Chương 179: 176. A Place Just For Herself

Feroy and the other guard immediately stepped closer to him, but it didn't take long for them to realise that it was Hudan and a few other guards. Clim bing down from his horse, the guard captain - who looked nearly as tired and exhausted as the stonecutters - walked closer to him.

"Milord, so this is where you are. I thought you would be at the manor so I went to report there, but someone told me that you had gone to the north." Shivering a little, Kivamus rubbed his hands together, and told a couple of guards to take the braziers inside now. Then he looked at Hudan.

"Let's return to the manor first. We can talk inside the manor hall. It's way too cold here, and you must also be hungry. Not to mention Duvas has been giving me looks about dragging his old bones out in the cold here." The majordomo gave a chuckle.

"I won't confirm or deny your accusations, but I wouldn't mind sitting in front of a roaring fireplace now." Kivamus nodded, and gestured to a few guards to bring their horses.

"Let's go then." As they climbed on their horses, he saw that Calubo walked closer to Hudan.

"I'd like to stay here for a while if that's okay. It will be helpful for the stonecutters to have someone familiar with them here, and having a guard here for some time would feel reassuring for the other villagers as well." Hudan looked at Kivamus for permission, but Feroy gave the answer.

"Sure, why not. Earlier today, I decided to regularly assign two guards to stay here in shifts at all times, at least until we can be sure that these stonecutters aren't going to start stealing or something like that. We just can't be sure of their loyalties yet, you know?" He added, "You must be hungry too, but you can stay here for a while if you want. You can return along with Madam Helga and the other guards later." Calubo nodded.

"Thank you for this! I'll just eat some of what the stonecutters are having."

~ Hyola ~ Hyola followed the middle-aged woman inside the gates of the huge building - which she had found out to be called a longhouse block - but she kept looking behind her, just in case the silver haired noble had second thoughts about not choosing a few slaves for himself. She still couldn't believe his words when he said there would be warm beds and enough food to fill their bellies waiting for them inside.

It had to be a lie so he could make the slaves willingly enter the jail without them making any trouble, right? However, she had listened to his words carefully, and they matched with what the guard captain had claimed. So was the baron really lying? Were they really even slaves now? He did say that they all were free to choose their destinies from now on. But could he even do that? She shook her head which had started to hurt from all that thinking on an empty stomach. She would find out soon enough anyway.

She kept walking behind that woman, leading the small crowd of tired, hungry and scared people, and soon she entered the courtyard of the building. There wasn't much light to see here, but before long, she saw a couple of guards carrying the braziers inside, and they kept it near one of the doors on the right. In the flickering yellow light, she saw that there was a huge tree in the middle of the courtyard, although it didn't have any leaves in the winter.

Then she noticed something thin hanging from one of its branches. What was that? The light was faint, so she had to squint a little, before she realized that those were two strong ropes hanging from the tree. Why were there ropes here? They couldn't be tied there to hang those people who disobeyed the baron, could they? No, it couldn't be, or at least she hoped so... But then the flames became a little brighter for a moment, and she noticed a small plank connected to those ropes at the bottom. Huh.

It was just a swing? Like the one she used to play on when she was a child? But who would have made a swing here? Putting that question to the back of her mind, she noticed a door opening on the other side of the courtyard on the right, and a few people peeked their heads outside despite the falling snow, probably after hearing the murmur of the newcomers. Soon, another door opened in the front, and some more people along with a few children stood there watching them curiously.

Immediately, she saw that taking advantage of the opportunity, two of those children ran quickly to the swings and sat on it, with both of them pushing the other away, while claiming that it was their turn first. Immediately, a few adults - probably their parents - went after them, scolding them that it was too cold to play outside. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Hyola kept watching the ordinary scene with a numbed detachment.

Everything looked so... normal. Could this really be a jail? She wasn't too sure about it now. A place where children were smiling and laughing like that couldn't be a bad place at all. It was only now that she realised that there was a very nice smell coming from somewhere. She couldn't stop salivating when she realised that it smelled like meat being cooked.

But she noticed that she had fallen behind the others, so she quickly jogged to catch up to the slaves, who had started entering the door on the left side of the courtyard. Immediately after she put a step inside the door, she was confused for a moment at the weird design of the longhouse block from the inside. Those seemed like... wooden bunks for sleeping?

Yeah, they had to be, when she walked a few steps further and saw a few people sleeping on the upper bunks, while some others were sitting on the lower ones gazing at the slaves. Many of them seemed to have spread some straw above the bunks, while others had even covered them with some ragged clothes as a kind of mattress. Hyola blinked. She hadn't seen a more comfortable sleeping place in... forever.

She moved further towards the left and saw that there were a few braziers burning in the middle at some fixed places, which had kept the inside of the longhouse quite warm compared to the freezing weather outside, despite the small ventilation holes on the sides of the roof. There weren't any flames on them, which meant they had to be burning coal! That had to be costing the baron a small fortune! But she guessed that the baron must be deducting that amount from these people's wages, if he really did pay them.

She kept looking around with curiosity while walking and saw that the walls were made from debarked logs - which had been fixed in a staggered way to reduce any gaps between them, while there were also a few mud patches in some places between those logs, probably to seal it better from the freezing wind outside. However, all of those bunks were made from wooden planks. Those couldn't be cheap at all!

She realized that the floor felt quite smooth to her feet compared to the courtyard outside, and she noticed with a start that even the floor had wooden planks! From what she had heard in stories, only the nobles' mansions had them, especially outside bigger cities. Were they really going to stay in a place with wooden flooring from now on, just like nobles? She couldn't hide her grin thinking about it.

Then she followed the crowd further to the left, and began listening as the older woman, who had been called Madam Helga by the baron, started to speak. The older woman pointed to the bunks.

"There are twenty-six empty bunks here, and this is where you all will sleep from tonight." She added, "There wasn't much we could do about the bedding, but the baron had donated some straw from the manor for this, so at least you all wouldn't have to sleep directly on the wooden planks." Hyola was utterly surprised. Earlier she was thinking that the baron would just allow the slaves some empty space on the floor to sleep.

Even that would be much better than what she had been expecting - this building had a wooden flooring after all. With the braziers burning nearby, and the wooden floor insulating them from the freezing ground below, sleeping inside this longhouse block would be a lot warmer and comfortable compared to how they had been living back at the quarry. But had the baron really left enough empty bunks for all of the slaves? That meant everyone would have their own place to sleep!

Hyola barely realized that she had a goofy smile on her face now. She couldn't even remember when was the last time she had a separate place just for herself... She had some faint memories of the time she had lived with her family when she was very young, before she had been sold as a slave by them, but even then her whole family had to share the limited space inside their shabby hut. Since leaving her home, this was the first time that she was going to have a place for herself...

She didn't even remember how many times she had dreamt of such a thing. It didn't matter that it was only a wooden bunk with straw bedding instead of a whole hut. It was still much, much better than anything she could have imagined just an hour ago. Madam Helga continued, while pointing around, "There are two braziers for this section of the block, and you all don't have to worry about saving coal for heating.

The baron has already promised the longhouse block an unlimited supply of coal for heating inside - for the whole winter. This is a coal mining village after all, so there is no shortage of coal here."

"But we can't possibly afford to pay for that coal..." one of the slaves muttered from nearby.