Alric sat at the table in the headquarters common room with Seren on one side and Vale on the other. There was a fire in the hearth, not large enough to impress anyone, but large enough to remind everyone that winter was on its way and firewood was getting expensive.
Vale and Seren were seated to either side, each had paper except Alric, because Vale had stopped giving him paper at the start of meetings after the third time he used the margins to sketch something unrelated and expensive.
Alric leaned back, then stopped when the chair made a sound that was alarming. Headquarters had many chairs now. Some were good chairs, some were old inn chairs that had survived drunk men, bad music, and years of being pushed around by people with less concern for furniture than their next drink. Those chairs were a few blisters short of having character.
The front door opened. Cold came in first followed by eight men together. Each stamped their boots and got in each other’s way.
Alric recognised Melv and Borsen. Both broader than before, not quite as rough around the edges as he had been the first time Alric met them. The same was true of the others. Alric had noticed the carters did most things together when they thought it mattered, they seemed to dislike leaders, although Borsen often spoke for the group.
They still looked like Carters. There were somethings that no amount of civilization could ever change. Broad straight shoulders, a hunched posture, the product of leaning forward for hours and hating weight for a living. Hands scarred by toil and rope. All stood with wide stances and the sense that they were ready to push through loose cobbles, roads, and weather threw at them. A horse doesn’t change with new shoes. They would not change because of better coats, a carter is still a carter, on the same treacherous road.
But they did look better, that was the part Alric noticed, it made him feel unreasonably happy.
Much better coats with proper stitching. Boots that had been made for the owner, or at least bought before they were desperate. One man had a new scarf tucked badly around his neck, the blue of it sitting on his chest with the kindness of something purchased by a wife, sister, or sweetheart who had cared, or had a specific disdain for cold necks.
Borsen’s belly had grown. If the body was a temple, Borsen had opted for a snack bar in the foyer.
“Morning, guv,” Borsen said.
“Morning, Borsen. Everyone. Come in. Sit.”
The carters looked at the table, then at the chairs.
They dragged the chairs closer. Wood scraped across the floor. Vale winced. Seren’s expression did not change, which meant she also heard the scrape and was choosing maturity. Alric admired that, in his mind this floor had endured worse.
Once they were settled, Borsen leaned forward, elbows on knees.
“So,” he said. “We’re a proper guild now.”
Alric grinned. “Are you?”
“Aye.” Borsen’s grin spread slowly. “Names written down and all.”
One of the others nodded. “Rules too.”
“Not too many,” another added quickly.
“Enough,” Borsen said, with the authority of a man who had recently discovered that rules were more useful when they could be pointed at someone else. “Got dues. Got a box. Got a clerk.”
Vale looked up.
Borsen pointed at him. “Bit like yours, guv. Only ours is bigger.”
Alric turned his head away at once. Seren turned with him.
For a moment, both of them looked very hard at the hearth, which had done nothing to deserve such scrutiny.
Vale frowned.
The carters looked between them.
Borsen’s grin turned uncertain. “What?”
“Nothing,” Alric said too quickly.
Seren’s shoulders moved once.
Vale straightened. “I am choosing not to hear that as an insult.”
“No insult,” Borsen said, still not quite following it but pleased that something had happened. “Our clerk’s a big lad, is all. Used ta haul stone before his knee went. Writes slow, but he writes. Doesn’t let folk forget dues neither.”
“That is useful in a clerk,” Vale said, a little stiffly.
“Aye. Terrifying man with a slate.”
Alric rubbed at his face. “Good. That’s good. Congratulations on the guild.”
The carters nodded with real pride then. If they could, Alric suspected that kind of pride could raise banners. Alric understood the value of that more than he liked.
“Before winter properly hits,” Borsen said, “we’d like ta speak on spring too. Not today, not all of it. Just so it’s known.”
Alric nodded. “Go on.”
“We’re thinking oxen, not now,” Borsen added quickly. “Not winter. Don’t buy beasts in winter unless ya like feeding money and getting bones back. Spring, though. A few oxen for the uphill bits.”
One of the other carters grunted. “Some streets fight back.”
“Some streets win,” another said.
Borsen nodded. “And maybe a wagon with horses after. Proper one. Longer reach. We know you want beer down in the poorer runs, slums and such. Handcarts’ll do it but is a long push.”
Alric looked at Seren. Who nodded and made a note.
“Spring meeting,” Alric said.
“Aye,” Borsen said. “Spring meeting. Winter first.”
“Winter first,” Alric agreed.
Alric leaned forward.
“What can you actually do once the streets start freezing?”
The carters went quiet.
It was a good quiet. A working quiet. Not men waiting for someone important to speak, but men sorting through things they knew in their bones and deciding how much of it could be made into words for someone who did not spend his life behind a cart.
“Depends on the street,” Borsen said at last.
“I assumed that.”
“Nah, guv,” Borsen said. “Depends on the street.”
The others nodded.
“The main avenue is kept open.” Alric said.
“Mostly,” Borsen said nodding. “Palace road, bridge ways, main avenue. They’ll shovel those proper enough. Market Row too. Too much coin there. Too many stalls. Too many folk shouting if that freezes solid.”
“Baker’s Lane,” said the man with the blue scarf.
Alric looked at him.
“Bakers get cleared,” the man said, as if this was a law of nature. “Bread still moves. Folk forgive a lot in winter. Not no bread.”
“Baker’s Lane,” Seren repeated, writing it down.
Borsen pointed across the table, not at any map, but at the city that existed in his head. “South corner past the old cooper looks clear but turns slick. Drain runs wrong. Freezes thin first, then thick by morning. Man can stand there fine and still lose a cart when it shifts.”
“Don’t use Well Street after first hard freeze,” another added. “Looks good. Isn’t. Too much shade.”
“Square by the old shrine’s better,” said Blue Scarf. “Wind’s bad, but ground holds.”
“Wind’s worse near Tanner’s Cut,” Borsen said. “Cuts right through ya.”
The room became theirs. Alric recognised it after a moment and, wisely, shut up.
The carters argued streets without guesswork. They knew slope, stone, shade, drains, corners, walls, where water gathered, where horses slipped even though none of them had horses yet, where a man could brace his feet and where he could not. They knew the city. That was why they were at the table.
“Alright,” Alric said once the first wave of street names had begun to turn back on itself. “I can’t choose the route, you need to, main avenue, Market Row, Baker’s Lane, anywhere else you know is safe enough.”
The carters looked at him.
“What I want,” Alric said, “is collection points or something close to it.”
Borsen nodded slowly. “Thought that might be it.”
“No door-to-door for everyone. Not in winter. You set points where taverns and inns can come collect casks. If they want you to take something further, they pay extra but don’t risk it for a few copper.”
“Aye,” Borsen said nodding, his nod got a chorus of nods from the rest.
“At some point,” Alric added, “someone will call you lazy for not dragging beer through a street they would not walk down sober.”
Blue Scarf grinned.
Borsen scratched his jaw. “They’ll complain, guv.”
“Of course they will. Tavern keepers complain when beer arrives because then they have to sell it. They complained when I sold beer to the arena after they sold wine to the arena.”
That got a few laughs. Seren lowered her eyes to her tea.
Alric continued, “But if you can’t reach a collection point because the roads are blocked, iced over, or unsafe, then their customers cannot reach them either. Winter isn’t choosing sides. Let them complain. It doesn’t change the road.”
One of the carters repeated it under his breath. “Doesn’t change the road.”
“Aye,” Borsen said, and the phrase seemed to settle among them, finding a place to live. “That’ll do.”
There was a silence as the carters considered more questions.
“How often?” Borsen asked.
“I want to say every two weeks, but weather doesn’t play along,” Alric said.
The carters looked at each other.
“Not every day,” Alric said. “Not even close. You set a schedule. Inns and taverns know where to collect and when. If they need two weeks of beer, they take two weeks of beer. If they need more, they plan. If they fail to plan, that is not your emergency.”
Borsen leaned back, bench creaking beneath him.
Two weeks was not a small thing. Alric knew that. It meant larger orders, heavier days, more planning, more casks sitting where taverns would prefer not to have them but it also meant fewer men out in bad weather, fewer frozen hands, fewer carts stuck halfway along a road while someone shouted at the sky.
“Collection points,” Borsen said. “We’ll mark them proper. Main avenue for most. Market Row for them what sit near the trade. Baker’s Lane for the east side. Maybe the old shrine square if the wind ain’t murder.”
“Do you need fires?” Alric asked.
The carters perked up.
“Small ones,” Alric added immediately. “Braziers if we can get them. Nothing near rope, straw, wood or anything like that.”
Vale made a note. “We will need to check the city rules on public fires, we cant promise that one but we’ll look.”
Seren added, “He is right.”
The carters were already talking again, now about walls that blocked wind, overhangs, corners where smoke would be a nuisance, and which bakers might allow a brazier near their wall if paid in beer. They discussed the city as if it was a pedantic old relative. Annoying, familiar, occasionally cruel, but understood better by those who had spent years dealing with its moods.
By the time they stood to leave, Vale had two full sheets and the beginnings of a headache.
Borsen offered his hand.
Alric shook it.
“Spring meeting after thaw,” Borsen said. “Oxen. Wagon. Slums.”
“After thaw,” Alric agreed.
Borsen nodded and glanced at the others. “Right. Let’s go argue somewhere warmer.”
“You could argue here,” Alric said.
“Nah, guv. This is your warm.”
They left with the cold, their voices already rising outside as one of them insisted Market Row needed two points and another called him a soft-headed doorstop for thinking anyone would walk that far with a cask.
Alric watched them through the window.
“They look better,” he said quietly.
Seren glanced at him.
“The carters,” he said. “They look better.”
“Yes,” she said. “They earn more now.”
“And eat more,” Vale added, gathering his papers. “Borsen trusts his buttons more than his cart I suspect.”
Alric laughed despite himself. The laugh lasted long enough to make the room feel human again.
Later Mara, Hal, and Hesta arrived.
The second meeting smelled faintly of malt before anyone sat down. Alric took a deep breath of the scent. His feelings about the brewery were complicated but since the inspection with the captain, his love for it had returned.
Hesta entered last, wiping her hands on a cloth although she was wearing gloves.
“Sit,” Alric said gesturing to the chairs.
Mara sat. Hal sat beside her. Hesta took the chair opposite Vale and looked at the papers with immediate suspicion.
“We need to start moving toward lager.”
Mara frowned first. Hal looked at her, then at Alric. Hesta’s suspicion deepened into attention.
“Not all at once,” Alric said. “We still need ale. I’ll get the foamy casks ready for lager. I am not cutting anything off sharply. But winter is coming, and the cold gives us a chance to make the beer that wants cold.”
“I have heard of the winter beer, it is time?” Hesta asked.
That was why he liked Hesta. She skipped straight past wonder and into the part that could ruin schedules.
“It is, this one ferments slow,” Alric said. “Two to eight weeks, ideally,”
Mara looked toward the ceiling briefly, as if the building might produce extra casks if judged sternly enough.
“Eight weeks would be better,” Alric said. “Four weeks is probably what we can push at the very edge, because we do not have the cask, space or patience.”
“Beer does not care about our casks,” Mara said.
“No. Beer is often rude.”
Hesta tapped one finger against the table. “What changes?”
“Some of the process. It ferments colder and slower. Cleaner taste if done well. It should be excellent in winter if we manage it.”
“If,” Hal said.
“Yes,” Alric said. “If.”
There was comfort in saying it plainly. If was the honest word in brewing. Everything else was standing too close to a boiler.
Hesta folded her arms. “Won’t it freeze?”
“Yes, if it gets too cold.”
She nodded, satisfied with the answer’s shape.
“Lager wants cold,” Alric said. “It does not want to become beer ice. Cold, not frozen. So the fermentation building needs watching properly. We may just put a boiler in there, running with water, letting steam keep the worst of the cold off.”
Hesta accepted that with a small nod.
“If the boiler is too much,” Alric continued, “we use the heating stones. Set around the space. Carefully watched. We move casks depending on what the room does.”
Hesta nodded slowly processing.
That nod mattered. It was not agreement yet. It was the nod of someone building the work in her head and finding where the problems would hide.
“We will need checks,” Alric said. “Morning. Midday. Evening. Maybe late if the freeze is hard.”
Hesta leaned forward. “How do we know it is working?”
Alric paused.
That was the hard part. He could talk about flavour, fermentation, temperature, time, clarity, clean profiles, and a dozen other things that belonged in a world with thermometers, hydrometers, and notebooks full of numbers. Here, they had senses, experience, heating stones, and people who were learning faster than he had any right to expect.
“We learn,” he said. “First batches are watched closely. Smell. Sound. Foam. Taste. If a cask is wrong, we mark it. If one area of the room gives better beer, we mark that too. We won't get it right at the start, then it will get colder and we will change it all again.”
Mara smiled faintly. “That sounds like the first month again.”
“Yes,” Alric said smiling too. “But colder and with more paperwork.”
“No one deserves that,” Hal said.
Seren’s mouth twitched.
Alric looked to Mara. “I also need twenty casks for myself.”
That got everyone’s attention in a different way.
Mara’s eyebrows rose. “For yourself?”
“Yes. Good casks. Very good casks. Clean, tight, no old vinegar, no strange smells, no clever fixes, no ‘it only leaks when full’ nonsense.”
Hal’s expression suggested he knew exactly which cask Alric meant.
“I want to ferment and store them properly, here” Alric said. “Some will be gifts.”
Mara understood first. She sat a little straighter. “What sort of gifts?”
Alric looked at the table. “The king seems curious to everything we do, so...”
No one spoke for a moment. The fire shifted in the hearth, wood settling with a soft crack.
“Right,” Mara said.
Hal exhaled through his nose. “So boring casks.”
“Yes,” Alric said. “Exactly. Boring casks. I want no interesting casks near this.”
“Interesting casks are usually bad casks,” Hesta said.
“That is one of the truest things anyone has said in this building.”
Mara nodded, already somewhere else in her head, sorting inventory, people, storage, risk, and every cask that had ever annoyed her. “I’ll choose them.”
“Thank you.”
“The kings people also picked up the port pipe this morning,” Mara said.
Alric froze. He did not mean to. His body simply heard the words port pipe and decided movement was for happier men.
Mara’s expression became carefully innocent. Hal looked down. Seren took a sip of tea.
Vale looked up from his notes with far too much interest. Alric turned his head slowly toward the window.
“It arrived safely?” Vale asked looking up.
“I think so? They came with a big wagon to get it.” Mara said.
“Good.”
“It smelt good, there is still the other one.” Mara added.
“That is enough.”
Outside, the wind pushed against the headquarters windows and found no easy way in.