Chamberlain

...and seventeen bushels of flour, at twenty eight loaves per bushel, one loaf per meal per four people, with 38 people at each meal, means we have enough for... for... Oh, you made me lose my place... I’ll have to start again now. It needs to be right, food is expensive and there is no excuse for wasting any.

Of course it’s important! You may think that as Chamberlain I can do just exactly what I want, but when the Earl comes back I have to present my accounts and justify every last barrel of ale and basket of eels. And sometimes the Earl doesn’t visit from one year’s end to the next...which is a lot of accounts to present...

Still, he trusts me, the Earl. He must do – he’s given me all his estates around here to look after ... pay his servants, keep the castle in readiness, feed everybody.

Just the feeding alone is enough to make my hair go white. Guests and servants, three times a day, and then there have to be enough scraps afterwards for the poor, or people will say the Earl is a poor man himself!

There’s never enough money to do all that’s needed. If I spend on the blacksmith then the walls start crumbling, and if I spend on the stonemason the weapons start rusting, and if I save money on the ale then the grooms go very sulky. And when the Earl does eventually come, he’ll bring a hundred or more people with him in his household, and expect to find everything working perfectly.

Now, stop asking questions. Seventeen bushels of flour, at twenty-eight loaves per bushel, makes ... makes... four hundred and...