Chương 154: Chapter 149 – Maggie’s big day

Inside the still house, it was just Alric, Stromni, and Maggie. The still house had changed again since the last time the building had been quiet enough for Alric to notice all of it. The first washback had begun to rise in the centre space, not finished, but no longer just lines on the floor and worries in their heads. The great staves had been stacked nearby, the iron bands laid out in order, and the beginnings of the frame gave the room a shape it had not had before.

One of the copper boilers had been fitted along the side wall as well, broad and low compared to Maggie, but respectable enough that Alric found himself looking at it often. It was becoming a distillery. That thought sat in him with a deep sense of satisfaction. The still stood on the river side of the building, taller than sense, wider than thrift, and beautiful in the way useful things became beautiful when too many hands had made them real. Her copper had darkened in places from the water tests.

Stromni had repaired the small leaks, replaced some seals entirely, sworn at another until it had apparently repented, and added a brace to the arm that Alric did not remember asking for but deeply approved of. Stromni stood near the lower body with his beard tied back and his sleeves rolled up despite the cold outside. There was a fresh nick across one knuckle and the heavy look around his eyes. He looked at Alric with a resigned expression.

"You sure?" Alric had been waiting for the question. He had also been hoping Stromni would not ask it, which was unfair, because asking it was one of the reasons Alric trusted him.

"No," Alric said shrugging and gesturing vaguely at Maggie.

"But I don't think we going to get any more sure." Stromni grunted.

"Let's see." Alric began, he counted points on his fingers.

"We've checked the seals, worm barrels are full, thumper is holding, the drain we have tested, and the stones." He paused considering it all, "If we don't run her now, we just hiding away."

"Aye," Stromni said watching the fingers before taking a deep breath.

"And there is a point where a man just has to throw wine into the biggest still ever." Alric glanced at him watching him closely. Stromni's mouth moved beneath his beard, he nodded as he spoke.

"We've done the tests, ya right lad." The wine barrels waited near the loading trough. Five barrels of red wine, because that was what they had closest to hand and because Alric had decided the first real run did not deserve the better white, which had felt sensible in the cellar and cowardly in the still house. Each barrel was so much coin, labor, grapes and sweat. Alric checked his original notes again.

He had written the same numbers there three times, not because the numbers changed, but because his confidence kept trying to.

"Six stones to bring her up," Alric said his gaze shifting from the paper to Maggie. Stromni looked at the paper before giving Alric a flat look, "Aye."

"It's cold, but not that cold. Once she's warm, I think three should hold her. Maybe four at first." Alric said and clenching his jaw.

"Lad, ye've explained it four times and the numbers haven't changed." Stromni said his shoulders dropping. Alric lowered the paper with a sigh and a nod. Stromni softened slightly.

"Lad, I'm not saying stop checking. I'm saying your checking's startin ta look like prayer." Alric looked at Maggie, then at the barrels, then at the stones waiting beneath the copper belly.

"Right, nothing for it then." They started loading her after that. The first barrel went up through the item box because Alric had decided that he liked his spine too much for that, Stromni didn't say anything, but it was clear he approved too. They guided the barrel to the trough, tipped it with a practised heave, and the wine ran down the trough into Maggie with a hollow, rushing sound. The second barrel followed. Then the third.

By the fourth, Alric had stopped wincing outwardly, which did not mean he had stopped wincing. The fifth barrel emptied with a final glug that sounded too cheerful for the occasion.

"Half full, the washback's will make this easier." Alric said slightly breathless, mostly to himself. Stromni nodded and moved to the access hatch, together they sealed it. Something about the noise it made felt final. They had the collection side already arranged. A pot for the first portion, a deeper pot for the heads. Casks waited beyond that, each numbered with charcoal.

It really sunk into Alric in that moment, each cask was fifty-five litres roughly, they were distilling roughly one thousand five hundred litres of wine. He walked around Maggie and charged the stones with a sigh. Alric stood back with his arms folded, looking at the lower copper. Stromni circled once, listening. The guards outside spoke briefly to one another, low enough that the words did not carry. Somewhere in the building, let out a soft creak. Both began checking and rechecking seals, rivets and listening.

After the fourth circuit, Stromni stopped and looked at him.

"Lad, we gonna wear a trench in the floor." Alric nodded, they moved to one of the construction workers work benches, Alric had the foresight for chairs this time. They say, far enough from Maggie that the heat was present rather than bullying. Alric opened the herbology book because he had brought it, and because staring at copper did not make copper heat faster no matter how sincerely a man stared.

Stromni took out a small book of his own, though Alric had no idea when he had acquired it or where he kept hiding books while also carrying half a workshop on his person. For a while, they pretended to read. Alric managed the same paragraph about dried Hearthleaf three times and retained only that it disliked damp, which seemed true of even buildings. Stromni turned one page, frowned at it, and did not turn another for so long that Alric suspected his book had also become a prop.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"How much wine we turning?" Stromni asked eventually, still staring at his book. Alric looked up at him.

"In total?"

"Aye. Not just today." Stromni said, giving up on pretending to read and glancing over.

"I want ten barrels of white and ten of red for barrel seasoning. We need it for whisky later, I should have made sherry when the grapes arrived." Alric explained, watching the still for a moment before looking back at the dwarf. Stromni tilted his head slowly.

"You are annoyed at yourself for not making another drink before the drink we ain't made yet?"

"When you say it like that, it sounds unreasonable." Alric said with a chuckle.

"Just repeating what ya said lad, ya wanted ta make wine ta flavor the barrels." Stromni's head tilted further. Alric rubbed at his eyes. They were gritty. He had slept badly, then woken early, then spent the morning deciding not to admit either fact.

"The other seventy-four barrels will go to brandy."

"Seventy-four," he said letting out a low whistle, "That many eh?" Stromni looked back at the still. The stones glowed beneath her. Heat had begun working into the copper, the first small ticks sounding from the lower plates.

"I knew it were a lot."

"If Maggie is kind to us, it's less than two weeks." Alric said with a shrug glancing over at Maggie. That made Stromni quiet. He did not look at Alric for a moment. He looked at Maggie instead, and Alric saw the calculation move behind his eyes. Not only coin, though coin was there, the many other factors that would need to go into it. Alric let him have the quiet. Then he said, "I need a favour." Stromni didn't even hesitate.

"Aye."

"That easy? I just want all the brandy together before we approach Moreen." Alric explained now making eye contact.

"I'm having fun." Was all Stromni said with a shrug, though the movement carried a tired heaviness.

"Coin's good but, what am I buying? Another coat? Bigger house with rooms I won't use? More tools, aye, always, but tools don't vanish because brandy waits." The room warmed around them by degrees, the cold outside becoming something visible through open gaps rather than something that belonged inside. Alric's shoulders tightened from waiting. Stromni's head dipped once over his book, then jerked back up so sharply that Alric decided not to mention it. A faint sound came from Maggie.

Both of them looked up listening carefully. Nothing. Alric breathed out and looked down at the same Hearthleaf paragraph again. He had just reached the word damp for the fourth time when the sound came again. A thin, steady stream striking metal. The book was on the bench before Alric remembered putting it down. Stromni was already moving. They reached the collection point together. Clear liquid ran from the pipe at the end of the worm into the first pot. For a heartbeat, all he could do was stare.

"Foreshots," he said, because words were useful when the world had become too large. Stromni could only nod to that as they let the first portion gather. Alric leaned close enough to smell, then pulled back immediately. Stromni sniffed with more caution and made a face.

"That ain't drink." They threw it away where no curious idiot could find it. Alric was tempted to throw the pot away as well, but that was exhaustion talking. The next vessel went under the flow. Heads began to come through. The stream held. Maggie was working and working well. Alric watched the clear spirit run, his tired mind needing several seconds to believe what his eyes already knew. He looked sideways at Stromni, ready to grin, ready to say something foolish and probably inadequate. Stromni had gone still.

He was staring at the stream. Then he lifted one hand and wiped quickly beneath one eye with the back of his wrist. Stromni cleared his throat and leaned closer to the pipe.

"Smells good." But his voice had a rougher tone than normal. Alric decided not to comment and looked back at the liquid.

"That it does." Neither of them said anything else about it. Stromni immediately checked the joint beside the collection line, then the angle of the pipe, then the pot placement, all with the intent focus of a man discovering urgent business in places already behaving themselves. Alric let him. The moment passed, then the truth of it caught up properly. Maggie was making spirit. Stromni's grin appeared suddenly, broad and bright beneath his beard. Alric laughed loudly, but the sound broke something loose in him.

Stromni gave a short shout, Alric answered it, and then both of them were laughing beside a hot copper still like men who had forgotten they were tired because the impossible thing had decided, at least for now, to be possible. Stromni did a little step. Alric stared at him. The Alric shrugged and joined, which was a mistake, because his own little jig was worse.

By the time the guards opened the door and looked in, both of them were performing something that could only be called a victory dance if all witnesses agreed not to watch. One guard's hand was on his sword. The other looked at the collection pot, then at Alric's face.

"Mister Alric?"

"Nothing is wrong," Alric said with a huge grin, "we fine." He made a dismissive hand gesture, the guards nodded and went back out. Stromni pointed at the still, blinking rapidly.

"She works!" Alric held up a hand to Stromni. Stromni eyed the fist.

"Am I meant ta hit it?"

"Lightly." Alric said, with a small note of alarm. Stromni bumped his fist against Alric's. It was too careful, almost solemn.

"No, properly," Alric said rolling his eyes slightly. They did it again. Stromni considered the gesture.

"Aye. I like that." At first, the excitement carried them. Alric changed vessels when the smell shifted, keeping the questionable portions separate. Stromni checked the line, watched the cooling water, and muttered to Maggie whenever she made a sound him. Neither of them drank. That had been easy to say before the run began. It was harder when the spirit came clear and sharp, when the first good portion smelled clean enough they sampled carefully with distilled water.

"Aye lad, that's brandy, proper brandy." Stromni said not sure what else to add. The heads were kept apart. The hearts were marked. The tails announced themselves with a heavier smell that made Stromni wrinkle his nose and accuse the spirit of losing manners. Alric laughed at that, then yawned so hard his jaw clicked. By the end, both men had stopped pretending they were not exhausted. Stromni's beard had come partly loose from its tie. Alric's shirt clung to his back in places and had dried badly in others.

The still house smelled of hot copper, wine ghosts, damp wood, and sharp spirit. Maggie ticked as the stones gave out and the heat began to leave her in slow, reluctant stages. Four small casks sat in a row. They were not all full, but they were close. They would have enough headspace to annoy Alric later, once he had slept and recovered the capacity to be annoyed properly. Each cask had a mark. Foreshots gone. Heads kept aside, hearts, late hearts, tails.

Stromni stood in front of the casks with his hands on his belt. For a while, he said nothing. Then, quietly, he said, "That is so much money." Alric leaned against the workbench because standing without support had begun to feel like hard work, he wasn't sure if Stromni was speaking to himself, so he let it go. The still stood darkening in the cooling air, huge and tired but real. She had not run perfectly but it was close enough.

There would be notes, fixes, better procedures, issues with cask size, and a future conversation with Vale that would involve numbers large enough to make him breathe through his nose. But she had worked. Alric swallowed and found his throat dry.

"I'm just glad she worked."

"Aye," Stromni said, not trustimg himself to speak further. They left the casks sealed and marked, then waited until Maggie was safe enough to drain. That waiting was worse than the first waiting in some ways, because the day had already spent them. Alric sat on the stair for part of it and woke with his chin dipping toward his chest. Stromni noticed and did not mock him, which proved he was just as tired. At last Stromni stood.

"Come on then." They went outside to the river side of the building. The cold hit Alric with enough force that he felt much more awake. The drain channel waited below the wall, fitted rough but functional, sloping toward the river where the spent wine would run away and become someone else's problem. Stromni took up the hammer. Alric stood beside him, arms folded against the cold, and looked at the drain mechanism.

"Ready?" Stromni asked with a wide grin.

"No." Alric said looking over at the river and rubbing his arms. Stromni struck it anyway. The hammer blow drove through the fitting with a heavy wooden thud. Inside, the plug shifted. For a moment nothing happened, and then hot spent wine surged into the channel, dark and steaming, carrying the last of the day's heat out of Maggie and down toward the river. It ran fast at first, then steadier. Alric and Stromni stood side by side in the cold and watched it go. Behind them, Maggie ticked softly as she cooled.