Chương 207: 204. Problems

Duvas frowned.

"You already know by now that the eastern stream doesn't have nearly enough fish to feed all the villagers. It's just not possible."

"N o, that's not what I'm saying." Kivamus added with a grin, "But first, tell me, we still have nearly a barn full of coal, right?" Once Duvas nodded, he continued, "How much would you say it is? Actually, why did the previous baron build just two barns of coal in the manor anyway? We might have had more coal in storage otherwise."

The majordomo explained, "Apart from the manor house as his own residence as well as the servant's hall - both of which are two story buildings, he had built four barns inside the manor, the first two to store coal, another one to store grain for the manor residents, and the last one to store cattle feed for the few cows in the cattle shed and the horses in the stable.

As for your earlier question, those two barns were enough to store around a month and a half of our monthly coal output, which stands at around forty wagon loads every month, apart from the winter when the coal mines were kept closed."

"So each barn stores around thirty wagon loads of coal..." Kivamus muttered.

"Then we should still have something around twenty-five wagon loads of coal remaining in the second barn, right?"

"It's hard to give an exact amount," Duvas frowned, "since all that coal is piled up together in heaps, but that sounds about right." Kivamus nodded.

"How much coal are we consuming every month these days?"

"Because of your over generous distribution of coal," the majordomo answered with a shake of his head, "I can give you an estimate that we burnt at least fifteen wagon loads of coal last month, and probably closer to twenty wagon loads."

"That is a lot!" Gorsazo exclaimed.

"If the monthly output of the coal mines here was only around forty wagon loads, then even if the mines were active, there would hardly be anything left to sell when we are spending half of it right here in the village!"

"Of course, but it's much lower in the summer months than in the winter," Duvas explained.

"In those days we barely spent a single wagon load of coal every month, and at most two. As for the previous winters, it was still under five wagon loads every month, since the previous baron didn't provide any coal to the villagers."

"Not for free anyway," Kivamus muttered, "which basically means the same thing as hoarding all the coal for himself." Duvas grimaced before he added, "There were also strict restrictions for coal usage even inside the manor, which kept our consumption low enough that the two barns of coal we could store in the manor were more than enough for our consumption over the winter, while still leaving a lot of coal to sell after it.

As for the present, after we started burning the stumps and small branches in place of coal where possible, that has already reduced our monthly consumption by a few wagon loads, and if your sawdust briquettes can be made in a good enough quantity, that will reduce our consumption further." Kivamus nodded.

"Good. That means we have at least a month and a half of coal in storage even without mining any more coal. My estimate is that all the coal mines will be cleared of any stagnant water in fifteen to twenty days, but I still want to keep the villagers working in the South as long as we can. This month and a half of coal in storage will still be enough to fulfill our heating needs for this winter."

"We won't have any coal left to sell after the winter in that case," Duvas remarked, "which might have been very helpful in case we remain short on the amount of tax we need to pay." He shrugged, "But perhaps you are right that we can postpone mining any more coal for at least a month. But why did you ask about how much coal we have left?"

"Because I want to try to sell some of that coal," Kivamus answered, "this time to Kirnos." Duvas frowned.

"I can accept that despite my earlier calculations that we might need to start coal mining soon, we still probably have enough for our own needs after the measures we are taking to reduce our coal consumption. But if we start selling it, it might not be true anymore..." The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"We don't even know for certain if we can even sell that coal," Kivamus replied.

"Even if we do try it, it's unlikely that we will be able to sell more than a few wagon loads, and we can take that much loss in our inventory. My point is that while it may be fine for us not to have any coal in storage to sell after the winter, since we can just mine more of it after a month, it would be very costly for us to buy any wheat at the expected astronomical prices after the winter, especially before we start earning a regular revenue by selling coal."

He added, "Even at the lower end, it is going to be fifty gold for ten more sacks at the going prices before the winter, but it can easily be seventy-five gold or even more. That is only in case buying just ten more sacks are sufficient to complete the sowing. The real requirement - which we will find out only after the winter - can be even higher. That's why I want to try our best to prevent spending any coin on it before restarting coal mining at full scale, if at all possible."

"Hmm..." Duvas muttered.

"I guess that makes sense."

"So here is what we will do," Kivamus continued while gesturing towards the west.

"I want to send a small caravan of two wagons filled with coal to Kirnos. They might not have a high demand for coal, since it doesn't snow that much at the coast, but we might be able to sell that much in return for some..." He was going to say salted fish before he remembered how costly salt was in this region, so he added after a moment of pause, "in return of some smoked fish. If this goes successfully, we should be able to reduce our wheat consumption even more." Duvas seemed to be thinking about it.

"Now that we have five wagons in the manor including the two we got from the quarry, we can certainly spare a couple of them since we aren't mining any coal now, despite their uses in the construction places. Although we will still need to send at least one guard per wagon to protect the caravan."

"That simply won't be enough protection - since that means it'll only be a total of two guards," Gorsazo commented, "unlike when we had sent a caravan to the north with sixteen of them which was a successful deterrent. Also, Kirnos is a place close to the territory of Torhan's group of bandits - which is much bigger and stronger than Nokozal's group. So we need to be extra careful when sending people in that direction."

"It won't be easy even if we have twenty-five guards now," Duvas remarked, "not including the ten female guards as well as Hudan and Feroy - who only work in supervisory roles instead of pulling a watch duty themselves. However, with only a single crossbow in the manor for now, it means we can't use all the female guards effectively yet, apart from Hyola."

"Hmm..." Kivamus muttered.

"We had already planned to bar and close the southeastern gate of the village semi-permanently until we get more guards in the future. Until Taniok completes that gate, we can just lock the northern gate instead for most of the day - apart from when the northern workers leave in the morning and return in evening. This will mean we will need to guard only two gates instead of three, just as we planned earlier."

He continued, "Although even if we just keep two guards in each shift at the two open village gates, that still means twelve guards will need to be posted there in three shifts daily - and that doesn't even include the guards which need to be posted at the two gates of the manor. The hunting groups who return every few days to the village can be used as a backup in case of any emergency, but there are still at least twelve to sixteen of them out at any time in two or three groups - most of which are our own guards.

It just won't work this way..." Suddenly he remembered something.

"Wait a minute. Hudan had said that he was going to post women at the manor gates too in the future, but the village wall wasn't completed at that time so we had postponed it for the future. He has already done it with some of them as a trial for watch duty, so if we tell him to do this from now on, it might just work!

Since there is a boundary wall around the village now - even if two gates are still under construction - that means the manor gates only need to be lightly protected from any theft from the villagers. Any serious wild beast attacks or bandit raids will need to be dealt with right at the village gates. That should allow us to post the female guards at the manor gates immediately."

"I'll talk with Hudan about it later to get his opinion," Kivamus added, "but let's assume for now that he agrees that it's feasible. That will mean we can send enough guards to protect the caravan, even though it would be stretching us thin. This way we should be able to send at least four and preferably five or even six guards with the two wagons." Duvas gave a slow nod.

"That should hopefully be enough for now, since nobody expects us to send a caravan to Kirnos, especially in the middle of winter. Even Torhan's group would have no reason to scout the eastern road from Kirnos or to plan an ambush." Kivamus nodded.

"Exactly." Then he realised that there was another problem.

"We will also need someone trustworthy to negotiate with the merchants there. Gorsazo is busy with the classes and I don't want to stop our villagers' education to send him with the caravan, and you have way too many responsibilities anyway. So it will have to be someone outside the three of us."