True Knight Cuisine Made with a Knight's Wok—Full Plate Armor (2)
True Knight Cuisine Made with a Knight's Wok—Full Plate Armor (2)
Seated at the table, Amelia accepted the bowl and lifted a spoonful of rice, leaving the curry untouched for the moment.
The sharp, stimulating spices flooded her mouth.
Vegetables simmered for hours had surrendered their essence; the rich, thickened curry sauce soaked into the rice, dancing together on her tongue.
Until now, Lucas's cooking had tasted deeply foreign to her.
Even though Princess Diana had led a trend for hansik among the nobility, the saintess had rarely eaten such food.
The single visit she'd once made to Lucas's restaurant had been her first and only taste of it.
So his dishes had always carried unfamiliar flavors and scents for her.
This curry rice, though, was different.
It tasted of spices she knew.
Spices common in the empire's western provinces.
"You used new spices."
"Yes. I combined several seasonings frequently used in the west."
"Ah."
The west.
A place that lingered like a wound she couldn't close.
Her first pilgrimage site, and the land where her knights were ambushed and vanished.
Tears welled in her eyes at the thought of them.
"It's delicious."
Amelia bit her lower lip, a quiet sob escaping her.
Those knights had thrown themselves into harm's way to protect her, and here she was—safe, alone, eating good food. She felt pathetic.
"I'm sorry. Sir knights... Mika..."
Tears traced down her cheeks.
The hand holding her spoon trembled.
The schedule forced on a twenty-year-old girl barely into adulthood must have been brutal beyond words.
I sat down in the chair beside her.
"They'll be alright. So pull yourself together as best you can. You have to stand firm and steady if you want to save anyone else."
"..."
Her shimmering eyes turned toward me.
"Thank you, Sir Lucas."
At last, the corners of Amelia's trembling mouth lifted into a small smile.
"Does the curry suit your taste?"
"Yes. It's really delicious."
"That's a relief."
I hoped the warm curry rice might soothe her weary heart the way plain rice porridge had once comforted her body.
As though gathering herself, the saintess smiled gently and took another bite of the curry rice.
Still seated beside her, I lifted a spoonful of my own curry rice, this one topped with a slice of the tenderloin steak.
The meat was tender. The curry tasted like home. The soft, well-cooked vegetables crumbled together with the rice in my mouth.
"Mmmgh!"
The slow-melting richness of the curry rice dragged a groan of satisfaction out of me before I could stop it.
It was good.
From unfamiliar ingredients came a flavor I knew too well.
Back then, a single bowl of my mother's curry rice in the morning meant I never needed any other side dishes.
"Oh, right. Kimchi!"
I'd gotten so caught up interrogating the knights that I forgot to bring it out.
Look at me, forgetting my own head.
I hurriedly opened the icebox I'd packed to store the ingredients.
I lifted out a head of chilled napa cabbage kimchi, sliced it into manageable pieces, and set it on the table.
"The best possible side dish for curry rice."
By now, Ivan—a regular at our restaurant—Andrea the employee, and Amelia, who'd eaten our food a few times, all reached for the kimchi with their chopsticks like it was second nature.
Seemed everyone had acquired the taste.
Lay a single piece of well-fermented cabbage kimchi over the golden curry rice and eat them together—
Ah.
Tender-crisp, hot-cool, stimulating spices from a foreign land married to the traditional burn of Korean spice.
My mouth watered all over again.
I laid a piece of that crunchy kimchi atop the rice.
Golden rice, a single sliver of kimchi on top.
Crunch!
"Hmmmm~!!!"
The moment it hit my mouth, that familiar taste sent a shiver prickling straight across my skin.
"Delicious."
The combination of curry rice and kimchi hitting an empty stomach—my hand reached for the spoon again before I'd even finished the mouthful I was chewing.
By tomorrow morning, the broth would have thickened further; the flavor would run even deeper.
"Sir Lucas, you really are strong."
Amelia spoke while we ate.
Strong.
That word had never belonged to me.
I'd never been a combatant in the knight order. I was the man who fled the moment he feared what the story's tyrant might do.
The only reason someone like me could hold his own against a knight was—
"...thanks to the saintess's blessing."
"Is that... so?"
"You're the strong one, Saintess."
"No. I'm..."
"Simply keeping your wits about you after losing the people beside you in a sudden attack—that alone is remarkable. Don't see yourself as so weak."
"..."
I paused eating and spoke to Saint Amelia, who was gazing at me.
"You are already plenty strong. So take heart."
You'd have to, if we were going to reach the capital safely.
"R-right. I suppose so."
The saintess's face flushed bright red.
Was she having strange thoughts about the meat again?
With an imagination like that, the Order's future looked grim.
"Anyway, eat plenty and get some deep rest. Starting tomorrow, we'll be riding the horses hard."
"Yes... I understand."
She kept her head bowed, taking tiny, nibbling spoonfuls.
Then, toward me—
"Boss! One more bowl!"
Andrea thrust out her empty bowl.
What are you so angry about?
"Sir Lucas, to more fully grasp the essence of chivalry, I believe a slightly larger sample of flavor is required. I estimate two bowls should suffice. This is entirely for the purpose of dedicated chivalric study, not for any other reason."
Ivan extended his own empty bowl as well.
So everyone had liked it pretty well.
That subtle heat in the curry keeps pulling you back, doesn't it?
***
Camilla Wagon stilled her startled heart as best she could and returned Diana's abrupt question with one of her own.
"Ramyun soup. That, I'm afraid, I cannot discuss."
"Why? Is it because the person I'm searching for created it?"
"It is a trade secret. Not even for Your Highness can I disclose it."
"Oh my. I merely asked who made it—and you intend to hide even that behind the shield of a trade secret?"
"Yes. That person, too, is an asset of our merchant company."
"An asset. You speak as though he is your own possession."
Steel crept into Diana's voice.
"So you mean to hide it to the bitter end?"
"Who can say? An opportunity to introduce him may arise before long."
"To my knowledge, exactly one person is capable of producing such unique cuisine."
"I'm not sure what you mean, Your Highness. What we have sold is not 'cooking.' It is 'technology.'"
"Lady Camilla, do you intend to keep up this war of nerves indefinitely?"
Camilla did not retreat a single step.
"My apologies, but I also happen to have no idea where Sir Lucas is."
She placed a lie on her tongue.
A merchant knew exactly how much damage a falsehood dealt to trust—and she spoke it anyway.
Sir Lucas, formerly of the Princess's Knight Order.
The reason Diana wanted him was written plain across the situation.
She intended to take him back.
And that would not do.
Lucas was the man who had to cook delicious meals for her every single day.
—Wake up, Camilla.
A chef who would visit her bedchamber each morning to rouse her and prepare the foods she loved best.
She used to watch him cook in silence from behind, sometimes slipping up to wrap her arms around that back.
—Take care on your way.
A man who would see her off to work and welcome her home every evening.
—You've worked hard.
The sheer act of imagining it sent heat rising to Camilla's face.
"You mean to keep playing dumb until the end?"
"I merely said I don't know what I don't know."
"There are traces that someone erased Sir Lucas's records and movements from the background. I believe that someone is the Golden Wagon."
"As if our company commands that kind of power."
"..."
Camilla answered only with a silent smile.
She held the high ground.
Unlike the emperor, Diana could not forcibly requisition Golden Wagon assets, nor compel the company to disclose its ledgers and business plans.
"But why this sudden search for the man? I thought you had cast him out."
"Cast him out? I merely granted him the freedom to spread his wings and pursue his own path."
"Which you now intend to retract."
"Call it a belated recognition of his value."
Diana's lips smiled. Her eyes did not.
She glared at Camilla for a long moment, then released a sigh.
"Very well. I see no satisfactory answer will come from pressing you here."
"..."
"Deliver one message to Sir Lucas. Tell him that I, Princess Diana, await his cooking."
"I don't expect I'll be able to deliver it, seeing as I don't know where he is."
"...Fine. If you insist on taking it that far, so be it. But you will bear the responsibility for those words."
"Responsibility for the fact that I don't know?"
"Yes. If it happens to come to light—purely by coincidence—that Sir Lucas is working alongside Lady Camilla, I may find myself unable to stay my hand."
Camilla hid her mouth behind her fan and laughed.
"Taking that line—isn't it Your Highness who would be in a difficult position?"
"...What do you mean."
"If you threaten the head of the empire's greatest merchant company—one who has yet to declare support for any prince—I may find reason to invest elsewhere."
"Are you telling me not to make you into my enemy?"
"Yes."
At that, Diana let out a scornful laugh and stepped closer.
The smile that had lingered at her lips vanished.
"If you truly are the one who stole Lucas away behind my back—you already are my enemy. I don't care for having my own people taken from me in secret."
Her voice was frostbite-cold.
"I will say it once more: Sir Lucas is not with me."
But Camilla had weathered far fiercer storms. A threat like that barely qualified as a tantrum.
"I hope that's true. Sincerely. I have no wish to make an enemy of the Golden Wagon."
"Because you already have plenty of enemies?"
Camilla's tone had lost all its silk as well.
In Diana's feverish fixation on Lucas, Camilla sensed something ugly—the greed of someone who meant to monopolize him for herself.
Sparks flew between the princess and the lady.