Chapter 3 – Connoisseur

Lady Myria LeJean came back to her senses a half hour later, lying on a hard surface inside the bakery with the human patting her hand. She dazedly looked back at what she had just experienced. It had been as bad as the nightmares! But at the same time almost pleasurable. She was horrified at the feeling of helplessness in the face of this... assault on herself. And yet… the body claimed it had enjoyed it! And wanted more! How did humans survive this?

She groaned, as merely replaying the memory started her drooling a bit.

"My Lady! Are you ok?"

"Y-yes, we are… we are fine. It was… too much…"

He looked at her strangely. "But it was just fresh bread! And you just collapsed, and then a few times you looked…" He struggled for words. "…like looking at something through a fog or a mist."

She paled, recognizing the description. She had begun to discorporate! Part of her, the Auditor part, tried to argue that this was not a huge concern, that the body could be rebuilt. But the Lady LeJean portion wasn't buying any of that argument. What was clear was that she had to be firm. She would not eat anything again… to do so was to risk death. She would NOT do it.

Liar.

"Lady?"

"Yes… we are… correct. We are fine."

He helped her to sit up, and she forgot that she was "not a tactile person" and was soon on her feet and leaning on him.

"Let me help you home. My uncle is watching the shop. Where do you live?"

She shook the last of the cobwebs from her head. "La Extravaganzia… it is—"

His eyes went slightly round and his face flushed. The Extravaganzia was just across New Bridge, and catered to visiting peerage from Genua and other exotic locales. Lodgings there cost an entire month's profit for a tradesman. He cleared his throat. "Ah, yes, milady, off we go then."

As he helped her across the bridge to the hotel, he made what a human would consider small talk; pointing out shops that sold interesting items, adding tidbits of history. He was clearly enjoying his role as guide for a 'visiting dignitary'. He saw her to the front of the hotel, but did not enter the lobby. With a flourish he applied what he thought of as a formal farewell, leaning down quickly to kiss her gloved hand, and returned to his shop.

Back in her lodgings, Lady LeJean reflected on two things. First that she felt warm and strange where she had leaned on him during the walk back, and second that her body was demanding she shove more bread into her mouth. She threw herself on the bed, miserable, and felt water leak from her eyes as she slowly passed to sleep and the torment of dreams.

The next day, she avoided both the clockmaker's shop and the bakery. Instead she tried to distract herself from the thought of food by immersing herself in other human experiences. She'd been fascinated by the art galleries. Auditors typically were, because humans had this way of recreating reality on a canvas that made it somehow more than reality.

And that was only the start. There were too many things, too many experiences that did not make sense and seemed like a threat to her. The sooner the clock was finished, the better. Yes. In the meantime, she went to art galleries, museums, and the opera. The Isle of Gods had the highest concentration of these, and she was apparently living life to the fullest, except of course, for that nagging eating thing.

That evening, the hotel maitre'd brought her a message that there was a tradesman who had a package for her, but would only deliver it in person. Had it been a servant, they would have sent him on his way if he would not hand over the parcel. But a tradesman deserved some consideration. Upon being escorted to just outside the lobby, she saw it was the baker again. He was dressed a bit more formally, but as she neared he still smelled faintly of bread… wonderful, glorious, horrifying bread. Her stomach expressed its rebellion, and she muttered curses under her breath. Shut up, I am in charge, not you.

"Excuse me, milady?"

"Nothing. You wished to see us?

"Ah, yes, milady, I hope I am not intruding."

"How can you intrude, we are outside? That makes no sense."

He reddened a bit. "My apologies, I mean that I did not want to impose on your time, milady. It's just that…I could not stop thinking about what happened yesterday. About what you said."

Her stomach growled again…and her mouth began watering. In charge!

"What I said, Mr…" She paused for a moment… humans had names of course. Surely he had one. "What is your name?"

He seemed shocked that she would bother to ask. "Knäcke, milady." he responded, pronouncing it it almost like 'knock'.

"Very well… Mr. Knäcke." She paused again. "You had something to give us?"

"Yes, milady, as I was saying, I was thinking about yesterday, and I was concerned. I mean to say, I thought at first you might have had a reaction to the bread, or there might have been something wrong with it. But others ate it and nothing happened. It was just bread! But then you had said it was too much."

Her stomach growled again. This was torture! She gritted her teeth, feeling a new emotion… which strangely seemed to involve some sort of violent reaction. Her hands were even clenching!

He seemed to sense this, and continued quickly, "So I brought you this, just as a test, milady." He held out his hand containing a tin, which he opened to reveal several small squares. "They're wafer bread, you see, unleavened bread, heavy on the soda powder. Most people don't like them because they are practically tasteless, you see."

She stared at him until her brain got it… and sent an express message down to the stomach with a quick query. Then her mouth got in on the conversation, bypassed her brain entirely and informed her left hand that if it knew what was good for it, it would bring it one of those immediately.

Next thing she knew, she had the most wonderful sensation in her mouth and was making quiet whimpering noises with her eyes closed. It was the worst…. no it was definitely the most intense and pleasurable experience she had ever felt without the horror of that…that bread from the day before. She spent the next few seconds watching fireworks in her head as the experience cascaded through her. Then she opened her eyes.

The baker was standing there, a look of concern on his face and both hands out as if to catch her. The street seemed to be swaying. And something was hurting her left hand. She looked down to see that she had the closed tin in a grip so tight that her knuckles were turning white.

"Milady?"

"I… that is, we are well. That was…that was incredible."

"But you feel well? You are not faint?"

"No, no, we are fine. But… why are we out here? Why did you not bring this to me… us… in the hotel?"

He looked embarrassed again. "My Lady, La Extravaganzia is very exclusive. Surely a lady of your status realizes that even an established tradesman would not be allowed inside unless he was working on something in the hotel."

She felt another new sensation wash over her, it was not one that she could pinpoint but it cycled its way through surprise, understanding, and then resolve. "Yes, we see... then it appears since we are likely to desire further business with your bakery, we shall have to make arrangements otherwise. Thank you, Mr. Knäcke, this was very…" She sought for the word. "…kind of you."

"I am grateful you find it to your liking, milady." Smiling, he took his leave.

Lady LeJean, on the other hand, went back to her rooms and spent the next several hours alternating between the lightshow in her head as she consumed each wafer, and deciding she was going to make delivery of future marvels much more convenient.

Upon awakening the next morning, she informed the maitre'd that while she had paid a month in advance for her stay, she wished assistance in obtaining a more permanent dwelling. The rather oily man who arrived at the hotel to show her a large but (as far as she could tell) tasteful house in Kings Way was very solicitous, and became still more solicitous when she offered to pay three months in advance with a quite small bar of gold. This was, in point of fact, rather more than three months rent, but we will forgive the man's morals for deserting him at the sight of all that shiny yellow metal. So he turned over the key and she became the tenant of a largely unfurnished home that was five times the size she really needed, only a half–block away from the prestigious Ramkin mansion.

She did not visit the clockmaker on Thursday and Friday. Instead she continued her cultural explorations. And she stopped by the Body Street bakery each day. She was as hooked as any addict. She didn't purposefully go there, but her feet… well more or less drifted that way every morning. And then in the evening, the baker paid her a personal visit at Kings Way. To his shock, she had him come to the front entrance instead of the tradesman's entrance.

Each visit, they would sit in the drawing room and she would salivate as he explained how he had added some subtle ingredient to the wafers, a pinch into the mix and no more. Subtle! Every taste was like being hit in the mouth by the whole world! And he called it subtle! Once, while she was savoring his latest creation, he had explained the richness of a cake… gods, a layered cake with sugar frosting. He stopped when he could see her growing pale, and after that kept the discussion to non-food items.

[A/N BEFORE YOU REVIEW if you are unfamiliar with Thief of Time, please note that the events in this chapter are almost all my own, though some of them were mentioned in passing in Pratchett's novel.]