The Tea Machine

by Gill McKnight

  Cybele glowered at her. It was obvious she was dragging her feet while the other young women as good as skipped towards the teacup. Did they know they were queuing to sit in goat urine? Millicent’s steps grew slower and slower.

  A few feet away, to her left, a door to the courtyard lay ajar. It let the light breeze waft away the heavy odour from the teacup. Outside, she could make out the curved edge of a fountain; the shadow of palm fronds played across the stonework. Millicent fancied she could hear the splash of water and trill of birdsong. She imagined blue skies and the warmth of the sun on her shoulders. She imagined a low and easily scalable courtyard wall.

  She lifted the hem of her tunic and legged it.

  CHAPTER 20

  Sophia did not like it. She did not like it at all. The place was dusty, hot, and filthy, even for the outdoors. The lazy, persistent hum of flies merged with the equally persistent drone of old men’s voices. She wasn’t sure where she was. The ground under her feet was hard-packed and cracked open with drought. A crude building made from various tree parts and lumps of mud stood off to her left. Bales of straw were piled inside it, and a broody hen roosted resplendent on the topmost one. A few straggly, windblown trees grew almost horizontally along the ridge behind her. Other than that, the place was a dust bowl. That accounted for the dirt she supposed, brushing down her skirts with vigour. She had no idea how she had gotten here but assumed the machine made people travel whether they wanted to or not. It was most thoughtless.

  She became aware of a tense silence fallen over her less than pastoral panorama. Bar an annoying fly droning near her ear, all was quiet; the old men’s voices had dropped away. She looked up to find several dishevelled goat herders—she could think of no other occupation that required such a disarrangement of clothing—staring at her open mouthed. How rude. There were five rough looking fellows in all and a boy, maybe in his early teens. They gaped at her in a most alarming and unintelligent way.

  “I say, where is this?” she inquired.

  They started back as if she’d flung fire at their feet.

  “Oh, really.” She was so cross. This nonsense had gone on long enough. “Haven’t you seen a lady before?” She doubted it. She would have very stern words with Hubert when she saw—and then it hit her like a pail of water, freezing her heart in a spasm of pain and erasing all sensibility. Her dearest Hubert was gone! Devoured by a monster before her eyes. And his accursed machine had catapulted her out of London to some distant goat farm. She was alone, lost, and surrounded by a total lack of hygiene.

  She sank onto a boulder, her legs no longer capable of holding her. One of the men approached her cautiously in that he was shoved to the foremost by the others. He was older than the rest, more stooped and bedraggled, with mounds of dirty linen heaped around his scraggy frame. Considering the others wore strips of fabric held together by stains alone, it seemed safe to assume he was an elder, and therefore her welcome party.

  He mumbled something at her from a safe distance. Sophia thought she could make out…Latin? Where in the world did they speak Latin? Had Hubert’s machine sent her to Latvia! Good gracious. It also made her think of Gallo with his gentle Latin lips—words! Gentle Latin words. Her heart spasmed again. She had lost Hubert and Gallo, and all in one day. The only two people she had ever felt any genuine warmth for. And somehow she’d been careless enough to lose them both. She was an undeserving, stupid, and wretched failure of a human being. Fate had taken away all her happiness as punishment.

  A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed on her dusty silk lap. She tried to shake herself out of self-pity. It was not an attractive feature, and she actively forbade it in others. Plus it was an unaffordable luxury at this moment. Perhaps later she could let the floodgates open, as a secret indulgence in her hotel room. The old man muttered again. She thought he said something about an ecstatic welcome. At least someone was happy.

  She concentrated on his words, trying to decipher them.

  “Welcome, lady visitor of the goatherd,” he was saying. He flapped his hand at the young boy beside him, who went scurrying off towards a tiny village nestled on a distant hillside. She began to take further note of her surroundings. She was at the edge of an olive grove in a small valley. It was pretty, she supposed, in the Biblical sense, meaning there was dust and donkeys, but where was the inn? She needed to wash and indulge in a pot of much needed tea.

  The valley floor was vibrant and fecund against the barren hillside where she stood. The gritty dust that seemed to get everywhere blew in hot, swirling breezes. Overhead a cloudless blue sky domed the valley with a stifling stillness broken only by the drifting of far-off honey buzzards cruising the higher air currents. The air was heavy and tranquil with the silver shiver of olive boughs and an occasional clank of a herd bell to break the peace.

  The old man spoke again, “Would you like a goat, dearest magical lady?” He was clearly unsure how to address her, but she decided dearest magical lady would do for now.

  “No. No goats,” she said, and was pleased he seemed to understand her. Perhaps her Latin was better than she imagined. “Perhaps some tea.”

  By dusk the entire village had come out to welcome her and present her with their most favoured goats. In the lean-to, they had put coarse sack matting over the bales, chased out the chicken, and much to her consternation, expected her to recline. She would rather sleep tied upright to a tree than lie on that giant mouse nest.

  At her feet, a filthy blanket held about a hundredweight of figs. If she saw one more fig, she’d have a fit. Olives, figs, goats, even a lopsided loom. They had brought her anything and everything they treasured, but no tea.

  A fire pit had been built nearby and now its light and heat were welcoming in the early evening time. One of the goats had been dispatched, thankfully well out of sight, and it was now being roasted on a crude spit. The smell was appalling.

  Sophia had been right all along to dislike travel. One did not have to experience it to know it was horrid. Stars were beginning to pulse through the twilight. Every passing second, a new cluster bloomed out of the night sky. Sophia regarded the crystalline majesty above her and sighed at its beauty. For one infinitesimal moment, she moved outside of her present woes and her soul flew towards the wondrous magnitude of the universe and was spellbound.

  “My dearest magical lady, please have another fig.” The elder was pressing figs upon her again. He wrung his hands in supplication. “The people wish to know which is your star? We see you look for it. Where do you live, dearest magical lady?”

  How sweet. Now, if only it were Gallo asking her to count the stars and chose which one to live upon. She sighed deeply. How long must she wait before Millicent or Gallo came along and took her back home? It was awful; she had no luggage, and her silks were covered in a fine layer of valley dust. As for the stars? She waved her hand in a flamboyant gesture at the Milky Way weaving indolently overhead.

  “That river of light,” she said, “it’s all mine.” And smiled dreamily. Her audience gasped, and she was amused at their naivety. Now, if only she had a nice cup of tea, she could bear the absurdity of the moment as well as the infinite beauty of it, too.

  By the next morning, the populations of several other villages had arrived with even more figs and goats. Sophia arose from her slumber to find a crowd assembled outside her holy hovel. She had eventually succumbed to the makeshift bed through a mixture of exhaustion and the simple rustic wine that washed down the spit-roasted goat…which tasted much better than she had imagined. She had quickly fallen into a deep and restorative sleep on her prickly pillow, and now awoke to find even more supplicants kneeling unnervingly close to her straw boudoir. The elder approached with some local women in tow.

  “We have maidservants for you, lady of the stars. They will take you to the river and adorn you.” He stood taller now and spoke with more authority. Not to her, of course, to her he
was as acquiescent as ever, but he was enjoying ordering everyone else around on her behalf. Sophia had to admit, this adorning her at the river idea sounded just the ticket after a long night in a hayrick.

  “What is your name?” she asked him. It would probably be a useful thing to know.

  He preened with importance. “I am Volos, dearest star lady. Your servant and number one priest. And this is my wife, Despina, who will be your number one house servant and priestess. She will be matron over your handmaidens.” He pointed to an eager cluster of young girls. “My daughters and nieces are at your service.”

  Oh, so she had a priest, a priestess, and servants now. Sophia warmed to the idea of worship. Foreigners were strange people; she’d have to get used to their little ways. She turned to Despina and smiled. The woman fell to the ground.

  “Oh do get up and take me to the river. I need my toilette. I hope you have scented soaps.” To Volos she said, “And you. Get me a cup of tea.” Ignoring his nervous, crestfallen face, she allowed herself to be led away by her handmaidens.

  Sophia returned unsure whether to be pleased or disgruntled, eventually deciding her handmaidens had done well by her under the circumstances. She now wore a wonderful flowing toga of the purest white. It was cool and clean and caressed her skin wonderfully after the stuffy layers of her dinner dress, which had been whisked away for laundering while she had been pumiced within an inch of her life with volcanic stone. The experience left her scuffed and bruised but undeniably glowing. Her hair had been massaged with oils until it shone and then elaborately braided and piled up on the crown of her head. She would have felt almost regal if it weren’t for the growling of her empty stomach. She looked forward to her morning tea.

  A concoction of lukewarm water and fresh, frothy goat milk awaited her, along with a bowl of some indescribable gruel that had figs bobbing on the surface.

  “No. I need tea. Tea. Teeeea,” she said, rather peevishly. But really enough was enough. “Haven’t you people heard of it?” And with horror, looking out at a sea of blank faces, she realized they hadn’t. She was in an Englishwoman’s hell!

  Luckily, Sophia had recently formed the habit of purloining a little of Hubert’s fabulous Darjeeling whenever she visited Christie Mews. This was not because the Trenchant-Myres couldn’t afford their own Darjeeling. Au contraire. They kept fine and expensive teas, but they were locked away in the tea caddy and only Mamma had the key. This left Sophia with a predicament. Whenever she visited the Misses Partridge, which was often, she had to drink the dust from the bottom of their tea caddy. They were not as domestically vigilant as Mrs. Trenchant-Myre, and as a result, the old dears’ servants stole tea from them with the greatest liberty. So, when visiting, Sophia always kept a smattering of decent tea leaves in her reticule to top up her tea cup. She restocked regularly from the Aberly’s equally unfettered caddy, tutting all the time at Millicent’s inattention and unwarranted trust. All Sophia required was a teapot of hot water, and she could manage the rest herself. She had the tea leaves upon her person, surely these people had some sort of pot she could use?

  “Have you a teapot?” she asked, loudly as this was important. Again she got the blank look she was becoming used to. She grabbed a twig and scratched the outline of a teapot in the dirt. “This is a teapot,” she said.

  Volos stared at her drawing. “You want this, oh lady of the dirt?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do,” she said, uncertain of this latest sobriquet. To fall from the stars to dirt so quickly was unsettling. Volos snapped his fingers, and a young man came forward to look enquiringly at the crude sketch.

  “You do this,” Volos ordered. The young man bowed, first to Volos and then to Sophia, several times, before running off towards the village.

  “Hani, the potter,” Volos explained. “He make this for you, goat lady.”

  Sophia sat back and considered a few things. Firstly, she was now the lady of the goats; was that better than dirt? Secondly, the village had a potter. What an interesting development. She lifted her twig and began another sketch. “Call him back,” she said. “I want him to make me this as well.”

  Volos bowed deeply. “Of course, lady of pots.”

  The first teapot was minuscule, so she introduced scale to her sketches. The second exploded, so she explained it was to be capable of holding hot water and needed to be glazed appropriately. The third needed a tighter lid to stop the contents evaporating. The fourth moved them on to the need for a sturdier handle. Goat curds and lemon juice made a wonderful poultice for burns. The fifth needed the spout modified so as not to scald. Goat curds and lemon juice were again useful. The sixth needed the inside to be less porous as a scummy film formed on top of the water. The seventh had a pretty floral decoration and poured like a dream. Sophia filled it with water and her precious tea leaves and waited anxiously. The set of six cups and saucers she’d also had made were delightfully delicate. She was very pleased with them and favoured Hani and his family with a winsome smile. They were elated and began to manufacture her tea set for the mass market under her divine seal of approval.

  The entire geographical region—all of which had come to pay goat-laden tribute—held its breath on bended knee. Sophia smiled indulgently at their childlike curiosity and pagan befuddlement. The reverence they showed her first cup of tea was almost religious.

  It’s funny how a nice cup of tea can put a fresh face on an old problem. For several days Sophia had been stranded in the Valley of the Goats, as it was now known due to the growing herd around her new retreat. The straw filled lean-to was a thing of the past. Instead, a rather nice, if basic, two roomed villa had been hastily erected for her in handmade mud, brick, and stone. Volos assured her marble blocks and stone masons were at this very moment trekking over the mountains to build her a spectacular temple. A temple sounded rather elaborate, but she supposed those were the sort of places people could safely stay in when travelling abroad. She took her trusty scratching stick and drew up a set of plans based on the ground floor of Farrance’s of Belgrave Square to show Volos what, to her mind, best suited sensible traveller accommodation.

  During one of these planning sessions, she shared some of her tea with Volos. He was impressed with the smoky flavour, and she explained to him where tea came from. In the dirt, she scratched out a rough map of China and India to the east of Europe. She looked at her little dirt map and wondered where the Urals were. She missed Captain Gallo terribly.

  It was nice to have someone to talk to sensibly amid her ever shifting sea of goats. And now that the newness was off her relationship with Volos, she found she could converse easily with him and several other members of what was becoming her household. She needed this human connection. Sophia was becoming fretful that Millicent and Sangfroid, and especially dear Gallo, had not yet rescued her. She hoped everyone was safe but would have preferred for them to come searching for her quicker. She itched to be home. Being abroad was far too foreign. But wherever it was that Hubert’s machine had deposited her, she knew it was best to stay close to her disembarkation point. That way, she would be easily located when the others eventually bothered to turn up. It was all very vexing.

  “Please, lady of the tea, meet my grandson.” Volos introduced a teenage boy. “This is Heron. He is staying here with me until he gets word to join his father in Alexandria.”

  “Egypt? How lovely. You will see the pyramids, Heron,” she said, and indicated the boy should sit beside her. His shy gaze fixed upon the pot boiling on the fire. The steam lifted the clay lid up and down with an irregular clatter. It seemed to fascinate him.

  “Ah.” Sophia noticed his attention to the steaming pot. “The power of steam, Heron. See how the pressure builds up and lifts the lid? My fiancé, Hubert, did many wonderful things with steam pressure. Why, it could even be used to turn that spit.” She pointed to the current goat-on-a-spit. It had become a chief staple of her new diet, along wit
h mountain greens stewed in lemon water. There was always some poor kitchen waif turning the spit handle while their shins roasted.

  The boy’s eyes shimmered with intelligence. He had immediately understood her implication. Sophia concluded there was more going on in his head than most of the villagers combined.

  “I like the steam, oh lady of the steam power,” he said, with a reverence worthy of his grandfather. Sophia was pleased, perhaps she should teach these people some rudimentary science? After all, the youth of the valley should learn how to improve the quality of life in this barren place. And it would certainly pass the time for her. What a delicious thing to tell Millicent when next they met. That would certainly stop her crowing about free education for the wastrels and the waifs she was always fretting over. Millicent could hardly preach to the converted, now could she?

  “Tea?” Sophia offered generously, despite her dwindling supply. “We really do need to source more of the stuff.” She looked pointedly at Volos. Heron supped from his clay cup, savouring the unusual taste.

  “We will go to China and India and get this for you, lady of the steam.” Volos slapped a hand on his heart. “We will we demand it in your name,” he proclaimed. “Ah. But what will we say?” he asked, a little uncertainly.

  “Why, ask for tea, of course,” Sophia told him. “Loose leaf tea.”

  “Looselea.” Volos tried to wrap his tongue around the words.

  “Loose leaf,” Sophia corrected. “Ask for loose leaf.”

  “For our lady, Looselea, goddess of tea, we get more tea.” He smiled in satisfaction. There was a valley full of men who would make it so. An army of acolytes.

  “And steam power,” Heron added. “Our goddess of steam power,” he said shyly, and Sophia laughed gaily at their rustic whimsy.

  CHAPTER 21

  The wall proved less scalable than Millicent had hoped. No matter how much she scrabbled for a foothold, she found it impossible, and she was soon dragged down into the courtyard. A furious Cybele towered over her.