Alexander spent the afternoon showing Ophenia how to pray and do ablutions, using a mixture of practices he had observed in his previous life.
He also chatted with her about the various theological beliefs held by the Temple of Shiva and made suggestions about what to include and exclude in his own scriptures.
And by the time they were done, dusk was approaching and supper was near.
But this time, when the thought of supper came to Alexander’s mind, the same monotonous menu of bread with cheese, and meat induced a bit of loss of appetite within Alexander.
‘God, I’m so sick of bread,’ Alexander lampooned about the absolute state of the culinary cuisine of this word.
It was hearty and filling but also bland, their skill in using spices lackluster.
Most dishes were just made by putting everything in a huge pot and boiling it, with a bit of salt and pepper added at the end as seasoning.
‘Sigh, well if I’m gonna revolutionize everything else, might as well do it for cooking as well,’ Alexander thus decided to make himself one of his favorite dishes, one that was simple yet elegant- carbonara,
And with that thought in his mind, he excused himself from Ophenia and made his made towards the kitchen.
He found the ‘hidden’ door that led to the kitchen underneath the staircase and pushed it open and immediately found himself inside what he thought was another world. ．
Because the hustle and bustle here was almost a complete anthesis of the peace and quietness that ruled the outer hall behind the heavy oak door.
Literally hundreds of slaves and servants were running to and fro across the room, all carrying or moving something, as screams, shouts, and orders shot across the massive room, making the huge kitchen reverberate with the clamor and din of life and liveliness.
Off in the distance, Alexander noticed the leader of them all.
Wearing a simple red chilton and leather sands, the girl’s petite body had no ornaments or embellishments, and only a golden hairpin tied her raven hair in a bun, a present Alexander had given her after his victory against Amenheraft.
To make up for her short stature, the short girl was standing on a stool, and what she lacked in physical imposingness more than made up for using her shrill voice, screaming and pointing orders constantly at a manic pace.
The scene reminded Alexander of those cooking TV shows that showed just how chaotic the back kitchen of a restaurant could be, while making the dining rooms be calm and still like the waters on a pond.
Mean’s tiny body shook and swayed every time she used her dainty, small arms to direct someone to somewhere, and given how the chair underneath wobbled everything she turned her body, Alexander was worried if it was safe for her to do this.
Nobody had yet noticed that the master of the house had arrived among themselves and got on with their own work, feeding the royals and the two thousand exclusive slaves was no small task.
These servants worked constantly from dawn to dusk, with little rest in between.
The moment one service ended, they would start preparing the next meal, almost as if they were the heart and blood of the estate, constantly feeding nutrients to the ever-hungry cells.
Although Alexander had come here with the intention of making pasta carbonara, he didn’t know even where to begin.
Where were the ingredients, the flour, the eggs, the bacon, the cheese?
Where were the equipment such as the rolling pins, the flat table, and the knives?
Where was even the stove?
With all these questions in mind, Alexander decided to ask to help.
And the only person he knew to ask for help was standing on a chair way over there- Mean.
And so, under the illuminance of heavy candlelight, Alexander made a beeline toward the girl in charge.
“Hey, brat, get the fuck out of the way,”
Or he was about to as the moment Alexander started to make his way towards Mean, a rough, gravelly voice hit him, its owner, as Alexander turned left to see, a buff, squared-faced woman, holding a large boiling pot of something, likely porridge.
Seeing this, Alexander quickly leaped back to make way, but the lady didn’t seem to pass.
Instead, she just narrowed her eyes and looked at Alexander full of suspicion, “Hey…you…I’ve never seen you before. Who are you?” The strong woman asked, no, barked at Alexander.
“I….” Alexander became a bit tongue-tied at her question.
‘Will she believe me if I said I’m the pasha?’ Alexander lampooned at his not-very well-thought-out excursion into the kitchen.
This servant or more commonly known as mama likely had never seen Alexander before and because he had worn a simple jacket over his tunic and pants with no distinctive features, she would not likely believe him if he told her so.
Instead, she might become more hostile if he said such an ‘outrageous’ thing.
While Alexander was racking his mind on how to introduce himself, the mama was getting even more and more suspicious.
‘Madam Mean warned us to look out for unknown individuals. She said there could be devils and spies intending to poison the great pasha.’ This mama name Julkain recalled.
And so she, seeing Alexander was looking at her awkwardly and a bit uncomfortably, screamed at the top of her voice, “Intruder! Guards..there’s an intruder!…Spy!”
The mama then flung her earthen pot away to her sides with abandon, letting the boiling gruel coat the stone floor, while she pounced on Alexander, grabby his right arm by both her hands and trying to pin him in place till the guards could come to capture him.
Such an abrupt change caught Alexander completely off-guard and he subconsciously tried to free his hand from the surprisingly strong grip, which only served to validate the mama’s thought that this was a no-good-for-thing person.
And so Julkain clutched even harder, kneeling and almost hugging Alexander’s entire arm as she tried to bring Alexander down to the floor.
And all this time she had not stopped screaming for a moment.
The crash of the large earthen pot and the shrill cries of the ‘distressed’ woman immediately caught the attention of all the hundreds of the servants and they all turned their focus to see one of their own kneeling on the ground, screaming and hugging a boy, while the later tried his hardest to set himself free.
‘Fuck…Cambyses and Mean will laugh at me for the next three months,” Alexander cursed at the thought of what will happen next.
And events unfolded just as he had predicted.
“You…who are yo…yach…Alexander. …I mean commander!… I mean…plop!” The guard captain who had dashed towards the commotion with his sword drawn, intent on killing the so-called intruder, literally jumped up with fright when his eyes fell on the face of the man accused of such, so much so that he called Alexander by name out of habit, and once he realized his mistake, he became, even so, more scared that he couldn’t even fully correct himself, and simply kneeled to the ground as an apology.
‘Which idiot called the pasha an intruder. If he’s an intruder, then what are we?’ The kneeling man cursed in his heart.
After all, among the thousands of occupants in and around the house, the one person that could not be called an intruder would be Alexander.
The reason why the guard captain could recognize Alexander was obvious.
The guards posted inside the kitchen were certainly among Alexander’s most trusted ones, selected from his original first phalanx and thus knew him by face.
Which was proving to be a both boon and bane for them now.
Boon because they knew the pasha by face meaning they were close to him.
Bane because if they didn’t know him, they could have just chalked this situation up as being just ignorant.
“What! You guys look like you have just seen a ghost.” Alexander sneered at the rest of the standing guards who were equally shelled-shocked the appearance of their leader in such a place.
Alexander didn’t sneer to mock the soldiers, but this was a way for him to vent, as he dreaded the ridicule that would inevitably come from the merciless Cambyses and to a lesser extent by Mean latter.
“Alex, what are you doing here?” The tweet of a graceful bird graced Alexander’s ear which he recognized as Mean’s, who had immediately identified the familiar silhouette.
“Hello, Mean. Is everything okay?” Alexander flashed a fake, professional smile as the girl quickly hopped down from her table and rapidly rushed towards him.
“Alex, has something happened?” She asked quite concerned.
After all, why else would the lord of the house be in the kitchen, a place unfit for a noble to enter?
“No, no, everything fine,” Alexander flashed another smile again, finally managing to wrestle his right arm out of the slacked grip, though the awkwardness in his voice was palpable.
‘Ohh god, the faces Mean will make when I tell her the truth,’ Alexander racked his brain on how to explain this awkward situation without embarrassing himself.