The sudden jostling of the cart I was atop sent my charcoal pencil flying from my claws and it tumbled down to the dirt road below. I muttered a curse under my breath, and hopped off the cart after it so I could continue my sketches.
The paper that I had requisitioned from my room back in the castle was already seeing good use. Chalk and slate were excellent for anything temporary that needed to be written down, but paper was lighter and easier to store compared to the other options available to me. Perfect for something more permanent, like the design of the gear system that would be at the heart of my mill.
The creation of the first piece of powered machinery in the village would not come cheaply. Besides the materials needed to construct the actual building, the components inside would need to be made very carefully if they were to properly fit together. Without access to precision machining, that would be a slow and delicate process by the best woodworkers in the village. The gears would have to be made out of wood, similar to the Roman designs, since we didn’t have the manufacturing capability to work large metal pieces at the present. The millstone at least should be taken care of, as we could simply reuse the one from the old manual mill.
The big innovation that I was bringing apparently was that I was going for an overshot wheel design. Bringing extra energy to the contraption with the power of gravity, this wheel would be able to handle even the toughest grains and create nice and fine flour. While not unique to the overshot design, a powered mill would grind more evenly as well, with the consistent water passing across the wheel and driving the stone.
Speaking with the others, it seemed that the overshot design was a bit of a rarity in the region. The more common variant used was the undershot wheel. A good design, easy and simple to create without having to consider how to move the water above the wheel to drive it. If Blackwood was located in a flatter land, I might have gone with it myself. But when I was surveying the river banks the morning before we left, I found a point where the river split into two thanks to a massive granite boulder, and one side dropped down a sharp little waterfall before rejoining the main river. The height of the drop was enough that I felt I could slot the mill into the landscape there quite easily. There was a bit of digging that would be needed to create the pentrough, but nothing that seemed too challenging.
In any case, I now had access to the needed labor force to begin construction in earnest. While we had only taken a half dozen griffons on the trip north, we had been joined by just about twenty other griffons. That was already going to be a substantial increase to the population of Blackwood just from the first group of settlers. If that was any indication, then Blackwood would be shooting up like a weed in mere months.
The day before we left the city, we had managed to double our numbers already with a few laborers willing to give it a shot out in the country working the slate quarry. With the amount of new construction taking place just outside the city walls, there weren't many griffons with a good back who were out of work. But the chance to get out of the city and into somewhere you could fly free was a tempting choice for the group we had spoken to, and with a clawful of silver, we convinced them to give Blackwood a chance. Apparently we needed have bothered with the fairly sizable payout, as we were soon approached by another group looking to leave the city behind.
They had heard word from one of the city's criers that Blackwood was looking for good hardworking griffons to expand our village. A few young families had decided that the countryside was worth a chance instead of waiting around the packed city, and give the life of a farmer a shot.
The fact word was being spread by a crier, who were normally part of the civic administration was something to take note of. Some griffon high up within the city was taking the time to ensure that Blackwood would grow. I had pretty decent guess as to who that might be, but that was something I could ruminant on later. I wasn't going to go and look a gift horse in the mouth at the moment. Though I supposed that was a strange turn of phrase to use in this world. I hadn’t seen a single horse yet.
As I was reflecting on the presence, or lack thereof of equines, we finally caught sight of home. The faint trails of smoke that rose from the top of the hill Blackwood rested upon were a welcome sight to see after the long days on the road. The village was relatively quiet in the evening light, and sat cozy and welcoming in front of us.
Soon that collection of wooden buildings would become a hub of activity as a new town emerged for the south.
One of the pieces of paper that I had liberated from my guest quarters was going to become the new map of Blackwood. I could make it quite a bit more accurate than most maps of the medieval age as well. Being able to get a bird's eye view was immensely helpful in that regard. Sketching out the outline of the current village and fields, we moved to settle the new arrivals.
The new villagers could live out of tents and with families willing to shelter them for a while, but we need begin construction of proper housing for everyone sooner rather than later. It was already getting close to the middle of summer, and the coming winter would be harsh. Every single griffon would need a proper roof over their heads by the first snowfall, and that meant an awful lot of building had to be done.
Having us all cramped in the same few houses would be immensely uncomfortable, if even possible at all depending on how many griffons arrived in the coming months. And then there was the risk of disease with so many packed in like rats. Felian could do quite a lot with his skill, but I doubted that even he would be able to take on a hundred patients at the same time.
That just left us with choosing a place for the new houses to go. There was little room on the hilltop to build outwards at the moment. Blackwood was built tightly together, and the fields practically began right outside the door. We couldn't exactly tear up our agricultural lifeline on a whim.
Instead, the new houses would have to be built past the edge of fields. Eventually it was decided to place them on the edge of the fields between the old village and the river. The land was relatively flat out there, and the woods even had a few natural clearings to make it easier for us to cut away the rest of it. As we went about deciding the location of the construction, it was also a good time to be planning out the general layout of the new town.
The dangers that saw griffon villages being built as defensive rings had passed for the most part, and we could work with a more grid-like layout. The lots were made with enough space to fit both the house and whatever else would be built on them. Most likely being either expansions taken up by the residents themselves, or any supplementary gardens or coops for their food intake. Lots could be mapped out in the dirt, with lengths of rope pulled taught to ensure we had straight lines and everyone got the same amount of space. A few lines of stones to mark the lots more distinctly, and we could see the village expansion take shape from the air.
Housing construction would be mostly standardized, at least in the principle of the design. Without precision measurements, I could hardly expect that we could make something truly modular, but if we were just building the exact same house over and over again, we could speed things up and have a new neighborhood in just a few months. Split into two rooms down the middle, the design was a simple one that we could build easily, just two squares stuck together. Quick to build and quick to learn.
I took up the lead on organizing the construction of the new homes, aided immensely by those with experience in construction in creating a basic structure that would stand sturdy for years to come. While that was being done, the mine crew began cutting a trail towards the slate deposit under the guidance of Cynthia.
Wooden tiles were good enough for the roofs, but slate would not only not rot away like thatch or wood, it was far more waterproof. The weight might have wound up being an issue, but some strong bearing trusses in the wooden frame would keep the construction stable enough.
It ended up being a bit of challenge to find enough tools for all the griffons. The arrivals brought much of the basics with them, but there was a difference between a hatchet used for trimming firewood and a proper axe to fell a tree. The tools we did have were in use all hours of the day, and Gilda was completely swamped in her forge working non-stop to try and fix whatever broke. When she had any spare time, it went straight into forging new axes to feed the demands of the construction industry. At least she had fixed up all the pitchforks during the duration of our trip, so we didn’t have to worry about struggling through the harvest.
Most of the new arrivals were out in the woods day in and day out. The amount of trees we would need to fell to build everything was astounding. As more and more of the heavy pines and oaks were taken from the woods, I watched as the forest thinned. Every rope that we could get our claws on was being used to drag the plethora of logs back to the construction site. Arranged by species, thickness and height, the carpenters began selected the future location that each of them would appear in the finished houses and beginning in their work.
I wished that we had a few more carpenters to aid in that, but most of the immigrants that joined us were unskilled young laborers. They saw farming out here in the countryside as their best chance for a better life instead of competing for scraps in the city, and at the moment had relatively little to offer besides their dedicated work ethic. A fine trait to see certainly, and I hoped that they would learn to be excellent farmers in the years to come.
The actual land we needed to clear was being carved away at as well, and by the end of the first week the first lot was ready to start construction of the house itself. The wooden frame was raised high into the air, and held steady as it was pounded into the ground, anchoring it to the earth.
I had never been to a barn raising ceremony before, but I imagined that the sense of pride that I felt watching the foundations of our futures being built in from of my eyes would be echoed by any farming family.
A few weeks of steady work after that first frame was raised, another group of griffons were sighted coming down to Blackwood. A few dozen more immigrants here ready to experience life down in the southern countryside.
I spoke briefly with their elected speaker, upon which I learned that these griffons were the first of our arrivals from the western townships. They had made the long journey once they had heard word about that there was safe and fulfilling work to be had down here.
Lord Leon had allegedly been kind to them, but the town of Vasterpeak was nearly as cramped as Griffenheim was, and had far less surrounding flatlands to grow out onto now. The complete lack of space was what had driven them out to find a place where their chicks had space enough to breath. They had originally intended to settle somewhere in his territory, but they had heard Leon's call for western griffons to move south, and so they came at their Lord's request.
Indeed they had nothing but kind words for their sworn lord and his constant efforts to eradicate the monsters from his lands. I raised a bit of an eyebrow at how they waxed poetic about him. In moving out here, wasn't I supposed to be their sworn lord now? I supposed it didn't really matter. The ones from Griffenheim also referred to Silas as their lord and praised him often, so perhaps that was something that would just change with time. I certainly wasn't going to try and press the issue over a few snippets of conversation.
The western newcomers settled into the rhythm that had been established the past few weeks easily enough, and proved to extremely dedicated workers just like the others. I was glad to see that so far I was attracting good honest folks to the village. That wasn't to say that there weren't any points of friction that had begun to emerge.
Initially I had been a little worried about what it meant that we were essentially building a second village, and that there would be a divide between the old villagers and the new settlers. But at the moment that didn’t seem like it was going to be an issue. The new arrivals were more concerned with each other than with us.
The divide between the two groups wasn’t some great gulf, they were still both griffons cut from the same culture of course, but it was present. Little things, small differences in how they behaved and the strong loyalty to their home cities were rubbing coarse against each other. Apparently the rivalries of the nobility had dripped down a little bit into the insular townages throughout the realm, and the dispute that I had first heard when I embarrassed myself in court ran deeper than I thought.
Efforts from the old villagers were doing much to keep the peace, and at the end of the day they got along well enough I hoped that any troubles would be limited to a few insults or petty grievances. Privately I just hoped that we would have enough houses for everyone by the time winter came. Construction was going well at the moment, and it looked very possible to achieve. But that came with the cost of nogriff having any free time in the evening to relax. Our housing demands had just doubled, and despite having yet more labor, we would need to work near double-time to match it.
There were a few complaints about the workload, but most understood the situation that we were in. The village was already starting to look more like a construction camp than a village. The amount of tents and griffons we had living out of their carts was substantial, and it was not the most comfortable living conditions. I had a feeling that was leading to a lot of the complaints, more of a expression of discomfort rather than any real complaints in how I was running the construction. The benefits of a soft bed and sturdy roof were something that anyone would miss dearly, and it would have to be at least another month yet before we could hope to see the first house completed.
As we toiled, I wondered just what I could reasonably ask of my villagers as the lord. What exactly were the limits on the powers that I had over them? There wasn't the usual taxation system of the modern age to rely upon, with most value coming from the provision of basic goods. Based on the relative technology level, I had thought that a corvée system would have been in place in the cities.
I had inquired as discreetly as I could into the subject with them, and learned that apparently the answer was a mix of yes and no. They were expected to contribute their time to any major project or repairs that the city was undertaking under orders from their liege, but such events were not consistent enough to be a yearly tax. Instead it was more so whatever the city needed done as soon as possible to remain safe. Otherwise, they were simply expected to pay a certain amount at the end of every harvest season in coin or goods based on their profession.
The construction of the housing wasn't going to draw any complaints, as while it was not something akin to repairing the city walls, it was a critical project for the safety of the village. And apparently, there was some allure to building a house in the warm weather of the country to start your new life in. For future endeavors though, those working any most construction projects would expect that they would receive compensation in some way for their efforts.
Finances would probably wind up as a constant bottleneck for me going forwards. While provisions were often included as part of the salary of any worker, they also expected to receive a few coppers to pay for the rest of the items that they needed.
Maybe in the immediate future, we could organize some market days for the village. Beside the potential taxes that we could raise from stall fees, encouraging commerce would give the villagers something to spend their coin on. As it stood, Blackwood operated very heavily on the barter system.
The kind of close knit community that made such an arrangement possible was going to deteriorate as the population swelled. When it came down to it, currency was a efficient way to organize the exchange of goods. Something that everyone could agree on it's collective value made arranging large scale economies possible at all. Bartering was fine for a village that most mostly subsistence farming, but would need to change as the town grew.
As the skeletons of more and more uniform rows of houses appeared across the fields, it appeared that the village economy that most of my griffons were used to would fade away sooner rather than later. The world was waking up, and we were rising on the coattails of it.
While our efforts to solve the housing issue were marching along, there was another problem Gunther approached me with which raised a much greater concern for us all. For all that we could house everyone who arrived if we kept up the demanding pace, food might become our undoing.
"I wasn't expecting so damn many to show up so quickly." Gunther threw a withering gaze over the tent city that had popped up around the work site. "We grow a good crop here, certainly. We're good farmers, and we sell the extra grain off to pay for everything else we need. But our fields will barely make enough to feed this new group as it is over the winter. And that's with the usual gathering and hunting to keep bellies full. But if this many showed up so fast, we're going to need to figure something else out to feed us when the rest of them show up."
Gunther raised a good point. For despite everything, most of medieval life revolved around the production of food to feed everyone. The huge increase in population this summer did not come with the same increase in output. More mouths, more problems.
"And there is no way that we can get them to work the fields?" I inquired, to which Gunther shook his head.
"They don't know the first thing about farming, and would just get in the way or even kill some plants. And even if we did, won't go put any more seeds in the fields. It's nearly the middle of summer anyways, and any new farmland we clear won't do us any good either. Too late in the year to plant it."
That was unfortunate to say the least. Food wasn't something that could be put off until later like so many other things could. Food production was not something that could be started and stopped on a whim. Measures would need to be taken now if we hoped to make it through the winter unscathed. At least there were ways to bring more food in besides what we could produce here in Blackwood though.
The other villages in the area were likely completely unaware of our changing status, and the fact that we were changing into a food importer now. The trails connecting us were already less of a trail and more of a guideline of the general direction you were supposed to head in. There had never been extensive contact between us, but they were our best bet now to secure our future food stores.
First though, we would need to figure out what we could offer them in exchange for their excess harvest. The best ideas that we could come up with were the mill and the militia. The problem was that with everything else being built, the mill would likely end up being built over the winter. Not something that we would be able to offer out this this year.
Security arrangements by contrast were something that would be far easier for us to arrange. While we had sold off much of the more expensive pieces of gear, we still had a good stock remaining of armaments surpassing what the other villages likely had stored. A few patrols send out to secure the immediate woodlands, and we would at least have a decent safety net around us and the villages we reached an arrangement with.
Besides, security concerns were already starting to nip at my mind. I was willing to bet that whatever had killed the griffon whose sword I had on my waist was still out there somewhere. And with us heading out into the woods in all directions in greater numbers I was worried about someone getting attacked, especially with folks who weren’t used to the dangers and without the survival skills the old villagers had.
If something could take care of a skilled fighter, I wasn’t willing to bet on a few griffons who had lived their life behind city walls and had never seen a monster in the flesh in their life. Well most, of them. One of the immigrants from Griffenheim had apparently worked as a caravan guard for while and they were great help in explaining the difference between a demon and a monster to me.
A monster was just an exceptionally violent and magical animal when it came down to it. They were nothing like a mundane creature, for a given value of mundane. They were a great danger to any griffon they came across, but were still part on the natural world despite it all.
Demons were different. Whereas monsters were part of the world, demons were the antithesis of it. They fed on villages, and hunted for those living in civilization. They were the ones who massed into great hordes and destroyed cities. Monsters didn’t have that kind of coordination, only working in small packs when they worked together at all. If one of those was around in the woods, it either hadn't noticed us yet or didn't think it could kill us all yet. One was far more disquieting than the other.
We would need to keep an eye out for whatever was lurking out there, and perhaps use it as a bit of marketing when dealing with the over villages. Naturally Gunther volunteered for the expedition. He was one of our best fighters, and as the eldergriff he was the one most likely to be respected by the villages he spoke to.
Gunther assembled a solid group of griffons under him, and headed out on their first rounds as the rest of us waved goodbye. Hopefully they would all return home safe, and with good news for us all.