The barrel Edain headed for held his da’s prized Special Ale, and he tapped three pints into mugs turned from maple wood. The clear, coppery-coloured liquid flowed from the tap, a thin head forming on top.
“My first taste of grown man’s beer was this,” he said.
He handed one to his father, set the second by the stove near his mother’s hand to her absent cheers, love and took a first swallow from his own. He sighed at the subtle overtones of fruit and caramel, with a bittersweet aftertaste like whiskey. Stronger than it tasted too—a beer to treat with respect.
“Now, that is beer, by the blessin’,” he said with a contented sigh. “Even better than I remember and sure, I remembered it as very good indeed.”
“It is better!” his father said. “Oi’ve been workin’ with young Timmy Martins—”
“Who’s been a man grown and a master-brewer with children of his own a good many years now,” Melissa pointed out, taking a mouthful of her own. “And if by working you mean drinking.”
Sam nodded. “When Oi came’ere I knew bowyerin’ well enough, but me brewin’ was from the point o’view of the consumer rather than the producer, as yer moight say. It took years but now Oi reckon as Oi’ve got as good a drop of Old Thumper as ever came out o’Ringwood in ’ampshoire. As best Oi can with these Willamette ’ops anyway. Which Oi reckon weren’t the same as they ’opped with back ’ome, but bitter it up noicely all the same.”
As Edain turned away he nodded to the boar’s head carved above the tap to mark the Special Ale barrel. A boar’s head clearly not on a plate, but very much attached to the rest of the beast and a very much alive and bellicose beast at that.
“The insignia o’Ringwood Brewery used ter be on the Old Thumper beer taps,” his Da said, “and if I ever got a letter from the Brewery in ’ampshoire tellin’ me ter stop infringin’ their trademark, Oi’d be deloighted!”
“Sure, we had some fine beer on the Quest, if not up to this or Brannigan’s Special,” Edain said. “I mind in Readstown…what did Ingolf’s sister-in-law the brewmistress call it…hefeweizen…”
“Bavarian style, then,” Sam said. “Wheat beer, top-fermented. They could do good brew, if a bit chewy. And a bit loit on the ’ops for my taste.”
Just then Edain’s wife Asgerd came up the stairs from the cellar with a basket of apples in her hands.
“My, and aren’t you fine, darlin’,” he said admiringly.
She pirouetted, grinning with an uncharacteristic openness. Edain had seen Norrheimer women’s garb before in her homeland, but he hadn’t seen her wearing it much. When they met she’d been about to swear vengeance on the killers of her intended husband and pledge her God ten lives for his, which to her folk’s way of thinking required breeks and jerkin. And she’d been a maiden then, while this was the married woman’s version. The basis was a long sleeveless hanging dress of blue wool over a sleeved shift of saffron-yellow linen, with her hair done up in braids and mostly covered by an embroidered kerchief, and a long white apron in front held by two silver brooches at the shoulders. It wasn’t fancy exactly, but the cloth was finely made, tight-woven of excellent yarn and colored with good fast dyes, and there were touches of embroidery here and there in patterns of gripping beasts with interlaced tails. It showed off her sweetly-curved athletic height well.
Though she looks even better in nothing at all but the Goddess’ sweet skin, he thought with satisfaction.
Melissa smiled from near the stove, a tasting spoon in one hand and her mug in the other; there was more gray than dark-blond in her hair now, but the light eyes in her tired, lined face were kindly on Asgerd’s pleasure. And proud, since it was her work.
“I was going to give it as a Yule gift, but sure, then I thought why not let my daughter-in-law enjoy it for the whole of the season? It’ll be back to the war-trail for you two soon enough, and folded up and back in the chest that dress will go, where it does little good.”
“It’s lovely,” Asgerd said, extending a foot and looking admiringly at the embroidered hem. “Fine weaving and fine sewing too—better than mine; my seams are always just a little crooked somewhere. It lacks nothing but my own set of keys at the belt.”
“I helped sew!” Fand called from over by the fire. “And I went up to Dun Juniper and looked through the books for the patterns and drew them!”
“And I thank you for it,” Asgerd said to her solemnly. “They are a touch of home.”
Asgerd and Melissa exchanged a glance and the older woman half-winked. Edain nodded and raised a silent mug to his mother. They hadn’t gotten on all that well when he first brought Asgerd home that summer, and he was glad to see the final peace-offering made and accepted.
It wasn’t a small gift, either; there was a reason most common folk, even prosperous ones like his Clan, had only three sets of clothing—one to wear, one to wash, and one for festival days. Turning out a bolt of cloth needed a good loom, a skilled worker, and many long days of labor, besides the raw materials. His mother was a weaver of note, too, who didn’t waste her time on ordinary rough homespun or blankets, which was all a young girl like Fand could aspire to as yet. The household sold or swapped most of his mother’s cloth and used that to get plainer stuff for everyday.
Softly Asgerd went on: “I only wish my mother could see me so, to know I was settled, and the rest of my family.”
“Tell you what, acushla,” Edain said, drawing another mug and setting it by her. “We’ll have one of the limners up to Dun Juniper draw you so and send it back with King Bjarni. He can hand it on to your family with your letters when he returns. Things will travel more easily after the war, and it’s not at all unlikely or beyond hope that they’ll be able to reply someday. The more so as the High King and your folk’s Bjarni are guest-friends and blood-brothers, and sure, neither will deny you a letter or two among any bundle he sends.”
Asgerd nodded silently as she set down her apples and peeled and cored them with swift dexterity, dumping the refuse in the bin that would go to the pigs. Then she arranged them in a pan with their centers full of butter and honey, broke in some of the walnuts, and added a coating of spiced crumbs over all.
“That’s a wonderful idea,” she said a little wistfully after the task was begun. “And maybe…drawings of your family and the house and the farm? That would be a comfort to them.”
Edain nodded. His mother tasted the stew again, picked up another thumb-and-two-fingers’ pinch of salt mixed with dried herbs from the bowl beside the stove, dropped it in, stirred, and nodded.
“This is ready; that it is. Where are the twins?”
“Bedded down with Garbh and Drudwyn and Cochnibar in the workshed by the stove there,” Edain said. “Garbh won’t let them wander.”
Melissa snorted. “And she won’t wash or dress them either,” she said. “A grandmother I may be, as well as a mother again unexpected, but I remember how to do that well enough. And that men are like bears with houses for dens, when it comes to remembering such details. Rather than like human beings.”
“Oh, but she did wash them, and that thoroughly and well.” Edain grinned, and his father snorted a laugh as well. “Holding them down with a paw the while.”
“I’ll attend to it,” Asgerd said, as she took a fold of her apron around her hand to swing open the cast-iron door of the stove and slide the tray of baking apples inside. “They are not puppies, nor kittens nor colts nor yet bear-cubs, to be licked clean.”
“But sometimes I’m thinking they’re part all of those,” Melissa said. “And if there were an Óenach Mór of dogs, Garbh’s vote would be for puppy, for sometimes she forgets she didn’t bear them herself, and that’s a fact. Now shout out the others, someone, and we’ll eat.”
Asgerd brought Nola and Nigel in looking even cleaner than Garbh had left them, and wearing their shifts as well as their kilts; the dogs followed and flopped down in a corner each on their favorite bit of rug, and several of the household moggies picked higher sp
ots to watch the intensely interesting sport of humans eating, with an especially keen eye on the bowl of whipped cream. None of the two-footed dwellers had to be called twice. His mother did the blessing, as hearthmistress—
“Harvest Lord who dies for the ripened grain—
Corn Mother who births the fertile field—
Blesséd be those who share this bounty;
And blessed the mortals who toiled with You
Their hands helping Earth to bring forth life.”
Edain joined in, signing his plate and in setting aside a crumb and a drop; he noted that their guests from the CORA lands mostly did too, though a few murmured Christian graces instead or just waited respectfully. He suspected that there would be a fair number of new covensteads founded east of the mountains when the war was over and the folk who’d taken refuge with the Clan went back to rebuild their homes. Asgerd hammer-signed her plate and added:
“Hail, all-giving Earth, and hail and thanks to Frey of the rain and Freya of the harvest.”
Nobody objected. The Old Religion didn’t have a problem with anyone’s names for the Powers, and he knew a few Mackenzies over towards Sutterdown who preferred to thank Demeter and Adonis.
There was a clatter as plates were passed and serving-spoons wielded with a will, while loaves were torn open. The food was plain enough; the stew was notionally venison, and had enough of it to give more than a mere taste, but it was mainly winter vegetables like carrots and parsnips and kale by weight, though the thick gravy was savory with onion and sage and thyme and paprika. The other main dishes were crocks of potatoes sliced and simmered with layers of onions and pats of butter and bits of bacon and topped with grated cheese and bowls of steamed cabbage. Harvest had been good enough the year that had ended this Samhain, but the Mackenzie dùthchas was feeding more mouths than there had been hands to work lately. The war had gone on for years, with levies at all seasons, and it wore things down and used them up.
Still, there’s enough, Edain thought. And enough bread and butter, come to that; for there’s strength and life in good bread, and nothing tastes better than a hunk of it still steaming.
There was a special satisfaction in eating the loaf baked from grain you’d reaped yourself and putting your own feet under your own table on your own kindred’s land to eat it; it was something he’d missed on the Quest. For that matter, he’d taken the buck whose meat and marrow-bones had gone into the stew with one sweet painless angled shot that drove a broadhead through lungs and heart.
“How do you get the crust so firm on this bread while the crumb is so soft, good mother?” Asgerd asked Melissa. “We don’t make much bread all from wheat flour in Norrheim. More barley and rye, and oatcakes, and mixed grain, save at the great feasts.”
“Ah, the secret’s to brush a little water on the skin of the dough when you set the loaves to start the second rising, and then a little egg-white across the top just before you bake. Then a dish of water set in the oven with it,” his mother replied. “Sealing the top makes it strike high in the oven’s heat, and the water keeps the crust firm.”
Edain mopped at his plate with a heel of it and crunched it down, remembering innumerable tasteless flat-cakes cooked on griddles by countless camp-fires. The youngsters stared eagerly and clutched their spoons as the plates were cleared and the baked apples were brought out and topped with dollops of the sweet cream. Tamar’s man Eochu was laughing at a joke of hers, and brushing a little of the cream across the babe’s lips with the tip of a finger; she licked her lips and looked dubious, then brightened. Edain laughed himself as he looked down the table at his kin and his father yawning and nodding a little over his second mug of beer.
“What’s funny?” Asgerd asked, leaning close to speak beneath the hum of conversation.
“That all of it…the fighting and the faring, the stark dealings with the Powers and the fearsome magic swords and all the rest of it…was for this. Just this.”
DUN JUNIPER
DÙTHCHAS OF THE CLAN MACKENZIE
(FORMERLY THE EAST-CENTRAL WILLAMETTE VALLEY, OREGON)
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
DECEMBER 18TH, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
The High King had given out that he would spend the Yule season with his Mackenzie kindred. There had been grumbling from the great lords of the Association, all of which he’d politely ignored.
“Let them complain,” Rudi said, looking up towards the lantern-glow at the gates of Dun Juniper and laughing. “If I have to dance another pavane or eat another pastry shaped like a ship or filbert ice cream carved like a knight or listen to another troubadour dead-set on seeing how many obscure kennings and references he can boot-heel into a single song, it’s gibbering mad I’d go.”
“I hope Mom won’t be too lonely,” Mathilda said as they drew rein. “Christmas by herself.”
“Your mother would rather intrigue than eat her dinner,” Juniper Mackenzie said dryly. “And since when did Todenangst or Portland lack for that? Throngs of people, and when she wants sympathy she has her cats, and Lady Jehane to tutor.”
“She can always visit Castle Odell and sit by Conrad’s bedside and talk about old times,” Mathilda acknowledged. “Valentine and her girls are back from Montinore.”
“With hearty thanks and strong hints from d’Ath.” Rudi grinned.
He was fairly certain the Grand Constable wanted some privacy for herself and her Châtelaine for reasons not entirely unlike his own desire to get Matti to himself, or as close an approximation as was possible for a ruler. More seriously, he went on:
“And likely she’ll have you to herself when Órlaith is born. If I’m to be over the mountains then, hammering at the gates of Boise or Corwin, I’ll not stint myself of your company the now, love. And if any don’t like it, they can do the other thing, that they can.”
“All to herself? As if I wouldn’t be there too!” Juniper said. “Grandchildren give most of the joys of parenthood and only a tenth the labor and pain.”
“I’m sure we will all bear up bravely through the birth, speaking of labor and pain,” Mathilda said, with a raised eyebrow under the white ermine fur of her hat.
He reached over and squeezed her hand. He was relatively certain she and the child would both come through healthy; visions aside, she was fit and well-built for the business, and would have the best midwives and healers half a continent could provide on hand. It still wasn’t an easy thing, any more than heeling your horse into a gallop towards a line of points and battle-cries. And unlike that, it was one sort of fight they couldn’t really share, though he would have given much to be there to hold her.
It was only a few hours past noon, but it was already gray fading to dark; there was a reason this time of year was called the Black Months. Snow was falling, steady and wet, on the long lens-shaped piece of sloping hillside benchland that Jeb Mackenzie had homesteaded more than a century and a half ago. The clouds had come rolling down from the Middle Cascades before they left Sutterdown, and by now the grass and hedges and bare-limbed oaks and walnuts all bore a thick covering; more still turned the tall Douglas fir and hemlocks upslope into a vision of green and brown crowned in white, with a strong mealy-damp smell that brought memory strong as thick honey back to him.
It had never been more than a middling-prosperous stock farm, despite being well over a square mile. Mackenzie family legend said the man had chosen it because it reminded him of Tennessee, though Rudi suspected it was also because the best bottom-land had either been taken up already or was swampy and required draining—certainly there was enough renascent wetland in the dùthchas farther west towards the river.
Later the family had moved to town—Eugene and Salem, mostly—and the land had fallen out of use save for timber; later still his mother’s great-uncle had grown wealthy and bought it back and much more of the forest beside, as a hunting-ground. The childless man had doted on the young Juniper, and when he died ha
d left it to her, though she’d been an aspiring bard (and sometime High Priestess of the Singing Moon coven) with no handfasted man, a young daughter, and a burning determination to make her way with her music.
“It still seems a little unreal, sometimes,” he heard her murmur, her voice falling into old patterns. “It all changed so fast, after the Change…”
“Ah, well, it’s just the place I grew to me,” Rudi replied gently. “And very dear it is. You’d done it proud.”
They clattered up the sloping road that turned right to the gates. Dun Juniper wasn’t exactly a town, but nor yet was it an ordinary farming Dun with a palisade of logs if that; the wall was thrice man-height and solid, crenellated, the outer stucco white. Beneath the ramparts was a band of painting, god-faces and sprites and eerily manlike beasts or beastlike men. Towers flanked the gates, and from them bagpipes keened, Lambeg drums rattled thunder, and flared trumpets whose mouths were shaped like howling wolves boomed beneath.
“And not altogether unlike radongs in sound,” another member of their party said.
Rimpoche Tsewang Dorje had made some concessions to the weather, including a sheepskin coat and hat. He looked up at the images, then pressed his palms together and bowed.
“You have done well indeed,” he said to Juniper. Then an impish grin that turned his face into a mass of wrinkles. “Even if some of the tools were…borrowed.”
“Stolen,” she replied cheerfully. “Rampantly stolen by Gardner not least, myself among the others.”
“Only something we owned could be stolen!” he answered, and the Buddhist monk and the Witch-Queen of the Old Faith laughed together.
The gates were double leaves of solid yard-thick timber baulks fastened together with bolts and sandwiched between two sheets of quarter-inch steel painted deep brown. On those were outlined images made of thousands of copper rivets, suggested more than seen until you let the focus of your eyes blur a bit and then vanishing again if you stared too hard. Above was the Triple Moon, waxing and full and waning; below was the wild bearded face of a man with curling ram’s-horns on his head. To either side of the gates were tall forms colored and carved; Lugh of the Long Spear, the Many-Skilled, and Brigit of the flame and sheaf and harp, She whose music bound the hearts of men like golden chains.
Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change Page 35