From Londoner To Lord

Chapter 360 - 354. Doubts

Kivamus shrugged. "I have no other choice. We don't have cotton or flax in hand or the gold to buy it from Ulriga yet, and even if we did, those machines need a proper power source to run well, and that'll need a steam engine. So I won't push those ahead of tools that fix our current bottlenecks. We finish the sawmill and triphammer, build the lathe and the gauges, and get repeatable parts moving through the workshops. When that's steady, we'll come back to clothing machines with better tools to make it easier to manufacture them. By then we will also need to finish a working steam engine, preferably a few of them, and that's when we'll get a new revenue stream from clothing."

Duvas stared at him for a while, keeping his mouth shut.

Kivamus felt unnerved seeing him stop speaking completely. "What...?"

The majordomo broke his silence after a moment. "You have to tell me, did you really read all this in books at the Ulriga palace library?" His brow furrowed as he continued. "I mean it. I barely understood anything of what you just said and I've been giving work and repair orders to the local craftsmen for nearly two decades. That is... peculiar, to say the least. So it's getting hard to believe that you read all of it in Ulriga. In fact, if that library holds knowledge of things like this, why hasn't the Duke used it to help his people—or for himself? No offense to you, millord, but nearly every noble wants more gold, and ideas like these would make it so easy to get hoards of it. Why would anyone in his right mind keep that sort of knowledge on a shelf instead of using it?"

Kivamus' mind came to a sudden stop hearing those unexpected, but valid questions. In his excitement of lining up the future steps for the village, he had forgotten that Duvas didn't know about his origin and how he knew about such things. He had told Gorsazo about it in the past, and that conversation had gone better than expected, but nobody else knew about his past life on Earth. The carpenters, the blacksmith, and the guards didn't question him when he gave them new ideas, since most of them were either barely literate or completely illiterate, and they expected a noble of high birth like him to know about things they didn't know themselves. But Duvas was the son of a Baron, and had gotten a proper education, even if it was decades ago. Even at his advanced age, he was an insightful man, so Kivamus should have expected that the majordomo would start to question these things eventually.

Kivamus studied the old man sitting across from him for a while. It had been nearly half a year since he had known Duvas, and by now he trusted the majordomo with his life. Duvas had been there through everything—from the first chaotic weeks to the rebuilding in the winter—and never once had he done anything to betray his confidence.

So if there was anyone besides Gorsazo who deserved to know the truth about him, it was Duvas. Perhaps it was time for him to be included in the inner circle who knew about his real origin, which basically only consisted of him and Gorsazo for now. Syryne's sharp mind and her curiosity would make it impossible to keep her in the dark forever, but that could wait for now.

He took a deep breath. "I think it's time we had a serious conversation about something… extremely sensitive. It'll answer all your questions about the kind of knowledge I've been using here—about the things I've mentioned from the so-called 'library of Ulriga palace.' But it'll have to wait until we're completely alone. Right now, Trevalo's and Pydaso's wagon drivers are still staying in the manor, and it's not safe to speak openly. When they've left, we'll find a place where no one can overhear us. We'll need to include Gorsazo too. Just hold on to your questions until that day."

Duvas looked curious but nodded slowly. "As you wish, milord. I wonder what could explain everything about you, but after seeing more than sixty winters, I'm nothing if not patient. I'll wait for that day."

"Thank you," Kivamus said, letting out a sigh. It wouldn't be an easy conversation, but at least he had time to prepare for it.

Coming back to the present, he added, "Anyway, once the lathe is working properly, there is another benefit we'll get. We won't need to look around desperately for skilled craftsmen after that like we are doing these days. They'll still help, of course, but after that we'll be able to train any new refugees to assist the carpenter—just like how anyone can learn to use a crossbow in a few hours without years of training as an archer. Using a lathe is not exactly the same thing, but it's still close enough, and most people could learn to operate it in a few days at most. That's far from the years needed to train an apprentice to become a proper carpenter."

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Duvas gave a small, amused snort. "Like every new thing you tell us, these latest claims of yours will be hard to accept until I actually see it. I do believe you—but I'll believe you more when that lathe of yours is sitting in the carpenter's workshop and making crossbow parts at miraculous rates and accuracy."

Kivamus snorted. "That's fair." Wanting to change the subject, he asked, "How did your announcement go yesterday? About everyone getting three meals after a week?"

Duvas blinked, as if resetting his thoughts. "Ah, yes... It was very well received. Getting two meals a day regularly is still better than what we had last year, but three meals a day gives people the energy to go the extra mile when doing their tasks. I even heard the longhouse blocks' foremen talking about holding a minor feast together in one of the blocks when that starts, to celebrate it."

"Oh, that's nice to hear. How is it going with the rabbits the hunters brought? And the other animals? I saw some newborns yesterday."

"Quite well, actually," the majordomo replied. "We've already had the first litter from the female rabbits, uh... does, as the hunter told me they are called. Seven of them have given birth by now—with around thirty kits in total. It'll take three to four months for them to grow old enough to start breeding, though the mature ones can have another litter in about two months. So, it'll be four months before we can start culling the males for meat. As for the sheep, three of them are due soon. They only give birth to a couple of lambs each, and it'll take six to eight months for them to mature and another six before they start to give birth as well."

Kivamus exhaled. "Well, it's slow going. At least we'll have another sustainable source of meat in the future. We'll also have to start looking to buy some pigs here. It'll take time to breed enough of them, but it'll be a good source of meat and leather."

Duvas nodded. "I'll talk with any visiting merchants about it, now that we can afford to buy them. It's also good we'd saved the bilona trees, toloraberry shrubs, and other fruit trees in the south between the farmlands and wherever else we cleared the forests. They'll help in the coming months. The toloraberries are already coming in good numbers, and the bilona trees should give nuts by early autumn. By the way, the servants have started shearing the sheep during free hours, and they're storing that grease which they produce—lanolin, you called it."

"Good," Kivamus said. "We'll need it soon for lubricating the metal parts and gears when we build the lathe."

Duvas continued, "Apart from them, the cows and horses should give two calves and a foal this spring. That's why we weren't able to use one of the mares recently. As for the chickens, we were forced to use all the eggs for food until recently, but now we can let some hatch to increase the number of chickens. By winter, we should be getting both chicken meat and eggs at a good rate, as long as we build a bigger coop for them by then. Same for the other animals."

"We'll handle that when the current space runs out," Kivamus said. "There's no more room in the manor to expand the coops and such, so we'll use the southern area inside the village walls for this. The new vegetable patches and the mushroom barn are already there, so once we have a few more mushroom barns, and have added some coops and cattle enclosures there, it'll make the south a sustainable source of food within the safety of the walls, even if it can never replace the farms. That will make it much easier to withstand another siege like Torhan's, if it comes to that. The animals will also be safe from any predators there. Well, except from the flying bakkores, but thankfully we haven't seen any of them here recently."

He continued, "There's still plenty of space within the village walls right now to expand. We'll build more longhouse blocks in the north as soon as the sawmill is ready, and some better homes in the center and west after that. The east is already occupied by the manor and the empty space where we'll make the guards' training ground and the barracks, while the south will be used for food production and grain storage warehouses until we need to make more houses there. I think the area within the current walls should be enough for this year, and probably even for the next year, though we might need to make a new expanded wall next winter."

"I guess so," Duvas said. "Although I never expected that we'd fill all the area within the walls so fast. From what I know, the village walls had covered an area around 5 to 6 times larger than what it had occupied before then, and that had been enough for two decades. Tiranat really is changing at an astonishing rate..."

Kivamus chuckled. "Well, it's still slower than I want, but we'll see." He stood up. "I should start working on the blueprint of the lathe now. Make sure to remind Darora that he needs to finish the tablet press machine today, or at most by tomorrow."

Duvas nodded. "Of course. I'll send a servant to meet with him right now."