“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 spots 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-
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.