Pride and Percabeth

Chapter Sixteen

Leo rose early and cooked breakfast for himself and his father. He improved their usual porridge with milk, butter, and blackberries. The porridge they ate most mornings was bland and quickly prepared.

Sometimes, he only had the time to grab a hunk of bread or a couple of oat cakes before heading into the forge.

"Good morning," Hephaestus greeted him as he hobbled over to the table, aided by his crutch.
Leo removed a kettle of hot water for tea from the stove. He poured the water into a tea pot along with two spoonfuls of dried tea leaves and let the mixture steep for a few minutes. While the tea steeped, Leo and Hephaestus washed down their porridge with a pint of ale.
A leisurely breakfast on a day that was not Sunday was a rare treat but there would not be any work that day.
"I heard there's going to be a Bengal tiger at the fair today," Leo informed his father. "I've never seen a beast before. It should be quite a sight."
"Be careful, though," Hephaestus warned. "When I was a young man, a young lady was mauled to death by a tiger after she kept poking it with a sharp stick."
"Then I won't poke it with a sharp stick."
By October, the harvest had been brought in and the agricultural year was coming to an end. This was the time for the county to gather together to buy and sell their wares and gawk at curiosities from the outside world.
Stalls were set up in the Skye-on-Styx village square along with pens for the animals who were to be bought and sold and judged against one another.