"It's my own recipe." The innkeeper added, "Thanks to your contribution, this batch will be even better."
The kender choked. Otik stooped to pat his back, then retrieved an empty purse from the floor. "What's this?"
"Mine." The kender deftly plucked it from the innkeeper's hands. "I hope to fill it someday."
"Not in my inn." Otik added, as the kender rose to leave, "My thanks, Moonwick. Leave the door open, so the brew smell will air out. Come back next full moon, if you wish to taste what you carried."
"Best I hurry on," Moonwick said regretfully. Which was true-sooner or later Ralf might come looking for him. "I do hope I can return to sample that batch." He shook hands with Otik, who checked his ring after-ward.
Otik listened to the reassuring thump of the ken-der's departure down the stairs, and sighed. He said to himself, "There's one source of trouble gone, and no harm done. Now to heat the alewort." He walked to the back, looking for Tika.
While he was away, two fire swallows, a male and a female, flew in the open door and pecked at the fine spicy powder spilled from the purse. The two of them flew out in circles, squawking, billing, and frenziedly pressing against each other's bodies.
After pouring the hops in the tun, Otik cleaned the stream rounded heating stones and scrubbed the iron tongs he used on them. The whole Inn grew warm as he built up the fire and opened a wind-vent to blow the coals. The stones he laid on a flat clean slab of the hearth; as each stone heated he lowered it with the tongs into the wort. Soon he was sweating freely from the heat. He set the tongs down to wipe his forehead.
Without being asked, Tika picked them up, re moved several stones from the tun and swung heated ones in, lowering them gently to avoid splashing. Otik puffed and watched, proud of her. When he was younger, he would have needed no rest. For that matter, when Tika was younger, he would not have let her spell him at the heating.
As the tun began steaming, Otik thought again to himself, "She's old enough for her own place." He shook his head, cast the problem from his mind, and tried to think only of the new ale.
After the heating, Tika and Otik poured off the ale into smaller casks. Otik took care to fill each cask only four-fifths full, because the alewort bubbled as it worked, and a full cask could explode. Once, when Otik was young, he had overfilled one; it had taken weeks to get the smell out of the Inn.
Each cask they finished they rolled carefully against the tree and set upright where it would be in sunlight but away from outside walls. For the first seven days, the casks would be warm and working, and the yeast would be settling out of it. After that,they would move the casks, as gently as possible, into the store room with the stone floor, and give them until the next full moon to age in cool and quiet. If they had extra casks by then, and if they had the energy, Otik and Tika would pour the beer into freshlywashed containers for its final aging. Often, Otik cast about for ex cuses to avoid that stage; scrubbing twice for each batch, and repouring half-done beer, seemed an awful lot of work for a pleasant drink.
For now, though, the hard part of the brewing process was over, and it seemed to them both that the alewort already smelled delicious. Tika, her troubles forgotten, or at least submerged, sang another verse to 'The Song of Elen Waiting':
Will someone who knows
where all the time goes
come and lead me away by the hand,
I know day by day
I'm fading away;
it's more than my heart can stand.
It's not that he knew
more than any men do,
but he knew all my heart ever had;
the birds watch and hear
and wait every year,
but all of their songs are sad.
Otik, resealing another cask, felt a shadow of what Tika heardin the song. "That's pretty." He looked at the worn and time darkened casks. "We had songs like that when I was a lad, too."
"Like that one?" The girl was appalled. Surely no one had ever written a song that deep and meaningful before.
"As good or better." He grinned at her. "Some of them even talked about birds."
Birdsong exploded outside, and Otik glanced out a window near the door. "I wouldn't say that all their songs were sad, though. If this weren't autumn, I'd swear the fire swallows were mating."
"You're teasing me again."
"So I am." Otik sniffed the steam from the alewort, and gave her a quick affectionate hug. "Wonderful, perceptive young lady, would you help me drain the wort into smaller casks?"
Tika did. It was a pleasant, sunny afternoon; after-ward it seemed to them both that they had never felt so much like father and daughter.
The next full moon shone through the thick branches, huge and fresh-risen, when Otik rolled the first of the new casks out. It was barely past sunset, and Otik was acting like a bridegroom.
Some innkeepers held back the first cask, only opening it after second or third rounds. Otik despised that:
what better way to feel the full flavor of an ale than taste it all evening, uncut and by itself? It was a risk, he knew. Some inns took years for their reputations to recover from bad batches of brew; even strangers who drank little Would shun lodging, judging the service and bed to be as poor as the drinks. But, a good house gave its best, and Otik had never failed to open his new casks with the first mug served after sunset.
A slender man in his twenties, a peddler by the look of his bag, stood in the doorway beating road-dust from his clothing. Otik approved silently, but withdrew approval when the tradesman agreeably beat dust from a knight as well-and easily lifted a purse.
Otik coughed loudly. The man in the door looked started, shrugged, and put back the purse. The knight slapped him on the shoulder and drew him in. "I thank you, sir. Now, when you are in your dotage, you may tell your wondering children how you once polished the armor of Tumber the Mighty."
The tradesman rubbed his shoulder and said politely, "I am sure that when I am in my dotage I shall speak of you often." The knight nodded in satisfaction and sat down. The tradesman turned to Otik. "I was cleaning a spot under his purse and neglected to put it back. Thank you for-hmmm-reminding me."
"My pleasure, sir." Otik added, with emphasis, "I like to keep my customers mindful of such things."
"Oh, I don't think I'll be absent-minded again." He was looking back and forth alertly. "Tell me, sir innkeeper-"
"Otik." As always, Otik offered his hand.
"And I am Reger, called Reger the Trader-mostly." He let go of Otik's hand, looked at his own in surprise, and passed Otik's ring back. "Imagine that. I'm forgetful again. And you watching me…" He smiled blandly at Otik.
Otik laughed. "Smoothly done. I take your point, Reger. Instead of watching, I ask your cooperation tonight."
"You'll have it." For the first time, he looked tired. "I've traveled long and hard. A good meal and good ale, that's all I want."
"I'll bring the meal out directly. As for the ale-" Otik shrugged nervously. "Well, I think you'll be pleased."
"I'm sure I will." Reger bowed courteously, then leaned forward. "Tell me, since I imagine you know these folk welclass="underline" Has anyone local complained this fall of poor kitchen goods, little machines that don't do what they are said to, or that break, or that bark the knuckles?"
Otik, mystified, shook his head. "Not one."
Reger straightened again. "In that case," he said more confidently, "do you know any good men or women, even perhaps yourself or your cook, who, troubled with the toil of meal-making, might wish to find their labors light, their peeling paltry, theirslicing simple, and all with the amazing, freshly invented, ab solutely swom-to-save-time-" He fumbled in his bag.
Otik said bluntly, "I have a labor-saving device. It's called a cook. The cook has a peeling and slicing device. It's called a knife, and it's very sharp. The cook has a bad temper and a long memory. I don't advise selling here, sir."