Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [121]
After a hot bath and shave and haircut from Halveric’s barber, Jeddrin Count of Andressat felt much better. Everyone here knew his name, though he didn’t know all of them, and Halveric had welcomed him with appropriate ceremony. His assigned suite was large, graciously furnished, items from the south laid out to lend familiarity. Even, when he came out from his bath, a basket of warm spiced cakes—dusted with his favorite figan—waiting on the table in his bedchamber. True, out the window were northern fields and that forbidding forest, but his host had done his best.
And his host’s wife. He had no way to address women who bore no title and yet were not servants … he could not just use her name, no matter that Halveric had suggested it. Traveling as he had been,
he’d not met any lords’ wives; the townswomen he’d seen had looked, to his eye, like ordinary people, just dressed differently.
Estil Halveric was taller than her husband, straight-backed where he was stooped, with an easy smile that yet had no hint of flirtatiousness. She looked strong, as if she instead of her husband could captain a troop. She moved briskly, yet with grace … he was used to women of position moving more slowly, languidly, yet perhaps that was the difference in climate.
He had already seen the hall where they would dine, the tables set in the same pattern they might have been at home, had it been a formal banquet. Halveric had asked if he preferred a quiet meal alone, but his curiosity was aroused. How would a northern lordling set out a banquet? How would they come in? Halveric had eaten with him, but only informally.
At the high table, he and Halveric and Halveric’s wife and the two eldest sons and their wives … down the side tables, the other sons and daughters and spouses.
“It is the growing season,” Halveric said. “We do not travel much then—and I was not sure you wished many to know of your errand, so I did not try to gather a large party. It was in no disrespect of your honor, my lord Count.”
Andressat relaxed. No insult intended; a family meal merely. That was comfortable, and for a family meal, nicely laid out. Solid, good-quality dishes, southern ware, painted with flowers and birds, heavy silver, fine blown goblets and flagons, all laid on sun-bleached linen cloths. Herbs and flowers strewn the length of the tables. And the fare … he could hardly believe the northern lands produced such bounty. Platters of sliced meats, small birds spitted between unfamiliar vegetables on thin rods, roast fowl, fish, tureens of soup, bowls of vegetables, baskets of bread in three colors, small dishes of oilberries … all served at once, instead of discrete courses. Southern wines, white and red. Halveric had explained that as a courtesy to a guest who had traveled all day.
“What fish are these?” he asked Halveric. He had expected salted fish, if any, so far from the sea, but these were fresh.
“Our own,” Halveric said. “Netted from the stream this morning. We call them speck-sides.” He smiled. “I remembered your fondness for river-fish. Ours are smaller, but I thought you might like them.”
“They’re delicious.” Andressat accepted another serving. “And those meats?” He pointed with his little finger, politely.
“Beef, mutton, roast pork. The birds are ground-chucks and of course chickens.”
“And you raise all this here, yourself?”
“Estil does,” Halveric said, gesturing to his wife. Andressat had to turn, and meet that broad smile.
“Aliam’s been gone so much,” she said. “He’s left it to me, you see.”
He didn’t see, not completely. “I did not see any goats,” he said. “Do you not have goats here?”
“Not here,” she said. “Steadings closer to the mountains do. They are not happy in thicker forest.”
He understood that. At home, goats throve on hillsides too steep or barren for cattle. “But you have sheep.”
“Only in fenced pastures,” she said. “They are too hard to find, if they get loose in the forest. We keep enough sheep for wool, and eat some mutton, but we depend more on cattle for meat, though we also hunt.”
It had been long