Punch sales were better than anticipated over holidays, had enough extra to get Tobias some shoes and get a waistcoat ordered for him, and we should be able to go to the steam baths more often. He isn’t taking the cold weather well. If he’s going to be seen with me he’s going to have to dress better.
Thinking of bottling a variation of the Punch recipe and selling it as a tonic. Make it taste bad so they think it is good for them. Moreaus? Make a batch with catmint and try it out. Harvey says its dandelion for lapines. Will experiment! Ha! What fun! Emerson is loving idea of naming the tonic Old Doc Emerson’s and putting his face on the label. Maybe he will even put up some front money to see his face in print. He’s like that.
Haven’t seen Tobias in a few days, he must have gone back downstairs. I miss him when he goes away.
Njal came back, she needed a place to stay. I said I would store her tools in my room because no one should have to replace their tools and she could stay in the bakery as long as she was clean and she would go back on the schedule. Don’t trust her alone yet, she’ll have her hands in the till for sure, but I am itching to get back to Dunsany. With another person on the schedule, maybe I can spend a whole week. Joseph must have kept journals, maybe Tobais knows where his records are.
What was his master plan???
From the journal of Thomas, King of the Dunsany and first of his name:
January 21st, Year 1
What joy I take in caressing the rough leather texture of this book’s binding. How luxurious the scent left by the tanning process. Everything about this empty tome fills me with pleasure. Desire unbound as I finger the blank pages soon to be filled with recollections and philosophies; I am as hungry for words as I am for flesh. A journal! A journal to record the dreams of a king.
Father filled volumes such as this. So many nights I’d watch him by lamp-light, meditating for hours, perfecting the perfect manifesto. And yet the volume I covet most, his first, has been swept away by the currents of time. Could it be possible it still exists? If so I must have it.
Some of the younger ones are are becoming restless. They sense with Father’s death something has changed. I have summoned Tobias. I am troubled by him of late. He seems to be wandering, perhaps even wavering in his faith. It is time we had a chat. There is something I need him to do.
((Oh, you really meant the whole King thing? I just thought you’d gotten the prize in a Three Kings cake. *grin*))
There’s a bad moon on the rise…..