From Londoner To Lord

Chapter 381 - 375. Progress Check - II

"I went to the market square and to the north," the majordomo said. "The deconstruction of the abandoned huts is almost done. The last few shacks will be taken down by evening. Most of the shops in the market square are proper wooden houses, so they're still standing, even though a lot of them are damaged. Same with the makeshift vegetable stalls. But we can't afford to pull those buildings down without having something to offer the owners instead."

"The new market square in the north will solve that once it's ready," Kivamus said. "But that's not an immediate priority. Let the old shops stay for now. It's good the clearing work finished at this time, though. These are the people who have worked in building construction in the past. Send those workers to the third longhouse construction site from tomorrow. They really need more hands, and this will cover it."

"I will," Duvas said with a nod. "To take down all the village shacks, the last of the refugees who were living in them have already been moved into the courtyards of the longhouse blocks, though both courtyards are overcrowded now, specially with vegetable gardens also being cultivated there. And the insides were packed full already." He sighed. "These days entering a longhouse is like visiting the market square at the peak of business hours, like when the coal miners returned in the evening to buy food for the day from the market until last year. It's seriously congested there."

"That's true," Kivamus agreed, "but the third longhouse is already under construction. It will take some time to finish, but with building material coming in so fast from the sawmill, it will only take a fraction of the time the first two needed."

"I know," Duvas said. "But are you sure about building such a large structure with more than one floor? The first two blocks only have a single floor, so there was never a big risk of people getting hurt, even though we used unseasoned logs. A two-story building with unseasoned logs is another matter. You know we brought the planks and beams from Cinran to build the manor, right? If we'd used unseasoned logs here, it wouldn't have lasted half as long, especially for a double-story building."

"Don't worry about it," Kivamus said with a smile. "I had a long discussion with Taniok about it, and we inspected many of the stockpiles of logs stacked up within the walls. He told me that fedarus wood isn't like most other timber. It's far more efficient. It takes only around six months for it to lose all its moisture and turn into seasoned wood. They couldn't build ships from fedarus wood in Dorastiz otherwise. That means the trunks from the start of the forest clearing last winter are already fully seasoned, and more trunks will be ready in the coming months."

He leaned back slightly. "You already know I wanted three-story buildings in the north, especially now that refugees keep arriving every few days. But Taniok said that while he had worked on three-story buildings before he moved here, it was a long, long time ago. The rest of the workers also have no experience at all with multi-story buildings. His opinion was that we should continue making single story blocks, while I pushed for three-story buildings. So after an extended argument with him, we reached a compromise of making double-story buildings for now, which will also be faster and safer."

He went on, "Making two-story blocks now will also help the workers slowly build that much-needed experience—most of those construction workers were coal miners just half a year ago, after all. This way, once we've built a few double-story longhouse blocks, we can move to three-story ones if we really need to. But to be honest, if we build more double-story blocks instead, that will probably be safer for us anyway. We still have plenty of open space inside the walls, and if we add a third floor, they will be visible from outside the village. That makes them an obvious target for any bandit who wants to set them on fire."

The majordomo nodded slowly. "We're going to coat all those longhouse walls with clay anyway, just like in the first two blocks. That will keep the worst of the winter wind out and also make it harder for them to catch fire if someone tries. But you're right. We can't afford to take such risks."

"Exactly," Kivamus said.

"I am still not sure that we need to take the risk of making two-story buildings..." Duvas said.

Kivamus shook his head. "No, it'll be better this way. If we'd made the first two blocks double-storied as well, it would have helped a lot in housing everyone today, but back then all we had was unseasoned wood. And we didn't have any trained builders either. The workers who built the manor went back to Cinran when that job ended two decades ago, like you told me. Only Taniok had real experience from building the merchants' houses and market shops, while we just had coal miners to help him."

He gave a small shrug. "Now it's different. We have a few dozen workers who've already built longhouses before, and we can produce construction material much, much faster than we could before the winter—when we depended on a single carpenter and his apprentices crafting everything by hand. This is the perfect time to start making double-story longhouse blocks."

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"I guess so," the majordomo said. "It will certainly help with the housing problem, which will turn into a crisis soon if we don't build more. I'm just glad we had these two blocks and their courtyards to house new refugees."

Kivamus nodded. "Yes, but there's another issue Taniok found recently. Because the first two longhouse blocks were made from completely unseasoned wood, some of the beams and posts have already started to warp and twist. The buildings are still safe to live in—for now—but he said they won't last very long. They might survive this winter, or they might not. The warping has been faster than expected because fedarus wood dries much quicker than other trees. That'll only help us in the future, since we now have huge stockpiles of seasoned logs for the upcoming construction projects, but those first two blocks—" He shook his head. "—they aren't going to last."

Duvas frowned. "We've already packed those blocks full, but if they don't last through the coming winter, that'll be a grave problem. People simply won't survive without the safety of those walls in the freezing winters of Tiranat. Can we even make enough new blocks before then?"

Kivamus allowed himself a small smile. "We can. I'm sure of it now that the sawmills are working. We can build new longhouse blocks much faster than we did last winter, and these are going to be two-story blocks, capable of housing even more people. If it seems that the first two blocks won't last the winter, we can tear them down in autumn and replace them with new multi-story blocks in the same spots."

He leaned forward slightly. "Taniok will give me a better estimate about the construction timeline in a week, but his first guess was that they can finish the ground floor of the third block in about twelve to fourteen days, and the upper floor in another week—assuming there's no shortage of construction material. That speed will only improve in the future. The third sawmill isn't even finished yet, and the workers are still getting used to multi-story construction."

"Let's hope so," Duvas said. He scratched his short white beard. "Since the inside of the new blocks is basically the same as the old ones, how many people can we house in the new double-story blocks?"

"It's not completely the same design," Kivamus explained. "There will be slanting staircases in the courtyard on each of the three inner sides of the block, since a lot of people will need to use them. But we've also modified the inner design to add another staircase within the central section, for use when the weather is very bad. We don't want mothers carrying their infants out into the snow just to climb to the upper floor after eating on the ground floor near the kitchens. That inner staircase will let children and the elderly stay in the warm indoors most of the time."

"That will surely help a lot in preventing toddlers and infants from getting sick from the cold," the majordomo said. "I had taken a look at your blueprint and seen some of the changes. Making two gates in this design to cater to the much larger number of residents and adding a continuous walkway on the inside of the upper floor in the courtyard to connect each side was a very good idea. But what about the space right above the kitchen and the storage rooms on the ground floor? I didn't understand too much of your design."

"That's the good part," Kivamus said. "Our first plan was to copy the layout and make another kitchen directly above the one on the ground floor, so each floor could cook separately. But one of the longhouse foremen suggested it would be better to specialize instead. After talking it through, we agreed to add a small staircase inside the ground-floor kitchen connecting it to the kitchen above."

He tapped the table lightly with a finger. "That way, all the actual cooking on fire, as well as the clay oven for making bread will stay on the ground floor, with the smoke taken out through the walls. It wouldn't be feasible to make them safely on the upper floor anyway. In the new blocks, the upper kitchen will handle all the peeling, chopping, and other food preparation, which was being done on the ground floor earlier. That frees more space downstairs for another clay oven and more open floor for cooking, which is a good thing since they'll need to cook for roughly double the number of people in these new blocks now. So instead of repeating the same kitchen twice, we're giving each floor a different role." He grinned. "Specialization, you know?"

Duvas smiled. "Your way of thinking is starting to spread to the common folk too, since it was the foreman who suggested it. The leftover scraps from food prep can be given to dogs, or can be used as compost in the vegetable gardens in the courtyards. But what about the storage rooms?"

Kivamus lifted a shoulder. "With nearly double the number of people living there, we need almost double the storage space just to keep provisions for the same number of days. So the storage rooms on the upper floor will also be used for food, and we've expanded them a little to store even more, including in the area right above both the gates on the ground floor. It cuts into the living area a little, but it's worth it in the long run."

He added, "As for your original question: the first two longhouse blocks can each hold 128 people in bunks, even though we currently have roughly double that number squeezed inside and in the courtyards. But the new two-story design can comfortably accommodate 248 people in bunks."