First, the water barrel had to be filled again—not because anyone had used much of it in cleaning, but because like everything else in the Hollybush, it was old, used, and barely functional. It had a slow leak, and it cost nothing to have Skif refill it. To have it mended would have meant paying someone.

So back and forth Skif went, doing his best not to slosh the icy water on himself, particularly not down his boots. When the barrel was full, the next chore was to take the bundle of twigs on a stick that passed for a broom and sweep the water and whatever else was on the floor out into the courtyard, where the water promptly froze (in winter) or turned into mud (in summer). Since Skif was the one who went into and out of the courtyard most often, it behooved him to at least sweep it all to one side if he could.

Next was to bring wood in from the woodpile in the courtyard and mend the fire in the common room, which was also full of smoke, but not as bad as the kitchen. Then he collected the wooden plates left on tables, carried them to the kitchen and thriftily scraped the leavings back into the stew pot over the fire. It didn’t matter what went in there, since it all blended into the anonymous, lumpy brown muck, well flavored with burned crud from the bottom, that was already there. A quick wipe with a rag, and the plates were “clean” and ready for the next customer.

Mugs were next; he’d figured that it was better to take plates in stacked and not try to mix mugs and plates, for if he tried, he’d drop something and get beaten for breaking it. These were crude clay mugs with thick bottoms to make the customer think he was getting more beer than he was. Those didn’t even get a wipe with the rag, unless they’d been left in a plate and had greasy gravy all over them; they were just upended and stacked beside the plates. There was no tableware to bother collecting; Londer wouldn’t have anything that could be so readily stolen. In this, however, he was exactly like every other tavern keeper around this area. Customers ate with their own wooden spoons, usually hung on the belts beside their money pouches. Some ate with their personal belt knives, although these useful implements were used less often. The food in cheap taverns was generally soup or stew, and didn’t need to be cut up—nor was there often anything in the bowl or on the plate large enough to be speared on the point of a knife. Those who had no spoon shoveled the food into their mouths with improvised implements of heavy black bread. Black bread was all that was ever served at the Hollybush; made of flour that was mostly made of rye, buckwheat, and wheat chaff, like everything else associated with Uncle Londer, it was the cheapest possible bread to make. The strong taste covered a multitude of culinary sins, and since it was already black, it had the advantage of not showing how badly it was burned on the bottom.