The party had started and folks were gathering round. Matilda’s cadre of chefs had been busy and the odors floating around were heavenly. I could smell beef and fresh corn, and there were other things I couldn’t quite place as well, tantalizing, yet just outside my recognition range. There was also a poultry smell that I knew wasn’t chicken, as our flock was too small and most of the birds too young for harvesting. It’d be late fall at best before we had fried chicken.

Fresh fish was being smoked and vegetables & fruits were in abundance, all prepared with aromatic herbs which were a slightly different from the commoditized versions I was used to in modern times. The poultry turned out to be passenger pigeons being roasted wrapped in fresh leaves and stuffed with spring onions and wild garlic. Those pigeons were extinct in modern time but in my current time they still darkened the skies with their massive flocks. Tiny but delicious and time consuming to eat, good food for summer eating: you didn’t just quickly stuff yourself and fall asleep. The smoked fish, I think it was trout, was right on time as well.

The big surprise of the evening was the rum that Holder had made. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Holder found my supplies of sugar and molasses in the larder and of course we had yeast. Every family there counted yeast as one of their ‘must have’ supplies; I was simply surprised how quickly he had fashioned a fermenting process. But yes we had rum, young rum and not the tastiest ever but it was made with black strap molasses and had the beginnings of that famous rum flavor. It was still a delight straight or in a fruity beverage – and we did have plenty of wild fruit around.

Sheriff and Lucinda had discovered that I had a freezer and so I had ice, I almost fell over laughing when they showed me that they had made rudimentary daiquiris. They were Sonya’s new best friends and I do think she got drunk as the night went on; poor girl really deserved it. I hoped she’d find a good young man but I knew that as big brother I needed to absolutely not get involved in that. She was flirty around Holder throughout the night, I wondered if there was something around that. Well, she seemed to enjoy his rum, and he seemed to enjoy explaining the process to her, so maybe there was another woman problem solved.

I did get up on the rudimentary band stage and make my grandiose speech, the entire welcome to Rulo bit. The most important thing I did was ask that the first and freshest food be taken to out people still on watch. We had folks watching children, folks guarding herds and folks standing watch on boats; the work never actually stopped. We needed to feed those people first and the important message was that we left no one out.

I also made the mandatory announcements about town meetings and the laws of Rulo; town business had to go on, and people had to know the rules. Everyone was so glad to be here that this was a gloss-over at this point; tomorrow we’d begin to hear the true concerns. Tonight everyone simply wanted to relax and celebrate.

So that’s what we did.

**** ****

Now I had to mix and mingle, schmoozing I believe is the common term. It was a skill I’d studiously and successfully avoided in my prior life, but now it was also something I had to learn to be good at. As the night progressed, I mixed and mingled with the people of Rulo; it was easier than it should have been because everyone seemed to want to talk to me. This is definitely not what I would be experiencing during my travels. However I listened to my coaches, and those coaches seemed to keep rotating. I had Michelle to start and then tipsy Sonja, Lucinda took over for a while and finally Peter. Lucinda and Peter were the best, I had to remember that Peter was minor aristocracy and had some formal training; Lucinda had figured this out while surviving her engineering doctorate experience.

Still, it quickly became obvious that I wasn’t a natural at this, and that I really needed to figure out ways to mitigate my social short comings. The only thing I could come up with was that I’d have to have travelling companions and Brin was not the answer. This would take time to sort.

I continued to mix and meet people, which was actually fun because these were real people with real goals. I did get asked the same questions over and over again, but that was something I had started getting used to when I became a leader in the Corps. Each person had there own twist on a question concerning what was happening and if given half a chance wanted the answer from the horses mouth. Blanket statements without specifics helped, but they didn’t actually ease individual concerns.

So I simply talked to them. I kept the conversation on them and tried to use the casual conversation to get an overall understanding of the public mood. I couldn’t spend too much time with each of them but, with the help of my coaches, I began to learn the leading statements to use. I engaged with more people than I would have thought possible.

The evening wore on and to tell the truth I’d had more coffee than anything. I couldn’t afford to be drunk while mixing, and was weaned off of the booze quickly by my handlers. When the music came on I did my dancing and even had a few fun dances with cute little Esther; if you can’t have fun dancing with a kid you’re definitely doing it wrong. I viewed her as a niece at that point and would do anything to put a smile on that pretty little face; she was a treasure.

I gave a very brief impromptu speech to formally end the night and finally gain access to my booze. I mixed with the boatmen at that point, and we got drunk and laughed together. Those guys were a hardcore lot, and I seriously enjoyed myself in a manner that I hadn’t in years. There were insults, practical jokes and laughter in abundance. There was commiseration when I admitted that my lady was spending her night in the red tent and jokes about my options, including perverse suggestions of llama because we lacked a sheep herd. Overall just a bunch of guys getting drunk and cutting loose; the rum punch wasn’t hurting anyone’s feelings tonight.

We had a few good natured fist fights and I squashed the mumblety-peg competition; knives and booze really don’t mix well.

We had fun and we had the leftover booze and food.

The party broke up when the last of the food and rum were gone.

Thank the gods tomorrow was Sunday and a day off.