First flashback

The sun rises in the east, that is known and unchangeable. Ex oriente lux. From the east comes a man. He kindles a light in the queen's soul, a fire in her womb.

In the queen's boudoir, however, there is only semi-darkness; her husband has long since passed away. Into the queen's boudoir, and within the queen's boudoir, and within the queen herself, a man from the East enters.

The king travels a great deal and is often away hunting. He misses many things, including his queen's pregnancy. She gives birth discreetly. It is an easy birth, and the boy is strong and exceptionally handsome, even as a crumpled infant. The bastard does not remain in the castle for long.

There will be no awkward questions. Only one last kiss, which the weary queen breathes onto the forehead of her illegitimate son. Then a dark-skinned, barefoot man skillfully wraps the child in colorful gypsy scarves and disappears with him as quickly and unseen as he entered the queen's chamber, a shadow in the night.

Royal constipation

It's astonishing what gold does to people. My mentor, Manacardi, now considers himself a genius after the king's gold turned the tide of war, the giants withdrew for reasons unknown, and Henri de Laballe's troops were safely scattered by the finally well-paid mercenaries—wherever they may have gone, since the Laballe family seat no longer exists, only a field of ruins remains, as if laid by giant hands. Every day, Manacardi eagerly awaits the king's digestive output, which he fattens up with golden pheasants. He considers this strict diet essential for celebrating an eternal harvest feast in the ruler's arse. No field margin, no forest in the kingdom, where birds roost in the trees, is safe from the palace hunters. They haul in their prey in heaps, morning, noon, and night.

The king's menu includes pheasant eggs on a wild herb salad for breakfast, pheasant in puff pastry for lunch after a light pheasant consommé, pheasant terrine as a starter for dinner, followed by pheasant legs stuffed with minced meat as an intermediate course, and pheasant à la Robin de Bois topped with slices of ham for the main course. This is accompanied by "pheasant soda." It's only called that, though; it's actually nothing more than sea buckthorn juice with double-distilled grain spirit and rock candy. The king is absolutely crazy about it.

I learn all this from the Royal Chef as he carves, flambés, blanches, and poaches. It's a sheer joy to watch him. He seems to have four hands and looks exactly like one imagines a chef to look, always wearing a pristine white apron and an equally radiant, starched chef's hat that sits like a crown on his head. It's a mystery to me how this portly and constantly sweating man manages to keep his work clothes so immaculate, because all around him, fat splatters and sparks fly.

I like to linger in the castle kitchen when Manacardi has nothing for me to do. It's a veritable laboratory, where more alchemy is achieved than in the foolish experiments of the polymath, whom I avoid as much as possible. When he's drunk too much wine, which is constantly, he's grumpy and quarrelsome, throws books at me that I'm supposed to finally learn to read, and takes my breath away with his sour breath and body odor.

What wonderful aromas the castle kitchen holds! The herbs alone, hanging in thick bunches to dry on the walls, exude an intoxicating blend of scents. I recognize wild thyme, mint, and lovage; aromas familiar from lounging in a summer meadow. But there are so many more mysterious powders in all sorts of bright colors, stored in jars on the wooden shelves – it almost looks like an apothecary's shop, but without that crocodile-thingamajig I was so frightened by, the dragon. But dragons don't exist, do they?

The kitchen, however, also reminds me a bit of hell: beneath the chimneys, which reach meters high and taper upwards, so that when you look in from below you feel like you're peering into a tunnel to the afterlife, flames lick at numerous hearths. The ovens are massive, too; when a kitchen boy opens the wrought-iron hatches to add wood, you feel like you're staring into the inferno.

The head chef disapprovingly holds up a pheasant carcass by its legs, on which he has spotted too many stray feathers. Cursing, he throws it back to the maids, who have been plucking all day in a corner of the kitchen and are threatening to disappear under a mountain of feathers. "Bad work, lazy lot," he shouts over his shoulder, as he stirs two pans at once again.

The chef confided in me that His Majesty has recently been suffering from constipation. "His diet is too monotonous, but what can you do – only golden pheasants are in demand these days. I'm running out of recipes."

I nod sympathetically, reminding myself of my duty. I had a copious bowel movement this morning and stored it in the chamber pot. I've already sprinkled my own recipe—the Maitre's powder—over it and kept the pot in the small lockable cabinet at my disposal. When the opportunity arises, I'll replace it with the king's excrement, which is brought to Manacardi every day. If and when it's brought to him again, that is, since the king is now constipated.

Thankfully, we're safe now. The war is over. "Over..." the cook said thoughtfully, "The only thing truly irretrievably over is the moment when you can stop a soufflé from collapsing. What comes after that is usually worse. But now get out of here. The king is hungry, it must be served."

I slip away. I skirt around a pillar and disappear from the cook's sight. I quickly take the landing leading down to the kitchen anteroom. The door slams shut behind me.

Then the devil takes hold of me, I don't know why. I surreptitiously open the door again and sneak back, pressing myself against the pillar and risking another glance into the kitchen. I see the cook seasoning the king's food with a quick dip into one of his powder jars before serving it. He glances surreptitiously around him. Our eyes meet. The cook turns pale. I quickly make my escape for good.

Bowel movements and idleness

My bowel movement continues to simmer in the locker; I add another scoop. My digestion, unlike the king's, is regular. Luckily, my poop is completely odorless—why is that, I wonder, not for the first time. I also wonder if and when I'll receive new instructions from the maître d'.

Manacardi is spending the night at the fortification line that bears his name. He intends to make it impregnable for all time, even, as he boasts, "gigantic." A new, fire-breathing weapon is supposed to play a role in this. I'm very glad I have nothing to do with it and can indulge in idleness. I have the impression that it suits me quite well, that I fit in well at the Royal Palace, where nobody ever does anything even remotely useful.

I am lying on my bed. I am thinking about the cook, restless, and leave the light on, trying to decipher letters. I hear heavy footsteps and heavy breathing on the spiral staircase to the scholar's study.

Family honor

The maître d' could rely on Roman like he could on the daily sunrise. Little was safe from the gypsy, especially when the maître d' sent him on a mission. Roman picked locks like nuts, slithered through cellar windows like a snake, and was willing to do anything the maître d' commanded.

Roman's honor, which he always had to prove and defend, was rooted in loyalty. His father, who had also served the maître d', had done the same—just like his father and many other ancestors. For the maître d' had existed for as long as Roman's people had been called Tigani in his homeland. Roman never questioned his master's longevity.

Roman didn't care what the Gadje, the non-Gypsies, said about him and his kind. He knew the value of his clan. His people weren't just any coppersmiths or basket weavers; they had always preserved their proud freedom, never bending the knee to anyone but robi—slaves. They served the maître entirely willingly, and he paid them well for it.

Even those who used "Gypsy" as a derogatory term spoke of Roman's relatives only in whispers, with timid glances. He came from a lineage into which one was born a Baro Rom, a great man. It had produced a succession of Gypsy kings, Bulibashas.

Roman stood in a dark corner at the foot of the driveway to the royal palace. Like his father before him, he would only enter the palace unseen. He had an important message from the maître d' and would not disappoint his master.

Roman merged with the darkness. Barefoot, bracing himself against cracks and pulling himself up ledges, he climbed meter by meter of the royal castle's ramparts, then the outside of the tower, at the top of which stood Manarcardi's study. A light burned in the uppermost window.

Roman felt he had to hurry. That not only was he approaching the top of the tower, but so too was great misfortune. From his father, he had inherited not only unconditional loyalty to the maître d', but also the responsibility for the safety of "the handsome one" ever since he had been brought to the Gypsy Palace as a motley bundle. Roman would uphold Pakiv, the family honor, and prevent Lajavo, shame, from being brought upon his lineage at all costs. With only one hand clinging to the stonework, he pulled his knife from its leather sheath at his waistband, clamped it between his teeth, and redoubled his climbing effort.

Race of the Knives

The Royal Chef scolded himself for being a fool. Why had he been so negligent? Why had he allowed that snot-nosed brat Manacardi access to his kitchen? And why had he let that little rascal fool him like that? Had the man been sent to spy on him, and was that why he had shown so much interest in the kitchen?

The cook wasn't a bad cook, he wasn't really a bad person either. But just a person nonetheless. And underpaid. He had tested the powder that Comte Francois de Alaba sur Mere had sent him—anonymously, of course—along with a small bag of gold ducats and the assurance that it would only cause mild constipation. Not on himself, of course; he wasn't that stupid. What were kitchen maids for? They could certainly tolerate a bloated stomach that temporarily swelled their bellies as much as the cook's.

In fact, it wasn't a deadly poison. Rather, it was a relatively harmless mixture of activated charcoal, healing clay, crushed banana chips, psyllium husks, rusk, grated apple, and dark chocolate, as the cook was quite certain.

However, one thing he was absolutely certain about was that he could not afford an eyewitness to the fact that he, as a hired henchman, mixed an anti-congestant into the king's food.

The cook pulled open a drawer. He took out a knife. It was one of his best carving knives. From the staghorn handle to its pointed end, it measured a quarter of an ell. It could be used to cut large pieces of meat or to make paper-thin slices. The cook always kept it impeccably sharp.

He sighed. Then he took courage and grabbed the knife. It was late. No one would see him as he laboriously climbed the many steps to the scholar's study. He would, of course, be a little out of breath.

Bloody reunion with Roman

Someone is tampering with the lock on the study door. Another person is also rattling the locked window from the outside. A wave of intense fear washes over me. "Who's there?" I shout, dreading any answer, and frantically glance back and forth between the door and the window.

Several things happen at once. Two feet kick against wood. Glass shatters. The door gives way and swings open. The window does too. Roman leaps catlike into the room and confronts the cook, who is charging at my bed with a raised knife.

It's a short fight; Roman is no stranger to a knife. In fact, it's not really a fight at all, more like an execution.

The cook falls to his knees beside my bed and stares at me in astonishment, his eyes glazed over. He opens his mouth, as if to say something, but it's just a gurgle. Blood spurts from his slashed throat, reaching the wall. He clutches his open neck, then falls forward like a felled tree. Because of his protruding belly, his body immediately rolls onto its side. A pool of blood seeps from under his chin and spreads rapidly. Roman coldly wipes his knife on my bedsheet and hisses at me, "Get dressed, hurry up. We have to get out of here."