Chương 51: Chapter 49 – Carters and innkeepers

Alric walked into the warehouse proper. Grain had arrived yesterday. The germination section was completed just in time. The shelves had been installed, Mara and Hal had worked late to get all the sheets up and reinforced with netting. There was a small sewing desk in the section now. Mara was currently working at it, adjusting grain bags. They were now double layered and made properly. Smaller bags existed for aromatics. Alric had made the decision to switch to hops exclusively.

Local beer needed breathing room, he decided. Compared to the old warehouse, there were now large wooden trays installed along the wall opposite the sewing desk. A small rake stood next to grain currently resting there, looking as though it had been placed deliberately and then immediately forgotten. Alric had asked the staff to wet the grain symbolically yesterday, which had been done with great seriousness and no apparent belief that symbolism alone would help.

Water still clung to the edges of the boards, darkening the wood where it had soaked in unevenly. He took a deep breath of the smell. It was not a pleasant smell, but it was the correct one, and that counted for more. Deciding to inspect the rest of the progress later, Alric squared his shoulders as he walked out of the building. This meeting was an important one. Just off the road to the right was a small group of men. Eight of them.

The eight men stood comfortably around a large handcart, leaning on it in the relaxed way of people who trusted it not to run away. One was smoking something from a pipe that smelled like it had been tobacco sometime long ago, the smoke hanging low before drifting sideways with the breeze. One looked up and stepped forward. Alric nodded, assuming the man was the leader of the group. The others made no effort to correct this assumption, which was confirmation enough.

He was broad in the way of someone who had never bothered to be lean, thick through the shoulders and chest with the permanent, settled weight of a man who moved heavy things for a living and had made peace with the fact. His hands were the first thing Alric noticed, scarred, nicked, and permanently ingrained with old grime, as though the dirt itself had decided to stay to see new interesting places.

The man's coat had once been serviceable and now existed mostly by habit, reinforced at the elbows, patched where it mattered, and worn smooth everywhere else. His boots were solid, not good, and that distinction felt deliberate. There was no emblem, no badge, nothing to mark rank beyond the simple fact that the others watched him when he spoke. The rest of them matched in the way working men often do, not in appearance but in posture.

They stood loose and unhurried, occupying space without claiming it, hands resting on wood, iron, or nothing at all. The handcart sat between them like a shared tool rather than a possession, its boards scarred by years of misuse and repair, some of which appeared to have been carried out mid-journey. None of them fidgeted, and none of them smiled.

They had the calm of people used to waiting for worse news than a brewer's proposal, and Alric had the uneasy sense that whatever they moved through the city, they were accustomed to being the last ones to touch it, and the first ones blamed.

"Good to meet you, I'm Alric. The one who asked for you," Alric said. The group nodded, as if he had said something obvious, because he had.

"Aye, guv. We the carters' guild," the leader said, standing tall.

"That's us, see." Alric noted there was no guild emblem between them or on the cart, nor anywhere else he could see. This appeared to be the sort of guild that relied on memory, reputation, and the shared understanding that paperwork was something that happened to other people.

"Well, I'm sure you've figured it out by now. We make beer here, a fair bit of it. We need people who can get it where it needs to go in the city," Alric explained. The men all nodded, which suggested this was either acceptable or inevitable.

"I've got a cask here. It's got fruit juice. I'm going to use my item box, so don't panic." Alric moved to their cart, used his item box to bring out the cask, and placed four tankards near it. The men blinked and stepped back, the way people did when reality briefly forgot how it was supposed to behave.

"Get its weight. The cask, I mean. Get a feel," Alric said, gesturing. The first man walked up, lifted it, and rolled his shoulders. He nodded as they passed the cask around. Finally, they put it back.

"The juice in it is yours," Alric said, gesturing for them to move it around. Using a cask and lifting it seemed easy for them.

"Guv, it's lighter'n most stiffs, see. Reckon the cart could hold twelve. Ain't space that's the trouble. It's movin' the cart round streets an' such, see." Alric paused for a moment before he understood that by stiffs the man meant bodies. A wave of nausea rose, considered the situation, Alric decided it was being unhelpful.

"I'll be needing to make carts to use. I'll have them made for casks and easy movement. I can't be the only one who'd be nervous seeing your current cart. No judgement. I know things need to move," Alric said. The leader shrugged, a movement that suggested this conversation had happened before, and would again.

"Just a load that don't complain, guv. Plenty folk think that way. Don't bother us none, see. We got a cart maker can sort it quick if you need."

"Thanks. I'll need that. Let's talk deliveries and numbers first." Alric took a deep breath.

"When we ran hard in winter, we were doing one hundred and fifty three deliveries a week." One man almost dropped his tankard.

"Guv, can you repeat that?" came from one of the others.

"We did one hundred and fifty three a week. I have an item box. It's just more than twenty five a day," Alric said with a shrug.

"You should know, that number might grow." The men nodded slowly, the way people did when re-evaluating their week. One of them scratched at the cart rail with a thumbnail, leaving a pale line in the wood.

"All well and good, guv. We'd want four smalls a cask," the leader said, turning to his companions. They nodded.

"That makes it awkward for me. Let's just call it five so it will be six large coppers for a load. Fair?" The men nodded enthusiastically. Alric had been paying attention to the men, so he didn't notice another approach. The carters stepped to the side, and Alric followed their movement without thinking, which placed him very deliberately in front of them.

"Oh deary me! Are you the brewer?" came a voice from a colorfully dressed man. Alric blinked and turned his head toward him without properly looking.

"Can you hold on, please? I'm in the middle of something." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. He turned back.

"Any other issues or anything I should know?"

"Well, guv, we ain't to hold your coin. Them streets ain't always the safest, see," the leader said, shaking his head with the practised seriousness of someone who had learned this lesson repeatedly. The rest of the men were shooting nervous glances between Alric and the man in bright purple. Alric nodded slowly. It was a complication he hadn't considered, which was becoming something of a pattern.

"I see. I'll come up with something else. Would you rather be paid before or after delivering?" The men thought for a moment.

"After's easier, guv." The leader put his hand forward. Alric shook it, squirming inside.

"I'll get the cask in a moment. Let me deal with this first," Alric said, glancing at the man in bright purple. He approached him. The man stood out immediately, not by height or build but by how little the street seemed to touch him. His coat was close cut and brightly dyed purple, the colours layered and intact in a way that suggested neither sun nor weather had been allowed much say in the matter.

A red sash crossed his chest, decorative rather than functional, and the cloth beneath it sat smooth and uncreased, as though it had been put on for this moment and not yet lived in. His boots were the most telling part, polished to a deep shine, free of scuffs, and wholly unsuited to standing near wet stone and churned mud. When he raised a hand, Alric noticed the absence of marks. The fingers were clean, the nails trimmed, the skin unbroken by callus or scar.

Even the way he held himself felt controlled, spine straight, weight evenly balanced, careful not to lean or rest against anything that might leave a trace. His face was unremarkable but well kept, shaved clean, hair neatly arranged and untroubled by wind.

"You were looking for me?" Alric asked.

"You are the brewer? The one who was supplying during winter?" the man asked. Alric nodded.

"Oh, phew. We have been looking for you. My name is Reginald. I'm from the innkeepers' guild," he said with a small bow. Alric watched the man, waiting for him to get to the point. It was an awkward pause. The pause stretched long enough for the pipe smoke behind them to thin.

"And?" Alric said.

"Oh, we would love to work with you," Reginald said, straightening.

"And what would the conditions be?" Alric asked with a sigh, waiting for the scam to surface.

"Well, we would just like you to supply our own members, really," Reginald said, smiling sweetly.

"And let me guess, not supply the taverns," Alric said.

"Well, all our members would need to carry your stock. It only seems fair. We all give a little," Reginald said, bending slightly.

"I'm not interested. This is more trouble than it's worth." Reginald tried to speak, but Alric held up a hand.

"Forcing your members to carry my stock isn't how I operate. And you'd be asking me to cut out how much of the market?"

"I do understand. I just wanted to put the idea forward. Please do think about it," Reginald said with a large smile.

"Very well. I've heard your offer. I'll think about it. I have work to do. Farewell." Alric turned back to the carters, shook hands with them again, retrieved his cask and tankards, and headed back toward the building. Behind him, the carters could hear the innkeepers' representative muttering something about needing something to work with, which sounded very much like a threat trying to remember how to be polite. Sometime later, Reginald was consulting a large book with a scowl.

"Someone get me someone important from the merchants guild's litigation! I know it will cost me." He said glancing at the men in his office. INTERLUDE Interlude III - Compost They stood at the edge of the garden and tried to understand what had gone wrong. This was not easy, because what had gone wrong had not merely failed. It had settled in. As Hal had once been a farm hand, he had nervously asked Alric if he could turn part of the new yard into a vegetable garden.

Alric had agreed immediately and had hoped to teach Hal some of the basic principles of compost. It had not wilted, or struggled, or produced disappointing yields that could be blamed on soil, weather, or poor planning. It had been erased with enthusiasm. What remained bore only a passing resemblance to a place where vegetables had once been asked, with some trepidation, to grow. Rows were gone. Stakes lay half-buried at odd angles.

The ground itself looked worked over, packed flat in some places and scooped hollow in others, as though the earth had been kneaded and then abandoned halfway through the process. Beyond it, in the yard, lay the cause. A dozen pigs sprawled across the ground in various poses of complete satisfaction. One had burrowed directly into the pile of brewing waste Alric had so carefully accumulated over winter. Only its belly and four trotters were visible, sticking straight up into the air.

It snored gently, every breath accompanied by a faint, wet rustle as it shifted deeper into the mash.

"Think it'll suffocate?" Hal asked, not without concern. Alric shook his head.

"No. It's made itself a chimney." He gestured to a small gap where steam curled faintly into the air. Hal leaned closer.

"Clever bastard." This was a portion of the Mash Alric had been collecting over the winter, by his estimate it was around fifteen tons. Hal stared at it.

"Well," he said, "that solves that." Alric nodded.

"Yes. I'm not sure it solves our waste problem though or makes a new one." They turned their attention to the warehouse wall. In the strip of shade beneath it lay a Pig of a different category. It had earned the capital letter through sheer presence. It lay pressed against the stone, massive enough that the wall looked like it was supported, rather than the other way around. Its bulk spread outward, dense and immovable. Scars crossed its hide. One ear was torn nearly in half.

Its chest rose and fell slowly, deliberately, as though breathing were a decision rather than a reflex. It did not snore. It looked… satisfied. Alric tilted his head, studying it with the same expression he reserved for unfamiliar machinery.

"I didn't know they could get that big," he said. Hal said nothing. He just crossed his arms and stared, brow furrowing as he took in the size of it, the scars, the way the other pigs had chosen to sleep around it rather than near. After a moment, Alric added, thoughtfully, "We could eat that one." Hal turned on him.

"No."

"Why not?" Alric asked.

"It's clearly ready." Hal gestured vaguely at the yard.

"Can you tell me what it's eaten in the last four months?" Alric opened his mouth, then paused. They both glanced back at the compost pig, its trotters giving a lazy twitch.

"I can make some guesses," Alric admitted. Before Hal could reply, Henry cleared his throat. He had joined them quietly, as he tended to do, keeping a respectful distance from the shade.

"There's one like that down at the docks," Henry said.

"Not as fat as this one. Mean-looking thing. Keeps the dogs away just by standing there." Alric looked back at the pig against the wall.

"And this one?" Henry considered it.

"Don't think I've ever seen a pig this.. happy looking." They stood in silence again. The pig opened one eye. It regarded them without urgency, then closed it again, as though concluding they were not relevant to its continued success. Alric exhaled slowly.

"Yes," he said.

"We are not eating that." Hal nodded, relief plain on his face. Alric looked back at the garden, then at the yard, then at the pigs.

"Next time," he said, already thinking ahead, "we fence first. Compost second." Hal nodded.

"Next time," he said, "we don't teach pigs about brewing mash." They left the garden as it was. Behind them, the pigs continued their work, converting careful planning into something undeniably effective and deeply uncooperative.