This is in the
nature of a story correcting the boo-boo The Powers That Script-Write made in a
conversation between Aristotle and Nick in the episode Forward Into The Past, per The Challenge thrown by Lynn Messing,
though I'd actually started writing it immediately after watching the episode
in question for the first time last week. I meant it to be a Spotlight story
for Aristotle, though of course our Nick has to show up at some point near the
end. The story is set some time in the 1800s. I have little knowledge of
history--beyond knowing that there is no way Nick could have been at the
Battle of Hastings with Aristotle--and so do not wish to peg the date, as you
too-tutored lot will find me out and nit-pick! I got the pseudo-historical mode
of speech from such stellar and historically accurate (ha-ha) sources as Blackadder the Third (which spoofs the late 18th/early 19th
century) and Poldark (end of the 1700s), with a touch
of Alexandre Dumas' Dictionary of Cuisine (pub.
1870)! Suspend your disbelief and please enjoy:
by Celeste Hotaling-Lyons
It was a most beautiful
restaurant; tastefully renovated in the Parisian style by its new owner in
keeping with the French/Anglais cuisine the
restaurant now offered, but still conservative enough to soothe the breast of
those habitues who had been making her their
home-from-home for many a year. She had first been opened as a simple tavern
some one-hundred fifty years earlier and had since endured good owners and bad
owners, kitchen fires and food riots, fine foods and utter rot fit for pigs
alone; but through it all she had sailed like a great ship upon the sea of
profit, attracting clientele come-what-may due to an advantageous location upon
the corner of the busiest street in London town. Her name was
The new owner, who
had spent much on the refurbishment of that well-known domicile of comestibles,
puffed into his mustache. A fine mustache
it was, full and luxuriant as the mustache of a
middle-class gentleman with money in his pockets should be, but it was becoming
fluffed and worn from the puffing, and that would not do. Mr. Boggins, owner of said mustache (and
of the eatery in question) smoothed his upper lip as one would smooth a ruffled
cat and decided that enough was enough.
"Martha,"
said he to his good lady, "Martha, enough is enough!"
Martha smiled a
tight, put-upon smile, as one accustomed to a beloved but peevish spouse will
cultivate now and again. "And what, my dearest love, is `enough'? Do you
find the ravigote too piquant, as do I?" She
knew full well what was `enough', but also knew to
play the game.
"Oh, bother the
ravigote! That man is here again, eating of
nothing but my profit! Such cheek!"
That man--her
patient eye fell upon the small, fussy man who, twice weekly, occupied the
table in the far corner by the kitchen from dusk to closing; he of whom her
husband had complained incessantly since his first day of restaurant ownership.
Yes, she nodded, it was indeed he who wore upon that
worthy's poor nerves. (Say that sentence three times fast, I dare you!) Never
did the man order a veal chop, nor a pudding, nor a
meat-pie, nor even a lowly pastie--not a single
comestible to be found on the menu did the confounded blockhead order, ever. It
wasn't a good table he sat at, but it was a table, and a restaurant keeper
wanted a paying customer at it.
"I'll take care
of this, see if I don't," said Mr. Boggins to
his Martha, moving towards that table.
"Now,
Jeremiah," she soothed, a hand upon his arm. "Now, sweetest, you know
what Mr. Delyon said!" She was referring to the
gentleman from whom her dearest had purchased the restaurant. "`Mr.
Aristotle is a fixture at Hastings,'" she quoted: "`Mr. Aristotle,
himself, neither eats nor drinks, but the steady stream of those who consult
with him, whom he pays well in silver, more than make up for it.' Indeed, at my
place by the cashbox, I had noticed a goodly portion of that silver is
invariably turned around into our hands for meat and drink, and so, `tis true, he pays his way through his powers as an
attractant of free-spenders."
"Free spenders,
aye," Mr. Boggins growled: "And such a
motley crew to be in a fine eatery such as this!"
Now, that good restauranteur was not being fair, it must be pointed out,
gentle reader! True, some were ragged men who dealt in information for Mr.
Aristotle; others, sneaky-eyed cutthroats who looked as if they knew the inside
of Wingate Prison well enough; but most were of a sturdier sort-- whether men
who worked in wood and metal for their living or, as earlier that evening, an
insurance agent in good standing at Lloyd's of London; they were for the most
part pillars of their community. But, high or low born, one and all made their
way to Mr. Aristotle's table in the back, next to the kitchen, to take his
instructions and do his bidding. He truly was a fixture in the great city of
Mr. Boggins shrugged off both his wife's concern and her hand
upon his arm with the same impetuous gesture, and advanced upon the oblivious
Mr. Aristotle.
* * * *
Yes, yes, that would
do, thought Aristotle to himself. He had to create a fulcrum upon which would
turn the medium-sized fortune of a brother vampyre
from the Balkan states, and his confederate at Lloyd's would be the pivot in
that fulcrum. He'd been feeling a bit off lately, had Mr. Aristotle, but the
rapid approach of the finish of this particularly ticklish bit of business
banished all feelings of nausea. To complete a task well-done! What more sense
of accomplishment could he ask for? He went over the documents in his dark
corner table by the kitchen doors for possibly the hundredth time.
The neighbors of an autocratic Duke in Gottstardt
had already begun to notice that the nobleman in question had not aged
appreciably since he first moved into the neighborhood
(despite a judicious application of a graying agent
upon said nobleman's golden locks), and so it was past time for the Duke to
find a new life elsewhere. He would set out from his estates, never to be seen
again, and a young student, made newly rich by a highly insured disaster at sea
that had sadly taken the lives of most of his family, would arrive in
Good! mused Aristotle, all was in readiness--the house was just
far enough outside the city for privacy, but no so far his friend could not
find ample nourishment among the blackguards who plagued the city's slums. No
one would notice the riff-raff who disappeared in the coming years beyond
commenting that the streets had grown marginally safer in some quarters of
He remembered that
once upon a time, one simply loaded one's horses with one's belongings in the
dark and left for another town when the time of one's life had ripened to
harvest. One need not even search for a place so very far afield,
so uncommon was it for the folk in those times past to move from place to
place. But, some one-hundred years ago or so, an old friend (on the order of a
thousand-year acquaintance) had implored him to make a place for her in a city
nearby where he dwelled, that she might be free of past associations and
pursuers. How difficult it was becoming to change one's old life for a new one
in these modern times! she'd said--the records petty
officials often now demand of one! He'd arranged all for her, and so pleased
was she with the life he'd created, she'd mentioned
his eye for detail to others in their sanguinary circle. Soon enough, he'd
found himself arranging an existence for a harried vampyre
here, transferring a fortune there, creating a past for a fellow
creature-without-a-past that was so convincing, even the vampyre
who'd assumed the created existence might be fooled into thinking he was, for
instance, a Monsieur Reynault Foquarde,
bibliophile and stamp-collector, descended of a long line of military Foquardes--and had always been so!
In doing that favour
for his old friend who'd found it too difficult to create a new life for
herself, he'd inadvertently discovered his one true talent: the weaving of
threads into the tapestry that makes up a life. A difficult calling, yes; but
Mr. Aristotle had never found it dull, no, never tiresome; it was his joy to
design the ins and outs of a new life, to layer detail upon detail so that a
new individual stood where another had stood moments before.
"My dear sir,
can I offer you a medallion of pork sauteed with
garlic and onion in clarified butter?"
"Eh?"
Aristotle looked up from his pleasant reverie to take in the form of a
middle-aged mortal in expensive clothes, be-wigged, extravagantly mustachioed and portly. The fellow beamed down at him, yet
did not present all that friendly a picture to the slightly confused vampyre. Something about the challenging
stance. . . .
". . . and
shall I serve with that our truffle ragout, of which our chief is so
justifiably proud? That proud fungus of the forest, adorned with a succulent
meat sauce, redolent with garlic and parsnips! He is equally proud of his
tomatoes a la Grimod; the tomatoes are stuffed with
sausage seasoned with garlic, parsley, tarragon, and new scallions, then baked
in a shallow earthenware dish. Delicious!"
Aristotle frowned as
ferociously as he could at the annoying mortal, which is to say, he looked a
trifle cross. (He had never been possessed of a menacing countenance, much to
his chagrin--until, of course, the beast within emerged.) This mortal looked
familiar, now where had Aristotle seen him before? "No, sir; I--" he
began, only to be cut off.
"--No?"
said the mortal; ". . . no? Well, then, perhaps the leg of mutton is more
to your liking, we serve it braised and English
style, with turnips. I prefer the braised, myself. We insert cloves of garlic
under the skin and cover the entire leg with crushed mustard-seed steeped in
vinegar, which acts as an astringent upon fattyness
of the meat, a delicious combination. Or the salmis
of pheasant, yes! We had them on the spit this morning! The consomme
they've been stewing in since then is as zesty and flavourful as any you would
find in a fine Parisian restaurant! The broth contains diced garlic, as well as
various other secret herbs known only to our chef!"
"No! No thank
you, sir, I will not have any of it at all!" sniffed Aristotle, beginning
to feel queasy again--all this talk of garlic, a substance to which he was particularly
sensitive, even for a vampire--no wonder he'd been feeling a bit mingy the past few weeks. Garlic upon the steam that
wafted over his table whenever the kitchen doors were thrown open by one of the
waiters! "I noticed a theme to your litany of victuals to be found in this
establishment. Do you mean to say all of your dishes contain," he
gulped convulsively; ". . . garlic?"
The jolly mortal
smiled an oily, insincere smile. "No sir, not at all-- the cherry compote
contains no garlic, nor does the bread pudding! Our
tapioca is entirely free of all garlic. True, our chef does rely heavily
upon that flavourful, heady cousin of the onion, but even he does not
put it in the desserts, nor the ale!"
Aristotle
short-sightedly shook his head, then made a dismissive
gesture with his pen. "Well, it won't do, will it? We can't have garlic in
here, no we can't. No more garlic. See to it, my man." Assuming the topic
had been settled, Aristotle shot his cuffs, cleared
his throat, and turned back to his important work. As far as he was concerned,
it was business as usual, as it had been for some thirty profitable years.
Had he looked up, he
might have noticed his avuncular host turning a bright shade of plum-tomato
red. Had he been listening, he might have noticed the man's heart beginning to
pound thunderously beneath his quilted, embroidered waistcoat. But he did not
look up, and he did not listen.
"Very good,
sir," spoke the human to the still air above the vampyre's
head, for indeed, Mr. Aristotle no longer considered him important enough to
notice. "Very well, I shall simply have to get the chef."
Pretty Martha Boggins dimpled at her spouse; chubby, well-manicured hands
poised on her ample hips. "I thought you were going to deal with
little Mister Aristotle?" she said sweetly as he swept past her to the
kitchen.
"Rrrrumph!" was all her darling growled at her over his
shoulder. Were that quaint, frustrated snarl translatable, she might take its
meaning to be `safety in numbers', for one could be particularly safe if
one stood behind that most formidable of gentlemen, the head chef at Hastings,
Monsieur Jean- Luc de la Champignon--as long as one avoided the swinging meat
cleaver that seemed permanently attached to his brawny right hand.
The Great Chef,
Monsieur Jean-Luc de la Champignon--his appellation did not begin to describe
him. Quite unlike the shy mushroom that was his family name, he did not
peep out from behind blades of dew-spattered grass, innocent of the knowledge
of his own tastiness. He burst forth and was formost
(in his opinion) in all things: the most skilled lover of women, the most
expert wine-taster and--most important of all--the greatest chef, not
merely in
Her husband's broad
back disappeared behind the swinging door of the kitchen, but the level of
noise in
****
Mr. Aristotle first
became aware of his audience when the warm, wet odour of garlic wafted
across his cheek, raising a rash of goose-bumps in its wake. He drew back, and
looked up . . . and up, and up. A mortal of considerable height towered above
him, breathing great blasts of garlic- flavoured breath upon him, glaring down
at him. It had been over a thousand years since Aristotle had known fear at the
sight of another man, but the intensity of that stare was enough to take aback
even a vampyre. At least, Aristotle thought
the object of the human's attention was himself. He looked from side-to-side, to
see if anyone had seated himself at his table whilst he'd been pre-occupied
with the Foquarde affair, but, no, there was nobody
at the table but himself.
"Yes?"
Aristotle ventured, though with a bit of an inquistive
snap to his voice. He had no time for this, his client would be arriving in
"H'am I to be told, Monsieur, that
you will be 'aving of the young partridge in garlic
sauce, this h'evening?" said the
fully-six-foot-five-and- one-half-inch tall apparition, its waist tied 'round
with a food-stained apron, a white cap upon its head.
"Whoever told
you that is a bloody fool," said Aristotle shortly.
His inquisitor's
hirsute arms flexed. "H'ah. Then you will be 'aving of the h'ortolans en
terrine? H'or the fresh 'erring Matelote? 'Ow about a simple bouillabaisse for
Monsieur?"
"Dare I suspect
that these calamitous dishes, too, are smothered in that most unfortunate of
all the plants in Mother Nature's arsenal, garlic?"
"You may dare
to suspect as much, Monsieur!" rejoined the mortal. "Garlic clears
the sinuses and cleans the blood, and is a general promoter of cleanliness and
good 'ealth. If more people h'ate
of the garlic, there would be less of a need for the medical professional and
its leeches."
"Well, that's
as may be, my man," said Aristotle. "But it won't do, it just won't
do. It's vile stuff, it is--hey!" He had just
remembered where it was he'd seen that first mortal, the jolly one he'd spoken
to earlier. The one who was hiding, almost unnoticed, behind this obstreporous example of unnatural gigantism--a neat trick,
still, considering the jolly mortal's bulk. "You there!
Aren't you the new owner?" He remembered being a bit distracted by the
forgery of some deeds of ownership for the vampyress
Lady Wilberforce at the time of their introduction just over a month ago; that
was why he'd not pegged the fellow right off.
Mr. Boggins stepped to the fore and bowed. "I am the new
owner, sir," he murmured faintly.
"Well, you
can just tell this cookery-man here that all this garlic just won't do!"
Mr. Aristotle stated positively.
The spectacle of the
owner of a restaurant and its head chef taking a restaurant patron to task is
not one that goes unnoticed by the general public. During Mr. Aristotle's
interview with his two examiners, gentlemen who had moments ago been engaged in
pleasing conversation with their dinner- companions ceased their talk, to
fasten eyes upon the vulger display at hand. And take
part in it.
""Ere!"
cried one of their audience; "I been comin' to 'Astings since before my first marriage; that's about nigh
on twenty year now, and I ain't missed a Thursday at
'Astings in all that time! But my second wife, she's
taken to lockin' me out of my bedroom come Thursday ev'nin' this past month since you lot took over. She said I
smell a fair treat and she won't have it no more. I reckon it's this garlic
stuff!" Aristotle recognized the man as one to whom he had nodded
companionably each Thursday, but had never spoken to in all the time they'd
both been regulars at
"That's right!
Good heavens, man; a bit of garlic in a red sauce is permissible, but this?"
another regular held up a forkful of steak-and- kidney; "well, it's quite
as if you added a bit of meat to your garlic, and not the other way
'round."
General sounds of
approbation greeted this assertion, and cries of 'Hear, hear! Let's have an end
to this garlic nonsense!" filled the air. Mr. Boggins
moaned piteously and sank into a nearby chair at an empty table. One could
assume this was not going as he'd planned.
The Great Chef,
Jean-Luc de la Champignon, seemed to swell with rage. "Peasants!" he
hissed; "you H'anglish pig-dogs are not fit
to partake of the repast from the 'and of the one, the only, Champignon!"
Already Mr.
Aristotle found himself growing less and less interested in this mortal's
temperament outbursts, and the call of the Foquarde
situation beckoned from the papers set before him upon the table. He only
half-caught that last from the Great Chef and responded thusly: "Pigs? Champignons? No, no, no. No pork, no mushrooms; neither with
nor without garlic. Vile stuff. Leave me be, and thank
ye kindly."
Now, if there was
one thing you did not do under any circumstances, it was make fun of The Great
Chef's family name, let alone do it in concert with an insult to his abilities
as a chef. At just that moment, a waiter bearing an enourmous
tray for table fifteen came through the swinging door, blissfully ignorant of
the revolution developing in the dining-room. Monsieur Champignon reached over
and grasped the domesticated goose a la Chipolata that took up most of the
tray, then heaved it at Mr. Aristotle's head. Mr.
Aristotle gave a pathetic cry and went over backwards in his chair, taking the
table and all of his books and papers to the floor with him.
In heaving the goose
at the vampyre, The Great Chef was not particularly
tidy in the doing of it, and so a quantity of the accompanying potatoes and
stewed tomatoes that had decorated the main course of goose also went flying,
though with somewhat less accuracy of aim. These vegetables, greasy with cooked
goose, went into the laps and faces of the men who had been crying for an end
to the regimen of garlic only moments before, and caused quite an uproar. Many of the men, though now staunch business-men,
had once been in the military, and it is true, once a military man, always a
military man; and so a campaign against the French chef was immediately
assumed. Any foody substance that came to hand, be it
a roll or a leg of lamb, became a weapon thrown in the direction of Monsieur
Champignon.
Mr. Boggins screamed and ran into the kitchen.
Martha Boggins quickly nipped behind the counter into a
comfortable hidey-hole, hugging the cash-box to her ample bosom. She'd been a
bar-maid in her father's pub in
Poor Mr. Aristotle
lay feebly twitching under the garlic-soaked goose, unable to affect a return
to an upright position no matter how hard he tried, so strong was the influence
of the garlic. One can only guess at the horrors that lay in wait for him had
not a hand reached down and removed the goose from his countenance, then pulled
him, still in his chair, to the upright position he craved. That hand proved to
be attached to a cuff with lace upon it, and the cuff attached to a loden-green velvet coat, and the velvet coat upon the back
of a fine-looking young gentleman who brushed off the badly- burned vampyre and inquired after his health. "Gaaaah!" came Mr. Aristotle's first gasp of breath, then he said, "Oh, you're one of us! However did I fail
to sense you?"
"I was
arranging a business deal with some acquaintences
over by the front and wondered at you sitting so close to the kitchen,"
the young vampyre said; "it seems to me that
you've been affected adversely by the potent garlic vapour wafting with such
vigour from those doors there. Most unpleasant. My
business associates seem distracted at the moment. Shall we quit this
place?" He ducked a roast fowl that flew past his ear as if it were still
a live bird.
"Oh, yes,
please," responded Aristotle. "But my papers!
My books!"
The young vampypre helped him to collect his belongings, then escorted him from the dining room whilst protecting him
from the worst of the edible projectiles, and out they went into the street.
The newly touched-up sign proclaiming "
Mr. Aristotle sighed
and clutched his belongings to him. "So caught up was I in the threads of
other vampyres' lives that I did not even see it was
time for me to be moving along, myself! And your name,
good sir?"
"Nicholas de
Brabant," the young vampyre introduced himself
to the elder one. "And you are, I believe, Aristotle, who helps our kind
to find new lives when we've out-grown the old ones? You have become somewhat
well-known in our select circles, have you not, sir?"
"Well, I
suppose that is true; but it is also true that I am in your debt, young man,
and must thank you for your services; e'en one day I
must pay you back in kind!" said Aristotle, then he began to chuckle. He
had had to turn to look his young companion in the face, and so caught sight
again of the sign that hung from the front of the restaurant they'd just
quitted, from which sounds of battle could still be heard. "It seems to
me," he said at last, "that that marks the second time I've
lived through the Battle of Hastings, and one day we will speak of it in
remembrance!"
The End
Thanks for staying
with me this far, even tho' this isn't a story about
your favorite character!