The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (46 page)

Gizzada grinned. “I was hoping he’d enjoy
that.”

“So you still know how to make them?” Peto
asked. “Because what I saw out there—Gizzada, on those plates was
barely enough to feed a rabbit.”

“Peto!” Mahrree snapped at his rudeness.

“No, he’s right,” Gizzada nodded. “That
food’s ridiculous. Tiny portions in silly presentations—that’s what
the elite of Idumea like, Peto, as ridiculous as it is. But,” and
he leaned in closer, “feeding them allows me to feed others, and
properly.”

“What do you mean?” Peto said.

“Tell me what you want, and I’ll get it.” He
turned to Perrin and Mahrree. “Do you want what Idumeans call high
culture, or do you want something that will put some muscle on that
skinny boy?”

“Muscle!” Perrin declared. “Please!”

Gizzada put a finger to his lips and said,
“Then follow me to the best kept secret in Pools and Idumea.” He
opened the door and the Shins followed him out of the room and
toward the kitchens.

And that was another shock, to pass so many
stoves and ovens and boiling pots and open flames and work tables
and men and women frequently shouting “Sheff!” and rushing to set
up plates and almost crashing into the four strangers that nearly
tripped in their hurry to follow “Sheff!” to another door which . .
.

. . . ended in a small storage room.

“Very secretive,” Peto said. “I can see why
you don’t want anyone knowing where you store the potatoes.”

Gizzada chuckled and said, “No, my still
Little One—” he grinned as Peto scowled at the earned insult,
“—
this
is the secret.” He cracked opened another door that,
a moment before looked like a planked wall. “Take a peek, Colonel,
and tell me if this is more to your liking.”

Perrin peered in. “Now that’s more like
it!”

Mahrree peeked under his arm to see a much
different view. Instead of fancy cloth and wrought iron chairs,
there were long wooden tables with log benches. Instead of fabric
draping the walls, there were high clear windows that let in the
fading sunlight. Instead of a water fountain in the middle room,
there was a large fire pit with benches all around where people
could chat and warm themselves.

Mahrree chuckled.

Counters on two sides of the room had tall
stools crowded along them, and a board on the wall listed the
simple menu: Meat of the Day, Dessert of the Day, Gizzada sandwich,
small or large. The prices were also quite reasonable: a small
sandwich was only a quarter slip of silver, and the large was half
a slip.

And, just like the restaurant in the front,
this place was packed with customers. But none of them were dressed
in anything finer than layers of worn cotton, patched woolens, or
army jackets. In fact, half of the room seemed to wear the uniform,
and the loudness of their laughter also signaled to Mahrree these
weren’t officers, but enlisted men temporarily freed from the
hovering of their superiors.

“Uh, they can be a bit rough,” Gizzada said
hesitantly as he closed the door again. “Especially with a little
ale in them,” he muttered.

“What’s ale?” Perrin asked.

Gizzada waved that away. “Something I started
brewing up last year. Nothing you’d like. But I’ll have a word with
Margo before I take you in there. She’ll keep them proper. Well,
Edge-level proper, if you know what I mean.”

Mahrree winked. “I teach teenage boys,
Gizzada, and the children are in full school. I think we can handle
them.”

Gizzada and Perrin shared a knowing look.

“Cute, isn’t it,” Perrin said to his former
staff sergeant, “how she thinks she knows enlisted men?”

“Come to think of it, I’ll threaten the men
myself,” Gizzada patted Perrin on the shoulder. “But first—we have
a slight problem, with this.” He fingered a brass button and raised
his dark eyebrows. “You see, I have a dress code, and brass buttons
belong in the front, not here in the back. Makes the men nervous,
you know. Not that any brass has ever tried to come back here
before, but I do have standards to maintain.”

The Shins chuckled. “Understood,” Perrin
said. “The last thing I want to do is cause you to lose any
patrons. What do you want me to do about this ugly thing?”

“Take it off,” Gizzada said easily.

“Eat without my jacket?”

“Eat without messing it up, yes. I remember
you losing control of my large sandwiches, sir. Spilling it all
over that jacket? Tsk-tsk. What would your mother say?”

The Shins laughed, and Perrin was already
halfway to undressing.

“Don’t worry,” Gizzada said, “we have lots of
army men remove the jacket here. You won’t be the first or only
white undershirt in the room. Gives men a sense of release. No
jacket, no ranking. Hope that doesn’t offend you—”

“Not one bit,” Perrin assured him.

“If only I had a white fur coat stitched with
butterflies to lend you.” Gizzada slipped out the door into the
secret back room. A chorus of “Sarge!” came through the door as his
guests greeted their favorite ex-soldier.

“How many names does the man have?” Peto
wondered.

“I feel like we’re doing something naughty,”
Jaytsy giggled. “Sneaking into the back.”

Mahrree nodded. “I know. What would your
grandparents think? We’ll be Seen, but in the wrong half of the
restaurant.”

From behind the closed door they heard a deep
woman’s voice holler, “All right, now—Mr. Gizzada has friends from
the north here. Sharpen up, you—yes, you lot over there, now. Women
and children coming in. Oy! I said, sharpen up! Women and children!
No more of that mouth or I’ll tell your wife the truth of why you
were late last week.”

Gizzada slipped back in, a little
embarrassed. “I guess Margo’s got things in hand after all. If
you’d like to follow me, sir?”

“Only if you call me Perrin. You’re not my
soldier anymore.”

Gizzada winked. “And only if you all call me
Zadda. I rather missed hearing that.”

“Give me your jacket,” Mahrree whispered to
her husband. She rolled it up so that it was merely a blue bundle
tucked under her arm, and she followed the rest of her family into
the back room.

The multiple conversations—far louder and
more raucous than anything in the front end—paused to evaluate the
newcomers, then resumed noisily as Gizzada gestured to a woman
large and beefy enough that she could have been Perrin’s
sister.

“Margo will take your order and see to it
that everything remains . . . fine. Now, I have to attend to some
business up front, but I’ll be back later to check on you. And
Peto—I’m expecting you to order a large sandwich, and I also expect
you to finish it before your father.”

Peto beamed. “You’ve got it, Zadda!”

Gizzada turned to leave, but stopped and
smiled warmly at the family. “So good to see you all again! Margo,
I’ll be making their orders myself.” And with that, he hustled out
the door.

“Well,” Margo said in a shockingly deep
voice, “what have we here?”

Mahrree was about to explain who they were
when she realized the brutish woman wasn’t looking at her, or even
her children, but directly at her husband. Or rather, her husband’s
muscled and defined torso, which stretched the white undershirt to
its limits.

Mahrree made a mental note to see if any
shops in Idumea made baggier undershirts.

“Some friends looking to eat, eh?” Margo said
as she eyed the colonel. “Looks like you’ve done quite a bit of
eating already, my dear man—”

Peto and Jaytsy chortled loudly behind their
hands, while Mahrree slowly began to fume. It wasn’t the enlisted
men and their inappropriateness they needed to worry about; it was
Margo.

Perrin cleared his throat loudly, and the
woman looked up into his eyes. She released a little whimper, and
Mahrree wasn’t sure if she was about to swoon or challenge him to
an arm wrestle.

“Yes, thank you,” Perrin said loudly, and put
his arm around Mahrree. “
My wife,
children and I would each
like a Gizzada sandwich. Two small, two large. If it’s not too much
trouble.”

Margo’s eyes traveled down to Mahrree, who
put on a big smile and fluttered her eyelashes, hoping Margo would
realize that Perrin preferred petite women whose meaty biceps
didn’t rival his.

Margo’s upper lip curled into a subtle snarl,
and she snapped out of whatever daydream she’d fallen into. “Two
large and two small. Coming up. Find yourself a seat anywhere.” She
waved vaguely, and at the door that lead to the kitchen she
hollered, “Two large, two small—Gizzada special.” She turned back
to the family. “Means he makes it. Mead? Ale?”

“Water, please,” Perrin said amiably. “Pools
has the greatest water in the world, after all.”

“To make ale with,” Margo mumbled as she
headed to one of the counters to retrieve their drinks.

Mahrree gestured to a table with free space
at the end. “How about there?” she suggested. And, without any
assistance from any men in black and white outfits, the family
managed to sit down all by themselves, Perrin and Peto on one side
of the well-worn wood table, Mahrree and Jaytsy across from
them

Laughter from behind Perrin erupted so loudly
that Peto wiggled his ears. “Yow! The joke wasn’t even funny. All I
heard was, ‘And then she said, That’s not a melon.’ I don’t get
it.”

But Perrin was rubbing his forehead
vigorously and his ears were bright red. Mahrree was quite sure
that, without even knowing the first part of the story, he
did
get it by the end.

He leaned back, cleared his throat loudly,
and said to the men behind him, “Women and children, or do I need
to get Margo over here to remind you?”

“Sorry, friend,” a man called over to
him.

Without turning around, Perrin raised his
hand in a conciliatory manner. “Thank you.” To his family he opened
his mouth, looked at his daughter and son, then shut it again.
Eventually he said, “Just don’t listen too closely. They’ll forget
again in about five minutes that we’re here, and, well, while it
sounds
like they’re talking about vegetables and fruit . . .
they really aren’t.”

Mahrree suppressed an uncomfortable smile and
nodded, but Jaytsy said, “So what are they really talking about,
then?”

Now it was Mahrree’s turn to rub her head
while her husband stared worriedly at his daughter. “You’ve heard
Riplak and Kindiri talking about . . . sweet rolls, right?” Perrin
ventured cautiously.

Jaytsy blinked in innocence and nodded. So
did Peto.

Perrin swallowed hard and looked at his
wife.

Mahrree smiled at him. “Go on. You’re doing
just fine.” Then, because she so enjoyed his extreme discomfort,
she added, “So they’re not really talking about sweet rolls
either?”

Perrin sighed and turned back to his
teenagers. “When Riplak says ‘sweet roll,’ and does that thing with
his eyebrows, he’s actually . . .”

His children looked at him earnestly, sitting
at the edge of their benches.

Mahrree shook her head at her husband and
snorted.

“You could offer some assistance here,” he
murmured at her.

“Sorry,” she batted her eyelashes. “I simply
don’t know that much about soldiers and such, remember?”

Perrin glared at her, then turned back to the
questioning faces of his teenagers. “Let’s just say the men talk
about food when they’re
hungry
.”

Peto and Jaytsy looked at each other
dubiously.

Jaytsy turned back to Perrin. “Uh-huh. I
am
nearly fifteen, Father. I know that they’re talking about
other things.” But something in her expression suggested that she
wasn’t entirely sure what those other things were yet, either.

Peto merely shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t find
any of that interesting.”

Perrin rubbed his face with both hands, not
daring to ask exactly what Peto thought “that” was. “Our food
should be here by now, shouldn’t it?” He looked at the door
anxiously, while Mahrree giggled. She’d have another little talk
with Jaytsy later, but Peto—he was all Perrin’s to deal with.

Another door, connecting to the alley behind
the building, banged open and several men in blue jackets poured
in. Mahrree hadn’t noticed the door before, but it seemed to be the
main access to the back restaurant. She wondered if Gizzada could
even fit through the narrow opening, which probably looked like
nothing interesting from the outside, and sure not to draw the
attention of anyone in an officer’s uniform.

“Margo!” one of the men called. “Brought some
brassies for some scrubbed up dinner, but they’ll be waiting for
hours. The boys here and I are starving, so we’ll want it all
tonight. Meat of the day first, love.”

As the six men filed happily in, and
good-naturedly shoved some acquaintances further down the table
behind Perrin to make room for themselves, Peto leaned over to his
father.

“Bunch of brassies? Are they talking
about—”

“Officers,” Perrin said quietly to his
family. “Senior officers, to be specific. Brass buttons. That’s why
mine are hidden under the table by your mother.”

Jaytsy leaned forward. “They don’t seem to be
too happy about ‘brassies’.”

Perrin bobbed his head back and forth.
“They’re not. Some of the officers treat the enlisted men more like
servants than soldiers. These sergeants—they’re sergeants,
right?”

Mahrree glanced at their insignias and
nodded. “Three are sergeants,” she whispered back, “Two of them
staff, another a master, then two corporals, and a private.”

“But it’s the sergeants making the most
noise. That’s because they’ve been in the army long enough to
develop an opinion, and to earn the right to express it,” Perrin
told them quietly. Then he smiled. “My father would love this
place. He always suspected the enlisted men gathered to gossip
about the officers, but he never knew where or what they said. I
almost feel like a spy. I bet Gizzada hears all kinds of things
back here.”