The Wassailers' Unpaid Debt

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The story

The innkeeper tells travellers that the village carolers who came through last winter left without paying for their cider, and he has been waiting a year for the debt to be settled. A wassailer arrives on the night the travellers are staying, singing and demanding payment in singing.

How it begins

Last winter, on the eve of the longest night, a band of wassailers came stamping up the hill to this inn. You could hear them long before you could see them. First came the jingle of little bells tied to their boots, then the crunch of snow under many feet, and then a voice, high and clear, singing about a wassail bowl filled to the brim. There were six of them, bundled in red scarves and mittens that had seen better winters. Lanterns swung from long poles, throwing gold light across the drifts, and frost had crusted into their beards until they looked like old men carved out of sugar.…