Reincarnation Of Audemars - Chapter 125

“Have you served the Ruler of Aermagh into supplying weapons and armours before?” I spoke at last once the men had finished the Golden Pillow and I handed out several extras in case the members want a second helping and they did. I left 2 pieces for the apprentices to taste and to tell me what’s the ingredients were like.

“I used to supply them certain weapons upon request but it was of low quantity. Most of the weapons they acquired were from Quentin and Romulus who would make better quality weapons and armours though Level 2 iron ingots before.”

“Oh… You were being sidetracked before by them, what do you think if you both market both Level 4 weapon and armours to the Ruler of Aermagh? Upgrading their weapons and armours would bring in extra income, don’t you think so?”

“I guess right now the adventurers had reached a bottleneck as the Houses had already gotten what they require for the number of members, and we have the lowest members compared to all the rest of Houses here in Ingmery,” I said since this would expand their business as well as for us to maintain the profits coming in.

“Oh…you didn’t know about the Ruler of Aermagh… He would always buy at the lowest price possible and would haggle the price even further. It doesn’t even able to cover the cost of a single iron ingot.”

“Haaaaaaa…?!?! He is like that, is it? Damn… I thought we could strike a deal with him or any of his advisors in order to push the sales even further. By the way, Blake, you haven’t requested to produce a shield or buckler yet right? So far how were the sales and do you keep track of the number of warriors?”

“Yeah…the sales had been a bit stale right now. There’s a total of 704 registered adventurers assembled here in Ingmery except for the founders and the household members of the House.” Blake explained to me as I took note in the notepad of mine.

“There are 14 Houses altogether and yours had 20 members while the other Houses had 50 members each. That leaves 34 renegade ones who wish to move on their own. Furthermore, they are not interested to be in any of the Houses as they would not be bound to any terms and conditions.” Bruce spoke up and giving me a piece of more detailed information.

“Wow… I thought we had a little over a 200. I didn’t know that there’s more than 500 in total. How come I don’t see them moving about in the streets?” I asked in surprise because the number of people coming to complete the quest of the Keating’s dungeons is slightly above a hundred.

“The founders trained the members within their compound and their method is more like building an army, rather than a group of adventurers. What I see from you is flexibility. You have trust in the members and let them hunt even at night which was usually not a practise here at all.”

“Yes, some of the Houses have their own armoury so sales weren’t as brisk as before. But don’t worry, there profit even though we left about 50ish weapons per category in our stores.”

“That’s good to hear… So what are you both are going to do now? Maybe you should ask the Houses what kind of weapons they wished to fashion and the types of Armour they would like to have specifically. We can’t always wait for things to happen, but we MAKE THINGS HAPPEN. That’s the most important in business.”

“What you said is true and through. Well go right away and ask them what they need at the moment and get some samples for you. It won’t be long for you to make them right? Just like before?” said Blake since he knew making a full plate armour would take some time to do it while single pieces if light armour or weapons could be done within a day or two.

“Yes… Whether its a bronze or even an earlier piece of weapon or armour, I will try to make them. I was also thinking of Level 5 iron next but I think I’d reserve it in a month or two. Come back with good tidings and may success be with us.” I blessed both Blake and Bruce as they excused themselves after thanking for a great meal.

By the end of the discussion the members had finished their 13 rounds around the courtyard and were waiting for the ground to clear before they start the rest of the training regime.

The apprentices came and after the dishes were cleared, I tested all of them based on their knowledge of the ability to distinguish taste. All of them were able to distinguish up to 80-85% of the ingredients and spices used inside the Golden Pillow and that makes my job easier.

I used to call these people as gifted with the tongue of the devil. They don’t smoke and their taste buds were amazing because of routinely scraping the tongue as well as practising the centre of the tongue to perceive taste which is 99% normally unable to in most people.

After the hearty breakfast, the other 3 adults of the household joined me in the kitchen as they listened to me describe the preparations and the ingredients and it was a bit awkward for the apprentices who were all women to be taught how to prepare dishes by a man.

WHO SAYS THAT A MAN CANNOT COOK?

Go and ask NoOne who keeps grilling the piece of meat ever since I met him at the Northern Forest. Hah hah hah…

I asked them if they knew how to make meatballs and all of them knew how to do it. So I prepared the ingredients and asked 2 of them to prepare the meatballs using the beef that I supplied to them. There were 5 pieces of meat weighing about 5 kg altogether and it would be sufficient to feed everyone.

Next, I asked who knew how to make pasta and the rest knew how and I got 2 to work on it and prepare the turkey. The other two were handed 5 kg of pork and were told to remove the fat to make pork rinds and keep the fat for later use. Then the pork would be sliced to make pork chops, tenderised, soaked in a bit of grog and then deep fried with light batter and bread crumbs.

Next, since none of the members had brought in fowl meat, I had it delivered from the market and they were to prepare crockpot shredded chicken in glass noodle soup with heaps of greens.

Everyone gets to work while the 2 whole turkeys were steamed and shredded, same goes to the 2 whole chicken as well.

I went about to steam about 5 kg of rice as each layer of the bamboo steamer is able to accommodate 5 layers and each layer was a kilo of rice, washed, rinsed and places on top of white linen cloth.

They saw I place some screw pine leaves, cinnamon, aniseed, turmeric leaves and some of the 5 herbs family inside the water to boil instead of together with the rice. A heap of salt was dumped into the boiler too.

When they saw what I did with the water inside the steamer, they claimed its the first time they saw rice is being cooked in that manner. I told them that there are 10 types of rice that can be cooked and I narrated to them and they took down the notes on the rice preparation.

Why stop at white steam rice when you could have aromatic rice, coconut milk steamed rice, garlic steamed rice, tomato rice, pineapple rice, raisin butter aromatic rice, sweet corn aromatic rice, chicken essence rice and lastly aromatic rice with meat, fried fish or chicken stuffing in them.

All these rice details were noted down and they had a new dining experience to experiment with. With 10 types of rice, it could be rotated within 10 days and repeat once more. At least it won’t be boring just to stick to steamed white rice, am I right?

I advised them that if they were to cook on a 3 layer steamer, there is no need to rotate the layers accordingly. But since there’s 5, the top 2 needs to be rotated once every 15 minutes because that’s where the rice nearest to the boiler would be fully steamed. I marked the layers and it would be in descending order.

As in culinary, the preparation part is a chore. And it can take up anything from 30 mins to 2 hours of your time. Take for example the chicken that needs to be dressed, cleaned, steamed, shredded and then it’s done to wait for the next preparations.

This is not something where you can buy a dressed chicken like in a supermarket. This is medieval period and fowls come fully with their feathers and all. Although live fowl is somehow much juicier and sweeter than frozen ones for sure.

So by midday, the steamed aromatic rice is ready, the tex mex meatballs too were already ready along with the chicken in glass noodle vegetable soup. Our children and the members had come back about 15 minutes before lunchtime and had washed up to have their lunches prepared by the apprentices and directed by me.

When the food was wheeled out to the courtyard, the children, as well as the members, were delighted at the spread of food before them as we sat down, including the apprentices to savour what was prepared and it is a real gastronomical trip.

“The meat came from the ones you had gathered yesterday. If you do happen to hunt tonight, watch out for chicken, duck or turkey… It would be on our menu for tomorrow and the next few days.” I announced to the members and they literally stuffed their faces during lunchtime.

The rice was slightly yellowish-green in colour due to the spices that were steamed along with the screw pine extract. We were all having lunch when a messenger came to deliver a letter and was addressed to Beauty World and not the Castle Keating-Macleod.