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Tel shakes his head. "No, no, the meadmaker makes mead and pear schnapps, he doesn't deal in anything. And brandy is a luxury item in a small town like this, much more so than the wine it is made from. Grapes don't grow this far south, you know.

"But you know what? Go find Nezza, she's been clearing the back room and we're going to have a staff brunch there, you may join us and sing us the song of the lonely tavern maid."

(OOC: for the geography, read my note to everyone in the OOC thread)

"Singing at a brunch? For that, my usual rate is eight hundred silver -I know that's a lot, but I charge that for two reasons: one, because my voice doesn't fully open up until noon, and I don't like to strain it, and b) and perhaps more importantly, because really I don't like to get up that early if I can help it. But, seeing as I am already up, I'll waive my fee in exchange for being permitted to share the meal. Fair enough?
"Oh, and you noticed me...appreciating Nezza, did you? Lovely young lady, reminds me of my third wife. Is she romantically attached at the moment, do you know?"

"Your third wife?" Tel asks incredulously. "Do your gods allow you that many wives?"

"Gaah! Not at the same time, my friend. Not at the same time. Crivens! More than one wife? What a nightmare! The only god that would inflict that upon a man would be the Maiden of Pain herself." Martin pauses, cocks his head slightly and says: "Although...if the plural of 'mouse' is 'mice' and the plural of 'louse' is 'lice' I suppose the plural of 'spouse' should be 'spice,' should it not?"
"I might be onto something, here."

"Any road, I have only been married twice, if you take my meaning..."

Tel looks at Martin with a blank look.

"It's just...I mean...ah, buggrit. Nevermind. I'll ask her myself.
"So, what are we eating for brunch?"

"Well, we have fresh bread, and cheese, sausages, some cold roastbeef, several sauces, scrambled eggs, and miscellaneous leftovers from yesterday" Tel declares. Let's go and join the others."

In a niche of the common room next to the kitchen, the inn's staff are indeed sitting together and enjoying a hearty meal in the dull hour between breakfast and lunch. Two plates are still empty. Besides Nezza who smiles at Martin, there are a heavyset woman with a large apron and a white muffin cap, plus a young man and woman who are wearing aprons as well. The youngsters who helped Tel and Nezza serve the crowd yesterday are nowhere to be seen, though.

"Gutentag," Martin says, as he takes his seat. "I like 'gutentag' because it is both a greeting and a weapon. It's one of those words with two meanings, like murder." Martin begins fixing his plate: a little of this, little of that, please pass the pickles, more bread, everything but the sausage. He's not a fan of sausage, not after the incident in Satriale's Pork Market.
"So who have we here? I always enjoy meeting the back-of-house folk. So often the entertainers get all the attention, but, really, without good food and drink, even the greatest entertainer in the world can't pack a house more than once. So, here's to you!" he takes a pull on his mug. "I am called Drake, if it please you. And also if it does not please you. And who might you be? Or rather, who are you? Since you 'might be' someone you are not."

The heavyset woman looks Drake straight in the eye, with an unmistakable aura of authority."My name is Candida" she says. "And because you praise the art of the kitchen, you are excused your pompous manner for the time being." She nods at the two young aproned people. "Those are Lennart and Elisa, my apprencices." Without a further word, she returns to her food. Nezza seems to stifle a giggle.

"Sssshhhh - don't laugh, you'll encourage her." Martin says quietly to Nezza. Then, raising his voice to a conversational volume, he continues: "Me? Pompous? You wound me, dear lady. For nowhere is there one so humble as I. I would enter myself in the 'World's Humblest Man' competition were it not for the fact that if you win, you lose. Although I suppose that is a victory of a sort, which means you win...which means you'd lose...Nevermind.
"A lowly and humble sort I am, and worthy of charity and sympathy most times. It is only when I am on stage that I feel aught but pitiful. Then, the listeners, be they beggars or kings, all pause to hear me tell them of wondrous new things, or sometimes tell them things they already knew, but forgot to laugh at the first time they heard them. It's kind of my thing.
"But, tell me, Candida, apart from making that muffin top hat look splendid, what is it that you do? I mean, is there some part of this marvellous repast that I may thank you for, or is it all your handiwork?"

Candida raises and eyebrow. "Either you are mocking me, or you are not nearly as worldly as you would like people to believe. I would have thought that someone like you recognises a cook's attire, especially since the likes of you are generally good at getting their food without paying for it. So of course all these dishes have been made by me and my apprentices."

A look of consternation passes over Martin's face. "Were I mocking you, dear lady, I expect there would be no doubt I were doing so. It is, after all, my profession, and I would likely have been more over-the-top.

"As to your profession, for all I knew, you might have been a specialist of some sort - a baker, or a pastry chef, perhaps - and not the maker of all of this wondrous food. And it is wondrous. I have dined in palaces, and yet never tasted anything like this sauce. Is it a subtle hint of plum I detect? Or apricot, perhaps? Either way, fantastic. Given that my own cooking skills extend to little more than grilled whatever-I-can-catch with a side of hunger (for the road is sometimes unkind to entertainers) I have a healthy respect for those who can transform a bunch of plants and animal matter into a tasty meal.

"And say what you will of vagabonds 'in general,' but please think not unkindly of me, for since I left home I have never eaten a meal I did not pay for, one way or another. Even this one, the cost of which will be a song or two, of your choosing. What would you have? A song of love, or heroism, or something silly to start the morning with a smile?"

If Martin had hoped to bring a smile to Candida's face with his compliments, he quickly notices this was the wrong way to do it, because a frown appears on her face that deepens as he goes on. "Don't lie to me, Sir. I know I'm a good cook, but I'm not top-of the world. Otherwise, I would not be here in Saltmarsh. So either you have not dined in Palaces, or my sauce isn't the best you have ever tasted. You were correct about the plum, though.
And now please excuse me. I have to check the pantry to see which stocks have to be renewed, and by how much."
She gets up, and when her apprentices make move to do the same, she smiles at them. "You may stay." She leaves the room with dignity.

Nezza, who had been looking away, a hand in front of her mouth, bursts out laughing as soon as Candida is probably out of earshot. When she can catch her breath again, she shakes her head. "That silly cow!" she exclaims. Then she turns to Martin. "Sing something funny and silly, please."

"Enjoy your work, dear lady, and rest assured that you are far better than you believe yourself to be, else I am no judge of culinary prowess. Kings and Princes never know the joy of a meal prepared with loving care." Martin stands and gives a small bow as Candida exits. She let her apprentices stay, he thinks to himself, so clearly she is not as angry or ornery as she lets on.

“So, a silly song? I can do silly,” says Martin. “You know, when I was in Greyhawk, I used to visit the Mayor’s Menagerie quite often. And I don’t know about you, but for me, one of the biggest attractions at the Menagerie has always been the animals.” He pauses to let this sink in as he retrieves his mandolin from its case, and begins half-singing/half-talking.

“Eeeeeeeeach time I visit the Menagerie I’m enraged
to see all the innocent animals en-caged.
With our fighting, and crime, and war, and lying, and greed,
it's we who should be locked up, and the animals freed.

Ohhh...
The Lion and the Lamb
will both get down and jam
they'll be doing
the animal square dance.

Ohhh...
The Cobra and the Mongoose
Will kick off their shoes and cut loose
They'd be doing
the animal square dance.

Take the Wildebeest - doe-si-doe.
Grab that Leopard by the spots.
Bow to your partner the big Rhino.
Goose that Goose and make it hot.

Ohhh...
The Hippo steps on the Lizard,
And -thbthbthbth- out shoots the Lizard's….gizzard,
and the Elephant puts the Moose into a…noose, ghkkkkk!
and the Tiger…kills a Gazelle,
and the Tiger kills another Gazelle,
and the Tiger kills another Gazelle,
and the Gazelles finally wise up and kill the Tiger,
and a Big Horn Sheep gives the Gorilla an exploding banana,
and the Mouse puts quicksand in the Cat’s litter-box,
and the Pelican puts a Chameleon on a piece of tartan and flashes a bull’s-eye lantern at him,
and the Shrews tie the Duck-billed Platypus to a tree and drive a toy mine-car set down his throat,
and Dolphins say 'Good thing we're safe here in this enclosed tank'
and the Electric Eels say 'Wanna bet?'
and the Parrot tells the Monkey that there's no Monkey God
and the Monkey lives a life of gloom and despair
and finally kills himself by tying a little tiny noose and hanging himself from the battlements and the Birds pick his bones clean and now he's a wind chime…”

The song, by this point, has degenerated into a litany of horrors, spoken in a breathless sing-song voice and with a mock-fearful facial expression. But then he pauses, and smiles sadly, and sings:

“But, at least…for a while,
they were doing
the animal square dance.”

“So, apart from learning to cook, what do you two do?”

The two apprentices, as well as Nezza and Tel, had been listening breathlessly. Elisa's eyes especially had become rounder and rounder, but towards the end of it, she began to shudder and hid herself partly behind Lennart. When Martin suddenly speaks to her, she says in a squeaky voice: "You... you said you were going to sing us a funny song, but I found it rather scary!"