Chapter 3 Broughton

Chapter 3

It was dark by the time they reached the margins, an area in the forest marked by the absence of large tree, Eleanor knew these had been felled centuries ago by the heathens and used for building their homes and the furniture inside. Catalyn explained how the heathens had cut down the trees, leaving a part of the trunk near the ground, from which new trees would grow. These young trees were then harvested every eight or nine years with their long straight trunks being used for roofing and fence poles. It was next to a clump of young oaks that she and Catalyn halted, with the councilwoman looking around as if expecting someone to be there meet them. They hadn’t been standing waiting for long when two wardens appeared, slipping between the branches and shadows like ghosts, their green uniforms blending perfectly into the backdrop of leaves and other vegetation.

“Greetings my lady,” was the breathless greeting spoken by the first warden to arrive. “Our camp is this way.”

Following his lead, they were brought to a clearing where a small fire danced inside a ring of round, river stones. A small clay pot was perched over the fire, balanced on the edge of three fat stones, the contents bubbling away.

“Ah, mushroom potage, my favourite,” Catalyn announced with a smile, motioning that they should both sit on the downtrodden grass. Eleanor sank to the ground with as much grace as she could muster. She hadn’t slept much the night before and had walked for hours trying to match the exhausting pace the councilwoman had set. Her feet ached in the strange boots, and the sleeves of her dress were chaffing the inside of her elbows. She felt too tired to eat, but when bowl of potage was dropped on the ground beside her, she took up the wooden spoon and ate it slowly, finding the bowl empty after only a few short moments. Accepting a blanket from one of the men, she curled up close to the fire with her basket under her head and watching the flames of the fire die down to glowing embers, fell asleep.

She woke next morning to find someone shaking her by the shoulder. Through sleep-blurred eyes, she saw it was the councilwoman, but not as she’d last remembered her. She wore a blood-red dress of similar design to the one Eleanor now wore. Her pale hair was hidden behind a length of highly patterned material and her skin was no longer as white as snow, it sported a pale brown tinge. It made her look younger somehow.
“Up you get,” she was told, “wash your face, brush your hair and straighten your clothes. We leave as soon as you’re ready. We have a long way to go today.”

Its wasn’t long afterwards that she and the councilwoman accompanied by two of the wardens, stepped out of the forest and out onto the rutted road that ran all round the circumference of the forest.
“Have there been any more attempts to cut down trees?” Catalyn asked of the warden striding at her side.
“Err…yes, my lady.”
“Explain,” Catalyn demanded, her voice as brittle as frosted grass.
“Heathens entered the south side of the forest yesterday afternoon, and cut down ten large trees, all of them over three hundred years old. One of the ten was Gladmeril, the Gatekeeper. We found the stumps late yesterday afternoon.”
“The Gatekeeper, they killed the Gatekeeper,” Catalyn gasped, “And you didn’t tell me until now!”
The warden shrugged, his features hidden deep inside his blue cowl. Eleanor felt for the man. She wouldn’t wish the councilwoman’s anger turned in her direction.

The Gatekeeper was one of the Remembering Trees. He had stood at the northern gate of ancient Methrylian and witnessed its armies marching out to wage war on the barbarians. He had seen a beaten few return, pursued by a wave of screaming savages who threw themselves at the gate, eventually bringing it down before streaming into the fallen city. It had witnessed the burning, the smoke hanging like a pall over the plains, the heat from the flames singeing its topmost leaves, the acrid rainwater percolating through the soil to be soaked up by its roots. And when the savages had pulled down the city walls, it had been there when they found a new use for its overturned stones. Survivors of the conflagration were dragged from their hiding places and brought before the warlords responsible for devastating their fair land. There, before the gates of that beautiful city, Methrylian’s sons and daughters were cruelly put to death, stretched backwards over the stones that had once served them so well and their throats cut, their life blood flowing like a river into the ground. The Gatekeeper had been an incorruptible witness to that slaughter. As one of their oldest Remembering Trees he had been a window onto a past that was long gone and now, like the passing of those years, he was gone too. When a child, like all the others in the settlement, she had been taken to each of the elder trees and introduced. It had been many a year since she had rested beneath the Gatekeeper’s sheltering boughs and now she realised sadly, she never would again.

The warden who had broken the news stood close to Catalyn with his head low and his shoulder’s hunched.
“My lady, please forgive me,” he begged softly. “It would have served no purpose to blight your rest, when news such as this could have waited until now.”
To Eleanor, it seemed that Catalyn refused to hear what was being said to her. Unfocussed eyes stared into the distance, tears welled up and threatened to spill onto her cheeks. Gloved hands clung together as if in prayer.
“This is not the time, or the place, to grieve,” she told them, her voice raw with emotion. “We will found out who carried out his atrocity and make them pay…with their lives if need be. Come, we must reach Broughton before nightfall.”
And to that end, Catalyn set a cruel pace, striding past fields, through cote and village, never slowing, never looking back.

To Eleanor the world outside the leafy glades of the forest was fascinating. She was so busy drinking it all that there was no time to be afraid. Huge fields stretched to the horizon, filled with, rippling, ripening corn. Houses built from honey-coloured stone, topped by dark reeds, stood like sentinels inside hurdled enclosures. Inside some of these, heathens rose from their work and glared at the passing strangers until they were out of sight. In others, their presence was noticed but largely ignored. In one, a man stood with his legs naked to the breeze holding a young lamb, watching them as they walked by. Visible in some of the enclosures were pens filled with goats, sheep, cows and even a few horses but every house had a clutch of chickens pecking at the ground in front of the main door. Her eyes were everywhere, taking in the new and novel like a starving man cramming bread into his mouth. She saw curved metals tools leaning against the wall at one farm. In another, men with wooden pitchforks unloaded hay from a flat cart. The pale green strands flew up into the air, carried away on the light breeze, as the men threw fork after fork of sweet-smelling hay onto the floor of an open-sided barn. At some of the settlements she tarried too long, looking everywhere, taking everything in, and had to scamper to catch up with the others.

It was the heathen’s profligate use of wood that surprised her the most. While the countryside was mostly made up of fields, tracks ditches and hedgerows, there were small woods and copses dotted around, but that couldn’t account for the amount of timber she saw stacked next to each dwelling, or the timber used in its making, nor for the branches and twigs used in the construction of the railings and hurdles that separated each pen and dwelling from the next. There were wooden shutters at the windows, wooden doors to the houses and wooden feed troughs in the animal pens. The carts and their wheels were also made of the precious material. In the forest, surrounded by trees, her people harvested what timber they needed from storm-torn boughs, dead and fallen trees. The forest floor was littered with twigs, torn from spindly branches during the fiercest summer storms. These were carefully collected and used for cooking. Fallen trees provided them with wood for bowls and furniture. It was against all they held dear to destroy a living tree. They did this to honour of the ancient ones who held the memories of her people locked up inside their living bodies.

It was late afternoon, and they had only stopped for brief drink, when at last the open countryside gave way to buildings of every size huddled on both sides of the road. The buildings she could see were smaller than the farms they had passed earlier, and only used stone at the bottom of the walls, where the water falling from reed-covered roofs splashed the road, throwing up gobs of mud. Here timber was in greater evidence. Wooden beams could be seen inside the walls themselves, with several long lengths reaching from floor to roof, while smaller ones spanned the distance between. A pale clay covered the rectangular spaces between the wooden beams. Eleanor touched the nearest panel and was surprised how hard it felt, considering how flat it looked. It couldn’t be stone she thought, there were no joins that she could see. She was standing in the middle of the track puzzling this out when one of the wardens grabbed her by the elbow and yanked her out of the way, before a handcart piled high with sacks hit her.
“Watch yourself,” he growled, manhandling her to the side of the road where the others waited. “You are not standing in some clearing communing with the trees now girl,” he snapped. “Pay attention, or we’ll be burying in some ditch before the day’s out.”
Cursing to himself, he left her there and strode off down the road alone.

Eleanor felt both foolish and bruised. Not from his handling but from his tone. She had never been spoken to by one of her people in that way before. It frightened her. Rubbing her arm she stood beside Catalyn and offered the councilwoman her apology.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t see it.”
Catalyn just shook her head and looked at her with a disappointed frown. Eleanor knew the councilwoman was taking a great risk in bringing her to the town and letting her prove herself. This was not the sort of start she had hoped to make. No wonder the councilwoman looked annoyed.

After that she followed the others closely, never stopping to stare or gawk, although they past many strange characters and vehicles on the streets, all of which drew her eye, but only for an instant. The further they went, the closer the houses became, until they were crammed hard up against one and other, with not a hairs breadth between. By then the noise from the crowds in the streets was becoming almost unbearable. Eleanor could hear traders shouting their wares, musicians banging on drums, men cursing their neighbours, blacksmiths hammering away at anvils, women chattering in groups. She felt she was being assaulted on all sides by a constant barrage of bangs, screams and shouts. It was only when she followed Catalayn down a side street did the noise lessen and she could think clearly again. The councilwoman increased her pace, hurrying through the narrow alleyways, occasionally lifting up her skirt so she could skip over a puddle of evil smelling liquid. It was almost dark when, in a narrow back street, she stopped at the door of a small dwelling, lifted the latch and went inside.
“Light the tapers please,” she said as Eleanor followed her inside.

Without thinking, Eleanor did what she did every night in her home among the trees. Whispering words in an ancient tongue, she flicked her fingers towards the taper standing in a jug in the middle of the table and it obediently burst into flames, lighting the corners of the small, shuttered room. She turned to see Catalyn collapse onto a simple, wooden bench. Leaning on the table the councilwoman held her head in her hands. She looked incredibly tired.
“Child,” she said with a sigh, “if anyone had been watching, that single act could have betrayed us all. I told you to think and act like a heathen, but if the instant you are alone you exercise your arts, you WILL be found out. As soon as those savages realise who and what you are,” she whispered, “not only would you be doomed, but most likely so would the rest of us.”
“Anderlyn will soon return with food, until then Ferryl will take you to the kitchen and teach you the names and the uses of the tools we have there. After we have eaten, you will retire. We have much to discuss. It is possible that we may decide that the benefits we could reap from this enterprise are not worth the risks we take. You may be returning home sooner than any of us planned. Be prepared.
With a negligent wave of her hand, Eleanor was dismissed.
In the kitchen Ferryl showed her how to light tapers using a flint and dried moss, catching the sparks on the moss and blowing the embers until it caught fire, and from that harboured flame, light the taper. Giving her the taper to hold, the smoke billowing up towards the ceiling, he took her from table to bench showing her everything they had. She found the metal knives very different in form and shape to the obsidian blades favoured by her people. A collection of bent, peeled twigs tied together with bark to form a handle was called a whisk and was used for beating eggs. There were bowls of all sizes, and two cast iron pots that could be suspended over an open fire to cook stews and meat. He showed her the cooking table, with its stone top and the hole where a cast iron pot could be placed and a small fire lit underneath it, to cook whatever the pot held. He showed her the laundry tools, which looked very much like the ones she used at home. This was followed by instructions on how to cook meat on a spit, something she had never done before since she, like the rest of her people, rarely ate meat, favouring nuts, berries, fruit, bread and cakes made with ground seeds and pulses.
“Have you ever eaten cooked flesh?” she asked Ferryl in a rare exchange.
The warden nodded but declined to elaborate, moving onto describe how flour was used to make bread, and how it could be cooked on a griddle, or in a wall oven.
Next he showed her a wide wooden bucket that he called a mash bin and explained how heathens made a fermented beer, similar to their dewdrop ale, by stirring grain in boiling water and allowing it to stand until you could see your reflection in the surface. After that, a cup of old beer was poured into the mixture, plus spices and herbs and a handful of crushed hops. He also explained how the mixture would then be stirred, covered and allowed to cool. After the softened grains were removed, the resulting liquid was stored in tall, sealed jars and would keep for an eightday. The grain was usually fed to the pigs, on which the heathens dined in their turn.

It was at this point that Anderlyn returned and they were called to the front room to share a silent meal of apples and dark bread. Afterwards Ferryl showed her a room in the attic, one that could only reached by a ladder through the floor. Pointing to one of the mattresses, he bade her a good night and taking the taper with him, left her there in the dark. Sitting on her bed for the night, Eleanor pulled off her boots, luxuriating in the feel of wood beneath her toes. Lying down she wished she had brought the reed basket with her instead to use as a pillow, rather than leave it in the kitchen. With her eyes closed she listened to the rise and fall of the muted voices.

Not mater what they decided, she would not go back to the forest she told herself. If she had to run away and hide she would, but she wasn’t going back to face her father’s scorn. She’d endured enough of that during the last few years and was determined that she would rather live the life of an outcast than go back and be the butt of his ill humour again. It was while she was planning her escape that she fell asleep and dreamed of home.

The next morning she woke to find sunlight streaming through a shuttered vent, casting lines of white light across the other sleepers in the room. Rising carefully she collected her boots before tip-toeing across the floor and silently descending the ladder into the room below. Collecting her basket from the kitchen, she pushed her boots inside before creeping quietly towards the door that led to the street. Taking hold of the latch, she was on the point of lifting it when a sudden thought stayed her hand.

She was a daughter of kings, a direct descendent of the rulers of Methrylian. Had she so little courage that she would throw caution to the wind and endanger her people’s very existence rather than face her father’s wrath? If that was so, then she deserved to be sent home in disgrace. Running away from her duties would not solve anything. It wouldn’t find those responsible for killing the Gatekeeper, and that was what she wanted to do more than anything else in life. She was the daughter of kings she reminded herself, so perhaps it was time she started behaving like one. Turning away from the door, she sat down at the table. Carefully, she took the boots from her bag and pulled them on, tightening the buckles and ignoring the discomfort from the previous day’s blisters. Extricating the thick, knotted shawl, taking care to hide the silver pin under her shifts, she draped the woollen monstrosity around her shoulders. That done, she settled down to wait.
(insert previous section about waiting in this room)

When Catalyn climbed down the ladder, Eleanor thought she detected a slight raising of the councilwoman’s eyebrow, but if it was there one, it was very slight.
“Good morrow,” Eleanor said, keeping her manner curt and heathen-like.
“Good morrow to you child,” the councilwoman replied, adjusting her scarf and straightening her skirt before looking up again. “There is fruit in the larder and more bread if you are hungry.”
“I’m not,” she told her mentor and was rewarded with puzzled stare.
“Do I have to wait all day, or are we going to get on with this? Before I go I’ll take the coins you promised and some of the food, just in case,” she continued, spurred on by Catalyn’s look of wide-eyed amazement. “If I cannot get work today, then I’ll need to find somewhere to sleep before nightfall. I’ve been here waiting on your pleasure for hours. The day is almost half over. I still have much to do.”
Catalyn grinned, then chortled, biting hard on her knuckles to keep from chuckling.
“Is that rude and angry enough for you?” she asked, realising that she now sounded petulant when she had been trying for arrogance.
“It is a good start,” Catalyn replied with a wry smile.
“All right,” she conceded, “ you can go, BUT…” and here she raised an admonishing finger, “I will have to bind your powers before we can let you leave.”
“But…why” Eleanor asked, her new-found courage suddenly faltering.
“You have used your powers for as long as you can remember, almost from the day you could talk. To ask you to curtail them voluntarily, would have you constantly on your guard. It would be far easier to have your powers bound, so you cannot use them. That way you can concentrate on the task at hand, and not worry constantly about concealing what is a natural part of you.”
“But, if I need them…”
“I can lock them behind a warding that you could break should the need arise. But the situation would have to be dire indeed for you to consider such a thing. Do you understand?”
(explain how this was done)
Closing the door behind her and stepping out into the narrow alleyway was the hardest thing Eleanor had ever done. For the first time in her life she was alone, totally alone, a stranger in a strange land. Pulling her shawl tighter, she took her first steps down the alleyway, finding it easier the more she took. As she walked away she knew she was not just leaving the house and the people in it behind, she was leaving a way of life.

Heading back towards the main thoroughfare, she heard the cries and shouts of the traders long before her eyes beheld the street and its occupants. Peering around the corner she studied the heathens, trying to work out what to do next. Ten paces away on her side of the road a woman stood with a willow basket on her hip, holding out a fat red apple and entreating those who passed her to buy. Inside her basket Eleanor could see she had apples, pears, brindle fruits and walnuts. Across the road she noticed two men unloading pig carcasses from the back of a small handcart. A cloud of flies hovered over the meat as one of the men slung a stiffened carcass over his shoulder and bore it into a large building. Waiting for a large horse-drawn cart to pass her on the road, she stepped forward, carefully avoiding the muddy puddles, and made her way down the middle of the street. A loud clanging and banging marked the blacksmith’s place of work. The whole area reeked of acid fumes. Eleanor hurried past. Further down the street, the smell of bread drew her to a small door, where heathens of all sizes were going in and out. Standing on tiptoe and peering over the head of a fat, bald heathen man who had just emerged, she spotted a trestle table loaded with loaves of every size. Waiting for several heathens to emerge, she went inside and stood next to the table, close to the others waiting to be served. When a woman with a wide flour-covered apron approached her and ask which loaf she wanted, Eleanor explained that she was looking for work. When she asked if they needed anyone, the woman’s response was to ignore her and turn her attention to the next person at the table. After a few words, she handed over a small loaf and took a few small coins in exchange. Wondering what she had said that was so offensive, Eleanor left and was making her way down the street again when someone called out behind her.
“Dearie, dearie!” she heard and turned to find a fat heathen woman with long brown curly hair standing at the side of the road, waving a handkerchief in her direction.
Intrigued Eleanor retraced her steps and stood in front of the woman as the creature smiled inanely at her.
“Are you looking for work dearie?” she asked, her chins wobbling as she spoke. “I thought that you said you were, inside.”
“Yes I am,” Eleanor admitted, wondering who the woman was and what sort of work she had in mind.
“Well,” the woman continued slipping her arm through Eleanor’s, much to her surprise “then I have a proposition for you.”
The woman spoke quickly, hardly stopping to breathe, so it only took Eleanor a few moments to understand what was she was being asked to do.

The woman’s name was Margrite and she normally had two girls working in her kitchen, but one had recently run off with a young tanner, leaving her terribly short-staffed. She was devastated, no completely at a loss to understand what she would do if she couldn’t find a replacement at such short notice. The worry was so great she would probably end up throwing herself into the river. Her girls loved working for her, ask any of her girls they would tell her. And so it went on. Eleanor felt like she was being attacked or worn down with words. In desperation, in an effort to stop the creature talking, Eleanor agreed that she’s come and help her. That didn’t have the hoped-for result however because now the woman spoke even faster as she propelled Eleanor along the street by the simple expediency of walking forward as fast as her little feet would go and dragging Eleanor along with her. As they walked she explained that the day after tomorrow would be the horse fair and that they’d be incredibly busy with folk coming from all over the duchy to buy and sell at Broughton’s fair. Eleanor would have slipped into a stupor if it hadn’t been for the woman’s hand on her arm, such was the hypnotic effect of her constant prattling. Eleanor was so mesmerised that she almost missed noting the outside of the building they eventually turned into.

“Jenny Jenny,” the woman called out as soon as the door was closed behind them. “I’ve found someone to give you a hand,”
At this, the woman who called herself Margrite herded Eleanor down the corridor and into a large room lit by a narrow glass-paned window set into one wall. The floor was made from wooden boards and the walls looked as if they were covered in a pale yellow clay. Three large trestle tables had been pushed against separate walls. Two were piled high with dirty wooden platers, metal drinking vessels and serving bowls. At the third table a young woman with a wet apron tied around her waist and her hair bound up in a napkin, laboured at a large wooden trough. On one side were piles of filthy dishes, covered with leftover food scraps and grease and on the other, the clean dishes were stacked up against each other, with water dripping from the edge of the table and gathering in a puddle on to the floor.
“You give her a hand dearie,” Margrite suggested, handing Eleanor a drying rag. “I’ve got to go and see to my guests.”
“By the way,” she asked when she reached the door, “what’s your name.”
“Its Eleanor, “ she told her.
“That’s nice,” Margrite replied, the warm smile producing dimples in each of her plump cheeks. Then, with a bang of the door, she was gone.

Eleanor spent the next few hours scraping plates, fetching water from the well in the yard and drying the dishes while Jenny scrubbed and washed.
“The trouble is,” Jenny told her as they rested against one of the now-empty tables, “come tonight and it will start all over again. You get heartily sick of having your hands in water for most of them day.”

“Does she pay well?“ Eleanor ventured to ask, since it seemed a safe topic of discussion with someone who was still a stranger.

“As well anyone else in this flea-begotten dump,” was Jenny’s harsh reply. “I’m only working here until I’ve saved enough for my dower chest. Once I’ve got that, Yarren and I will be getting married. He works for his uncle, a carpenter, at the castle. He’s been apprenticed for more than five years but this year, if his master piece is deemed acceptable by the guild, he’ll gain his master’s badge and be able to set up shop on his own. It also means he’ll be able to afford a wife. Until then…well, Margrite isn’t that bad, if your stick fingers in your ears and go ‘Yes Margrite, no Margrite, certainly Margrite’. That woman can talk. If taking for an hour could earn you a silver shilling, after a month she would worth a king’s ransom, and most likely buried alive under the weight of all that money.”

Eleanor had to smile, which pleased Jenny. It seemed that she wasn’t the only one who thought that Margrite talked too much.
Rolling down her sleeves, Jenny picked up a pile of platters.

“Go and open the door,” she told her. “Wedge it open and then come back for more plates. When I’ve finished cleaning I normally take them back to the kitchen and get something to eat at the same time. I suppose you could do with some food?”

Eleanor pushed the door open and wedged it there with a chair she found in the corridor. For the first time that day, she did feel hungry. When she and Jenny eventually stumbled into the kitchen however, the heat, the smell of unwashed bodies and the overpowering odour of decay changed her mind about food. She had no intention of eating anything that came out if that kitchen. In the end common sense overcame her queasiness and before anyone could complain, she grabbed a chunk of bread and a couple of honey cakes from one of the serving platters before fleeing back to the room they had been working in previously.

The bread was surprisingly good, a golden crispy outer layer with a soft white moist centre. She would have loved to have had a bowl of damson conserve to dip the bread into, instead she did without, dreaming of the tastes of home as she nibbled it slowly, trying to make it last. When she eventually finished, she stared at the honey cakes, wondering if she they would be as good to eat as they looked, considering the evil odours coming from the room in they had been made. Picking up one of the small round cakes, she studied it closely, noting how crumbly and soft it looked, how brown the nuts sprinkled across the top had become. Tearing it in half and lifting to her nose, she smiled at the unmistakable aroma of honey and hazelnuts. Breaking off a thumb sized portion she put it into her mouth and almost swooned. The cake was moist and sweet, nutty and crumbly, everything she could ever hope for in a cake. She could taste the summer flowers in the honey and the autumn richness in the hazelnuts. There was also something else there that she didn’t recognise, but it was marvellous. She quickly finished them both and found herself wondering if she dared go back into the kitchen to get another one, or even two. She was saved from her dilemma by Jenny appearing at the door with a small plate in her hand that had four honey cakes on.

“The meat pie was good,” Jenny remarked as she jumped up onto one of the tables, “It’s a shame you missed it. It’s also a shame that you ran off because I think Roland likes you. He’s the cook, he sent you these.”

Jenny pushed the plate of cakes towards her. Eleanor almost took one but held back. Did she really know what it was that made them taste so good.

“I couldn’t stay out there,” she explained. “The awful smell, it made me feel ill.”

“That was the fish,” Jenny said nodding in agreement. “The fish merchant had sworn it was fresh. Yesterday it had been wrapped in cabbage leaves and covered with damp clothes, but this morning we found it stinking the place out. The windows and doors were flung open but that sort of smell lingers for days. I’ve gotten used to it now.”

All through Jenny’s explanation Eleanor had been gazing at the cakes, feeling an terrible compulsion, an almost primal need to grab hold of them and consume them.

“Do you know how those cakes are made?” she asked the heathen girl. “What sort of ingredients are used? They seem incredibly…tasty.”

“Roland’s very proud of his cakes,” Jenny told her smiling. “He makes a new batch every day. He’ll show you if you want. If I remember rightly, he only uses flour, butter, ground nuts, egg and honey. There’s nothing magical about the ingredients, it’s just the way he throws them together. I’ve tried to make them and mine are nothing like his, even though I used the same ingredients and cooked them in the same oven. Margrite swears he’s a magician and that she couldn’t run the place without him. The trouble is, he knows how good he is, and because of that he thinks all he has to do is smile and women will fall over themselves just to be near to him. Personally, I think that’s putting far too much responsibility onto one poor cake, but Roland, like most men, lives in hope.”

Eleanor found herself liking the heathen girl, much against her better judgment.

“We could share them,” she suggested pushing the plate back.

“We could indeed,” Jenny agreed with a twinkle in her eye. “after all he does bake exceedingly good cakes.”

Soon there was nothing left on the plate but a few crumbs. Eleanor ate hers slowly, wondering as she chewed and swallowed what the ingredient called butter was made from. She recognised all the others that Jenny had mentioned, but the nature of butter eluded her. Dare she ask? What if it was something that most other heathens took for granted?

“We’d better get going,” Jenny announced jumping down and dusting the crumbs off her hands, “We’ve got the dining room to clean before the evening rush.”

Under Jenny’s supervision, Eleanor collected water from the well in a large wooden bucket and followed her down the corridor and into a very large hall, almost six times the size of the room she and Jenny worked in. The hall was filled with rectanglular tables of every design, all with benches along the longest sides.

“Take a rag and wash the tables and benches,” Eleanor was told. “Then we turn the benches upside down onto the tables, brush and then wash the floor.”

It was harder work than it sounded. The benches were heavy and the tables stacked close together.

They were halfway through the chore when Eleanor remarked, “It seems that your mistress invites a great many guests to share her meals. Is she an elder, or perhaps she’s very wealthy?”

She saw the girl stare at her open-mouthed and then blink a few times. They were in the process of lifting up one of the benches and placing it flat side down, on the table.

“Margrite wouldn’t thank you for calling her an elder and she would never admit to being wealthy,” she answered with breathless smile, letting go of the bench and standing there with her hands on her hips. “This is an inn,” she told her, looking around the room and then staring at her as if she was a child. “Everyone who comes in tonight will pay for their food and drink. If they don’t, Margrite will have them thrown into jail, but only AFTER she takes her anger out on their hide. That smile of hers hides a viscous temper. Don’t they have inns where you come from?”

“Err…no,” Eleanor answered, trying desperately to remember the story that she and the councilwoman had decided upon. “I was born on a farm to the north of here, close to the great forest. The nearest village was a half day’s walk away, and it only had four or five houses. I’ve never been to a proper town before.”

“Did you use money where you come from?” Jenny asked, frown lines marking her forehead.

“Well…not very often,” Eleanor had to admit, hoping to mix the truth in with the lies.

“But you know about money and how it works.”
“Of course,” Eleanor told her, feeling slighted. Did this heathen girl think she was that stupid?

“People give coins in exchange for goods. There are ten bronze phelks to a silver maylar, and eight maylars to a gold crown,”

“And you can count to ten?” Jenny insisted.

“Actually I can count to twenty,” Eleanor retorted with a scowl, “when I take my shoes off.”

I was meant to be a pithy, cutting remark and it would have earned her a raised eyebrow in the glades but with Jenny, the sarcasm completely escaped her. She could have told the heathen girl that she could chart the path of the moon using an abacus and astrolabe, but that would have been skirting too close to the truth for comfort.

“Ten will do,” Jenny was saying. “Margrite can be a holy terror when it comes to mistakes with money, even genuine mistakes. She can look around a room and know exactly what the takings in the drawer should be, and woe betide anyone of her staff giving someone they know a free meal.”
Eleanor had the feeling that the girl was speaking from experience.

“Normally, we help with the serving, but you must remember to get the money first, before bringing their food or drink. Give it to Harry at the bar, he puts it into a drawer back there. Then you can get them what they paid for. Some of the men in here are always looking for ways to get something for nothing, and since you’re new, they’ll be working on all sorts of ways to trick you into giving them something for nothing. They’ll even pretend that they’ve already given it to you. Some try dropping their coins on the floor and let you pick them up, then they swear that there had been a crown among the coins that were dropped and if it isn’t there now, you must have taken it.”
“Don’t let them make a fool out of you,” Jenny insisted, and that was the second time Eleanor felt she was speaking from personal experience. “And don’t get too close,” was her final piece of advice. “There are some lowlifes out there that wouldn’t think twice about grabbing a girl’s bottom, or swinging her around when she’s carrying a fistful of tankards and giving her a big slobbery kiss on the lips.”

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