The Cheese Maiden and The Wino

N.B.: I had a dream on the night of 1/25/22 about a society built around cheese. I found it so humorous that I decided I would spice it up with a plot and call it my own work, even though it was story handed down to me by the divine fates.

Chapter 1: Marriage and a Murder

Cheese was everything on the plains. It was currency. It was the magical bases for the religion of Fondu. It was medicine. It was sustenance. It was law. There was no aspect in the country of Prairie Plains where cheese was not important. Cheese was life, so when Samuel Turner took Hannah Graves’s cheese, he should have known he was doomed.

Heather was the only child of one of the biggest and most popular cheese producers in the country of Prairie Plains. They did not own cows, but they owned caves that held the best bacteria for the finest most flavorful cheeses. These caves were dappled across the mountain ranges that acted as a natural barrier along the countries northern and western border. In those caves they affinaged everything from gouda and gruyere to blue cheese and brie. What made this cheese so popular though was not its outstanding flavors. It was its magical abilities. The cheese depending on their sources and where they were aged could have varying properties from healing to granting wishes. Her family guarded the entrances of these caves more heavily than their recipes, for the key ingredient to any good cheese with a magical quotient is the right kind of rot.

For heather’s 18th birthday she had been granted her first access to her familial caves. She had known for years of the secret entrance from her home’s cellar and had spent many years exploring and pilfering the caves. This was her official invitation, though, so she was shown nooks, crannies and vaults she had yet to glean access too. Her fingers itched to take these new found oddities, but she almost managed to resist. That was until she was shown a vault so deeply locked up in the mountain. It was filled with creamy Roquefort cheese that could slow down aging. It spoke to her like none of the other cheese had and she couldn’t help chiseling out a chunk of it. She did not see it as stealing, after all the caves would pass down to her one day.

Samuel, or Sami as he was nicknamed since his father was also a Samuel, was the son of the largest dairy producers. They owned most of the ranches around Prairie Plains and were the wealthiest family in the central Plains that dominated the interior of the country. His families special cows were a key component in the making of magical cheeses. In fact milk from other regions did not pack the mystical punch required for these magical cheeses so the turner family was well connected with the Graves family.

Samuel 5 years older than heather had recently been forced to think of marriage. His parents were deliberating an arranged marriage between the Graves or the Marsh family. Both families were key to keeping the Turner ranch empire running and they wished to start building a more solid foundation on their monopoly. Out of the two women Sami found Heather Graves much more buxom and advantageous than Mellissa Marsh.

Mellissa was much less impressive in both looks and family dynamics. The Marshes produced grains along the delta on the lower quarters of the country. There was nothing magical about these grains, all though the grain they grew was important for flour and winter stock feed. Still, the land the Marsh’s owned was not conducive for rearing cows nor did it have the climate for the countries main export of magic cheese, so Sami did not feel the match would bring him the power he deserved. That’s why he showed up to Graves’s ranch the day after Heather's birthday. He knew suiters would be calling now that she was of age and her father had officially introduced her to society.

The side door to the kitchen had been wide open with only the screen door guarding the entrance when Sami arrived at the Graves’s home. He peered in and saw heather peeling potatoes at the big porcelain sink in the middle of the massive kitchen. “Hey Heather! Can I come in,” He asked knowing Heather and her family were not kind to trespassers.

Heather as welcoming as anyone in her family asked, “What do you want Sami?” She never bothered pausing from her task.

“I have something important to ask you,” he said in earnest.

“Then ask!” she said not inviting him in.

He looked around the porch for inspiration. He hadn’t planned on purposing through a screen door. Annoyed he pleaded, “Come on Heather this is important, can I please come in and talk to you.”

In answer Heather threw an unpeeled potato at the screen. Her family’s home had been built into the side of one of the norther boarder mountains and stood guard over the cellar entrances to the cheese caves. For this reason, people were rarely invited into their home and Heather knew it would be a beatable offense if she let the boy in. She didn’t like him anyways. He was a milk puss prick, who had bullied her any time she was in town.

Sami was starting to question his decision in choosing heather. Heather had an illustrious bust that accentuated her hourglass shape. It made every man in town want to lose themselves in her curves. Her attitude, though, was as prickly as the nipple beehive cacti that plagued their grazing lands. She seemed to like no one and nothing. Still teaming up with her would make Sami the richest most powerful man in the country. That was enough to overcome her surliness. After all he wouldn’t need her after they had a few children and the caves had officially been imparted to him. “Don’t be like that.” Sami put up a front of kind patience.

Heather wasn’t buying it. She understood her position in life better than most. As an only child she was an heiress to a world-famous cheese empire. That put her in a position that made her feel targeted. As a woman she was constantly being pressured into marriage, because how could a woman be expected to run a business? Her role, after all, was to support. Still, she was no dummy and did not want to be saddled up to a Turner, even if their milk was a necessity. “If it is so important you can tell me at the Fall Festival,” she told him as she moved to chopping the spuds.

Brilliance struck Sami, “I would but I don’t want to embarrass you.”

This gave Heather a pause. She hated being embarrassed or surprised. Any time she was she lost more respect than she could afford to give up. Her father was suffering from spore sickness from the caves, something even the cheeses couldn’t cure. If he dropped off at any point before she found a good partner her family's business could face ruin, especially if the other heads of the countries prominent families thought her a laughingstock. “Well then say it!” She yelled, flustered by the circumstances.

“Not until you let me in,” Sami pushed.

Heather went to the screen and opened it, “Stop playing games and tell me now!” she demanded in the doorway. The porch was a step lower than the house. Sami was about the same height as her, so the step up allowed her to look down her nose at him, something she enjoyed immensely.

Sami had wished to be in the house for this but decided this would do. He went down on one knee and held up a piece of blueish green veined Gorgonzola's cheese. This was a rare blue cheese that was valued above the marble it resembled. A piece was offered with a proposal of marriage and was saved by the couple for the Fondu prestress to read before the marriage. It was much more accurate than palm reading they said and if the lines presented a bad omen the couple could call off the wedding. The piece Sami held up had defined lines that stood out stark from the creamy white richness which definitely suggested longevity and prosperity.

Heather's heart sunk as she realized what was happening. “Oh no,” she shook her head and was backing away before he could ask.

She was trying to close the door on him when he saw the large lump of cheese, she had stollen the day before silhouetted in her pocket. By law a man could force a woman into marriage if he took a piece of cheese from her. The law was a pun on sex, but most people took it seriously. If a man claimed, he had a piece of a woman’s cheese that was grounds enough to force the couple into marriage, weather the cheese was hers or not. Sami slithered his hand in and pulled the chunk from her skirt apron.

Heather saw red! Furry had her blood boiling instantly. The audacity of Sami was choking her with so much anger, she could barely splutter out, “Give it back!”

She had stollen the prized with another boy in mind. That boy was Daniel Smith. He was a nobody and Heather knew it. She knew too that she could never be with him, and no one could ever find out about her crush. Still, it didn’t stop her from wanting to help out the boy when she could. She knew that chunk alone was worth $40,000 cheddars, which was a yearly salary for the working class. That could help his single mother put food on the table for the next year if she gave it to him. She worried, though, that he would not know its value and bargain it away too easily, so she had thought to fence it herself and leave the supplies she bought with it anonymously at his doorstep as she had done countless times in the past.

Sami was already beating a hasty retreat away from Heather’s ire. She grabbed at his shirt, and he wriggled free; calling out to the winds the ceremonial words of handfasting, “I have taken Heather’s cheese. She is now as holey as the Swiss and she can only brie whole again if she hoops with me!”

Heather let go of him and looked about for witnesses. The words if heard by others was binding and legal, but if there were no witnesses there was a more favorable law in play for her. “If a man takes a maiden’s cheese without her permission, she is allowed to stab him with her parents' knives”, because a maiden should never own weapons. Heather saw no one and decided in that split second what she had to do. She split away from Sami running back towards the house.

Thinking she was retreating Sami laughed victorious, “Go ahead and run, wife! I will come to collect you in the morning.” He turned away and began a slow meander back home. He kicked up gravel from the driveway as he went, basking in the joys of victory. It hadn’t gone as he had planned, but he still got what he wanted.

He was in the throes of his jubilation when the heavy shuffle of feet running towards him reached his ears. Before he could turn to gloat more a shooting pain shot through his neck. He had no time to think or realize he was injured before the knife was being plunged into his back and his right arm and his shoulder. Over and over and over again Heather stabbed Sami with the knife she had used to cut potatoes. She felt no shame for driving the blade in his back. There was no honor for women, and she was backed by the law, or she would be after she spun her tail to the others. He stole her cheese, and no one had to know about their hand fast.

Up Next: Chapter 2 Fair Trail and a Funeral