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people sleeping in them.
    When the girls left their room, the sleepers had already been cleared from the Great Hall, and trestle tables were set up along the wall, laden with bread and autumn fruit and honey for folk to break their fast on, and ale for drinking. For the girls, however, there was a tastier treat of sops-in-wine and watered wine with honey to sweeten it. All of them helped themselves to apples once they had cleaned their bowls, both figuratively and literally. It was only dawn and a long time to dinner.
    Already there was activity everywhere, in the Hall and especially out on the green and about the village. Great cauldrons of soup were cooking, and ovens were fired up with the first baking of the day; the boar’s head, the baked meats, fish and fowl, the fruit pies, the cakes and baked vegetables that would be served at dinner. The second baking would be for meat pies for supper and more fish and fowl. There was a whole ox roasting at one fire and a whole wild boar at another. Samhain was not a religious festival, although tonight there would be the Great Working for the High King—it was the Equinox that was the significant date, when the Winter King slew his rival, the Summer King, as the Spring Equinox was when the Young Stag slew the Old. Samhain was the celebration of the end of harvest and the time when those animals who were to be killed for winter meat were culled out. Anything that could not be preserved must be eaten, so why not make a festival out of it? The butchered beasts were already rendered into quarters and in the pickling vats, the smokehouse, or the salt packs. Sausages were already made up and curing. The brewing was done, the ale and mead in their casks.
    Still the women were hard at work, tending to the cooking. Innards and bones, hooves and vegetable scraps had gone into pies and soup, for nothing was wasted. The common folk would get their portion of the ox and the boar—everyone got at least a small share of meat—but mostly they would be eating their fill of the soup. It was the guests of the king who would feast on the choicer stuffs.
    So this was mostly celebration for the menfolk. The hard work of farming was over, and the year was about to descend into the dark. Not a bad time of year to handfast, for the sharing of a bed now could mean a fine babe in the summer, and a bed was warmer with two in it. This would be the last time of abundance before the hoarding of winter.
    Gwen’s father made a point to bring in all his warriors for the days of feasting, organizing contests and games. There were even musicians, and not just the ones from the village.
    He was a surprisingly tenderhearted man as well where children were concerned; as this was the time of year when many a lamb grown into a sheep, gosling now big and gray and honking, or pink piglet grown fat went under the knife, he saw to it that there were plenty of things to occupy the children who had made these creatures into pets. So when the former pet became quarters, ham, and sausages hanging in the smokehouse, it was all done when the child was occupied with dancing or gaming or stuffing himself with unaccustomed treats.
    As Gwen headed purposefully out with her pockets bulging with apples, she did not follow after her older sisters, who were making straight toward the field where some of the older boys were engaged in wrestling, archery and sling contests, and the hurling of woolsacks.
    She also made sure to lose Little Gwen at the moment when her younger sister was distracted by a game of tag. Little Gwen could not bear to be left out of anything that promised attention, and once the child’s attention was fully occupied, Gwen took advantage of a couple of geese being chased to get away.
    Gwen didn’t want to play tag or hoops, to run races for prizes or watch the older boys and men compete at feats of strength. She wasn’t interested in the quieter pursuits of playing with poppets or merrils, and she certainly