Chapter Two
Two
Mo shrugged on his heavy wool jacket and offered Juniper his cloak—one Mo had made for him, with just the right material that wasn’t too scratchy around Juniper’s throat.
He had a strict skin care regimen, with locally sourced lard for moisturization, and ever since they’d bought some horrible non-wool clothes in the capital city a few years back and caused the Great Blemish Event of Imbolc, Juniper had been much pickier. Linen and wool only from here on out.
“You warm enough?” Mo asked.
Like most things Mo said, it sounded a bit more like a grunt, but a kindly grunt.
Juniper preferred that to just about any other sound in the world—it was as warm as the crackle of fire in their hearth, and as welcome a sound as mead being poured into his favorite cup.
“Quite warm,” Juniper answered. He packed the thyme into the basket just in case. If the bruggane neighbors didn’t like it, well…Hopefully they had responsible composting practices. “You?”
Mo squeezed his shoulder.
It wasn’t quite an answer, but Juniper leaned into his friend’s touch all the same.
“Sun goes down early,” Mo commented as they stepped out into the fading sun.
The words sounded terribly sad, which was unbearable, so Juniper launched into a story of the past winter and all the good times they’d had, right here on their very own farm and not off in some faraway country where the sun never set and the women were viciously beautiful and the adventures and danger never stopped.
Mo would fit into those sorts of stories—he would look right at home standing beside a viciously beautiful woman, after all, and he loved the sun, so those faraway countries where the sun never set? He was practically made for them.
Juniper, of course, would just get sunburned.
And they really did have adventures here. Sure, mostly in the local tavern.
But still.
What was autumn for, if not steaming mugs of cider, a cellar full of preserves and root vegetables, and all the time in the world to drink in the tavern with his very best friend?
This particular evening brought an almost unseasonable chill, though.
Juniper spent the entire walk, first to their neighbors’ house, and then into the village, telling stories that made Mo laugh. When Mo responded by reminding Juniper of a time Juniper, as an adult, had been mistaken for a child by a local bruggane family, Juniper jabbed him in the ribs.
It was one of Mo’s secrets: For as big and tough as he was, he was the most ticklish man in the kingdom.
Not that Juniper had tickled many men.
But still.
By the time they reached town, the sun had dipped below the horizon, the light at the edges still faintly tinged purple. Light and music and the sounds of revelry were spilling out of every window and door of the tavern like beer sloshing from a carelessly held mug.
“Do you think it’s true?” Juniper asked, grinning and nudging Mo with his elbow as they approached the tavern. “That the old creatures aren’t really gone?”
Beyond the edge of the town there was a ring of farms, circling the village like sentries.
Some had sheep, or grain, or root vegetables.
But beyond that, there was a forest and a rambunctious river, and in the distance, great towering peaks that cast long shadows over the village.
They had once been full of dragons and sea wolves and a species of elk with antlers as big as Juniper.
Just as the mountains had once been full of bruggane and Juniper’s ancestors, too.
“Mmm,” Mo said. He paused there, the sharp cut of his jaw highlighted by the tavern light. “Well, there’s magic everywhere, ain’t there?”
“Is there?” Juniper snorted. He bumped his shoulder against Mo’s arm.
Mo had been Juniper’s best friend since they were both young boys living at the outskirts of the villages, Mo with his aging grandmam and Juniper with his very, very drunk father.
Mo’s grandmam had practiced the old ways—the fires at Samhain, the great exchange of food at the turn of the sun on Imbolc, the harvest dances at Lúnasa, the old songs, the prayers left out with new hides and freshly picked berries.
Juniper’s father had clung to the old ways in one way: drunkenly singing sad songs in the old language, the only remnant he’d passed on to Juniper.
When Mo didn’t answer, Juniper plunged on.
“I mean, there are spells you can buy, of course,” Juniper said.
Many merchants sold packets of seeds that had been blessed by priests, or magicked by the sorceresses of the northern wilds, or prayed over by the king’s own sacred court of advisers, but Juniper thought that the little seeds they harvested from their own plants did much better than any they’d bought with supposed magic.
There were, of course, spells of glamour that were easy to come by; people of marriageable age often used them to hide crooked teeth or strange smells or pockmarks or anything else that apparently made someone less weddable or beddable.
“You know my grandmam believed in the old magic,” Mo said. “She often had guests who were—well, not human like us. And not bruggane or sidhe, either.”
Like so many things with Mo, it wasn’t a no or a yes.
Juniper needed a drink before he went back to needling Mo, or he was going to have sit through a meandering tale about witches and moon phases and weary old gods while sober. Utterly unthinkable.
“I mean, don’t you think the reports are exaggerated, at least?
” Juniper asked, shoving open the swinging oak door that he had once nearly torn off the hinges (that had actually gotten him a stern scolding from the usually unflappable Mo).
“There hasn’t been a dragon sighting in generations.
And werewolves, really? In this moon phase? ”
The only successful quest anyone from Tús had completed involved werewolves, so it was something of a sore point—if, for instance, anyone was too loudly skeptical about said werewolves, it was a surefire way to get in a fight.
Mo grinned down at him. “Drinks first,” he said. “Before you bait anybody about werewolves.”
The hard work at the farm was, well, hard.
But pushing the plows and digging holes for fence posts and hauling sheep up to the stand to be shorn—all of that gave Juniper something to do.
And now that his hands weren’t busy? Well, it felt like a current running through his body, as if he’d been struck by lightning and couldn’t get un-struck.
“Sure,” Juniper said cheerfully. “We ought to be on even ground before we fight anybody.” Anyone in Tús could probably fight—maybe not the bankers, but anyone else who spent all days working with their hands. And, more important, most people in Tús enjoyed a good tussle. Juniper included.
Mo shook his head fondly. “Do we always have to brawl?”
“What, did you think we were going out for tea and biscuits and to cross our ankles and politely gossip about the queen’s new wigs?” Juniper asked. Was that what fancy folk did? He really didn’t have a clue himself. He’d been riffraff since before he could walk.
It was rather more fun.
“Does she have new wigs?” Mo asked, making his voice sound just as high-pitched as it would go.
Because it was Mo, it was not very high.
Juniper cackled at the sound, though, tossing some of their recently earned coins down onto the bar and nodding to the bartender.
The bartender, Elaine, was part-bruggane, as most bartenders were—her girlfriend, Perry, who was full-bruggane and proud of it, was one of the only exceptions, and instead spent her time teaching cheese-making classes in their little kitchen near the edge of town.
But here, having bruggane bartenders helped to quell the inevitable scuffle, though usually those who were full-blooded bruggane (who were broad of shoulder and square of head and occasionally sported a horn here or there) stuck to carrying out unruly patrons by the scruffs of their necks, and the part-bruggane made the drinks.
Elaine recognized Juniper, and she slid two brimming pints across the counter with a grin that showed an uneven set of teeth.
“No trouble tonight, lads,” she said. “My sister’s on, and last week she accidentally knocked two fellows together so hard they forgot their quarrel and also their own mams.”
“No trouble,” Mo agreed, patting Juniper on the shoulder.
“No promises,” Juniper said. “The night is young, and so are we.”
“Moderately,” Mo said. “The night is moderately young, and so am I.”
He had been calling himself old all summer, just because he was nearing thirty winters.
Juniper was younger by several moons, and of course was not old, worried about turning thirty winters, afraid to die, worried about whether his careful regime could keep up with the inevitable side effects of aging, et cetera, et cetera.
His own father had died at only thirty-two winters, may he rest in piss.
Best not to think about that, ever, but certainly not now. Juniper was here to drink.
Mo didn’t need to bring the party down with talk of dying and being old.
“Moderately young, eh?” Elaine asked from behind the bar. “Do you need water with the beer, then, old man? I can grab the bucket we use to wake the drunk at the end of the night.”
“Yes, actually,” Mo said. “Juniper could use some water, too. He survives on mead and beer in the evenings and chaga caife in the mornings, would you believe?”
“Hey,” Juniper said, beer dribbling down over his stubbled jaw as he protested through a long draught of the hearty beverage. “I drink plenty of water. There’s water in caife and mead.” Probably beer, too, but Juniper’s knowledge of beer-making was not as in-depth as his mead-making knowledge.
Mo launched into an explanation of grain and brewing and all sorts of things that Juniper would usually be very interested in.