This time there was no coughing, but their eyes continued to water.
‘I think I’ll stick to ale,’ said Tad.
‘I don’t know,’ said Zane. ‘There’s something about it I rather like.’
‘You’re a young man of promise, Zane Cafrrey,’ said Caleb.
Laughing, Tad said, ‘Whoa. I can feel it going to my head!’
‘The Kinnoch men say it “has a kick”, and they know of what they speak.’
‘What are you going to do with it?’ said Tad, indicating the other cases.
‘I’m taking it to my father, as a gift. There’s not a lot that’s new to him, so I thought he might enjoy this.’
‘Why are you giving us this?’ asked Tad. ‘I mean, thank you, but why?’
‘To take your mind off an imagined slight,’ said Caleb. ‘If I let you drink alone two things would happen.’ He held up a finger, while he poured them another drink. ‘Firstly, you’d receive no end of teasing from the other men in town who know how you’ve been butting heads over Ellie for nearly a year. Secondly, you’d just pick a fight with Grame.’
The boys quickly drank the whiskey and seemed to be getting used to it. Caleb filled their glasses again. ‘Here, have another.’
The boys finished their fourth drink, and Tad’s eyes began to close. ‘You’re getting us drunk. I can feel it.’
Caleb filled the glasses yet again and said, ‘One more should do it.’
Zane asked, ‘Do what?’ as his speech began to slur.
Caleb jumped down from the wagon bed. ‘Get you too drunk to pick a fight.’ He pushed Tad who wobbled as he tried to compensate for being slightly off balance.
‘Come along,’ said Caleb.
‘Where?’ asked Zane.
‘Back to your ma’s, and into your beds. You’re going to pass out in five minutes and I don’t want to carry you.’
The boys had never drunk anything as potent as the whiskey before, and they followed Caleb quietly. By the time they had reached their home, both boys were unsteady on their feet.
Caleb ushered them inside and when he had seen them onto their sleeping mats, he left and returned to the festival. It took only a few minutes to find Marie and when she saw him, she said, ‘What did you do with them?’
‘Got them very drunk.’
‘As if they needed any help doing that.’ She looked around anxiously. ‘Where are they?’
‘Back at your house, sleeping it off.’
Her gaze narrowed. ‘They haven’t had enough time to get that drunk.’
He held up the whiskey bottle. It was nearly empty. ‘When they just tossed down five double portions each in fifteen minutes, they have.’
‘Well, at least they won’t be troubling Grame and Ellie,’ said Marie.
‘Or us.’ Caleb said with a smile.
She said, ‘I don’t care how drunk they are, Caleb, if they’re in the house, then you’re not.’
He grinned. ‘I already have a room at the inn. If we head over there now, no one will notice you come upstairs with me.’
She slipped her arm through his. ‘As if I care what people think. I’m not a maiden trying to catch a young suitor, Caleb. I’ll grab happiness where I can and if anyone cares, it doesn’t matter.’
Caleb pulled her close to him and said, ‘And those who do matter don’t mind.’
They skirted the edge of the crowd and made for the inn.
Their lovemaking had an urgency to it that Caleb had not experienced before, and afterward, as they lay with her head on his shoulder, he asked, ‘What troubles you?’
She knew that one of the reasons why they had been drawn to each other was his ability to read her mood so accurately. ‘Tad asked me if we were going to wed.’
Caleb was silent for a moment, then he let out a long sigh. ‘If I were the the marrying kind, Marie, it would be you.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But if you won’t stay, marry me, and be a real father to the boys, you have to take them with you.’
Caleb moved out from under her and levered himself up on his elbow. Looking down at her, he said, ‘What?’
‘You can see how it is for them, Caleb. They have no future, here. I had to sell the farm and that coin won’t last forever, even if I grow most of my food in the garden. I can make do alone, but feeding growing boys … And they have no one to teach them farming, and no guild to teach them a craft. Every other lad was apprenticed to a farmer, trader, sailor, or guild two years ago at the Choosing, but my boys stood alone at the end. Everyone likes them, and had they means to help, Tad and Zane would be apprenticed by now, but there just isn’t enough work here.
‘If you don’t take them with you, they’ll become layabouts or worse. I’d rather lose them now than see them hanged for robbers in a few years.’
Caleb was silent for a long moment. ‘What would you have me do with them, Marie?’
‘You’re a man of some stature, despite your homespun garb and leather hunting togs, or at least your father is. You’ve seen the world. Take them with you as servants, or apprentices, or take them to Krondor and find them work there.
‘They have no father, Caleb. When they were little a ma was all they needed – to wipe their noses and hold them when they were scared. We did a lot of that after Zane’s folks were killed in the troll raid. But at this age they need a man to show them what to do and what not to do, to knock some sense into them if need be, and to praise them when they do well. So, if you won’t wed me and stay here, then at least take them with you.’
Caleb turned, and sat with his back against the plastered wall. ‘What you say makes sense, in a way.’
‘Then you’ll do it?’
‘I’m not sure what I’m agreeing to, but yes, I’ll take them with me. If my father doesn’t know what to do with them, I’ll take them to Krondor and see them apprenticed with a trader or placed in a guild.’
‘They’re like brothers now. It would be a crime to split them apart.’
‘I’ll keep them together. I promise.’
She nestled closer to him. ‘You’ll come back from time to time and tell me how they’re doing?’
‘Yes, Marie,’ said Caleb. ‘I’ll make them write to you often.’
‘That would be grand,’ she whispered. ‘No one has ever written to me before.’ She sighed. ‘Come to think of it, no one’s ever written to anyone I know.’
‘I’ll see that they do.’
‘That’s lovely, but you’ll have to teach them to write, of course.’
‘They don’t know their letters?’ Caleb couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.
‘Who would teach them?’
‘Don’t you …?’
‘No, never learned,’ she said. ‘I can make out word-signs a bit, because I’ve heard them at the shops, but I’ve never really had a need for them.’
‘Then how will you read what they send you?’
‘I’ll find someone to read them to me, I just need to know that they’re doing well somewhere.’
‘You’re a rare woman, Marie,’ he said.