Chương 93: Chapter 90 - Tarrow

Alric stood in the office, he was gathering some blank sheets and charcoal. Seren stood nearby with her arms folded looking suspicious. Alric suspected she was there in case he was suddenly filled with a compulsion to lift heavy things. Father Tarrow stood opposite the desk, occupying the room with the quiet certainty of someone who was about to face a strange future.

He had been asked to come to the office when he arrived and now found himself standing in front of a man who appeared to be deciding what to do with him. Alric finished writing something, blew lightly across the page to dry it, then set the charcoal aside and looked up.

"Right," he said.

"If you're going to be assigned here, you're going to be useful." Tarrow nodded once slowly. Seren's eyes narrowed slightly. Alric leaned back slightly in his chair.

"You can purify yourself you said," he said with a grin. Tarrow considered this.

"I can." he said turning his head sideways sceptically. There was a brief pause as that settled. Tarrow shifted his weight slightly.

"What am I doing?" he asked. Alric gestured lightly with one hand.

"You will have one of the most important jobs in this building, you will be protecting the city," he said. Tarrow waited. Alric exhaled once through his nose.

"Right," he said.

"Let me explain it properly." He tapped the desk lightly.

"We can usually try to tell if something's wrong by smell. Or if it's ready. Most of the time that's enough. But not always." Tarrow nodded.

"And tasting?" he asked.

"Tasting is risk," Alric said.

"If something's gone bad in a way we didn't catch, I don't want half the city finding out at once." Seren's attention had shifted fully now.

"And I assume you've found a way around that," she said. Alric pointed at Tarrow.

"I have," he said.

"Him." Seren blinked once. Then again.

"…oh," she said. Alric nodded, satisfied.

"He can safely taste anything we produce. Catch problems early. Confirm a problem before it leaves the brewery." Seren looked at Tarrow, then back at Alric, then down at the papers on the desk as though something had just reorganised itself into a system.

"That means we can check every batch," she said.

"Exactly." Tarrow looked between them.

"So I'm the sacrifice?" he said. Alric shook his head.

"No," he said.

"We're producing over a hundred casks a day, and that's before the new boilers get here. You'd be taking small samples. Small sips. If we find a problem, you can purify yourself and we throw that batch out immediately." There was a pause. Tarrow swallowed once.

"…small sips right?" he said.

"Right. I suggest very small. You'll also be paid," he added.

"I can't, I took vows." he said. Alric looked at him.

"I'm not here for coin," Tarrow said.

"Temple sent me. I'll.. I'll do the work." Alric considered that for a moment, then shook his head.

"No one here works for free," he said simply. Tarrow's expression did not change.

"I don't need it, I …"

"Then donate it," Alric said.

"Give it back to the temple. Give it to someone who does need it, I just won't have such an important worker not be on the payroll. You'll be on the same pay scale as Seren" Alric gestured with his head toward her. Seren's face had turned serious, she was nodding at Tarrow. There was a brief silence. Seren, who had been watching this exchange with the quiet intensity of someone witnessing a principle being established, gave another small, approving nod. Tarrow looked at the desk. Then at Alric.

"…right," was all Father Tarrow said. The first sample was brought over, Alric and Tarrow would be tasting together. Tarrow took it without ceremony, lifting the small cup to his nose before taking a measured sip, holding it in his mouth for a moment as though considering whether it was worth swallowing at all.

"Bitter," he said eventually, giving a small nod.

"Good. Doesn't hide anything." Alric took a tiny sip, nodded at Seren who took notes on what Tarrow had said. Mara drifted over listening carefully. Tarrow repeated the process without variation, sniff, sip, pause, swallow, before giving his verdict. Alric had to stop after four, Tarrow seemed to get the hang of it quickly. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"This," he said.

"not quite right." Alric nodded, poured a very small measure and tasted it.

"It's fine. Just not quite finished yet." Seren had already found something to write on, and the speed at which she began suggested she had been waiting for a reason rather than needing one. The eighth sample made Tarrow pause longer, not dramatically so, but enough for the brewer responsible to lean in a fraction, watching him as though trying to catch whatever it was that had slowed him down.

"This one got a funny flavor," Tarrow said at last. Alric frowned, reaching for the cup as Tarrow handed it back, taking a cautious smell of it and immediately smelt bananas.

"He's right. This one fermented too hot or too quick." They continued like that for a while, the rhythm settling into something steady without ever becoming mechanical, each sample taken, considered, and judged with the same blunt consistency. What changed, gradually, was the room around them. More staff drifted closer, not in a way that suggested interruption, but in the quiet, practical sense that something useful was happening and it would be foolish to stand too far away from it.

"Too soft," Tarrow said of one.

"Better," of another.

"This one swallows wrong." That drew a question.

"How?" Mara asked. Tarrow gave a small shrug, turning the cup slightly in his hand before setting it down.

"Smells fine," he said.

"Tastes wrong at the end." Alric watched from the side, not interrupting or guiding, simply observing in the same way he had when he first started testing batches himself. There was something familiar in it, though not in the method so much as the intent, the quiet assumption that this was work, and that work could be improved. The berry wine was brought next, and Tarrow frowned at it before even tasting, as though the idea of it required a moment to process.

He took a sip, paused, then took another, slower this time.

"…strange," he said. Seren's charcoal hovered.

"But… alive. I have nothing to compare." She underlined something, once, firmly. The brown ale followed, and Tarrow took longer with it, not because he was uncertain, but because he seemed to be giving it more attention than the others. When he nodded, it was small but definite.

"Too honest," he said.

"If this goes wrong, you'll know but wow that's good." He smacked his lips and took another sip. That earned a low murmur, not reverent or impressed, just practical agreement from men who understood exactly what that meant. Alric did not. Seren stood slightly off to one side, writing quickly, occasionally glancing up, occasionally adjusting something she had already written, her expression focused in a way that suggested she was no longer just recording what was happening, but beginning to organise it.

At one point, Tarrow paused again, though this time it was sharper, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at the next sample before even lifting it.

"Same fruit again." He said just sniffing it "You want me to do this everyday?" Tarrow asked tilting his head. Alric nodded.

"If there is something wrong, you'll find it first. If it goes very very wrong, you can purify yourself and watch everyone scramble trying to find what caused it. Like I said, important job." Tarrow wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, glancing between the cup briefly before looking back at Alric.

"I drank a lot during the festival," he said, as though offering an explanation that hadn't been requested. Alric gave a small smile.

"Miss it, best time of my life at that festival." Tarrow added glancing down at the cup in his hand.

"Wait? Are you 'that' priest? The fighter?" Came from Hal. Tarrow nodded, trying not to look too smug and failing at it.

"O Henry and I were so mad we missed your bouts, hey Henry!" Hal shouted out into the warehouse. Tarrow simply stood there, holding the tankard from a spoilt batch in his hands, but his smile Alric noted, reached his eyes and then some. By the time the light had shifted enough to suggest afternoon was giving way to something else, Father Tarrow had been guided, with varying degrees of care and enthusiasm, through more samples than any reasonable person would recommend. Currently he was taking a nap.

Considering what had happened at the adventurer's guild during the festival, everyone gave him a very respectful distance to sleep it off. The man could have won prizes for fighting drunk after all. Seren returned to the office with someone in tow. She gestured for Alric to follow, no one wanted to raise their voices near where Father Tarrow was sleeping. Alric was lead outside.

"This is Hesta," she said, with the air of someone presenting a solution rather than an introduction. The woman inclined her head slightly. She was middle-aged, her hair neatly bound and her clothing modest but precise, the sort of careful presentation that came from years spent in households where small details were noticed and commented on.

Nothing about her was extravagant, but nothing was careless either, and she carried herself with the quiet patience of someone who had spent a considerable portion of her life explaining things to people who did not wish to be explained to.

"I used to tutor noble children," she said, as though this were sufficient explanation. Alric nodded once.

"I am Alric, sometimes called the brewer." he said.

"I am Hesta, something of a scholar." She said vaguely. They were standing at the brewery entrance, Hesta glanced around the space, then out toward the brewery floor beyond.

"It's cleaner than most noble houses," she said. Seren's expression suggested that this was both correct and deeply satisfying. She looked smug.

"For now, you'll be working here," Alric explained.

"But we're expanding next door. The building's been cleared. They're putting in stone flooring now. You'll likely be managing operations there once it's ready." Alric said with a smile, some instinct inside of him had awoken, giving warning about proper pronunciation. Hesta nodded, once.

"I see," she said.

"Stone is easier. This clean?" Alric nodded. Seren smiled, not widely, but enough to suggest recognition.

"She'll be handling intake, tracking, and coordination between batches," Seren said, already beginning to list things.

"We'll need to standardise reporting across the two buildings, and…" Hesta listened, nodding occasionally, her expression calm. Alric, sensing that whatever this conversation would become no longer required him, stepped back.

"You're in good hands," he said. Seren did not look at him. The brewery did not notice that it was being watched. This was, perhaps, for the best. The goddess of fertility did not arrive with fanfare, nor did she announce herself to anyone who might have found such a thing alarming or, worse, administratively inconvenient. She simply watched, because the place had become difficult to ignore. The blessing that had settled over the area had already drawn her attention.

Growth, after all, was her concern, and this was growth of a particularly interesting kind. Not crops or fields. Something else. She observed quietly, her attention moving not across the building as a whole, but from person to person, from task to task. There was a woman directing a group of men hanging sacks of grain. The authority was not forced, nor was it contested. It simply existed, and was accepted. The goddess found that pleasing. There was movement everywhere, but not chaos.

Things were being done, and more importantly, being done in ways that would allow them to be done again. She noted, too, the occasional flicker of something else. A presence that did not linger, but returned often enough to be noticed. Creation was watching. Discreetly. As discretely as she was. Her attention returned to the floor below. A man moved from the boilers, wiping his hands as he passed.

The woman with the grain caught his eye, gave a small, knowing wink, and as he passed, their hands met briefly, fingers squeezing for just a moment before they continued as though nothing had happened. The goddess recognised that gesture immediately. Some things did not change. She extended a small blessing, almost as an afterthought. Something that might take hold later. That might, if the conditions were right, grow.

"Let's see," she said quietly, though there was no one there to hear it. And continued to watch.