Fall of Giants

Fitz looked at the list: a hundred loaves of bread, twenty dozen eggs, ten gallons of cream, a hundred pounds of bacon, fifty stone of potatoes… He began to feel bored. “Shouldn’t we leave this until the princess has decided the menus?”

“It’s all got to come up from Cardiff,” Williams replied. “The shops in Aberowen can’t cope with orders of this size. And even the Cardiff suppliers need notice, to be sure they have sufficient quantities on the day.”

She was right. He was glad she was in charge. She had the ability to plan ahead-a rare quality, he found. “I could do with someone like you in my regiment,” he said.

“I can’t wear khaki, it doesn’t suit my complexion,” she replied saucily.

The butler looked indignant. “Now, now, Williams, none of your cheek.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Peel.”

Fitz felt it was his own fault for speaking facetiously to her. Anyway, he did not mind her impudence. In fact he rather liked her.

Peel said: “Cook have come up with some suggestions for the menus, my lord.” He handed Fitz a slightly grubby sheet of paper covered with the cook’s careful, childish handwriting. “Unfortunately we’re too early for spring lamb, but we can get plenty of fresh fish sent up from Cardiff on ice.”

“This looks very like what we had at our shooting party in November,” Fitz said. “On the other hand, we don’t want to attempt anything new on this occasion-better to stick with tried and tested dishes.”

“Exactly, my lord.”

“Now, the wines.” He stood up. “Let’s go down to the cellar.”

Peel looked surprised. The earl did not often descend to the basement.

There was a thought at the back of Fitz’s mind that he did not want to acknowledge. He hesitated, then said: “Williams, you come as well, to take notes.”

The butler held the door, and Fitz left the library and went down the back stairs. The kitchen and servants’ hall were in a semibasement. Etiquette was different here, and the skivvies and boot boys curtsied or touched their forelocks as he passed.

The wine cellar was in a subbasement. Peel opened the door and said: “With your permission, I’ll lead the way.” Fitz nodded. Peel struck a match and lit a candle lamp on the wall, then went down the steps. At the bottom he lit another lamp.

Fitz had a modest cellar, about twelve thousand bottles, much of it laid down by his father and grandfather. Champagne, port, and hock predominated, with lesser quantities of claret and white burgundy. Fitz was not an aficionado of wine, but he loved the cellar because it reminded him of his father. “A wine cellar requires order, forethought, and good taste,” the old man used to say. “These are the virtues that made Britain great.”

Fitz would serve the very best to the king, of course, but that required a judgment. The champagne would be Perrier-Jouët, the most expensive, but which vintage? Mature champagne, twenty or thirty years old, was less fizzy and had more flavor, but there was something cheerfully delicious about younger vintages. He took a bottle from a rack at random. It was filthy with dust and cobwebs. He used the white linen handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket to wipe the label. He still could not see the date in the dim candlelight. He showed the bottle to Peel, who had put on a pair of glasses.

“Eighteen fifty-seven,” said the butler.

“My goodness, I remember this,” Fitz said. “The first vintage I ever tasted, and probably the greatest.” He felt conscious of the maid’s presence, leaning close to him and peering at the bottle that was many years older than she. To his consternation, her nearness made him slightly out of breath.

“I’m afraid the fifty-seven may be past its best,” said Peel. “May I suggest the eighteen ninety-two?”

Fitz looked at another bottle, hesitated, and made a decision. “I can’t read in this light,” he said. “Fetch me a magnifying glass, Peel, would you?”

Peel went up the stone steps.

Fitz looked at Williams. He was about to do something foolish, but he could not stop. “What a pretty girl you are,” he said.

“Thank you, my lord.”

She had dark curls escaping from under the maid’s cap. He touched her hair. He knew he would regret this. “Have you ever heard of droit du seigneur?” He heard the throaty tone in his own voice.

“I’m Welsh, not French,” she said, with the impudent lift of her chin that he was already seeing as characteristic.

He moved his hand from her hair to the back of her neck, and looked into her eyes. She returned his gaze with bold confidence. But did her expression mean that she wanted him to go farther-or that she was ready to make a humiliating scene?

He heard heavy footsteps on the cellar stairs. Peel was back. Fitz stepped away from the maid.

She surprised Fitz by giggling. “You look so guilty!” she said. “Like a schoolboy.”

Peel appeared in the dim candlelight, proffering a silver tray on which there was an ivory-handled magnifying glass.

Fitz tried to breathe normally. He took the glass and returned to his examination of the wine bottles. He was careful not to meet Williams’s eye.