CHAPTER 25
“Phew!” said Sepp, turning back to the fire and hanging the kettle back on the crane. “More mintbrew needed here. Unless there’s any of Uncle’s jack?” He shot a hopeful look at his brother.
“Mintbrew!” said Cat firmly. “Regardless of any availability of booze, I need some more tea. And so do you,” she said to Guy. “You look all done in.” He gave her his crooked smile, and she suddenly realised that the drawn look had gone from his face. His eyes had cleared, and Cat saw in them a peace that showed what a tremendous weight had been lifted from him. She smiled back, filled with a delight that she found hard to explain.
Suddenly she thought of something.
“Won’t this make things a bit awkward with your name?” she said to Sepp.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, Sepp—it’s short for Septimissimus, isn’t it? You can hardly be called that if you’re not him, even if it is your name.”
“Oh, it’s not his name,” Guy said from his corner. “We just always called him that. His given name is Risyl.”
“Oh!” Cat tried to digest that piece of information. “Is that usual, calling people something completely different from their actual name?”
“His name,” Sepp grinned and pointed at Guy, “is Dyniselm.”
Cat blinked.
“Oh dear! Well, Aunt is Ouska, I know that. But—Uncle?”
“Sardor!” chorused the brothers together.
“And—” her eye fell on the sleeping baby on the bed, “and Bibby?”
“Ysbina!”
“Oh! Yes, that’s a big name for such a little person.” She smiled down at the little girl and reached out a hand to gently brush back the red curls, which were plastered to her forehead. The baby was sleeping hard.
“You know,” she said, thoughtfully, “if it wasn’t for—for Ashley—Ashya—there would be no Bibby.”
The men exchanged a glance.
“True,” said Guy quietly.
Cat did not want to say what she had to say next.
“Maybe,” hesitantly, slowly, “maybe I should go back, and bring her the other bowl? Maybe she needs to come back here and be with her child. Maybe Bibby wants her.”
“Pffft!” said Sepp, “Not Ashya. You should have heard her, when—oy, oy, oy, the kettle!”
All their attention turned to the water kettle, which was hissing and spitting boiling water into the fire beneath it, sending up great swaths of steam into the room. Sepp was dancing from foot to foot to avoid the hot splashes, fishing for the fireplace crane with the poker and trying to stay out of its way at the same time.
Cat looked at Guy, and saw his eyes brimful of amusement. Her lips twitched, his responded, and then they both burst out laughing. All the tension of the last few hours, of the last few days and weeks, dissolved into laughter. They laughed, and laughed, until Guy was breathless and the tears ran down Cat’s face.
“Fine, make fun of me!” said Sepp in mock indignation, as he refilled the teapot with mintbrew.
“Oh, it’s not you!” gasped Cat, trying to catch her breath.
“Oh yes, it is!” cried Guy, and it set both of them off again into another round of mirth.
Sepp shook his head indulgently, and he couldn’t help chuckling at them as they clutched their sides and wheezed with hilarity.
“And you haven’t even had any applejack yet,” he said, putting the teapot on the table. “And speaking of which, dear brother, when you have some breath…”
Guy was still chortling and snorting, but weakly waved a hand in the direction of the front door.
“Storage… hole!” he managed to gasp out, and Sepp obviously understood what he meant. In the far corner of the cottage, beneath the dish shelves, he opened another trap door (I might have known, thought Cat) and triumphantly extracted a good-sized brown pottery jug with a cork stopper.
“There we are,” he said, satisfied. He pulled out the stopper and poured a generous splash of the amber liquid into the bottom of each mug. Topping it up with mintbrew, he passed a mug to each of them.
“Here you go,” he said, “Uncle Seppy’s applemintjackbrew.”
Cat wiped her streaming eyes on the sleeve of her blouse and raised her mug.
“To the Sepp, to the Septimissimus, the—oh, I don’t know what else.” She giggled weakly, then took a sip from the hot brew, letting the fiery liquor burn down her throat.
“To the Sepp!” “To the Septimissimus!” responded the brothers at the same time, raising their cups to each other and taking rather deeper draughts of them than Cat had done.
“You know,” she said, consideringly, “you could still go by Sepp. I had a Great-grandfather who was called that; I think with him, it was short for Joseph. Then we wouldn’t have to get used to calling you something different.”
“Brilliant!” cried Sepp delightedly. “I’ll be the Joe-Sepp! To the finder of names and bowls and potters, to the Cat!” He raised his mug for another deep draught.
“Catriona,” responded his brother, much more quietly. He raised his cup to Cat and drank, with an intense light in his eyes as he looked at her. She felt a little tingle run down her spine.
Sepp cracked open his mouth in a tremendous yawn.
And suddenly, Cat realised that yet again, she was alone at night with two men in a one-room cottage which sported all of one wooden platform bed. Ouska had left her with them, and Cat knew that she had done it fully intentionally. Probably her idea of humour, she thought. Or maybe she has something else up her sleeve. Well, she could cope. But she was not going to share the bed with either of them. Especially not Sepp, he was already half a sheet to the wind. Was there such a thing? Half a sheet? Three sheets to the wind, she knew that, but what did you say for less? Cat, shut up, she told herself. You’re about a quarter sheet in that direction, too, or you wouldn’t babble on in your head like this.
“So,” she cleared her throat and smiled brightly, “where do I sleep tonight?”
The brothers looked at each other in surprise; obviously the thought of sleeping arrangements had not occurred to them.
“Ohh,” cried Sepp, “not a problem! Prod a noblem! You and me, we roll in little blankety heaps up on the floor, we’ll be cosy and snugs as rug in bugs…” He trailed off, blinking a little confusedly.
Guy reached out a hand and gently cuffed his brother upside the head.
“Shut up, you’re drunk,” he said dispassionately, taking the jug of liquor from Sepp’s unresisting grasp. “But he’s right,” he said to Cat, with an apologetic smile, “it’s not really a problem. He and I will take the floor, if you don’t mind sharing the bed with Bibby. She’s used to sleeping there.”
With you, thought Cat. Aloud she said, “As long as she won’t mind? And—well, can your leg take it? Else I could sleep on the floor, too, you know.” At least I think I can, she added silently.
But he had a surprised look on his face again and was rubbing his injured knee.
“It’s a lot better now—even better than just an hour ago!” he said. “In fact, it’s completely better, I can’t feel anything wrong!” He bent his leg back and forth at the knee. “I wonder what happened? You know, I think it was when…”
“… when Ouska left?” finished Cat.
“Yes! But how did you—”
Cat gave a tiny shrug. She couldn’t explain what she had heard or not heard—how she had simply known.
Guy got easily to his feet, leaned his hand on his knee and rotated it side to side, testing its restored mobility. “Yes, the floor it is,” he said, “definitely.”
He looked down at his brother who now had his head pillowed on his arms and was snoring softly. “Idiot,” he said affectionately, and went to get out some blankets from the chest against the wall.