Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [25]
The kitchen wasn’t a single room, but a complex of interconnected chambers that took up the entire west wing of the ground floor. In the main section, the part with all of the stoves and chopping blocks and such, Max saw all three cooks and both scullery maids working feverishly, preparing the breakfast Max had smelled earlier. Dozens of eggs were being boiled and broiled and fried in skillets. And in other skillets large slices of ham and fat sausages sizzled and popped. No sooner did one cook pull pans of just-baked biscuits out of the oven than another one put new pans of dough in right behind her. And there was oat mush and breakfast cakes and thick brown syrup in glass pitchers that were lowered into pots of bubbling water to warm them. All five women looked harried and upset. The head cook had tracks of recently shed tears down her wide cheeks. And not one of them paused in their hurried efforts to shoo Max out of there, which is the very first time that ever happened — or more properly didn’t happen. No one seemed to mind his being there, or even notice that he was, which scared him as much as anything else had this morning. If that’s changed, then everything has, Max thought. And he wasn’t wrong.
Through a large open archway on the far side of the room, Max saw the great wooden table, where mixes were mixed and vegetables were chopped and diced and shucked and sorted, and where sometimes breakfast could be eaten, in lieu of one of the more formal dining rooms. Additionally it was where all of the household servants gathered to eat their dinner, after the Peep family and their guests had been served elsewhere. This morning the table was occupied by strangers.
By their expensive military dress and their brusque, superior attitudes, Max surmised that they had to be officers of the invading army outside. There were seven of them and they sat all around the table, eating the breakfast that the cooks had made, more of which they continued to cook even now. Mr. Peep was in the room with them, not seated but standing nearby, meekly nodding his head as one of the officers talked around successive mouthfuls of eggs and sausages. Max’s father was also in the room, standing next to Mr. Peep and looking both grim and worried.
“All of your lands are confiscated in the name of the Emperor,” the officer said, “as are your houses, barns, stables and any other structures.” The officer was bald, with a fringe of short black hair around his ears and the back of his head. He had giant black mustachios that drooped past his chin before turning up again at the ends, which were waxed to sharp points. He wore a red and gold uniform jacket, decorated with frills and tassels and medals and shiny brass buttons.
“Your crops will be confiscated, too, and your livestock slaughtered to feed my troops,” he continued, spooning a fat dollop of honey onto a biscuit. “You will all be allowed to remain here for now. In fact you are required to do so, while we continue on to secure the town of Wesen.”
“Winsen,” Squire Peep corrected, automatically, and then quickly shut his mouth and lowered his eyes as the officer shot him with an evil stare.
“You’ll stay here while we secure the town of Winsen,” the officer began again. “You’ll work hard to bring in all of the remaining crops, as quickly as you can. And mind you, I don’t mean to suggest that you’ll order your laborers to work hard while you oversee them. You’re all of an equal status now. You and your fat wife and your skinny daughters and even your guests will toil in the fields, alongside everyone else. In a few days I’ll send one of my officers from the Quartermasters’ Corps to collect the bounty and evaluate the quality of your compliance.
“This land and its people are now part of the Empire, and will be so