Free Something Red by Douglas Nicholas Page B

inn proper, deep in conversation.
    Although Molly’s little clan had not passed this way in the eighteen months that Hob had traveled with them, Nemain had told him of Osbert’s Inn and its infamous mastiffs, who gave tongue only in the daylight hours. Now, over the noise of the pilgrims’ chatter and the rumble of the wagons, Hob could hear a hubbub of barking and howling from the kennels at the southwest corner of the courtyard; soon came shouted rebukes, and a gradual cessation of the clamor.
    Forwin showed them where to place the wagons, drawn up against the logs of the blank north wall, just inside the gate. With Osbert’s sons and the two retainers helping, the wheels were soon chocked and the animals unhitched. Forwin led the way to the stables, and Hob and Nemain and Jack trudged behind, leading the three beasts. Osbert had good accommodation for man and mount, clean and well built.
    After they had the three animals settled down and fed, Nemainand Jack and the brothers made their way back across the hard-packed ground of the inner compound to the inn. Hob wandered about by himself, all eyes; this was one of the most interesting places they had come to and he was eager to see it.
    The size of the courtyard surprised him. Along the south side was the storehouse, divided into the pantry and the buttery and the well house; the inn proper, with its satellite dorters inside the courtyard, formed the eastern wall of the compound; the west wall included the kennels, stables, and pigeon cotes—the inn’s pigeon pie had a kind of fame all its own—and along the front or north wall were various sheds and booths and a privy. To his disappointment the kennels presented blank walls to the courtyard, and the housecarls shooed him away: it was too dangerous to allow guests within.
    He entered a door in the southeast corner, between the inn and the storehouse, and found himself in a short enclosed walkway where brooms were leaned in a corner; from wooden pegs hung coiled rope and a tattered cloak. Three wide doorways led from this passage. To his left must be the inn: a din of voices sounded just beyond, and now and again he could hear Molly above the talk and laughter.
    Two doorways led to the right. He poked his head into one and found himself in the pantry, an Eden of tempting fragrance. A spacious counter ran thwartwise immediately inside the door, barring entrance to the rest of the long room. The pantry took up a good part of the storehouse. One of Osbert’s elder retainers served as pantler, with two of the younger housecarls as prentices. The pantler nodded pleasantly enough to Hob, but after a bit, Hob realized that one or the other of Osbert’s pantry crew was keeping an unobtrusive watch on him.
    Hob stood just inside the doorway and looked down the room at the bunches of dried herbs and bags of spices, some grown locally and some that Osbert traded for. Smoked hams and mutton legs and cheeses swung from the roof beams. The walls, of roughly dressed logschinked with clay, were lined with barrels and bins stretching away into the shadows.
    He had to step in and move to the side as cook’s mates came hurrying in, one after the other, from the inn’s main room, where cooking was done in the great fireplace. A flurry of urgent requests, and the younger pantrymen began bringing meats and grains and spices to the counter to be taken away, while the pantler kept account with tally sticks.
    After a hectic few minutes, the cook’s prentices were gone; the pantler came up to the counter and leaned on his elbows. Hob said, looking about, “Is all this Master Osbert’s, then?”
    “It is indeed, cock. Tha’s just come wi’ yon pilgrims, hast tha? But surely tha’s young to be away on pilgrimage?”
    “Away on— No, sir, I’m with Mistress Molly’s people.”
    “Is Mistress Molly come in again, then!” He spoke over his shoulder. “Perkin, Daniel! Here’s Mistress Molly’s lad, her what eased my little