The Sol Majestic

by Ferrett Steinmetz

  “A year’s salary, I should add, that would be well-earned. Young Kenna here—the Prince”—and here, she kneels to spread out the robe before his chest, an oddly tailor-like gesture—“deserves a meal worthy of both his heritage … and ours. I dare say anyone who braves the Escargone’s challenges would have a bright future at The Sol Majestic. A bright future indeed.”

  She sweeps the robe shut like a curtain, then turns to face the kitchen.

  She sucks air through her teeth as her staff turns into fleshy mannequins.

  She whips her glasses off, squeezing her eyes shut as she cleans them, as if hoping clearer lenses will reveal a more courageous staff. When she slides them back on and finds everyone still frozen in place, a guttural growl wells up from her wattled throat.

  “Take a ten-minute break, everyone.”

  The head chef Keffen rests his hand on a mixer churning aerated batter. “Ma’am, some of the dishes are time-sens—”

  “Take a ten-minute break.”

  The kitchen scatters—even Montgomery clasps her cask to her chest like a refugee grabbing possessions, hauling a stunned Benzo out with her before he can say something stupid.

  Kenna makes for the exit, too, but Scrimshaw catches him by the scruff of the neck.

  “You,” she snarls. “Stand still. I need to copy your stains.”

  Kenna wishes that once, just once, he felt competent around Scrimshaw. He has to labor to force the question past his lips. “… what stains?”

  Scrimshaw kneels, holding the robe up to Kenna’s chest again. She licks a finger, runs it across Kenna’s belly, pops it into her mouth.

  “Lacquered duck sauce and soap,” she mutters, then paces the stoves, searching for a panful of lacquered duck sauce.

  “What stains?” Kenna repeats. But Scrimshaw is rattling pans in the sink. She scoops a thick dollop of glistening brown sauce, smears the sauce into the robe’s front with the care of an artist putting a brushstroke on a portrait. Then, looking back at Kenna as a reference, she grabs a palmful of dirty dishwater and wipes it across the robe.

  “What are you doing?”

  She snaps the robe in his direction, spattering soap in his eye. “Selling our first Inevitable robe.”

  Kenna’s sudden grin makes his eye water even harder. “The word’s getting out. They’re starting to sell.”

  She digs through the garbage, hauls out a pallid chicken from Benzo’s broth attempt this morning. She plops the boiled carcass onto the robe and rubs it around in circles, an insane dead-chicken dance.

  “The family that purchased this robe,” she says, grunting with the effort, “admires your efforts in bringing enlightenment to the working poor of Savor Station. They scrimped and saved for weeks until they were able to afford a single robe. They are, they tell us proudly, the first in their village to afford such an expenditure. But they desire the robe as you wear it now, marked with the sacrifices you have made for your people.”

  His robe crawls across his skin. He feels every clotted sauce-bump, every sodden water-stain.

  Someone wants to be like him.

  Him, a liar who only wants to sell robes to keep some snooty restaurant alive.

  He’s seen the starving millions—never met them directly, Mother would never dirty herself to walk among them, but she watches newscasts before bed. Many of them are mechanics and construction workers, housed in filthy company towns, paid in useless scrip, tasked to work on the assembly lines until they drown in oil and sweat. Others live in the deteriorated shadow of what had been thriving industry until the corporations extracted the last value from the land and then left, abandoning proud laborers to live in debris and famine.

  Yet though her Philosophies technically embrace all the infinite flavors of downtrodden misery, Mother always meditates upon the plight of the farmers.

  Kenna knows how little the farmers are allowed to retain of their own efforts—the emperors always take their food-share, and the armies take their share of food, and the landowners take their share, until the people who stand waist-deep in vegetable fields starve.

  And for a starving soul—any of the starving millions who one day hope to become Inevitable—to deprive themselves of even more food, to wear a robe, to carry his symbol back to the fields as a symbol of, what—Hope? Joy? Respect?

  Suddenly he is glad he ate almost nothing with Benzo out in the orchard. His growling stomach constricts, hollow as his philosophies. He has nothing to offer them—no political power, no connections, no diplomatic ties to stop a march to war—and yet they’re so famished for dreams, they map their own need for greatness upon him.

  I did this to sell robes, he thinks. But he thought he’d sell robes to the rich fashionistas who used to wear Inevitable robes, not to the starving millions. These poor souls must have eaten crickets to save up.

  But they’re selling, now. The first in their village, Scrimshaw had said. That meant more were saving up—and there were starving millions, he reminded himself, trillions of downtrodden subjects who’d watched his videos, there must be thousands hoarding their spare funds—farmers salting away their post-harvest dinari, mechanics requesting triple shifts, miners checking exhausted seams one more time in the hopes of extracting a last payout, all to wear the Inevitable Prince’s robe …

  “It’s good.” He lifts his own robe away from his chest; it feels foul, a charlatan’s costume. “This is—it’s a prerequisite. To market the robes. To save The Sol Majestic.”

  Scrimshaw makes a dreadful hacking noise, rolling into a fetal position.

  It takes Kenna a moment to realize she is laughing.

  “To save us?” She accents the word save with the guttural noise of a woman tearing a contract in half. She digs her fingers into Kenna’s wrist, drags him stumbling into the locked storage room.

  Scrimshaw has stacked the robes into one towering heap brushing the warehouse’s ceiling. The pile of unsold merchandise leans forward, threatening to topple upon them, enough robes to bury them in a silken cloud.

  A red placard is stuck into the pile, high enough it threatens to slit Kenna’s throat.

  “That.” She flicks the placard. “That is how many robes we must sell to dodge bankruptcy.”

  “We’ve sold the first. In time, we’ll—”

  “Time?” She pulls out a roll of smartpaper from her pockets, unfurls it like a courier about to recite the news. “We have nine days to sell enough robes to pay the manufacturer. Given our sterling reputation, having never been so late as a single day with a payment, I can obfuscate that out to twelve days. But then people will know. At this rate of sales, we won’t make it to the Wisdom Ceremony—we won’t be able to afford the ingredients.”

  “But the villages,” Kenna protests. “They’re saving up for—”

  “Yes.” Her smile is as sharp as a slipped razor. “Saving. Fractions of their tiny, tiny paychecks.” She holds up the robe daintily. “These purchasers were the lords of their village, the best off, buying to show off. The rest? It’ll take them months before they can afford their very own Kenna-robe. And by then, it won’t matter who they buy them from, because we won’t be here.”

  She taps the smartpaper, brings up Kenna’s Q-rating graph—years of dormancy, followed by a sharp spike after arriving at The Sol Majestic. The spike sharpens after the broadcast with Captain Lizzie, where Kenna’s name recognition now approaches 96% in maker circles. Kenna has vaulted up to minor celebrity status, and yet he hasn’t had an email address since his smartphone was stolen months ago.

  Scrimshaw snaps the paper, revealing the financial demographics of Kenna’s fans. That line barely rises above the ragged floor of abject poverty.

  “Your videos went viral,” Scrimshaw sneers. “You couldn’t have appealed to the wealthy, somehow? Not millions of hitchhiking hackers and underpaid waiters, but folks who might actually dine here?”

  Kenna slumps. Mother and Father would disapprove—they had disapproved, telling him more or less
the same thing when they’d watched the videos of him facing down Captain Lizzie:

  You were filmed consorting with criminals? Father had roared, Mother curled up weeping in the corner, Kenna’s feet tangling as he tried to stand tall like a prince before Father’s rage-darkened face.

  They weren’t criminals, Kenna had protested. They were talented people who had no outlet for their—

  They broke into a plant, drilled holes in the wall like terrorists! Didn’t we warn you the bloggers were thirsting to drink your fine reputation up before you even began?

  Father had brandished the smartpaper at him; Kenna had watched the emails pouring into Father’s inbox, all Father’s old contacts who’d finally deigned to return his correspondence. Mother and Father had been negotiating their rise back to relevance, Mother gleefully discussing how once they caught the right ears they could save the starving millions …

  … And the old viziers and vice-presidents and CFOs were sending concerned emails about Father’s wayward Prince. They’d seen him clad in a filthy robe like some hick, assisting addicts, and was this the new face of the Inevitable Philosophies? The bloggers were dissecting Kenna’s behavior, the webs ablaze with essays debating his bravery or recklessness or immaturity or just plain slovenliness.

  Well? Father’s voice had been colder than Montgomery’s frost-rimed flesh when he’d hauled her in from space. Is this low behavior an expression of your Inevitable Philosophy, Kenna? Or one last burst of rebellion before you settle on the path to wisdom?

  Normally, when Father had chastised him, Kenna had felt like an empty bottle crumpling under a boot heel. Yet he had been surprised to find himself not sinking into apologies, but standing straighter. Every word Father had spoken demonstrated ignorance, showcased how he refused to hear Kenna’s side of the story …

  Captain Lizzie did not believe me foolish, he had said. And she runs a far greater domain than you have ever ruled.

  And oh, how Father’s mouth had snapped shut.

  This had not been triumph. Father had never been a violent man, but he told anyone who would listen that it was correct to dispense pain medicinally. Though the truth was, Kenna realized, that Father resorted to might when logic failed. As Father’s jaw clenched, Father’s corded muscles gearing into violence, Kenna vowed that this time, he would block the blows until Father’s height and experience overwhelmed him.

  Oh, Kenna. Oh, my sweet boy.

  Mother’s voice had been sweet as sugar syrup, uncurling from mourning to embrace her son. There had been something in the way she held her arms out wide, as if offering him temporary harbor, that had made Kenna stop and walk, hypnotized, into her hug.

  She’d clasped him to her breast, running her fingers through his hair, untangling his fretted knots.

  I know Captain Lizzie must seem like true power to you, she told him. And why not? She’s the first official you swayed with your Philosophy. Don’t you remember that first time, dear husband?

  Father had grunted a mild assent, then turned to answer emails. Mother had kissed Kenna on the forehead, her lips still damp with tears.

  But you think small, my darling boy. Captain Lizzie owns a mile-wide hunk of metal, so distant from the populated systems that no one bothers to fight her for ownership. She commands no armies. The slightest rebellion would topple her.

  Kenna had stopped breathing. You’re not suggesting we—

  No, no. Mother’s serene smile had filled Kenna with uncertainty. I’m saying a woman in such a weak position must compromise, my sweet boy, or she’ll lose her position.

  That hadn’t rung true, even then. Captain Lizzie struck Kenna as someone who would fight to the death for what she believed in, no matter the odds. Yet Mother had spoken so certainly, as if her Inevitable Philosophy was calming his jumbled thoughts …

  But the people who hold true power? she’d continued. They don’t compromise. The folks you must sway rule nations, corporations, confederations. And if you side against them, well … as we’ve learned so painfully, they can shut us out.

  But we’re Inevitable, Kenna had protested, even though he wasn’t Inevitable. They can’t stop us if we are true.

  Yes! Mother had said, tapping him on the nose fondly. But do you think you’ll remain true, rubbing shoulders with these planless wastrels? Why irritate the powerful men capable of creating true change, all to associate yourself with people who can’t muster enough of a Philosophy to escape a menial job?

  Yet even now, when Kenna thinks of Mother’s argument, his brain feels clogged with so many competing thoughts that it’s like a meteor shower inside his head. There’s something wrong with her logic, yet she’s so clever, so Inevitable, it’s hard to muster the right arguments …

  Go work, she had told him, pushing him off her lap. Watch the laborers. See their shabby dreams made manifest.

  And Kenna had gone to Benzo, hoping to drink in his friend’s kindness …

  Yet as Scrimshaw shakes her smartpaper to reveal the Majestic’s balance sheets, Kenna feels himself crumpling under pressure again. Except this time, he is crushed by robes; that teetering heap of clothing, that one bloodred card jutting out at throat height as if to rebuke him for his foolish decisions.

  Scrimshaw is right: what does it get you, appealing to the poor and the powerless? If only Kenna knew how to appeal to the rich. But maybe that’s Mother’s secret: she has a Philosophy, he doesn’t, and that’s why he’s buckling under these flimsy robes …

  Benzo braces himself against the warehouse’s doorframe as though expecting to be ejected. “Scrimshaw,” he says insistently.

  Scrimshaw whirls around like she intends to rip off his head—then lowers her hands when she sees it’s Benzo.

  “I’ll talk to Montgomery after the break,” she mutters to him, facepalming as though she’s got too much to do already. “I agree, Benzo; she’s growing abusive. Especially since she’s not—”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “—technically, a member, of this, kitchen.” Scrimshaw’s sentence stumbles to a halt. She blinks, once, twice, a great blink magnified by her owlish glasses: “You’ll do what?”

  “The Escargone.” He creeps out to stand before Scrimshaw, hands clasped behind his back, vest smeared with broth. “I’ll go.”

  “Oh, Benzo.” She covers her kind smile, fearful to show the depths of her gratitude. “You know I won’t pay you for that.” She shakes her head. “Not one dinari.”

  Kenna frowns. “If Benzo jails himself in the Escargone for a month to rescue the Wisdom Ceremony, he’s earned the cash.”

  He looks over, expecting to see gratitude from his friend for standing up for him. Instead, Benzo bares his teeth at the ground, staring at a spot on the floor as if he hopes Kenna will evaporate.

  “He won’t earn a thing, Kenna,” Scrimshaw explains in a funereal tone. “Part of our agreement is that every dinari he makes goes to that frigid bitch who owns him. And I will not give that glorified slaver a dime.” She kneels to shake Benzo gently, like a woman hoping to wake a sleepwalker. “Benzo, I know you want to earn enough money to set your family free. But the Escargone isn’t that path.”

  Benzo works his hands behind his back like he’s trying to free himself from handcuffs. “… Didn’t say it was.”

  “Then why?”

  “I just … I want to perfect the broth. In there.”

  “We have no need for broth, Benzo. Not for the Wisdom Ceremony. And … sterner men have gone mad in that damned contraption. There’s no sense risking you for something we don’t even need.”

  Benzo gives Scrimshaw such a clear, fearless look that Kenna’s heart dubsteps, Benzo’s blue eyes bottomless as black holes. “You need people to get in there, don’t you? You already asked the kitchen. See any volunteers?”

  She sucks air through her teeth. Scrimshaw loves it when foolish people correct her, but loathes being contradicted by the competent.

  “Thought so,” Benzo finishes.

&n
bsp; “Benzo.” Kenna creeps behind Scrimshaw’s black robe, giving Benzo the space to show the affection he’s desperately concealing. “You don’t have to go in there. We’ll find some other way…”

  “I’m not doing it for you!”

  Benzo’s face is red as boiled lobster. Benzo pounds the air, once, twice, redirecting his anger inward. When he speaks again, it’s as if he’s strangling on his own hatred:

  “I’m the kitchen fuckup. My palate sucks. I have no skill. And if—if I can come out of that triumphant, then won’t that get them in there like you need them to?”

  Kenna creeps out from underneath Scrimshaw’s coat, expecting to watch her contradict Benzo—but instead, her wrinkled features are placid, contemplative.

  Kenna’s arms ache to hug Benzo, to pull Benzo to his chest, to stroke that wild blond hair until Benzo’s anger pours itself out.

  Benzo brings up one fist across his chest.

  “I don’t give a crap about the Wisdom Ceremony.” Benzo speaks the words with the slight amplification of a rehearsed speech. “Kenna will—he’ll be okay no matter how that goes down. He doesn’t need me.”

  “I—”

  “No, Kenna.” Benzo sounds so bone-weary, so exhausted, that interrupting him would be like tripping Paulius.

  He steps around Kenna, making his plea to Scrimshaw. “This is just for, you know, it’s for me, nobody else. And I’m gonna—I’m gonna take it. Tomorrow morning, I’m going in. I’m staying in until I make the broth. And if you think it’s a bad idea, Scrimshaw, then you’d better stop me now, because I’m going in before tomorrow’s prep work starts and I’m coming out with the broth The Sol Majestic deserves.”

  He faces Scrimshaw down until she bobs her head in acquiescence.

  When he turns to exit, he flinches at the sight of Kenna. Kenna can’t help but think Benzo scripted this whole encounter, but Kenna’s presence throws off his bold speeches.

  “You’ll be fine,” Benzo mutters. “Fine.”

  He walks away.

  22

  Three Hours Until the Escargone