Chapter 17

Teyla had rarely seen Elizabeth in so light-hearted a mood. She had given an "Oh!" of delight when she had entered the room they were to share, which was Teyla's former room, with the addition of an extra bed. Elizabeth had exclaimed over the little window seat (not commenting on the draught), and been delighted with the rose-patterned china on the wash-stand, not caring, or not realising, that this was it, in terms of washing facilities. It crossed Teyla's mind that Elizabeth might also be delighted with, or at least amused by the pottery helgs in bonnets on the parlour mantelpiece. With this in mind, she said, "Come, I will show you the parlour," and they went downstairs.

It was not, initially, the bonneted helgs that delighted both Teyla and Elizabeth, however, but the sight of John, entirely relaxed, sprawling in a many-cushioned chair, a large baby sitting on his lap, noisily blowing spit-bubbles, and a very small boy sitting at his feet, playing with his boot laces. A heavily pregnant woman sat opposite him, working on a sad-coloured piece of knitting. John looked up as they entered and smiled self-consciously. Teyla did not understand how or why he managed to look embarrassed to the point of guilt; if he were an Athosian man he would almost certainly be the father of a growing family by now. This thought gave Teyla a slight chill; perhaps it would be her lot, as well as his, to fight for the right of others to have a peaceful family life, but never experience one themselves. She shook off the feeling and introduced Elizabeth to Grella.

oOo

When they had entered the parlour, Elizabeth had had to exercise all of her considerable powers of diplomatic restraint in order not to smile and coo and indulge in sundry other sentimental sounds and exclamations wholly inappropriate to a woman of her position and standing. The scene was, however, and she would only use the word in the privacy of her own mind, adorable. John, looking comically flustered, had clearly been engaged in a mutually intelligible conversation with Ellet and, judging by the trail of drool that he was surreptitiously wiping from his chin, he had been a full and active participant. The baby suffered from no such embarrassed qualms and continued to burble noisily, while Teyla introduced Grella, who Elizabeth remembered speaking to over the comms.

"What beautiful children!" Elizabeth commented, sitting down next to Teyla. "And another due soon?"

"Oh, yes, I'm thinking probably tomorrow," said Grella, casually.

"Oh?"

"Well, it'll be a quiet day after the festival. That's usually the way it works, for me."

"Oh," said Elizabeth again, nonplussed. "What exactly does the festival involve?"

Grella picked up Tallen, who had been tugging at her skirt, and settled him comfortably on her lap where he sat, scrutinising Elizabeth, disconcertingly.

"There's no set pattern, really." Grella smiled. "You'll notice things are pretty relaxed here, generally. As long as the helgen are taken care of, we don't worry about the when or the how of things. Folks'll start arriving this afternoon and there'll be food and drink, music and dancing. The children, and some of the adults'll probably organise a snow battle. The main event's the helg racing, which happens when it's dark, because then it's more dangerous, which, apparently is a good thing, according to some. Then, things tail off when everyone's had enough, which can be when dawn rises in some years!"

"Cool," said John.

"That sounds like fun," said Elizabeth, brightly.

"I won't lie to you, sometimes it's mayhem," laughed Grella. "If it gets too much, just go to bed. Nobody'll mind."

Elizabeth smiled. It was nice to spend time somewhere so relaxed and accepting.

Lil entered, bearing a large tray of food. She set it down and arranged the bowls and plates on a table within everyone's reach. "There now," she said, with a satisfied air. "What shall I get you to drink? Tea?"

Tea was agreed upon and Elizabeth noted John's rueful grimace and concluded he'd taken the sensible option of painkillers over alcohol, for once. Ellet reached toward the table, babbling.

"Crunchy snegs," John announced, and took a handful of something curly and brown, which he proceeded to share with the baby.

"Crunchies and eggs," Teyla explained, seeing Elizabeth's puzzlement. "They are fried helg rinds and pickled eggs."

Elizabeth's nose wrinkled in distaste. "I think I'll pass," she said to Teyla and selected something which looked like a cracker spread with paté.

oOo

"Beckett!" Ronon growled, threateningly.

"I just don't want you to fall! Those stairs are very steep!"

Ronon regarded the narrow, precipitous flight. It had been tricky getting up them with his casted leg, but Ronon had an idea about getting down that might be fun.

"Look away," he said.

"What?"

"Trust me, you don't want to see this."

"But..."

A menacing rumble halted Carson and he resignedly turned to face the landing. Ronon leant forward, reaching down with both crutches. He let his weight carry him past the tipping point, planted the crutches firmly on a stair about halfway down and swung his body under, in a smooth glide, his uncasted foot landing softly at the bottom of the flight, the crutches swinging after him to come to rest at his side.

"You can look now."

"What? How did...? Oh, you're right, I don't want to know."

Carson, hearing Elizabeth's voice, headed into the parlour, but Ronon didn't follow. He made his way into the kitchen where Lil and Tirren could barely be seen through clouds of steam and flour.

"D'you want to sit down?" said Lil.

Ronon merely loomed. Lil looked up from her pastry and gave him a knowing smile.

"There's a bucket of scraps by the back door," she said. "Can you manage?"

"Yeah." Ronon picked up the bucket and hooked it awkwardly onto one of his crutch handles. He made his way across the snowy yard to the barn.

A small figure was sitting on an upturned bucket, bent over, sharpening a knife on a whetstone with great concentration. She stopped, tested the blade on a piece of straw and noticed Ronon. Maddy smiled.

"You're back."

"Yeah."

"You broke your leg."

"Yeah."

"You won't be able to race Franca tonight."

Ronon shrugged, wondering if Maddy would distract Carson for him. He'd be able to ride. He'd give it a good go, anyway. Maddy narrowed her eyes.

"On the hunt," she said levelly, "I rode at the back and then went home when I was told. Cos I'd've been stupid not to." She continued to glare, until he gave another shrug, this time of acquiescence.

"How're the traps?" Ronon asked, crutching over to Franca's stall.

"Not good," said Maddy, with a lowering frown. "Something's taking stuff. Maybe more'n one something."

"Grenza?" asked Ronon, tipping the scraps out of the bucket. Franca, who had grunted lustily at his approach, set to work with much champing and slurping.

"Dad says not, but I think there is. Snow covers the tracks, though."

Maddy pulled off her cap and put the knife back in the band. She held up the whetstone and looked questioningly but Ronon shook his head, so she dropped it back into her skirt pocket.

"Cold, ain't it?" Maddy said.

Ronon's lips twitched. "Palver?"

She grinned, picked up the scrap bucket and they went inside.

oOo

Rodney had wedged a sock into the window frame. He wasn't sure if it was his or John's, but either way, they'd both benefit. Searching through his pack for something to use, Rodney had stirred his and John's things into an interesting melange of mundane, scientific and soldierly kit. He'd found a block of C4, which had infiltrated his stash of power bars and wondered, firstly, why John had brought plastic explosive with him (although, I suppose you never know, Rodney admitted) and secondly, would it be a gross misuse of resources if he squashed it into the gap in the frame? Yes, he decided, it would.

The sock jammed in place, Rodney decided his next priorities were food and furriness, but at the foot of the stairs he was presented with a dilemma. Lil, carrying a tastily laden tray and heading for the parlour, jerked her head over her shoulder at the other bar, saying, "Priss is in there." Seeing Rodney's hesitation, she added, indulgently, "I'll bring you a tray, go on!"

Rodney was soon installed on one of the fireside settles, Boudicca over his lap, extending either side to fill the bench. Lil had placed a tray of tempting treats within arm's reach and he was just biting into a thick, hot slice of very buttery toast, when there came the familiar rattle of the latch and Gard entered. He stamped snow off his boots in a manner sure to incur the wrath of his host and hostess and seeing Rodney, nodded.

"Heard you were back," he said.

Rodney gestured a greeting with his piece of toast and made a series of noises and facial contortions around his mouthful. This seemed to satisfy Gard, who stomped across the room and took up his usual station at the bar. Rodney worked his inquisitive way through the various food items provided, some identifiable, some not; he had had a long conversation with Lil about citrus and had come to the comfortable conclusion that this world was entirely citrus-free. Boudicca turned out to have a predilection for cheese and, having sniffed out the cheese pastries, glared at Rodney meaningfully until he surrendered the entire plate.

"They'll probably give you indigestion," he said, to which she replied with a scornful flick of her ears.

Ronon and Maddy came through from the kitchen and proceeded to drink hot ale and eat their way through a jar of pickled eggs. They shared their ale with Gard and seemed to be having a conversation about weaponry; knives were compared, Maddy sitting actually on the bar and occasionally extracting a knife from Ronon's hair with a shout of glee.

The bar filled up during the course of the afternoon, the locals greeting each other with rowdy anticipation of the coming revelry, such that, when yet another group entered, Boudicca took the opportunity to slip out of the front door. Rodney snatched up his winter gear and followed. Rowdiness was also in progress outside, children running here and there, helg-drawn vehicles arriving in a flurry of kicked up snow. Tam had erected a table, which was supporting a row of tapped barrels, and a kind of coconut shy was being set up, except the prizes were some kind of root vegetable rather than coconuts and Rodney strongly suspected that the missiles were round lumps of helg dung. Waste not, want not, I suppose, thought Rodney, knowing that Ronon wouldn't be deterred from competing in the slightest. John's face would take on a look of philosophical contemplation until he thought of a very bad joke on the subject; he would share it with Rodney and Rodney would sneer obligingly.

Large torches had been hammered into the hard ground, their poles about six feet tall, surmounted by latticed iron buckets filled with chunks of wood. Rodney thought they looked very dangerous and intended to steer well clear of them when they were lit.

He turned away from the churned-up mixture of slush and snow in front of the pub and followed Boudicca's bounding progress a little way into the forest. The snow had stopped falling and the sky, for the moment, was a clear blue, seen through the criss-crossing branches of bare winter trees. Rodney examined some twigs at eye-level, the filigree lines of snow balanced on their upper edges highlighting their tracery. Boudicca butted him hard with her head, and he pitched forward through the branches and landed, face-first in a deep drift. Rodney rolled over, spluttering and gasping and narrowly avoided Boudicca's large paws, which seemed set on plunging him back into the drift. He scrambled up and the priss bounced around him in a circle, sneezing snow out of her face and making little rushing approaches to bat him with her paws.

"Playtime, is it?" he asked, nervously, thinking that this might turn out to be a little more strenuous than offering up a tauntingly catnip-filled mouse-on-a-string for execution. Rodney wondered if he, in fact, was the mouse-on-a-string. He shuffled through the snow, experimentally, with a penguin-like waddle, feeling it breach the tops of his boots, and was immediately set-upon by Boudicca, who gave him a hearty shove with both front paws so that he ended up flat on his back, looking up through the branches.

"Squeak!" he said, accepting the role with resignation.

oOo

There was a snow battle in progress and Ronon was not letting his crutches stop him from leading his side to a decisive and savage victory. John, however, had decided to help some of the younger kids build a snowman, which had turned into a snow-giant when he and the children had become a bit over-enthusiastic in its construction. Then, upon the notorious Handa's insistence, it had been transformed into a snow-Wraith by the addition of many long twigs for its hair and some shorter fragments for its teeth. The children were very pleased with it; John thought it was creepy. Eventually he left them to play at being fed upon, which was more than a little disturbing, and returned to the warmth of the pub, remembering to use the boot-scraper to remove compacted snow before he went inside.

The sound of musical instruments and singing came from behind the left-hand door and John thought he heard Teyla's strong, clear voice in the mix. He opted for the quietness of the parlour and entered its warmth gladly, his extremities numb with cold. He had taken his arm out of its sling to help build the snowman and he could feel it burning around the stretched new scar tissue. His ribs were jolting him with stabbing pains and, allowing an arm to curl round them, he cursed vehemently into the empty room, coughing as the warm air entered his chilled airways. A head appeared around the edge of the nearer settle and John gave a guilty start.

"You really do need a keeper, don't you, Colonel?" said Carson, accusingly.

"C'mon Doc, I wasn't out long." John slid off his coat and, under Carson's watchful gaze, put his arm back in the sling that was dangling round his neck. He eased himself down next to the fire and tried not to wince. Or wheeze. He smiled winningly at Carson and, realising the doctor was holding an item in each hand, tried to head off any further rants.

"What'cha got there?"

Carson's face brightened.

"These! Aren't they delightful?" He held a pottery helg out for John's inspection. It wore an apron, a bonnet and an expression of unlikely coyness.

"Yeah... that's er... nice."

"And look at this one!" Carson placed an ornament in John's hand. It had a flower behind its ear and held a parasol; its expression was nauseatingly smug, as if the parasol-flower combo marked it as the self-acknowledged leader of helg fashionable society.

"They're just like the wee piggies my old Mam collects!" gushed Carson, standing up and admiring the collection on the mantelpiece.

John regarded the ornament in his hand with disfavour, hoping that Carson's pleasure really was simply due to the memories of his mother that the obnoxious figures evoked. He didn't want to find the infirmary decorated with the things; it was bad enough being stuck there normally without having to put up with their self-satisfied expressions of virtue. Carson took the ornament from him and set it back on the mantelpiece with exaggerated care and a fond look. His hand hovered and John, thinking that he might be called upon to admire each one in turn, decided he had had enough; he took his painkillers from his pocket, and, with an exaggerated wince, swallowed two of them and then settled back to enjoy Carson's return to twittering chastisement.

oOo

Elizabeth stood well back from the milling throng of competitors. It was fully dark and the torchlight flared out across the scene, glinting off the shining, excited eyes of children and adults alike, picking out highlights on the helgs' metal-studded harness and turning the snow to a rumpled orange blanket, pock-marked with purple-blue shadows.

Then the helgs were moving with more purpose, aligning themselves in one direction, and suddenly the churning, snorting mass jerked into sudden motion and they set off in a mad stampede into the forest. The sky was still clear and the moon had risen; Elizabeth watched the riders and their mounts fade out of the golden torchlight, their flickering forms becoming limned in silver. Then they turned a corner and were gone.

"That was... exhilarating!" she breathed.

"Madness!" snapped Rodney. "I'm going in." He turned and scuttled back into the pub, no doubt heading for more snacks and his comfortable friend.

"I'm glad I brought my full kit," said Carson, worriedly. "There'll be injuries before the race is over, that's for sure!"

Ronon rumbled enviously.

"Next year, Chewie," said John, consolingly.

"Were some of those riders children?" Elizabeth wondered.

"Maddy was riding," said Ronon. "And some of her friends. And her Dad."

Elizabeth was passed a cup of warm spiced ale and she watched Teyla, expertly throwing lumpy balls at hairy vegetables on sticks for a while, but then the crowd drifted back over to the race track where, bounded by ropes, it came out of the forest and looped back for another circuit. First Elizabeth could feel the frontrunners coming, through the trembling of the ground, then she could hear the thudding on the frozen earth and their rhythmic snorting, and then they emerged into the torchlight, bunched together in a mass of grunting, thrusting muscle, their riders crouched low, looking incidental to the whole process. They hurtled toward the spectators and then made a sharp turn back into the forest, skidding and jostling for position. Elizabeth glimpsed Maddy, in a blur, shoot past on the inside of the group, but the helg behind her slipped and thudded down into the churned-up snow, heaving and thrashing for purchase. The rider jumped clear, the helg, its tiny eyes red with reflected firelight surged to its feet and shot off squealing after the others, its rider just managing to vault astride in time. Another group passed at a marginally less breakneck pace, then a few stragglers, then the thundering receded. The spectators began murmuring excitedly to each other and the beer barrels were once more surrounded.

"How many laps will they do?" asked Elizabeth.

"Maddy said six," said Ronon, "but sometimes they just keep going til most people have fallen or dropped out." He crutched over to join the queue for beer.

"That's enough for me!" said Carson. "I'm going in. That tune sounds exactly like a Scottish reel! I wonder if anyone's dancing?" The distant thud of floorboards suggested they were.

"I will join you, Carson," said Teyla and he held out his arm and began explaining the intricacies of the reel and the comparative dignity of the strathspey, while they walked inside together.

Elizabeth looked at John, noting his slightly hunched posture.

"You staying to see Maddy win?" he asked.

"Will she?"

"Power to weight ratio says yes," he replied. "Not to mention determination."

"She's a force of nature, that girl!"

"They all are, a bit, though, aren't they?"

"They're good allies. What you see is what you get." Elizabeth looked around at the happy, good-natured crowd, hearing the beat of dancing feet and clapping hands. "And what you see is a close-knit community making the best of what they have."