From Londoner To Lord-149. Food And Clothing

"We are ready to leave, milord," Hudan reported. "Also, the guards told me to thank you for the fur coats you have given all of them. They will be invaluable for us on this trip, especially since the snowfall has already started now."

Kivamus waved it off, looking at the guards. "It's nothing. Although we were able to provide proper winter outfits for these guards, we still need to do something about the rest of them." He looked back at Hudan. "I hope you kill the remaining bandits and return successfully with more workers for the village."

Hudan nodded, and began to jog towards the rest of the guards - most of whom had already hopped on their horses. The guard captain gave a gesture to all the mounted guards, and with a flick of the reins, the horses began to slowly walk towards the gates.

"May the Goddess help them," Duvas prayed while looking upwards.

And under the gently falling snowflakes, the horses and the guards exited the manor gates one by one. And with that, the plan to rescue the stonecutters was afoot.

*******

"How many guards do we have in total now?" Kivamus asked Duvas.

They had returned back inside and were sitting inside the manor hall after their breakfast. With the snowfall having already started, everyone preferred to stay indoors unless it was necessary to stay outside. Even Lucem, who usually ran away here and there in his curiosity, was calmly sitting near the long dining table while Syryne tried to explain something to him and Clarisa.

"We had twelve guards before you arrived, and then you recruited twelve more," the majordomo replied. "And now that Calubo has returned, we have twenty-five guards. That doesn't include Hudan, Feroy and the two women we've hired as guards.

"So excluding those who have left for the rescue mission, that leaves us with eighteen male guards here." Kivamus nodded. "That's still a good enough number that now we can afford to send some more of them out from the village."

"What do you have in mind, milord?" Feroy asked curiously.

"I've been thinking about our food situation when Hudan returns with those stonecutters." Kivamus put his hand closer to the fire to heat them more. "I think we should start sending hunting parties now. Although it's already snowing out there, any meat that they return with will only help us."

He added, "Something also has to be done to provide better clothing for the villagers. While they might still survive the winter while wearing what they have on them, especially with the coal we are providing them for heating, this year I don't want them to keep shivering in the cold like the previous winters. I've wanted to send a few scouts to look for losuvil vines in the eastern hills for some time now, and hopefully they will find some sheep there, which we can bring to the manor and use their wool to make some warm clothing."

"While it would be a good idea to try to gather some sheep," Gorsazo commented, "usually their fleeces are sheared only after the winter, when they are at their thickest. So it wouldn't be a good idea to shear their wool at this time even if we did manage to find some of them."

"That does make sense," Kivamus muttered, not having thought about that.

"While I'm no expert in that," Gorsazo continued, "I also believe it's a complex process, which involves many steps to make woolen clothing."

Kivamus tried to remember the process of making clothing from what he had read somewhere on the internet in the past. "You are right. From what I remember, there are indeed multiple steps involved in the process - from getting their wool, carding and spinning it into yarn, then weaving them into fabric, and eventually cutting and sewing it into clothing."

Suddenly, he noticed that everyone was looking at him in surprise, except for Gorsazo who had a knowing grin on his face. "What?" He asked uncertainly.

"I'm just surprised you know that much about sewing and uh... spinning, you know?" Feroy commented with a chuckle. "I never thought a noble would know that much about something which is usually only left to commoners like us, and mostly to women at that."

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Although Kivamus had indeed spent a lot of his time reading about random things, it was on the internet and not in any library here, but that explanation would suffice for them, once again. He also wondered if there was a reason why he had been transported into the mind and body of someone who had spent a lot of his time alone, even though the original Kivamus' reasons for spending time in the library was only to hide from his brothers.

He laughed. "Well, you already know I spent most of my time in the libraries back in Ulriga palace. And one benefit of that is that I know a lot of obscure knowledge about well... commoners' things."

Duvas chuckled as well. "Yeah, you have told us about that before, but it was still surprising. Usually even those nobles who like to read often spend their time reading books about military strategies or such manly things." He added, "It's not that I mind it, of course, since my old bones would certainly prefer to have warmer clothing - especially if we make them ourselves - which would mean they would be very cheap, instead of buying it from a place like Cinran, which costs a lot. Leah should be able to sew them too."

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"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Kivamus reminded them. "We don't even know if we will be able to find any sheep there. But yes, if we are indeed able to start sheep farming in Tiranat, and assuming we are able to make good quality woolen clothing from them, we can even start selling them to merchants who visit here, which will add another source of revenue to our coffers."

"I like that plan," Duvas said with an excited nod. "More revenue is always welcome! Especially since our expenses will go through the roof after the winter, when the Count sends someone to ask for taxes from us, not to mention the extra wheat we will need to buy to complete the sowing, since their prices will also be quite high at that time."

"That's true enough," Kivamus said.

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He knew that it would be a long and complex process to make woolen clothing, or basically any kind of clothing from the raw materials like wool or cotton, and he wasn't sure if they even had the knowhow for that here. He didn't think that they could grow cotton here in this climate, but if he could buy it from somewhere else for cheap, that would have a much bigger scope for manufacturing and exporting clothes, compared to things made from wool.

He had already bought more than enough parchment and ink from Pydaso, and he had the full winter to design and get those machines built here. He didn't remember the exact design of the machines, but he had still read enough on the internet about how new machines began to be invented on earth that his background in mechanical engineering would allow him to design them from scratch here. And if he really could get the local carpenter and blacksmith to make such machines - like a power loom, a cotton gin and so on... the possibilities were endless.

In fact, that was how the first industrial revolution had started on earth! And who knows, if they were really able to produce such machines here, they would multiply the productivity of workers by a big enough factor that it might just kick off an industrial revolution in this world as well! He was already getting excited thinking about it, and he couldn't wait to start drawing the designs for those machines.

He looked at the majordomo. "That being said, why didn't anyone search for sheep there, in the past?"

Duvas shrugged. "The same reason as why we didn't look for losuvil vines too far from the village. As you know, this area was unexplored and uninhabited before Tiranat was founded, and the previous baron spent more time in Cinran with other nobles than he did here. And there was also the fact that even if we had gotten some sheep here, we wouldn't be able to make clothing from them anyway, since nearly all of the people who migrated here were coal miners in the past, and we didn't get many skilled craftsmen here."

He continued after a moment, "Even then, I had still asked the previous baron's permission to look for sheep here, since I knew having those hills and the mountains in the east meant that there certainly should be many sheep there, and we could at least sell the wool to the visiting merchants. But he had denied me immediately, saying that he didn't want to make his manor look even more like a shanty town, so he didn't allow us to keep any more animals here than what we strictly needed."

He added, "That's the same reason why he used much costlier double-planked walls in the manor instead of making them directly from logs, since he didn't want other nobles or any visitors from Cinran to think like he was living in a hovel - those were his own words."

Kivamus sighed. "You did tell me that he didn't really want to become the baron of Tiranat, and he only came here because it was an order from the count. Well, let the past stay in the past." He added, "Whatever the previous baron's priorities might have been, I don't want to leave any good opportunity unexplored here."

"And I am thankful for that, my lord," Duvas added with a grin. "I can already see our strongbox overflowing with gold in the future... Maybe we would even have to buy another strongbox in the future!"

Everyone laughed at that golden vision for a while.

Once they had calmed down, Kivamus looked at them seriously. "Okay. So I think we should start with two hunting parties from today, and when Hudan returns with other guards we can send more of them to hunt."

He looked at Feroy. "You have quite a lot of experience living in the wild, so what do you think the makeup of the hunting parties should be?"