Library

Lorcan led his wife down the street feeling very relieved. He hoped that his wife was finally over her panic over all of these differences between his family and hers. Why did she care how they dressed? She dressed as she dressed, and he liked it. Well, he mostly liked it. Or, perhaps, he liked most of it.

He thought about what they should do today and he had an idea. He had almost never been able to go to the central library. It was in the heart of Old City, overlooking the river. It was a beautiful building, everyone said the view was wonderful. And he had hardly ever been able to go, it was rather far from his house. But it was closer to Uncle Xaviers.

He turned them down a side street in that direction and his wife, leaning on him, didn’t say anything. Hopefully she was just thrilled by how well she had done at Uncle Farsten’s house.

They went through the Farmer’s Market again and he felt her perk up. Indeed she lifted her head off his shoulder and looked around actively. It was a fascinating sight. Farm class lads and lasses were… different somehow. More wide eyed and less… knowing. Maybe it was because, out on their farms, they would be hauling things out to their parents in the field all day, or maybe even taking care of animals.

And even the smallest had pistols and, he was sure, knew how to use them. Imagine living your life all day where some hoppers might just come charging out of the woods trying to eat you. Of course, they lived in groups, so there would be a watchtower with snipers in it. But, still, even a littlie farmlass would need to be able to blaze away at a hopper coming after them. And they lost dozens of offspring each year, mostly littlies.

Suddenly his wife left his side and Lorcan watched her begin an animated argument about the price of cherries. He loved cherries, and she knew that. She was an excellent wife in all respects. It was too bad she found jumping class so hard. But maybe she was over that.

She came back a couple of minutes later chewing at a cherry… whose seed she spit at a nearby lass, who jumped out of the way and grinned at her. She held out the bag and he took one and started them going again.

It was a very pleasant hour later when he led her up the stairs to the library, and he felt her stir from his shoulder. “What is this?” she asked.

“This is the central library,” he said, stopping and staring at it in awe of all of the learning and books it represented. “It has a wonderful view, and a nice cafe at the back and, umm, lots of books.”

She was giving him a rather funny look but, they were here already so, well, it seemed a pity to waste the trip, so he led her in.

“What do you do here?” she asked, quietly, as they walked through the lobby. Even here in the lobby there were stacks of books on the shelves. “Do you buy these?”

“No!” he said, shocked. “If you’re rich enough you can pay for a card and borrow them. Most of us just come and read some.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding a bit more interested. “Do you think they have books on cooking?”

“They are sure to,” he said, “They have books on everything. You would ask that lass there, probably,” he said, pointing to a young lass standing in front of a desk with a large question mark over it.

“Ummm, Ok. You aren’t coming?”

“I wanted to look up something on some seeds,” he said.

“Umm, Ok,” she said, and wandered off.

He read the signs and went quickly up to the third floor, where there were four whole shelves on various plants. He quickly found a kind of general guide to agricultural plants and found himself a very nice seat by the window, which looked out over the river…

… And was startled quite a while later by his wife, clearing her throat. “Have you, are you done?” she asked. “Do you want to do lunch at this cafe?”

“Oh, I, umm,” startled he jumped up. He had only meant to spend a few minutes looking up certain plants and their seeds and… it was lunchtime already? He had left his new wife alone in a library for a couple of hours while he read about seeds? What must she think of him?

“Yes, yes,” that would be fine,” he said, putting his book down on the table to be refiled. “Did you find any good books on cooking?”

“Oh, yes, they were wonderful,” she said, clinging to him. “I read about that thing we ate the other day, the potato, and they have this way of frying it, deep frying it, and serving it with this tomato vinegar sauce that the book said was very popular. Of course, potatoes are expensive.”

“Yes, on our planet. On Earth…” at her look she said, “I read about them in that book. It said that back on Earth they were very cheap because there were some places where they grew very, very easily. The soil was a bit different from here, you see….”

“Oh, this is wonderful!” she said, as they came out onto the porch and took a table right by the river. “This is a wonderful view. What do they serve here?” she asked, looking in vain for a menu.

“I’ve never eaten here,” he confessed, “I’ve just heard about it…” he looked around and saw a servette with a cart which she was wheeling in their direction. “I think this is it,” he said.

“Your first time?” the lass said, grinning at their looks. “And honey trip, I’ll wager?”

“You would win that,” his wife said, “we are total greenies.”

“Well, don’t feel bad, I have to explain it a dozen times a day. On this cart, with little fires underneath them, I have four pots of soup. Then, under them, I have a few trays of mixed breads. There is one price, three pence, for all you can eat of the soup and the bread, just wave at me if you’re still hungry. And I can give you more than one bowl if you want to try different soups.”

His wife looked a bit askance at the price, but Lorcan knew she wanted to eat here so, before she could object, he said, “And what kind of soups?”

“We have a lemon river fish soup, which is kind of our specialty. It includes onions, mushrooms, and is in a chicken broth. We have ginger Crencha beast with leeks and summer flower petals. Then we have a basic but delicious tomato soup, which is very popular. And, today, our specialty is meat and turnip soup, with four different kinds of meat, turnips, onions, garlic, and is rather spicy.”

“I think we will have four bowls to share,” he said. “And the bread?”

“Each plate has several different types of bread,” the servette said, beginning to ladle the soup. “I recommend that you try them each with each, if you understand me.”

“It sounds fun,” Lorcan said.

As soon as she left his wife leant over, “Three pence?! And we will need to leave a tip!”

“We are on our honey trip,” he said. “And we are about to go to basic, which will be exhausting… let’s just eat and then we can go… would you like to visit the park? There’s a section just down from here.”

She grinned and sat back, “That would be fun.”

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Von