From Londoner To Lord

Hyola looked so surprised that it took a while for her to respond. "I can do that? I can really become a guard just like Calubo?" She quickly asked with a confused face, "You are really recruiting women as guards?"

Hudan gave the reply, "We certainly are. We already have five women who are working as guards here. They will be getting the same wages as the male guards, as well as free food and lodging here, like all our workers in the manor. There is a catch though - we are going to start paying the wages again only after the winter when the northern road opens again, but you can trust Lord Kivamus that we will surely pay them."

Hyola shook her head as if to rid her brain of cobwebs. "That's... that's just fine with me! By now I know that you will stay true to your words. But... but I know nothing about fighting with a sword!" Then she pointed hesitatingly towards the guard captain. "Can those other female guards really fight one on one with someone like him?"

Kivamus looked at the gigantic build of Hudan for a moment, and guffawed loudly. "Of course not! Even our male guards can't fight one on one against him! But I have plans to change that in the future by building something called crossbows, which will allow even women to be as effective as men in killing someone, from a good distance anyway."

Seeing the doubtful face of the young woman, he continued, "Of course, there is no hurry for you to join up. You can talk with the other female guards before you decide on that. For now, you should go and get a good rest. You all have been through a lot, and it will take a while for you all to adjust to life here."

Hyola nodded slowly. "Of course, milord. Thank you for that opportunity, and for everything you have done for us!"

"Oh, before you leave," Kivamus interrupted, "tell me the name of the carpenter."

Hyola nodded eagerly. "His name is Darora and he should be in his mid-thirties, I think."

"Alright then," Kivamus said. "You can leave now."

Madam Helga stood up. "I'll show her to the servants hall where she can sleep with the other maids tonight." She looked at Hyola. "That's where our female guards sleep as well, so you might get an opportunity to talk to them tonight." And with that, both the women exited the manor hall.

Kivamus looked at others and grinned. "I can't believe we got so lucky! Two hunters, a fletcher and well-trained carpenter! And possibly even another woman as guard."

Feroy agreed, "We had bought quite a few arrows from Cinran on our last trip, but I still had to tell the hunters to use them only when they were sure of their shots killing an animal, since it would be a while until we could buy more of them, you know? But having a fletcher here in the village would allow them to be free about spending arrows to shoot animals. As for those two stonecutters with experience in hunting, we could start sending them in a new hunting group."

"Certainly," Kivamus nodded. "Hudan and you can decide who to send in the new hunting groups. I think including our guards, the two former stonecutters as well as the hunters from the village, we should be able to send three or maybe even four hunting groups of four men out at the same time. That should still leave enough men here to protect the village and the manor."

"That sounds about right, milord," Hudan replied. "I'll decide whom to send by tomorrow, and then we can start sending them the day after, once everyone has rested for another day."

Kivamus gave a nod. "I would also like to meet with this new carpenter, Darora. If he is really skilled enough to make a new warbow from scratch for the bandits, he might just have the talent to build crossbows for us from my designs!"

He paused for a moment. "That being said, if he is really that talented, then why would he have gone into debt in the first place? Rather, even if he had to take a loan to buy something, he should easily be able to pay them off with the income he would get from selling warbows. Those can't be cheap, right?"

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Duvas replied, "They certainly aren't, which is why we were trying to make do with the two warbows we had in the manor. We did have a couple more of them in the past but those were lost in the ambush on the previous baron along with our two archers. However, these days there isn't that much of a demand for weapons of war. You already know that iron is being sold for quite cheap in Cinran, because people are tightening their belts and skipping any unnecessary expenses like new tools so they can keep buying food for their families despite the sky high prices."

The majordomo explained, "While nobles certainly aren't going to be short on food any time soon, everyone in southern Reslinor is trying to minimize their expenses because of the recent bad crops. That means even the nobles aren't buying new swords to re-equip their guards and knights, or new warbows for their archers and hunters. Because of that even a talented carpenter like Darora - although he might better be called a bowyer if he can really make bows - might have taken debts to buy quality wood and iron to make warbows, but he simply wouldn't have been able to sell many of them in the past few years."

Duvas continued, "In that case, the well-armed debt collectors would have sold him into slavery to recover their money, likely to Baron Zoricus who wouldn't be short on funds to buy new slaves because of his vast land holdings. I think he might have given the carpenter to Nokozal so the bandits wouldn't have to spend coin on anything which Darora could make himself at the quarry, thus increasing his own profits further."

Kivamus nodded slowly. "It does make sense. That greedy bastard would certainly do anything and everything to earn more coins." Then he grinned. "Well, I guess we could say we relieved Zoricus of one of his better assets by bringing Darora here."

He continued, "It will certainly take a while for him to be able to build the crossbow parts, since those are going to be quite a bit more intricate than making any other thing he knows, but until then he can also make new warbows for us, of which we can never have enough, especially since we are sending a lot more hunters out now."

"That's true enough, milord," Feroy said. "If we can make and keep spare warbows here, it would allow us to train the other recruits in that as well."

Duvas suggested, "We might even be able to sell it to any visiting merchants in the future if we want to."

"I'm not too sure about arming our neighbours better, which basically means making our nearby nobles stronger," Kivamus muttered. "We'll see how to proceed once I've talked to Darora."

"I'll make sure to bring him here some time tomorrow morning," Duvas replied. He grinned as he added, "You really were right to send Hudan to rescue these people, my lord. I couldn't have imagined that we would get so much from the bandits and these stonecutters!"

Kivamus laughed. "I didn't do it with the expectation of getting anything in return. All I wanted was to prevent these people from dying of starvation or cold in the winter, but I can't deny that I am more than happy with the results."

Kivamus gazed towards the windows, although they were closed right now. The harsh winter of Tiranat had begun, and they had barely survived against a bandit raid, but they had also gotten a few much needed craftsmen in return. He was certainly glad that they had completed the first longhouse not too long after the start of the snowfall. And now the other projects like the second longhouse block, the outer village wall, as well as the clearing of the forests to start farming after the winter were already in full swing.

When he had arrived in this world a couple of months ago, he didn't know if he would even survive more than a week here. His brothers' didn't seem to have left any stone unturned to make sure he wasn't a threat to their ambitions, and nearby nobles including that greedy bastard Zoricus had already tried to assassinate him for the coal mines of Tiranat. But he had still survived despite everything, and the future looked promising.

He looked at the people sitting around him in the manor hall, and thought about those who weren't here at the moment. He had been more than lucky to have found such good advisors around him in Gorsazo and Duvas, who corrected him when his ideas were not workable in this world, and told him how to deal with this world and its inhabitants better.

Hudan and Feroy had already saved his life on multiple occasions, and he knew that he could trust them with anything. Madam Helga's contribution couldn't be understated either. Who knew if they would still be eating bland porridge every day if it wasn't for her vast experience in cooking at an inn.

Syryne already seemed like she would become a promising new botanist in the future, having already absorbed the teachings of the scientific method from him. Lucem and Clarisa were still too young to work, but he was glad that he was able to start providing education to them and the other villagers as well.

He knew that it would take some time before his other modern ideas and the sketches of machines in the daily growing list of blueprints would come to life in this world, but he believed that with the support of everyone around him, some day they would certainly get there.

He gave a satisfied exhale. There was still a lot to do in Tiranat, but this was a good start nonetheless.