Chương 150: 148. Discipline and Departure

"Listen everyone," he began.

"I had good reasons for keeping Sejkil alive, but I also understand your concerns. I know you all had risked your life to fight with the bandits, so I realize that you may have felt that I was too lenient in giving out punishments. But the fact remains that we simply do not have a jail in the village right now, nor do we have a permanent prison here." In the li ght of the brazier burning nearby, he saw that many servants and maids had also started to gather there, and they began listening to him as well.

Someone being murdered inside the manor had rattled all of them, and they looked very eager to know what he was going to do about it. It hardened his resolve to do his best to protect these people. Everyone listened carefully as he continued, "That's why I have made a decision to build a jail here as soon as we can. Once the first longhouse is completed in a few days, I will tell the carpenter to start working on it immediately.

This will be an isolated room within the manor where we can lock up someone who needs to be punished for anything which he has done wrong - up to and including life imprisonment for the most heinous crimes." The guards looked a little surprised by now, either by the fact that their baron was even talking to them about such a thing, or perhaps because he had not mentioned killing by execution in response to a crime. Kivamus exhaled.

He wasn't going to start executing people unless he had a very, very good reason for it, but at the same time, as much as he hated it, he knew that it was probably a necessary evil in this world. He swallowed before steeling himself and added, "Of course, there is still an option to simply execute someone who has done something unforgivable like murder or treason. But that will be considered on a case by case basis, and will only be decided once we are completely sure that that person is irredeemable."

Immediately, many of the guards including Feroy and Hudan gave nods in reply, while Gorsazo gazed at him with understanding, perhaps knowing that he was unused to saying such a thing. Kivamus continued, "But that is for the future. Now, about Sejkil's death, Feroy has told me that the actual death was most likely an accident, but the fact remains that some unknown person still did something like this. So our immediate concern is to find out who did this and to give him a fitting punishment.

It's not going to be easy to identify that person, but Feroy will be in charge of that, and he will do his best to find the criminal." The gathered crowd looked a little relieved to hear that something was being done about it, but many of them were still glancing left and right, probably worried that the murderer was amongst them.

To assuage those concerns, he added further, "Also, let me assure you that after investigating it, we have come to the conclusion that it wasn't a resident of the manor who did this, but rather someone else from the village. So you can still trust everyone here completely." Immediately, the small crowd gave sighs of relief, like a heavy weight had been removed from their shoulders.

"Now to address the reason why something like this had happened in the first place." He looked at the two guards who had left their posts.

"While the two of you were not directly involved with the death of Sejkil, it was still your fault that you left your posts at the gates without telling anyone else, and without even locking the gates properly. We can only be glad that it was a bandit who died, because it could very well have been one of us instead of Sejkil." The two guards immediately looked down with shame.

"Please forgive us, milord!" The taller one bowed low and begged.

"We just thought that the bandit raid had already been repelled, so there would be no harm in just watching the reward ceremony for a while. Please don't lay us off!" The shorter guard appealed to him as well with a bow.

"We won't let anything like this happen ever again! We promise!" Kivamus gazed at their expressions which looked genuine enough to him. However, if the village's situation was any better, he might really have fired them, but as of now they needed as many guards as they could. And while this was still a grievous error by those guards, they were still new recruits, and they weren't corrupt or disloyal. So getting them more disciplined should take care that such a thing would never be repeated in the future.

"Stand straight." As the two guards looked up, he continued, "Don't worry, I am not going to discharge you two from the manor. For now." He stared at them for a moment, making them squirm, then gazed at all the guards present there.

"But I never want to see such a mistake being made by anyone else in the future. You can rest assured that next time I won't be so forgiving." Immediately the two guards gave deep bows again, while saying, "Thank you milord! Thank you so much!" They repeated it again and again, until he put up a hand to stop them. However, even though he had gone easy on them for their mistakes, Kivamus had also learned his lesson to be strict when needed. Stolen story; please report.

"That being said," he continued, "I still can't let you go without punishment. So the both of you will be docked one month's wages for indiscipline and dereliction of duty. We are not paying you in coins for now, but Duvas will note it down and will deduct it from your wages when we do start it in the future." The guards looked miserable on hearing that, but reluctantly, they gave nods of acceptance.

"We understand, milord," the shorter one mumbled. Kivamus looked at the other guards now.

"Also, the experienced guards who left their posts and put you two at the gates - even though it was your rest time - will also lose a month's wages for this." He continued, "You simply cannot leave your post in the middle of duty. That is the lesson you all need to learn. And that's why there are always at least two men at each gate. If there is an emergency and you really do need to leave, one of you should go and tell your superior first, so he can send a replacement for you.

And only then can you leave your post." He added with a firm voice, "Such a thing can never be allowed to take place again, or the results might be much worse. So I won't tolerate any lack of discipline in the future." The guards gave nods of understanding. Then Kivamus looked at the anxious maids and servants and smiled.

"Don't worry. Something like this won't ever happen again. I'll make sure of it."

After they all had returned inside the manor hall, Feroy began, "Hudan will only leave tomorrow morning, so for now, I'll go and try to see if I can find something about this in the village square or the alehouse. Maybe someone will blab something about this, you know?"

"I'll leave it to you," Kivamus said. He looked at the guard captain.

"Hudan, it is up to you to instill discipline in our new recruits as well as the experienced guards. Although not getting a month's wages should remind them of the consequences if any of them thinks of doing something like this again, you'll need to do more so they won't forget this lesson." He added, "For today, just make those four guards keep running laps around the manor until they can't walk anymore, and tell Kerel to continue this for them for at least a few weeks.

This will also serve as a punishment for them, but at the same time their levels of fitness and endurance will keep increasing by this." Hudan nodded with a serious expression.

"Don't worry, I'll make them train so hard that those guards won't forget about their mistake for years." Kivamus gave a nod and asked, "Have you already selected the guards whom you are taking with you tomorrow?"

"I have," the guard captain replied.

"As much as I wanted to give some rest to Calubo after everything he's been through, I still need to take him with me to show the way, as well as to show a familiar face to the stone cutters, otherwise they might just consider us as new slave-masters and refuse to come with us even if we do kill the bandits. I've also notified the other guards who'll be coming with me and they are sharpening their weapons and preparing their armors right now."

"That's good." Kivamus added, "Let's just hope those two escaped bandits don't reach the quarry before you." He looked at Duvas.

"Had you told Leah to start working on the fur coats we had gotten from the bandits?"

"Of course," the majordomo replied.

"I had also told Madam Nerida not to give her any other tasks for now, and then I ordered Leah to prioritize the fur coats. She's been working on them continuously, and she'd already repaired a few of them during the day, but I told her to work on them as late as she could for tonight, even using the light of the braziers and the fireplace to repair more of them." Kivamus nodded.

"Hopefully we will have enough of them by tomorrow morning."

It was early morning right now, and the sun had barely started rising. Kivamus and the others were standing near the gates of the manor watching the guards get ready to leave. Although there was a brazier kept near the gates which he was using to warm his hands a little, it didn't really help much, even in the absence of any wind. The weather seemed to be at freezing temperature right now, and the heavy cloud cover hadn't reduced even a little bit.

Earlier in the morning, he had been told that Leah had managed to sew seven usable fur coats from the eight damaged ones they had taken from the bandits, with the last one being sacrificed to make patches for the less damaged fur coats. But they were sending eight guards on this rescue mission, so he had added one fur coat from the manor house so that all the guards would be able to wear one of them.

As he saw one of the guards load a small pack of food on one of the horses, suddenly he noticed that snowflakes were falling down. He looked up with surprise, and soon, he saw snow start to fall gently all around him. He held one of his hands ahead of him, and saw some of the snow start to gather in his palms. This was the first snow he was seeing in this world, and it marked the start of the harsh winters near the region of the Arakin mountains. He looked around, and saw that he wasn't alone in gazing at the snow.

Everyone had stopped what they were doing and were looking at the first snowfall of the season. But soon, the guards continued loading up the horses with many different packs of food and waterskins which had been divided on multiple horses, so they wouldn't lose all their food supply in case they lost one of the packs for some reason. Madam Nerida had come through as well, and she had provided enough bread, hardtack and dried meat, along with some butter for the guards to sustain the journey with ease.

They were also taking half a sack of crushed wheat with them to feed the stonecutters on the return journey, which was divided into multiple packs as well for safekeeping. Before long, Hudan walked towards him while tightening his newly received fur coat around him.