Chapter 13. Sweetmeats

The teens and tweens were called to the great room every day for the next fortnight, cracking nuts, chopping fruits both fresh and dried, stirring and mixing and rolling out and cutting shapes. ‘Do the cooks do any work at all, I wonder, or do they just put their feet on the fenders of the kitchen fires and think up new tasks for us?’ Everard grumbled as he stuffed nutmeats into dried plums and rolled the result in sugar.

 ‘Mmmm, sweetmeats and sugarplums,’ Pearl said. ‘Yuletide is upon us and soon we’ll be feasting until we have to roll ourselves off to our beds!’

 ‘Yule is more than a month away,’ Prim said through a mouthful of sultanas. Reginard raised an eyebrow at her and she winked at him saucily.

 ‘Yes, and we’re making all the good things that need time for the flavours to develop properly,’ Pearl said. She remembered Yule preparations at home. Of course, her father did not have the gold to spend on all the luxuries they had here at the Great Smials, but they did make her mother’s special fruit-and-honeycake to share with the neighbours, and there were always a few sugarplums and sweetmeats as well. The biggest problem was to keep them all from disappearing under Pip’s unrelenting onslaughts. Paladin took the lad with him on market days the last two months of the year, and that is when Eglantine and her daughters prepared most of the festive food.

 ‘When Yuletide proper starts, we’ll be even busier than now,’ Daisy confided. ‘There’s spice cake, sweet biscuits, puddings...’

 ‘You’re making me hungry,’ Everard said.

 ‘You just ate,’ his brother reminded him. ‘Four helpings, was it?’

 ‘Five!’ Aldebrand laughed, ‘but who’s counting?’ Indeed, a hot meal at noon in the great room was a wonderful treat to one used to eating cold food in a damp tunnel. Of course, there was always the hot bath and steaming supper to look forward to, but he could have all that without having to dig for it! At least, as long as the Great Smials cooks needed help with the extra load imposed by holiday feasting.

Rosemary sat quietly listening to the talk around them, her fingers busy stuffing nutmeats into dried fruit. She glanced over at Ferdi, who no longer needed to sit right at her elbow. Reginard had coaxed the teen a little further away from her each day, and as long as they sat at the same table he seemed content to work away silently at whatever task he was given.

With a shock she realised that Ferdi was not sitting at the table; his place was empty. Reginard met her gaze and nodded slightly, his eyes looking behind her. She turned to see Ferdi sitting by the great hearth, his fingers tracing the rough outlines of the design while the woodcarvers carved and chatted. You could see clearly now the outlines of the two trees, one on either side of the mantel uprights, their branches reaching to meet in the centre of the broad crosspiece. Other details were beginning to emerge as the carvers worked from early morning until late at night. Rose had wondered at their hurry until Pearl told her of the bargain they’d struck with the Mistress.

She rose and went to her brother, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘Ferdi, you oughtn’t bother the carvers when they’re working.’

 ‘No bother, miss,’ Gundy said cheerily as he shaped the rough outline of another apple hanging from a branch. ‘As I was saying, young Ferdi, this here’s “Autumn”, and we mean to have the branches nearly breaking with the weight of fruit—not really breaking, of course, but bearing all they can bear.’ He gestured to the foot of the tree. ‘See there’ll be leaves around the base; that’s Hally’s work, of course, and those rough shapes there at the base of the tree will be baskets brim-full of apples.’

 ‘And at the base of this tree?’ Rosemary asked, touching the rough shape that looked vaguely familiar somehow.

 ‘A snow-hobbit, miss,’ Hally said shyly. ‘He’ll have hat and muffler and carrot nose and button eyes.’

 ‘And sticks for arms? Holding a broom in his hand?’ Rosemary said in delight.

 ‘Exactly, miss!’ Hally said, his eyes lighting in reply.

 ‘I see,’ Rosemary said, stepping back to view the entire piece. ‘Winter,’ she said, pointing to the tree-trunk with its snow-hobbit outline. Her hand swept upwards to the branches, bare on the leftmost edge but suggestions of buds already appearing as her eyes moved to the right, until she encountered several full-blown flowers emerging under Hally’s practiced hand. ‘Spring,’ she said. Moving to the outspread branches of the second tree, she touched the sketch of a bird in a nest, worm dangling from its beak as it hovered over little ones with gaping beaks. Gundy had drawn the design directly on the wood, but had not yet begun to dig out the wood around the shapes of birds and nest. ‘Summer...’ and then she finished with the apple-laden boughs.

 ‘Autumn!’ Gundy said, and laughed. ‘There you have it, miss. The Mistress wanted the four seasons, but she didn’t want the same design as in the Thain’s study. I don’t know how many sketches I made on paper before she chose this one.’

 ‘How will you ever get it done in time?’ she wondered aloud, then flushed.

 ‘O we’ll finish all right,’ Hally said. ‘Work well begun is half done, and I’d say we’re well begun already.’

 ‘Ferdi, no!’ Rosemary said suddenly. Her brother had picked up a carving tool and was carefully adding strokes of detail to a squirrel, sitting up in the snow beside the snow-hobbit, with a nut between its paws.

 ‘No, that’s all right,’ Hally said after a hasty examination. ‘He’s got the fur just right, see?’ Touching the teen’s shoulder, he said, ‘You didn’t tell us you knew how to carve, Ferdi.’

 ‘Uncle Ferdi taught him,’ Rosemary said, her eyes filling with sudden tears. Ferdibrand paid her no heed, continuing to add fur to the squirrel with feather-strokes of his hand.

 ‘Yes, miss,’ Hally said awkwardly. He was not as shy in her presence, but still had trouble finding things to say to this pretty girl with the silent brother. Truth be told, he found Ferdi’s company pleasant and undemanding. There was no need for words between them. Dealing with Tooks was a bit of a trial, for they shot their words in volleys that seemed to demand a quick reply.

Gundy had been watching the lad carve. ‘Well young Ferdi,’ he said. ‘It looks as if you know what you’re doing. Would you like to help Hally with the details?’ Ferdi nodded keeping his eyes on the carving, and Gundy smiled at Rosemary. ‘He’s welcome,’ he said. ‘Truth be told, we could use the help.’ He lowered his voice, ‘but don’t tell the Mistress. She might give our land to your brother!’ To Ferdibrand, he added with a twinkle in his eye, ‘You may come to us anytime you wish, young Ferdi. You know where to find us.’

Hally laughed, and Rosemary looked up with a smile. Such a pleasant laugh he had!

 ‘Rose!’ Pearl called. ‘They’ve brought another platter of fruit! We’re in desperate need of your fingers!’

 ‘Coming!’ Rosemary called back gaily. She patted Ferdi’s shoulder. ‘I’ll be right over there,’ she said, ‘at the table, helping with the sugarplums.’ He nodded without looking up, and encouraged, she returned to the table to work and chat and laugh as if her world had not ended a few weeks before.

Teatime came and Pearl hurried through her meal. As usual, the tweens and teens sang her on her way.

 ‘She’s lasted longer than the previous one,’ Everard said, watching her go. ‘How long d’you think she’ll stay? Until Yule?’

 ‘It’s not a wagering matter,’ Reginard said sternly, and his brother threw up his hands.

 ‘Who’s wagering?’ he said.

 ‘Her position is difficult enough without folk wagering on how long she’ll stay. You wouldn’t want someone to say she was staying but a short time and then throw pebbles in her path to make things worse for her,’ Regi said implacably. He put up a restraining hand, ‘No, brother, I know you wouldn’t, but there are some who would.’

 ‘Spring, perhaps,’ Aldebrand said. ‘She’s right pretty. I imagine someone’ll ask her at Yule. That’s the usual time, if you’re to have a wedding in Spring.’

 ‘She’s much too young!’ Daisy said in shock. ‘She’s not thirty yet!’

 ‘I knew a girl who married at eight-and-twenty,’ Prim said.

 ‘She’s not even eight-and-twenty, so enough talk about marrying,’ Daisy said severely. ‘You’ll put ideas into the lads’ heads, and all for naught.’

 ‘Lads, indeed,’ Pansy giggled, and her sister Violet laughed.

 ‘The head of escort seems to have ideas of his own,’ she said.

 ‘What do you mean?’ Daisy asked.

 ‘I’ve eyes, haven’t I?’ Violet said. ‘I’ve seen how he looks at our Pearl!’ She and Pansy burst into more giggles, hushing with difficulty when Daisy scolded.

 ‘One needs to have an eye for the future,’ Everard said thoughtfully. ‘Regi, here, is near his time. What say you, brother? Is your eye upon a certain pearl of great lustre?’

 ‘Never you mind,’ Reginard said. ‘Get back to work, all of you. We have to finish this day’s work and clear away so that they can serve eventides.’