Julienne waited at the steps of Cafe Julienne, finding it difficult to focus on his posture and not on the possibility that his team was back in the kitchen burning things. He had been slaving away in the kitchen for hours and now found it difficult to transition from Chef to entertainer.
Uncle Julienne stood one step higher than Julienne, whispering instructions and introductions. One way or another, Uncle Julienne was always breathing down his neck.
The first carriage arrived. The guard stopped them at the gate. No horses were allowed in, no matter whose royal sigils they wore. A ruckus brewed in the carriage—something about service and injustice. A servant jumped from the horse and opened the carriage door, revealing two Gluttons that barely fit into a carriage meant for four.
“Lord Rathbond and his wife,” Uncle Julienne said.
Julienne maintained his smile, not turning back as he asked, “what relation?”
“The grand queen’s nephew. And confidant of the prince.”
Lord Rathbond took thirty seconds to remove himself from the carriage, which rocked as he stepped off. He huffed and patted off his jacket, gathering himself for just a moment before losing his composure as he threw his arms in a fit.
“Stairs!” he whined. He fished out two vials of moondrop wine, drinking one and handing the other to his wife, who had nearly crushed the servant that helped her come down. “No one told me there’d be stairs.”
The stairs leading up to Cafe Julienne covered ten feet of height in nearly thirty feet of steps. A toddler would have no trouble with them.
Julienne inhaled, readying a welcome.
“Wait,” Uncle Julienne muttered.
It took a full minute for the guests to reach the bottom of the stairs and just as long again to climb them. Julienne understood the awkwardness his uncle had saved him from.
“Lord Rathbond. Lady Rathbond. Welcome to Cafe Julienne,” Julienne said with a voice that he had rehearsed for years. He did not bow, nor would he for any of the guests. In Cafe Julienne, nothing outranked the title of his name. Not even grand king.
“No one told me there would be stairs,” Lord Rathbond complained between grunts as he climbed. “Yes, hello. Honored to be here. We’ve been so excited that we haven’t eaten in nearly three hours. We’re starving.”
They paused for a moment of respect in front of the Juliennes before a host escorted them to their table. Julienne thought bowing might be an anatomical impossibility for a Glutton—even a dip of the head might be too difficult for them to muster since they had no necks to speak of.
The next carriage arrived.
“Lord Ackers and his wife,” Uncle Julienne said.
“Relation?”
“No relation. No land. Lords by wealth alone. Friends of Prince Waldorf.”
These two weren’t Gluttons, but they had the same disdain for stairs. After they exchanged niceties and headed inside, Uncle Julienne pulled a waiter over.
“Have moondrop wine ready at the next carriage to arrive.”
Another carriage. Another Glutton. Another carriage. Another Glutton. Of the first eight guests to arrive, six were Gluttons—and only two had any relation to the royal family beyond being friends of Prince Waldorf’s.
Julienne’s decorum wore down with each passing Glutton. “Ridiculous,” he said under his breath.
Uncle Julienne breathed heavily through his nose. He needed no elaboration to know what his nephew spoke of. “What’s ridiculous is what it costs to be the best. You’ll be thankful for their wallets when you’re in charge.”
Finally, the royal procession arrived, a long line of carriages with two Acorn Guards for every driver. Julienne sighed with relief as the first carriage opened to reveal normally-proportioned men.
“Grand Justiciar. Grand Marshall. Grand Chancellor. Grand Treasurer,” Uncle Julienne explained.
Despite their advanced age, the men got out of their carriages without assistance. Two wore Chef jackets—one red, one black. The other two wore tight-fitting uniforms with military awards pinned to their chest. All four had served in the Unification War. All four were the grand king’s men.
They didn’t complain like the others. Instead, they marveled. “Magnificent,” one said. They stopped three steps short of Julienne and bowed.
“Welcome to Cafe Julienne,” Julienne said, resisting the urge to bow back.
“Thank you. We are honored to be at your beautiful restaurant for such an important occasion.”
“The honor is ours.” Julienne felt some wind return to his sails. “Please come in, we’ll be starting soon.”
The next carriage, draped with white fabrics bearing the church’s emblem of the ambrosial flower, contained only a man dressed in white robes. He was old and required two men and ample patience to get down the carriage steps. Julienne appreciated that his uncle didn’t patronize him by naming this guest.
“Chancellor, I am so glad that you could join us,” Julienne said.
“Of course, cousin,” the Chancellor of Culinary Arts said with a slight nod of his head. The Chancellor claimed to be a direct descendant of Ambrosia despite not even being a Chef—as ironic as it was for the man that coordinated between the academies—and insisted on referring to the Juliennes as family.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Another carriage, this one the largest of all, rolled up to the gate. Prince Waldorf kicked his own door open, threatening to topple the carriage as he got out. Despite being the largest of all the Gluttons, he handled the stairs the best. Julienne had heard that Prince Waldorf hired one of the brightest Chefs of Labrusca to devise a new recipe for moondrop wine. He also heard that the Chef wasn’t allowed to leave the royal keep.
Prince Waldorf’s greasy, thin hair flopped around on top of his head as he made his way up the stairs. The sun reflected off his gold and red clothing. A great fur stole draped down his shoulders, large enough to serve as curtains for any window in Labruscella. Julienne wondered what behemoth of an animal had been capable of producing such an article of clothing.
“Ah, the Chefs Julienne,” Prince Waldorf said, his strained voice sending a chill down Julienne’s spine. Whereas other’s voices came from a breath, Prince Waldorf’s came from a groan.
He stopped two steps below Julienne, standing eye-to-eye with him. The Glutton’s presence was suffocating. His heavy perfumes moved with him like a cloud, but they didn’t do enough to hide the stench. It wasn’t body odor. It was something else. Something decayed deep within.
Prince Waldorf held his hand in front of Julienne, perhaps expecting him to kiss his ring. Julienne could think of few things more repulsive. He squeezed Prince Waldorf’s fingers instead, his hand dwarfed by the Glutton’s. Prince Waldorf’s hand could close around Julienne’s entire torso. He figured if he stood front-to-back, ten Juliennes could fit in Prince Waldorf’s torso.
Prince Waldorf looked up at Uncle Julienne. “I was so disappointed that you couldn’t accommodate my reservation the other day. I so wanted the restaurant for myself. I hope today’s food can make up for it.”
“Well, we couldn’t afford to shut down the restaurant for one guest,” Uncle Julienne said in a challenging tone.
Prince Waldorf ascended to the same step as the Executive Chef, standing over a foot taller than him. “You can afford what I allow you to afford. Speak to me at the end of the dinner and we’ll talk price.”
“Of course.” Uncle Julienne shrank in Prince Waldorf’s shadow. “I was hoping your wife would be joining us.”
“No,” Prince Waldorf said dismissively. “She hardly gets out of bed anymore. Not that I’d want her anywhere else. I’ll have to get a new one soon.”
Prince Waldorf walked inside. His voice rang out in a terrifying rage seconds later. “Where’s the bread?!”
The final carriage arrived. A servant unclasped a long wooden board from the side of the carriage and hooked it onto the carriage to serve as a ramp with the help of another servant. Julienne suppressed a gasp as they opened the door.
On one side of the carriage, the bench had been removed and replaced with a large wheelchair—one of the first of its kind—bearing the weight of the massive Grand Queen Crosnee. A third servant entered the carriage from the other side and pushed her toward the ramp. The other two servants reached up to slow her descent, nearly losing control before managing to get her to level ground. Upon seeing the stairs, they sighed, the first warranted complaint of the day. A servant poured a hefty flask of moondrop wine into the grand queen’s slack-jawed mouth, wiping the dribble off her lip with a napkin.
Julienne had never seen Grand Queen Crosnee before—few his age had. As the tale went, she became an invalid during Prince Waldorf’s infancy. Her deformities went beyond those of a normal Glutton, her body having warped and melted due to having not stood in decades. She was more blob than human. As Julienne observed her pink, splotchy face, he wondered if this would be the only time she left the royal keep that year.
She had taken up three-quarters of the carriage, and once she was out of the way, the main guest was allowed to emerge.
He wore a dazzling, yet also simple crown, a band of gold with five metal knots around its length. But even more impressive was the man’s clothing—a white Chef’s jacket with a pattern of golden fleurs-de-lis woven into the jacket, giving it a reflective sheen in the afternoon sun, and silver trees stitched into each shoulder.
The man’s hair had turned gray long ago, but the fluidity of his step and the shape of muscles evident beneath the jacket made him look ready to compete in The Serving Bowl. He walked away from his guards with the confident ease of someone that knew no one could harm him. Of all of Ambrosia City’s statues, he was the greatest. A living, walking statue with a grandeur that artists spent lifetimes to carve.
There were only a few White Jacket Chefs in the world and only one wore a crown.
“Grand King Flambé,” Julienne said with a familiar happiness. He had meant to speak in a more formal tone, but the man before him was as much his uncle as the man behind him. Julienne had spoken too soon, not waiting for the grand king to climb the stairs, but Grand King Flambé moved so quickly up the steps that there was no time for awkwardness.
“Julienne. What’s it been, a year already? You’ve grown. I am excited to see how else you’ve developed.” He paused for a moment, beholding the splendor of the area, and sighed. “Ah, Cafe Julienne…”
“It is our honor to have you, grand king.”
He patted Julienne on the shoulder the same way a friend would. “This place brings back memories. You know, I grew up in many homes before I landed here. I was…sixteen? Seventeen? The senior Julienne—don’t tell her I called her senior—she was just a student. She heard about…Well, my father had just died. She decided to treat me to a free evening at Cafe Julienne.” He held his hands up to the restaurant to emphasize its glory.
“I still remember what they served that evening. Meringues…cuttlefish. Pork belly, clams, and ravioli. Or was it scallops?” He got lost in his memory. “Cod and green curry. Roasted peaches and cranberry sauce over rosemary ice cream. Delightful. I couldn’t believe the wealth of flavor. The emotional power.”
He came out of his daydream and laughed. “I couldn’t believe it was free. Turns out, it wasn’t supposed to be. Not according to her father, at least. But your great aunt, she ended up coming by my table and said, ‘just go with it.’ She faked rolling an ankle and begged me, making sure everyone heard her distress, to take her away. I carried her out and people thought I was a hero, not a dasher.” He shook his head and laughed. “Quite a woman.”
Julienne had heard stories of his great aunt raising all sorts of trouble, but to hear the most powerful man in the world tell one of the stories made it all the funnier. The grand king shook Uncle Julienne’s hand and was escorted into the restaurant.
Uncle Julienne stepped down below Julienne and turned to face him. “Make the name proud.”
“Wait. You’re leaving?” Julienne’s stomach seized up.
“Cafe Julienne is yours today,” Uncle Julienne explained with a shrug. “If I’m in the kitchen, they’ll attribute your successes to me. This is your chance to show them that when it’s your turn to take over, Cafe Julienne will still be the best restaurant in Ambrosia City.”
He took a deep breath and looked away. “It’s sink or swim time, Julienne. Earn the name.” Uncle Julienne walked away, leaving his nephew alone on the steps. Alone to run the greatest restaurant. Alone to cater to the most powerful people. All alone.
Julienne felt a splash of stomach acid reach up his throat. He hadn’t planned on relying on his uncle to cook, but he did plan on having him as a safety net. Julienne became painfully aware of his own age as he realized that the most prestigious restaurant in Ambrosia City was now commanded solely by a newly-nineteen-year-old boy.
Julienne took a moment. He unclenched his fist and wiped away the start of a tear. He turned to the entrance, cleared his throat, and spoke with a grand, dramatic voice as he entered into the most important moment of his Chef career thus far.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to welcome you all to Cafe Julienne. Let’s get started.”