“We’ve got a newcomer among us,” Catrin said, lifting up her glass. “Not a guest, for she’ll be family soon enough, but let’s make her feel like a guest tonight.”
They all drank to my health, and Haijon’s, and gave good wishes to us both. I thanked them kindly and toasted the fence and the family, as was done at the start of any supper where there was wine or beer to be drunk. Then Perliu led a short prayer, mumbling the words quick and low. I tried to follow, but it seemed to me that they were not words at all, but a rumble of sound thrown out to stand where words were meant to be.
I went out of my way to be as pleasant as I could, answering any question that was put to me with a great show of cheer and enthusiasm. I did not seem to find much favour though. Fer sat with pursed lips, and Perliu with a stiff back and a heavy frown.
Perliu in particular seemed to want to find fault with me. He asked me to pass the butter down the table to him, and while I was reaching for the saucer asked it of Mardew instead, as if I had been too slow. Then he watched me pour myself a second mug of beer, and opened his eyes wide at it. “You should drink more slowly,” he said to me. “It will quench your thirst better, and not stew your thoughts so much.”
I smiled and nodded, as if there was no insult meant. “Thank you, goodman Perliu,” I said. “It’s true I was going at it a little quick. I’m not used to having beer with supper.”
“We got wine too,” Haijon said. “Ban, bring out the wine.”
“Bring nothing,” Perliu said, glaring at Ban as if fetching it had been her idea rather than his grandson’s. “We’re well as we are.”
“I’m happy with the beer,” I said. “It’s very good.”
“It’s good enough,” Perliu said. He threw the words down hard, as if his saying so ended some argument.
When we had eaten, I started to clear the table, but Gilly took the dishes out of my hands and carried them to the kitchen. Raelu brought out mead, which we drank from goblets the size of thimbles, and the two of them washed our knives and trenchers while Ban sat down and ate her own supper alone. It seemed that this was the way of things in Rampart Hold. The Fishers must go turn and turn about so the Vennastins could eat without interruption.
“I know a song about mead,” I said.
“Is it one I’ve heard?” Haijon asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s an old one, of my mother’s.”
“Casra Ropemaker,” Fer said to Gendel in a loud whisper. “Her that killed herself.”
I gave no sign of hearing, but sang the song. It was a conversation between a bee, a clove and a bridewort, each one saying what gifts they brought to the mead – the sweetness, the spice and the perfume. Then in the last verse a nutmeg speaks up too, in a way that’s rude and funny and turns the song around to be a joke about what people do when they’re drunk. The Vennastins and the Fishers applauded me when I was done, and most laughed, though Fer smiled but thinly and Perliu looked solemn. Either he had not got the joke, or he had not approved of it.
It was but a poor start, all things considered. But that night Haijon came to my room, and we improved it somewhat.
8
In the days that followed, Haijon strained every muscle to make me feel at home in the Hold. He did this even though he was not often free. He was synced with the cutter, as I think I told you, and was still learning it. His days were mostly spent on the gather-ground with his cousin Mardew, practising how to make his name-tech work at his command.
I would sit and watch him some of those times. Mardew was a sorry teacher. He could not explain what he was doing, but would just do it and then bid Haijon copy him. Haijon had a knack for the cutter though, and besides that he had the patience needed to try the same thing again and again until it worked. Soon enough it was him teaching Mardew, or it would have been if Mardew had any brains in his head to learn with.
When Jon was not practising with the cutter, he was with me, and he took pains with my learning too. He led me on a journey through the Hold, telling me what each room was called and what its history was as far as it was known. There were almost too many rooms to count, and some weren’t even being used. I hadn’t ever imagined such a thing, and it troubled me a little. But that’s what being rich is, I suppose: it’s having so much of a thing, be it room or gold or tech or time, that you don’t need to do anything with it but can let it lie idle.
There was a room called the music room, though I didn’t hear any music there. And one called the dressing room, that had no clothes in it. And a third that was called the blue room. I don’t remember at this remove what colour the walls were, but they were not blue.
But there were wonders to be seen too, and Haijon was a good guide. He took me to the Count and Seal, which seemed even bigger without anybody in it, and showed me how it was not one room but many. There was the big main space with rows and rows of benches ranged in circles, where the village met on testing days and at other times – but there were also three smaller rooms, only a little bigger than cupboards, their doors dissembled among the wooden panels on the walls. “They must be for people to hide in, if the village gets attacked,” Haijon told me. “That’s what I think anyway. My ma says they’re just storerooms, but why would you hide the door of a storeroom so nobody could see it? We keep boots and shoes and Winter coats in there now, but I doubt that was what they was meant for.”
After that he took me down into the Underhold. We had played there when we were children, but we had only gone down two or three levels, fearing the dark of the lower halls. With a candle in his hand, Haijon took me down and down, until I lost count of how many turns of the stairs there had been and how many rooms we had passed.
“What’s behind all these doors?” I asked him.
“Things to eat, mostly. Grain. Potatoes. Hard tack. Onions. Salt. A lot of them is empty. And there’s a lot more that haven’t been opened in so long, we don’t even remember what’s in there. Rooms where Ramparts of olden times put the things they wanted kept safe.”
“Treasure?” I knew I sounded like a little girl as I said it, but it was a natural thought to have, so far under the ground. This was such a place as trolls or goblins might use to store their gold.
“If there was treasure, it would of been found long since.” Haijon opened a door at random and thrust the candle in to show me. It was full of bolts of cloth, folded neatly but mottled with black mould as thick as bread crust.
“You know where the treasure is, Spinner,” Haijon said with a sly smile on his face. He took me back up, almost all the way to the surface, and led me to a door of solid oak. I remembered it, now we were here. There was another door, right behind this one, with only a narrow space between. Koli had found it once, in a game of hide and go seek, and chosen it as his hiding place.
“This is where the tech is kept,” I said. I didn’t mean the Ramparts’ name-tech but the rest of it – the tech that could not be made to work. I already knew it was stored there, and I had seen it on my testing day when it was brought up to the Count and Seal, but I still got a prickle down my neck to be so close to it. I touched my hand to the wood of the door, expecting it to be warm from all that ancient power dammed up behind it.