The chief ornament of the Feast was a remarkable dish composed of a brace of deboned quail stuffed into a deboned pheasant, stuffed into a deboned capon, stuffed into a deboned duck, stuffed into a deboned goose. It must have been cooking all day, but at least it ensured that there was plenty of bird to go around without burdening the table with five different platters. The rest of the table groaned beneath the huge variety of dishes thought necessary to the Midwinter Feast; mashed, roasted, or candied root vegetables, bowls of five different bean concoctions, mashed peas, stewed greens, four kinds of bread, two kinds of rolls, plain butter and butter creamed with honey, gravies, jellies, stewed fruit, pickles, pitchers of cream, small ale, wine, cider....
Lan knew that they wouldn't eat it all, but at least what wasn't eaten would be carried with great ceremony to the nearest Temple of Kernos to be distributed to the hungry before it even had a chance to cool. Grandmother would lead the procession, pushed in her canopied, wheeled chair, just as she had back in Alderscroft, with Nelda on her right and Macy on her left. Those female relatives who cared to would accompany them. The priest would pronounce a solemn blessing on the creators of the dishes who were so generous as to share them, paying special attention to the matriarch of the clan. Grandmother loved every moment of it; it was her opportunity to be the queen of the family.
At least everyone got a Midwinter Feast that way, for the poor were waiting right there in the temple to be fed.
"So, Lavan," one of the unsuitable cousins piped up from farther down the table, fluttering her eyes at him. "Are there many pretty girls being trained as Heralds?"
Lan was torn between saying the expected, "None as pretty as you," and the indifferent, "I hadn't noticed."
He compromised on, "Most of the time we're all being worked so hard that we're too tired to tell the girls from the boys, and the rest of the time we're trying to catch up on sleep."
"Oh, come now," a particularly obnoxious uncle said, in a patronizing tone of voice. "There can't be that much to learn! What does a Herald do, anyway, but ride about and look important, maybe settle an occasional feud between farmers?"
Lan took a very deep breath before answering to remind himself to keep his temper, ignoring the frantic look on his mother's face. "Well, as it happens, I get up about a candle-mark before dawn, unless I happen to be one of the people who has morning chores to do and in that case, I get up two candlemarks before dawn. There's breakfast, then I put my room ready for inspection. Then I have classes in History, Geography, and Field Investigation, then hard riding exercises, then maybe afternoon chores, then lunch, then more afternoon chores or study, then Weaponswork, then Mathematics and Accounting, then a class in court etiquette and how to handle situations involving the nobles, then a special class—right now I'm doing a short class on how to take care of injuries or illness in an emergency until a Healer can get there. Then perhaps evening chores. After that is dinner, then archery practice or a free candlemark, then study until bed." He got some satisfaction in seeing his uncle's eyes bulge a little more with every class he added. "Later I'll be getting lessons in how to use my Gift, how to invoke Truth Spell, another short class about Bards. I'll learn how to survive in the wilderness with no supplies and no tools, I'll learn how to rescue people from drowning, handle a rowboat and a sailboat, how to organize fighting a forest fire or a house fire, how to organize local people into a militia and train them to defend themselves, and how to be a judge. That's just what I know about; I'm sure there are a lot more classes I don't know about yet."
"Oh," his uncle said weakly. Well, what else could he say? Lan took great satisfaction in having managed to put the man in the wrong without ever being in the least impolite. It was the first time in his memory that anyone had ever been able to shut the man up.
No one else seemed to be able to think of anything to say to him, which was just as well. There were a few awkward moments of silence, then another cousin asked the discomfited uncle about a matter of trade in a slightly shrill and nervous voice. The uncle loudly proclaimed his opinion, and conversation resumed, flowing around Lan without touching him.
He ate his meal in silence, wishing that he'd stayed with the Chesters instead. Maybe there wouldn't have been any quail-stuffed-inside-pheasant-stuffed-et cetera, but he would have been a lot more comfortable.
Finally, the interminable meal came to an end with the requisite toasts. When it was Lan's turn, he decided to actually make one instead of passing, as he usually did on the rare occasions when the opportunity arose.
After all, I'm in the place of honor. Why shouldn't I?
His father was just beginning to stand, when Lan pushed his chair decisively back and rose to his feet, glass held high. His father sat back down hurriedly, and a silence descended on the table with a thud.
Lan stared at the wine the color of old embers glowing in the heart of his glass. "I would like to toast my family," he said, taking an absolutely malicious pleasure in choosing words heavily weighted with irony and loaded with a definite double meaning. "For without your actions, I would not be where I am and what I am at this moment."
Macy looked puzzled. Sam went pale, as did his father. His mother flushed. But what could they do or say? For all they knew, he was being entirely sincere, although surely they knew he meant what he had said in every possible interpretation. The rest of his relatives looked askance at each other for a moment, as if wondering just how they should react to this.
It was his grandmother who broke the impasse; he'd spoken loudly enough for her to make out what he'd said. "Properly done, boy!" she declared, "here, here!" and drank her own glass down. That broke the spell holding the rest, and they followed the old woman's example. With a faint smile, Lan took a sip from his glass and sat down, feeling that he'd gotten ample revenge for the uncomfortable meal he'd just endured.
The Feast ended just after that, and the women descended on the kitchen to each take possession of a dish for the procession to the Temple. The children enveloped Lan and rushed him back to the sitting room, and the men retired to the parlor for wine and discussions of their own. Lan had no doubt that he would be the main topic of conversation, though more likely for his borderline insolence to his uncle than for the toast, which his father and brother were likely to avoid discussing.
This time, the youngsters Lan's age and older joined the children, although they would not normally have done so. In past years, the older ones, if they did not escape to some other venue such as moonlight skating, sledding, or sleigh riding, generally would gather in two groups, the boys to discuss girls, and the girls to discuss boys. Once again, he was going to provide the entertainment for the entire lot of them; he didn't much mind, since Kalira would arrive for him in a candlemark or two. There wasn't that much more of this for him to endure.
It turned out not to be an ordeal after all; the relatives of his own age were just as curious and full of admiration as the little ones. It was an entirely new experience for Lan to be admired by anyone in his family; he relaxed and answered questions cheerfully and frankly. The world of the Heraldic Trainee was entirely new to everyone here—well, it had been unknown to him as well, until he was Chosen—and for the most part, the members of the Chitward family had never had anything to do with Heralds. Why should they? Any disputes were settled within the Guild Courts, no one broke any laws, so they never had occasion to more than note a Herald passing at a distance, read about them in a tale, or hear about them in a ballad. If any of them had ever daydreamed about being Chosen, they had probably dismissed the idea with the typical practicality of a merchant family.