The Brotherhood of the Taste and Must
.oOo.
The people from the Greenway are a bit weird. At Bree as well as at the Drunken Goose, they recount tales, write verses and sing in languages they constantly reinvent. Their strange mania, driven by a desire for who knows what, evoke the scents of a forgotten era and tell us of the world under a more ardent light.
.oOo.
Bree, on a fair day ...
Fellow Keenbeak and Cousin Pathlin were going off together to peck at a few glasses. Arm in arm in the streets of the old town, the friends enjoyed life, food and puns. The mood was frisky and the season propitious. The fair was going well, displaying its delights in the fair town of Bree.
Craftsmen praised their leathers, fabrics, pottery or wood stuff. Everyone went about their business, if possible juicy. A dwarf from the blue mountains was sharpening scythes, hitched to his grinding bench, in a deafening lament. Hillmen from the South, proudly sporting tartans, exchanged their large sacks of coal. Wheat merchants from the Gwathlo river rubbed shoulders with local market gardeners and competed in a feasting atmosphere.
The notary Nestegg, eminent alderman assisted by the guards of the door, watched over the weights and measures, collected the royalties and regulated the disputes between the shop-keepers. A motley crowd gathered in front of the stalls and feasted on the fair dishes that smelled so good under the canopies. Farmers had their pies and confectionery tasted. Lads and girls exchanged glances in front of the stalls, heavy with food. Travelers and locals mingled happily, sharing news from the wider world.
Cow-herds negotiated, leaning with emigrants from Dunland, shouting at their acquaintances who roamed the muddy streets. Some Shire Hobbits were cautiously wandering among the crowd, driving a pair of oxen or geese for sale at the cattle market. Sometimes you met one of the rangers, a taciturn warrior dressed in worn leather, at the arm of a Lady with a royal bearing under her linen scarf.
As a native, Keenbeak gave the owner's grand tour, instructing his "cousin from the countryside" about the metropolis' customs on busy days.
Oh, Pathlin did not live far away - he was a farm hand just north of Chetwood. But he rarely came to town, to stare with his down-to-earth gaze.
Keenbeak himself lived in "the capital", Bree itself. This dilettante, descended from some knight, had put away his ancestors' rapier and lent his pen in the service of Master Nestegg. A little clerk, a little copyist, a little public writer, Keenbeak happened to write madrigals for pretenders in search of inspiration.
Thus, while delaying his own indefinitely, he boasted of having concluded some prestigious unions, and felt intimate with many well-known characters in Breeland.
The fellows, townspeople and country folk, wandered through the alleys all afternoon, under a rather mild autumn sun. They were finishing a hot porridge at the end of the main street, in front of the old stables of the coaching inn, when they realized that the night was beginning to fall. Going up Main Street, they met the merchants repacking the fair reliefs.
The onlookers were dispersing, returning to the hamlets of Staddel, Archet or Combe, while the visitors made their way to their inns or guesthouses.
Pathlin and Keenbeak, stunned by their day, watched the Dunlendings pull their carts by hand, while the doorkeepers were picking up the latecomers who were dismantling their tents.
By dusk, the streets of Bree had emptied, making the village look very quiet. Blazed by the glow of the setting sun, swirls of smoke rose from the cottages, which seemed to curl up on themselves in the night cold.
- "Ah, well, that's just the same as at the farm!" Pathlin told, half disillusioned, half teasing. In the city people get to work when chickens!1
Upset, his cousin Keenbeak had to agree that the streets had got somehow sparse because of the autumn evening freshness. But it cost him such a glorious day would end up so sadly. The fair town, hectic and animated, had once again shrinked to a chilly and routine village.
- Come on to the Prancing Pony, he tried.
- Well, we've been there before! Pathlin refused, remembering the cranial impulses that had followed his bender the night before.
The cousins were preparing to return to the city dweller's room... when Keenbeak had an illumination!
.oOo.
Two furtive silhouettes were walking down the alley. On the look-out, the taller one progressed with the elastic and cautious step of an aristocrat lost in the slums. At each suspicious noise rising in the night, he waved his lantern to pierce the mist. The most paunchy of the two followed, hobbling along with the quiet pace of a peasant in the middle of his fields.
The friends roamed the street, lined with the stalls of humble craftsmen. The common people had piled up there, in the lower town sheltered by the palisade, mingling over the centuries, their modest cottages with the ruins of the royal buildings and the old workshops.
Suddenly a watchdog's mouth roared at a hole in a doorway, barely missing, to snatch Keenbeak's calf. A solid hobbit appeared at the bull's eye, inspecting the street, a candlestick in his hand.
"Good evening, Master Degriper!" Said Keenbeak playfully, trying to surpass the furious barking.
The round shutter closed in indistinct grumblings. The Breelander's jovial cordiality was matched only by his mistrust at nightfall. The dark legends from the Greenway and the Barrow-downs had a hard life ...
The alley widened. Pitchy forks sprang up in the mist. The oak beams had disappeared long ago; only a dozen sinister moss-eaten stone columns remained, posthumous proof of the town lord's power. Disturbed, the tawny pierced the night with its ghostly call, before leaving the master pillar with a wings rustle.
Pathlin shuddered as he was passing under the gallows, standing in the middle of a vast square, as if the surrounding hovels shunned these cursed pillars. The old court was erected next to it, entrenched behind the spearheads of its austere portal. The sculptured figures of severe rachimburgs, draped in their old-fashioned robes, supported its pediment with their worn bundles.
.oOo.
Keenbeak, after many conspiratorial looks, pushed the gate, which opened with an unpleasant squeak. He made a felicitous step under the magistrates' procession, along an imposing vault, where echoed Pathlin's glib clogs.
At the end of the corridor - how many convicts had left the place by that dismal gut? - Keenbeak braced himself on the door, to no avail. Pathlin untied it with a well-fitted shoulder shove.
Then the accomplices slipped into the sanctuary and pushed the door back. The marbles of the front hall sent a solemn snap for a long time, as if ushers whispered to each other, the arrival of eminent persons.
Keenbeak raised his lantern; fading golds lit for a moment on the lintels stuccoes. Pathlin stepped forward, more impressed than he admitted, by the imposing ceiling height and the grand rectitude of the colonnades.
Yet furniture was piled up in a corner, covered with cobwebs. High screens, a little mothballed, huddled between the columns, depicted hitherto scenes of exotic shores or familiar countryside. Large trunks were full of motley accessories.
Fooling around in this junk, Pathlin discovered mobile wardrobes, past dresses of theater princesses and flashy outfits of operetta knights, were wisely waiting, in their lavender-scented covers.
Keenbeak commented with the detachment of some jaded city dweller:
- ... Oh, these are just the pieces and sets of some theater companies that finish their tour in the city!
In fact, the last traveling company had perished, bodies and souls lost at a foggy night in the maze of the Barrow-downs. The troop's luggage, found disemboweled on the road in the early morning, had ended in the old court, where it sometimes served during the summer festivities.
But Keenbeak continued his peroration:
- What an irony, isn't it? There is only one step, from the magistrate's toga, to the comedian's disguise! After all, the judicial ritual stages its authority, just as the dramatic scene exerts an authentic incantatory power ...
The farmhand no longer listened to Keenbeak's learned ramblings. The cousin's practical instinct had drawn him farther, to the lights flickering up there.
.oOo.
Pathlin walked to the courtroom, which was rustling with muffled conversations.
Some braseros, purring with logs, bathed in soft heat and changing ochers, the little room's paneling. Facing a platform, a few rows of wooden benches were crowded with little people and big folk, all wearing a strange multicolored cap. On the pulpit sat some imposing figures in gowns and caps, who gesticulated less than the others, but whispered with a more mysterious and solemn air.
Motley groups occupied the spans and debated about so-and-so candidacy, outraged about so-and-so's statements, the merits of a third, and gloating about the common preferences or the aspirations of the left-out. The serious and inspired look, and the convinced tone of the protagonists suggested that some momentous decision depended on the outcome of these deliberations. Yet the groups often punctuated their debates in a low voice, furtive libations and discreet snacks.
When Pathlin entered with his good-natured look into the warm, cozy little room, the rows turned to him in an inquisitive silence.
Keenbeak, who had swiftly adorned the audience's regular dress, rushed to his cousin's side and took the intruder by the shoulder with a protective air.
The hubbub resumed slowly, with the newfound indifference of the courtroom's occupants.
.oOo.
Our friends sat in a corner, Keenbeak was draped in his satisfied air - after all, did he not just avoid a major diplomatic crisis? - and Pathlin had the desire to laugh:
- What's all this mess?
Keenbeak waited greedily for the question:
- "My Cousin, this is the Extraordinary Council of the Merry Knights of the Taste-Must!," he said with emphasis and enthusiasm.
- The knights of Must Taste! Pathlin whispered with a mocking, sullen pout...
- Absolutely! I'm a permanent honorary member, after... many services rendered..., Keenbeak added with a pinch.
Pathlin saw the truculent trowel of a ruffian he was acquainted with, who wore toga and cap like the rest of the assembly.
- "Ah well, this one's not a knight, I counter-swear that! It's the boyfriend of my wife's young cousin! He is a lumberjack in Chet wood. Horses, he makes them drag the trunks, not charge the enemy!
- Dear Cousin! The Merry Knights of the Taste-Must are no military order! Our friend Smashrod is one of our most faithful butler, providing for the supply of the throats of our councils.
The subject was beginning to interest cousin Pathlin. The Merry Knights Guild showed a certain sense in appointing Smashrod, a colossus, to tranship beer and wine casks. Obviously, Smashrod had to take some of the contents to make himself fit to carry the container. Indeed this charge doubly deserved consideration...
.oOo.
Some attendants brought baskets and trays, that joined the flaccsids and barrels, abounding on the tables at the foot of the platform. Everybody casually helped oneself, but without jostling. Keenbeak grabbed two pints:
- Ah! Here are the panetier and his tabellions! The debates are to begin!
- What debates do you mean?
- Well! The grand business of our brotherhood is to support the cultural richness of our beloved city of Bree.
- ...?
Pathlin 's awe and bewildered look prompted Keenbeak to rephrase:
- The Merry Knights love music, comedies and tragedies, fine arts, quality products, ...
- ... and great meals, I got it, finished Pathlin with a smirk.
- Real foods satiate the spirit! Keenbeak retorted, with a meat pie in his hand and his mug in the other.
- Indeed! Pathlin replied, emptying his. But then, what of these debates?
- The council decides which cultural activity should be supported and encouraged. The most promising are first presented here.
Pathlin did not clearly discern what a cultural activity might be. Of course he had attended a few rural plays and dances on the trestles at the spring fair. But the present assembly, even if it included good food, adorned itself with very mysterious rites.
The platform was full now and the session seemed about to begin. The aldermen - the dignitaries of the brotherhood - had risen. All wore a striped toga of bright colors that recalled the cap.
The dean alderwoman, an elderly hobbit perched on a raised chair, smiled at the assembly with a benevolent maternal air, but her sagacious gaze missed no sign of mistrust, boredom, or misunderstanding in the audience. Beside her, the notary Nestegg, whose bald head was not comfortable with the small multicolored cap, was flicking through a thick leather cartulary, frowning his thick eyebrows. On their right, a tall, playful woman trimmed her pen with an air of application, often adjusting her cap with a coquettish air.
Other dignitaries completed the table, not without filling it with plates and timbales. Finally, a tall man came to sit down at the end of the platform, looking patient and decided like a merchant coming to negotiate some business.
- "Oh, this one I know," Pathlin whispered, "He's Master Granmalter. He buys barley and hops at the farm.
- He is one of the delicacies providers of our guild. We value the high quality of Bree productions.
"So he's also an Alderman," Pathlin whispered admiringly.
- Not exactly! Master Granmalter is only seneschal in the hierarchy of our brotherhood. He can only oppose the proposals of the aldermen, provided that he has beforehand gathered a significant motion...
Poor Pathlin's Head was turning:
- Oh ! But how is that we may recognize seneschals and aldermen?
- It's very simple, cousin! The color!
- The color of the cap?
- Nay! The color of the nose! Rose for the knights, Red for the seneschals, Violet for the aldermen!
Pathlin was beginning to glimpse the logic in these hierarchical subtleties. Indeed the aldermen and women sported with a beautiful set, a crimson nasal gradient of the most beautiful effect.
.oOo.
The president simultaneously began the agenda and a good share of pie:
- My dear friends ! - Scrunch - I declare open the one-and-a-half plenary diet2 - Yum - of the Merry Knighthood of Taste-Must! Mmm! May our taste buds and our minds – crunch - never fall asleep! I wish the upcoming brewing is as rich as for the previous winter, and accompanies the finest entertainment! - Slurp, slurp, slurp, licking fingers, not to lose even a crumb - Before submitting to your sagacity, the fruit of the consistory's thinking, we shall begin to read our comput, that Master Nestegg here, had the kindness to proceed for us ...
A good sweep brought down this hearty introduction.
Bowing obsequiously, the notary put on his glasses and started with the content of the accounts - a long, slow, meticulous, exhaustive, superfluous, punctilious and horrifying reading through of detailed expenses and recipes, punctuated from time to time, by laborious deglutitions of water! The last straw! The audience sank into a lamentable lethargy. Only the merchant Granmalter, impassive, seemed to follow attentively the diligent arithmetic unpacking.
After the third methodological digression - which concerned an astute surplus value on acres planted with grenache - the president felt that the cooking of the room was coming to an end. She interrupted the notary on a somewhat technical exchange rate and launched:
- Dear Master Nestegg! Your reputation for accuracy is second to none! How about preserving your saliva to expose your conclusions?
As luck would have it, a roast boar's head made its entrance, all steaming on its bed of fricasseed onions and mushrooms from Chet's wood.
- "That's our notary's sin" whispered Keenbeak to his cousin.
And indeed, the alderman quickly dealt with the conclusions, skimmed through the usual reservations about the comput's sincerity, and conceded his discharge while inhaling the roast's smell. When a hanap of vermilion wine came to sublimate with its promising reflections, the venison cut just in front of him, the worthy magistrate abandoned all restraint and sat down... definitely.
Pathlin winked at his cousin who nodded:
Happens there were many things to forgive in the comput of the Merry Knights?
But the Dean changed the subject as quickly as possible:
- I now give the floor to our Constable of High Causes.
The young woman who had hitherto devoted herself to recording the minutes of the proceedings, raised a sad face towards the audience, like a skilfully composed theater mask:
- Merry Knights! We must now evoke a painful loss! One of us, who we considered our brother, a promising author with a happy and alert style, has left us!
- Is someone dead? Pathlin asked as an aside.
- No! Keenbeak whispered. But our favorite author, Master Vessaim, let himself be seduced by a competing institution!
- Ah well, I know this one too, he's the blacksmith!
- Yes indeed, replied Keenbeak laughing, and he is also a Marshal in our brotherhood!
The capped passionaria continued, effigy of pain declaiming with histrionics:
- The henchmen of mercantile art have bribed our muses!
The merchant Granmalter frowned. Perhaps he did not appreciate the hara on the financial motivations of sponsorship.
But the harangue continued, warming the room progressively:
- The Companions of the Fine Gullet – Shame on their name! - let loosely gleam vain artifices! Let us refuse these unjust maneuvers, etc.
The Dean, ambushed on her high chair, examined the room from under her half-closed eyelids. When the latent indignation began to express itself in the form of jeers and imprecations against the Companions of the Fine Gullet, she spoke:
- Merry Knights! You fully measure the threat, I can see it. Our consistory, after much debate, has decided to undertake a reform to meet the peril! We are listening to you !
.oOo.
here were a few seconds of daze.
The Knights looked at each other, dismayed and a little ashamed. It was painful to be so snatched from the comfort and the wait-and-see attitude of the spectator. The Dean called for them, quizzing them directly!
While the room buzzed with worried rumors, Keenbeak enjoyed himself a lot and commented with relish the initiatives, timid, courageous or absurd, which bloomed here and there, as well as the reactions that one could observe on the benches of the former court. The session was launched and seemed already sinking into chaos.
- But why did she do that, the Dean?
- You see, my cousin, it is very difficult to weave between interests and to cope with the inclinations of so many knights. The consistory is easily criticized, especially when only they do act. The Dean alderwoman is particularly targeted, despite her great age and her eminent sagacity...
The creased forehead of astute Pathlin testified to the intense reflection that agitated his mind:
- Oh, so she lets them wade into the tank, before getting them out? She did that on purpose?
- It's possible! Do not worry! It will not be long before we perceive the meaning of the manoeuvres under this apparent disorder! Would all this mess left to chance? I hardly believe it... Anyway, some tenor of the consistory would pretend to be the instigator!
- But what about do they criticise the Dean?
- On everything and its opposite! For example :
When she speaks, she monopolizes the attention, but when she gives in, she gets rid of it!
When she calls for calm, she abuses her power, but when she encourages debate, she lacks authority!
When she is rigorous, she takes herself seriously, but when she is debonair, she is not up to the height!
When she exposes her ideas, she imposes them, but by proposing choices, she is indecisive!
Bold, she is accused of imprudence, but cautious, she is judged incapable!
- Oh well, I see that! This is nothing but lazy slap-mouth! 3 The hen that pecks and cocks the most is never the one that lays the biggest egg!
The cousins exchanged a knowing glance. The deliberations of the city seemed to have nothing to envy, comparing with the gossip of the farm...
But the assembly began to turn sour. A histrion had stood on his spurs, demanding to reshape the rule of the Knights, arguing that a stricter selection of postulants, would guarantee a flawless fidelity.
Immediately a fanatic cut him off, calling on the audacious to justify his own motivation and the services he had rendered. Several protagonists responded at the same time and in the same tone, and the assembly sank into a frightful confusion.
The most recently armed knights felt threatened. The oldest, shaken in their habits, made themselves the defenders of tradition. Those members who only frequented the brotherhood to escape the daily routine or a cumbersome spouse, felt that the deep purpose of the association might escape them. A hustle and bustle settled around the room like a fabulous beast with multicolored bonnets on its back, whose monstrous spine shook itself, rocking in turn the rows, the platform and the aisles of the hearing room.
The Dean Alderwoman was wrestling with her little mallet - a vestige of the ancient tribunal - striking vainly the worm-eaten oak of the office. The Seneschal and the Treasurer looked at each other with a gloomy air. The least tabellion had a say. Soon two clans clashed, opposing the tribunes of art and fine studies, to the supporters of saucy feasting and songs.
This disorder impressed Pathlin, much more than the hectic activity of the market during the day - the city revealed here its true nature, complex and multiple, rich in traditions but constantly recomposing the priorities of its factions, in unstable balances of power. Keenbeak, who was greatly amused by these good fights, admitted that this time the Consistory maneuvers might not have the desired result. He remained confident, however, and remarked that the emotion of the belligerents prevented none of them, to make honor to pies and pints.
And Pathlin thought that these quarrels seemed almost an inherent part of the rituals of the brotherhood, as if the knights fund pleasure in such a fight... A bit like the incessant bickering of his masters, at the farm, whose couple inevitably enamelled the evenings...
.oOo.
Keenbeak was right. It was precisely when the consumables ran out, that the knights felt the need to bring some order to the debates. Spontaneously, they regrouped into factions to sharpen their arguments, like spears under the banner of a spokesman, and cast suspicious glances at the protest group of the neighboring bay.
Pathlin leaned toward his cousin:
- Last fair, I saw a little farce with the fine team of the farm Grovey. We found that pleasant, with my wife. But would it be even funnyer if we had a competition? And it made me think that Master Vessaim the blacksmith is an impulsive, who cannot resist a challenge of any kind or a beautiful audience. You only have to tell him that the best wins... What do you think, cousin?
Keenbeak considered for a moment his astute friend:
- Wait for me there, cousin! I think you passed your admission test hands down!
With a flexible and decided step, Keenbeak reached the platform and slipped behind the aldermen. He had a long talk with the dean, in a low voice. A joyous spark of mischief shone for a moment on the eye of the old Hobbit, who nodded cautiously. The poet stepped on the platform, clearing his throat and winking at his cousin.
- Oyez, Merry Knights! Oyez!
.oOo.
NOTES
1 It's like at farm, people go to bed at the same time as chickens! (at dusk)
2 The reader will undoubtedly appreciate this involuntary pun.
3 It is only idle talk.