The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [184]
“Think about it.” Gyretis stands. “It’s your decision, not mine. You asked what I suggested. I told you.”
CXXIX
“GIDMAN, I UNDERSTAND that the green juice is your concoction.”
“Begging your pardon, ser, and it is, but only because there’s no grapes here worthy of the name.” The stocky and grizzled trooper glares at Creslin. “Nothing grows here that’d make a decent wine, except perhaps pearapple brandy.”
“Maybe next year on the pearapples. Could you distill the green juice into a brandy?”
“Distill . . . greenberry? That swill’s so tart it’d twist your guts inside out.”
“I know that. But could you do it?”
“If someone could get me the tubing, and the time. But it’d taste like those lightning bolts raised by . . . the other regent, ser.” Gidman licks his lips.
“What about aging? Would that mellow it?”
“Unless you have a secret bunch of casks, ser, we got nothing proper to age with. Aging mellows anything. It might turn that green lightning into simple poison.”
“I take it you don’t like it?”
“Some folks’ll drink anything. Not me.”
“I’ll get you the tubing and the time, Gidman. And some more tubs. You start brewing as much of the green juice as you can. You turn it into green lightning, and I’ll figure out how to make it drinkable.”
“You do that, ser, and that’s worth more than all the storms you called.”
“Probably,” sighs Creslin. “You’re going to have to move. Hyel will tell you where to start, once we’re set up.”
“Begging your pardon again, ser. But you let me work it out with the masons and it’ll happen faster, and it’ll be what I need.”
Creslin grins. “Fine. If they have problems, they can come to Hyel or to me. Will that be satisfactory?”
“Saving your grace, yes. ’Cept that stuff’s still green swill.”
Creslin is shaking his head as he climbs the stairs to Hyel and Shierra’s office. Hyel is out, but Shierra stands as he enters.
“Gidman—the grizzled character who’s making the green juice—is going to work out some deal with the stoneworkers to build a proper still, outside the keep. Would you let Hyel know that I said it was all right?” He turns to go.
“Creslin?” Shierra’s voice is soft.
“Yes.”
“We all know you’re trying.”
“Right now, trying doesn’t count, does it?”
“Don’t tell that to Fiera.”
Creslin sighs and turns back to face her. “I suppose I deserved that. I can’t ever repay her.”
“No.”
“What am I supposed to do? She brought those squads because . . . because . . .” He shakes his head.
“She wasn’t sure you understood.”
“What can I do? I still remember the one time we kissed. I wish I’d been smarter or braver or bolder. But then . . . everything would have turned out differently.” He pauses. “So I owe her. We all do, but I owe her more than I can admit, and I don’t even know how to repay it. There really isn’t any way. Nothing I say—”
“You just have. In a way.”
“I don’t know. People want to see great deeds, and I’m trying to figure out how to pay for food two seasons from now, because what Fiera brought back won’t last that long.”
“There was quite a bit left in that strongbox.”
“It’s a trade-off. If we don’t buy tools, and supplies like the metals for the glassworks, we’ll never be able to support ourselves and we’ll be starving two years from now. If we do spend the money on the future, we risk starving in the seasons ahead.” Standing in the doorway, Creslin shrugs. “It’s like juggling with sharp knives.”
“Why the green-juice distillery?”
“I thought I’d explained that. No?” Creslin steps over to the window. “You can sell distilled spirits anywhere and at any time, usually without having to mark them down much, especially if the quality’s good. Wool’s the same way, especially if you’re selling in Nordla. Right now we don’t have any trading possibilities, not with the trade edict of the Whites.”
“You’re trying to develop hard-cash products.”
“I thought I’d made that clear, but I guess not.”
“Maybe I wasn’t listening. Building a distillery didn’t sound like it was going to solve our trade problems.”
“It won’t. But it might help for a little while.”
“You just confused