"But they survived. Things returned to normal. They could have moved back to the ground."
Otik lifted the barrow-handles. "Follow me."
At the pantry he stopped. "The man who built this inn was Krale the Strong. They say he could tuck a barrel of ale under his arm and climb up the tree itself, one-handed. For all he knew, his inn would be in ruins in a year." Otik tapped the store-room floor. "You've been here a thousand times. Have you ever thought about this floor?"
Tika shrugged. "It's just stone." Then it hit her. "A stone floor? But I thought the fireplace-"
"Was the only stonework. So it is. This is a single stone, set in to keep the ale cool, forty feet above the ground. Krale made a rope harness and hauled it up himself. Then he chopped this chamber out of the living wood, and laid the floor. This was his people's last home, and he built it to last forever."
Otik stamped the floor. The edges were rounded, where the living wooden walls had flowed over the stone, a nail's-breadth a year. "And when the danger was over and the folk of Solace could go back to the ground, they didn't. These were their last homes. In all the world, no place else can be home for them." He finished, a little embarrassed at the speech. "Or for me. Bring out more water, young lady."
As they worked, Tika hummed. She had a sweet, soft voice, and Otik was glad when she finally broke into full song. The ballad was a hill tune, melodic and plaintive; Tika, with great enjoyment, sang it as sadly as she could.
By the second verse she had dropped her scrub-rag and shut her eyes, oblivious to Otik. He listened qui etly, knowing that if she remembered his presence, she would blush and fall silent. Lately, Tika had become awkward and shy around men-a bad trait for a barmaid, but at her age, quite natural. He kept patient, knowing how soon that shyness would end. Tika sang:
The tree by my door i've watched turn before
And I've watched as it's branched out and grown;
When it turns next year,
Will I still be here,
And will I be here alone?
When my love was there,
Birds sang in the air,
And they soared like the dreams that we had;
Now he's off to war,
They sing like before,
But all of their songs are sad.
My good friends, I know,
Will marry and go,
And farewell with a kiss and a tear,
With lovers to tell,
And children as well,
While I wait another year.
Their futures are bright,
They sing day and night,
And I'm happy to think them so glad…
The birds that I see still sing back to me,
But all of their songs are sad.
Otik enjoyed the tune without recognizing it. He watched Tika, her eyes shut and her arms waving in the air as she sang, and he thought with a sudden ache, "She's old enough for her own place."
Tika had lived with him for a long time; she was as close to a daughter as he would ever have. Before that, for many years, he had lived alone happily. Now he could not imagine how he had stood it.
Finally she finished, and he said, "Nicely sung. What was that?"
"That?" She blushed. "Oh, the song. It's called The Song of Elen Waiting.' I heard it last night."
"I remember." The singer had been all of twenty-three, most of his listeners fifteen. He had curly dark hair and deep blue eyes, and by his second song half the girls of Solace were around him. "Some young man sang it, didn't he?"
"You're teasing me." Tika scowled, even when Otik smiled and shook his head. "You don't take me seriously."
"Oh, but I do, I do. This young man that sang-"
"Rian." She said it softly, and the scowl went. "He wasn't so young. Do you know, he had seven gray hairs?"
"Really? Seven, exactly?"
She didn't notice the tease, but nodded vigorously, her own hair bouncing off her shoulders. "Exactly. He let three of us count them after he was done singing, and we all came up with the same number."
"Nice of him to let you."
"Oh, I think he liked it," Tika said innocently. Then she frowned. "Especially when Loriel did it."
"Which one was Loriel?" There'd been a lot of them. After Rian had sung, the young women had walked around the Inn with their heads high, thinking noble thoughts, to Otik's vast amusement. One young man, a red-haired, spindly local with wide eyes, sat in the corner afterward determinedly mouthing lyrics to himself. His friends had seemed afraid he might sing.
Tika scrubbed fiercely at one of the barrels, tipping it. Otik steadied it for her as she said casually, "Loriel? Oh, you know. Turned-up nose, too many freckles, shows her teeth when she laughs-it's a shame they're not straight-and she's the one with all that hair, you know, the yellow stuff?"
"Oh, is she the one with all that pretty blonde hair?" She was around a lot lately. She laughed too often for Otik's taste, but the boys her age seemed to like it. She also had a habit of spinning away from people so that her hair flew straight out and settled back. Otik had twice caught Tika practicing it.
"Do you think it's pretty, then?" Tika tried to look surprised. "That's nice. Poor thing, she'd be pleased." Scrub, scrub.
She began to daub her eyes. "Oh, Otik! He liked her and not me."
"There now." Otik put an arm around her, thinking (not for the first time) that if he'd only found a wife, there'd be someone more sensitive to help the poor girl. He barely knew Tika's friends. "There, now. It's not like he's your own true love, just an older lad with a good voice. You don't want him."
Tika laughed and wiped her eyes on her arm. "That's true. But Loriel's supposed to be my friend- what does he see in HERI"
"Ah." Now he understood. "Well, she's older than you."
"Only a little. A year isn't so much." She sniffed.
"Don't cry again." He added, to get a smile from her, "You'll salt the ale." It almost worked. "You must be patient, like that woman in the song. How did it go again?"
Tika looked wistful, forgetting her own sorrow. "It's about a man who kisses his love good-bye and goes away forever, only she doesn't know that, and waits for him until she's old and lonely and she dies-"
"Birds sang where she died."
Tika sighed happily. "And all their songs were sad. Otik, am I going to end like that? Do you think I'll end up living all alone, with nobody to love or to live with, sleeping by myself and making meals for one?"
Otik looked for a long time in the mirror at the long bar's end. Finally he turned around. "Sometimes it happens. Surely not to you, though. Now go, pretty young one, and get the last cask."
He scrubbed the tun hard, perhaps harder than it needed.
It was noon, but there were no spiced potatoes cooking, no shouts for ale. Otik had hung a tankard upside down on the post at the bottom steps, so that even the unlettered would know not to climb up needlessly. Otik closed for every brewing, opening only when the alewort was made.
The brewing tun was clean and filled with spring water, waiting behind the bar for the malt syrup. The syrup was warmed and waiting. The yeast, the final addition to the alewort, was in a bowl on the bar.
But the hops had not yet arrived, and Otik was as impatient as Tika. before he heard slow, heavy steps on the stairs.
"Tika," he called, "come out." She came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron as he said, "Hear that? Someone carrying a burden. Our hops have come." He cocked an ear, listening with the knowledge of long years. "Not as heavy as I thought. Did Kerwin not bring a full load?"
The Inn door flew open and a burlap bag waddled in, seemingly under its own power, and leaped to the floor before the tun. A kender, still doubled from his load, peered through his arched brows at them and grinned suddenly.