Chapter 94: Tale 9, Ch 3: Vee the Brewer

It didn’t take long for Jess to reassemble the two buildings. In fact, she had only to spend a little over an hour using her White powers to place the planks and rafters once more into their positions. She actually found the act soothing. Quiet concentration spent gathering materials, placing them, forming them, directing her pen as if she were drawing the building into life.

The work was done in the early hours just before dawn. The Speakers had given her access to what Vee called a guesthouse, but the Prophet had only been able to get in a few hours of anxious sleep. She had thought to wake early and complete the work before the Speakers had risen for breakfast.

What she hadn’t expected was the reaction Vee and the other Speakers gave her.

“Not act. Thought of act,” Vee said as he hoisted a large container full of a heavy liquid.

“I don’t understand,” Jess replied. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Not wrong, but…” Vee struggled to speak as he huffed and tightened his grip on the large clay jug he attempted to keep still as he walked, the liquid making minute sloshing noises as he moved. The man took slow steps, his hands steady but looking nearly ready to drop the container as he carefully made his way across the lightly-dewed grass to the clay-roofed house Jess had spent the early morning rebuilding.

“Are you sure you don’t need my help?”

Vee didn’t reply till he’d arrived at the door to the building, setting the jug down and taking a rest. “Is fine. Jess help enough. Is Vee’s work.” Vee’s smile relaxed Jess but did not convince her of anything, as she theorized was its intent. The silent moment where Vee looked into Jess’s eyes apparently told him something. “Not need be upset, Jess. Thanks will not be given.”

“I didn’t rebuild these buildings for thanks, Vee.”

“Not fully. But was part of reason.”

Jess nearly blushed. As she turned away from Vee and looked at the Speakers, getting their breakfasts ready and heading out into the forest and fields with tools at the ready, she did wonder why none of them hadn’t even made a mention of the work she’d done for them.

“What is this building used for anyway?” Jess asked.

Vee’s smile was comforting and full of excitement. “Vee show you,” Vee said, and hefted the jug, kicking open the door as he made his way inside.

The smells of fresh timber and fire-scarred wood billowed from the interior of the clay-roofed cottage, mixed with a smell that brought Jess back to the winding wet streets of the cities of her Home nation.

“Is that…” Jess sniffed, twitching her nose with the stale, sweet, and singed odors as she walked into the room behind Vee. “Is that malted barley?”

Vee chuckled with proud delight as he set down his jug and walked over to a counter. Setting aside several metallic instruments and what looked like a glass measuring cup, the man took a burlap sack from its place among ceramic containers and untied the string that held it closed. He took a satisfying sniff of the sack’s contents before sticking a hand in and showing Jess a handful of what looked like exactly what Jess had smelled.

“Vee was malting this barley yesterday. Is what started fire. Come. Smell,” Vee said.

Jess stepped across the clean-swept stone floor, around the large table in the middle of the room, and allowed Vee to raise the barley to her nose. “It smells exquisite. So you started a fire malting them yesterday?” Jess asked.

“Vee was experimenting with new malting idea. It work. But also burnt brew house.”

“But it looks and smells intact. How did the barley survive the fire?”

Vee laughed as he re-tied the sack closed and set it back in its place. “Malt this good cannot be destroyed. Vee save malt so fire would not burn it. Because of this, Vee couldn’t stop fire from spreading.”

Jess couldn’t help but laugh. “You let your brewery burn because you wanted to save an ingredient?”

Vee locked hold of Jess’s eyes and said with very slow words, “Is very good malt.”

With a smile, he stepped around the Prophet and walked over to the brew house’s stove. It was a large brick fireplace, and had a scarred pit big enough to roast a pig in. Above this was an iron-forged stove with several plates and a few knobs and levers, instruments that allowed a primitive control of heat. With quick motions, Vee grabbed some timber and set to work starting a fire under the stove.

“If Jess want to stay with Speakers, Jess can help Vee make beer today,” Vee said as he took an ember out of a little stone box set in the fire pit and placed it underneath his timber. With a few steady blows, Vee got the timber alight and positioned it so he could start putting logs on top of it.

“Don’t you have someone else to help you?” Jess asked.

“Not learn about Speakers by talking to Speakers. Learn about Speakers by being with Speakers. Vee only Speaker who need help right now so Jess should help Vee.”

“You mean you’re the only one who will let me near them.”

Vee laughed at the statement as he closed the wide, creaking iron door in front of the fire pit and allowed the flames to slowly build and heat his stove. “Is hard to trick Prophet with words. Vee not used to using words for talk,” the man said as he went to the table and began assembling his ingredients. Then he carefully set a large copper stock pot over the fire.

“It’s alright,” Jess said. “Prophets don’t usually get good receptions with Speakers.”

“Why is this, Jess think?” Vee set to work pouring water into a jug from a nearby spigot. After several pumps, he poured the jug into the pot, and slowly filled it.

“Because we’ve tried to recruit Speakers in the past.” Jess sighed as she thought back to all those many attempts. “We can be a little stubborn. Prophets don’t like to be told no.”

“For very long time Speakers were like prize to Prophets. That was why Speakers don’t trust Jess. But Vee not mind. Vee must show he is leader of Speakers and has to do work other Speakers not want do.” While the water-filled pot steamed, Vee used a ceramic bowl to scoop heaps of barley into a well-worn container etched at various levels. When the barley reached the level Vee wanted, he leaned in close, removing and adding a few grains to get a perfect amount.

“Do you mean to say that you don’t want me here?”

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“Vee is Speaker. Vee can only speak truth. Is not possible to hide meaning behind words. Feeling comes out in truth and feeling is always there, never hidden.”

“So you don’t mind that I’m here,” Jess said, feeling relieved.

Vee appeared satisfied with the level of malted barley in the container, and slowly began pouring it into the steaming pot. “Now why Jess have to ask this question. Jess knew answer. Jess knew answer by way Vee feel to Jess.”

“I guess. I’m not sure.”

“Jess and Vee both human, not horse and cow but bird and bird. Vee just sing with different voice.” Jess could tell without being told that Vee was proud of his impromptu words of wisdom. He stopped his pouring now and again to slowly stir the contents, the malted barley forming a sort of thick porridge that smelled divine.

Jess, always a fan of poetry, wondered at the notion of birds and singing as Vee checked on his fire. “Amazing that you can use metaphor so easily. Can you speak that way using empathy?” Jess asked.

“Empathy is not power like Prophets have,” Vee said, his face bathed in the red glow of the growing fire as he opened the pit’s door and peered in. He took an iron poker and sifted around in the fire before adding a few more logs. “Everyone have empathy. Every word have feeling behind it. Without this, words just noise. Speakers simply cut noise and focus on feeling. No difference in how Speakers talk. So yes, metaphor very easy for Speakers. Very powerful also.”

“I’d like to know how to say what you said using your empathic communication.”

Hunched down in front of the fire, Vee closed the door to the pit with a light creak then stared up at the Prophet. His face had a blank expression that seemed to shift and twitch as he stared up at her like he was examining the stars. “There. Vee say it.” The man wiped his hands of the soot and stood up, heading over to a wall with many more pots and pans hanging, and fallen, from prongs.

“That’s it? What you did right there was say to me… ‘We’re both human, not horse and cow but bird and bird?”

“Yes. A very good feeling behind the message.”

“But I didn’t feel anything.”

Vee sniffed the thick contents of the steaming copper pot. “No.” He fiddled with the knobs to get the water to a proper temperature. “Vee not expect Jess to understand.”

Jess sighed.

Hearing Jess’s obvious frustration made Vee laugh as he gave the thick contents of the pot another careful stir. “Not worry, Jess,” he said as he sniffed again, nodding with satisfaction. “No one able to learn Speaker talk. Even Mother-dwellers only grow little in their empathy when they find Speakers. And no Prophet not from Mother ever learn empathy at all. Vee laugh to know Jess want learn.”

Jess bit her lip, curious and annoyed that the man had read the question on her mind without her even saying it.

“Is not that kind of laugh, Jess,” Vee said. “Is happy laugh. Vee not insult. Vee laugh with happy to know Jess want learn.”

Although this statement did make her feel better, Jess was still a little annoyed that Vee could so easily see right through her, the woman who had negotiated treaties and confrontations with men far more frightening than this pudgy, leather apron-wearing man.

Hoping to change the subject and allow her to regroup her emotional control, Jess asked, “Why do they call you Speakers in the first place?”

“Okay, Jess. Vee not pry. Speakers called Speakers because others on Mother call Speakers Speakers. Others say when others meet Speakers, Speakers always talk, never stop with feeling and talking through feeling. Speakers always speak. Excuse Vee if confusing. Such things easier to say without words getting in way.”

“I understand.”

“Jess understand. But Jess not need understand. Jess come to Mother not to learn how to speak like Speakers. Jess come to find something.”

“I did now? So what is it I’m looking for?”

Vee didn’t say anything for a while as he stared at the darkening liquid in the pot. “Vee not know what is. Jess either good at hiding this, or Jess not know either. All Vee know is Jess come to Mother to find something.” The man smiled at the Prophet, who was a little disappointed Vee hadn’t come up with an answer. “Vee hope to help find Jess what Jess look for, whatever that be. Here, stir mash.”

Vee held out a long-handled spoon toward Jess, smiling as he waited for the Prophet to take the tool. “I’ve never made beer before, Vee,” Jess said.

Vee smiled even broader. “Prophet can build house in hours with little shiny pen. Should not be hard for Prophet to stir pot of mash.”

Jess expected Vee to laugh at her after such a statement. But there was something about Vee’s tone that made her understand he was trying to be as good-natured and friendly as possible.

Smiling back, Jess took the spoon and slowly stirred the mash, turning the warm water and grains end over end till it was properly mixed.

Roughly an hour later, after Vee had assembled several other ingredients and cleaned off some of his tools, the Speaker took a spoonful of the brown liquid and did something that made no sense at all. He poured a bit of it onto his leather apron, and then smacked the apron against his wooden table. When he pulled it back with a loud smacking sound, he nodded with triumphal satisfaction and proclaimed that the mash had been heated long enough.

“What did you just do?” Jess asked.

“Must get sugar out of barley. Sugar sticky, so when liquid has enough sugar in it, it sticky. Is now not liquid, is now wort,” Vee explained.

“Wort?”

“Is name for beer that is not beer,” Vee explained as he walked over to the other side of the brew-house and took a thick blanket off a large kettle with a spigot at the bottom. “Beer only beer when ferment with yeast.”

“So why is it called wort?” Jess asked

Vee shrugged as he bent down and got a grip on the thick handles of the enormous copper pot. “Vee not know. Word feel different when Speakers feel it. Maybe Prophets should change word wort to better word.”

Grunting and lifting with his legs with what appeared to be all his possible strength, Vee hoisted the large metal pot and slowly started walking toward the kettle with the spout. With every short step it looked like the pudgy man would either keel over backwards or drop the sloshing pot on his foot.

“I can help you with that, you know.” Jess extended her wrist and prepared to use her power to lift the pot out of Vee’s hands and onto the stove.

“No, no!” Vee nearly choked on his words as he strained, violently shaking his head as he made his way to the kettle.

“Please. You’ll hurt yourself.” Jess’s pen glowed on its clip at her wrist, her power a flick of thought away from saving Vee from the effort he was needlessly exerting.

“No.” With one final grunt, Vee heaved the pot over the top of the kettle. The porridge-like contents sloshed and bubbled inside, and Vee hurried to rinse out the pot and place it beneath the kettle’s spout. That done, he fetched a second, smaller pot, filled it with water from the spigot, and heated it on the stove.

Pausing a moment to smile at Jess, Vee opened the spout and dark, steaming liquid poured out and into the waiting copper pot. “Filter inside kettle. Separate mash. Now is all wort,” Vee said, and shut the spout. “Now need more water. Wash all the sugar off grains and into pot.”

Vee did this over the course of several minutes, pouring and stopping and pouring until the pot was full, this time only with the heavenly brown liquid.

Vee bent his knees and once more lifted the pot with all his might, heading back to the stove. It sounded like the iron and copper pieces would shatter when the full kettle crashed on top of the stove. Vee breathed deeply from the exertion and leaned against the stove as he adjusted the temperature, removing the heavy lid from the pot full of clear creek water. His task done, Vee pressed his fists at the small of his back and leaned backward, sighing with the satisfaction from half a dozen pops along his spine.

“Why couldn’t you let me do that?” Jess asked, her pen dimming as she crossed her arms over her chest. “You said you wanted my help.”

“Is not about help and not help,” Vee explained as he added more logs to the fire, sniffing lovingly at the sweet smells wafting off the steaming pot. “Is about Vee make beer. Jess help Vee. But Vee still make.”

“Is it that much different for me to stir your mash than to lift your gigantic pot?”

“Is different for Vee.” Popping his back once more, Vee walked around the Prophet as he collected some more fuel. “Vee cannot explain, save say Vee feel Vee need to take pot to stove in order for to be Vee’s beer.”

It was the first time Jess could tell without a doubt that the Speaker was anything but happy. She realized that offering to help in the seemingly meaningless task of setting the massive kettle on the stove must have offended the man. As he threw more logs into the fire and turned the heat on as high as it could go, Jess worried she might not be able to restore the man’s former pleasure.

Her worries were needless, however, as after a few minutes of boiling his wort and dancing around the brew house to toss in his flowery-smelling ingredients, Vee was once again in high spirits.

“It smells nice,” Jess said as she leaned over and sniffed the rolling contents of the copper kettle.

“Is new recipe,” Vee said.

“Do you change your recipes often?”

“Vee try many recipes.” Vee laughed as he patted his wide belly, illustrating where a good portion of his experimental beers went. As he shook with his exaggerated laughter, Jess saw a bone-tipped handle slip from underneath his shirt and down near his belt.

“Vee.” Jess took a step toward the man and pointed at the handle attached to a leather pouch on his belt, previously hidden behind the cloth of his shirt. “Is that a weapon?”