Chapter 8: The Family you Didn’t Chose

Chapter 8

The Family You Didn’t Choose

Hilde Torbensson showed up at the Rusty Compass early in the morning, carrying a basket of her “world famous” preserves, some fresh herbs, and plenty of colourful opinions.

She was broad-shouldered, her arms tanned by the sun, and her voice easily filled a room without much effort. She was Torben’s wife and the mother of four. She used to be a seamstress and now runs the farm with her husband and sells preserves at the market. Torben liked to say she really ran Millhaven. He had imagined her slightly quieter, smaller.

He had imagined wrong.

“So you’re the one making the ale that keeps my husband coming back,” she said, setting her basket on the bar like she owned the place. The jars of preserves rattled: apple, pear, and something dark and spicy-looking that, Roen later discovered, smelled of cloves. “Three nights a week, he comes home half drunk, smelling like your common room. I wanted to see what the fuss was about.”

Roen opened his mouth to explain the brewing process.

Hilde continued before he managed more than a few words.

“That’s not why I’m here. Where’s the merchant? The one with the sharp tongue and pretty face. Torben says she’s been running your business better than you ever could.”

“Sera’s at her table,” Roen said. “In the corner.” He pointed in the general direction of her with his chin.”She is busy, though, working since five this morning, so please be…”

“I’m going to talk to her,” She cut him off mid-warning.

“Should I introduce you?”

“Absolutely not.”

She marched over to Sera’s table. Roen thought about stepping in, looked at Hilde’s strong arms, and decided it was safer to head back to his kitchen.

Twenty minutes later, Sera showed up in the kitchen doorway, looking a bit dazed. Roen hadn’t seen her this off-balance since the night she arrived in the storm.

“That woman just invited me to dinner at her house. She told me my hair is too, uhm, “practical” for my face, to eat more. Oh, and she wants to personally deliver our joint filing letters because, and I am quoting, people say yes to my face faster than they say yes to paper.”

“Is she wrong?”

“No. That’s what’s so bloody frustrating.” Sera leaned on the doorframe, still trying to make sense of it. “I’ve been on my own for a long time. I don’t know what to do when people just show up and help.”

Roen handed her a plate of today’s breakfast, and she took it and ate standing up in the kitchen.

Sera never ate standing up in the kitchen.

• • •

The inn had developed a nice steady rhythm.

Roen hadn’t planned it. Rhythms like that just happened. People kept showing up at the same times, sitting in the same spots, having the same arguments, until one day it all stopped feeling temporary and just became it.

He started with the bread every morning, way before sunrise, and Sera opened the ledger soon after him, pushed by the immediate success of the tradeboard.

Milo would show up between ten and eleven, depending on how much he wanted to pretend he wasn’t eager to be there. The rest of the regulars came in at their usual time, with the most recent addition being Captain Garren, who chose the end seat at the bar and watched the south road very carefully, each time he chose to drink at the inn. Hilde had also been coming every day for the past week, but according to her, she always belonged.

Today, though, she was at Sera’s table, going over the list of Harwick families. Their heads were close together, working on the names of the families in rhythm:

Hilde pointed at a name. Sera shook her head. Hilde pointed harder. Sera sighed and wrote a note.

At the bar, Milo was reading.

This was new. Roen had left a trader’s almanac on the counter, a book easy enough for a boy, but still useful. He didn’t mention it, just put it where Milo would see. Milo ignored it for two days, picked it up on the third, and now read it with the fierce focus of someone who wanted everyone to know it was his idea.

“This book says oat prices go up in late spring,” Milo said, not looking up. He’d taken over the end of the bar where the light was best and guarded it like a cat.

“They do,” Roen said.

“Torben sells oats. So if he waited three more weeks instead of selling now, he’d make…” Milo’s lips moved as he did the math in his head, almost succeeding with a number. Sera would have been proud, though Milo would rather eat the book than admit her lessons worked.

“About forty per cent more,” Roen finished.

Milo looked up, his eyes narrowed and said: “Does he know that?”

“Probably not. Farmers usually sell when buyers show up. It’s hard to wait for better prices when you need money now, and someone’s already at your door.”

Milo chewed on that and returned to his book. Three pages later, he closed it with a thump.

“I’m telling him. He should know.”

Roen looked at him. He looked slightly on edge, not angry at Torben or the book. He was angry that a good man could lose money just because no one told him what he needed to know.

“You could tell him directly,” Roen said. “Or you could tell Sera…she’d broker the deal, find the right buyer, take a small cut, and Torben would still make more.”

Milo considered this for a few moments.

“…So everyone wins,” he thought for a second,”Can I take a cut as well?”

“That’s how a trading post works, and you should ask Sera that.”

Milo walked over to Sera’s table and interrupted her talk with Hilde without a word of apology. Soon, he was explaining oat futures with the energy of a general giving orders.

Sera listened, and after a minute, she pulled out her pen.

Roen watched from the bar. Just a month ago, Milo had been stealing apples. Now he was talking business with a merchant and a farmer’s wife.

He was upset that no one had told Torben the truth, that someone could lose money just because nobody cared enough to help.

That is not a thief’s instinct. That is something else.

• • •

That evening, Roen made a feast, though he couldn’t really say why.

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It wasn’t a holiday. No one had asked for anything special, but by late afternoon, he was roasting lamb with rosemary, glazing root vegetables with honey, baking fresh bread with sea salt and butter, and making a cold yoghurt and mint soup that seemed out of place in a small-town inn.

The kitchen filled with layers of smells: lamb fat sizzling, fresh rosemary, honey caramelising on the parsnips, and butter melting into bread he pulled from the oven five minutes early so it would be warm at the table.

“What’s the occasion?” Sera asked.

“No occasion, just cooking for the fun of it.”

“You’re making enough food for twelve people.”

“I made a mistake with the portion sizes.”

“You make mistakes about how you price your food, but never about the size of the portions.”

She’s right. I don’t. I just wanted to cook for everyone, together, at the same table.

I haven’t felt that in a very long time.

That evening, they all ate together at the big table by the window Roen, Sera, Milo, Torben, Hilde, and Maren. She was as quiet as ever, but she finished two plates and gave Roen a single nod before going back to her cup. For Maren, that was high praise.

Hilde led the conversation for most of the evening, with Torben pitching in at some point with a story about a foolish goat. Milo and Sera argued, but the noise almost faded out for Roen, who sat at the end of the table, watching everyone, not saying much. Just remembering.

This is what it felt like at the camp at Frostline Pass, the night before the offensive. I made stew for whoever had survived. Why does this feel the same? There is no battle to go to tomorrow…

Sera caught him watching. She did not ask. She only held his gaze for a moment, then went back to arguing with Milo about the weather.

For the first time, after dinner, Milo helped clear plates without being asked. Roen thought it was a significant development.

• • •

After everyone left, slightly drunk and very full, Sera found Roen at the bar and poured two ales, sliding one in front of him.

“You’re good with him,” she said.

“Who?”

“You know who…”

“He’s easy to be good with. He argues about everything, but he comes back the next day. You cannot ask more of a boy this age, in his situation.”

“That’s not what I said.”