Without hesitation, he clasped Elaith’s wrist in a comrade’s salute.
A Walk in the Snow
Ogden smiled. This was his favorite task.
It had been better when Maere was still alive to share the chores of the White Hart, the inn they'd built together. Then the kitchen would be filled with the aroma of baking bread and stewing meat as well as the sweet odor of cooling malt.
The chore was better even when his old friend Robert had lent a hand, at least with the hopping and fermenting. Rob had visited mainly to keep the widower from despair in the first few months of his solitude. When Rob's first son was born, he showed only every other time. After the second son, Ogden was on his own.
Even in solitude, years past any useful company, brewing the ale for the Hart was still one of his few pleasures.
A breathless voice from the common room cut through the innkeeper's pleasant reverie. 'Ogden!'
Startled, Ogden let the steaming brew kettle slip onto his round belly. With a pained hiss he shifted it back over the lip of the oaken tun before him. Cloudy amber liquid resumed its course into the barrel, splashing some foam into life.
'Not now, lad,' shouted Ogden. 'I'm sparging the wort. It's a delicate part of the proc-'
A bear-sized bulk crashed through the kitchen's bolt-less door. It turned toward the innkeeper, tiny eyes round on a pink face. His pug nose was wide and runny. The first foliage of a beard was evident upon the young man's face. 'But Ogden, it's-'
'Whatever it is, it can wait until I've emptied the kettle.' The happy smile that had warmed his face faded into Ogden's day-old whiskers. He never shaved on brew day; that was one of his other small pleasures, though when he saw a mirror, he fretted at the conquest of the gray stubble over the familiar brown.
'But-'
Ogden caught the big boy's mouth with his free hand. The kettle shifted again, and Ogden stepped around the tun, keeping his palm firmly pressed over Portnoy's lips.
'Count to twenty,' said Ogden. He felt Portnoy's lips move beneath his palm and added, 'Silently!'
Portnoy's deep brow creased with the effort, but his tiny eyes set in determination as he struggled to obey. That should take him a while, thought Ogden with a smile of relief. His sister's son was not quite an idiot, but he was often mistaken for one.
The innkeeper wiped his hand on his heavy apron before regaining a grip on the kettle.
'Here, hold the tun steady,' said Ogden. Portnoy hesitated, perhaps wondering whether it was a trick to interrupt his counting. Deciding that obedience was the better course, he gripped the oak tun.
'I was trying to tell you that-'
'Uh, uh! There,' said Ogden. 'Now tilt it back. Careful, it's a bit warm, still…'
Portnoy was far better with his hands than with his brain. His thick fingers were clamps, holding the tun at just the right angle to let Ogden pour the remaining malt with the least splashing. When the kettle was empty at last, Ogden favored Portnoy with a smile. Maybe he should show the lad the whole process soon. Surely it was simple enough.
'Good.' Ogden set a lid atop the tun. The malt would need a few more hours to cool, and then he could hop and cask it. A few months later, he'd have another batch of rich ale to serve the villagers of Myrloch. 'That's the last one.'
He turned to his young charge. The boy was only fifteen years old, but already he stood taller than the war veteran and outweighed him by four stone. Nonetheless, Ogden managed to look down at the boy with fatherly condescension while looking up to see the lad's broad face. 'Now what is it that has you carrying on so madly?'
'It's Cole,' replied Portnoy. 'The wizard.'
'Aye?'
'He's dead.'
'Mind the village while I'm gone, old friend.'
Lord Donnell always said the same thing when he left Cantrev Myrloch. It had become something of a joke between the two veterans of the Darkwalker war. It had carried them through the years of rebuilding after the defeat of Kazgoroth, and it lived on into the reign of Alicia, Tristan's daughter and their new queen.
'Who d'ye think minds it when you're here?' That was always Ogden's reply.
A hundred times had Donnell left the village in Ogden's charge, and it had always been a quiet jest. Donnell would return and say, 'What have you been doing all this time? I had hoped for some improvement, a new tower or two, at least. You've grown lazy as well as fat.'
'It's the baldness that slows me, my lord,' Ogden would apologize. Then he would invite Lord Donnell to supper.
They would spend the rest of the day in Ogden's inn, the White Hart. Inside, the lord would tell his friend everything that had happened on his travels, and the innkeeper would tell his friend what he made of it. After some hours, Lord Donnell would emerge and invite the crowd that had invariably gathered to listen at the door to enter.
'Let the gossip begin!' And he would walk, unsteadily more often than not, up to his stately manor. The villagers would swarm into the inn, where Ogden would share the gossip he and Donnell had agreed should spread. And he would sell a barrel of ale.
Ogden valued that relationship, and he wanted to keep it. That was why he took it so badly that someone should die while Lord Donnell was away at Caer Callidyr, in audience with Queen Alicia. He was due to return today, and Ogden had better have some answers for him when he arrived. He placed one big hand on each of Portnoy's expansive shoulders and fixed his eyes on the lad's own.
'He's what?'
'He's dead, Uncle Ogden.'
'You're sure of this, are you?'
'They said he's dead as a stone.'
'Well, I suppose they know what it is they're talking about.' Ogden gave Portnoy a dubious frown. 'Who's 'they.''
'Dare and Eowan. They says Enid saw 'im this morning, as she was bringing 'is milk and eggs around.'
'Did you see him yourself?'
'No, I ran right home.'
'Good lad,' said Ogden. Portnoy was not a fool, despite appearances. He untied his apron. 'Now, you clean up this kitchen while I have a look myself.'
By the time he reached Cole's cottage, Ogden wished he had brought his walking stick. The first snow had fallen last night. It paled the low mountains that sheltered Myrloch Vale from eastern Gwynneth. Even so far from the sea, the winds blew unhindered before reaching those rugged hills. They brought the northeastern chill with them, planting it deep within Ogden's old wound. The scar left by a northman's axe still creased his shin from knee to ankle. Each winter it grew a little stronger, the only child of his youth.
Fortunately, the wizard's home was less than a mile north, and the snow was only two or three inches deep, not yet deep enough to obscure the furrows of the barley fields through which Ogden walked. He passed the white-capped houses of the nearest farmers, close enough to wave but far enough to avoid prying questions about his destination and his unusual task.
The snow began to fall again, light enough to leave the boot prints of those who had preceded Ogden to the wizard's home. All of the trails came from the center of the village, where gossip always traveled first. Ogden
