Chương 111: Chapter 108 - Wine Everywhere

The problem announced itself quietly. Alric noticed it not when he stepped into the brewery, but when he failed to step into it properly. There was a barrel where the step should have been. There were, in fact, barrels in several places where steps and walls used to be. He paused just inside the doorway, taking in the space which was impressive in the same way floods were impressive. Successful, expensive, and currently making him direct dark thoughts toward Moreen.

We could have prepared for this with just some notice. Damn merchant. Barrels lined the walls as if they had not also filled the gaps between those walls, extended into corners that had never previously contained anything bigger than a broom, and occupied a portion of the room that had once been empty Some had been stacked two high. That, in itself, was not unreasonable. The unreasonable part was where, and more specifically, what was beneath them. One stack leaned slightly where the floor dipped.

Another sat beneath a beam that had not been designed to carry weight, merely to look convincing. A third had been placed near the cellar ramp. The staff moved through it all with the careful sideways shuffle of people who had accepted that straight lines were no longer part of their lives.

"Mara," Alric said, after watching one man turn himself nearly perpendicular to the world to slip between two barrels. She appeared from somewhere behind a stack that had not been there yesterday.

"Yes?" He gestured, not at any specific barrel, but at the concept of them.

"This?" he asked. Mara followed his gesture, her expression calm.

"Yes," she said.

"The press?"

"Holding," she replied.

"Better than expected. The skins are still breaking cleanly; we're not losing much. The staff shifts are working."

"I see. And… space?"

"Uh…" she said, she glanced around the brewery warehouse and shrugged.

"We keep the space around the boilers clear." Alric nodded once, because 'uh' was both a fantastic answer and a terrible one, and because shouting would not create more space.

"How much more?" he asked keeping his voice controlled. Mara looked at him for a moment, Alric could tell she was trying phrase a number.

"Enough, we have done around thirty wagonloads." she said, eventually. He let out a breath through his nose, glancing again at the nearest stack. Thirty wagonloads. Wonderful. What, ten more?

"Right," he said.

"Right. So, nearly there?" Mara only shrugged. Alric shut his mouth before something unhelpful came out of it.

"We'll have to move some," he said.

"Inn cellar for now." Mara nodded, already halfway to issuing instructions before he had finished speaking.

"It'll hold," she said.

"For a while." Alric suspected that "for a while" was rapidly becoming the most dangerous phrase in her vocabulary. Alric had filled his item box with as many wine barrels as he could fit. He was currently in the inn cellar. It had surrendered too fast. A mere eight barrels. Alric stood there staring at the useless little hole in the ground. It had been built clearly to be something closer to a pantry than anything else. It had not lasted long. He headed for the inn's rooms, which collected a few more.

It wasn't long before every room had a few. Then came the common room, which was thankfully large. Alric stood at the entrance admiring the arrangement before remembering, he would need to do at least three more trips like this one. They were still waiting for Seren to find them a proper house, something large enough to hold both living space and the kind of operation that no longer fit comfortably inside anything described as "manageable."

Even when she did, there would be moving, clearing, tearing down, building up, decisions layered on decisions, all of which would take time. The wine, meanwhile, wouldn't wait. He saw Vale only briefly on his second trip, which was enough to establish that Vale had entered a phase best described as "accounting under duress." There were shadows under his eyes that suggested sleep had become an idea.

"Barrels?" Alric asked.

"Some," Vale said.

"More coming. Prices have improved for sellers, which is a remarkable coincidence given how badly we need them." Alric decided to borrow a line he had heard from Stromni, ""Amazing, a mystery for scholars."

"Two larger ones arrived," Vale added taken aback.

"Different type. I'll show you." He did not linger, because lingering implied spare time. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Alric watched him go, thinking, not for the first time, that the operation had outgrown any single person's ability to understand it fully. The tavern owners came first.

They arrived in ones and twos, polite enough to begin with, asking after the wine with the cautious tone of men inquiring about something they already intended to sell.

"When will it be ready?" one asked.

"It needs to age," Alric replied.

"How long?"

"Spring," he said, after a brief pause.

"If we're lucky. We probably won't be. And yes, it will be expensive, because apparently barrels, fruit, labour, storage, time, all cost money." He was not convinced they would be. The man frowned, doing the mental arithmetic of delayed profit and not liking it.

"And if we're not?"

"Later," Alric said. There was a silence, filled with the quiet disappointment of a plan that had not yet had time to become reality. Another asked whether a younger wine might be available, something sooner, something that could be moved quickly. Alric stared at him for a moment longer than politeness allowed.

"No." The man accepted that, reluctantly. The temple sent someone as well. The conversation began the same way. Availability, timelines, expectations, all conducted with the careful politeness of an institution accustomed to being agreed with. Alric gave the same answers, measured, controlled, and entirely non-committal beyond what he was willing to defend later. It was only afterwards, walking between the buildings with his two guards a step behind him, that the thought settled properly into place.

The temple would not take his beer but they wanted his wine. He stopped, abruptly enough that one of the guards nearly walked into him before correcting with professional urgency. He considered the various ways this could become a problem, most of which involved divine attention, theological curiosity, and the sort of involvement that began with interest and ended with expectations, paperwork, or both.

"No," he said, and it came out sharper than intended. One guard glanced at him. The guards did not ask. He resumed walking. He would not sell to them. Not because he disliked them. Partly because he disliked them. Mostly because he was tired of priests arriving with polite voices, divine implications, and the unspoken assumption that Alric would be reasonable about it. None of that was ever my damn problem. The two large barrels arrived that afternoon.

They came on a wagon that seemed offended by the arrangement, its wheels complaining under the weight, the horse taking each step with the careful dignity of something that intended to survive the experience. They were not barrels. They looked like something made under a dare. Large, wooden dares in favour of scale.

"What are they?" Alric asked.

"Port pipes," one of the men said. The word lodged somewhere behind his eyes. Port. He walked around one of them, hand resting briefly against the wood, feeling the thickness of it, the way it had been built for something that required both space and commitment. They had spirit. Strong, clean, and more than enough to interfere with fermentation in a decisive manner.

He thought about stopping fermentation early, about trapping sweetness in place, about turning excess into something refined, expensive, and dangerously appealing. He could make port. Or something close enough that no one would argue until after they had finished drinking it. He wondered, briefly, if it existed in this world. If it did, he might be replicating a known luxury. If it did not, he might be inventing one, which was always exciting right up until it required scaling.

Sherry crossed his mind, a half-remembered thought involving peculiar barrels and processes that sounded suspiciously impossible unless he could remember the particulars. He let that thought go. One dangerous idea at a time was sufficient, especially given that he was currently surrounded by several of them. The kitchen was quieter. It had not yet been claimed by barrels, which felt like an oversight that would be corrected.

Alric stood in front of the oven, watching the fire beneath it with the cautious attention of a man who had decided to trust heat again despite its many previous betrayals. Wooden bowls surrounded him, each holding dough at a slightly different stage, rising unevenly in the warm air like a collection of small, hopeful experiments. He had adjusted the yeast, the water, the timing. He was not entirely certain which variable mattered most, though he suspected the oven might have opinions.

The oven, however, was an unknown, and Alric was in exactly the wrong mood to discover this. He had built a fire under it best he could, following his instincts, neither of which had ever baked bread in anything other than a temperature-controlled convection oven. He wanted something simple. Soft bread. Something that did not require negotiation with one's teeth or a strategic approach.

He leaned forward slightly, peering into the heat, as if the fire might offer advice if observed long enough, which it did not, largely because fire had never been particularly interested in helping. He had considered selling yeast. The thought had come to him while watching the dough rise, the quiet efficiency of it, the way it transformed flour and water into something with structure and purpose, which was more than could be said for several other things he had attempted recently. Bakers would pay for this.

They would produce better bread. The city would improve in small, noticeable ways, particularly dentistry. He would make money. And then he would lose control of it. Yeast could be kept. Shared taken and used for brewing. Once it spread, it would not return to him, which was a problem because it was currently doing a great deal of work on his behalf.

His advantage would dissolve into the general population, becoming common knowledge, and with it, competition, imitation, and the inevitable decline of anything that had once been special. Seren found him there, surrounded by dough and the faint smell of burnt bread.

"You look, uh.." she said, pausing in the doorway, "New hobby m'lord?"

"I'm making bread," Alric replied with a deadpan expression, not looking at her. She stepped closer, eyeing the bowls, then the oven, then him, as if assembling a conclusion from incomplete evidence.

"You sure?" Alric let out a sigh and gave her a side long glance.

"You know, I didn't get the beer right immediately either." Seren's head recoiled slightly, He nodded, turning his attention to the first loaf as he pulled it from the oven with a cloth-wrapped hand, setting it down on the table.

"People like to forget that but somehow still question everything I do." He said studying out the loaf. It was dark. Darker than intended, and possibly darker than advisable. Seren lowered her eyes slightly.

"I apologize Mister Alric." To which he nodded. He cut into the dark loaf anyway, revealing an interior that, while uneven, was undeniably soft.

"There," he said, with quiet satisfaction.

"Inside, see? It's soft." Seren leaned slightly, examining it with the expression of someone assessing whether politeness required agreement or merely silence.

"It is," she said, carefully, "less burnt, but that's undercooked? It's still doughy?" He frowned, reaching for another loaf, this one paler. He cut into it. The knife met resistance, then sank into something that had was clearly still raw inside.

"This one needs more time, the oven was too hot. I'll figure it out." he said with a sigh. Alric set it aside, considering the next, which had risen unevenly, its shape suggesting it had briefly attempted escape. He cut into it, the inside was still raw.

"I found something," she added, after a moment of considering the new loaf, shifting the conversation with the ease of someone used to interrupting disasters with better ones.

"A building?"

"A better one," she said.

"An inn. Larger. Cleaner. It has space. It's on the main avenue, just inside Merchant's row." Alric's irritation paused, suspicious of good news. Alric felt his thoughts immediately begin to rearrange themselves, moving from bread to walls, from ovens to layouts, from failure to opportunity.

"How much space?"

"Enough for now I think, the cellar is big," she said, which, from her, carried the weight of both promise and warning. He nodded slowly, already thinking about moving furniture, clearing rooms, reinforcing what did, and turning it into something that could hold the operation without quietly collapsing in protest.

"We'll view it the day after tomorrow," she said. He glanced back at the bread, then at her.

"I can make that work," he said.

"You usually do." Seren replied, after a brief pause, she added "That is what concerns me." Alric shrugged.