Master Sergeant Donchaminar Kammick Nit’Sammish of the Cloven Peaks’ Clan, Medalled Hero of the Y’Sek Campaign, and favorite son of his revered grandmother, was furious. For three full days, the Keep had been a roiling mass of aggravation, with frantic activity. Activity that was a disruption to his kitchens, his life, and his calm.
The Prince would become the king soon, and that meant that, according to Lord Ashe, Donk would be dragged from his comfortable kitchens here at the keep, and join the ACTUAL royal household in the grand palace in Ghlow. The very idea of his going to Ghlow was horrifyingly hilarious to Donchaminar, called Donk by those who knew him well enough. He didn’t know if he should laugh or scream at the very notion of walking through the palace gates. No troll had ever breached the walls of the royal city, much less had made it to the palace.
In a way, he would be making history for his people AND for his nation. He didn’t know if his grandmother would scream in fury or in victory at the news when it reached her well connected, pointed ears.
Against all of his protests, he had been assured by Lord Ashe, Donk would take over the day to day running of the palace kitchens, and be in charge of the largest culinary staff in the kingdom. THe incipient King had insisted. This would also mean that any ingredient Donk had ever hoped to use in his cooking was suddenly going to be available to him, in any amounts he required. His soul salivated at the very thought.
He also, when no one was looking, shuddered in possible fear at the idea.
And so, as these things follow, all seven and a half feet of his impressively muscled physique packed into his scrupulously cleaned and pressed uniform, which actually complimented his mottled brown and green skin tones, now stood towering above the three corporals who usually did scullion duty for him during the rush to get breakfast sorted at the keep for both the Royal Apartments, as well as for the lower mess hall, and found Donk wondering why he even bothered.
“Felmet.” He addressed the shortest, homeliest, but oddly most competent of the men.
“Yes, Master Sergeant?” the little man rasped.
“Where are my plum cakes?”
“Master Sergeant, they were not fit for purpose!” Felmet almost shouted.
“In what way, Corporal?”
“The plums had been too runny, Sir! And the excess moisture had made the cakes fall!”
Donk stared at the men for a moment. “And so..”
“I sent them all down to the Commander’s table for this morning’s Breakfast for him and his staff, Sir.” With that, Felmet snapped off a palsied salute.
Donk let a grin play around the edges of the one tusk-like tooth that protruded from the left side of his lower lip. Felmet could hold a grudge for much too long to ever make any lasting friends with anyone of rank in the command structure. It was one of his worst, non-physical, failings, and was the primary reason that the man had been permanently sent to work in the kitchens.
“And what will the Prince and his guests do for pudding this morning,” He paused a moment, before turning quickly to the second man standing before him. “Steen?”
Steen was a tall, for a human, lanky man. He ate more in a sitting than any human Donk had ever seen. The man wasn’t a picky eater, but he was voracious. The slender man straightened slightly, and with a bob of his salt and peppered head answered in a clear tenor. “We have a selection of caramel rolls, with syrup’d fruit, Sir. All set aside for your inspection, and ready to be sent up.”
The man turned smartly, and the third man, a pudgy, well meaning, and generally helpful teen stepped forward holding a covered tray of dainties for inspection. “Sir.” Though his accent made it sound like he was saying “SaaaayR.”
“Bogner, this arrangement needs to be better organized. The Prince enjoys a very tidy service. Those rolls are well thought out. Your idea?” Donk knew they were the boy’s work, meticulous, and perfect pastries were Bogner’s hallmarks. The boy couldn’t run a mile, and would take his own arm off with a sword, but he could make dough better than anyone in the kitchens but the Master Sergeant himself. Donk wanted to be sure he was crediting the correct mastermind for the execution of these sweets.
“Yessir! Sir! I was up early to make these, Sir! Corporal Felmet said we needed to watch those plum cakes last night Sir! And so , Sir, I got m’sel up to see to it, Sir!” Donk winced internally with the exuberant overuse of “Sir!” but let it go. Months of working with the young soldier had shown him the limits of his corrections on anything not related to the work of feeding the keep.
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“Well done. See to it, Gentlemen. Continue with the lunch prep for the mess, and then see to…” Here he pointed to Felmet, “Checking the cold cellars, and making a list for the provisioners.” Then pointed to Steen, “Checking the dried stores, and getting a start of preserving that load of fruit that came in yesterday.” And finally to Bogner, “Get those treats to the Prince’s table. He doesn’t always insist on sweets, but we have his guests to think of. Off with you! GO!GO!GO!” His voice rumbled through the kitchen in a good natured cascade of both earnest cheer, and firm command.
There was a rotation of other low level recruits who all had to do duty in the kitchens under the stern eye of the Master Sergeant, but these three men were, for their various sins, condemned to serve in the kitchens permanently. Donk knew he would miss them. Probably sooner than he wanted to admit.
Once the trio had all scuttled off, he turned back to the task he had set himself this morning. Organizing the books for whatever officer was sent into this cramped little office once he had followed his Prince to the capitol city.
There was a whisper of unfamiliar cloth moving through the kitchen behind where Donk now sat in his little office, and with it, an errant breeze, possibly from someone a room or two away opening a door, brought him the scents of well oiled steel, clean leather, bees’ wax, astringent soap.
“Hello, Master Elbana. What brings you to my domain so early? Not enough rocks in your daily porridge?” Donk grinned as he said it, and slowly turned to see the broad shouldered woman stalking toward him where he sat. He liked to tease the Captain whenever no other ears but their own could hear them.
“Why are you not packed?” Elbana was, he noticed, as blunt as ever.
“Not to put too fine a point on it Captain, for all intents and purposes, I am.” He was concerned at her obvious agitation. Something she would show to him, and possibly to Lord Ashe, but to none others.
“Then when will you be in the courtyard, and ready to depart? We leave before noon. Today.” He could both see her agitation in the small twitches and jitters in her movements, as well as smell the anger that cascaded from her.
“I had been told we would be leaving in a few days…”
“Change of plans. Myrl wants to make a side trip. The Honor Guard are supplying themselves now, and the barrack’s grooms are assembling the ‘royal carriage’ and all of the assorted wagons and horses for the trip now.” Her usually clipped words came staccato from her thinned lips, straining with the anger she was obviously only letting herself show Donk here in the privacy of his little office here in the kitchens. She had put extra contempt into her voice at the mention of the carriage. It wasn’t an armored wagon, she didn’t approve. The close clipped hair on his head, kept meticulously trimmed, raised in sympathetic agitation.
“Today? That’s…”
Whatever he had intended to say, she interrupted. “I know! It makes no sense at all! This is a bad idea packed inside another, inside yet another!”
He stood then, and placed a calming hand bigger than both of her pauldrons on the green and gold tunic of her shoulder. His eyebrows flexed and conjoined themselves over his nose as he noted her lack of armor. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
“WHAT!?”
“You’re only in your dress greens, not armored. Why?” He had dropped his voice, as though speaking of something shameful; Donk knew how Elbana felt about wearing only cloth and unhardened leather.
“Lord Ashe says that while we have guests in the keep, I am only to be armored when outside of the garrison. I’ll arm myself appropriately for when we set off later today. But,” Here she let herself seeth in discomfort. “...for now, I am to just wear my soft uniform.” Her eyes widened as she looked at him, emphasizing her anger and general discomfort. The two members of the Prince’s personal retinue had been the closest of friends for almost as decade now, and Donchaminar could feel how she wanted to scream in frustration.
“I’ll see to getting my trunk moved to the courtyard, and then get some grunts to pack and stock the travel kitchen.” He watched as some of her irritation ebbed. She had known he had not been told about the change of plans, but now she knew he would, in his calm, and methodical way, make sure that he was there at the appointed time, and that all aspects under HIS command would be completed with care and precision.
Donk paused. “Who has the Prince set to take my place here in the kitchens?” he asked with serious intent on his face and in his resonant voice.
“Lord Ashe told me that Captain Dintem will be taking over your office.” A sour look crossed her usually stoic face at the name. Donk knew Dintem wasn’t who Elbana would have chosen. In fact, he knew, as no other in the garrison knew, Elbana hated Dintem. But, she would never tell the Prince, nor Lord Ashe her opinion on the matter unless either they had asked, or if it were something that might pose a danger to the Prince.
Captain Dintem, Donk knew, was both an idiot and a coward. Two qualities that Elbana loathed more than almost any others. “Well,” He said, “with him in the Keep’s kitchens, no one will starve, and no soldiers will be sent into any dangers more hazardous than dirty dishes, and under-spiced meals.”
“That’s generous.” She then smiled. Slightly.
With a brittle smile, and a crisp turn, Elbana moved like a smoothly flowing wave of ill intent and death from his office and then from the kitchen beyond. He knew she would be relentlessly hounding other officers into doing their tasks between now and when they left Jibiril Keep just around lunch time. “Hrrrrm…” He rumbled in deep, pot vibrating tones. “I’ll need to prepare a moving lunch, as well as for dinner in the field.”
He glanced about the kitchen, at several soldiers bustling about in full swing of cleaning the breakfast dishes, or preparing the planned lunch meal.
“Gentlemen!” His voice boomed through the kitchens as he strode from his office into the greater bustle of food preparation activities. “I need three men, front and center! We have some changes to today’s schedule! GRUEN! CARTER! Annnnddd… “ He then spotted one man in the far reaches of the kitchen trying to not be noticed. “BARDA!! Over here! HOP NOW!”