From Londoner To Lord-Chapter 160. Supervisors

The morning sun had risen higher in the sky, although the clouds had started hiding it again. It was still just as cold as the night, but having a full meal earlier and sitting in front of a roaring fire for an hour had helped a lot.

It had taken a while for all the slaves to come around, but thankfully none of them had decided to stay back. Hyola knew it was a risk to agree to go with these unknown people, but anything was better than starving here and being beaten up by Nokozal. Once the slaves had told the guards about their decision, Hudan had ordered the guards to bring up the wagons and start hitching them to the horses.

And before long, the guards had tied up ropes around the nodors' necks for the four guards who were riding on their horses to pull the animals alongside them. Two horses had been hitched to each of the wagons, after loading up one axle of the damaged wagon on each of them.

Once everything was ready, the slaves hadn't taken long to climb up on the wagon beds, wishing for a future better than the one they had had until now. Hyola was also sitting in one of the two wagons along with a dozen other stonecutters, everyone having anxious looks on their faces, while the guards climbed to their seats to drive the wagons.

But before they started moving, Calubo ran towards the fire which had mostly burned itself out by now, and after picking up a branch which was still burning, he took it to the makeshift huts, and one by one put all of them on fire.

Some of the slaves didn't seem too happy about that, but soon Calubo jogged towards them and said with a smirk, "Captain's orders. He told us there was no reason to provide Nokozal and the other bandits a ready-made hut in the winter. And there is no risk of a fire spreading to the forests from inside the limestone pit anyway - especially without any wind today - so we wanted to give one last gift to that huge bastard for daring to attack our homes. May he freeze to death here!"

That vision immediately put a grin to every face, with Hyola trying to visualize Nokozal's face red with anger when he saw that all his underlings were dead, his slaves and nodors had escaped in his wagons, and there was no place to shelter here anymore. Hyola grinned widely. Perhaps it was a fitting end to their departure from this part of their life. Let all their bad memories from this place burn in that fire. She thanked the goddess once again for taking care of them continuously. Hopefully, at least some of those tall promises of that baron would come true.

Once the guards whipped the horses to start moving, the small group of two wagons accompanied by the four horsemen lurched into motion towards an unknown, but a hopeful future. And in the light of the early morning sun, as Hyola watched the quarry moving further once the wagons reached outside the pit, she didn't know what the future held for them, but it certainly had to be better than the part of life she had been forced to spend here.

As the quarry faded away into the distance, she tried to imagine what it would be like to live as a free woman. Would that dream she had seen of buying meat sticks from a stall along with Calubo in a market square come true, after all? Would she really be able to earn a wage for working? And in that case, would she be able to buy meat sticks for Calubo from her own money, instead of relying on him to feed her? Hyola grinned just thinking about such a day.

She couldn't wait to reach Tiranat!

*******

~ Kivamus ~

~ Baron's Manor ~

Kivamus was sitting inside the manor hall on the long dining table while waiting for breakfast, with Gorsazo sitting nearby. It was too cold outside, so as usual, he was spending most of his time indoors while drawing a blueprint of one thing or another. Today he planned to finish the design for the seed drills.

The outer door opened and Duvas walked inside, shivering a little. He walked closer to the fireplace to warm himself, and said, "The villagers have started shifting to the longhouse block now. And I made sure to prioritize those who really needed it first."

"Good, good," Kivamus praised. "And how are they moving their stuff there?"

"They don't really have much to move in the first place," Duvas replied with a shrug, "especially those who were homeless. The rest of them are just carrying what they had on their backs."

"Hmm..." Kivamus mused. "But having even a single nodor to help in moving their stuff would have helped them a lot."

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"Well, the only nodor we have in the village is with the miller," Duvas remarked, "but we need him to work for most of the day to continue milling grain into flour, so we can take it from him anyway."

Kivamus remembered thinking earlier about how the milling of grain was done in the village without any windmill or other power source, but that gave the answer. Animal power seemed to be the only source of energy here. But hopefully, not for too long.

He looked at the majordomo. "Do the villagers have something to use as a mattress on those bunks?"

Duvas stared at him for a moment, before looking at Gorsazo, who gave a shrug and remarked, "What? You already know he used to spend all his time in the library."

The majordomo shook his head, and looked back at Kivamus. "Well, most of the villagers are quite used to sleeping on the cold, hard ground. I am not sure what was common in the Ulriga palace, but Tiranat is a really poor village, as you already know by now. And even having a wooden bunk to sleep inside a warm building is more than most of them could have dreamt of just a few months ago." He added, "While I've hardly checked this, but from what I know, only a few merchants would have such a mattress outside of the manor."

Kivamus took a deep breath. Of course. How could he forget the poverty of this village and this region. This was the medieval era, and having a good mattress was probably only a dream for most people. That was another thing to improve in the future then. And at least Gorsazo had covered for him here, knowing he wasn't really used to life in this world.

"Can't anything be done about that?" he asked anyway. "There would certainly be some straw around the village to use as stuffing."

"That is hardly the problem, my Lord," Duvas replied. "Those people who still have a house or even a shack to live in, certainly put some dry straw on their dirt floors to get some insulation from the cold ground. But to make a mattress from them - like those we have in the servants' hall - would require a lot of fabric to stuff the straw inside it. And cotton or even linen fabric is not something which comes cheap in our kingdom, so the majority of the villagers can't dream of buying it when they barely have enough coin to buy food."

He continued, "I'm not sure how many years it has been since we bought any fabric for use in the manor, other than what the previous baron bought for his personal use. Usually Leah just stitches up any holes in our straw mattresses when needed, otherwise we just make do with what we have."

Kivamus grimaced, now having a better idea of just how destitute this village was.

"Still," the majordomo added, "I have already told the villagers that they are allowed to bring whatever they want to use as cushioning on their bunks. Many of them are borrowing some of it from wherever they were living till now or any other neighbors they know in the village. Some of them have even gone into the forest to gather something from there after I assured them many times that the baron wouldn't punish them for it." He shrugged before adding, "I know it's hardly ideal, but that's the usual life of commoners. Food comes before material comforts, always."

"That being said," Duvas asked, "as we had seen earlier, a lot of other villagers also have their houses damaged or with patched holes in their walls, so, many of them wanted to shift in the longhouse block as well. I even saw a few fights breaking out between some villagers for the right to move there first, even though I have already told who can move there. What do you want to do about it?"

"We are already building a second longhouse block for them," Gorsazo observed, "but it's true that it will take a few weeks at least."

Duvas nodded, "Yeah, and I told them that they would certainly have space in the second longhouse block. But they wanted me to allow them to shift into this one, even if they had to sleep on the floors, since even that would be a lot warmer than where they are living these days."

Kivamus thought about it for a moment and nodded. "Do it. That's why we even made a wooden floor inside the block. Give a preference to those who have children or elderly in their families, but make sure that it doesn't become too overcrowded. The longhouse block will certainly be above capacity after this, but you should still keep a limit on the number of people inside, so it doesn't become just uninhabitable."

Duvas nodded. "I'll take another look inside to see how many people we can easily accommodate on the floors. But I'll still keep one section of that block completely free, so the stonecutters would be able to stay together in the beginning. Otherwise, it might lead to unnecessary arguments or fights."

"Yeah, keeping them segregated for now is a good idea." Kivamus added, "And make sure to assign the supervisors today. They will need to cook enough food to feed more than a hundred people, many times a day, so there has to be someone who is in charge of cooking food for everyone in the block. Perhaps one of the older women who doesn't go to work as a laborer could do it. There should be another person who will be in charge of cleaning the blocks. Once the snow melts, you can also add someone who will take care of organizing and sowing some vegetable patches there - but we can leave that until after the winter."

Duvas gave a nod in reply.

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Kivamus thought for a while before adding, "Apart from that, we have already talked about making someone in-charge of the storeroom. And since that has to be a reliable person whom you trust not to steal from there, so you can also make him the overall administrator of the block. If anyone living in the longhouse block has a problem with something, they should go to him first, and if he is unable to resolve that problem, then he can come directly to you to ask for help."

"Is that really needed though?" Duvas asked with a frown. "While I have only supervised the manor until now, wouldn't it be better if anyone who has a problem can come directly to me?"