stjorthotic Chapter 71: The Hearth and the Muddy Ditch
Chapter 71: The Hearth and the Muddy Ditch
The rain in the Blue Fork Valley was continuous and gentle, but showed no signs of stopping.
The raindrops, fine as needles, slanted across the grayish-white rammed earth wall, leaving dark spots of varying shades on the originally dry lime surface.
Otto stood behind the crenellations of the city wall. He was not wearing armor, but only that familiar gray coarse linen robe, the hood pulled low, covering most of his face.
He tucked his left hand inside his robe, not rubbing it, but simply gazing quietly out the wall.
Thirty paces outside the wall was a huge mud ditch.
That was the last, crucial order he gave to Pollive before setting out for Pike City. With the end of the Battle of Seafront, a large number of refugees fleeing the Ironborn flocked to this relatively safe valley.
Otto's rule was not to support idlers, so he drew a line and made the newly arrived refugees use rusty iron shovels and broken wooden spades to carve out the outline of a moat two zhang wide outside the gray stone wall.
Now, that ditch is full of people.
The hundreds of ragged refugees resembled a swarm of worker ants struggling in a quagmire. The rain had turned the bottom of the ditch into a thick, yellow muddy soup, the muddy water reaching above their ankles and even their calves.
They bent over, filling the heavy clay they dug out into broken willow baskets, which were then pulled up by the people above using ropes.
No one was speaking loudly; there were only heavy breathing, the screeching of shovels scraping against rocks, and the teeth-grinding sucking sound of mud being trampled.
Otto watched for a while, then his brows furrowed slightly.
Progress has slowed down.
Before he left, he calculated that, based on the working hours of two hundred strong laborers, the ditch should now be at least five feet deep, and the stone base at the bottom should have been exposed.
But now, the bottom of the ditch is less than three feet deep, and the frequency with which the refugees swung their shovels was significantly slower than he remembered. Some of them even stopped after digging twice and looked around.
It wasn't because he was hungry. Pollifer was always very strict with his diet, eating two meals a day of wheat porridge mixed with beans. Although it wasn't enough to fill him up, it was definitely enough to give him the strength to wield a shovel.
That's for another reason.
Otto turned and walked down the city wall. The damp stone steps made a dull thud on the soles of his boots.
He knew where the problem lay—it lay in the black crow boundary marker planted on the southern mudflats.
He acknowledged the boundary markers at Blackwood and cut off two miles of land. To the newly settled refugees, this was seen as weakness, a sign that "the lord has suffered a defeat and cannot protect us."
He had to weld the crack shut.
---
The wooden door of the longhouse was pushed open without making a loud noise, but the cold wind blowing in from outside still made the people inside shrink their necks.
The smell in the room was complex. There was the smell of sweat, the musty smell of damp straw mats, the burnt smell of boiled wheat porridge, and a few hidden but persistent odors of putrid blood.
The smell of blood was coming from the innermost part of the hearth.
The seven men who had returned alive from Pike City occupied the fire pit, the one closest to the fire.
This was an unwritten rule, but after they came in, the farmers and laborers who were sitting there automatically took a half step back, giving up the warmest spot.
The shield bearer, whose left arm had been severed, sat in the center. His severed arm was wrapped in thick linen, the edges of which were hardened by seeping yellow fluid and blood, emitting a faint, fishy stench.
He held the rough earthenware bowl in his remaining hand, took a sip of hot soup, his Adam's apple bobbing, and stared intently at the fire, as if there was something in it that he couldn't understand.
Gareth sat down beside him. The old leather armor had been ripped open half a foot long by the Ironborn's axe in the corridor, and it was left unpatched, revealing the linen undergarment soaked with sweat underneath.
He didn't drink the soup. He held a blackened fire poker in his hand, occasionally poking at the embers and gathering the glowing embers towards the one-armed veteran.
At the other end of the longhouse, near the door, were several vagrants from the No. 2 labor service group squatting.
They were the same people who had been digging in the ditch earlier, and now they were eating their first meal after their shift. Their hands and feet were white from being soaked in the cold rain, and they were grumbling quietly because the wheat porridge they had been given was too thin.
"That best birch grove to the south, the Blackwood men planted black crow stakes in it today." A vagrant with a cataract in his left eye lowered his voice, but his thin, dry voice could still be heard in the relatively quiet longhouse.
"Did you see that? The Baron didn't even draw his sword, and they just took the land away."
He scraped the wheat residue from the bottom of the bowl with a chipped wooden spoon, pursed his lips, and wore a look of the meanness and fear typical of ordinary people.
"What's the use of fighting so fiercely on the other side of the sea? They've cut down all the trees in our stronghold. And they've brought back a ship full of cripples..."
"Shut up." A slightly younger vagrant next to him nudged him hard with his elbow, gestured with his chin toward the fire pit, and gave him a warning look.
But the words have already been spoken.
The seven veterans heard it.
The shield bearer with the missing arm didn't turn his head, but he stopped drinking his soup. The knuckles of his right hand, which was holding the earthenware bowl, turned white and trembled slightly, causing a few drops of the wheat paste in the bowl to spill out and fall onto the dusty ground, leaving a small dark stain.
There was no sound. He didn't react. He knew he no longer even had his left hand to hold the shield.
He clenched his back teeth, and the muscles in his cheeks bulged out.
Gareth put down the fire poker in his hand.
He stood up.
Without drawing his sword or roaring, he strode up to the vagrant with a cataract in his left eye. He moved so fast that before the vagrant could even flinch, Gareth's hand was already gripping his tattered burlap collar.
Gareth lifted the vagrant off the ground with one hand. The adult, weighing over 100 pounds, was like a weightless sack of rotten beans in Gareth's hands.
Say it again.
Gareth's voice was flat and monotone, and he slapped it directly onto the homeless man's face.
"I...I didn't say anything...cough...let go!" The refugee's toes kicked wildly in mid-air, his hands desperately trying to pry Gareth's fingers off, his face turning purplish-red.
He said they were disabled.
Gareth didn't let go. He turned his head and looked at the people in the longhouse who hadn't gone to war. There was a stubborn seriousness in his eyes.
"You were sleeping when Martin's face was cleaved in two by the Ironborn's axe. You were drinking porridge when Scar's hand was chopped off."
"They didn't go to their deaths; they went to plug the gap so you could still complain about the thin cereal."
Gareth's veins bulged on the back of his hand as he stared intently into the eyes of the vagrant.
"They didn't lose the battle. They came out alive. You, apologize to them."
The longhouse was deathly silent.
No one dared to step forward and pull Gareth away, nor did anyone dare to side with the vagrant. The old soldiers by the fire watched all this coldly. The vagrants working in the mud huddled together, not daring to even breathe.
"Put him down."
A voice rang out at the entrance of the longhouse.
It wasn't loud, but in that extremely tense silence, every word clearly reached everyone's ears.
Otto was standing there.
He was already outside the door and had heard the commotion inside. Pollifer followed behind him, carrying a heavy wooden tray covered with a black cloth.
Gareth glanced at Otto, his grip on Gareth remaining firm, his brows furrowed deeply.
"Sir, he insulted those brothers who shed blood!" Gareth's stubbornness flared up.
"I said, put him down." Otto's eyes were fixed on Gareth, his tone unchanged, as if repeating a military order.
Gareth gritted his teeth and loosened his grip. The refugee collapsed to the ground like a lump of mud, coughing violently, and scrambled to his side, clutching his neck and gasping for breath.
Otto walked past Gareth and went to the fire pit.
He didn't look at the rioting vagrant, nor did he try to appease the angry veterans. He looked at Pollive.
"Polliver. Keep the books."
The officer immediately stepped forward, placed the wooden tray on the rough wooden table by the hearth, and lifted the black cloth.
It was a whole plate of silver deer. The surface had some mottled oxidation marks, and the edges of some silver coins were still stained with dark red blood that couldn't be washed off. This was a loot that had been cleaned and plundered from the treasure vaults of the Ironborn of Pike City.
The silver coins gleamed with a cold luster in the dim firelight. All eyes in the longhouse were drawn to the plate of silver.
"Eleven men participated in the battle of Pike Place Corridor." Otto's voice echoed in the longhouse, steady, as if he were reading a finalized document.
"Four people were killed in action. Each household will receive a pension of thirty silver deer and be exempt from military service for two years. The money will come from the imperial treasury and will be handed over to their women first thing tomorrow morning."
He looked at the shield bearer with the missing arm and the other six surviving veterans.
"Seven people survived. Each of them was rewarded with twenty silver deer. In addition, the one who lost an arm was transferred to the armory as a leather overseer, with a full salary and lifelong support."
Pollifer's charcoal stick flew swiftly across the wooden board, making a rustling sound. He recorded the notes quickly, without the slightest hesitation.
The seven veterans looked at the silver on the table, then at Otto. The one-armed shield bearer's lips trembled, and his eyes reddened, but he gripped the earthenware bowl tightly with his remaining hand.
Otto turned around, his gaze finally landing on the vagrant who had been thrown to the ground by Gareth, and the silent second labor group behind him.
"You think we suffered a loss because of the boundary markers on the south side."
Otto looked at them, his grey-blue eyes devoid of any emotion.
"In Hohenzollern, no blood is shed in vain, and no injustice is suffered in vain. They shed their blood, so I give them silver and support them for life."
His gaze swept over every strong laborer in the longhouse, and his voice suddenly deepened, carrying a weight.
"But this territory cannot be defended by just seven remnants. The boundary markers on the south side are there because our walls are not high enough and our moats are not deep enough. Your shovels are swung too slowly, making us seem easy to bully."
He paused for a moment, letting that will weigh down on everyone's heads.
"Starting tomorrow, everyone in labor groups number two and three will have their working hours increased by one hour each day. Dig two feet deeper into the outer moat. If you encounter frozen soil, thaw it with boiling water before digging."
"This territory doesn't support idlers or gossips. If you don't want your heads crushed by Blackwood's hooves one day, put all your strength into your pickaxes."
The longhouse was completely silent.
No one dared complain about the increased working hours. The real gold and silver rewards on the table and Otto's cold words were etched into everyone's minds.
Otto didn't look again, turned and walked towards the door. Pollifer put away the plank and followed closely behind, carrying the remaining half of the silver.
Gareth followed, and as he walked out of the longhouse gate, he couldn't help but speak.
"grown ups."
Otto stopped, without turning around. The cold rain pattered softly against his grey linen robe.
"That guy said some really nasty things," Gareth said, a hint of stubbornness in his voice as he watched Otto's retreating figure. "You gave the veteran money, that's fine. But why didn't you punish the guy who swore? He did something wrong."
Otto stood there, the late winter wind lifting a corner of his cloak.
"Gareth".
"Slapping a vagrant is of no value other than making him hate me." Otto's voice came through the wind, devoid of warmth.
"But I told him to dig two feet deeper into the icy water, and the moat would be wider, and next year the horses in Blackwood wouldn't be able to jump over it."
He turned his head and looked at the fence knight who still stubbornly believed in "right and wrong".
"Rules are not for distinguishing between good and bad people. Rules are for keeping this territory alive."
After saying that, he continued walking towards the stone tower. His boots made a dull thud as they trod on the wet, wooden path.
Gareth stood in the cold wind, watching the gray figure from behind, his brow still furrowed.
He touched the old sword at his waist, turned and walked to the eaves of the longhouse, found a sheltered corner, sat down, took out a tattered cloth from his pocket, and began to slowly wipe the mud off the scabbard.
The moat will be dug again tomorrow.