THE MASTER
Name: Mirelle
Age: 58
Gender: Female
Craft/Rank: Cookingcraft/Master
Appearance: Mirelle looks bigger than she is.
Those who wander into the kitchens without a reason to be there, only to find themselves confronted by the imperious grey-headed woman looming out of the steam with a wooden spoon or a cleaver and demanding to know what they want often mistake her for someone a head taller and twice as broad as she actually is, and that suits Mirelle just fine. If she didn’t have that peculiar reputation, she’d actually be quite average on her own – she stands at only five foot six, and though she’s fairly broad, with large shoulders and muscular arms from hoisting barrels and cauldrons and kettles and sides of beef, she’s certainly not enormous. She’s actually somewhat slender for a near-sixty woman who has spent almost her entire life in kitchens. Her waist is thick, no hourglass figure to speak of, and her lines are soft and slightly doughy, but this in no way hampers her ability to move quickly and brusquely through the kitchens. She looms even without trying.
Perhaps it’s because of her face – old though she is, Mirelle’s bone structure still shows through her wrinkles. She has high, prominent cheekbones, a severe, pointed jaw, and a straight nose that all together conspire to make her heart-shaped face somehow sharp. At some point in her life, she was strikingly beautiful, but those days have long since passed, and now she would likely earn nothing but the word “handsome” – and that only if someone were being extremely generous. Her sharp features are offset by plump lips, round cheeks, and sagging jowls; only Mirelle’s striking brown eyes seem as young and alert as ever. It’s joked that she could glare a hole through a wall if her drudges were acting up on the other side of it. She’s olive-skinned, usually flushed ruddy from the heat of the ovens and the steam, and marked all over with the tiny burns that come with her craft. Her hair, once chestnut brown, is iron-grey now, worn coiled into a severe bun at the nape of her neck.
For the most part, she dresses as plainly as any of her kitchen girls, in undyed cotton shifts that can be easily washed, with skirts that can be kilted up when the heat of the ovens becomes too oppressive. Most often, she’s covered front and sides with a heavy apron, dusted with flour, stained with some sauce or another, and carrying a large wooden spoon, with which she deals impressive justice to slackers and layabouts. The elaborate regalia due her as a Master craftswoman is…not exactly to her taste, and she always looks a little uncomfortable on those occasions when she’s required to leave the kitchens and do something official. Even on those occasions, she eschews velvet and silk in favor of plain cotton; Mirelle saves her marks for more important things than frivolous gowns.
Personality: Mirelle is not a likeable woman, and she likes it that way.
There’s a certain degree of pomp and circumstance inherent in being the crafter who runs the kitchens of a Weyr, and Mirelle essentially wants nothing to do with it. She’d much rather be known as a capable crafter than a pompous Master Crafter – not the least of which because the bakercraft is a Holdcraft to begin with and doesn’t have ranks the way a Hall-craft does – and very much views herself as a kitchen girl first, a master crafter second. Brusque, abrasive, and quick-tempered, she rules her kitchens with an iron fist and is quick to turn her bulldog personality on anyone who crosses her – be they drudge or Wingleader. It hasn’t left her with the best of reputations, but Mirelle is aware that her skill makes her valued, and allows her to get away with things she might otherwise never be granted.
She tries not to milk this for all it’s worth; mostly, she uses her clout to keep from having to leave the kitchens at all. Like most despots, she draws power from her domain, and prefers to leave it only when she absolutely has to. There are rumors that Mirelle never sleeps. These are untrue, of course, but Mirelle’s sleep schedule is purposefully staggered – some days she vanishes for several hours between lunch and dinner and oversees the midnight meals for the wher hunts, others she sleeps through breakfast only to arrive just in time to berate her workers over lunch. She values unpredictability and flexibility in equal measures, preferring to keep her staff on their toes. That’s how you get the best work out of them, after all.
Her lack of tolerance for nonsense is near-mythical; Mirelle does not have time for silliness, and is the first to call out anyone who makes trouble in her domain. Laziness and frivolity and complaints have no place in the kitchens, and while a first offense will earn you a smack from a wooden spoon, a second offense will have you tossed out for the day without supper. Repeated offenses will get you thrown out of the kitchens, and continual repeat offenses might well see an apprentice or journeyman stripped of their knots. Talent doesn’t matter to Mirelle, commitment does, and good luck ever finding another job in the cookingcraft if a Master Crafter has tossed you out of her tutelage. She doesn’t engage in pissing contests; Mirelle is the boss, she’s not here to fight with you for dominance because she’s already dominant, and don’t even think you can undermine her. You’ll be out on your arse for being disruptive.
That said, she is generally quite willing to accept heartfelt apologies, and a well-made case can, for the most part, earn the offending party a second chance. She’s not heartless; her apprentices may be held to exactly the same standards as her journeymen (and any drudge in the kitchen with an interest in learning under her will be held to those standards as well), but the punishment for failure is quite different between all three of those groups. She understands that no one is perfect, and that people with more to learn will make more mistakes. She takes a gentle hand in offering corrections to those who genuinely try to follow her directions, and can be surprisingly soft and sweet to younger learners. The kitchens are a high-stress environment, and she puts pressure on her staff because she wants them to be able to excel. If what someone needs is to be taken aside and spoken to gently, she can do that, but if that someone needs to be taken aside and spoken to gently multiple times a day, maybe cookingcraft is not for them after all.
She has an immense soft spot for children and the underprivileged; as a former drudge’s daughter herself, Mirelle was never expected to amount to anything, and she wants to help others in the same position. She doesn’t consider her Cinderella story particularly inspiring, though; it’s evidence that there’s plenty of talent everywhere if you know how to look, and proof that hard work pays off. She wasn’t, she’s quick to remind those under her, miraculously swept out of the kitchens of her Hold and away to greatness – she worked sharding hard for every ounce of respect she has ever received. However, she does see her rank as a place of responsibility; it’s her job to seek out others like her, and give them the same opportunities she got. She frequently takes on extra students in addition to those she is paid to teach – if she’s giving the lessons anyway, she might as well give them for the benefit of anyone who wants to learn. And little ones and drudges can usually count on a few extra mouthfuls of only-barely-burned food being handed to them to “dispose” of. And everyone knows that the only thing Mirelle hates more than laziness is wastefulness...
Any implication that such an action implies sentimentality will be met with a sharp look and a sharper word, though. Mirelle has a reputation as the unmoving, unmoveable deity of the High Reaches kitchens to uphold. She’s not going to compromise it for anything.
History: Mirelle was the child of a kitchen drudge named Miira and an undisclosed man – a mark of indiscretion on her mother’s part, and one that severely impacted any chance she may have had at a better life. Mirelle was born into poverty at Valley Hold, yet another drudge-child from whom very little was expected. She was raised for her first few turns in the crèche, but as she grew old enough to obey commands and follow instructions, her mother began to bring her into the kitchens with her. It was, perhaps, not the best environment for a little one, but extra pairs of hands were never amiss in the kitchens, and even a little child could easily be set to carry something, or to run a note where it was needed. Mirelle was quite good at that, and so she was kept around.
She was “discovered” by accident – a low-ranked baker who was employing her as a runner and general fetch-and-carry girl saw some glimmer of potential in the eight-turn-old child and took her under her wing. It wasn’t an apprenticeship, by any means – teaching a child to knead dough and sift flour isn’t exactly the pinnacle of a proper craft education, after all. But Mirelle’s mother recognized it for what it was and encouraged her daughter to take a serious interest in what she was learning. Cooking was a Holdcraft – easy enough to learn, and perhaps a good ticket out of the life of a drudge, should one of the Hold’s established cooks catch sight of her skills. And Mirelle wasn’t stupid; she knew she had been offered a way out of her mother’s rough life, and she wasn’t about to let that opportunity pass. She dedicated every ounce of attention she had to the baker who was teaching her, and by the time she was thirteen she was baking the drudges’ rough black bread and mixing finer doughs without any supervision at all.
She didn’t catch the eye of anyone important until she was fifteen, though. Her baker mentor, reluctant to let on that the help she’d been employing was quickly beginning to outgrow her simple recipes, kept her a secret from the rest of the kitchens for as long as possible. It took Mirelle two turns to notice, but when she did, she refused to take the news sitting down. Instead, she marched straight up to the cook in charge of the ovens and demanded further instruction. She was good, she promised. She’d be better with better instruction. She wanted to learn. She wanted to work. She could do it! And perhaps the cook was swayed by her impassioned plea, or perhaps he was just looking for an excuse to reassign Mirelle’s old mentor, but he took her up on the plea. Before long, the oven at which she had been toiling was hers to share with a fellow baker, rather than a teacher. They both learned from a better baker than them.
And so it went, for six turns.
Then, when she was twenty-one, opportunity! The chance to move away and ply her craft in a larger kitchen. Benden Hold had sent word that it was seeking new help in its kitchens, and Mirelle and her oven-partner had been among those invited. Mirelle’s mother was thrilled, exhorting her to take the chance and do everything she could not to screw it up. Mirelle took those words to heart. Inspired by the promise of advancement and a more cosmopolitan environment, both girls packed up and moved to the Hold. It was everything they had dreamed and more – a bustling kitchen with far finer demands than Valley’s somewhat-more-modest setup, and a head cook who sought to ensure that nothing but the finest work came from even the lowliest of his apprentices. He took his new girls under his wing with something of a brusque hand, but he taught well. Mirelle, already quite adept at her work, spent less than a turn in Benden’s kitchens before she was pulled away from breadmaking and set on the path to instruction of more involved and demanding cookery. She was granted the kitchens-equivalent of Journeyman status a few months after she turned twenty-two. It was a proud moment, one she wrote to her mother about.
It was the last thing she wrote to her mother about; a scant six months later, Miira was killed in the Benden quake.
It really shouldn’t have caused much harm; the quake itself centered around Benden, not its outlying Holds, but a single aftershock in an unstable environment was enough to knock down a row of heavy shelves. Miira was the only casualty at Valley Hold – and the news came as a shock to Mirelle, who was still young enough to expect her mother to be around indefinitely. The loss was heavy on her, and for a time, her work suffered. She stagnated, unable or perhaps unwilling to put in the effort to further her craft while she mourned. This, however, did not last long. Mirelle was devastated but practical – in order to honor her mother’s memory, the most important thing she could possibly do would be to further herself and her craft. She was determined to learn as much as she could. And for two turns, her work was her life. She wanted nothing more than to someday rule the Benden Hold kitchens. It wasn’t a goal anywhere near her reach, of course, but she could dream – and dream she did, until a handsome Journeyman Vintner arrived to sweep her off her feet.
His name was Kevvy They had met once, several turns before, when he had been working in Benden’s wine-cellars and stores and she had shouted him out of the kitchens and hit him with a broom. Mirelle remembered him as well as Kevvy remembered her, and they hit it off surprisingly well. Mirelle was still single and Kevvy had not yet married, and the pair quietly fell into a tentative courtship. Mirelle was more practical than Kevvy by nature, but there was something to be said about his adoring attention, and she allowed him to court her, expecting nothing to come of it. So when Kevvy asked for her hand, the question was sudden and unexpected. With no father to give a dowry and no mother to give her permission, Mirelle was shocked he would ask at all, but Kevvy was in love with her. She agreed, albeit ever-so-slightly suspicious that it was some kind of a trick, and they were quietly married when Mirelle was twenty-seven. She moved into the small house Kevvy kept, eschewing her work in the kitchens in favor of becoming a homemaker – as the Journeyman Vintner’s salary was plenty to keep them afloat.
The marriage was a happy one, at first, but was quick to sour as the turns went on and it became more and more obvious that Mirelle wasn’t suited to childbearing. Initially, it seemed she might have been barren, but then she conceived, only to deliver a stillborn daughter eight months later. Still, it wasn’t completely uncommon. She tried again – and again, tragedy struck. Perhaps it was her age – she was quite a bit older than most women were by her first child – or perhaps some quirk of her biology, but Mirelle seemed to be a death sentence to little ones. She miscarried twice, and a third child died of fever only months after birth, when Mirelle was thirty-three. She made the decision then not to try anymore – a decision that put her at odds with Kevvy for several months. The emotional wounds healed, though, and though Kevvy still wanted a child of his own, they had begun to talk about taking on fosterlings instead. He bought her a firelizard egg for her thirty-fifth nameday. Things got better.
And then he got sick.
It wasn’t the same fever that took Mirelle’s daughter – it was a different sort of illness, that started with a head cold but settled into his lungs, rendering the vintner bedridden and pathetically weak. Mirelle cared for him, paid the Healers, did everything in her power to help him fight the infection. But pneumonia is a notoriously difficult illness to shake, and when Kevvy caught a fever in addition to his cough, there was nothing more the healers could do. He died at home, and Mirelle was alone again. She spent a turn in mourning, living off the marks that she and Kevvy had saved together. But as the savings began to dwindle and the loneliness of the little house began to get stifling, Mirelle’s thoughts turned from the past to the future. She might be widowed and childless, but she was also her own woman, and she had her own skills. And so she packed up her belongings, sold the little house, and returned to work in the kitchens.
Though it had been turns since she had worked in a large kitchen, it wasn’t like cooking was a skill Mirelle could forget. Before long, she was back in the kitchens, toiling away to replace feelings with tireless work ethic. For some eight turns, she simply moved through the ranks of the kitchens, cooking her way from a journeyman up until she was one of only a few assistants below the head of Benden Hold’s kitchens. It was a feat – her superior was a man, and the other two assistants were as well. But Mirelle did her damnedest to cook better than any of her peers, preparing for the time when the head of the kitchens would step down and appoint a successor. He did so when she was forty-five.
She was not his successor. One of her male counterparts was – and he has no particular interest in giving Mirelle any additional power. Unwilling to continue along those lines, Mirelle up and moved. It was a risky move for a woman, certainly, but Mirelle had her income and her skills – and everyone needed to eat. There were kitchens in every Hold, and Kimmer Hold wasn’t too far from her…
She arrived in Kimmer with a roll of knives and the will to work. Before long, she was once again a kitchen deputy. And then, when she was fifty, the break of a lifetime: her superior was retiring, and he wanted Mirelle to take his place. She stepped into the vacancy like she had been born to, rearranging the kitchen to her taste and settling into the rhythms of superiority. It went well, and whatever her past, Mirelle knew that she had found a calling she was willing to continue for the rest of her life. For five turns, she ruled Kimmer with an iron fist. When Thread started falling, she seemed to barely notice. It didn’t impact her at all, except when she had to make sure she stayed inside. Since she practically lived in her domain to begin with, it didn’t seem to bother her.
And then she met a dragon.
Pure coincidence found her in a position to watch a wing of dragonriders practicing Threadfighting formation over Kimmer, and Mirelle couldn’t help but find herself somehow compelled by the romance of the species. Of course, she had heard plenty of things from those around her about the dragonriders and the culture of the Weyr, but…still. Kimmer was beginning to lose its lustre. Mirelle wanted a challenge – and what better challenge than the responsibility of feeding thousands of mouths every day? She had the credentials, she thought. And word through the grapevine of those who considered themselves Master Cooks was that there were spaces in the dragon world. High Reaches was one of them.
From there, it was a simple matter of hiring a courier – Mirelle had enough saved up to do it, though Benden dragonriders seemed reluctant to deliver a demanding cook to High Reaches. Still, marks were marks, and she was dropped quite practically at High Reaches Hold. She didn’t stay long, though, catching a caravan to the Weyr as soon as one left. Word had spread of her interest in the position as soon as she stepped off of dragonback, and by the time she arrived at the Weyr, the Headwoman was there to meet them. The credentials she presented were impeccable, and her own skills were more than enough to prove her worthy of the position, and before long she had slotted herself into the kitchens like she had always been there, slowly arranging it to suit her.
And so it has been for the past two turns.
FIRELIZARD
Name: Pie
Age: 23
Colour: Brown
Appearance: Pie is fat. In fact, he’s too fat to fly very far without overexerting himself. It seems his sweet tooth has gotten him into trouble over the turns. His hide is the warm golden-brown of a well-baked pastry crust, dappled faintly lighter on his shoulders and darkening on his limbs, tail, and wingtips to rich chocolate-brown.
Personality: Irrationally sweet-natured and obedient, he serves as Mirelle’s messenger. His propensity to between places so as not to waste all his energy makes him remarkably adept at getting just about everywhere in the Weyr quickly and efficiently – though he generally expects to be rewarded with food when he gets there. Notably, he is not technically exempt from Mirelle’s “no flits in the kitchen” policy, and spends most of his time in her office betweening to her only when needed to take a message and leaving immediately thereafter.
THE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
- So, as a Master you could have found work almost anywhere on Pern you fancied. What made you choose High Reaches Weyr?
- Nothing particularly romantic about it; there was an opening in the kitchens here, the weather was good (Faranth, have you ever been to Ista? Hotter than a firestone-sick weyrling’s tummy in those kitchens!) and it’s not Benden. As for the Weyr rather than a Hold? I’m not exactly the public spectacle sort. If I had taken up with some Lord Holder’s kitchens, no doubt I’d be covered in special requests and entertaining the guests – Faranth, let someone who likes cakes make cakes all day. I just don’t have the patience for that sort of thing.
- Well, Mother was kitchen help, and I was helping Mother as soon as I was old enough. Didn’t know I was going to follow a craft until one of the kitchen women whisked me right away from Mother and started properly teaching me things. Even if I had wanted to be something else – ha, well, can you imagine? b*****d daughter of a drudge at Benden? Oh, no, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere. When I was told I had talent, I went with it. And Mother was proud, of course. I didn’t know then that I’d push so far, but she wasn’t shy about telling me it was my only ticket out of drudge work. She wanted me to have a better life, so I suppose I owed it to her to actually do that.
- Suppose it was in part because I’d little enough of my own left at that point. Mother was dead, of course, and Kevvy was dead, and none of my little ones had even seen their first birthday. I think I gave myself a turn to grieve. Yes, a turn sounds right, because I…was thirty-seven when I decided to push on. Far too old to remarry, and not exactly a catch. It was either languish as a widow or find something else to do with my time, and dearie, I’ve never felt moping was an appropriate course of action. And anyways, so many of the Master cooks are men, and that just seems ridiculous – women spend more time in the kitchens than they do, how is it that so many men run the big kitchens? I guess I was trying to prove something to someone.
- What in the name of little green dragons would I do with a sharding great lizard? I certainly wouldn’t be able to fit one in the kitchens! Faranth, could you imagine a wher in here, hanging about, scaring the spit dogs and the drudge girls? Dragons and whers are for people as can waste their youths mooning about attached to some older fool’s apron strings and hoping the caprice of an egg will grant their wildest dreams. I’ve no patience for that sort of thing.
- Ha! They eat like pigs, and they keep me in business! Can’t say I’ve got much more of a thought than that. Don’t take me the wrong way, of course – I respect them! They keep Pern safe, fight Thread, honor those the dragons heed and all that! I’m not a barbarian; I give them their due. But I don’t want them in my kitchens mucking up my system, if you understand me. They stay on their side of the Weyr, and I stay on mine.
- Can’t say I’m sunshine and buttercups about it – have you ever tried whipping half-trained kitchen girls into shape for a Hatching feast? – but I’m certainly the best option for the job. I’ve lived in the kitchens all my life; I know what goes on here. There’s a certain satisfaction that comes of getting the job done and done well, and no doubt I’d be going crazy and pulling my hair out if it were someone other than me running these kitchens. So I suppose in that respect, I do enjoy it. But I don’t wake up giddy to boss people. That’s ridiculous.
- My dear, it’s the Weyr kitchens; we can’t go half a minute without some little crisis or other. Though there was an incident not too long ago where the spit dogs got into it with one another and one of my apprentices didn’t re-harness the relief pair properly, and we had a herdbeast that was practically black on one side and only half-done on the other – and can you imagine sending that out to the Weyrleaders? Well, there was just no fixing it, so in half went to the stew – I hope Fourth Wing liked its surprise – and then the other half we just had to cut up and finish in the ovens with tubers and herbs and hope that no one at the High Table kicked up a fuss. They didn’t, in case you were wondering, so I like to think we handled it all right.
- What kind of nonsense is a question like that? They’d be out right sharpish, no two ways about it. No time for silliness around fire and sharp knives and boiling water and little spit dogs with sharp teeth – if I think you’re a danger to yourself or others, you’re out on your ear! My kitchens might be chaos, but they’re safe.
- Well, food, I suppose. If you didn’t quite want me to be that literal, I’m not sure I could go a day in the kitchens without the wooden spoon. People respect that spoon, you know! As for the other...probably Pie. That stupid fat thing keeps me from having to send drudges with messages on the daily. I’d be devastated if he vanished.
- If I cared about that sort of a thing, I’d either be a Harper or a Starcrafter – it’s hard to tell nowadays which of those crafts’ folk has their head more in the clouds. Stars or no stars, we need to eat, and my stew is overboiling, so if you’ll kindly just step out of the way and let me work...
- Ha. Well, I don’t see much of a need for flight, and I have Pie to between places for me, so I’ve not much of a need for that, either. I can’t imagine flaming would be particularly convenient – would I have to chew firestone to do it? That just seems so unhygienic – but at the same time, if ever there was a need in the kitchens, it’d be for fire. And just think how quickly it would put the fear of Faranth into the new recruits...
