A Taste That Knew Him
“……Why.”
He pressed a hand to his brow and muttered it low.
“Why, of all things, something like this…….”
Reason refused the thing outright. Instinct, meanwhile, kept up a strange persuasion: this was familiar, so he might let himself be easy.
A man who had come up from slavery had no hometown to speak of. So why should he feel homesick?
In the end, he did not push the bowl away. Drawn on as if by something outside himself, he kept eating, down to the last spoonful. Only when the spoon rang against the bottom of the bowl did he find he could stop.
A quiet settled over the office. Ludville regarded the empty bowl. He had scraped it clean, and still the aftertaste clung to his tongue. That warmth, not satisfied with filling his belly, reached past it of its own accord and laid a hand on his heart. To his thorough displeasure.
“……She didn’t drug it, did she.”
That it should suit his palate against all expectation—that much was possible. But for it to take hold of his mood as well? Think as he might, that was not natural.
“The young lady gave the instructions, but I hear the Head Chef did the cooking himself.”
“Bribed the chef, then…….”
Even Ludville seemed to recognize how forced that was. He said no more.
Edwin, who had been watching him sidelong, spoke with care.
“I’ll tell them to ready another bowl of the same.”
Ludville gave no answer, but his sharp-eyed aide did not wait for one. He flung the door wide and bolted.
The door shut. Ludville sat a long while without a word, and then his face knotted into a scowl.
Have I gone mad?
Something lurched in him, as if his stomach had turned. Not his stomach—his mood. It had to be that strange food the young lady had given him. Sour-faced, he set the spoon down.
From that day on, Odelli sent food every day. She began with porridge, to soothe his stomach, but little by little his table filled with meals of greater nourishment and plenty. She made no distinction among them—the meal itself, the dessert, the tea.
There was soup of flounder broth finished with herbs; chicken roasted with figs and dried apricots; rosemary-lemon pound cake; scones crowned with honey and cream cheese; even a tea blended of chamomile and ginger…….
They said the Head Chef had done the cooking. Whose mind had produced a menu this deliberately tempting was obvious.
It’s only an ordinary scone.
Why, then, did it wake an appetite he had for some time considered meaningless? He was hungry, yes. He had not wanted to eat. Even when he chewed and swallowed by force, merely to go on living, the food caught dry as sand in his throat. So why was everything the young lady gave him delicious?
Ludville looked down at the scone, still holding its warmth, with a suspicious eye.
“……What on earth is in this?”
The Head Chef answered.
“Butter from Morningbell Dairy, honey from the Honeyrian Boutique, and, last of all, cream cheese from Heimbeer Creamhouse.”
“She goes so far as to specify every one of those?”
“Yes. Remarkable, isn’t it? If she has the recipe by heart, then she hasn’t made it only once or twice, I’ll say that.”
Unfamiliar, and yet it went down without resistance. And, to an uncanny degree, the dishes suited his taste.
Each time, Ludville hesitated a moment before the table. And each time, once he had emptied the dish to the last, a strange calm followed the fullness. The emptiness and the anger that came flooding in every day, without beginning or end, sank for that little while alone. The brief meal seemed to lay a cover, for a moment, over something hollow.
Damn it.
He could not deny that he was growing accustomed to the cooking she sent.
Is this how she means to increase her influence? Cunning…….
To capture a man by the palate first—wasn’t that playing foul? Ludville felt, obscurely, that Odelli had gotten the better of him.
Edwin, who had been watching in silence beside him, asked as if curiosity had finally won.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Your Grace enjoy a meal like this.”
“I ate well enough before. I was never particular.”
So Ludville answered, for the time being. It was not a lie. Only three months ago, large of frame and never still, he had eaten nearly anything set before him. He had no palate to indulge, and aside from the days he was busy, his meals had come at regular hours.
Edwin shook his head.
“You did eat well before, of course. But then you ate as if filling your stomach were the whole of it. Now, though…….”
He let the words trail, studied Ludville’s face, swallowed a laugh, and added,
“……in your heart of hearts, aren’t you waiting for the next meal?”
Ludville wanted, for no good reason, to argue. For once, nothing came. He could not deny it.
Edwin stole a glance at the scone.
“Is it really that good?”
Curiosity colored his voice.
Ludville seemed to turn something over for a moment. Then he held a scone out toward Edwin.
“Try it.”
“Really? Would that be all right?”
Edwin did not demur. Pleased, he accepted the scone with thanks. In truth he had been wondering. What could these dishes taste of, that his lord—taking them as if they meant nothing—ate them clean? If they had drawn back the appetite of a man who had once taken nothing but liquor for his meals, how good must they be? He bit off a mouthful.
And yet…….
“Mm……. It’s good?”
It was, truly. A soft, warm scone, only just baked…….
“……It is good. But good enough for all this?”
It was not the overwhelming flavor he had imagined, and Edwin could only tilt his head. If he were honest, the dishes the Head Chef usually brought in, made with finer ingredients, were cleaner and more refined.
“So I’m the only one who finds it delicious.”
“Ah—no, I certainly don’t mean it isn’t good!”
Edwin flung up his hands in haste. But Ludville had not offered the scone merely to find fault. He had only wanted it confirmed: that he alone felt this way.
“You’re saying it isn’t a taste just anyone would like.”
“……Well, no. It isn’t.”
“Then that young lady has fitted her cooking exactly to my palate, and to no one else’s.”
How could every dish she set before him, without a single exception, taste good?
Has she analyzed me?
The thought broke off there.
On what grounds?
What had she seen, to pick out a preference that precise? The Head Chef had not known it. Even the man himself had not known it. He could not so much as guess.
It would have been better if she had stepped forward and made a show of the favor. If she had reached for his weakness—if she had meant that without her he would no longer eat properly—that, at least, he might have understood.
She handed over the entire recipe.
The cooking was in the Head Chef’s hands. Asked, the man could rattle off which ingredients, in what measure, and how they were to be prepared. He was a capable cook. Give him a little time, and he would turn out something near enough to Ludville’s taste without the lady of Cardel at all.
Which only made it harder to understand.
The lady of Cardel was acting as if it were enough that he simply eat his fill.