The cook scurried along the passage trying to look invisible, which wasn't easy for a man of his height and solidness. And in one hand he held a sack that looked well filled but from the way it bounced about was not heavy. He made it to the kitchen unobserved, and entering, placed the sack in a corner out of sight, while looking sternly at the thin young woman, little more than a girl, who sat at the wooden trestle table grinding walnuts in a stone bowl.
"You may go, Gila," he said to the young woman, who looked at him in wide-eyed surprise.
"Oh," she said uncertainly, "But . . ."
"Gila. Go," he said firmly, his brows furrowing in a way that indicated he was annoyed.
She hesitated still, but then muttered, "Thank you, Mark. Oh, thank you," and scurried out, eager to get out of sight, before her usually demanding master changed his mind.
Mark was the cook, but also a winemaker and herbalist, a man with many skills and of much importance in that house and in the ancient world.
"Humph," Mark mumbled. "If he doesn't come with me I am going anyway," he said to the empty room as he reached under the table Gila had been sitting at.
He pulled out a large wicker basket on leather straps that hooked over a man's shoulders, letting him carry the basket on his back. And lifting the cover off it and pulling a small square of linen out he poured the half crushed walnuts from the stone bowl into it and folded the cloth up, making a neat parcel.
"Yarron will hate to know I have taken food from his house, almost as much as he will hate me if I take Salus from him," the cook mumbled, as he placed the small parcel of nuts securely among the basket's contents.
As Mark was pushing the basket back out of sight, a young male servant entered the room carrying an empty jug. "Yarron has moved on to some entertainment with your young friend, whom he plans on sharing about generously when they return from this celebration at David's house," the servant said, as he set the jug on a high shelf.
"How many of them are there?" the cook asked worriedly.
"Five, of course, Goron and his brother, Joseph, and our three young men. They are also talking of Old Peter's daughter," the young man replied before he hesitated and blushed, "Talking of . . . of making some fun with her on their way back, and . . . I may . . . if I can get out of course. Can I go and warn her? Her father, . . . he, well you know he is a drunk; he will be no protection for her."
"Go. Go," the cook said, " Do what you can, but be here in the morning at first light. I doubt they will return before then, but if you are not here, you know what can happen."
"Well, I do, Mark," the servant replied, and spat into the smoldering fire. "Though I will not have to suffer as young Barabus did," he said. " But there are worse masters than Yarron, as well as better."
"True," the cook replied. But when the young servant had gone, he added, "But not many are worse by my reckoning, certainly not for poor Barabus."
Shortly afterward another servant hurried in, this one older, with his eyes slitted and his mouth slack. He was carrying another jug and several empty platters, which he hurriedly dumped on a high shelf, "There will be some fun tonight," he muttered, avoiding the cooks eyes and hurrying off, his hand gripping his hard pole through his short tunic even as he left the room. He was obviously hard and throbbing and in need of release.
"May the gods give Yarron the wasting sickness," the cook, Mark, cursed as he paced about the kitchen anxiously.
He muttered and looked at the doorway and occasionally went out into the passageway and listened, but each time he returned to the kitchen to continue his pacing and occasional mutterings.
Then Salus was suddenly coming through the doorway looking pale. "I believe all you have said about what befell poor Barabus," he said to Mark. "Yarron would have them all use me, when they return. Roughly, I have no doubt. I am afraid of what might happen to me, afraid that the injuries Barabus suffered . . ."
