Wonderful

by Jill Barnett

  Before him was his future, a future with one small woman. Lady Clio of Camrose. And at that moment he knew with surety that she would be more trouble than every rebel Welshman in all of Wales.

  Bragawd Ale

  Soak barley and allow to sweeten,

  Dry until malted.

  Mash with yeast and water for fyne wort.

  Mix fyne wort with:

  Honey, cinnamon, ginger,

  Cloves, pepper, heath flowers and galingale.

  —Medieval Welsh Ale Recipe

  Chapter 7

  The castle brewery had been a mess. Dirt and mud on the floors and rats in the rushes. The vats were old, rusted, and filled with stale ale and mold, and the iron pipes that fed water to the cistern in the corner were not siphoning from the castle well, but instead came from the filthy moat.

  It took a few days to clean up and that was with Clio, Thud, Thwack, and Old Gladdys all working hard. But by midday on the third day, the spicy scent of herbs and dried flowers was all you could smell if you happened to pass by the open shutters.

  Inside, Lady Clio was perched on a wobbly wooden stool before an oaken table with two legs that were shorter than the others. Pitt, the goshawk, had the end of her long blond braid in his beak. His wings were spread out as if he were in flight, and whenever the stool would wobble, he would swing back and forth, back and forth, like a cradle, while Cyclops watched from his one eye, his paw batting at him every so often.

  The hard dirt floor had been swept clean with a long and thick willow broom that Brother Dismas handed Old Gladdys as a means of transport when she threatened to leave Camrose to the Fates.

  But a dirt floor in a brewery was not a good idea. The first small testing of ale she’d brewed had been gritty with dirt and sand, and she would have to lay down cloth to protect the malt.

  So, early yesterday morn, Clio and her helpers had pilfered flat slate stones for the floors from the freemasons who were working for the earl. In the last week, the road to Camrose had been busy with the arrival of masons, smithies, sawyers, and other building craftsmen.

  There were so many piles of floor stones that the stacks were taller than the Earl of Bluster himself. Clio decided the few tiles they needed to floor the brewery would not be missed.

  Like most of the thatched huts in the two baileys, this one in the upper bailey was long and narrow, and the walls were of wattle and daub that was cracked and needed patching. But the inside was usable now. The dried herbs and small bags of spices she’d brought from the convent were scattered haphazardly in a corner near the window.

  Bundles of sorrel and rue, toadflax and hyssop, sat atop cloth bags containing willow bark and rowan leaves, acorns and walnuts. Foxglove, marsh reeds, and cattails poked out of the wide mouths of earthenware jars, and a row of small hemp pouches with unraveled drawstrings held fat nutmegs and brittle cinnamon sticks, black cloves, and saffron-colored cumin seeds.

  Mortars and pestles made of brindled stone, hardwood, and glazed pottery were stacked in every size from those small enough to cup in your hand to large ones that you could only hold if they sat in the crook of your arm. There were three pepper horns and two brass coffers with small locks that each held precious pale sugar and fine granules of pure white salt.

  Clio glanced down at the parchment on which Sister Amice had scribbled her list of herbs. “Hmmmm. What is next?” she muttered and dragged a finger down the list. “Milkwort? No … I did that one. Fennel powder. No, I added that one. Ah-ha! Here it is. I need three gills of salix.”

  She crumbled willow bark and leaves into a stone mortar and vigorously mashed them into a fine powder of salix.

  Old Gladdys had quietly spent the last hour or so moving about the room and arranging the herbs, oils, and tinctures into positions corresponding to those of the moon and stars during the spring equinox.

  Brother Dismas had come inside only once, hiding behind his crucifix, which he’d wrapped in dried holly. It seemed God had warned him to do this, since the Lord knew that witches were afraid of holly and there would be no way for the old Druid to give Brother Dismas the evil eye.

  Old Gladdys looked perfectly capable of giving anyone the evil eye. She had frizzy white hair that stuck out from her head like carded lamb’s wool. Her nose was so hooked that Thomas the Plowman had once claimed if he ever misplaced his scythe, he could use Old Gladdys to cut grain. Her eyes were sharp and ageless, but they were dark, almost black, and they looked even darker because the only color she would wear was black.

  So as Brother Dismas faced her, peering uneasily around his raised cross, Old Gladdys had turned around, stuck out her bony jaw, and closed one devilish eye. Suddenly she began to wildly wave her scrawny arms in the air, then pointed at the monk while she chanted:

  Eena, meena, mona, mite,

  Basca, tora, hora, bite,

  Hugga, bucca, bau,

  Eggs, butter, cheese, bread,

  Stick, stock, stone dead!

  O-U-T … Out!

  Every bit of color drained from the monk’s florid face. His gaze shot to Clio. “What is she saying? A curse? Did she say wart? Will I awake in the morn with warts?”

  Old Gladdys hunched over and stuck her wrinkled neck out like a vulture. “Ancient words, they are.”

  She wiggled her bony fingers at him. “All Druids use those words”—she paused—”to choose their sacrifices.”

  He gasped.

  She gave him a long and calculating look.

  He raised his crucifix so close to his face that his nose was pressed to the back of it. He began to back out of the room. At the doorway, he hollered, “Lady Clio! Lord Merrick is searching for you!”

  A moment later he had fled, leaving nothing in his wake but a muttered “Hail Mary, Mother of God.”

  Clio shook her head. “Shame on you, Gladdys.”

  “’Tis true,” the old woman said with a certain gleam in her black eyes that looked suspiciously like amusement.

  “You know he’ll be out of sight at least until evening mass,” Clio said with a sigh.

  “Aye.” Old Gladdys crossed over to the huge black pot with the ale mash, wearing the same look Cyclops had when there were feathers sticking out of his mouth.

  As for the Earl of Hardheads, Clio could not have cared less whether he was looking for her or not. With each grind of the pestle, she pictured her betrothed, wasting away his time looking for her the way she had wasted away while waiting for him.

  Clio began to giggle a little wickedly. Her father always said she had never learned to win graciously. But truly, this was a fine bit of vengeance she had concocted. Learning to wait for her was an experience the earl needed to become familiar with. ’Twould be a part of his life for a long, long time.

  She laughed out loud, then caught Old Gladdys spying at her out of the corner of her eye.

  “’Tis nothing.” Clio waved her hand around.

  Cyclops picked that moment to bat Pitt with a paw, then began to circle the stool, rubbing up against her foot and then circling again. Clio looked down at her cat. This was the most life she’d seen in him in days.

  He kept bumping and rubbing against her foot. She reached down and scratched him behind the ears.

  The fat devil tried to bite her.

  She snatched her hand back and scowled at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “A restless cat.” Old Gladdys nodded knowingly. “’Tis a sure sign that a storm is brewing.”

  Clio glanced out the small window. The sky was blue and cloudless and the sun was shining through, casting broad amber light on the floor.

  There was no storm brewing.

  She shook her head and then went back to work. A few minutes later she was immersed in her recipe.

  Thud had gone to the cooper to fetch some new ale barrels, but Thwack was puttering with a water cistern in the corner.

  “Thwack?” she called out absently as she leaned over the huge black ale pot. “I need your help.”
r />   “Aye, my lady?” The lad turned around.

  “I need you to fetch something for me,” she said and looked up.

  At that very moment Thwack took one step—right onto the blade of a fallen shovel. The handle sprang up and whacked him right in the forehead.

  An odd, empty clunk rang through the room.

  The boy wobbled for a moment, then rubbed his head, frowning.

  Clio slid off the stool and rushed over to him, Pitt still swinging upside down from the end of her braid.

  She looked into Thwack’s squinting eyes.

  He stared back at her.

  “Are you hurt?”

  He blinked as if he were seeing double. “No. I’m Thwack. Hurd works in the stables, my lady.”

  She tried again. “How is your head?”

  His expression was confused. “I don’t know. We haven’t made the beer yet. Have we? Do you have a head on your barrel?”

  “Your forehead. Thwack.”

  “Do I have foam on my forehead?” He stretched his neck and jaw out trying to see his own head.

  “We haven’t made the beer yet,” she explained slowly.

  “Good. I thought I missed the brewing when I stepped on the shovel and conked my noggin.”

  Clio studied him to see if his eyes looked glassy. Well, at least more glassy than usual. “Your noggin is fine, then?”

  “Aye, but my head hurts.”

  She had the sudden urge to bury her own head in her hands and begin to count very slowly. But by now she was too familiar with Thud and Thwack, and though they could test the patience of a saint, there was nothing in them that was the least mean-spirited. They were sweet and simple lads.

  Both boys had been brought to the convent when they were only six. A wandering minstrel found them in the King’s Forest, where they had been living as wild as animals.

  The good sisters had taken them in, bathed them, fed them, and helped them understand how to live among their own kind. The nuns had christened them Peter and Paul, but the boys would only answer to the names they had formed for each other—Thud and Thwack.

  Thud was so anxious to please that he would scurry like a small forest animal, except that his feet were so huge he had trouble scurrying anywhere. It was almost as if he forgot his feet were attached to his legs. Inevitably, down he would go with a thud.

  Thwack was just the opposite; he never scurried. He was slow and methodical and could only concentrate on one thing at a time. That was his problem. He would concentrate so hard and so completely that he would not look where he was going and thwack! He’d run right into something.

  He tried so very hard to please, but tended to become confused easily. If someone asked him to do more than one thing or if he became distracted, he could spend hours in utter confusion.

  One time Sister Margaret, who was in charge of candle-making, had asked him to fetch a bucket of well water so she could cool the tallow candles. On his way to the well, Sister Anne had asked him to look for her prayer book. The next day they found the prayer book in the well bucket, and when the abbess opened the candle cabinet, she almost drowned.

  While at the convent, Clio had taken the time to teach them their letters. After that they had followed her everywhere, like little guardian angels who were eagerly grateful to do whatever she bid them to.

  Thud and Thwack were good lads, kind and true. They just didn’t think or behave as did the rest of the world.

  Clio brushed a stringy lock of brown hair from Thwack’s red and swelling forehead. “Would you like to help me with the newest ale recipe?”

  “Aye.” He nodded vigorously.

  “Good. Then you can start by bringing me the honeycomb on the other table.”

  The young lad rocked on his toes for a moment, scratching his head as if he was deciding which table she meant. This was not too difficult, she thought, since there were only two tables in the room.

  “Which table are you working at, my lady?” he asked her, frowning.

  “This table?”

  “Aye.”

  “The bowl with the honeycombs in it is on that table.” She was back on her stool and counting out a number of cinnamon twigs. She didn’t look up, but just pointed in the direction of the only other table in the room.

  There was complete silence. When she realized it, she glanced up at the boy. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m confused. You said the ‘other’ table. Where is the ‘other’ table?”

  “That’s the other table.”

  “But you said that was ‘that’ table not the ‘other’ table and the table you are at is ‘this’ table, not ‘that’ table or the ‘other’ table.”

  “Thwack.” She kept her voice calm and even.

  “Aye?”

  “How many tables are there in this room?”

  He pointed at the table in front of her. raised his thumb, and mouthed “one.” He looked at the other table, raised his first finger, and mouthed “two.” He stared intently at his hand, studied it for a long moment, and looked back at her. “Two.”

  “Aye. So … if I’m working at this table”—Clio patted her hands on the tabletop in front of her—”and I need the honeycomb, where do you think it would be?”

  He thought for a stretch of minutes; then his expression brightened. “In the beehives?”

  “I meant I need a honeycomb in a bowl on a table. Now try again.”

  Thwack frowned, then raised a finger and guessed, “In the kitchens?”

  She shook her head.

  Old Gladdys craned over and muttered something at the boy. He looked at the old woman, then shrugged as if he couldn’t believe it. His gaze went from one table to the other and back to Clio. He chewed his lip for a second, then said, “On that table?”

  “Aye. On that table.” Clio smiled and went back to work measuring and sorting her spices and herbs.

  He must have stood there for a long time, because she felt him tap her on the shoulder a good time later. “My lady?”

  “Aye?”

  “Why did you tell me to look on the ‘other’ table instead of ‘that’ table?”

  Clio looked from one table to another, then sighed. “Don’t fret over it, Thwack. ’Twas me. I was confused.”

  “Aye.” He agreed. “That you were, my lady, that you were.” He shuffled over to the table with all the speed of a passing eon, then spent a few minutes foraging through the jars and bowls and other containers on the table.

  Each item had his full attention for a good few minutes. Finally he found the bowl, examined it for the longest time, then moseyed back across the stone floor.

  He handed her the bowl. Inside was a deep amber wedge of sticky honeycomb. “Do you suppose someone stole the ‘other’ table?”

  Clio shook her head.

  Thwack walked away mumbling, “Perhaps Lord Merrick replaced the ‘other’ table with ‘that’ table.”

  Before long he would forget about the tables. But now she had her own work to do. She mixed the salix and thyme, then ground a pinch of heather flowers together and added them to the mash that was cooking in one of the huge black pots lining the eastern wall. Beneath the hanging pot, a low, banked fire sent smoke curling up through one of the crude smoke holes in the thatched roof.

  Later the ale was bubbling and steaming. The room had grown moist and warm. The pots boiled brews that filled the air with the scents of herbs and malt.

  Clio took a wooden bowl and dipped it into the ale. She let it cool slightly, then stuck her thumb in to test the temperature. She turned her thumb up, judged the consistency by the texture and the way it coated her thumb with a light frothing.

  The ale was done.

  She took a sip from the bowl and swallowed. Like a bubble of beer, a small giggle burst from her mouth. Surprised, she licked her lips, then realized she was just happy because she had brewed the first of her Camrose ale.

  Surely that was something that would make her feel like laughing out loud.
She proudly took another sip and got another giggle.

  ’Tis wonderful, she thought, and lifted the bowl to her lips, downing the rest.

  She heard Old Gladdys cackle wickedly, and Clio lowered the bowl from her lips.

  “I told ye there was a storm brewing,” Old Gladdys announced, then rushed out the door in a flash of white hair and swirling black wool robes.

  Clio covered her mouth to stop another bubble of laughter and turned back around.

  Her urge to laugh died as swiftly as it had come.

  Merrick stood in the doorway, his expression blacker than any storm clouds she’d ever seen.

  Chapter 8

  “The castle well collapsed,” Merrick barked, and took two steps into the brewery, searching for the source of his problem.

  He found the source.

  Lady Clio stood with her back to him before an ale pot, giggling.

  Merrick fixed on her with a dark look that matched his black mood.

  She spun around suddenly and faced him. Her happy expression quickly melted away, which annoyed him. The fact that he was affected by something as foolish as her smile annoyed him even further.

  He looked away from her expressive face and crossed the steamy room in a few long strides to a water cistern and tangle of old iron siphoning pipes that sat at the far end of the hut.

  Lined up along the wall near the pipe drain were large ale pots filled with liquid, some cooking on small wood fires, others sitting cold. But even the cold pots had bright flower petals, dark green leaves, and earth-colored powders floating on top of the contents, like some desert sheik’s bathing pool.

  He turned and studied the cistern. It only took him a moment to see what had gone wrong. The siphoning pipes were too wide and too strong for a small cistern. So the iron pipes had pulled at the well water with such force that the walls of the well had caved in, leaving the castle with absolutely no water.

  He leveled a pointed look at Clio. “I gave you my consent to brew ale, not to suck the well dry.” He studied the pipes again, shaking his head. “I’d like to flay the skin from the fool who did this.”