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. You don't want him."
Tika laughed and wiped her eyes on her arm. "That's true. But
Loriel's supposed to be my friend- what does he see in HERI"
"Ah." Now he understood. "Well, she's older than you."
"Only a little. A year isn't so much." She sniffed.
"Don't cry again." He added, to get a smile from her, "You'll
salt the ale." It almost worked. "You must be patient, like that
woman in the song. How did it go again?"
Tika looked wistful, forgetting her own sorrow. "It's about a man
who kisses his love good-bye and goes away forever, only she
doesn't know that, and waits for him until she's old and lonely and
she dies-"
"Birds sang where she died."
Tika sighed happily. "And all their songs were sad. Otik, am I
going to end like that? Do you think I'll end up living all alone,
with nobody to love or to live with, sleeping by myself and
making meals for one?"
Otik looked for a long time in the mirror at the long bar's end.
Finally he turned around. "Sometimes it happens. Surely not to
you, though. Now go, pretty young one, and get the last cask."
He scrubbed the tun hard, perhaps harder than it needed.
It was noon, but there were no spiced potatoes cooking, no
shouts for ale. Otik had hung a tankard upside down on the post at
the bottom steps, so that even the unlettered would know not to
climb up needlessly. Otik closed for every brewing, opening only
when the alewort was made
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