A Sword from Red Ice

Reaching the ground floor, Bram decided not to risk the temptation of the kitchens and headed out the main door instead. Yesterday Millard Flagg had caught him pouring fresh milk into a vat that hadn't been submerged for sufficient time in the boiler. The punishment for this gross violation of dairy law had consisted of something the head dairyman liked to call "pat watch," which involved a lot more forking than watching, and left a man smelling so bad that afterward he had to roll in the snow. Besides, there was usually food inthe dairy. Cheese, curds, yogurt: you could scrounge something milky most days.

It had snowed a couple of inches in the night and Enoch Odkin and Beesweese were on shovel duty, clearing the front court of snow. Enoch waved to him, and Bram considering asking the yearman about Dalhousie's strange behavior with the sword, but decided he didn't! have time.

Hunching up his shoulders against the cold, he rushed down the Milkhouse steps. Directly ahead, the bargeman was pulling a man and his horse across the river. The horse's dark brown coat was so glossy it looked varnished. Its owner, who was standing talking to the bargeman as he cranked the rope, was dressed in a long wheat-colored saddle coat that was belted at the waist. He was holding something dark in his hand; it might have been a pair of gloves or day-pack. As Bram watched, the stranger's gaze turned toward him. It seemed a deliberate thing, as if the man had known Bram was there yet had delayed looking at him until he was good and ready. His eyes were yellow-green.

Bram turned away. A sharp breeze was channeling east along the Milk and it made him shiver. The dairy was situated to the rear of the roundhouse so he broke into a run to keep warm. It was two hours before noon and the sun was as small and pale as a chip of bone.

Last night's snow squeaked under his feet as he neared the first dairyshed. The hard standing would need to be shoveled so the cows who were due to calf could be walked, and Bram thought he might just as well get to it. Popping his head around the door, he called out a greeting. It was between milking times and the dairymaids were standing about eating fancies topped with dried cherries, and supping on watery mead they brewed themselves. They all swore they never drank milk.

"Bramee," they cried in chorus, teasing. There were five of them, dressed in stiff white aprons over blue dresses, and dainty caps that were worn in defiance of Millard Flag. The head dairyman would have preferred something bigger. "Bramee."

Every morning without fail this greeting accomplished two things: made the girls giggle uncontrollably at their own wit, and caused Bram's face to turn red. He couldn't work out why, after nearly a month, this continued to happen.

As soon as he'd unhooked the snow shovel from its peg behind the door, he went back outside. This morning's training session with Dalhousie had concentrated on the techniques necessary to block blows aimed at the head and chest, and Bram's ribs had taken a beating. He thought he might have blocked one in ten. Dalhousie was fast and he had countless subtle ways of varying an attack. They looked the same, but when they hit you each one felt different. Bram had given up worrying about bruises and now dealt with them the same way as Enoch Odkin, Beesweese and Trotty Pickering did: covered them in pig's lard and boasted about them. It seemed to work.

The new snow was fluffy and only a quarter-foot deep, and it didn't pain his ribs much to shift it. As he was finishing off, Millard Flag came out and informed him he was needed for heavy lifting in the milk room. "Boiler and count to ten a dozen times," he said wagging a finger.

That was the number of second-that you had to count off before you could remove the chums and steel pails from the hot-water bath and reuse them. Yesterday Bram had stopped count at eighty-four.

The milk room was large and noisy. Worktables lined the space, and both sets of double doors—front and back—were kept open throughout the day. Two dairymaids were skimming the cream from the new pails and a third was pouring milk through a wire strainer. Millard Flag and his apprentice, Little Coll, were tilting one of the big cheese vats to pour off the brine. Bram was told to carry various items—two sealed churns, some trays of newly blocked butter wrapped in cloths, and a stack of cheese in tin molds—down to the cold room which lay directly beneath the milk room. After that he was to head outside and feed the boiler fire.

Bram was on his third run down the ancient stone steps when Millard called his name. Hands full with a tray of butter, Bram called out he would be up in a minute. The cold room was dark and low-ceilinged, with crumbly stone walls and a limewashed floor. It smelled like fat and raw earth. None of the dairymaids liked to come here, and they usually sent for Bram or Little Coll if they needed something brought aboveground.