The Ninth Ingredient

Chapter 1-2

Henri finished restacking the cookies again as he positioned the plate under a large beam of sun. At least they shimmered. Shellacked in powdered sugar. Perhaps the sugar would disguise the lack of flavor? Henri had tried one of his cookies and the batter had clung to his tongue and the roof of his mouth like a large garden snail. He hadn’t been able to stomach it. He’d fed the rest to the kitchen tabby. The beast had grumbled while choking it down.

Well, hopefully the chocolate sauce drink or whatever Alix was concocting could cut through his wretched angel wings. Henri backed away from the head chefs table. It was positioned at the center of the royal kitchen, elevated on a platform meant to aid in demonstrations. The only thing it did this morning was shine sunlight on how awful Henri’s breakfast cookies looked. The open flames of the hearths suddenly seemed inviting.

The wooden doors to the kitchen blew open.

“It is truly an Italian Invasion!” Though raised, the voice melted like honey in the ears. Every apprentice must’ve felt the sweet buzzing in their heads, for it almost intoxicated Henri. This was the voice of a man who had mastered meringue, sculpted stained glass of sugar. Turned ordinary gingerbread boys into knights with a flashy rosewater glaze. This was the man who had captured the tongue of the king himself.

André de Quitte-Beauf.

Damn.

Henri wished for a carriage made of steam to carry him up and away. Of all the mornings of October, why must André descend to the kitchen today? Though it was rumored André had begun here, it was said he climbed the ranks fast as smoke. Dazzling with every dish he served.

Henri’s eyes flicked down to his heap of limp cookies. Alix was nervously ladling his steaming chocolate into the goblets placed.

“The Italians have not only besotted our castles with their columns and frescos, but now they are trying to take our desserts.” André paused. “You should’ve seen the court raving over that little Medici’s pâtissiers and their treats.”

It was too late to toss the angel wings, Henri realized. André was already making his way up the steps to the head chef’s table. Behind him the rest of the chefs followed. Nodding emphatically at everything he said, as if their heads were filled with nothing but breadcrumbs. They wore their caps and colorless tunics stained and singed from years over the fires. They moved as one gelatinous thing. Not a single chef distinguishable from another as they huddled in a group behind André de Quitte-Beauf.

Like a roving pudding. No, precisely like the Quaking Pudding, Henri thought. They were nothing but a blob of stale rosewater and crushed walnuts. It brought him pleasure to see his instructors so diminished.

Only André stood out, uncapped and in a tunic of sky-blue with slitted puffy sleeves bursting gold satin. Henri’s shoes felt gummed to the planks. He didn’t want to step-down. The sun seemed to shine brighter with André there. Henri was embraced in the warmth and hope. Maybe his angel wings would fly down the throat of André and ignite the royal pâtissier’s guts with pleasure.

André continued. “And Lord Montaigne wants a winter festival in anticipation of his first son’s birth with a grand prize going to the best dessert. I know the little toadess is going to have her Italians whip up something special. She is going to try to bewitch the kingdom through their throats. Well, I refuse to let this happen.”

André plopped down in a chair as if it were bedroom pouffe. Like a kettle he seemed to have released all his steam and now needed time to refill.

“What is this?” André held up his goblet as if it was a rat dredged from a porridge. He lifted it below his nose, whiffing hesitantly. Henri watched André’s nostrils flare and his heart thrashed in his ribcage. Surely this man of magnificent taste would realize Henri’s incalculable genius.

Henri didn’t need the head chefs to like his cookies. They wouldn’t understand it. Too many years among the curdling creams and candied pine nuts. Their tongues had turned. But not André, he would taste it. Sure, Henri’s angel wings hadn’t crisped in the butter, nor kept their shape. Even now the powdered sugar seemed to be seeping into the batter. It was no matter. André would see what Henri could offer. He would perceive the raw talent in the undercooked…

Henri licked his lips in anticipation. Perhaps he should serve André his cookie first. He wanted to toss off his cap too, see if the sun could kiss his hair till it turned into a blonde halo such as André’s.

Alix had been too nervous to answer with anything but a gurgling in his guts.

“Boy, I’ll ask you again, what is this?” André’s green eyes flitted over the bowed heads of the chefs. Henri held his breath, watching. Alix had finished serving the rest of the table, but the hand holding the ladle shook.

Alix turned, keeping his eyes down. “Uhh…it’s Cortes’ Chocolate drunk by the Kings of Spain, from the New World.”

Alix paused, his face blanching whiter than a flour-smacked rolling pin. A sound erupted from his guts. What started as a gurgle pushed its way to freedom in an explosion of gas. Henri gasped. Truly this was one of Alix’s nightmares, which Henri had somehow been roped into. The boy’s sleep was plagued with nightmares and his weeping had pissed off many in the dormitory at night.

Was Henri still asleep too? Was it possible? Had he still the chance to redo his angel wings? Maybe he would need a different butter, change the batter. What was the temperature the cookies preferred? Henri was answered with a few wet plops. Alix froze like a custard.

The head chefs glanced at each other, gob smacked. The apprentices held onto their tools like torches in the dark. Not a single sauce dared to bubble. Henri didn’t think. It just came out with a smile, “May we present the royal kitchen’s finest apprentice, Alix the Chocolatier! His secret is he makes his puddings from both ends!”

Was that a gasp or a hiss?

Henri was confused. There was no thunderous applause from André. No laugh like an avalanche of honey. Just silence. Even the apprentices had remained tight-lipped. Not a single giggle.

Just the sound of a sobbing Alix leaping off the platform and fleeing, still carrying his pot and dripping ladle. Henri’s watched Alix run. Where his mouse tail should’ve been was a dark puddle growing. Down Alex’s bare calves ran a juice reeking of the internal sour-sweet of men.

“And who might you be?”

Henri turned his head slowly. The honey voice seemed to be addressing him directly. His palms bloomed with sweat and he clasped them behind his back bowing his head. Now was his moment. The beginning of it all. André would know him by name! He took a deep breath, savoring the moment. His first contact with the Great André de Quitte-Beauf, Royal Pâtissier to the King.

“I’m…I’m…I’m…I’m…I’m…”

Henri’s sentence was sliced in half by Chef de Malicorne, “He’s just an apprentice.”

Henri face went scarlet. Just. An. Apprentice. Henri’s hands ached for anything sharp. The chefs were already blind, they wouldn’t miss their eyes.

“Henri’s got an uncle at court who recommended him to the apprenticeship.” Chef de Pectu grinned.

“Oh.” André nodded deeply.

The “Oh” felt like a crown of bee stings, puncturing Henri’s heart. Others had been helped with a blood relation or uncle. In fact, the veins of the courts sprang from mostly the same families. The insinuation was unwarranted. Henri was certainly not the worst apprentice. His anger stuttered as he looked up into the face of André. The chef’s face had remained unlined through all his years of celebrity at court. Like a fresh cheesecloth with a pair of sunken, shelled pistachios for eyes. Henri felt crucified upon them. Each one, a green nail driving deeper into his palms.

This wasn’t happening. This was not how he was going to meet André de Quitte-Beauf. Henri watched the chef shift his gaze to the pile of angel wings.

Henri had been wrong. This was not Alix’s nightmare, but his own.

André’s entire chin lifted, as if wanting to spare his eyes a full view of the platter. His nostrils flared then pinched closed. His eyes too. Everyone needed to exhale, but they didn’t dare till André passed judgment.

“The boy who tried to concoct the Spaniard’s drink. Once he’s cleaned up, have him sent to the little toadess’ pantry. They’re down an Italian. Apparently our climate is caustic on their system.”

Henri detected a hint of pleasure, but the pâtissier’s lips remained a pinched line of crust.

“And you…” André’s eyes opened on Henri. The apprentice gasped, for it was like looking into twin suns. They blasted over his body, with the heat of a thousand furnaces. Henri wanted to look away, but he couldn’t.

“Your talents seem to lie,” the chef paused letting it sink in, flicking his hand in the direction of Henri’s platter of soggy cookies, “not in the kitchen. I will not have an Italian win Lord Montaigne’s prize. Now, I know the Italian pâtissier’s will present this gelato.”

André spat the word out like putrid milk.

Henri felt it splatter against his soul, seeping into his bones like a strong marinade.

Gelato.

Henri had never heard the word before, but it sounded lighter than wings, more airy than the thick batters and glazes of the kitchen.

Gelato.

“Be a good nephew and secure the recipe. You have a week.” André de Quitte-Beauf gave one final look at Henri’s angel wings before rising from the table. “Don’t come back without it.”