Fred's long-winded lesson on the invention of the abacus was harder to digest than the group's meal. The end, or maybe he'd just paused to wet his whistle, was punctuated by a small feminine belch from the other end of the table, and the surprised silence of thirteen ladies unwilling to own the slip. Rather than offer indelicate congratulations, Danny simply said, "Agreed!", and pushed his chair back and patted his stomach.

"Was the pie crust to your liking?" Fred asked.

"It was so good I didn't mind there was nothing in it," Danny said.

"The potatoes au gratin were so rich, I thought it best not to overdo dessert."

(For consistency's sake I should point out that there was cream in that casserole, but when you can count the individual bread crumbs on top, it's hardly indulgence.)

"Did I hear correctly," Fred continued, "that you, Rina and Giselle, helped cook with the dish?"

"A gratin is so much nicer when the potatoes are peeled," Ginger answered, looking to Rita to confirm it.

"I don't let the cook peel potatoes anymore," Fred said to the boys. "He's quite heavy handed and we go through double the spuds. Please tell me, young ladies, you wore your gloves. I won't see your suitors diminish due to scullery knuckles. Your parents will think I've exploited you for labour."

"Never!" the girls protested sweetly, and Danny used the fawning as an excuse to duck away and head for the kitchen.

After his fill of praise for what a kind guardian he'd been, Fred finally noticed his guest missing. "Where has Danny gone?"

"Official business, Sir Fred," Francis said with a conspiring nod.

"Ahh, yes," Fred said. "Say no more."

"I hope he doesn't run into our ghost in the corridors," said Lana.

"You didn't see anything last night, did you?" Lena asked Francis.

"No, I didn't because I don't believe in them."

"That doesn't matter if they believe in you," said Ava.

"Well, if I did and if I had, I can't imagine there would've much to talk about."

"Meaning?" asked Rita.

"It's just from the stories I've heard, there are spirits who would make your hair stand on end. Yours let's you live in relative peace and frankly, doesn't sound like it could scare the feathers off a chicken."

"Oh, what would you know?" she said, flopping her wrist dismissively.

"Ever hear of the The Black Knight of Balentyne?"

"No, but I don't like the sound of him," Judy said timidly.

"And you wouldn't. Never mind that laughing stuff. The Black Knight is supposed to have a wail that'll make you jump out of your skin, which is exactly what he wants."

"Why?" Katherine asked.

"Well, if he doesn't have skin, why should you?"

"Go on."

"He's a fearsome thing, The Black Knight. Cursed for all eternity by the Banshee of Balmoral. Shall I tell you about him?" The girls leaned in eagerly. "Okay, but compared to your little castle rover, this one takes the cake."

*****

The hot, cluttered kitchen could have been the inside of a giant's stone oven. Danny watched the cook whip discarded onion heads and garlic peels onto the floor with his stained rag. He flung tins and pots to the wash tub, and swept the floor with a split broom which kicked flour in every direction but the one he seemed intent on. He muttered to himself in a language Danny didn't recognize, and wiped sweat from his brow and onto the apron which strained to cover his round barrel of a chest.

"Working hard or hardly working?" Danny asked jovially, as though it wasn't an interruption. The cook barely acknowledged him.

"Boy, just one chef running this whole show. I hope you're getting paid well."

The cook grumbled and threw a wooden spoon onto a pile of utensils.

"That's if you're getting paid at all."

The cook cast an eye at Danny over his shoulder and harrumphed.

"You certainly deserve some kind of commendation for all your troubles. Maybe when the king gets here. I know Sir Fred can be kinda stingy when it comes to rewards."

Danny knew he was onto something when the cook rolled his eyes and stabbed a wide knife into a chopping board so that it stood on its tip.

"Tell me about it. I have an uncle who's exactly the same. A skinflint if ever there was, but he's got the fattest pigs in the village and that's on account of my aunt being able to do so much with so little. She's won so many baking contests, I've lost count. Why, she can whip up the best birthday cake you ever tasted out of just some flour, water and one egg." The cook raised a skeptical brow. "I can see you don't believe me, but it's true. I'd prove it to you by giving you the recipe but it's a family secret. Besides, that'd only be more work for you. Of course, nothing says I couldn't bake one for you."

The cook tossed his rag over his shoulder and seemed to contemplate the offer, only to decline with a wordless shrug.

"Maybe some other time. Oh, but that's right, we might be leaving soon. And I guess it's nobody's birthday so what would we do with a triple layer birthday cake with pink icing anyway?"

Now the cook crossed his arms and tilted his head, and Danny detected the smallest flicker of a dare in his doubtful eyes.

"I don't know about you, but my sweet tooth has been bugging me all day."

The cook pursed his lips and then made a gesture with his hands to indicate Danny was free to make himself useful or foolish.

"Challenge accepted! Take a load off, Cooky, and just point me in the direction of the flour sacks.

*****

"And because he'd bested the Banshee's favourite in an unfair joust, she sealed him up in his armour, doomed to wear it forever."

"No!"

"His squires grew weak trying to free him. The blacksmith's tools were of no avail."

"They should have tried a can opener," said Ginger.

"They dragged him behind a carriage of six horses and not a single plate came loose. Even now the knight's ghost wears his black metal shroud, begging along the roads for someone to end his torment.

"You mean he died in it?" asked Judy, paler than before.

"That's horrible," said Dorothy.

"How'd he eat?" asked Rosalind. "Did they feed him through the breaths of his visor?"

"Nothing got in, and nothing got out," Francis said.

The princesses recoiled as one.

"I think I'm going to faint," said Lady Winnie.

"Skip to the scary part!" Katherine demanded.

Francis happily obliged.

*****

With his meager ingredients lined up on his table, Danny stood over a mixing bowl. The cook stood behind him, watching curiously over his shoulder.

"Okie dokes. Now in goes the flour," Danny said, pouring what he guessed were nine rough cups from the sack into the bowl. He stirred the flour with a fork as though magic was already happening.

"See, the key to this whole thing is to make sure there are no lumps or hard bits. A fork works great, but if you've got a little sugar to grind things up, like say, two or three cups, that really does the trick."

His stirring continued, even as the cook snuck away to return with a jar full of sugar.

"Pour that in, would ya?" Danny said. The cook did so. "You see how fine that gets? Do me a favour and pass me that egg." Danny cracked the egg into the flour and watched it turn to dust. "Of course, when my aunt won the grand prize at the food fair in Fiddler's Fife, she used six eggs, but this will do fine too."

The cook scurried away and brought Danny five more eggs.

"Hey, that's swell, thanks. Get them in there. I'm telling you, you won't even miss the vanilla, even though..."

Once again the cook headed for the pantry.

*****

"The moon was but a bit of pearl seen through the slit of stubborn oyster shell as the night's clouds sought to encase it. The coach reached a fork in the road, cleaved by just a sliver of light. 'Who gooooes therrrrre?' the driver heard. And no doubt the lady passenger thought the man had asked the question."

"Oh brother," said Ginger, as Francis crept up to her ear.

"Whooo gooooes therrrrre?"

"Whoever it is, better move down a seat."

Francis turned his face to Rita. She smiled, but blocked her ear with her shoulder. From the other end of the table Lucy shouted, "Me next!"

*****

Danny shoved the last of three pans into the blazing oven and wiped his hands with a grin of satisfaction.

"Now we just bake until golden. All that milk and butter will see to that, but really they weren't necessary. And we can use what's left for the icing. Waste not, want not."

While the cook busied himself trying to locate a cake plate, Danny racked his brain for something that might dye his icing pink.

"You haven't got any red berries around this joint have you? Or maybe some pink flowers or something. Just as a decoration, mind you. It's not really cheating."

The cook shook his head no.

"It's just I realize now my aunt never did give me the recipe for the pink icing. She said if I wasn't clever enough to figure it out I shouldn't have it. I mean, you'd have to be really clever wouldn't you? A culinary wizard, in fact. Not a simple rube like me, I suppose."

The cook held up a finger to stop him, disappeared into a cupboard, then returned with thimble of red liquid. As Danny mixed another bowl of sugar and butter the cook poured the liquid in and a red swirl soon dissolved into petal-pink gloop.

"Say, that's a winner!" Danny said. "What the heck was it?"

"Would you believe beet juice?" the cook said in a high, nasal pitch, and hit Danny on the arm with the back of his fat hand.

*****

"And when they at last outraced the Knight to the safety of a churchyard's sacred ground, what did they find lodged in the handle of the coach door? A mace and chain!"

The princesses jumped back, all frightened, nervous giggles. Francis sank to his seat slowly, a smirk of triumph on his face.

"Well," said Fred, "I don't believe I'll ever look at sardines the same way again. Perhaps that's enough entertainment for one evening."

"Don't you girls want to hear about the Mad Jester of Malbain?"

"You bet!" Katherine said.

"Was this one cute at least?" Betty asked.

Dorothy scrunched her nose. "What's wrong with you?"

"Well, we couldn't see the last one's face," Marilyn complained.

"Nobody could," said Lana, to which Ava added, "That was the point."

"Girls, please," Lady Winifred said, a second away from needing smelling salts. "One more of these stories and none of us will ever sleep again."

Frederic rose, signalling the end of the evening. Francis followed, and said, "Then on behalf of Danny and myself, I bid you all a goodnight and look forward to seeing you later, that is, in the morning."

The princesses stood together as a group, and Rita was soon at Ginger's side to whisper, "They're definitely up to something."

"They're trouble alright, but we don't have time for that now. We've got a wheel of cheese to get rolling."

"Sire," Rita said, "Ginger and I promised to help the cook clear the table as a thank you for letting us peel the potatoes."

"That's very generous of you ladies. I'll allow it, providing you wash no dishes. Lady, Winnie, you'll keep an eye on them, won't you?"

But as the other princesses hurried to the stairs, their chaperone seemed torn. "Which ones, Sir Fred?"

"Gina and Skeeter, of course. The others know the way up to their rooms."

Rosalind elbowed Lena, who quivered dramatically and whined, "Alone? In the dark?"

"Hardly alone, child," Fred tutted. Winifred wrung her hands.

"But I'm so terribly frightened after that awful story!"

"Yes," the princesses chimed in, knowing what Rita and Ginger were up to. "We all are!"

"Terribly frightened," Rosalind insisted. "Isn't that terrible? I hate to think what our folks will say when they find out you let us go all the way to our rooms by ourselves, terribly frightened as we are. Why, I've never heard of anything so, so terribly –"

"Don't say it," said Fred. "Winnie escort them. I'll stay with...I'll only be...these two will be fine, won't you?"

"Oh yes," Rita and Ginger assured him prettily.

"I want you ladies upstairs in twenty minutes," Winifred said. "You need your beauty rest."

"Yes, Lady Winnie," the girls curtsied.

As the room emptied, Rita did a quick head count. Ginger blew out the candles and started piling plates. "Ginger," Rita asked, "did you see Francis leave?"

"No," Ginger answered, and then said, "Pile faster."

*****

When Francis saw Rupret's cake he was no less than amazed.

"Brother, I take it all back. Look at this thing."

"Best cake I ever made," Danny boasted. "I even scrounged up a cherry for the top.  Beautiful, isn’t  it?" He watched Francis walk around it to appreciate it from all angles.

"Sure is. I don't know how you – hey, wait a minute! What's with the hole?"

A large chunk of cake was missing from one side.

"I had to give the cook something to keep him quiet. A little slice, I said."

"He carved out two floors."

"I know, the glutton. I was just about to stuff it with a rag and cover it with the last of the frosting."

"Let's hope that dragon swallows it whole or he's going to swallow us."

"Just help me get it in the wheelbarrow and try not to get your fingerprints all over it."

They had only just done so and covered the cake with a blanket of cheesecloth when Rita and Ginger entered the kitchen carrying dirty dishes.

"So there you two are!" said Ginger. "I might have known you'd raid our pantries."

"Caught us red-handed," Danny chuckled, wiping his pink fingertips on the back of Francis' vest. "Just looking for midnight snacks."

"You're a few hours early."

"Man cannot live on bread and cheese alone," Francis said.

The girls went bug-eyed. "You didn't eat the cheese did you?" asked Rita.

"Couldn't find any," Danny said.

"Poor hungry boys. How about a nice boiled potato? Boiled them ourselves this afternoon."

"Oh, please no," begged Francis. "No more potatoes."

"Then what do you want?" Rita asked.

Francis smiled. "That feels like a trick question."

"If you really want to know," Danny said, "I've got a hankering for a fried bologna sandwich."

"How about a couple strips of jerky and few soda crackers?" Ginger offered.

"It's like the war never ended," Danny sighed. "But sold."

"If you could just move this barrel of potatoes out of the way, I'll get it," Ginger said, with one eyelash-bat too many to be genuine. Still Danny asked her where she wanted it.

"Oh, just tip it on its side and roll it near the door," Ginger said.

"Near this wagon wheel of cheese?"

"Uh-huh."

She quickly slapped a stack of dry goodies into a napkin, and shoved it into Francis' hands.

"There you are, but you mustn't tell Fred. Off to bed with you now."

"Let us help you with the cleaning up," Francis suggested, also playing innocent.

Rita tried to lead him to the door by his elbow. "That won't be necessary. Besides, this may be the last chance I get to scrape a plate."

"Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"Such a suspicious mind. You really ought to have that looked at."

"We know where we're not wanted Francis," Danny sniffed, pretending to be insulted. "Let's just heave this potato keg up on one of these high shelves and get it out of the way before we get going."

"Oh yeah?" said Ginger. "Well then Rita and I will just put whatever you're trying to sneak out in that wheelbarrow back where it came from while we're closing the kitchen,"

"I get the feeling you don't like me," Danny said.

"You've got your jerky."

"Okay, Romeos," Rita sighed. "Let's just fess up. You're trying to catch us doing something we're not supposed to, but we've busted you instead."

Ginger jumped in. "And if Fred finds out about your looting, he'll give you the boot but quick."

"Of all the nerve!" Danny said.

"Of course, we understand, you boys need to make a living," Rita went on, looking at Francis, "so I, for one, don't take it personally."

"Naturally you don't," said Danny. "All you girls want is man with decent salary."

"Ha!" Ginger said.

Rita tilted her chin and shook her head. "You couldn't be more wrong, Danny. Girls don't care about money."

"Ha!" Danny said.

"All girls want is love and commitment."

"And commitment costs money. You've got to buy a home, and buy a woman clothes she can do her chores in, and then there'll be kids with mouths to feed. It'll be at least six years until their bones are solid enough that they carry a bale or push a plough."

Ginger rolled her eyes and couldn't help but laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"You are."

"I am?" Danny said, with a tingling sense it was flattery.

"Yes, and I happen to believe that all girls like a fella who can make them laugh."

"You do??"

"And kindness, and sincerity," Rita said. "A kiss you can trust is worth more than all the sweet nothings in the world."

"I can do that stuff," Danny said to Ginger. "Where do I sign?"

"Not so fast," Ginger snickered.

"I know you're thinking we're only in it for the benefits of the company, but I'll have you know it's true when they say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

"Speak for yourself," Francis said. "A man wants a partner. A loyal companion. The key to a man's heart is having his back."

"That's how you really feel?" asked Rita.

"Well, I won't lie to you, princess, so yes, that's exactly how I feel."

"These two," Ginger drawled, watching Rita shyly try to hide her blush from Francis's sincere smile.

"Weez two, too," Danny said, wiggling his eyebrows so that Ginger blushed in a giggle a little herself.

An undulating echo of Lady Winifred's voice seemed to pass through the walls then. "Girls, please come to bed!"

"You first then," Francis said.

The princesses glanced quickly at their barrel. "No, you," they both said.

"Okay, but don't look," said Danny, pushing the wheelbarrow with Rupret's covered cake past them as they said goodnight.

After carrying the barrow up the first flight of stairs, he asked Francis. "How are they gonna get those potatoes to their room?"

"I haven't the foggiest, but I hope they lift with their knees," Francis said.