Chapter 13
Finally, they were finished unpacking. Better yet, Magdalena had charged off to take care of something else. Best of all, Gus Heinzerling had appeared and announced he was done for the night.
All was well in Frank Stone’s world. Bases were covered, with his dad and stepmom alike—and the rest of the evening beckoned.
“So,” Frank said brightly. “This taverna of yours. How do we get there?”
Giovanna gave him that dimply smile that was doing the weirdest things to his stomach. “The kitchen,” was all she said.
* * *
The kitchen turned out to be bright, warm, steamy and full of bustle. It wasn’t extravagant, there wasn’t anything really riotous happening, but there was a definite air of ongoing party about the place.
“Do all these people work here?” Frank asked, as they descended the steps into the room.
“Yes,” said Giovanna. “Well, most.” She made a beeline toward an open doorway across the large room they’d entered, passing a hearth to her right along the way.
The first big room of several, from what Frank could see. He realized that the “kitchen” should probably be called “the kitchens,” in a palace like this one. The rooms were big, and spacious for all their clutter, but they still managed to look full with the number of people who were there.
Not all of them were working, either. The kitchens seemed to combine the attributes of a work place with those of a tavern. Packed into the main room as well as three side rooms that were within his view despite the smoke and steam, Frank could see dozens of people. At least a third of them, although dressed in what he took to be workclothes, were sitting at tables chatting over glasses of wine. In one of the side rooms, out of sight, he could hear what sounded for all the world like a pickup band playing a folk tune.
He followed Giovanna through the doorway, his two younger brothers in tow and Gus bringing up the rear. The room they’d entered was apparently a cellar of some kind, judging from the lack of any hearths or other cooking implements and the casks, jugs, and barrels stacked against two of the walls.
The real function of the room, however, was pretty much “tavern pure and simple.” There was a huge table at the center of the room—three tables, rather, fitted together like a T—with at least a dozen people sitting around it on a haphazard collection of stools and chairs.
Using the term “sitting” loosely, that is. Frank immediately recognized one of those people—and Billy Trumble was “sitting” in the manner that a man wrapped around a lot of wine generally “sits.” Especially one who was only a year older than Frank himself and almost certainly had less experience with mind-altering substances. His Marine uniform was in such a state of dishevelment that Frank gave silent thanks that Admiral Simpson was several hundred miles away.
“Yo, Frank,” slurred Billy. ” ‘S’up?”
Billy’s seat was all the more precarious because the young soldier clearly had a lot on his mind. Or, rather, one single subject upon which he was concentrating as ferociously as a man can concentrate when he’s several sheets to the wind. Perched on a stool next to him was a grinning, dark-haired girl perhaps two years older than Giovanna and bearing something of a vague resemblance. A cousin, perhaps, if not a sister.
A moment later, Frank recognized the soldier sitting next to Billy—and with not much more in the way of sober stability. Conrad Ursinus, that was, another of Grantville’s star baseball players and one of Billy’s close friends. Conrad was wearing a naval uniform that was every bit as disheveled as Billy’s. This time, Frank muttered aloud his fervent thanks that Admiral Simpson was across the Alps.
“And they call it a ‘security detachment,’ ” his brother Ron murmured sarcastically. “God help us all.”
Now that he listened more carefully, Frank realized that the folk tune being sung in the adjoining room had a definitely Scots air about it. Apparently, Lennox’s soldiers had found a better place to ward off the early spring chill than standing at attention outside the embassy.