Sorry if this one's a bit long... it ran to almost 6 pages in MS Word.
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XV. Stumbling Through the Servants' Hall
Patricia noticed a door just down the hallway from the servants' quarters. "Nalia, what's in there?"
"Oh, that's just the kitchen," said the de'Arnise girl. "It leads into the servants' hall, which has the only interior flight of stairs to the second floor. We'll have to go through there eventually, unless you want to go upstairs by the steps in the courtyard and across the roof."
Patricia's ears pricked up at the word "kitchen". Nalia might as well have said "gold" to a dwarf. Boo was watching the young sister carefully, and he saw the faint gleam dart through her eyes. Ah, there is the scholar coming forward, he thought approvingly. Her intellectual training is beginning to dominate again. Good, she could use such mundane thoughts to distract her from the troubles piling up around her. I sense that there will be a longer association with this place than she yet suspects, and it will require all her discipline to meet the task.
"Well, then, I believe we should investigate the area before we proceed. I don't like to leave an unopened door behind us, with so many enemies at hand. Let's complete our knowledge of this area first."
She chose to be the first through the door this time. It was a grand kitchen, though a trifle dark. She'd read long ago that Amnish home kitchens tended to have just one main cooking surface, usually a flat grill that burned charcoal rather than the wood-fueled cookstoves of her own more northern region. It was a good size, and quite large enough to handle eight or ten pots at once. There wasn't really an oven, though; she suspected that the keep maintained the southern practice of having an outside communal oven for baking bread, to keep the extra heat out of the kitchen during the sweltering summers. There was probably a barbecue pit dug somewhere on the grounds for roasting meat, too. She saw no signs of the stewpot; Daleson must have left it downstairs after the umber hulks' last meal. Patricia vowed to herself that they would never have another.
She felt more at home in this room than she had anywhere else in Amn. The faint smell of spices was inexpressibly soothing to her nerves. She breathed in a hearty lungful, slowly releasing it. Wistfully, she stared at the long rank of cookbooks and metal boxes for recipe cards sitting on a shelf underneath the solitary window. There was no time for research now, but perhaps Nalia would let her examine the data later, if they were successful. She shook herself slightly; they'd better move on before she got homesick.
There was a door on the south wall; that must lead into the servants' hall. Patricia gestured the others towards it, and they formed up, Nalia and Jan nocking arrow and bolt to cover the others' entrance. Nalia said in a low voice, "There are steps down on the other side of the door; be careful going through." The others nodded comprehension. Patricia cautiously tested the doorknob. It turned silently in her hand; the door was unlocked.
Anomen was impatient, and crowded her through the doorway before she could properly survey the room. She'd have to rein him in a bit later, but there was no time now. A middle-aged man dressed in the de'Arnise livery of pale blue and brown cowered at the bottom of the stairs, another one of those repulsive trolls looming over him. Oh, no, Patricia thought, we're not losing another one that way. A fire arrow and a bolt streaked over her head, looking for all the world like an exclamation point in flight. Anomen had clearly forgotten that the rest of them were behind him, because he stopped dead on the third tread above the bottom, looking for the height advantage to bring his mace down on the troll's head. Patricia knew that Minsc would be hurtling down the stairs behind her, and each of the men outweighed her substantially. The last thing she wanted was to be the jelly in this sandwich. Luckily, there were no rails on this staircase. With instincts honed by twelve years of constant training, she used her momentum to launch herself low to the left side, aiming for the servant. Her tackle toppled him to the side just in time to avoid the troll's claws. The man's weight was enough to cushion her fall somewhat, and she forward-rolled quickly away, coming up out of range behind the troll. The servant was quick-witted enough to already be scrabbling away from the battle himself.
In the space of those few breaths, Anomen had just begun his downward arc when Minsc, struggling valiantly but unable to completely avoid him, caromed off his back, tossing them both forward, straight into the troll. The monster wasn't expecting this sudden assault by some quarter-ton or more of men and armor, and it lost its footing as well. From his vantage point above, Jan thought the whole thing bore an eerie resemblance to the break shot in a game of pool, with fighters flying everywhere like billiard balls.
Patricia took advantage of the unexpected opportunity, calmly approaching the gasping mass. Before any of the three could regain their breath, she used the heel of her left palm to drive the troll's nose into his brain, killing it instantly. Make the witness think we had a plan, she thought wryly. She saw a lamp burning low on a far table, and gestured to the servant to bring it. When the man timidly offered it to her, she quickly poured the oil it contained onto the troll's body before the wick could go out, then lit the gleaming pool. The whole sequence of events had taken no more than three minutes, at most.
Anomen and Minsc rolled themselves out of the way hurriedly once they smelled the oil spilling. Minsc was gasping like a beached fish, desperately trying to say something and patting his armor all over. Nalia called down, "Boo's on the steps, Minsc. He jumped off right before you hit Anomen." The huge man's face filled with a relieved smile, and his gasps eased.
"Hit me" is an understatement, thought Anomen as he fought to catch his wind. More like "ran over me with a four-horse team and a sledge full of bricks". And that troll's skin felt like sandpaper. I shan't be surprised if my entire face is one large scrape. By Helm, what an embarrassing turn of events, and before one of the servants, too! We shall never live this down.
Soon he was able to rise, and woefully surveyed his beloved armor. It had taken the brunt of the damage from his landing. There were deep scratches in its polish, and the center boss of his shield had a deep dent. He also had a nasty suspicion that the leather strap he'd been worrying about two nights ago had decided to tear through, leaving his left leg armor loose. He wasn't even sure if he could jury-rig a substitute with the supplies in his field repair kit. At this point in his assessment he was distracted by the arrival of Nalia and Jan.
"Merton, are you all right?" exclaimed Nalia. "Yes, Lady Nalia," said the servant respectfully, "except for a badly sprained ankle." She turned to the others. "Merton is my father's valet," she explained.
Having retrieved his furry companion, Minsc clucked his tongue. "Boo says you must have had quite a fall, to hurt your ankle so badly." Merton looked a little startled at the approach of the giant and hamster, but allowed him to inspect the leg. Obviously it had swollen to the point where the man had had to cut his boot off to relieve the pressure, and it was a rather ominous purple.
"Have you seen my father today, Merton?" Nalia persisted, while Minsc began to chant in a soft rumble.
The servant shook his dark head. "No, my lady, I have not seen him since the keep was stormed. I happened to be in the attic, helping the housemaids pull down the spring linens for the bedchambers, when we heard all the commotion below. I closed the door and bolted it as soon as I realized that there was fighting going on. At first I was afraid that we were all stuck, and Grace began to have hysterics, but Annabelle and Edith soon stopped that."
"After a while the noise died away. I suppose the trolls must have thought the maids fled during the first outburst, because they didn't go looking up there. There's a trapdoor up there onto the topmost roof, so Edith and I, as the ranking servants, decided between us that the best thing we could do would be to wait until dark, and then try to lower the others down from the roof. We'd plenty of good strong linen sheets to hand, and it took nearly all of them to make a long enough rope, my lady."
"Dankin the page and Rinvil the boot-boy were up there helping the maids as well, and we lowered them first, since they were lightest. Then they helped steady the others on their way down. Edith and I made all the girls take off their white aprons so they wouldn't be as visible against the stones, and we rolled the sheets well in the dust on the attic floor to darken them as much as we could, too. Ilmater was certainly with us, Lady Nalia, for the two of us got all the others down without anyone noticing."
Nalia interrupted him at this point. "So that's how you sprained your ankle, then! You must have tried to hold on to the rope while Edith climbed down." She looked at her companions. "Edith is the head housemaid, and she must weigh about sixteen stone."
"Yes, my lady," replied Merton. "The wind picked up and began to twist Edith around, and I was afraid she'd start screaming with fright or be dashed against the wall, so I tried to brace myself against the parapet and steady the rope. I misjudged the amount of force being exerted, and my ankle became wedged between the rope and the parapet, with the results you see." He looked down at his foot then, only to find that Minsc had healed it for him while he was busy telling his tale.
"To shorten the tale, Lady Nalia, I couldn't go down the wall myself in that state, so I decided to try to limp my way out. I had gotten all the way down to the Great Hall before that troll there found me and marched me away into this room. I've been here ever since, and the only other servants I saw were Skajig and Daleson; they allowed us to eat together in the kitchen once a day, while one of the snake-men watched us. Have you found them yet?"
Patricia answered for Nalia. "We were able to free Daleson, and he has left via the secret passage in the barracks. But I'm afraid we were too late to save Skajig. Now that your ankle is healed, can you make your way out by the passage?"
Merton turned to look at the monk appraisingly. Apparently he was satisfied by what he saw, for he nodded assent. "Gladly, if you can direct me."
"Good. Then you can bear Captain Arat a progress report. We will wait for ten minutes after you leave us, then enter the courtyard to try to lower the drawbridge. Tell the Captain to make his approach just as soon as he gets the message."
While Nalia was telling Merton how to negotiate the tunnel, Anomen asked Minsc to check his leg armor to see if the strap had in fact given way. The big man squatted down to examine the back of Anomen's knee, then rose with a frown. "Yes, there is only half a strap left there. It tore at the hole that the buckle fastened through."
The cleric groaned. Even if he had a piece of leather the right width in his kit, he didn't have anything to attach it with. Usually there were saddlers in the baggage train behind an Order battlefield to sew an extra length of leather onto the half-strap until it could be properly repaired. He could make the repair for himself, for that matter, but he'd managed to break his last cobbler's needle while working on the other leg a tenday ago, and hadn't had a chance to get a replacement .
Patricia heard Anomen and came over to see what the problem was. He explained the problem, and was startled and a bit indignant when she only smiled. "I'll be right back," she said mysteriously. "Get Minsc to help you take that leg off and dig the replacement strap out of your kit." Puzzled, he did as she said, and she returned in a moment with a large, thick needle and a length of thin but very strong cotton twine.
"I spotted these in the kitchen earlier," she explained. "This is how cooks truss up a rolled roast, or sometimes fowl. Don't doubt me," she said, seeing the look on his face. "I know for a fact this will hold. Ajantis had to bum one of these off me once for exactly the same kind of repair, and he liked it so much he bought me a new one and kept mine for himself."
Ajantis again? Well, he'd no reason to doubt the judgement of a fellow squire, though what Patricia was doing with a needle like that in the first place was beyond him. He did remember Moira having a huge sewing box with what seemed like an infinite variety of needles in it, though, so perhaps there might be some other esoteric use for it, such as making tapestry. He mostly thought of needles as convenient tools for removing splinters, or replacing buttons in case of emergency, when he thought of them at all. At least this monstrosity was thick enough to be used as its own punch; he could pound it lightly and make the necessary hole for each stitch without having to go through the extra step of heating the needle enough to burn its way through the leather.
"In that case, many thanks for the assistance, milady. It should not take more than a quarter of an hour, so if you would have the servant wait a bit before leaving…" he said absently, already deeply absorbed in the task. Patricia was right, he found with some surprise. This needle was easy to work with. Perhaps he, too, would keep this type on hand from now on. He was certainly going to hold on to it until they were through clearing the evil from this keep.
Patricia sat on the steps up to the kitchen and observed his activity. She didn't know that her features had unconsciously relaxed, and a half-sad, half-smiling expression crossed her face. The scene recalled pleasanter days on the road, when her sister walked by her side as well as her friends. She did miss Imoen so… and Ajantis too, though she was beginning to realize that she and Imoen had been sheltered unintentionally by the rest of them too much. They'd been so much more experienced that it took much of the responsibility of leadership off her hands, and she'd been glad to have it so. But she was now the one to whom everyone turned, and the strain was beginning to take its toll. Well, she'd just have to adapt. At least Anomen was halfway reliable in a fight, not prone to going berserk like Minsc, and he did know his business. She'd have to haul back a bit on him later, though. He couldn't just forget about his companions like that. Ah, well, he'd have the bruises tomorrow to remind him of the foolishness of that move. Now it was time to get back to work.
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Thanks for reading! And thanks to Phil, my resident armorer, for detailed explanations of the "kitchen sink" school of armor field repairs.
---Luned
