While at her fathers farm, Jill had never spent the winter solstice in any special way. A few times, if the weather allowed it, she had sneaked out to sleep with Salma in the meadows, tracing the stars in the distant sky with a finger and talking herself to sleep with the horse as comfortable company. She found that at Highever, the winter solstice was quite the occasion, and her first year at the castle taught her many things. The first was that not everyone celebrated together. Since her understanding of the ways of the world were rather limited, she had assumed that there was one big feast. There was five.
The Cousland family and their guests had one, in the great hall of the castle, a party like none Jill had ever heard described before. To her it seemed like the height of opulence to have a whole roasted deer, but that was apparently on the menu. Then the upper servants, the one who were too fine to mix with the kitchen staff (Jill did not know why the maid who did the Teyrna's hair was any fancier than the one who emptied her chamber pot, but the other servants took this as a fact of life) had a little dinner all to themselves, when they had made their masters and mistresses ready. The kitchen staff had a dance, late in the evening when the nobles had risen from the dining table. The soldiers at the barrack had some sort of celebration, that was said to usually last all through the night, when the guards going off their shifts wanted to drink and make merry too. And the horse messengers working for the Teyrn had a gathering all to themselves, in their large dormitory in the barracks.
Duane and Oran had found some barrels that acted as a very wobbly table, with their chests (heavy with belongings and quite uncomfortable to sit on) had been dragged forward to act as seats. Evan had, and Jill really wondered how since she found him so disagreeable, charmed the kitchen maids to give him some of the left overs from the teyrn's table and Jill had helped by distracting Cook while Duane and Bryce filled their arms with as many cakes and apples as they could carry. Their horses was treated to a banquet first, the hay they got daily and the apples as a winter solstice bonus. There had been a fight – a scuffle really – earlier in the day, about who was to clean the stables, and Evan had lost. The other men had been delighted, and spent the whole while he was moving rotten hay and manure, mocking him and pointing out spots he had missed. Jill had soon grown annoyed with their attitude though and had helped carrying fresh water from the well, ending up wet from both sweat and sloshing water.
The meal was merry, as always when the messengers were all together. The deer was roasted to perfection, and eaten with bread to mop up the rich sauce. Three bottle of cheap wine were shared, the result not quite two cups per person. It was not enough to make anyone especially drunk, even though Jill was decidedly tipsy when they started on their stolen desert.
For Jill the night was over when Evan cornered her outside, trying to kiss her, and she punched him in the face. She fell asleep with her knuckles bruised and bandaged and the cheers of the rest of her comrades still ringing in her ears. As her eyes fell shut she was convinced that she would never understand men, and that the winter solstice was complicated, but fun.