As when Howe had been a child, Midwinter's day was a day for great celebration within the tribe. It was a day for the exchanging of gifts and of feasting, of roaring fires and torchlight everywhere. Since the valley villagers hadn't celebrated the day, Howe was thrilled with the amount of preparation and anticipation that began almost from the Winter Solstice.
Trinkets to be exchanged were put together for each family member and friend. Howe found that she had to work quite hard to have an appropriate gift for each person she regularly came into contact with. Simple items worked well for most people, but one in gift in particular had been laid on her heart and would take more time and skill than she possessed. Hesitantly, Howe approached Cade for help. Bolstered by his enthusiastic offer of assistance, Howe put her plan into motion.
At the Council of Elders one night, Howe worked up the courage to approach Yestyn with an unusual request. "Sir, may I make a tracing of your foot?" Howe asked him. It always pained her to see the halting way he was forced to make from place to place. She only hoped that her idea would work.
Yestyn smiled and looked at his wife. "Of course," Gwyn replied for her husband. She bent and removed his boot immediately so Howe could make the requested tracing on her small slate.
"What do you have in mind, Young Lady?" Yestyn enquired as he watched her work.
Howe grinned sheepishly. "I'm sorry to inconvenience you; it's just a fancy I've had."
Knowing she'd been making socks for gifts, Rowen chimed in. "She's taken tracings of more feet in our house than I care to mention. Maybe there'll be a sock in it for you."
"Well now, don't you worry about me," Yestyn drawled to Howe as she replaced his boot. "Gwyn makes the best socks of anyone I know."
Howe smiled nervously. "Maybe I should ask for pointers?"
"You're doing fine, Dear," Rowen replied in encouraging tones. "Don't worry about a thing. After all, it's Midwinter's day soon." As she no doubt had hoped, the remark had everyone distracted with tales of preparations made and still more to be accomplished. Using the confusion and pandemonium, Howe slipped away and ran home to where Cade was waiting to assist her with her plan.
As they worked on Howe's idea, whenever the two of them didn't know how to proceed or needed assistance with some technical aspect, Cade always knew just who to ask. It seemed that Howe wasn't the only one that wanted to help Yestyn, because anyone Cade asked not only immediately agreed to help, they also promised secrecy lest the intended recipient of such a gift learn of it beforehand.
Finally, the appointed day arrived. As with the younger children, Howe had found it nearly impossible to sleep through the excitement that built in her abdomen and pressed on her lungs. The gifts were given with little ceremony as soon as the giver came across the recipient in the course of the day. Of course, this meant that one had to carry the gifts at all times, lest the giver come upon the recipient without the intended gift in hand.
For the 'menfolk' in Howe's life, a new pair of socks, carefully crafted to the shape and approximate size of each foot. The boys were delighted with their gift and wore the new socks down the ladder to breakfast after offering their sisters and Howe their own gifts. There were more stones for the sling that Howe kept with her on watch, a wooden whistle for 'if she wanted to get a dog', a whetstone for her knife, a carved, wooden comb for her hair.
For each of the twins and for Caron, Howe had embroidered pocket handkerchiefs. The twins were of two minds about their gifts. Olwyn pronounced the embroidered square of lightweight cotton far too beautiful for everyday use, but Bronwyn insisted on keeping hers with her. Midwinter's Day wasn't just 'everyday', she informed her sister, but Olwyn carefully tucked her gift away for safekeeping anyway, before reappearing with her gift for Howe.
The twins had conspired in their gift for her and offered a quilt for her bed since Caron had taken her quilt with her when she'd wed. Bolstered by the reception of her gifts and feeling loved by those she'd received, Howe headed down the ladder behind the boys with the remainder of her gifts inside her pillowcase.
For Rowen, Howe had carved a long spoon under Cade's watchful eye. With the handle much longer than her other spoons, Rowen appreciated that she'd be able to stir all the way to the bottom of the pot that hung over the fire. Already dressed for the day, Cade accepted his socks with a hug and a kiss on the top of Howe's head.
For Wynd, who'd already arrived for the holiday breakfast, there was a new walking stick, carefully cut of thin, straight hickory, tipped with a thin metal spike for grip and with a leather wrist-strap. To her surprise, Wynd accepted the gift with deep pleasure. It seemed that his own walking stick had broken a few days before and the weather had conspired against his finding another to his liking. His gift to each member of his considerable circle of friends and family was the same; Wynd had made popcorn balls, which Rowen would prefer the children wait to eat until after lunch.
As Howe prepared to accompany the rest of the family up to the fortress for 'morning drills' that would most assuredly fall by the wayside in favor of the festivities of the day, she worried about the personal nature of the gifts she'd prepared for the owners of the fortress.
Socks seemed a bit intimate a gift for the king, so Howe had sorted some of her vegetable seeds out from the pouch in her dress, which she'd been wearing at the time she'd been unceremoniously removed from the valley. She deeply regretted that she'd been forced to leave the seed-potatoes behind, but vowed to make do, somehow.
Rowen and Cade were craftsmen and warriors, herdsmen of the plains with very little knowledge of green and growing things. Knowing she'd be planting a garden for the family in the spring, Howe silently vowed to trade for the all-important tubers however she could. Perhaps she could add potatoes to the king's garden the following year.
Bryn Ma'ar had been trying to court her, even beyond teaching her to fight, but Cade had done his best to make it difficult for the king that had kept him from the daughter of his best friend in her time of need. Though his anger had abated after a time, Cade was still jealous of his time with Howe, his 'Little Lamb'. For her part, Howe was amused by the rivalry between the two men. She'd grown to love Cade and Rowen as her foster parents, adored her cousins as she'd had her younger siblings, but found herself feeling little more than friendship for the king who sought not only her hand, but her heart as well.
Of course, along with the seeds would be the promise to plant them at the appropriate time for him and to tend them along with her own garden. It was a gift that was perhaps a bit impersonal, but Howe had taken the lack of a proper garden in the fortress to heart. She planned to explain to Bryn Ma'ar that her intent was to make it so that, should the entire tribe end up besieged within the fortress again, they would have everything they'd need to survive, no matter how long it took to overcome the enemy.
For Gwyn, there would be an embroidered handkerchief. The embroidery commemorated the welcome she'd received from the high elder. It was an intimate thing that Howe didn't care to explain in the public forum of the Greatest Hall or even the Hall of War.
The gift for Yestyn, however, was the most deeply personal gift Howe had ever given. She realized that he would find it as personal and wouldn't want to publicly receive it, any more than she wished to present it in front of everyone. All the way up the hill, Howe worried about how she'd handle it.
Cade obviously noticed the anxiety building within Howe. "Little Lamb," he said quietly, draping an arm around her as they neared the fortress, "tell me what troubles you."
"I don't know how to engineer time alone with Yestyn and Gwyn so I can give them their gifts," she confessed immediately, turning herself unconsciously toward the warm safety of his paternal embrace. "If I explain, then it will draw attention, and if I try to avoid them, then it will seem as if I'm snubbing them."
He chuckled a little. "Your mother . . . Rowen and I have been worried about that as well. She's decided to let Gwyn know that you'd like to present your gifts in private, so it's a good thing we two are walking so much more slowly than the rest of the family, don't you think?"
Sheepishly, Howe realized she'd fallen quite far behind the others in her state of anxiety. She quickened her pace a little. "You know," she remarked, merely to make conversation, "in the valley, we were the only ones to make much out of Midwinter's Day. We gave gifts to each other, but never the valley-dwellers. It's nice this way."
"You say that quite a bit," Cade observed. "For a man determined not to be found, your father did his best to preserve the ways of the tribe within his family."
Howe thought about it. "I suppose if we'd all survived and wedded valley-dwellers, we'd have been a tribe unto ourselves," she finally decided. "I would have had five brothers and a sister." By then, they'd reached the fortress and were ducking through the vines. The door had been left ajar, propped open by a boot filled with gravel. Judging by the age and wear of the boot, it wasn't much fit for anything else anyway. For some reason, it made Howe smile.
Rowen met them just inside the Greatest Hall. "I spoke to Gwyn," she said in a quiet voice. "Lamb, she and Yestyn are waiting in the King's Hall for you. The boys are spread throughout the halls, ready to run interference for you so no one notices you leaving."
"Then I'd better join their efforts," Cade chuckled, moving away from the door. Howe realized that, as usual, Rowen would chaperone even though the king's presence hadn't been requested for the meeting.