An Unexpected Situation
What is a holiday to a modern person?
To some, a day spent with family.
To some, a day to shake off accumulated fatigue.
To some, a day of forced overtime.
Personalities and circumstances differ, so even a holiday is never spent the same way by everyone.
Unlike the modern age, where the meaning of holidays fades little by little with time, in earlier eras a festival was a day of genuine importance to most people.
Religious reasons, the urge to worship someone, the desire to advertise a village specialty—list them and they never end. Strip away the secondary motives, though, and what remains is simple.
They were bored.
The Middle Ages were, at base, an era of no fun and nothing to do. For commoners the amusements were drink, gambling, prostitution, brawling, and the occasional play or festival. Frequency varied, yet city and village alike were much the same.
Iceland, at least, was a little less tedious—though not because there was entertainment. If you did not want to watch your house collapse, you rose at dawn to clear the snow from the roof; if starving or mad monsters, beasts, or bandits struck without warning, you defended yourself. Set those duties aside and winter in Iceland meant holing up indoors to soothe the boredom. That was why festivals mattered to every class.
Which was why Winterhome was in an uproar now.
Snow piled as high as the buildings was being cleared; carts hauled decorations that were made, carried, and hung by a swarm of servants and laborers. Winterhome had always been busy, yet now it was busier still, more crowded and lively. Vitality stirred through the once-solemn air.
"That's why it's been this noisy since morning. We're preparing every corner of the castle for the people recommended for entry during Winter-Ascend, hanging festival decorations, getting ready to cook—there's no end to the work. Requests for help even reach me."
"I see."
Karem watched the servants bustling about, clearing towering drifts of snow and draping the sills beneath the windows with bright bundles of mistletoe and silk. Winterhome was vast enough in area alone to equal a small village or more. Facilities of every kind filled it; even on ordinary days the labor force was considerable, and on a festival day Karem could not begin to guess how many hands were needed.
"Why didn't I know any of this was going on?"
"Junior Karem. How many times a week do you leave the tower?"
"I can count them on one hand."
"Then if eggs and oil hadn't run short, you would never have come out at all."
"True. The regular delivery day is still ahead, and I never expected the guests to go through Maoines quite so thoroughly."
In the end it was Godwin and Victor's fault. No matter how fine the ingredients—things that had never existed in his previous life—the only sauces those two knew were fruit-based, meat-juice, honey, or herb. Confronted with savory, salty Maoines that never cloyed thanks to its bright acidity and left a lingering richness on the tongue, they reached the point where it was hard to tell whether they were eating the food or the sauce. The eggs alone that went into the Maoines they polished off came to more than a full tray. When snacks and dinner were prepared that same afternoon and evening, the stock vanishing completely was only natural.
"Anyway, stop burying yourself in the tower. Walk around outside a little and build a few relationships."
"…Are you actually worrying about me right now?"
"Good. Junior Karem. That remark tells me exactly how you were looking at me."
"No, that isn't—hmm."
Karem rubbed the back of his neck, abashed. Cold air slipped under his collar and raised gooseflesh. After reincarnation he had never received even the first letter of concern, and once he had grown up in his previous life such things had become rare. An emotion he could not quite name stirred in him—until Mary continued.
"You thought of me as a brownie with a screw loose, obsessed with housework and looking after people… I see. I understand perfectly. Do look forward to it."
"I never thought that far, and I never said any such thing."
"Don't worry. I'm joking."
"I still think twisting someone's words with over-interpretation is a bad habit!"
"But telling you to leave the tower was not a joke. All you do is shuttle between the kitchen, your room, and the lounge. It's so gloomy mushrooms will start growing on you."
"I do come out when I go to place grocery orders."
"Ha."
The look that said, Do you realize footprints have already begun to wear a path along the route Junior Karem takes? sank him at once. Had he really been that shut-in?
The food warehouse was equally frantic, preparing for Winter-Ascend. Laborers hurried between carts and storerooms two or three times busier than usual. Weaving carefully so as not to get in the way, Karem stepped inside and immediately shouted at a familiar back topped by pointed ears.
"Mr. Augher!"
The food-storehouse keeper turned. Winterhome employed every sort of person; humans were the majority, yet dwarves and elves worked there too. Even among the elves, though, Augher stood out. From head to toe his skin was paler than white paint, green eyes the only splash of color—an almost unreal figure. That was not the real oddity. While everyone else was bundled in heavy winter clothes, he wore nothing but a short-sleeved shirt and long trousers, as if the cold simply did not touch him.
The first time Karem had seen him he had decided the man must be cracked in the head; only after learning he was a Snow Elf—a cousin race to ordinary elves—and that his kind truly felt no chill had Karem managed to accept it. Still, the solid build and height a full head taller than most adults made him look as though he had chosen the wrong profession for a storehouse keeper.
"Little Karem? And Mary as well—"
"Yes. You look busier than usual."
"Don't even start. Winter arrived early, the carts are jammed, and Winter-Ascend is right on top of us."
"It certainly looks that way."
"So what's the business? Coming with Mary, no less."
Mary answered with a polite nod of the eyes. Mindful of the man's workload, Karem went straight to the point.
"Do you have any eggs left?"
"Hm? Eggs? All of a sudden?"
"Yes. We completely ran out entertaining guests."
"Guests?"
"Surely you can't be out of eggs."
Karem was not worried. Eggs might be a costly staple, yet a shortage was unthinkable. Winterhome was a ducal castle, after all.
Augher showed a flicker of curiosity, then shook his head as if deciding the matter was none of his concern.
"Eggs, of all things…"
The answer that followed was far from reassuring.
"You mean there really are none?"
"Not just eggs. Right now every kind of egg is gone—wiped clean."
Karem blinked at a situation he had never imagined. Mary, who had been listening in silence, looked equally startled and questioned Augher almost accusingly.
"Augher. This is Coldon. This is Winterhome. Does it make any sense that a ducal castle has no eggs?"
"Sounds like a joke, doesn't it? I think so too. Apart from the portion set aside for the lord's family meals and banquets, every spare egg is gone."
"At least tell us why."
"Because of the Head Chef."
"The Head Chef?"
Karem had never met the man, yet he knew the post: an elderly dwarf who oversaw every chef employed by Winterhome and bore responsibility for the castle kitchens and every banquet. Why would such a person…?
Augher shrugged.
"I don't know either."
"You don't know?"
"He told me not to ask."
It was an outrageous inconvenience. Winterhome used hundreds of eggs every day for every purpose imaginable. And not only eggs—Snowrunners and every other substitute had been swept away as well.
"Isn't this a complete nuisance?"
"Believe me, I'm suffering for it. People who lack the rank to confront the Head Chef himself, or their agents, keep storming in to complain, so I can't even get work done."
"It looks that way."
Just as Augher said, Karem saw a knot of thoroughly angry people striding into the warehouse. Before the place could erupt, he slipped out at once; Mary followed at his side.
"In the end we failed our purpose."
"Who would have thought a ducal castle could run out of eggs."
"Will you head back empty-handed?"
"What else can I do if there are none?"
Karem shrugged. Mary did the same. If there were none, there were none. Catherine would simply be furious and disappointed—nothing more.
A small figure slipped after the two as they turned away empty-handed. Anyone who noticed her would have been stunned, yet the castle was already frantic and the warehouse was growing louder; no one paid her any mind.
And exactly as Karem and Mary had expected—
"What? Is the overtime fatigue still clouding your ears? I think I just heard nonsense."
"They say until the next regular delivery there will be no eggs or anything like them."
"Don't spout rubbish about an ogre going on a diet!"
Catherine's roar made Karem flinch. People claimed you could feel a chill when someone truly meant to kill. Her appearance was anything but threatening, yet a killing intent brushed him all the same. All this fury over a mere dessert?
Before her anger could climb higher, Mary hastily laid out every detail of the reason. Catherine, who knew how to separate public and private, withdrew the murderous aura once she understood. The scowl remained, however; she rubbed her brow hard.
"The Head Chef… the Head Chef."
"Do you know him?"
"Not in the slightest."
Catherine's reply was absolute. Her mind was not so cheap that it stored people who fell short of her standards. A Head Chef might deserve remembering, yet she had never once laid eyes on the man, so there was nothing to know. Had she joined the main-castle dinners she would have seen him as a matter of course, but from the day of her arrival she had been buried under work and had never found the leisure for those meals.
More important than any of that, however—
There would be no dessert.
Catherine asked the question with a seriousness she had never shown before.
"Is there truly no snack today?"
"Well…"
A sigh rose at fretting so much over a mere snack, yet the earnestness in that perfect face made Karem steady his wavering heart. He had thought himself used to it; he was still far from immune. He looked away and rifled quickly through the recipes in his mind.
Eggs, sugar, and flour were the essentials of dessert. Of course one could manage without them, yet the options shrank drastically.
But what do I actually have?
Thanks to gifts, sugar was still plentiful. Nuts and fruit, however, had long since been turned into preserves and vanished into Catherine's and Mary's stomachs. Simply pouring sweetener over a wheat pancake and calling it a pancake would only disappoint her. A personal chef could not afford to disappoint his employer; that idea was out.
Yakgwa? I could make yakgwa…
He rejected the thought at once. It could be done without eggs, yet if he started now it would not finish until after dinner—disqualified. At best it would be ready late in the evening.
What else? While he fretted, something surfaced in his mind.
"I can make something."
"If you mean that wheat pancake you call a pancake with syrup poured over it—"
"No. The real thing. Have a little faith."
Catherine's expression turned peculiar. Whenever he spoke that way, the result had always been good.