The cook scurried along the passage trying to look invisible, which wasn't easy for a man of his height and solidness. And in one hand he held a sack that looked well filled but from the way it bounced about was not heavy. He made it to the kitchen unobserved, and entering, placed the sack in a corner out of sight, while looking sternly at the thin young woman, little more than a girl, who sat at the wooden trestle table grinding walnuts in a stone bowl.
"You may go, Gila," he said to the young woman, who looked at him in wide-eyed surprise.
"Oh," she said uncertainly, "But . . ."
"Gila. Go," he said firmly, his brows furrowing in a way that indicated he was annoyed.
She hesitated still, but then muttered, "Thank you, Mark. Oh, thank you," and scurried out, eager to get out of sight, before her usually demanding master changed his mind.
Mark was the cook, but also a winemaker and herbalist, a man with many skills and of much importance in that house and in the ancient world.
"Humph," Mark mumbled. "If he doesn't come with me I am going anyway," he said to the empty room as he reached under the table Gila had been sitting at.
He pulled out a large wicker basket on leather straps that hooked over a man's shoulders, letting him carry the basket on his back. And lifting the cover off it and pulling a small square of linen out he poured the half crushed walnuts from the stone bowl into it and folded the cloth up, making a neat parcel.
"Yarron will hate to know I have taken food from his house, almost as much as he will hate me if I take Salus from him," the cook mumbled, as he placed the small parcel of nuts securely among the basket's contents.
As Mark was pushing the basket back out of sight, a young male servant entered the room carrying an empty jug. "Yarron has moved on to some entertainment with your young friend, whom he plans on sharing about generously when they return from this celebration at David's house," the servant said, as he set the jug on a high shelf.
"How many of them are there?" the cook asked worriedly.
"Five, of course, Goron and his brother, Joseph, and our three young men. They are also talking of Old Peter's daughter," the young man replied before he hesitated and blushed, "Talking of . . . of making some fun with her on their way back, and . . . I may . . . if I can get out of course. Can I go and warn her? Her father, . . . he, well you know he is a drunk; he will be no protection for her."
"Go. Go," the cook said, " Do what you can, but be here in the morning at first light. I doubt they will return before then, but if you are not here, you know what can happen."
