The kitchen was the domain of Miss Mags, a plump woman with salt and pepper hair who wielded a wooden spoon the way a templar would swing a mace. The servant elves skittered like frightened mice whenever she stormed in, but she did manage to keep the boys fed which was no small feat considering the limited resources left to her.
In the evening Mags would sit near the hearth and peel potatoes. She found the work comforting and it allowed her to keep an eye on the boys sent to her for punishment. Some of the more unruly ones would smash the dishes or deliberately slop up the work, so she had taken up the habit to mind them and prevent too much damage.
Fifty boys training to be future Templars generated an impressive pile of dirty dishes over the course of a day. And almost every evening those dishes were washed by a young boy who had managed yet again to offend one of the Sisters. Some mornings he refused to get out of bed. He found the lessons boring and would often fall asleep in the midst of them. He sulked as he walked from afternoon training to evening services at the Chantry. Some of the kitchen staff had even joked that the boy should start collecting a weekly allowance for the work he was doing in the kitchen every day.
Despite his insubordination, he did his work diligently and without complaint.
"Alistair, I've another pot of water boiling. When you finish the plates be sure and drain the rinse and we'll switch it out." The old woman had the uncanny ability to look as though she was completely focused on the work in her hands, but she could still mind the help out of the corner of her eye.
The young boy glanced up and wiped a soapy hand across his forehead. He was eleven years old and all stick thin limbs and muscle like most boys his age. "Yes miss Mags," he said wearily.
Mags shook her apron out and let the potato scraps fall to the growing pile at her feet. "You know, the last fellow who made a point of ending up here every evening at least had the decency to bring me flowers."
Alistair made a face. He was still at that age where girls were a strange and alien sort of creature that could infect you with a touch. "I don't know where I would get any flowers, miss Mags," he droned. His tone was flat and tired.
"You are missing my point, boy," she said calmly. "You're not a mischief maker. Yet you end up here every single evening."
The boy said nothing. No word in his defense or any justification for why. He simply shrugged in that way children did when they were cornered by fact and had nothing to say to retaliate.
Mags had this way of peeling that ended up with her slowly stripping the skin of the potato away in a single spiral. It slowly unwound under her fingers and dangled further and further towards the floor. "Child, they will eventually decide to do worse to you than wash dishes. Once you reach a certain age they stop being so patient with you."
Again silence. The future was forever away for young boys and inconsequential. In a few more months they would probably start flogging him, or starving him, or locking him away in one of the cells for a few weeks. But for a young lad, a few months was a lifetime away.
For an old woman it was almost nothing, and she didn't want to see the boy broken. He was a good boy with a good heart. "Alistair," Mags sighed. "I know you aren't coming here for my company. And I would hope that you don't have an odd obsession with crockery. Yet here you are. Why is that?"
The boy's face tightened. Emotions in someone so young were hot and wild. There were no shades of gray. Only bright joy and seething rage and deep dark abysmal misery. "I hate it here," he murmured, almost out of hearing range. He kept his head down as he spoke as if fearing he'd be struck for making the revelation.
Mags nodded. "Sometimes we don't have a choice about where we end up, boy. And washing dishes isn't going to make your situation any better." She let the spiral peel drop and tossed the potato into a bucket of salted water. "Do you intend to run away?"
Alistair glanced up and blinked. "Run away? To where? There's no place for me, miss."
"My very point, boy," Mags chided. "You're here, like it or not and that won't change anytime soon."
Young boys had this frustrating way of responding to things they didn't like to hear with silence. Alistair hopped from the stool and hefted the basin of water he'd been rinsing the plates with and staggered with it towards the door. He did it every night, and every night Mags was certain that it would be the night he dropped it.
Mags resisted the urge to rise up and help the boy. Some things a person had to do on their own. "Boy, when you encounter a rock you don't keep bumping your head into it. You find a way around."
Yet again Alistair miraculously managed to get the basin out the door and messily poured it out over the edge of the steps. His clothing was soaked and his shoes made squelching noises when he moved to carry it back to the sink. "I'm not in front of a rock, miss. I'm inside of it."
She was halfway through another potato and resisted the urge to rise up and lend a hand as Alistair wrestled with the buckets to refill the basin so he could start on the rest of the dishes. His observation was more astute that she expected from someone so young. "Very well, boy. You're inside the rock. But you are still banging into things. And it accomplishes nothing at all."
"I know, miss," Alistair's voice took on that bored droning tone again, parroting what every instructor and Chantry Mother had told him repeatedly. "I need to learn to fit in and behave. I'll try."
Miss Mags suppressed the urge to smile. "Boy, it isn't polite to lie to an old woman."
He blinked at her again. He had the largest brown eyes and hair like gold. It gave him an innocent quality with just a glint of mischief.
"You're also misunderstanding my point." She shook her knife and let another spiral peel tumble at her feet. "You've said that you don't like it here. Yet you have no where else to go. I'm not telling you that you need to enjoy living in the abbey, but you should accept it."
Alistair carefully handled the pot of boiling water and filled the remainder of the basin with it. A cloud of steam rose up and dampened his pale skin. "I don't understand, miss."
Mags smiled, watching him out of the corner of his eye. He was amazingly careful and focused when he wanted to be. "Well, all of this sulking and pouting nonsense. It isn't doing anything but helping make you more miserable. But you're an intelligent lad. I'm sure you could be a bit more clever about your methods."
"Pardon me, miss. But are you encouraging me to get into trouble?" He set the pot back down and clambered back onto the stool to resume his scrubbing.
The woman fluffed out her apron once more. "Simply stating a fact, boy. You're far too bright to stomp around the abbey like an old frog. You need not accept being inside of the rock, but you can at least try to make something out of it."
"Should I stomp around the abbey like something else then, miss?" He was up to his elbows in soapy water and froth as he scrubbed furiously, betraying a hint of anger that he was taking out on the crockery.
Mags resisted the urge to sigh. Alistair was intelligent, and that meant he needed to be handled carefully. "Perhaps," she offered. "Not that I'm suggesting that you get yourself into more trouble, mind you. But really boy... you're acting out the way a dullard would. So they treat you like a dullard. Eventually the sisters are going to decide that the only way you'll learn is by tanning your hide every night."
Alistair pursed his lips in thought. The concept of silver linings was one that children often had a difficult time understanding, particularly when they were dead set on being miserable. But he was just at the right age that a challenge was hard to resist, particularly one against a slander to his intelligence.
"I'll tell you what, boy. Give my words some thought. And in the meantime I don't want to see you in here again for at least a week. If you promise me that I'll let you leave early." She gave him a secretive wink.
The chantry made a point of teaching the boys about how the Maker denounces lies and punishes those who break their word, so a promise was no small thing for an idealistic young boy. Still, he was obviously lost in thought as his hands went still in the mass of foam and dishwater.
Mags tried to look indifferent and detached. "Think about it, boy. Any orphaned bumpkin sent here can sulk and they often do. But you're not a bumpkin, or a dullard..."
"Or an old frog," Alistair murmured, smiling faintly. He pulled his arms out of the water and dried them off. "A week?"
"At LEAST a week," Mags said sternly. "I'd much rather not see you on dish duty again, but I'll take what I can get. The knife-ears are starting to think you're hired help instead of one of the boarders."
The boy hopped down from the stool and his damp shoes squelched loudly. "Okay," he said, a little hesitation in his voice. "At least a week."
Mags reached into a basket at her side and tossed an apple his way. Dish duty usually included missing out on supper. "And if I see you before then I'll work you like a mabari. You'll be scrubbing the floors until you've no more skin on your knees."
Alistair clumsily caught the apple and nodded eagerly. "Yes miss. I promise. You won't see me for at least a week."
Miss Mags shook her apron out and made a shooing motion at the boy. She heard his squelching footsteps as he skittered off to bed.
It was two weeks before Alistair reappeared in the kitchen. Mags almost missed him since he had done the work so much he'd developed a knack for it, and the other boys had to be watched a lot more carefully lest she end up with dishes not properly cleaned or clumsily smashed.
He was being half dragged into the kitchen by Mother Sophia, one of the older and more grizzled of the reverend mothers at the abbey. She looked ready to spit fire and brimstone as she shoved the boy so hard into the kitchen he nearly crashed into a table.
"Sister Margaret," the mother sounded as though she was having a difficult time keeping her voice steady. "I want you to put this boy to work. He seems to have far too much time on his hands."
Mags adopted a stern look and nodded, watching the boy steady himself and brush his clothing off with the meticulous air of a preening bird. He was unashamedly proud of himself and did very little to hide the pleased grin on his face.
"Good evening, miss. It's nice to see you again." Alistair strode through the kitchen as though he owned it and picked up the bucket, preparing to go through the motions of prepping the sink for the wash without being instructed to do so. "So tomorrow morning everyone will be eating off of the labor of my hands. I'm honored."
The reverend mother's eyelid twitched. She gave Mags a sharp glare and then stormed out of the kitchen. Further down the hallway they could hear the servants yelp as she shoved past them.
Mags folded her hands in her lap. Alistair had changed dramatically since she had seen him last. He wore a gracious smile and his eyes were bright. He was even humming merrily as he put the kettle on and filled the sink.
"Boy." She said the word as a simple expectant statement.
Alistair rolled his sleeves up. There were red welts on his arms, probably from having them rapped by a ruler or a stick. Mother Sophia usually carried one or the other with her for just that purpose. "She came to me and said how she was so pleased that I had stopped sulking so much during afternoon chant. And I said that I had finally come to understand her, and since I did it was a lot easier to listen to her."
Mags tilted her head every so slightly, quietly urging him to continue.
"Really, it all makes sense if you look at it from the right angle." He was almost giddy and could barely restrain his glee. "I said that I'd determined that she must be related to some form of badger. They both growl and snarl, and they both have big noses..."
In the adjacent room, the woman tending the stove sputtered as she tried to restrain her giggling. Mags was only able to keep her stern glare in place from years of practice. "I see, so you informed her of this?"
He cracked his knuckles and wriggled his fingers as if preparing to play an instrument. "She called me up to praise me in front of everyone. And since the message of the chant was about honesty, when she asked what brought about my improvement in my behavior..." He shrugged helplessly.
The woman nodded indifferently. "The kettle is boiling. Best get to work, boy."
Alistair hopped from the stool with a flourish and a gracious bow as he went to fetch the water. Mags watched him out of the corner of her eye as she worked. The abbey was going to be a bit more interesting now. But at least he he never broke a dish.
"Badger," she murmured to herself with a grin. "Oh Maker, what have I done?"