Dragon Soup, page 8
But the Bureau had suspended all inspections, and even if they resumed, there was little chance that he was going to be the one inspecting the venue, after the blunder he’d made asking Inspector Carbin about it.
He had to do things differently.
Maybe the older inn owners knew that there were no inspections during the fair, but Laeticia was new and inexperienced.
That might be his opportunity. He could stage a fake inspection that looked official. Or he could just wander in with the magic sniffers without actually saying it was an inspection, when Laeticia’s inexperience would mean she would think it was official, lacking knowledge about the need for prior notification. To top it off, magic inspectors didn’t wear uniforms--they really should, he thought, but he suspected it was something to do with the politics of not officially being part of the city guard. But meanwhile, lacking a uniform, unless he told her he was inspecting, she wouldn’t know that for sure.
Maybe he could even fake the notification.
He spent most of the next day thinking about how he was going to do this. He could write an official letter that an inspection was due. The official stamp Inspector Carbin used for these notices lay on her desk, and there was a copy of this stamp in the duplicate room, where office clerks dutifully sat copying and filing the department’s correspondence.
He even came to work early with a document prepared to use the stamp, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. If he did this, he would transgress from merely being interested to doing something illegal, and his actions could invalidate a legal process if it turned out that someone was indeed doing something illegal.
He only knew this because one of Atreyo’s suppliers had been caught this way. He suspected a competitor was doing something illegal, which turned out to be the case, but a court case couldn’t proceed because the man had done something illegal in order to make a case against his competitor. So the competitor got away with it. Atreyo’s supplier had to pay for the case and nothing was solved.
Seriously, why on Earth someone would voluntarily go through the courts was a mystery to Perrin.
Not only that, it could cost him his job.
But he did want to investigate the new inn, so he settled on doing the next best thing: he visited the eating house as a customer.
He did this when he was on his way home after the next day where he and Verbena spent inspecting the town hall. The Fair’s venue now resembled a marketplace with stalls and racks of outlandish outfits. It was busy, and inspecting all the stalls was a nightmare of “lost” documents, locked boxes that needed keys that were left in inn rooms, and other thinly veiled excuses. It was very tiring.
Again, the Traveller’s Rest was packed, but he had noticed that there tended to be a brief period in between the afternoon break and dinner that the crowds waned.
The girl Laeticia saw him come in from where she stood on the other side of the dining room. She looked very classy, quite out of place for someone of her standing. It was hard to imagine she had been a waitress recently.
Perrin found a table by the window, one of only two empty spots. He pulled back one of the two chairs and set the magic sniffer cage on it and sat on the other chair. He glanced at the menu written in chalk on a board.
Wow, they really weren’t cheap.
Laeticia came across the dining room.
“Welcome to my humble establishment. Is there anything we can help you with?”
She glanced at the magic sniffers.
“No, just a soup and some bread.” He couldn’t find a reference to dragon soup, so he ordered Traveller’s soup. Maybe she got the message. Maybe not. He didn’t even know if she remembered him.
She took his order, brought him a small tray with a few crackers and a bowl of olive butter and told him his order would not be far off.
Perrin put some butter on a cracker and bit into it while looking around the room. Hmmm, it was very nice.
Apart from the usual guests, including those who were visitors to the Dressmakers’ Fair, there were also some groups of people—men mostly—who appeared to be part of a larger group. He spotted them spread across four or five tables, all of them in deep discussion with books of notes open on the table. They were locals, businessmen and administrators, even if Perrin wasn’t familiar with any of them.
What were they all talking about?
He studied the groups, looking from one to the other and back, until he spotted someone lifting a sheet of paper on which the words campaign plan were legible. The rest of the page contained many messily written dot points.
Ah. Election campaign.
The soup arrived not much later, brought to the table by a young male waiter in a spotless uniform and a youthful sway in his step.
For the—admittedly outrageous—price, he got a big, deep plate filled to the rim of rich, dark soup. A second plate contained a honey-coloured bread roll that left a circle of condensation on the plate as evidence that it had just come out of the oven.
“Careful, it’s hot,” the waiter said, regarding Perrin from half-closed eyes.
“Thank you,” Perrin said.
The waiter turned around and made his way back across the dining room, swaying his hips.
What a hunk.
Perrin picked up the spoon and took a tiny sip from the soup.
It was hot.
It was rich and salty.
It was tangy and full of flavour that reminded him of the ocean, of wild forests, of riding on the train with the carriage window open.
So much flavour, so much richness.
Vegetables at the bottom of the plate were cooked, but not mushy. The little flour balls that cooks added to soups to provide extra substance were firm and salty, not gluggy and all stuck together. Strips of meat were soft and tasty, not sinewy.
It was worth every bit of the outrageous price.
The bread steamed when he broke it into pieces. Soft on the inside, crispy on the outside, but not too crispy. It came with a small jar of olive paste that was beautiful and aromatic.
It was a simple meal, but even if he’d eaten in exotic and much more expensive places than this, it was the best meal he’d ever eaten.
Clearly Laeticia was a superb cook, and the customers had followed her to the new place because of it.
While he was eating, she walked past several times asking if all was fine. The third time, when he was almost finished, she said to him, “The kitchen is ready for you, if you want.”
“Ready?”
She nodded at the cage.
He’d been so off with the fairies that he forgot that this was why he’d come here: that she was so inexperienced that she didn’t know he had to send a notification before he could inspect.
But now she assumed that this was the reason for his visit, he wasn’t sure what to say. It was obvious to him why this place was so popular. Did he even want to inspect anymore?
But yes, he had to force himself to remember, the issue was not the quality of the food, it was how she’d paid for the inn.
So he rose and took the cage.
Laeticia led him into the kitchen where it was also very busy and hot. Two men stood slaving over a hot stove, while kitchen hands were cutting up vegetables on the central table. The kitchen looked nice and well designed, because it was new.
“This is the inspector from the Bureau of Magic Abuse,” Laeticia said to the staff. They all nodded politely and went back to their work. Perrin saw nothing untoward.
He set the cage on top of the central bench and opened one of the cage doors.
It was Fergus’ turn.
“Oh, it’s wearing a jacket,” Laeticia said in a forced tone. Was she nervous?
The magic sniffer jumped out, vaulted off the central bench onto the floor, and ran into the pantry.
Now it was just a matter of waiting.
Everyone in the room was watching him. Perrin wasn’t sure what to do, and he definitely didn’t want any of the staff to raise the subject of prior notice, or that the timing of this inspection was odd, being after close of business, so he tried to pass the time by filling in some of his reports.
But there wasn’t terribly much to fill in, because the establishment had no previous records that needed to be checked.
Which meant he had to make small talk.
“I understand things are going quite well,” he said.
“I can’t complain,” Laeticia said.
“Don’t be too modest. I’ve seen the queues outside the door.”
“It’s just because of the Dressmaker’s Fair. Everyone likes trying new places.”
They were just making small talk.
“What made you want to start your own business?” Perrin asked.
“I’ve always wanted to, and I got an opportunity when some money came my way.”
“How did that happen?”
“There was an uncle that I didn’t know existed and he left me some money when he died.”
“Was this anyone in town?” Perrin asked.
He was probably going outside of his brief with his line of questioning, but on the other hand, these were the sorts of questions that he would often ask people. He had been in business after all, and people talked like this.
“Oh no, this was someone from a neighbouring kingdom. My mother came from there, or rather her family did, long ago. This uncle didn’t have any relatives, so after a long time, they found out that I was the only living relative.”
“That must be nice to discover that.”
“It sure was.”
Did she figure out that he didn’t believe a word she said?
Fergus returned in the doorway to the pantry, carrying a piece of bread in his mouth. He ran to the middle of the floor and proceeded to eat the bread while sitting on his hind legs. Not exactly a big, flashing warning about the presence of magic.
Perrin flapped his hand. “Kshhhh!”
Fergus took the bread in his mouth again and scurried into the cage.
No hissing and bushed-up tail.
“Is that all?” Laeticia asked.
“Well, if the sniffer gives it the all clear, you’re fine. Can I check if it hasn’t made a mess of your pantry?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
Perrin went to the pantry door and looked in. Everything looked in order, with jars and bags neatly on the shelf, vinegar, spices and cooking wine on the shelf, large bags on the floor and two large vats. One was covered with a lid, but the lid of the other one leaned against the shelf behind it. The fluid inside was dark, with drops of oil floating on the surface.
“That’s a lot of olives,” he said.
“Yeah. They’re very popular with customers.”
She scooped into the vat and held the spoon up. He could almost smell the wonderful olive paste that had come with his bread.
From memory, people pickled olives in salty water, but these had a spicy tang.
“It smells good.”
“Do you want one?”
Perrin almost took one, but remembered Inspector Carbin’s reminders about not eating at work. He could just about hear her voice yelling at him, Not only did you fake an inspection, but you accepted food at work.
“No, thank you. I’m not a fan of olives.”
Although he was, and the olive paste that she had served with the bread had been excellent.
That was why he the business was such a roaring success: the food really was excellent.
He couldn’t see any other reasons to stay in the room or ask more questions.
“That was all. Your business will now be slotted in to the regular schedule of inspections. You will get a notification a couple of days before an inspection is due. Thank you for your time.”
Perrin walked out, feeling that he had missed something, but having no idea what.
Chapter 11
Perrin thought about the delicious soup all night. During the next day, while doing his inspections, he checked often how much money he carried in his pocket, not that checking it often changed the amount. He longed for another serve of that delicious soup and the only thing that kept him from joining the queues outside the Traveller’s Rest was the fact that he had to work and that he was with Verbena, who told him she never went to any of those places, because her family needed the money she earned to pay the rent and buy food, and they couldn’t afford frivolous luxuries.
She was very good at making him feel guilty about it, too.
And he did feel guilty, even if just for wanting to return to the Traveller’s Rest.
Every time he came past an eating house, he could smell the wonderful soup. When he came past a bakery, he remembered biting into that bread—crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. And shops where they sold spices just weren’t the same without that beautiful home-made olive paste.
He had to stop himself turning into a street that would take him back to the inn several times, and he probably would have, had it not been for Verbena’s presence. Without her, he would have joined the queue outside the eating house, drooling over the menu that stood outside.
It was ridiculous.
He realised halfway through the day: there had to be some magic trickery involved, even if the magic sniffer had found nothing.
He decided he would not go back, but visit The Happy Dragon instead.
Little money as he had, he resisted the temptation to go back for soup, and oh, he had force himself back so hard, and instead intended to drop into The Happy Dragon after work. Columbina was a decent businesswoman, and she deserved better than a half-empty dining room while the queue for nextdoor blocked the entrance.
He asked if Verbena wanted to come, and that he’d pay, but she laughed and said she had to look after her nephews and had no time besides having no money.
Perrin shouldn’t be going out for dinner, either, but coming to a place like this reminded him of his former life, and a level of sophistication he wanted to regain.
For that the inspectors were supposed to move in the circles of the town’s inns and guest houses, they didn’t get to use—much less understand—any of them.
They were just doing their jobs as told, young people with little experience, too dependent on their weekly pay to question what they were doing.
He thought the inspectors should be made to work in an eating house as part of their training, so that they understood what went on behind the scenes, and that they understood that there was simply no guarantee that a fancy cake or spice mix you bought contained no traces of magic that made it desirable. And that way, they might trace the people who brought magic into town, rather than just to deal with the inn owners who were not at fault.
Columbina herself came to bring Perrin the tea and savoury pastries he ordered.
“Busy?” Perrin asked.
“You’re kidding? They are doing so well next door that we’re going to have to close if this continues. This is supposed to be our best time of the year, with the shows and festivals going on, but I’ve had to lay off two wait staff.”
“Just because of next door? It can’t be all that bad.”
“You want to see my books? All the customers prefer to go there for their meals. They might just have tea or a light lunch before going to dinner nextdoor. It’s like they’re bewitched and they don’t want to come to us anymore.”
Unease crept over him. He didn’t admit that he’d visited the competition and experienced the incredible food. The Traveller’s Rest used magic, he was sure of that. If only he could prove it.
“Do you know exactly why Laeticia left? Did you hear anything about how she came into the money?”
“I heard a rumour that she got an inheritance. Of course, now she won’t talk to me anymore, even if we were always on friendly terms.”
At least that part coincided with what Laeticia and Dorella had told him.
“An inheritance? Just like that? From a rich member of the family that she never knew about and it just turned up on her doorstep?”
“Apparently.”
“That is nonsense. You may know that I am due an inheritance.”
“Yes, I’m sorry about that.”
“The Dianello family is doing everything they possibly can to make sure I don’t get my hands on any money. And they will probably win. The rich don’t just give out money to anyone, no matter how honestly deserved. And commoners do not have rich family members across the border they never knew about. These types of people can’t get into the realms. And even if, by some remote chance, she did have a rich family member across the border, they would do their utmost best to make sure that the money didn’t leave the realm.”
“I agree, but it is what I heard, sorry.”
It was also what Laeticia was obviously keen to tell everyone.
He met Columbina’s eyes. “I’ll tell you what I have seen. You remember that stranger who came into your inn and made a fuss that the dragon soup didn’t contain dragon meat?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure. We get a lot of strange characters at this time of the year. They ask for the most ridiculous things. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone complains the dragon soup doesn’t contain dragons. Most do this as a joke. I’m thinking of getting a mould cutter made so that I can cut slices of carrot into dragon shapes.”
“You should do that. Then you have dragon soup with real dragons.”
She gave a wry smile. A sad smile.
“This out of town stranger—I’m sure he is a wizard—came in when I was here for the inspection. The guy left Laeticia a tip of two gold coins.”
Columbina’s eyes widened. “Two whole gold coins?”
“I saw it. She put them in her pocket. He said something else to her, but I didn’t hear what. There was also a note. I followed him to Bella’s inn and sent a magic sniffer after him. The creature upset Riana, who was in his room. I didn’t realise until later that it had also been spooked by magic. The man is a wizard. He gave two gold coins to a serving girl. He is still in town. I’ve seen him with some organisers of the Dressmaker’s Fair.”
“I didn’t know about the other stuff, but two gold coins is a lot of money for a tip, but hardly enough to buy an inn.”
