by Tikiri
I looked around in wonder. I’d died and gone to kitchen-nirvana, I was sure.
“Mademoiselle,” Monsieur Wilmar said, breaking the spell. He glanced over his shoulder as if to make sure no one was listening, and stooped over me. His gray eyes pierced mine. I could smell the rich cigar smoke on his breath.
“I have only one request,” he said in a voice so bristly, it was almost a growl. Close up, his face resembled an angry bear more than a castle chef.
“All I’m going to ask is that you do not, under any circumstances, come into my kitchen or interfere with my staff. Do you understand?”
I felt my face go warm. I nodded politely.
“I do not care what special arrangements you have made with Madame Schmidt or any of our guests; I do not want to see you or your ragtag team. I do not want anyone of you to even open this door. Is that clear?”
“I didn’t mean to intrude, monsieur….”
But Monsieur Wilmar had stomped out, banging the door behind him.
I stood frozen, staring at the door.
“Quel salaud!” Luc swore. “What a bastard.”
The door opened and in came Chloe.
“Do you have everything you need?” she said in a business voice. “High tea will be served shortly, so there is not much time.”
I collected my thoughts. “Where can I find ingredients?”
“You need to talk to Monsieur Wilmar about that. I am sure he would be more than pleased to assist you.”
Oh, I don’t think so, I thought. “I know he’s busy. I don’t want to bother him. Maybe you have a pantry we could use?”
Chloe pointed at a small door, no higher than three feet, we hadn’t noticed before. “That leads to the castle cellar. But you must talk to Monsieur Wilmar before taking anything. He manages everything on this floor.”
Luc walked over and unlocked the door. It didn’t open to any room, but a darkened stairwell.
“Now, we need to discuss menu items,” Chloe said, opening a small notebook. “I can’t seem to find any correspondence from the embassy, I’m afraid. So I have no idea what you will be serving.”
“All Madame Bouchard wants are cupcakes,” I said.
“Cup cakes?”
From the corner of my eyes, I saw Luc roll his eyes.
“Small cakes in a variety of flavors and intricate decorations,” I explained. Making it all up as I went along wasn’t as easy as I’d thought. I silently crossed my fingers. “That’s what I’ve been catering for the past six months in Toronto,” I continued. This much was true. “I know exactly what she likes. And one thing she enjoys is Rémy Martin Black Pearl Grande in my black forest chocolate cake,” I blabbed.
“Black Pearl Grande Cognac?” Chloe looked startled.
I nodded, trying to look as stately as I could. She looked me over. The change in her face was obvious.
“I’m impressed,” she said, finally. “I believe both Madame Bouchard and the Grande Baroness will be delighted.”
“Thank you,” I said, with a slight bow, like the one she’d given me in the parking lot.
“Afternoon tea is served at exactly fifteen thirty hours,” she said, snapping her book shut. “You have two hours to get prepared.”
Chapter Forty-one
“Now what?” Tetyana asked.
I took a deep breath in. “We bake.”
“Bake?” Win sounded surprised.
“We gonna play cook?” Luc said.
“We can’t just go barging upstairs, can we?” I said. “We have to work our way in.”
I looked at my team of involuntary sous chefs.
“Look, if you’ve got a better plan, let me know.”
Silence.
“Okay then, here’s what we need. We need to check the cellar to see what’s in there. We need to look for cake trays, a flour sifter, mixing spoons, serving trays, and all that. And we need to find milk, butter and eggs. Maybe that’s all in the fridge. Also, we need a menu for Chloe, which I’ll do right now.”
“I’ll look for pans and things,” Katy said.
“I’ll check the fridge,” Win said.
“And I’ll check the cellar,” Tetyana said.
“I’ll come with you,” Luc said, getting up.
“Be careful,” I said, as they walked toward the wooden door and stepped down into the darkness.
Ok, now for the menu. I spotted a pen and paper pad with the castle’s logo on the counter. I pulled out one of the high stools at the countertop, took a seat, and put together a menu the Diplomatic Dragon Lady wouldn’t be able to resist. While I wrote down the ingredients list, Katy and Win rooted through the fridge and cupboards, and spent the next ten minutes getting things ready.
“It’s dusty down there.”
We looked up. It was Tetyana popping her head out of the cellar door.
“I need your ingredient list,” she said.
“Where’s Luc?” Win asked.
“Poking around the dungeons,” Tetyana said. “Well? Do you have your wish list?”
I walked over and handed it to her.
“There’s a wine cellar down there, but I couldn’t get it opened,” she said, reading my list. “But you don’t have that Black Pearl stuff on your list here.”
“You won’t find it in a cellar anyone can walk into,” I said. “One bottle’s worth twenty thousand dollars or more.”
She stared at me, her mouth open. “Twenty grand? You’re ready to waste twenty-thousand-dollar alcohol on cooking?”
“I used it only once, and only when the Dragon Lady sent a bottle with her chauffeur to make a special plate.”
“For an elite diplomatic gathering,” added Katy, “I remember that.”
“So—” Tetyana looked confused.
“So I just wanted Chloe to believe me,” I explained. “Anyway, I’m going to have to substitute now. Maybe with armagnac. Worst case, brandy. It’ll taste a bit funny, but it’ll get us in the door.”
“Look,” Tetyana, said with an exasperated sigh. “All I know is vodka. If you want a fancy bottle, you better come down yourself.” She turned and ducked back into the stairway. I put my finished menu aside and followed her.
“You guys coming too?” I asked hearing Katy and Win behind me.
“I want to see this cellar,” Katy said.
“I’m not staying in the kitchen by myself,” Win said.
We climbed down the steep, narrow steps. The ceiling was so low even Win and I had to stoop to avoid hitting our heads.
At the bottom was a cool cavern cut into the rock. Along the walls of this cave hung a string of naked bulbs that emanated a low light, enough to see our surroundings and each other. I’d had many firsts these past few days, but this was definitely a worthy first. We were in an underground pantry the size of a two-bedroom apartment.
To our immediate left stood two temperature-controlled wine fridges with clear glass doors in front. In the first fridge, I counted at least a hundred bottles of white wine, all lying on their sides. The second fridge was filled with various sizes and shapes of liquor bottles. I walked up, peered through the glass, and gasped. There’s a bottle of Black Pearl in there! I reached for the door handle and pulled, but it didn’t move. That was when I noticed the keypad on it.
“Tried it already,” Tetyana said. “Very well secured. No one can break into that.”
Win stepped up to the fridge and started to play with the keypad, a frown on her face.
I scanned the cave. The back was lined with sturdy wooden barrels, from floor to the ceiling. I stepped closer. On each barrel, written in black stencil, was a fill date and the word “vin.” Wine. Red wine. One of the barrels was dated more than a hundred years earlier. I did a double take and touched it. Is this for real? I rubbed the ink but the black lettering stayed. I managed, however, to rub a century’s worth of castle dust onto my fingers.
In the corner of the cavern stood one solitary rack that held three smaller barrels. The markings on
these said “port.” Peering through the soft light, I saw that while the wine barrels had a fine cover of dust all over, these barrels were covered in fingerprints.
There was a small shooter glass on the floor, next to this rack. I bent down to pick it up and held it to the light.
“A taster glass?” I said.
“There’s still a few drops left,” Katy said. “Someone’s just used it.”
“Maybe the fat chef comes here for a drink between jobs,” Tetyana said.
I put the glass back down gingerly, hoping Monsieur Wilmar wasn’t going to come barreling into the cellar.
Along the side walls of the cave were ancient wooden shelves filled to the rafters with bins, tin cans, and wooden caskets. Everything was neatly packed, organized, and labeled with the same stencil as on the wine barrels. I opened some of the bins and peeked inside. White flour. Wild black rice. Coffee beans. Dark chocolate slabs. What an underground heaven. Monsieur Wilmar’s the luckiest chef in the world, I thought. No wonder he’s not happy another cook’s here to share this with him.
“Is this German?” I asked, pointing at the labels on the bins.
“I think so,” Katy said, stooping to get a better look.
We both looked at Tetyana. She shook her head. “Don’t look at me. I can help if it’s Russian. You need Luc.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He said he wanted to explore. I gave him a gun, just in case.” She scanned the cavern with a frown. “Now, where did he get to?”
“I only see one door out,” Katy said, pointing to the large double door near the fridges, where Win was. She was still playing with the keypad, her head down, in total concentration.
“That must go to the main kitchen,” I said.
Tetyana walked over, opened it an inch, and closed it just as quickly. “You’re right,” she said. “Our angry fat chef is out there.”
“Guys!”
We jumped. The sound had come from the corner of the cave where the port barrel shelf stood. To our surprise, it had moved sideways and opened. A shadowy figure emerged from behind the port barrels.
“Luc!” I said.
“How did you get back there?” Katy asked. “Is that a door?”
“Where the frig have you been?” Tetyana demanded. “I said explore, not disappear.”
“You won’t believe what I found,” Luc said, motioning to us. “Come see.”
We all walked over to where he was standing. The small shelf with the port barrels was a stealth door, and behind it was a gaping black entrance going somewhere into the belly of the castle. Luc shone his torch down the shaft, lighting a flight of rough steps leading into darkness.
“Where does it go?” Win asked in a whisper.
“Dungeons!” Luc said, using a fake scary voice.
“How did you find this?” I asked.
“I was looking for that Black Pearl stuff,” he said, looking at me. “Couldn’t get that fridge to open, so I checked out the wine barrels. Cognac, old wine, what’s the difference, I thought.”
How can he even compare? But I didn’t say anything.
“I pulled out some of the stoppers to see if the wine was any good.”
“You opened the wine barrels?” I asked.
“Wanted to see what hundred-year-old wine tasted like.” He said defensively. “Come on. I’m French.”
“So, was it any good?” Katy asked.
“Acceptable.” He shrugged. “Tasted like good table wine to me.”
“Might as well drink vodka,” Tetyana said more to herself than us.
“I saw these barrels that said port,” Luc continued. “I pulled out the stopper to try a bit of that too but the whole thing came apart. Just like that. Thought it was gonna fall on top of me, but it opened like this.” He waved at the doorway in front of us.
“And there’s nothing to drink in here,” Luc said, tapping one of the port barrels and getting a hollow sound.
“Wow,” I said. “It’s a secret door.”
“Impressive,” Katy said.
“Scary,” Win said.
“Maybe,” Tetyana said, looking thoughtfully at the doorway. “Maybe, we can find a way to the upper floors from there. Then, we can cut out all those middle men and talk to the Dragon Diplomat directly.”
“But this goes down, not up,” Katy pointed out.
Luc was looking at Tetyana. “You know, you could be right,” he said. “Old castles had hidden tunnels from the bedrooms upstairs to the cellars below, so the royals could escape attacks.”
Tetyana nodded. “Faster than trying to fight those kitchen bureaucrats.”
They both looked at me. “Sure, let’s check it out,” I said.
“Is it safe?” Win asked, peering down the shaft.
“As sturdy as rock,” Luc said, tapping the wall. “Must have stayed like this for centuries. You get right behind me and you’ll be safer than anyone else alive.”
Following Luc’s torchlight, one by one we clambered down ten steps to a landing, one much smaller than the pantry above us.
“This way,” Luc said, stepping into a corridor leading out of this small chamber. All around us was rough-cut naked rock. The only light we had was Luc’s little torch. My only comfort was we were all together, and Tetyana and Luc each had a gun. Though that did little to help the claustrophobia rising in me.
We followed Luc silently, huddling as close together as we could without tripping over each other. The passageway gradually became narrower and steeper. I shivered. It was damp and cold. We climbed down another slippery stairway, holding on to a rough iron railing that must have been installed eons ago.
After a minute, we came to a fork. One tunnel went dead straight ahead, darkness swallowing the end. The second tunnel twisted steeply into a dark abyss below. Neither looked appealing. “That’s a dead end,” Luc said, pointing to the tunnel going straight. “We’re going down. Get in single file, it’s a bit narrow here.” With that, he stepped into the darkness.
Visions of strange subterranean monsters sprung to mind. Why would anyone do this for fun? I thought, remembering the tourist brochures for dungeons and castle tunnels back at Luxembourg’s city hostel. It was so quiet down here, I could hear everyone breathing. Who knows what creatures are down here? Ones that prey on humans, I thought. They can probably smell my sweaty fear from a mile away.
We finally reached the bottom of the stairwell. We were now in a large and open space. Latched roughly on one wall was a thick wooden door. A pale yellow light seeped in through the cracks of the doorway, allowing us to see each other better, a welcome relief from the darkness of the tunnels we’d trekked through.
“This door?” Tetyana asked, surveying it closely.
“Opens to the bottom of the parking lot,” Luc said. “This is the perfect place to dig an escape tunnel from upstairs. I didn’t have time to explore because I knew you guys would get worried. Maybe there’s a doorway somewhere.”
“Wouldn’t it be obvious?” I said. “Like staring-in-our-face obvious?”
“No,” he said. “They were secret doors, so the slaves and servants couldn’t find their way upstairs.”
He stepped up to the wall and started to tap it.
“Are you serious?” Katy asked.
We watched him work like this for a few seconds, then the rest of us joined in, tapping here and there, poking into holes between rocks and pushing anything that jutted out. It was Win who found the entrance.
Next to what looked like a large crack in the wall was a simple wooden doorknob, the same color as the rock. She gave a cry as she discovered it, and we all gathered around her. It took several tries to open the door with all of us heaving in unison. It looked like it hadn’t been used in decades, maybe centuries.
Luc shone his torch into the pitch-black darkness and shook his head. It was another staircase, this one going all the way to the middle of the earth, it seemed.
“That’s not going up to the b
edrooms,” Tetyana said, shaking her head in disappointment.
“It’s going to the catacombs,” Luc said. A few steps below us, and lit up by his torch, lay a human skull.
Chapter Forty-two
Luc shut the door and looked at us grimly.
“What now?” Katy asked.
“Back to Plan A,” Tetyana said, giving me a slight nod.
“Better start moving then,” I said.
Luc led us back up the narrow staircase, through the tunnels, and to the pantry chamber. When we got there, he pushed open the port barrel shelf and peeked in to double-check if anyone was in the cellar. But the cave was empty.
We got to work, gathering our supplies, including pastry flour, baker’s chocolate slabs, baking powder, and icing sugar. I asked Luc to find a decanter to pour half a liter of the hundred-year-old wine to substitute for the cognac. It was not at all ideal, but I had to invent.
“How come you don’t want to use this?” Win asked. I whirled around to see her holding the shiny black bottle of Rémy Martin Black Pearl Grande. Behind her, the fridge door was wide open.
“Did you just open that?” Katy asked.
Win nodded, and like it was the most perfectly normal thing, walked over and handed me the bottle of the twenty-thousand-dollar Cognac.
I cradled it in my arms. “Tha-thanks,” I stammered.
“Wow,” Luc said, staring at her. “You’re really good.”
Win looked away demurely and closed the fridge door. “It was easy,” she said.
“You’re a super whiz,” I said, finding my voice. “I’m so glad you’re with us. Thank you, Win!”
“Good job,” Tetyana said, patting Win on her back. “And my plan was to shoot that lock if I had to.”
Carrying our supplies, we walked up the steps in single file, back to the kitchenette. It was Katy, at the front of the line, who made the discovery.
“Door’s locked,” I heard her say.
“Lemme try,” Luc, who was right behind her, said. I heard rattling, banging, then swearing in French.
“What’s wrong with this damn door?” More rattling. “Someone’s locked it!”