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My brothers do not understand my love of the quiet kitchen. I don't suppose they could, for as soon as they come in, quiet reigns no longer. But of an afternoon, when Mother and I are piemaking, and everyone else is out in the fields or the barns or the forge—why, I shouldn’t trade it for the most daring adventure novel.
I’d rather have a novel than our ceili today, though. Of course, the choice isn’t mine. I must (if I am to be cheerful, as Mother and Maitimo would have me be) divert my attentions to the joy of baking, even if all such baking is in preparation for a crowd of guests.
Athair believes that our little hamlet of farmsteads is insufficiently Irish. In late spring and early fall, he holds ceilis. Sometimes there is another at Christmas, if we don’t go to the city.
Athair doesn’t like people prying into our private business the rest of the year. He locks his forge up well, too—
These are the thoughts Caranthir does not write down. To keep a diary, as Macalaure does, would be too dangerous. He may have won the little corner room at the top of the stairs, but Curufin and the twins are not above poking about for other’s things.
Celegorm usually sets his sights on Macalaure’s writing. He is the only one who dares.
Caranthir writes his memories in his mind, and so forgets them.
“The strawberries have been slow this year,” Mother sighs. “I hate to think of having three of the five pies made with preserves rather than fresh, but so it must be!”
Caranthir shrugs his sympathy. He does not look up from his fluting; it is a painstaking task, and one error will ruin it.
“Almost June. And your father swore he does not mind that this celebration coincides with his birthday, but that’s just the sort of thing he’ll change his mind about afterwards.”
Caranthir raises both eyebrows. He cannot raise just one; that is Athair’s trick, and Maitimo’s, and Curufin’s. “You can remind him that the celebration was his idea.”
“Indeed I could.”
A pie with preserves is still quite delicious, and carries a lattice crust well. Caranthir takes up the slender knife and begins to dice his strips.
I hate dancing. I mean, I don’t mind it at all when Maitimo is showing me how to step a reel on the floor of the barn, with no one else in attendance. But ceilis are dreadful. There are so many people—and girls! Maitimo laughed when I told him that I don’t want to dance with a girl, and says that girls are very nice to hold. I asked what he meant by that and he said that they were soft. Then he winked.
The only girls I have ever danced with are my cousins, Aredhel and Artanis (just the once) and both were very poky and hard. I do not know what Maitimo is talking of.
“Sweet Mother of Our Lord, Caranthir, that’s a fine sheen you’ve got on the blueberry.”
“You can’t have any, yet,” Caranthir protests valiantly, trying hard to be unmoved by Maedhros’s most ingratiating grin. “It’s for tonight.”
“Maitimo,” Mother chides, unable to quite hide her amusement, “You oughtn’t to swear by Our Lady.”
“I was just calling her notice, mamaí. I’m sure she likes a pie as much as any of us.”
“You’re not dressed yet!”
“Running up to change now,” he assures her, plucking at his worn work-shirt. “I’ll be down in the proverbial two shakes.”
My head aches before we are through the first Siege. We dance before we eat, so the meal does not sit heavy—but all I can see before my eyes is pie.
Celegorm is clogging away in a corner alone, as if he has turned sailor. The twins have partnered together and look like red-topped cyclones. Maedhros, of course, is dancing with a rosy-cheeked girl who would never look twice at me.
I am flush-faced and foolish and I seem, in the moments that matter, to have two left feet.
“You looked like a scarecrow all evening,” Curufin tells him, his cheeks wreathed in grisly smears of pie. “Standing in the corner, scowling so the birds would be like to pick at you.”
“You look like a death’s head.”
“Caranthir.” Athair frowns. “Mind the dishes, son. Do not snap at your younger brothers.”
Caranthir feels his face flush even more fiercely. He plunges up to his elbows in the hot suds, and pretends that it is the steam only, making his eyes damp.
There are so many dishes. Celegorm is sweeping out the barn. The twins are abed. Where is Maglor, or cursed Curufin now?
“Caranthir,” Maedhros breathes, shutting the backdoor of the kitchen quietly behind him. “There you are. Ast, did they leave you to this all alone?”
Caranthir scrunches his brow, nods.
“No matter.” Very casually, Maedhros buttons his collar, smooths back his tousled hair. “Alright, then. I shall help you.”
Caranthir’s mouth falls open. A scarecrow again; he shuts it. “If you like.”
“I should like. You have done so much work this day, helping Mother with the baking.” Maedhros throws a dishrag over his shoulder and steps up to the basin. “Here, would you rather dry?”
Caranthir nods, a small thing, and then clears his throat.
“Maitimo?”
“Aye?”
“You—you have leaves in your hair.”
“Oh, mercy. I suppose I must.” Maedhros grimaces. “Be a dear, would you, and pluck them out? I thought I reached ‘em all.”
He half-crouches, somehow managing to wash a plate as he does, and Caranthir cautiously untangles the shreds of foliage and flowers that are hiding there.
“What were you doing?”
“Lost track of which end was up,” Maedhros answers, straightening. “It’s a damnable outcome of being so tall.”
I always thought that the kitchen quiet was something only Mother and I shared. Now, I see it is not so. Maitimo belongs there, too.