“I don’t think we’ll get this done in time,” he muttered.
Ager ignored him. He opened the back of the shed and half-pulled, half-dragged the carcass along the traverse beam until it was outside.
“Bring me the slop buckets and butchering knives,” he told Lynan, and pointed to two wooden buckets in one corner with three different-sized knives in them—a heavy-bladed straight edged chopper and more finely bladed but wickedly sharp carvers. The buckets were black with grime and gore. Lynan felt like gagging, but brought the equipment with him, together with dirty white aprons he found hanging from the shed wall. The aprons covered them from neck to knee.
Ager, with a carver in one hand, walked around the beast a couple of times then nodded to himself. “Not too different,” he said and stabbed the knife into the steer’s groin. Lynan could not help flinching. With all his strength Ager pulled the blade down toward the neck until it met with the gash, then made quick cuts at the base of each of the limbs.
“Right, now comes the hard part,” he told Lynan, and indicated he should take hold of the hide on one side of the long cut. Lynan did so, and on Ager’s word they both pulled away from each other. The hide slowly, tortuously, separated from the flesh for about a hand’s span. Ager then punched at the tegument connecting hide to muscle until it loosened and started peeling again; Lynan copied him on his side of the beast. Eventually the hide was taken off completely, revealing white tendon over pink muscle and ribbons of veins and arteries.
“This is what we all look like inside,” Ager told Lynan merrily. “During the war I came across the remains of our scouts the Slavers had captured and skinned. They looked something like this.” He patted the prince on the back. “And now comes the fun part.” He used the knife again, carefully cutting around the intestines and other internal organs. The stench was overbearingly warm, as if the steer was still alive and breathing. The organs fell out together in one great glistening movement and slopped to the ground.
With great effort they unhooked the beast from the beam, and then with something like relish Ager cut off its head and quartered the body using the chopper. Then they worked at the internal organs, putting the ones that could be used for food into one bucket and discarding the others.
When day’s last light evaporated, Yran came out with torches so they could continue their work. He quickly checked on their progress, seemed happy enough with it, then disappeared back into his inn, taking with him some of the offal and one of the quarters slung over his back.
An hour later, Ager, covered in sweat and flecks of fat and dried blood, finally stood up and stretched his arms. “Well, that’s as good a job as Yran would manage, I dare say,” he told Lynan. “We’ll put this lot in the safe box and then help the others stack the cords.” Lynan found the safe box tethered high in a nearby headseed tree and let it down. They loaded in the remaining quarters and offal, closed the mesh, and hauled it back up again.
“Just in time,” Ager said, pointing to a mangy looking dog and one very fat porker that had come around to investigate the discarded organs.
By the time both tasks were finished, Yran had filled an old iron basin in one of the bedrooms he assigned them with hot water and next to it placed scented fatblocks and clean washers. Ager and Lynan let Kumul and Jenrosa clean first, then deliriously enjoyed wiping the gore off their own faces and hands. All the time they could smell the night’s meals being prepared, and their stomachs rumbled in hunger.
They left their coats, cloaks, and swords in the bedroom and found Yran, who then led them into the main room and showed them to their table, already laden with large tankards of warm peach wine and wooden platters burdened with grain bread steaming from the oven. The room was still largely empty, only a few travelers present and none yet of the locals, but the main fire burned fiercely, filling the inn with the scent of sweet-smelling resin.
The companions were thirsty and tired from hard work. They swigged down their drinks and stuffed their mouths with the bread.
“Swinging that ax for three hours was harder than fighting,” Kumul said, pulling at his shoulder. “It’s the same action again and again, and wears your bones away.”
“You’ll live,” Ager said without sympathy, and turned to Lynan. “I’ll bet our young friend has never gotten his hands so dirty.”
Lynan felt his ears burn. “I’ve done hard work before.”
“In the training arena, I’m sure. But this was different, wasn’t it? It’s the work your servants have always done.”
“Hush,” Kumul warned them. “We know nothing of such things, remember?”
But Lynan was not quite so ready to let the matter drop. “I’m willing to learn, Ager. You should know that by now.”
Ager regarded him with sudden affection, his one eye bright. “Aye, that’s true. You’ve never shirked from hard lessons.”
Any further discussion was forestalled by Yran joining their table with a tankard of his own and a huge jug. “The kitchen hands can finish off the stews an‘ porridges, an’ the meat’s Crispin‘ nicely,” he told them, refilling their drinks. “How long have you been on the road, did you say?”
“We didn’t,” Kumul said carefully. “But close to three weeks.”
“You ever been to the Arran Valley before?”
“Once, a long time ago,” Kumul replied. “I was a soldier many years back, and came through here on the way north.”
“Oh, aye. You had that look and walk about you, I must say. Many soldiers have settled here over the years.”
“It’s a beautiful valley,” Jenrosa said matter-of-factly.
Yran visibly swelled with pride, and started talking animatedly about the valley. He knew all the best streams for fishing, where the choicest fruit was grown, which farms had the best soil, and where the best rabbits could be caught. When he finished with the geography, he moved on to the valley’s history. Tired from their exertions, the four visitors listened as politely as possible to family trees and accounts of great storms, but the going was heavy until Yran mentioned the valley’s annexation by a king of Chandra some five centuries before.
“An‘ more recently, of course, Chandra’s marriage to Grenda Lear.”
“Recently?” Lynan objected. “It was over a hundred and fifty years ago.”
Yran scratched the side of his large nose with a chipped fingernail. “Recent to some, as might be,” he said reasonably. “An‘ the way things are goin’, it might not be too far in the future before Chandra’s a spinster again.”
“What do you mean?” Lynan asked tightly, and Ager gently placed a hand on the youth’s arm.
“Well, I’ve heard Tomar’s naught happy with the new queen. Fact is, some in the valley are sayin‘ our peaches and plums would make better rulers than any of Usharna’s mixed brood.” Yran did not notice Lynan and Kumul stiffen, nor Ager firm his grip on the youth. “Maybe they’re right, with one murdered, one drowned, one an idiot by all accounts, an’ the girl on the throne untimely.”
“Why is Tomar unhappy with the queen?” Ager asked.
“There’s rumors of war. She’s callin‘ in mercenaries to boost her armies, and a lot of them are marchin’ through Chandra to get to the capital, which makes Tomar feel about as comfortable as a slug on a salt lick. An‘ then there’s the accusations against General Chisal’s son. The court’s sayin’ he did in his own brother! Poor little bastard drowned tryin‘ to escape, they reckon. Chisal and Tomar were friends a long time ago, an’ the news hit him hard, folks say.”
Lynan resisted the temptation to ask what the accusations said about him in detail, and instead said: “War with whom?”
“Why, Haxus, of course. Trust those bastards to make trouble as soon as Usharna passed on. An‘ if they weren’t thinkin’ of it then, Berayma’s murder must have convinced Salokan to try his luck by now. At least, that’s what everyone’s mutterin‘.”