Crèpes Corus
Disclaimer: Tamora Pierce's characters and world belong to Tamora Pierce. I am just playing with them for fun. Jack Bourdain and Stephen Daedalus are from the TV show Kitchen Confidential, and belong to Darren Star and FOX. Sark is from the TV show Alias, and belongs to J.J. Abrams and ABC.
Thanks to Sally, my partner in crack. She beta'd and came up with the line about the blueberry pancakes. As always, she is much funnier than me.
Also, I could never have written about the Conte children without Fenella's hilarious story, You are my Sunshine, about the woes of being a child of the rulers of Tortall. It's under my favourite stories, go read!
These political marriages are a mistake, you think. Jonathan keeps bartering away your children one by one despite all your arguments to the contrary. You know far better that he how dearly peace can cost, but it goes against your instincts to sacrifice your children to duty. You were raised to believe that your first loyalty is to family.
And really, what has Jon gained? Kally is ruling an Empire six times the size of your nation with a cheerful ruthlessness that you admire as a Queen, but that appalls you as a mother. Roald, thankfully, seems happy enough, or perhaps just resigned—it can be difficult to tell with him. And just look at your second son after a year in Tusaine:
"Hello, Mother!"
Liam grins at you in what he no doubt thinks is a rakishly charming way, long bangs in his sleepy brown eyes. He is still wearing that ridiculous moustache he refuses to shave. At least a year at the most frivolous and indolent court in the Eastern Lands hasn't managed to spoil your son's natural sweetness. Not your brightest child, this middle boy: the unintentional clown amongst his ambitious siblings, he was something of the odd one out. But his antics have always made you laugh.
He looks as though he's done nothing the past year but attend drunken parties, romance women of the wrong sort, and develop an unfortunate taste for Tusainie fashion. Yet if the proud way he's wearing his silk shirt with the mile-long drooping sleeves is any indication, he's been thriving, so you ask him to introduce the wastrel friends he's brought home. From your seat on the low dais you feel that their high spirits and lack of refinement are crowding the small audience chamber, with its pale green stiffly-silken walls and ivory furniture, though they have yet to say a word.
Liam gestures good-naturedly at his companions with a flap of trailing silk. "Jacques Bourdain, chef extraordinaire, and Stéfan Dedalus, his right-hand man in the kitchen!"
"Your Majesty, I had no idea! Prince Liam said you were an incomparable beauty, but he was lying! You are so much more!"
"Ma'am."
You think you have never seen such a pair of knaves in your life, except possibly that time you walked in on Jonathan's secret meeting with George Cooper and his Rogues. The first one is as smooth a flatterer as a horse-trader trying to sell you a mule while angling at the same time to spend the night in your bed. The other wouldn't look out of place as a thug or thief in the Lower City. They are both grinning at you like fools.
You nod.
"Mother," says Liam eagerly, "these two are the finest chefs you will ever have the chance to meet. They used to run King Ain's own kitchen, until we became good friends and they defected to work for me! King Ain was very displeased," he grins roguishly.
The cooks, if that is what they are, break into uproarious laughter, as though it is the funniest joke they have heard in days. They indulge with your son in a good minute of back slapping and elbowing. Goddess above.
Liam smiles up at you with an arm slung around the neck of each knave, and says, "Mother, nothing would do but that I bring them home to cook you a meal fit for the Gods' own table!"
"Hear, hear!" says Knave number two.
Knave number one smiles smarmily at you.
"You're a thoughtful son," you say. And he is.
Liam beams.
"But what about your last companion?" you say. He has been standing quite quietly in the background while the circus clowns cavorted, a fact which commends him to you already.
"Ah, yes," Liam says. "The final member of our merry group. Unlike our hard-working artists of the kitchen, he is a useless but charming adornment of the Tusainie court. We have much in common!"
The man steps forward with a polite and excellent bow. "Sark."
"What's a Sark?"
Vania has not stopped bouncing up and down on her toes since her brother has arrived. Now she skips up and hugs Liam's arm, swinging a little back and forth. She peers at the newcomer with sparkling eyes through her long hair, which is always hanging in her face though you tell her to wear it back.
"I am a Sark," the man replies politely to Vania. He has a serious demeanour, but something about him still suggests laughter.
"Julian of Sark, at your service Princess."
You can see Vania staring at him with a disconcertingly direct gaze for a young girl. She takes in the man's slender form, his close-cropped blond curls, lashes so long and pale that his eyes appear naked, and a surprisingly charming imperfection of his mouth that makes it crook up to one side when he speaks. Finished her inspection, Vania smiles, wide and bright, bestowing the whole room with her approval like a gift.
Jonathan thought it was bad enough when his youngest daughter looked like that at mere ponies. It appears that she has moved on to young men, and you sigh inwardly as you think about how difficult her teenage years are going to be.
But at the party that night, it is not Vania who young Sark chooses to pay court to, despite seeming happy to indulge her crush, or to your lovely Lianne, radiantly happy to have her brother home. He ignores the obvious court beauties, and when the party is well underway with people caught up in their various pursuits, he casually makes his way around knots of Liam's young friends gossiping and drinking loudly, and clusters of the more staid relatives sitting on their delicate chairs. He wanders over the rich red carpet and around the tables holding the remains of an extravagant meal. Candlelight flickers off the crystal glasses and picks out the gild on the high cream walls, while the sounds of the party echo off the vaulted ceiling. Sark is carrying a glass of what looks to be the finest red wine in the Palace cellars. Over a hundred years old, it was definitely not set out for the guests tonight. How he got his hands on it, you have no idea.
"Your Majesty," he says, the careful refinement of his voice somehow complimenting his crooked mouth. Everything about him is so damnably polite, and yet somehow not polite at all.
You nod in acknowledgement. A raucous burst of laughter catches your attention, and you glance over to see Liam and Jacques indulging in another round of hearty backslapping while Stéfan grins from ear to ear, over what seems to be their funniest story yet.
The cooks are scoundrels and wastrels without a doubt, but Liam was not exaggerating by much when he called them the finest cooks in the land. Since this afternoon they have turned the Palace kitchens inside out. The head chef and his two sous-chefs have tendered their resignations, citing creative differences, and several of the dishwashing staff were made to cry. But the meal was delightful; incomparable in taste, presentation and ingenuity. It's too bad that the Tusainie cooks also felt the need to down a good portion of the Palace's best wines in order to attain the crucial state of mind necessary for their creative process. And they spent more on expensive ingredients in Corus's finest markets in one day than would normally be spent in three weeks. You feel it would be most unwise to let them cook breakfast tomorrow, as they have offered.
"A pity," you comment.
Sark looks at you in polite inquiry.
"I am shocked that they do, in fact, possess some credentials as chefs. I was very tempted by the offer of crèpes Corus avec bleuets sauvages, crème fraîche, sirop d'érable et cannelle."
"Yes," Sark replies dryly, "I can attest to the fact that the blueberry pancakes are quite good."
You decide that his polite version of perfectly brazen behaviour is annoying. "Tell me, Julian of Sark, what exactly is the nature of your friendship with my son?"
Sark regards you for a moment, not at all chastened. If anything, he seems pleased. "Thayet the Peerless," he says. "From all accounts your mother was deemed the most beautiful woman in the world, but she would no doubt be proud to share that title with her daughter if she could see her today."
You stiffen. "Such an observation demonstrates a lack of imagination on your part." He presumes far too much.
"I can be said to lack some things, Your Majesty, but imagination is certainly not one of them." The hidden laughter is there again, this time with pointed innuendo underneath Sark's carefully chosen words and perfect composure.
You decide that you have been far too polite to this young man—your son's friend!—for longer than is good for him. "Are you flirting with me, Lord Sark," you say coldly, your demeanour somewhere in temperature between a frigid Midwinter's night in Tortall and a Scanran ice floe.
"Flirting with the Queen of Tortall would be a most impolitic pastime, not to mention a dangerous one," says the young man.
And then he smirks.
His eyes are too hard and knowing for such a young face, but the crooked mouth somehow gives his brazen expression an edge of charm. Infuriating. You have been adept at scaring off men since you were a girl.
"Dangerous, indeed," you remark pointedly, your hand itching to slap the smirk off his pretty face. "I suggest you and your impolitic tendencies go elsewhere before I am forced to ask you to leave this room. I would hate to ruin my son's homecoming with unpleasantness."
"Of course, Your Majesty," Sark says, dropping his smirk and his gaze to make a polite bow with the smoothness of a bare-faced liar. He straightens up. "I hope you find the rest of your evening to be enjoyable." This times he sounds sincere, no trace of hidden laughter anywhere.
You nod a dismissal, and he wanders back into the party towards Liam and Vania ("Lord Sark!, look at this handkerchief I stitched for Liam!" Vania shrieks), sipping on his mysteriously acquired wine.
You tell yourself that it would be quite ridiculous to be a little disappointed that he gave up so easily; so of course, you are not.
-Fin-
A/N: If you would like to see photos of the characters in this story, click on the drawings/photos link in my profile. CASTING CALL: CONTES is where you can find photos of Thayet, Liam and Vania, and CASTING CALL: TUSAINE COURT is where you can find Jacques, Stéfan, Sark and King Ain. Enjoy!