Beatrice said gently, “Come, it cannot be so bad.”
“My mother wanted to be God’s bride, but her father would not have it. He feared what God would do to him when He discovered what kind of a wife he’d raised his daughter to be. So he married my mother to an organ builder who drank too much. She raised me on music. Before I could say ‘Mama,’ I could play a sonata. Every waking moment I practiced. I gave her little whip the name Tooth, for it bit.”
“For this I am sorry,” I said. Beatrice made small sympathy sounds, and Gretta covered her mouth.
“Are you sorry, Beatrice?” Choirmaster asked with much feeling.
“Choirmaster, your music reminds me of every sad thought I ever had,” she said. “Your music would wrench the heart of the devil himself. Perhaps if you made your music . . . happier, you would hear your mother’s voice less, and someone could comfort your heart.”
“There can be no comfort for me but from my music,” he said dolefully. And he sat down at the organ to play so sad a tune that I had to hurry away.
Gretta and Beatrice soon caught up with me.
“Well, you tried,” Gretta said.
“It must be Ben,” I said. “The eye only waits to see if I can make a pie tasty enough to win Best Cook. I’m sure of it.”
Beatrice patted my arm. “Rest. Later we will think about pies.”
I shook my head, and though my whole body was weary, I did not slow my pace.
“There is no time. Tomorrow is the fair, and if there is any possibility I will live to see it, today I must make pies.”
Grandmother was in the garden when we arrived home, and looking so well that it cheered my heart and gave me renewed strength. I started on squash pie.
Just as I was finishing, someone knocked at the door. Gretta rose to answer it. When she opened the door, there stood Ben Marshall with another baby-sized squash in his arms. With a wooden spoon in one hand and a whisk in the other, I beamed at him. Behind him was Padmoh, and in her arms were several bunches of lettuce.
“Come in, Ben,” Grandmother said, “and you, Padmoh. We are just about to feast upon a pie Keturah made from your delicious squash, Ben. Sit, sit, both of you. How fortunate we are that you grow such big squashes, Ben, for then you have much to share.”
“I’ve brought another. Keturah, you are dusted all over with flour. You look so ... pretty.”
Oh, handsome Ben, I thought. Good, solid Ben—but would I always have to be covered in flour and sugar to be beautiful to him? It made me more tired to think of it. Still, he was very handsome.
“I thought what a generous thing it was of Ben to bring squashes to the poor,” Padmoh said, “so I offered to carry lettuces. And besides, Mother Marshall bade me come.”
Ben looked at her as if she were a stray cat that had followed him home. Grandmother served them portions of the pie I had made, and Ben set right to eating.
“I am practicing for the cooking contest tomorrow,” I said, dearly wishing there would be a tomorrow.
Padmoh sat down, too, and gingerly took a taste.
“It’s delicious,” Ben said after a mouthful.
“There is a certain aftertaste,” Padmoh said delicately, “but it is quite good.”
Grandmother turned the talk to the beautification of the village, and Ben and even Padmoh and my friends talked about the wonders of it.
“Mistress Smith and some other women went to Hermit Gregor’s house,” Ben said. “They scrubbed and tossed and folded and washed and swept and gardened until he wept and promised to be a better man.”
Everyone laughed.
Padmoh said genteelly, “Widow Harker, who beds her cow in her house for want of a shed, came home today to find a sweet, clean shed for her cow.”
Ben noticed I was quiet and said, “With pie like this,
Keturah, you could win Best Cook at fair time.”
“I am glad you like it,” I said.
Padmoh scowled at him and then at me. “It is hard to tell such a thing from pies,” she said. “Besides, didn’t he say that very thing to me the other day. Fickle Ben.”
“But I do believe this pie makes Keturah a fraction better,” Ben said.
Gretta and Beatrice smiled, and Padmoh stabbed violently at the pie with her fork. I felt sorry that she was unhappy, but I was relieved that Ben had loosened his tongue in favor of my chances.
Just then there was a weak knock at the door, and I opened it to see Tobias standing with lemons in his hands.
I threw my arms around him, then took the lemons. “Why, they are beautiful, Tobias! So plump, so fresh. Did they cost very much?”
Slowly he held out the second set of coins John Temsland had given him. “Not a penny, Keturah, and yet they were very dear.”
Only then did I notice that he was most pale, whiter than the gray dust around his mouth and eyes.
“How did you get them, then?”
“It is a strange tale I have to tell, Keturah.”
“Sit, and tell it,” I said. He sat down slowly, feeling for the chair as if he were blind. Gretta put her hand on her brother’s shoulder.
“I looked and looked, Keturah,” he began. “No one had lemons. At last I thought to go to the road that heads to Great Town, only to the crossroads, in hopes of seeing a merchant who might tell me where to find them. And sure enough, Keturah, I met there a man who had many wondrous wares in his cart. I told him my errand, that the best cook of Tide-by-Rood needed lemons. Lemons, says he, why I have lemons here, all the way from Spain. I would have them, sir, I said. But when I held out the coins Lord Temsland gave me, he shook his head. Not enough, said he. Take it, sir, I said, and tell what I can do to make up the difference. Whatever it is, I said, I will do it. He snatched the coins, and said that if I would serve him for one round year, I should have paid the price in full.
“But I need the lemons now, for Keturah Reeve must cook a dish for the king, I said. Very well, said he, then I must get a year’s work out of you in a single month. No, sir, I said, the lemons must be delivered now. Then you have no bargain, said he. Give me back my coins, I said. No, I shall not—good day, he said.
“Mistress Keturah, you know I am not good at wrestling, but I knew you and the young lord and the queen must have lemons. So I tackled him. He was a tall man, and much fatter than me, but it was for the lemons, you see. He beat me soundly, and then picked up his donkey prod with which to finish the fight. I thought I was going to lose my life, as well as the coins, for which I was most sorry on account of your needing lemons.
“The merchant raised the prod, and as he was about to bring it down upon my head, he stopped cold and stared into nothingness. Pale he went, gray as the underbelly of a fish. He shook his head once, and nodded once, as if he were having a conversation with a ghost. I shivered in fear to see his countenance, so full of terror it was. The prod dropped, forgotten.
“At last he turned his eyes to me. Blank with horror, they were, but utterly resigned. Death has come for me, he said. I have cheated him many times, and now he comes to collect his debt. He gives me one last chance, before I go with him, to atone for the suffering I have brought to others through my cheating ways. Lad, the merchant says to me, there are coins sewn into my coat. They are all yours if you will forgive me.
“May I have the lemons, sir? asks I. He nodded once. Then I forgive you, I said. And he crumpled and dropped dead.
“His eyes were still open in death, and they seemed to look at me with gratitude. I waited beside him a long time, until it rained into his open eyes and the mule bawled for hunger. And I came home.”
Tobias stared at the table, his lips parted as if he had not the strength to clamp his jaws together.
I raised the lemons to my nose. Did they not smell of the sun? My pie would bring sunshine and cloud to the palate. My pie would win Best Cook at the fair. My pie would win me Ben Marshall—