Wizard of Jatte, Rowan Erlking [latest novels to read .TXT] 📗

him down went with it like a song. Theissen had thought it funny when his sister said she had gotten a nursemaid to help her with her son, but then glancing about at her home, it was clear exactly how wealthy she really was. This was no carpenter’s house. His father’s three-bedroom home had seemed luxurious to the small village homes he had seen on his journey, but to this town home his own home was simple and rough. Alania really had married well.

His sister had set out some of her husband’s clothes for Theissen to wear while his own dried. They didn’t exactly fit well. He was taller than the silversmith, for starters, so the pants rode up exposing bare ankle and sock. His feet were too large for his brother-in-law’s boots. The silversmith was not tall man, but he could not exactly be called short. He was stockier than the Carpenters were, but looking at him, he had a well-balanced dignified visage. At this age, Theissen looked somewhat gangly, still growing and likely to be as tall as Dalance who exceeded their father’s height two years ago and bragged about it in a letter. Their father was quite tall.

Tucking in the shirt, pulling on and buttoning up the vest, Theissen walked around in his sock feet until he could find his boots. His slipper shoes were also drying on the line and would have looked silly with those pants anyway with how they rode up. Somehow being in that house made Theissen want to look a bit more dignified than usual. Eventually he found his boots, resting next to the bath, cleaned and blacked already.

“Alania,” he took a careful step back into the front room, but he saw neither sister nor guests. Some of the cakes were still there though and he picked one off the top, munching on it as he dropped into the nearest open seat. He then started to eat several of the finger sandwiches.

“…and that’s why she wore blue instead of pink. Leas said it was scandalous the way she challenged Dame Landownerwife of Hillings like that, but I thought it was rather brave. Honestly that old biddy thinks that she can dictate every—” Alania turned and stared at Theissen who had just stuffed another sandwich into his mouth. “Theissen! Those are for the ladies! Go get your lunch in the kitchen!”

He hopped up immediately, recognizing his sister’s I-am-not-happy-with-your-mischief voice. Quickly showing himself out of the room, he recognized both women’s disapproving looks. Giving them a nod as he passed through the door, he went in search of the kitchen.

In a normal village home, the kitchen was the front room. It was obviously not the front room here, but it did not make sense to hide it from an outside door, so he went and sought for that. He first found a dining room not unlike the one he walked through in the manor house. Then he found the kitchen. A cook, leaner than the manor house cook though just as cheerful, stood at the stove stirring up what smelled like beef stew. Theissen grinned.

“Hold on a minute,” the cook said. Then she held out a wooden spoon towards his lips, cupping a hand underneath. “Taste that.”

With a shrug, he obeyed. He got a chunk of potato and a piece of not beef, but lamb. It was lamb stew?

“How does it taste?”

He shrugged again and then actually thought about it. “More pepper, maybe?”

The cook laughed. “Yes, you are just like your brother. He liked pepper too.

“But the mistress doesn’t. And neither does the master. You can get your pepper from off the table and shake it on yourself. You Carpenters aren’t too high and mighty to be flavoring your meal yourselves, I gather. Of course, some of her guests wouldn’t dream of pinching their own salt. You wouldn’t believe some of the snooty patooties we get coming in here now and again. Oh, her cousins are all right and all that. Down-to-earth-folk and all that. But oh! His family!” She leaned in as she continued to ramble much like all the women from Lumen did when one got them started. “They are a right bunch of snobs, too good to talk to a housemaid or a cook. You know, they are the ones that insisted that she get that nursemaid. Your sister was about to care for her own son herself and they just wouldn’t have it. But of course your sister is too sensible to have them boss her around all the time. She only uses the nursemaid for show when she has guests. I tell you that nanny’s job is an easy one compared to that of other folk. So, when are you going to be sitting down? Or are you going to stand there all day hanging about like a fish caught on a hook?”

Theissen sat down at the far table. There was a stool and a high chair just opposite it.

“Not that one. Take the other one near the potatoes. And while you’re at it, peel those. We’ll be using them tonight when I make dessert. I call them spud rounds. Sweet and all that confection, you know.”

Though he didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure what to think about this cook. Theissen got up and found the stumpy stool, picking up one potato.

“Scrub them first, would you?”

He found the bucket with the scrubber next to it. The bucket was empty so he picked it up and turned towards the back door.

“Oh, no! Use the sink and pump over there!” The cook pointed to a metal hand pump that dumped out into a low sink on the floor. He had seen it, but wondered what it was for. The idea of a water pump in the house seemed extraordinary.

Setting the bucket inside, he started to pump in the water.

It was extraordinary. Indoor water. No community well. It half made Theissen want to run back to his cousin’s house and get one made for his farm. He also wanted to write his mother about it. They had a well on their own land, but an indoor pump made things so much more convenient.

“That’s enough water, you,” the cook said, brandishing her wooden spoon as if it were a guard’s sword. “Just scrub the potatoes and peel them. Heavens and earth! You are as spin-headed as your brother!”

“Spin-headed?” Theissen dropped the bucket where he was. It sloshed over the floor like a wave, also soaking his boots.

“Now see what you’ve done!” she snapped. Her happy demeanor had gone. “Clean it up!”

“Bossy,” he muttered under his breath. However, Theissen went over to get the mop. He refused to satisfy her with even a bit of magic. Besides, he had a feeling this woman was an insane gossip, and he remembered what trouble those kinds of people were. If he wanted to lose his reputation as a wizard, he had to keep from doing anything with his gift.

Water mopped up, Theissen went back to carrying the bucket and then scrubbing the potatoes. He didn’t start peeling them until the entire pile had been scrubbed. By then the nursemaid had come in with his nephew, muttering under her breath that she hoped Alania’s guests would be gone soon. Theissen noticed that the nursemaid was a young girl not much more than eleven, though from her smell and figure she had obviously budded early.

The girl stuffed his nephew into the high chair without even seeing Theissen and wrapped a kerchief around the baby boy’s neck as the child tugged and squirmed to get out. The child looked a great deal like his father, but he was as rambunctious as a Carpenterson. His Jatten black hair and typical dark eyes made him a handsome boy, though with how red his face was getting as he built up to a cry Theissen wondered what was so endearing about babies and why in the world all women seemed to adore them.

“Keep his cries down. The mistress is entertaining guests. That is what you are paid for,” the cook said.

The nursemaid stuck her tongue out at the cook once she turned her back, grabbing the bowl of cold peas that were set out for the baby. She started to mash them up with the small whisk that was sitting on the edge of the table, scowling at the kitchen as if she hated it. Her eyes turned, setting on Theissen.

“What are you staring at?” she snapped.

“Nothing,” Theissen said and averted his eyes back to the potatoes.

For a moment he just listened to the squirms of the baby in the high chair, the burbling of the stew on the range, and the distant birdlike chatter of the women in the front room as he peeled at the potato skin. But then the baby cried out with a cackle, and the nursemaid cursed.

“Hey! Don’t talk like that!” Theissen popped his head up. The cook had also turned with a reproving look towards her.

The young woman stared at him with a scowl. “Oh, stuff it. I wasn’t talking to you.”

“That is not the point,” the cook said with an approving nod to Theissen. “The mistress would not like it.”

“Well, she’s not here,” the nursemaid said smirking and swooping her neck around like a bird, though more like she was egging on a fight.

“But I am,” Theissen said, rising from his seat. “And I know that Alania would not approve of you talking that way around her son.”

“Alania? Oh, are you so familiar with the mistress?” the nursemaid said with a mocking sneer, gesturing to his ill-fitted clothes. “You’re just a bum she dragged off the street this morning. A charity case. I saw her bring you in.”

He gave her a dirty look. “Just a bum? It just so happens—”

“Hello cook!” The silversmith walked in. He was wearing his apron, looking like a respectable workman though his hair was pulling out of his leather tie back as if he had gotten it caught on something. He grinned at Theissen when he saw him. “Ah! I see you are awake. When Alania told me you had arrived, I was a little surprised. I expected you last week. Anyway, how do my clothes fit?”

Theissen took his eyes off the nursemaid’s face, which looked properly surprised and was growing more so. “Actually, the pants are a little short.”

The silversmith laughed, glancing about the room. “I was just coming in for some lunch. I suppose your sister is still entertaining guests in the front room?”

“Ah, yes.” Theissen blushed. “I actually had eaten a few of their sandwiches. Alania shooed me to the kitchen for lunch, though your cook decided to put me to work first.”

Casting the cook a chiding glance, the silversmith shook his head with a smirk. “Very funny. Now let him go and give him some stew. Looking at how empty his pack was, he must be famished.”

The cook turned with a playfully sulky look and did as bade. “Yes, sir. But really, the boy didn’t even protest. I half expected him to turn my face blue for bossing him.”

Giving Theissen one peek himself, the silversmith only smiled. “I told you he was good natured. Now come on, Theissen, eat up. You don’t have to peel potatoes. And—well, goodness Nurse Tillaly. What is it? You are positively going green.”

Theissen peered over to see exactly how green the nursemaid was getting. She didn’t smell sick, though there was a slight odor of fear now. His brother-in-law used to give off that smell whenever he had to speak with him, but the man had learned to relax around him since. Perhaps it was because he did realize that Theissen really was good-natured. It only followed that the silversmith was mostly afraid because he was a wizard. It was something Theissen had gotten a lot as a kid.

“That…that…that….” She just stared at Theissen.

The silversmith waited. “That…that, what?” He turned to look, and saw Theissen waiting with a slight tinge of