Over the years they had built up a fair reserve of energy capital from the sale of their foodstuffs and “Raven’s Mill All Period Foods” was one of the two most successful businesses in the area.
“Right on time, of course.” Edmund sipped his beer, cold and frothy, which was non-period, but Tarmac knew what his patrons preferred, and waved at the bench across from him. “Would you prefer a nice drought? Getting a bit Nazish?”
The tavern was not rigorously period in its construction. Most of the taverns of even the high Middle Ages were low, dark, horrible places with logs scattered about for benches and a small fire in the middle of the floor that filled the room with smoke. The floors were generally dirt, perhaps hardened with animal blood, and covered in food-strewn rushes. Beer, at whatever the temperature of the room, was poured from barrels at one end of the room, overseen by the owner. Food, if any was served, was generally a pottage of leeks, turnips and perhaps a few scraps of salt meat. Often, if the patrons did not care to go outside in the weather, urination occurred along the walls or in barrels. In the worst sorts of places defecation occurred there also.
By contrast, the Raven’s Mill Tavern was a cross between a “fantasy” period tavern and an eighteenth to twenty-first-century Britic public house. Instead of logs on the floor there were wood benches and rough-hewn tables that had been sanded smooth and lacquered to prevent splinters. The walls were whitewashed plaster and had armor, swords and framed prints of replica medieval illuminations on them. There was a functional bathroom discretely tucked in the back.
The barrels of beer and wine were still there, but behind a bar, and they were individually climate controlled. For that matter, more than homemade beer was available to the patrons.
Each Renn Faire the “period Nazis” would set up a much more exacting replica in a disused building.
In the Mill Tavern, instead of toothless hags working the tables for the scraps, Tarmac owned a homunculus to wait the tables whenever his daughter couldn’t be pressed into service. Estrelle was a humanoform construct, a lovely one with rich golden hair cascading in a curly mass down to her rounded buttocks, cornflower blue eyes and high, firm breasts. She had a heart-shaped face and a coded desire to frolic, be it with males or females. As a homunculus, her thought patterns were deliberately limited and strictly nonsentient. But her coding didn’t have to be all that complex. Feed people, clean up the room, look beautiful, jump into bed at the slightest invitation.
As Myron sat down, Estrelle oozed over and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Evening, Master Raeburn,” she cooed. The homunculus was wearing high-heels, a short, blue skirt and a red bodice that pushed her breasts up until the nipples were barely concealed. As she leaned over, her breasts rubbed on his other shoulder.
“Yes, it is, Estrelle my dear,” he replied, patting her backside. “I’ll take whatever the fat guy is eating.”
“Of course,” she said, running her hand down his back, “and for later?”
“You’ll have to discuss later with Mrs. Raeburn,” he said with a sad smile. As Estrelle walked away he shrugged his shoulders at Edmund’s frown. “You don’t have to say it.”
“No,” Talbot agreed. “I don’t.”
Edmund had definite Views on the subject of homunculi. He knew they weren’t “human” by any legal definition, that they were nonsentient and uninterested in such things as rights and freedom. Realistically, they were nothing but fleshy robots, no matter how human they looked and, often, acted. Despite that, he had a hard time not thinking of them as some sort of biological slave.
“They’re no more human than… cows,” Myron said, defensively.
“And would you go to bed with a cow?” Edmund asked. “Never mind. I’m sorry I said that.”
“I know,” Raeburn replied. “So let’s drop the subject. How was your day?”
“Quite good, until I started getting visitors.” Edmund told him of the new spam under his identity and about his visit from Dionys, leaving out the details he had picked up from Carborundum.
“So McCanoc is back, eh?” Myron replied, taking a sip of his stew. “And now you’re his project for annoyance.”
“I figure if I just ignore him, he’ll go away,” Talbot said with a shrug.
“Not that gadfly,” Myron replied. “He gets off on people trying to avoid him. Challenge him and then kick his ass is my suggestion.”
“I… would consider that. The question is: Can I still kick his ass?”
“Of course you could,” Myron said, looking up from his bowl in shock. “What kind of a question is that?”
“Well, I assume while he was gone he probably uploaded and ran some decent fighting programs,” Talbot pointed out. “He’s not just picking fights with the weakest anymore, and he’s winning against some pretty decent knights. And… I’m not as young as I used to be. Assuming I’d win, much less kick his ass as badly as it needs to be kicked, is a major assumption.”
“Cheat,” Raeburn said with a shrug. “He will if he gets the chance. Look at the armor he’s creating.”
“If he hadn’t been such an ass, or if I’d been thinking quicker, I would have made it,” Talbot admitted.
“Why?”
“Well, I just have this wonderful image,” the smith admitted with a grin. “Of him running around in Anarchia with this lovely, blue glowing, fantasy armor. And all the other bastards in there closing in on him and piling on to get a piece of it. I… doubt that he’d walk back out. Age and guile is supposed to be worth more than youth and strength. All things considered, if it wasn’t a point of honor now, I’d probably make it just to get rid of him. In all senses of the word ‘rid.’ ”
Rachel had elected to wear a stylized version of sixteenth-century Chitan court dress, less the bound feet. Her mother’s limited efforts had not been sufficient to make her body anywhere near what was popular and she still felt like an overweight ox. The thick brocade and multiple layers would hide most of her bulk. And makeup would tend to reduce the overarching massiveness of her nose.
So it was in this dress that she translated into the garden Marguerite’s parents had created for the party and stopped, shocked, at the number of people present.
The central lawn of the garden was at least a hundred yards on a side, with scattered beddings and statuary as well as a group of pavilions to provide shade for tables and a large refreshment area. However, even with all the available space, the area was packed with hundreds of people, humanoform and otherwise.
There were beings that looked like giant floating fish and mer-forms, from mer-people to delphinoids to a weird ray creature that Rachel wasn’t sure was human at all. There were centaurs and dryads and even, far on the other side of the lawn what looked like an elf. There were weres of every major predatory species, from panthers through wolves and bears to what had to be a were lion by his hair. There were unicorns, both Changed and genegineered pets, and thousands of pets, from fairly normal canines to “house cats” the size of small pumas to some really baroque hodgepodge creatures, all of which twined among feet, tripped the guests and importuned loudly for tidbits.