Comfortably numb. In hog heaven. A-fog.
“I see that you’ve already learned yer young’uns,” said Mr. Swillyum to the woman.
“Never too early!” replied mother Huggum, a gleam of gold in her amber eyes as she surveyed her humming hive. They circled the downed hog still sound a-snooze and bid it adieu with a last verse of music, a chorus bloodthirsty but cherubic:
Simmer down hambone
Rest in peas, honey
Be pleased to meat you
To marrow to marrow
Can’t wait to eat you
Tomorrow!
Those last notes fell like soil-stained snowflakes — earthly songfall from an angelic cast.
The swiner unleashed a belly laugh and clapped his hands in appreciation. “Now which ones are yer fair daughters again? I think I see two or three o’ them…”
“I am proud, kind breeder, to say I have seven,” cooed the yet youthful and apron-clad woman.
“A pride in every sense!” he pronounced. “I should like ta make their acquaintance.”
The comb-crowned mother hen gathered her brood in a row by the old wheeled pigpen. “Come now children, pay your respects. The swiner’s a treasured family friend…”
She spread her arms in their direction, palms up, face aglow. “Here you go — these six plus this one are the cubs of my den, lassies all of the Huggum clan.”
“Ooo,” swooned Mr. Swillyum crooning Flower of This Thorny Land and adding, with a little wink, “lovely as their mum, I think.”
She blushed but her blossoms did not miss a bleat. Instead the bunch launched into a folk dance with ten curtsies at the end, all cheerily greeting the gentle meatman. And done they sang in unison, “An honor dear mister herder sir!”
Then each took a turn meting out introductions:
“I’m Hexxi.”
“I’m Vexxi.”
“She’s Trixxi.”
“That’s Wixxi.”
“We’re Noxxi and Poxxi.”
“They call me Mawg.”
The last seemed more boy by her half-dozen sisters, beauties all of honey-pure skin and long, flowing manes like lionesses. No, she was on the bearish side — big-boned and husky, rather ham-handed, with hair shorn short and sort of laddish. And that’s not to mention the slow, musky voice she hid behind those meaty mitts. It first came across a little shyly; on second thought, though, you’d have to say guy-ly.
Yet the swiner made no notice. “The honor is mine, my dandelions! What cute kitty cattails ya are.” He bowed a low and hatless bow that showed the tanned pate of his sun-kissed head. “Please call me Uncle Gustus!”
Agiggle, the girls bowed back at him then pounced upon the hampered pig. Each knew the job she had to do, so like good soldiers they set straight to it.
From a pile stacked with poles that appeared out of nowhere, Mawg plus the six picked up long toiling sticks and used them to roll the enormous hog, the weight of a hundred sleeping dogs, onto an old-fashioned slaughtering sleigh handy-made from the strongest of limberwood fabrics. A magically woven twill, if you will. And then by that sling they dragged the thing — in league with a team of other tweens and an army of even weer ones — away from Swiner Swillyum’s ramp toward a spot near the heart of the Treasuror’s camp where a fresh-dug and deep pork-u-pit now awaited, already stoked and thick with smoke.
Gustus climbed up high atop his huge lorry and watched the crew go, hauling their quarry. A marbled-fat monster soon to be ham. Six-score stone or more of yummy. Seeing that they were still within earshot, the rosy boarmaster merrily parceled out bunches of sage and timely advice on how best to prepare the beast to ensure a tasty and Guard-pleasing feast.
“The main thing, nieces, is the curing… the Semperor’s secret marinade trick that our fore-folk perfected while out in the wild… should take but a minute, maybe two, if ya do it right.” The swiner cupped both hands around his mouth to better project his booming voice. “Then just a brief bath in pom wine brine — which’ll tenderize the toughest muscle — before ya smoke it for a second with trickory wood and a few sprigs o’ thistle…”
He saw that they’d reached their destination and paused for an instant quite impressed as each girl pulled from her quilted dress a long, sharp butcher’s blade. He nodded but then remembered something that made him stiffen and call out again. “Oh yes — don’t forget, my near-and-dears, when it comes to the hooves and nose and ears, the head Guard in particular loves a pickle of those hearty parts. Half-sour, double-quick — that should do it!”
The sisterhood seemed to hear him not but raised their irony chef’s knives up…
“Did ya catch that, little pups?”
High up above their maiden heads they flashed the steely cutlery, ready to make some bacon when…
“Out of my way!”
A black knight stormed hard toward the tent, dark clouds kicked up in his wake. They threatened to dim the promising day.
“Move you sows!” sneered the angry Guard, beating the ground with his battle pike. “Or taste the meat of this drumstick…”
Brewer, baker, bacon maker — everyone seemed fair game to him. They scattered like tit-mice, left or right. Golden ale spilled. Pom pies went flying.
The grim pikesman made a more beastly noise. “Grrrrrrrrrrrr…”
That sound drowned out the drone of the crowd and the sea of servants, though at high tide, parted to give him passage. The flotsam and jetsam of them were plowed — without any further snort of warning — under toe by the raging ull.
A lesser Guard greeted him as he neared the shadowed front door of the tent. “Council has begun, lord sir! Treasuror Hurx would wait no more.”
Syar-ull flashed his visored eyes but then surprisingly lowered them. He had just digested the doorman’s words. Their aftertaste seemed to sicken him.
Suddenly lame, he mumbled low, “My shame grows by the hour now.”
It did not look like the same Syar-ull as he slogged bent and bowed for the final furlong. No, he limped like a wounded guard dog, tail tucked down between his legs.
Not that you’d want him to fetch a stick or taunt him to heel or beg for it (while a bark and a bite were still his top tricks).
At least he acted a friendlier cur, giving wide berth to a bevy of ladies — the loveliest loafers of the Keep — who were tending ten portable hive-domed ovens. He even skirted the Huggum clan angelically gutting their deviled ham.
At last he reached the weathered tent and handed his pike to the stunned attendant. Then he slunk with a puppy’s whimper under the big-top’s torn flap door, dog-eared but suited for dogs of war to enter and be sent.
The sentry stood there awkwardly, stuck, gawking at the yellow and black of the battle bat in his leathered mitt.
But the wait staff barely missed a beat. It was back to the music of brew, bread, and meat. The rhythm of the heat.
Boxbo and Ixit tailed the action and wagged their tongues, panting, in reaction.
“Who knew you could teach a hell hound new licks!”
“Let alone get one to bow.”
“Wow…”
“Cowed into submission, all sheepish now.”
“But…”
“What’s the matter — cat got your tongue?”
“No, you dumb cluck. Look!”
The two fellows fell all over each other, awed at seeing what they saw. Then they tumbled down like dominoes.
Another arrival, a halting perp walk, sent a shock wave through the folk.
Taan-syr and two brethren guardsmen, standard-bearers of the coast lands, led a bound and mud-caked man across the crowded fare grounds. There was no mistaking the tall soldier stranger, that handsome young fighter with hair fair as sand. He was so much larger than his captors, especially now in the light of day. And once again he made them pay a heavy price for holding sway, using his several stone advantage to weigh down each step of the way.
The sea-green Guard was growing annoyed, his face red hot-blooded, eyes
white-cold as ice. “Let’s go foreigner, move your feet! The Treasuror does not like to wait.”
Odd though, as he frowned hard at the stranger, his voice seemed anxious, a touch too urgent.
John Cap didn’t hesitate to further slow his sluggish gait. And yet he showed the self-restraint to ignore, not take, the verbal bait. “Fine by me. Sounds great.” He held his tongue despite temptation to curse his darned incarceration and the irritation of the ties they used to bind his limbs.
It was a twisted vine that entwined him. Rough and itchy on the skin.
Meanwhile, the distaff folk were atwitter at the sight of that mighty mate, this mystery date with destiny.
“The ale girls claim that he’s a star man,” waxed a moon-eyed Hexxi Huggum, “fallen from the very sky.”
“Ooo yes!” swooned Vexxi, her star-struck twin. “He shines like a distant constellation,” there was a twinkle in her look, “made man to see with the naked eye.”
A gaggle of girlies giggled nearby.
“Flesh and blood son of the heavenly Archer,” added Hexxi breathlessly, “armed with his long horn and strong bow.”
By now both siblings were on their toes, just to gaze over the steady flow of lasses and ladies flooding in to see this scene by the she shore.
“Though I hear that this beau shot Arrowborne,” interjected Teely Tynn. She was one of the ten hot oven women, tiny but loud as anything. “And he’s due to be sentenced to a letting or get well hung from that nasty tree, the lying ironwood I mean.”
Her daughter Nynn, who was standing aside her, made an exasperated face. “Mother, I told you — that’s not what happened.”