Ah, mead.
It's not like I'd never had it back home in the Mark. I was in my seventeenth year when the Thane called me. Even my ma didn't mind me having a bit of mead. But we didn't get that much of it. Ma wasn't very fond of brewing and mostly stuck to ale and small beer. Mead was just too much work, and trading for it was only for good years.
Since I left Rohan, though, there's not been a drop of it. Even ale's been scarce. On the lonely roads where I've passed most of my time, just water. Even here in Bree-land there's been few days that I could pay for ale, and none rich enough for mead.
It's been a time full of discouragement. The idea of going home to report my failure to the Thane is not cheery, but at least it's going home. But every hope of returning home this year has grown thinner and thinner, and withered before my eyes. The one time I met someone with knowledge of the other road, through Minhiriath and Dunland, I managed to anger him with my foolishness, only after learning that road wouldn't be a wise choice. No hope of enough work soon enough to cross the High Pass. Already there's a chill in the air by night.
But now that I've accepted that I'm not to leave Bree-land until spring, things are turning around a bit, maybe. Miss Brynleigh still plans to put me to work at Hookworth so I won't feel so bad to keep in that cottage when the weather makes it necessary, and we're to start first thing in the morning. Miss Arelienbur also has work for me, with which I can earn coin for tolls. Miss Sareva, who is a tailor who has her own shop (and is going to make me some winter clothes when I bring her some furs) has offered to tell me if she hears of others seeking winter clothes for a crossing of the High Pass, with the thought that I might have a less lonely, and safer, road, if I travel with others heading the same way.
And all this came because some poor farmer up north, that usually provides Butterbur with meat for stew and the like, got into some trouble and came back injured. While he's laid up, Butterbur's stock ran short. There's wild boar up near where I camp, so I picked a nice fat one and brought it, cleaned and butchered, to him. It was good boar; this is the best time of year for it, with them carrying their fat for winter. And got not just a tidy pouch of coins for my trouble, but the heartiest meal I've had in months.
Not that I haven't had wild boar myself. Too often, in fact. But there's something a proper cook with a stock of spices and vegetables can do that I can't do over a campfire, or probably anywhere else, to make coarse boar into a meal that fills the stomach and the heart.
And then there's the mead. I maybe overindulged, but sitting by a warm fire with a hearty meal and the company of two charming ladies and with a pouch of coins beside me, I couldn't resist. There's been too many dark and lonely days behind, and too many more of them ahead. So maybe it's for the best to revel in it when there's one bright day between.
