twin rows of servants bearing food. Each was carrying our starters, which of late had been clear soups, or small bowls of white rice. His favorite, to date, had been a broth poured over hot, flat noodles that we’d not seen replicated, but hope sprang eternal in his simple heart.
It was rather sweet, really. He was so earnest.
That night, it seemed, we were all in for rather a lovely surprise, as what the servants put down in front of each of us was a round dish with three cooked dumplings in the center. They were floating in an inch of delicious-smelling broth, and looked plump, as if they’d burst as soon as you attempted to pick one up. They weren’t fried, like the kind we’d enjoyed in the capital, but they looked just as mouthwatering. I sincerely hoped that Alcibiades would find three an ample number.
“You must be very careful with these,” Lord Temur counseled us. He had a rather pleased look about his eyes and mouth, which I supposed passed for a large and winning smile among Ke-Han warlords. He knew as well as I did that dumplings were Alcibiades’ preferred fare, at least when it came to Ke-Han delicacies. “The soup that they are filled with is quite hot, and you will burn your tongue while eating them, unless you take the proper care.”
“Armphg,” said Alcibiades, waving a hand in front of his mouth and reaching for the water pitcher like a man possessed. His cheeks were nearly so red as to match his coat.
Josette hid a laugh behind her hand and eyed her own dumplings with considerably more circumspection.
“That is most prudent advice,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You must eat them like this,” Lord Temur said, once Alcibiades had emptied two glasses of water, and his eyes were less bright, his cheeks less crimson. “If you place it on your spoon, and pierce the wrapper like so with the end of your stick, the broth inside will fill your spoon like soup, making it far easier to cool with your breath.”
There was a moment’s silence after that as Josette, Alcibiades, and I all endeavored to follow Lord Temur’s sage advice. After some demure—and not so demure, in Alcibiades’ case—slurping, we’d managed the dumplings well enough; the broth inside was nearly sweet for a tantalizing moment, before it turned spicy, and we were all pleasantly surprised.
“I have endeavored to counsel the cooks in their choices for each evening’s repast,” Lord Temur said, before he set to work on his own dumplings. “I would not want our esteemed guests to go hungry.”
“More dumplings,” Alcibiades said, with a winning smile.
Lord Temur inclined his head in recognition of the request. “I shall take it under advisement.”
“Seems odd, though,” Alcibiades went on, not entirely tactlessly; he simply sounded curious, “that a man like you would be in the position of telling cooks what to do. Isn’t that a little below your station?”
I saw Josette’s fingers twitch in her lap, but Lord Temur merely smiled his diplomat’s smile—the one that revealed nothing and which even I failed in attempting to parse. The Ke-Han warlords were impossible to read, rolled up tight as forbidden scrolls, and even more tormenting because of it.
“Since it seemed that you were having such trouble with our earlier meals, General Alcibiades, I only wished to make things easier on your stomach,” Lord Temur declared. If I hadn’t known better, I might have said he was enjoying our conversation—not because of the topic, mind, but rather because of its blunt honesty. Perhaps he needed a little more of that in his life. Perhaps we all did. “Noodles and broth and dumplings seem better suited to your tastes than some of the other, less familiar delicacies our chefs have to offer.”
“I’ve eaten some pretty awful things in my time,” Alcibiades said, “but at least it was Volstovic and awful, if you take my meaning.”
“Somehow I think I do,” Lord Temur replied dryly.
Our conversation was sadly cut short as the second course arrived, and then the third—rice and rice noodles and more fish, which Alcibiades was leery of until hunger got the better of him. Thankfully, the business of eating kept him momentarily quiet, although he did lean over and intimate to me, in the midst of a particularly tricky portion of catfish lined with countless little bones, that he missed a good tea-cake more than anything, and didn’t these Ke-Han have proper sweets?
“I don’t think you need any more sweets,” I replied,