Kathleen E. Woodiwiss(105)

Here, where the juices were collected, were the huge rollers that would crush the cane. Six oversize tubs stood on a circular platform which could be rotated when each became full. Allowing his imagination to wander, Ruark could almost see the tubs as giant gnomes squatting on their table, awaiting the first stir of life in the mill to fill their gullets with the sweet nectar of the cane. Ruark rapped his knuckles against the bellied side of the nearest tub to dispel the thought and listened to the echo of the hollow sound within the room.

A frown lightly crossed his brow. Would Shanna view this building of the mill as an attempt to woo her father’s favor?

He moved on to the cooking room, strolling along between the two rows of great iron kettles, idly swinging a stick against the sides of each. They, too, seemed to wait like elephantine elves resting their distended paunches over the brick hearths wherein fires would be stoked to render the thin juices into thick, brown molasses.

And what on this day would Shanna’s mood betray, Ruark wondered idly. Was she to be the fiery-tongued vixen whose words of denial were sharp enough to cut or the docile sweet maid who of late he had seen much of?

Reaching the end of the room, Ruark paused and looked back, listening to the hollow notes of his passage die like the bronzed chorus of the church bells on a Sabbath morn. A slow smile touched his lips as a memory came to mind of one evening, several nights back, when he and Trahern had withdrawn to the drawing room after the evening meal, and Shanna had taken a place beside the French doors to catch the last of the fading light as she bent to her tapestry. It had been a most idyllic time, a gentle time with the peace of a good pipe, easy conversation and her presence there, the soft beauty at hand whenever his eye should wander to it, lighted by the rosy glow of the waning sun. He had found himself envisioning her in a similar scene, but with a babe in her arms and her face tender with love. It was a gracious thing to relax and enjoy a meal with Shanna, beautiful and demure across the table, yet the agony had been there as well, for though she seemed much mollified and serenely pleasant, he had not had the briefest moment alone with her.

He sighed, slapping the stick against his fawn-clad thigh and continued his tour into the brewing wing. Nearly half the room was filled wall to wall with great barrels where the younger green sap could be fed into them and, with careful additions, would be fermented into the new rum. Here above the stills, red serpentine pipes writhed in a frenzied Stygian dance, frozen for all eternity, then plunged down to dribble the cooled spirits into kilderkins for aging and sale. This was the master brewer’s place, his realm where his talent and skill would wring the best from the cane.

The site of the mill had been chosen carefully. It was far enough from the settlement so that the stench of the fermenting mash would not offend the noses of the villagers, but centrally located near the high plateau where the cane fields thrived. Beneath its foundation were caves where the barrels of rum could be stored for aging. Water was carried in shafts from freshwater springs running close by, and wood was in plentiful supply from the forest around it. Not inconsequential to all of these was the fact that it nestled in a small, protected valley and was safe from the late summer storms that often raged through the islands.

A slight quickening of Ruark’s pulse came as he felt the thrill of success followed by a deeper quickening still, as he realized his doubts and thought of the hundreds of things which could go wrong.

“No need to ponder on it,” he reasoned. “This day will see the test of it all.”

A narrow stairway led into the loft, and he climbed to where a small cupola had been added at the highest point on the mill roof so that a man could view the approach and departure of wagons during the rush of the harvest peak and with a set of signals could direct the drivers to avoid the inevitable road jams. At this vantage point Ruark would await the arrival of the Trahern carriage.

Already a long file of wagons, carriages, and carts were coming up the village road. Several wagons had been provided for the crew of the frigate, and he could see the colorful uniforms of the officers riding in the carriage. From one of the fields Ruark noted the approach of five wagons heavily laden with cane, and closer about the mill, piling out of the back of a cart, were the score of bondsmen who would see the mill into its first operation. At a shout of greeting from the overseer, Ruark waved his hand then lifted his gaze again to the lower road. No hint of Trahern’s barouche could be seen, least of all that bright bit of color for which his eye hungered.

It seemed that every soul on the island was turning out to see the first operation of the mill and the actual workings for themselves, for the once empty yards were now becoming a jumble of people. Still, there was no sight of Shanna.