If you want anything else to drink, we’ll have to raid your cellar.” I dumped the flagon of ale on the table in front of Halice.

She fetched earthenware goblets from the dresser and poured. “What makes you think I’ve got any wine left?”

“Knowing you better than your own mother did.” A knock sounded at the front door and I wondered who was being so formal. We were in the main room, too small to be called a hall for all the house boasted the dignity of the separate kitchen. “Come in.”

The door opened to reveal Zigrida’s grandson Tedin. “Grandam’s compliments and it’s a loaf for the corps commander’s lunch.”

“My thanks to her.” Halice smiled at the lad standing barely eye-level with her belt buckle. “And you did well this morning. You kept your head and ran fast.”

Tedin ducked his head on a gap-toothed grin of pleasure as he set the bread on the table and scurried away.

“What’s that man of yours got in the pantry?” Halice asked as the boy pulled the door closed behind him.

I went to look. Well aware I should barely be trusted to pod peas, Ryshad was responsible for all our cooking and food stocks. “There’s a fresh cheese.” I sniffed the moist muslin bag hanging on its hook cautiously. “Mutton and onion pie and some pickled mushrooms.” Ryshad must have done some notable service to get such precious remnants of a good-wife’s winter stores. I peered dubiously at the label of a small stone jar sealed with waxed cloth and twine. “Pickled broom buds?”

“I haven’t seen those since I was a child.” Halice came through to carry food to the table. “The old women made them to offer at Drianon’s shrine.”

“Ryshad wouldn’t have put them in the pantry if we couldn’t eat them.” I shrugged and cut bread. Halice opened the jar and tasted one before nodding approval and taking more.

“What will Minare have Peyt’s mob doing to earn their crusts?” I asked through a mouthful of tasty mutton pie.

“Setting fish traps in the river.” Halice grinned. “An afternoon up to their stones in cold water should damp down their embers.”

I tried one of the broom buds, finding it mildly aromatic with a faint bitterness, not unpleasant. “What are you going to do with Peyt?”

Halice spread soft white cheese on a heel of bread. “He’ll be upriver to Edisgesset.” Mouth full, she stumbled over the name the colonists had bestowed on the mining settlement in the hills. “He can fetch and carry for the charcoal burners for a season or so.”

“Will they have enough ore for smelting this summer?” I queried.

“They opened up the diggings well before Equinox,” Halice pointed out. “And the sooner we’ve got metal, the better for trade. Shipping back fur and wood’s all very well but cargo like that takes up a cursed lot of room for its value.”

“The right furs can be worth their weight in gold. So can pretty feathers for Tormalin ladies’ fans.” After a visit home last summer Ryshad had been full of notions for trapping any bird with a gaudy tail.

“Hmm.” Halice gestured with her knife as she swallowed. “What I want is to find some of those grubs that make silk. If Kellarin could break the Aldabreshin monopoly, we’d be set for life.”

“If hums were hams, beggars would go well fed.” I took a slow drink of ale. “I’m thinking about trying my luck in the wine trade. Do you think Charoleia would be interested? Will she still be in Relshaz?”

“She was overwintering there.” Halice applied herself to her meal. “I don’t know which spring fair she was planning to visit, Col or Peorle, and there’s no telling where she’ll head after that.”

“Let’s hope we hear from her by an early ship.” Charoleia would doubtless be charming travellers riding home across the length and breadth of the countries that had once made up the Tormalin Empire, relieving them of their spoils from the Equinox fairs of the great cities. I thought a trifle wistfully of the gaming that had gone on without me.

Halice’s thoughts were still in Kellarin. “Are you thinking of setting up as a proper wine factor with your own warehouse or just taking orders and a commission for settling them?”

“I hadn’t really thought.” I took an apple from the bowl on the table.

“Then think and get your pieces on the board before someone else has the same notion,” Halice told me firmly. “It’s too cursed good an idea to let slip. My cellar’s as dry as a drunk in the morning. And talking of drunks, has Peyt really been sniffing round Catrice?”

“I’ve no idea where she was flirting her petticoats before Solstice.” I peeled the apple, wrinkled from the store and soft beneath leathery skin but sweet with the memory of last summer’s sun. “She’s kept company with Deglain since the turn of For-Spring. I can vouch for that.” There’d been precious little entertainment to brighten up the winter beyond keeping track of the neighbours.

Halice looked thoughtful. “So it’s his babe.”

“Unless Peyt caught her in a dark corner and wouldn’t take no for an answer.” I offered half the apple to Halice.

Halice shook her head. “He’s all mouth and hair oil but he wouldn’t risk that. Not with nowhere to run but the wild-wood. He knows I’ll flog any man till his ribs show for rape.” She cut another slice of pie with her belt knife. “Who threw the first punch?”

“Deglain,” I said reluctantly. “But Peyt came looking for a fight. Deg just wanted to sleep off his drink.”

“Raeponin’s scales don’t tell gold from lead.” Halice grimaced. “Mercenary rules mean the one who started it gets the heavier punishment, even if only by pennyweight.”

“You’re going to send Deg to Edisgesset?” I reckoned we should try weighting the god of justice’s scales. “Is he still a mercenary? He’s been working at a trade since before the turn of the year.”

Halice scratched her head. “I’ll tan Peyt’s arse for him if I’ve picked up his lice,” she muttered. “That’s a good question. If Deg’s thrown in his lot with the colony for good, he’ll be D’Alsennin’s problem.”

“He’ll be tied to a colony family soon enough, if Catrice’s mother has anything to say about it,” I pointed out.

Halice chuckled. “I never thought I’d see Deglain chivvied with a copper-stick.”

“He won’t be the only one, not by Solstice,” I opined.

Halice nodded at the auburn hair brushing my collar. “You’re growing a wedding plait to lay on Drianon’s altar, are you?”

I made a derisory noise. “What do you think?”

“What does Ryshad think?” she countered with the direct gaze of a friend close enough to take such liberties.

“Save your breath to cool your broth,” I told her firmly. “Think about this instead. The line between who’s a fighting man and who’s a colonist will only get more scuffed with every match and every passing season. We should draw up some rules before that game really gets into play.” Which would make a more interesting day than doing laundry.

Halice nodded. “Let’s see if we can pin D’Alsennin down long enough to talk it through. It’s time that lad faced up to his responsibilities,” she added with relish.

We finished our meal and I avoided Halice’s amused eye as I dutifully cleared the table and washed up. You’d need a knife at my throat to make me admit it, especially to my housekeeper mother, but truth be told, I didn’t particularly begrudge such necessary tasks. And Ryshad had more sense than to expect the constant clean linen and immaculate house his mother devoted her every waking moment to. I still considered that a waste of time, even now the novelty of so much leisure hanging on my hands was wearing off.

Outside, the generous sun of Kellarin encouraged neat lines of seedlings in gardens vivid green from a sprinkling of rain the night before. I took an appreciative breath of clean air, far better than the stench of foetid gutters that plagues even the best of towns. Cruck-framed houses dotted the rolling landscape in all directions, a few already showing wings added to accommodate growing families. There was plenty of room for such expansion and every plot had been liberally measured to allow for a pigsty and a hencoop as well as a sizeable kitchen garden. Not that such bounty was much use to me who’d grown up in a city where fruit and vegetables arrived on costermongers’ carts.