The New Kitchen Boy
By M. Arbon
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About this ebook
Every Yule, according to tradition, a new servant appears in the kitchens. He looks suspiciously like the king. It’s not like anyone is ever actually fooled.
Far from being arrogant, the young and handsome Patrick makes himself useful, completing his menial tasks with good humour and diligence. Scullery boy Evan has never seen anyone so splendid in all his eighteen years.
Two castle workers can share a liaison that a servant and a king never can, however brief and bittersweet. But Yule ends, and Patrick has to return to his throne.
Then palace gossip reaches the ears of Patrick’s enemies, and fate pushes scullery boy and sovereign together one more time in a way that alters both of their lives and the course of a kingdom.
M. Arbon
M. Arbon writes stories, mostly queer, often sexy, about people who try hard not to be jerks. M. lives and works in Toronto, Canada. M.'s stories have appeared in the anthologies His Seed and Best Gay Stories 2017, as well as being published as stand-alone volumes.
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The New Kitchen Boy - M. Arbon
The New Kitchen Boy
M. Arbon
Thirteen Flowers Press
Those close to the court get honour; those close to the kitchen get food.
—Chinese proverb
The New Kitchen Boy
It wasn’t as though the new kitchen boy, or stablehand, or tailor’s apprentice ever actually fooled anyone.
We are expected to treat him as we would each other,
the First Cook said, in a tone that threatened rigorous retribution on anyone gormless enough to take him at his word.
The Head Cook was even scarier, fixing them all with the gimlet eye of a woman who had risen to one of the most trusted positions in the land while raising seven children and outliving two husbands and a wife. Every year, there is one person who takes Yule too far. This year, that person will not be from my kitchens. Do I make myself clear?
The emphasis made Evan wonder what had happened last year; there was some shuffling and a muffled snicker, but he couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from, and in any case the Head Cook’s gaze came down on the group like a killing frost.
They don’t mean you can’t enjoy the festivities,
one of the Third Cooks said later, taking pity on Evan as she dropped an armload of dirty mixing bowls beside his sink of soapy water. Just don’t throw up in the Great Hall.
The new kitchen boy appeared the traditional seven days before Yule, wearing