“Lard!” I exclaimed, looking up. “Bloody hell—I’d forgotten all about that. We don’t have a big kettle, bar the kitchen cauldron, and we can’t use that.” Rendering lard took several days, and the kitchen cauldron supplied at least half our cooked food, to say nothing of hot water.
“Can we borrow one?” Bree glanced toward the door, where a flicker of movement showed. “Jem, is that you?”
“No, it’s me, Auntie.” Germain stuck his head in, sniffing cautiously. “Mandy wanted to visit Rachel’s petit bonbon, and Grand-père said she could go if Jem or me would take her. We threw bones and he lost.”
“Oh. Fine, then. Will you go up to the kitchen and fetch the bag of salt from Grannie’s surgery?”
“There isn’t any,” I said, grasping the pig by one ear and setting the saw in the crease of the neck. “There wasn’t much, and we used all but a handful soaking the intestines. We’ll need to borrow that, too.”
I dragged the saw through the first cut, and was pleased to find that while the fascia between skin and muscle had begun to give way—the skin slipped a little with rough handling—the underlying flesh was still firm.
“I tell you what, Bree,” I said, bearing down on the saw as I felt the teeth bite between the neck bones, “it’s going to take a bit of time before I’ve got this skinned and jointed. Why don’t you call round and see which lady might lend us her rendering kettle for a couple of days, and a half pound of salt to be going on with?”
“Right,” Bree said, seizing the opportunity with obvious relief. “What should I offer her? One of the hams?”
“Oh, no, Auntie,” said Germain, quite shocked. “That’s much too much for the lend of a kettle! And ye shouldna offer anyway,” he added, small fair brows drawing together in a frown. “Ye dinna bargain a favor. She’ll ken ye’ll give her what’s right.”
She gave him a look, half questioning, half amused, then glanced at me. I nodded.
“I see I’ve been gone too long,” she said lightly, and giving Germain a pat on the head vanished on her errand.
It took a bit of force, but I’d been lucky—well, skilled, let us say in all modesty—in placing the saw, and it took only a few minutes to haggle the head off. The last strands of muscle fiber parted and the massive head dropped the few inches to the tabletop with a thunk, limp ears quivering from the impact. I picked it up, estimating the weight at something like thirty pounds—but of course that included the tongue and jowls … I’d take those before setting the head to seethe for brawn … that could be done overnight, though, in the kitchen kettle … I must set the oatmeal to soak the night before, then I could warm the porridge in the ashes … or perhaps fry it with some dried apples?
I was sweating lightly from the work, a welcome relief from the chill. I got the feet off, tossed them into a small bucket to be pickled, then set aside the saw and chose the large knife with the serrated blade; even untanned, pig hide was tough. I was breathing heavily by the time I’d got the carcass half flayed, and, pausing to wipe my face on my apron, I lowered it to discover that Germain was still there, sitting on a cask of salt fish Jamie had got in trade from Georg Feinbeck, one of the Moravians from Salem.
“This isn’t a spectator sport, you know,” I said, and motioned to him to come and help. “Here, take this”—I gave him one of the smaller knives—“and pull back on the skin. You don’t really need to cut much, just use the blade to push the skin away from the body.”
“I ken how, Grannie,” he said patiently, taking the knife. “It’s the same as skinning a squirrel, only bigger.”
“To a point, yes,” I said, taking his wrist to readjust his aim. “But a squirrel, you’re skinning all of a piece, for the pelt. We need to take the hog’s hide off in pieces, but make sure the pieces are big enough to be useful—you can make a pair of shoes from the leather off one haunch.” I traced the line of the cuts, round the haunch, down the inside of the leg, and left him to it whilst I negotiated the forequarters.
We worked in silence for a few minutes—silence being rather uncharacteristic of Germain, but I thought him absorbed in his task—and then he stopped.
“Grannie …” he began, and something in his voice made me stop, too. I actually looked at him, for the first time since he’d come in, and I set down my knife.