Mother why does the River not rise

It is not the River’s time

Why does the seed not sprout

It is not the seed’s time

Why does the rain not fall

the leaf not unfurl itself

Where is the hind and why does she not graze the fields before us

It is not their time

The River knows its time

The seed knows its time

The rain the leaf and the hind

They know their time

The River will rise the seed will sprout

The rains come down and the leaves unfurl

The hind will bring her children to graze before us

All in their time

It was quiet then. The leaves of the trees overhead ticked against each other in the light breeze. A fish flapped its tail in the water as it dove deeper into the pool. The queen looked down at her hands, stroking the soft velvet of a cushion, and said, “It was not her time. We will welcome her when she comes again. Tell me, Kamet, have you been to the kitchens?”

Surprised by the question, I said I had not.

“Do not leave it so long as my king did,” said the queen. “You don’t want your ear boxed.”

It was a dismissal, so I returned to my feet and excused myself. As I withdrew, the attendants rose like a flock of attentive birds and adjusted the queen’s pillows, offered her a tray of delectables, cast the woolen cloth over her legs and tucked it around her, and then settled again, some to stools, some to the ground, with their peaceable activities, embroidery, handweaving, sewing, back in their hands as silent accord returned to the grove.

Once out of sight of the queen, I continued walking along the garden paths. There was nowhere else I needed to be, the heavy schedule of meetings had finally begun to thin, and so I wandered, the flowers and leafy branches nodding at me as I passed. The palace gardens were extensive, with interlocking paths and long alleys of plantings linking open spaces with green lawns and often a fountain or a statue or both. I came eventually to the high wall that surrounded the garden and separated it from the sacred grounds beyond. That land belonged to the temple precinct on the hillside above the palace. Guards pacing the wall looked down at me, and I had no doubt they’d been watching me for some time. Their queen had chosen to leave her private garden, and I was probably the only person nearby except for her attendants and guards. I wondered if they could tell that I was delaying. I looked over my shoulder at the scuff marks in the gravel walk, clear evidence that I had in absolute truth been dragging my feet.

Attolia’s extensive gardens fed her palace. There were fruit trees as well as herbs and other edible plants. Every morning the gardeners moved through it, filling baskets to be carried to the kitchen yard to join the wagonloads of provisions arriving there. Throughout the day the cooks sent the youngest workers out to fetch another handful of tarragon or one more perfect bunch of grapes to adorn a dish for the royal table, and whenever I had seen them in the distance, I had headed off in a different direction. In my recent rediscovery of the palace I had visited every part of it but had never crossed through the kitchens, sometimes taking long detours to avoid doing so. I had been one among them once when I was a slave. They had been kind to me, but full of my own self-regard, I hadn’t appreciated the community they’d offered. Since my return they had sent trays of food up to my room carried by well-behaved servants I didn’t recognize, who never looked me in the eye. Did they remember me? Would they remember me and even so bow politely and shoo me back out of some place I no longer belonged? I didn’t want to find out but took the queen’s directive to heart. There was nothing to be gained by delay. Screwing up my courage, I crossed over my reluctant footprints and headed back toward the palace.

The closer I got to the kitchens, the less ornamental and more practical the plantings became. I walked between lemon trees, standing like soldiers at attention on either side of the path, to a door into the orangerie, where the trees were planted in circles around an open grassy lawn. On the other side of the orangerie was another enclosed garden where the vegetables grew in tidy rows, and waist-high stacks of clay tubes held hives of honeybees. The insects hummed in and out of them as I passed.

Beyond the walled garden was a gate into the paved yard with multiple open doors leading into the soot kitchen, where the roasting was done. I made it as far as one doorway and stopped on the threshold, directly in the way of anyone trying to get in or out—a behavior I despised in others, and yet there I stood, rooted like an inconvenient pillar of salt. At long tables, men and women worked, chopping vegetables, plucking feathers, boning fish, grinding ingredients in mortars. Some of the mortars were stone, but the ones for spices were metal, with a metal pestle that made a constant soft ringing in the background. There were quiet moments in every day, but I had not arrived at one. Woodchoppers and spit boys, roasters and carvers, dishwashers—all were busy. Beyond the bank of roasting ovens, doorways led to passageways that led to more kitchens. There was an entire room for the sauce makers, the boiling kitchen. There was a pastry room and a room where the bread rose and was baked in special ovens. Attolia’s palace was nowhere near the size of the emperor’s, but more than a hundred were employed in its kitchens—and that didn’t include the servants who carried the food up to the tables in the main hall and out to various smaller dining rooms and to me on a tray in my apartments. It was no surprise that one extra boy-at-all-jobs and sandal polisher had not seemed out of place.

No one looked up at me, and at first all the faces were unfamiliar. Some of the ones near to me I began to recognize. Tarra was chopping herbs—I could smell the rosemary. Semiux was boning a lamb, but the ones farther away were indistinct. Someone bumped into me from behind, Zerchus, pushing past with an enormous bowl filled with honeycomb that he thumped down on a table. The honey reminded me of the nutcakes Costis and I had longed for during our days of eating only caggi.

A young woman I didn’t recognize bustled up to me, wiping her hands on her apron. “Did you want something?” she asked briskly.

I opened my mouth to ask if they had nutcakes, but in Attolia’s kitchens the cooks were notorious for denying sweets to those not in their favor. Straight-faced, they would claim that such treats were unavailable and send petitioners on their way while the kitchen staff laughed behind their hands. I would ask for coffee. There was always coffee—they would grind it and prepare a tray for me, and I would take it back to my room and be done with this unpleasant moment.

“It’s Kamet,” I heard someone say.

“Kamet!” said Tarra, looking up from her chopping, and then I heard my name repeating across the room. The chatter died down—the only person seated in the kitchen stood up. At one time this would have been Onarkus, head of all the kitchens, but the king had sent Onarkus away, and in his seat was Driumix, promoted to be head of the soot kitchen. With a wave of his hand, Driumix permitted a lull in activity, though of course those stirring pots or turning spits kept at their work.

The woman now in charge of all the kitchens was Brinna from the bakery. I remembered her as every bit as dictatorial as Onarkus had been, and even more likely to fly off the handle, but she leavened her shouting with affection and was much better liked. My name had reached her ear far away by the baking ovens, and she came through the crowd gathering around me like the royal barge displacing smaller, less significant vessels.