forth the wealth of the West, the head of the wild boar decked with rosemary, stew of venison thickened with the blood of the stag, pheasant stewed in grapes and herbs, a peacock in the full brilliance of its plumage, small birds roasted and sauced with honey and saffron, a crustade of cream and spices and fruits, and strawberries in sweet cream. And. last of all, a unicorn of white pastry collared with saffron gold, its horn wreathed with roses; and beneath it a bed of rose petals. Yet for all the white beast’s flawless beauty, the phoenix had left the court with no taste for any lesser creature. They ate with relish, but they said nothing; their eyes flickered, caught and loosed and caught again by Jusuf’s smile. Even the judges nodded toward him as if their choice was made, although the Greek’s eye had a strange glint.

The remains of the unicorn departed, the spiral horn, a rose or two, the sharp sweetness of crushed mint. Jusuf advanced to the dais and bowed. “Your Majesties,” he said, “my lord judges. We come now to the denouement. Out of courtesy to the Master who is my adversary in the contest, may I beg that he be permitted to witness its ending?”

“He is here,” said a quiet voice at his elbow.

The Mouse had a brief and glorious vision of Jusuf taken utterly aback.

But that wily sorcerer was not long or easily discomfited.. His smile, which had slipped, returned undiminished; he bowed. “Ah, my good Master! At last we stand together. Shall we stand so until the end?”

Master Folquet bowed his head the merest degree, made reverence to the high ones, and withdrew with Jusuf to the side of the dais. He seemed quite calm as always, quite unperturbed by the whispers that ran among the courtiers. How much like a master cook the stranger looked; and Folquet—why, he might be a clerk or a priest, with no smile to spare for anyone. Now Jusuf was a jovial man, a master showman, an artist, one the whole world would envy and Jerusalem could boast of. Who but he could have brought the very phoenix to wait upon them in their High King’s hall?

“But,” said a lonely voice, “it’s all show. Looks good; smells good; but it doesn’t taste like anything at all.”

The others drowned him out, even as the Mouse braced to leap for his bolthole and run.

The court sat with bated breath. Here was the last stroke, the master stroke. The king stirred on his throne; as if that had been the signal, cymbals clashed. Pipes shrilled. Drums beat in counterpoint. Through the gate, stepping to the rhythm, graceful as young deer, came such servants that the knights of the court stretched their eyes and their ladies pursed their lips in delicate disapproval. Houris in veils as fragile as mist, with great dark eyes glowing above them, promising ecstasies. They swayed and swirled down the center of the hall; where their tiny hennaed feet had passed, mists curled and grew. Dark at first, thinning and elongating: the mist became slender shadowy trunks swelling and thickening and raising aloft their branches. Then a shimmer of green as leaves unfurled; blossoms burst there in a wave of sweet scent, a fall of petals upon raven hair and white shoulders, a gleam of burgeoning fruit: orange, lemon, pomegranate. The houris, dancing, gathered the harvest as others bore in goblets of sherbet, snow-cold, flavored with citron. The Mouse eeled toward his exit, running as if the world depended on it.

As the last of the sherbet vanished from the king’s cup, hooves rattled on tiles. Jusuf started a little; Master Folquet never moved. A ripple of notes stirred the scented air. A milk-white jennet stood in the gate with a squire at her bridle, and on her back a figure in extravagant motley, a jongleur from his long yellow curls to his belled toes. As the squire led the donkey forward, the minstrel’s agile voice joined his agile fingers upon the lutestrings, singing that song which the troubadour Folquet de Marselha made upon the glory of God.

Nine pages followed the singer, bearing great baskets; nine pages, and a tenth who was somewhat smaller and considerably darker than the rest, breathing hard under the unaccustomed richness of his livery, eyes fixed with great care on the back of the boy in front of him. But he had a nose to take in the scents of magic and of citrus, and ears to hear the minstrel’s sweet trained voice. There was no other sound. The houris had stopped their dancing when the lute cut through the drumming; the drums themselves had faltered and gone mute.

The singer paused between verses. The jennet entered the strange grove. In a single movement the pages began to scatter their largesse, white cakes like manna flavored with almonds and honey, each marked with a small cross. The houris drew back through the trees. Jusuf’s smile wavered; his fingers worked.

A gasp ran through the court. For where the manna fell, leaves withered and fruit shriveled and branches writhed and smoked. One small cake, flung by the smallest page, struck a houri’s shoulder. She shrieked, piercing and terrible, as hideous as a peacock’s cry. Her shoulder was blackened as with fire, a blackness that spread as she stood rooted in her place, overcame and consumed her, till naught remained of her but a faint foul smoke. The pages fanned through the trees, hurling cakes now in handfuls, and the trees wavered and began to fade. The houris ran like deer before the hunters. But the tables of the court hemmed them in and the pages surrounded them. First one, then another and another, blurred and shifted and took wing, black birds like ravens that flapped and croaked but could not escape the relentless assault. The jongleur neither wavered nor dropped a note, even when his mount stopped full before the astounded face of the king.

The grove shimmered like a mirage and vanished. The last black bird fled shrieking into nothingness. The hall was clean, save for the white drifts of manna upon the floor. The pages stood in a circle; the singer sang the last sweet “Amen.”

Jusuf smiled no longer. He edged away from Master Folquet toward Amaury, but stopped, surrounded by pages. The Mouse stood closest, almost within arm’s reach. Yet a handful remained in his basket; he scooped it up.

Jusuf’s fingers wove shapes of fire in the air. The Mouse could feel them on his skin, a searing, blinding agony. He blinked away tears of pain, clamped his lip between his teeth, and let fly.

Jusuf howled in agony. The honeyed cakes clung to him, to his face and his hands and his breast. He tore at them, and tearing, shrank. The noble master cook had melted away. In his place crouched an old, old man no larger than a dwarf, swathed in voluminous white. He shrieked curses in a high cracked voice, stretching out his hands toward Amaury. The king’s counselor made no move to aid or to hinder him.

The king rose from his throne. But the Grand Master of the Templars was before him with the light of battle in his eye, thundering in Latin the mighty syllables of the exorcism. The sorcerer raised clawed hands as if to counter with a spell.

“Serpent of the Devil,” said Master Folquet quite calmly, “get thee gone.” He crossed himself as a proper Christian should.

The sorcerer’s curses rose to a wordless scream, the cry of a bird; black wings rose out of the white robes. Before any word or hand could catch him, he fled through the open gate and was gone.

There was a long and breathless silence. One or two ladies and at least one young nobleman had fainted; many another looked slightly ill to have eaten, with such unheeding pleasure, the creations of sorcery.

Very quietly under their Master’s eye, the pages began to gather up the cakes which they had scattered. Their movement broke the spell; the court erupted.

Master Folquet stepped into the open space before the dais. Something in his bearing spread calmness. The uproar faded; those whose nerves were steadier sought further strength in wine. Squires moved among them filling cups, restoring a semblance of normality.

The king had not returned to his throne, although he had taken a deep draft of wine. The judges sat on either side of him in attitudes of shock or horror or wide-eyed fascination; save for Amaury, whose face, though drained of color, wore no expression at all. His Majesty ignored them. “What,” he demanded of Master Folquet, “did you do?”

The Master beckoned. The Mouse left his gathering of manna and approached slowly, eyes down. “Speak,” commanded the Master.

The king was awesome and terrible, but Master Folquet was the Master. The Mouse obeyed, in a very small voice at first, hardly to be heard. But little by little it grew stronger, and the court hushed to hear it. He told all that he had seen and heard and done, save one thing only. He did not name Amaury’s name. He did not know exactly why, for he hated the schemer with a fine fierce hate, but he was glad after all. For Master Folquet’s glance flickered at the omission, and he nodded very slightly, with the suggestion of a smile. Amaury relaxed by slow degrees; a ghost of color returned to his cheeks.

“So,” said the Mouse at last in ringing silence, “the Master gave me what I asked for, a bag and enough flour to fill it and a man to help me carry it. We went out into the city to a place I know. A church, my lord, very small and very old and almost forgotten, exactly like its priest. He’s nearly blind, too. He was glad enough to lay a blessing on our bag, even without the bit of silver we paid him for it and the napkinful of food that the Master himself had made.

“We brought the flour back, and the Master took it and made it into cakes. If it’s blasphemy, my lord, it’s my fault, not my Master’s, and you must punish me. But it did what we meant it to do.” He ended on a note of high courage, with his chin up and his shoulders back and no tremor in him anywhere.

The king stared at him. The Cardinal Legate was frowning; the Grand Master gnawed his lip. But the Greek grinned in his curled black beard. “Magnificent!” he cried. “A tale worthy of an emperor’s court. Your Majesty, this boy deserves his weight in gold at the very least, for his wit and his courage and his utter loyalty to his Master.”

“Well,” said the King, “yes. Yes, I suppose he does. It was a splendid thing to do. Splendid!”

“And,” the Greek said, “as for my judgment, even without the piece de resistance, I would accord Master Folquet the victory. Do my lords agree? My royal lady?”

They nodded. Even Amaury, quickly and without looking at the Master.

“Of course,” said the king after a pause. “Of course. Amaury, shall I give the boy a barony? Master Folquet of course has his kitchen back, which was what I wanted in the first place.”

The Master stirred. “Your pardon, Majesty, but I think perhaps, after all, I shall take what first you offered, and return to Provence.”

“And I,” said the Mouse, “will go with him. Begging your pardon, Sire. A barony is very pleasant, but I’d rather be a cook. Master Folquet has promised to teach me,” he added with great pride.

“But you can’t go,” the king protested. “Who’ll be my cook?”

“There are cooks enough in the world, Your Majesty,” said Master Folquet.

“But only one like you.” Amaury had mastered himself at last and risen, smooth and urbane and wise as ever. “Who else could have defeated that monster who would have cast his spell upon the High Court? Master, we beg you. We beseech you. Do not abandon us now. Remain with us, and continue to delight us with your consummate artistry.”

For a long moment Master Folquet was silent, pondering; holding Amaury’s veiled stare. “Suppose,” he said, “that I agree. Another plausible stranger may come. Another wizard with designs on His Majesty, or a true master cook who longs to challenge me. What then?”

“Then,” said Amaury, “we send him on his way and sit down to one of your inimitable feasts. What else could any wise man do?”

“Nothing, perhaps,” conceded Master Folquet.

“So stay,” the king said, “and stop this nonsense. Thibaut! Wine for the Master, and a toast to his victory!”

“To victory,” said Master Folquet, raising his cup; and with a deep sigh: “To my dear lost Provence.”

But the Mouse had seen the glint in his eye. Triumph; relief; and a flicker of laughter.

Copyright © 1986 by Judith Tarr

First published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April 1986