Torig passed the partly built gate, where Taniok was arguing with one of his apprentices about hinge placement, then continued toward the western edge. That was the only side still unfinished. The sun had dropped lower by now, and sunset was less than an hour away. The light across the hills had softened, and the slopes ahead were easier to look at without squinting.
He stopped beside one of the incomplete palisade gaps and looked west.
The path back toward Tiranat wound between hills and patches of trees before disappearing beyond a lower ridge. Calling it a path was generous in places. Most of it was little better than an animal track, narrow and uneven, with small stones everywhere. The road sloped upwards almost the whole way when coming here from the village, and the horses had a hard time pulling loaded wagons up it. Some stretches were bad enough that the drivers had to get down and guide them slowly to keep the wagons from tipping into a valley.
That was why the trip took nearly two days by wagon, even though the distance itself was not that great.
The weekly caravan was due any day now. If it was coming today, it should appear soon.
Torig narrowed his eyes and kept watching.
A few days earlier, one of the hunting groups had visited the encampment before returning to the village. That had lifted everyone’s mood more than he had expected. The hunting groups always moved in fours now, two men and two women. A year ago, Torig would have found that strange. Now it barely stood out. Women worked as guards, used crossbows, hunted, patrolled, and took shifts the same as men in more and more places.
One of the men in that group had helped discover this hill in the first place, back when they were searching for a good site. A flat enough top. Enough space for a compound. Most importantly, countless losuvil vines in the nearby hills, including this one. The vines liked shade under large trees, and this region of the foothills had more than enough of both. They would not run short of leaves here.
Yufim had been with that hunting group too.
That had made the evening lively. The blond archer with the long ponytail had spent half the night talking around the fire, bragging, joking, and complaining that Hyola still refused to give him a proper archery match without using her crossbow. He called himself the best archer in Tiranat often enough that even people who had never seen him shoot would remember it. From what Torig knew, he really was as good as he claimed, which only made him more annoying when he said it.
Still, Yufim had brought news from the village—the hunters had left the village after the people here—and the workers had enjoyed hearing it. He had also said the encampment could become a good resting place for hunters working the eastern hills. Torig liked that idea immediately. It would let the hunters range deeper and bring back bigger game. It might also mean the encampment got fresh meat now and then, which was not easy to bring in the weekly supply wagons.
He would gladly share water, shelter, and food with hunters in exchange for that.
His eyes caught movement near one of the hills in the distance.
Torig straightened.
For a moment he thought it might be animals moving through the brush. Then he saw the shape of a wagon turning slowly around the slope. A second wagon followed behind it. The horses were moving carefully, and the drivers were taking their time over the uneven ground.
Torig grinned.
The supply caravan was here.
One wagon would be carrying more construction materials—beams, posts, planks, nails, hinges, and whatever else Taniok had asked for. The other would have food, fresh clothes, barrels of clean water, and maybe news from the village.
And, if his quiet request had been answered, a small amount of ale.
Not much though. He was not a heavy drinker, and this was not a place where guards could afford to be drunk. But last week, when the wagons returned to Tiranat, he had asked for a little of it to be sent back. He had expected the palisade to be complete by the time the caravan returned. It was not quite done yet, but it would be done tomorrow or the next day. Once that last side was finished and the gate set in place, he wanted everyone to have a few sips as a celebration.
Not enough to dull anyone’s senses.
Just enough to mark the success.
Feroy had once told him that a man leading guards had to think about morale as much as weapons. If he expected people to risk their lives, then he had to keep their spirits up. Torig had remembered that. Out here, away from their homes and families, with only work, trees, and hills around them, a few sips of ale after finishing the palisade would mean a lot.
He turned back toward the camp, cupped one hand near his mouth, and shouted, “The caravan is back!”
Heads lifted across the hilltop at once.
Workers stopped mid-task. Guards turned toward the western gap. Even Taniok paused in the middle of scolding an apprentice.
Then people began moving, and the mood of the camp changed in a heartbeat. The reaction was immediate, as he had expected.
A few workers gave tired cheers, while others laughed and slapped dust from their hands. The guards at the northern side leaned out to look, and one of the women with a crossbow called out to ask whether the wagon had brought fresh bread this time. Someone else shouted that he only cared whether there was salted meat, and that started a quick argument about what counted as proper food after two weeks of eating mostly the same things every day.
Torig smiled as he watched them.
Nobody abandoned their posts, but everyone had become more alert in a different way now. The men near the palisade worked faster. Two guards moved toward the western gap to prepare for the wagons’ arrival, while another went to clear some tools from the path. Even Taniok’s scowl had eased a little, though he still barked at one apprentice to stop standing around and make himself useful.
Fresh food always did this. Fresh cloth too. Out here, even a bundle of clean tunics or new strips of cloth for wrapping scrapes on their hands could improve the mood of the whole camp. They were not starving, and they were not poorly supplied, but there was a difference between eating what remained in storage and excitedly opening the sacks and crates on a wagon that had come from home.
The wagons were still far enough away that it would take some time for them to climb the last stretch, but the camp had already changed. The hilltop felt less tired than it had a few moments ago. People started guessing what food had come from Tiranat this time, what the latest news was, had the barracks started to be built by now, whether the fourth longhouse block was done, whether the scorpion had been rebuilt yet, and whether Lord Kivamus had started some other impossible project while they were away.
Torig turned back toward the western path, still smiling.
For tonight at least, the camp would feel a little closer to Tiranat.
***
~ Kivamus ~
The next day, late in the morning, Kivamus stood under the broken roof of an old animal shed in the western part of the manor, waiting for the first batch of Tiranat-made soap to get ready.
The sun was already high, and the heat had grown strong enough that standing in the open for long felt more than just unpleasant. This shed had once been used for animals, back when the manor still kept more of them inside its own walls. Now most of the larger animals had been shifted to new pens in the southern part of the village, near the vegetable patches. Only the valuable horses, the chickens, and the rabbit pens remained inside the manor. The rabbits had multiplied well over the past few months, but they were being left to grow in number until winter, when their meat and fur would finally become useful in a larger way.
The southern vegetable patches were doing well too. At first, they had only given a small amount of fresh food, hardly enough to matter beyond the manor kitchens. But with nearly half of the area within the village walls now covered by vegetable beds—basically all the space south of the manor and the old market square occupied by them—and with a few women from the village helping the maids when they had free time, the fresh vegetables' supply had started to become abundant. Some women even came with toddlers or young children, who played near the edges while their mothers worked. It still wasn't enough to give everyone in the village a balanced diet by itself, and they were still buying whatever vegetables the merchants from Cinran could bring, but it reduced expenses a little. More importantly, if the village was ever besieged again, those patches would give them at least some fresh food inside the walls.
For now, though, Kivamus had other work to do.
The old animal sheds had become valuable empty space now, which was rare inside the manor these days. Most open ground had already been taken by vegetable beds, storage, animals, or work areas. Even one of the old cow sheds had been turned over for horses because the number of mounts had increased. The barracks wall east of the manor was progressing smoothly, and once that area was enclosed with the palisade in around ten days, the training ground in the southeast of the manor would be shifted there. That would free space for a more permanent soap-making area.
Until then, this half-broken shed would do.
Its side walls were still present, which helped block the view from any villager passing through the manor grounds. The roof had been getting weak anyway, so most of it had been removed yesterday. Only one section remained, enough to give shade where Kivamus, Duvas, and Syrene were standing. The rest of the shed was open to the air, which was good because there would be fire, heat, and fumes from the work.
Kivamus did not want any visiting merchant, their drivers, or a curious villager seeing too much, and the walls would help with that. The guilds of Plumron held the method of soap making closely, and even if Kivamus was not using their recipe, no one outside Tiranat needed to know that they could make soap yet.
Three workers had been selected for the first attempt: two men and one woman, all manor servants who had already shown they could follow careful instructions. They stood near a clay hearth where a large baked-clay pot sat over a low fire. Beside it were smaller pots of rendered fat, a covered pot of concentrated lye brought from the dam site, a few wooden stirring paddles, and several simple wooden molds made yesterday by one of Darora’s apprentices.
The lye was the most important part. They had been making it for months already for paper making, so that part was no longer new. Water passed through wood ash, then left to stand, then reduced by boiling until it became strong enough for use. The process had simply been expanded at the industrial area near the dam. Today, a full pot of it had been brought here.
Getting the animal fat was easier. The manor already had stored fat from slaughtered animals. It had been melted and strained earlier that morning until it was as clean as they could make it.
The workers still looked doubtful though.
One of the men glanced at the pot, then at Kivamus. “Milord... is this really going to become soap?”
He asked it carefully, as if worried the question itself might be taken as disrespect.
Kivamus smiled. “Yes. Be patient and you’ll see.”
The woman looked at the rendered fat with a frown. “It does not look like soap...”
“It won’t at first,” Kivamus said. “That is why we cook and stir it.”
Syrene stood beside him with her arms folded, watching everything with bright interest. She already knew there were far better methods on Earth, though Kivamus had been careful not to speak of that openly here. Duvas had also heard enough by now not to be surprised, though he still looked wary whenever lye was involved.
Kivamus stepped closer to the workers as one of them picked up a wooden paddle to mix the liquid.
“Remember what I said,” he told them. “Handle the lye carefully. Do not splash it. Do not touch it with bare skin. If it gets on you, wash it off at once with plenty of water.”
The three workers nodded.
The melted fat was poured into the larger pot. Then the lye water was added carefully. Kivamus watched the process closely, making sure no one hurried. Once both were in the pot, one of the men began stirring with a long wooden paddle while the woman kept the fire low and steady.
“Not too hot,” Kivamus said. “We want it to cook gently.”
The work was not exciting at first. It was just stirring. Slow, steady, dull stirring while the mixture moved around the pot. The smell was not terrible, but it was not pleasant either. Rendered fat, ash-water, smoke, and heat combined into something thick enough that Kivamus was glad most of the roof had been removed.
After a while, the first man’s arms began to tire, so the second took over. Then the woman stirred for a while. They changed places again and again. Kivamus had warned them earlier that soap making was not difficult in the way smithing or carpentry was difficult, but it demanded patience. If they stopped too soon, or mixed it badly, the batch might fail.
Time passed slowly.
The mixture began to thicken.
Syrene leaned forward. “Is that the point you mentioned?”
“Not yet,” Kivamus said. “It needs to thicken more. When the paddle leaves a mark on the surface for a moment before it sinks back, that is closer.”
Duvas peered into the pot, then wisely stepped back as a small bubble popped near the surface.
“I think I prefer ledgers for a good reason,” he muttered.
Kivamus chuckled. “Ledgers are safer. That much is true.”
The workers grinned at that, and some of the tension eased.