From Londoner To Lord

Chapter 390 384. Saboteurs

Kivamus was standing on the roof of the manor house on the western side, looking at everything going on down below, with Duvas standing nearby. He was waiting for the captain to arrive before they could start planning the revenge. It was midday, and the late spring sun was hanging high in the sky. The weather was getting hot every day, and it wouldn't be long before it started to get muggy. But at least it was still bearable so far.

To his right, Trevalo's wagons were being unloaded one by one, with servants using wheelbarrows to transport the sacks of grain, vegetables, and potatoes to the storage rooms. The merchant had already left on horseback, though, taking two wagon drivers with him. On the left side towards the south, Madam Nerida was busy counting sacks as she noted things down on a small piece of paper—real paper. Once they had an estimate of how many sacks would be needed to provide three meals a day to all the people living in the longhouse blocks, a few servants would take those sacks to the blocks after that using wheelbarrows.

He had also sent Madam Helga to talk with the latest batch of refugees who had arrived yesterday to see if they needed any medicine or any other help. More than two dozen people arriving at a time was a lot, but that group's male members who had already been living here had been helping out in getting the refugees to settle into a new life here. With no space in the blocks, a few makeshift tents had been arranged for them, with relatively straight wooden branches serving as pillars of the cone, while some old cloth served as a roof. It wouldn't help if it rained, but the skies looked pristine these days. To be fair, it was hardly better than their living conditions in the forest camp, but at least this was only going to be temporary.

That's because he could see the third longhouse block's construction underway from here. Taniok's apprentices and other woodworkers had been working hard, and nearly all the tall pillars of the ground floor were already in place, jutting high above the heights of the men there. Right now they were fixing the beams to make the roof, above which another floor would be made. Duvas had also reported that the third sawmill would be completed by the evening by Taniok, which meant that from tomorrow, freshly cut planks would start arriving from the dam site on Trevalo's wagons. After that, the bald carpenter would start working on the triphammer on the far side of the stream.

The majordomo noticed his gaze. "The wagons which Trevalo left here are going to help us a lot in finishing that construction soon."

"Let's hope so…" Kivamus said. "We really need more housing space here, now that Feroy has started spreading rumors even in the north. The flow of refugees is only going to increase in the coming months. By the way, did you get any updates from Darora today?"

Duvas nodded. "He will provide another crossbow by evening. But you will be more interested in knowing that the first scorpion should also be done by tomorrow. He's in the final stage of assembling it, so I think we should be able to give it a try the next afternoon."

"Finally!" Kivamus grinned. "Once this is done, we will get him to make the wooden parts for more scorpions, although we will have to tell Cedoron to hold off on making the metal parts. Now that the cementation furnaces near the stream are already belching smoke into the sky, we will get the first batch of steel in just a little more than two weeks. So I think it will be best to make the metal parts with steel for the next scorpion. I am already doubtful if even the first one will be able to work with iron parts."

"We will find out in two days anyway, so we can modify it if needed," Duvas shrugged. "It will also give Cedoron some free time to catch up on the regular orders of pickaxes, shovels, and the like. Now that the number of coal miners is increasing with every new batch of refugees, we really need more of those tools. He and his apprentices had been dedicating all their time to make the furnaces and the iron bars for it, so they had been lagging in the other things they needed to forge. Darora has also started running low on iron parts for more crossbows, so we can use the next two weeks to stock up on those things, and Cedoron can work with the steel we get after that."

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Kivamus nodded. "What's the status of other projects?"

Duvas began, "The trench on the last side—the south one—will be done in two or three more days. The coating of the walls will take at least ten more days, though."

"Send one group of hunters to scout a good path from here to the coal mines and then to the dam, so the diggers can cut a wide road through there after they are done with the trench. We already have a working road, but they can find out if there is a better path, especially when cutting through the slope of the hills."

"One hunting group returned this morning," Duvas said, "so I will tell them about it, and they will scout it from tomorrow. Just a day or two would be enough for that. And by then the diggers will be free to work on the road. Apart from that, Pinoto has said that the space we had cleared between the farming fields and the forest is not enough. He wants some more empty space there to work as a firebreak. He also requested fencing for the fields if possible. In a few months the crops will present an easy grazing ground for any animals, especially at night when we can't keep an eye on such a large area."

The door of the roof opened and Hudan walked to them, with Kerel and Tesyb following him.

Kivamus held up a finger to them to wait, as he thought about what Duvas had said. "It's not feasible to make any kind of fence until we've made the third and fourth longhouse blocks, and the encampment in the hills for making medicine. Completing all that will take around a month, but after that we can use the sawmills to cut out something like a picket fence. Ideally we should have used barbed wire for that, but we can't possibly spare that much iron. Wooden fences will have to be enough for that. Although even that won't be enough to stop any saboteurs..."

"What do you mean?" Duvas asked.

Kivamus looked into the distance. "If Zoricus, or anyone else, like a grain trader who is profiting greatly from the high prices of wheat, sees our fields undefended, then knowing that our village has always been seen as a very weak one, they can set fire to the fields, especially when the crops start to get mature and the weather is hot and dry. Even a single person can destroy all our crops before we can do anything about it. And it will be disastrous for us."

"Should I post guards there when the crops start to get mature?" Hudan asked. "I don't think we have that many men for that, though."

"I realize that..." Kivamus said. "Making watchtowers wouldn't be a good idea either, since we can't make enough of them to cover the huge area of farms, and someone can still reach the fields in the cover of night."

He paused, trying to think what Feroy would suggest here, and it immediately gave him an idea. "You know what, I think I know what to do. We will need to patrol the boundary of the fields with our guards." He explained, "Once we have more guards, we will make more hunting squads, but we will keep a few of those squads just to defend the fields. They will stay in the forest just outside the fields most of the time, and move from place to place. In their free time, they can kill any animals which come to eat our crops, whether in the day or night, and in case they see someone unidentified there, they can easily apprehend him."

Hudan scratched his chin. "The plan sounds fine, but those fields are huge, covering an area many times larger than the village, and those fields are expanding every week. It will need at least three or four groups... Hmm... No, actually we don't need to make groups of four men here. We can just put them in pairs, and each of them will cover a certain section of the boundary of the fields. That way we should be able to cover it more easily."

"That's a good idea," Kivamus said.

Tesyb looked at him. "How about we use female guards in those patrolling squads? The forest near the fields is much safer than the places where the hunters usually go. So a squad of two women can easily take care of any animals which wander there, especially if they have crossbows. And if they see some unidentified people, they can blow a horn to call up the other squads for help. We can even send help from the village in that case, since the farms are right next to us. Of course, we should have some swordsmen also patrolling, but women can take up most of the responsibility here."

Kivamus smiled at the brawny guard, feeling glad that he had suggested it himself, which meant the guards were starting to see women as equals now. "Good. That's a much better idea. I want to start this immediately, at least on a smaller scale. Hudan, how many guards do we have now?"