Page 51 of Traitor Son

“Dozen horses at most, unless you don’t mind stopping some major projects. Most of them are doing draft work.”

“Tounot, pull some archers out of their work details today, and give them some practice time.” Remin scowled ferociously. “Edemir, report to me later about how we can minimize the impact on planting and wall building, but I’m willing to give up a few acres of planting before we lose a foot of wall.”

These were familiar problems, too much to do and not enough resources, and not even gold could buy a solution to everything. Between grudging rewards from the Emperor and tribute from Valleth, Remin had more money than he knew what to do with. The thing he was lacking was time. Finding and securing the experts and supplies he needed didn’t happen overnight, much less transporting them to the valley. By late summer, Tresingale would be bursting with men and materiel, but they would have to survive that long, first.

He would take Juste, Huber, and Jinmin along. Sir Jinmin of Oskerre was a stolid man of nearly forty who went about his work on a battlefield the same way he went with his belt knife at dinner. A knight on horse was worth twenty bandits. A Jinmin of Oskerre was worth forty.

After he dispatched more scouts under Eude’s command, Remin reviewed the rest of his plans with his knights, to make sure nothing was overlooked. The only remaining trouble was what he would do with the people supplying the bandits. It might not be the whole village; it could be only two or three people who had taken it upon themselves to commit treason. The loyalties of the Andelin commonfolk were complicated. After a century of war, they might regard themselves as citizens of either Valleth or the Empire.

But he had offered them amnesty. He had offered to escort anyone who considered themselves citizens of Valleth to the border, and even gave them a few silvers to help them on their way. Someone had refused that offer and then stabbed him in the back.

Remin Grimjaw had no mercy for traitors.

For now, he handed the problem over to the back of his mind and went to have a look at the spring planting.

It gladdened his heart to see the furrows of rich, dark earth stretching away on the north side of town, acres of fresh-turned soil that would soon sprout, green and living. There were small dots in the distance, men and horses plowing and seeding, singing out their commands to the beasts under Auber’s experienced eye.

“Looks good, doesn’t it?” Auber asked, trotted his bay over to stand by Remin’s warhorse. They only had a few horses to spare for riding, but the quantity of acreage would have made it impossible for Auber to manage on his own feet. “We’ve got about sixty acres plowed and forty planted, so far. Based on Edemir’s figures, that ought to see us through the winter comfortably. I agree with the men, though, we ought to plant the carrots and such inside the wall. Birds are already stealing seed and next it will be deer in the carrots.”

The wooden palisade on the north side of town was a stopgap measure. Both men glanced at it automatically, a ten-foot wall of heavy logs planted upright, spiked on the top and currently three miles long. It would keep deer out, but stranglers would go up and over it as easy as a ladder.

Deer. Ghouls. Stranglers. Demon wolves, regular wolves, human wolves, traitorous villagers and the coming winter and no doubt a host of other hazards that Remin hadn’t even conceived. It was overwhelming, if one started a list.

“You want a turn with the plow, Rem?” Auber glanced at him sidelong, and Remin decided he would.

“Let’s see if you beat me this time,” he said, kicking his horse into a gallop toward the nearest plowman and grinning as Auber swore and raced after him.

Of course, Auber was a farmer’s son and had taken his first toddling steps behind a plow, so the contest wasn’t exactly fair. But it was nearly time for the noon meal and the men welcomed any excuse to stop, much less the treat of another contest between the Duke of Andelin and Sir Auber Conbour.

“First to five?” Auber handed his horse to one of the men nearby. “And the row doesn’t count if it looks like a drunkard plowed it.”

“That only happened one time,” Remin protested, but he didn’t mind the good-natured mockery. Manual labor sounded like just what he needed. A few minutes later, Remin and Auber were standing at the end of their respective rows, plows and reins in hand, waiting as the spectators excitedly counted them down.

“Gee up, there!” Remin shouted, starting his horse off with a jolt. Until last year, he had never touched a plow in his life. It was hard work; the soil of the valley was rich, but wet and heavy, and the muscles in his shoulders and back burned pleasantly as he pushed the nose of the plow down, dragged forward by the horse in front of him. The soil rolled up and outward like the wake of a ship, and the primal smell of fresh earth filled his nose.

“One!” shouted Auber distantly, to cheers from the spectators, who had already placed their bets. The odds heavily favored Auber.

“One!” Remin shouted back, clicking his tongue to get the horse to turn at the end of the row. He reset himself, pushed the plow into position, and called again, “Gee up, there!”

Five rows were a solid bit of work, and he was sweating when he was done, scarcely twenty seconds after Auber. But his rows weren’t bad at all, following the curve of the hillside, and there was quiet satisfaction in this work that had been lacking even when the warlords of Valleth had fallen at his feet.

“I keep telling you, you don’t have to push the plow down so hard,” Auber said, mopping his sweaty face with a handkerchief. Even years of campaigning hadn’t browned his skin, and he turned red under the slightest exertion. “We’re planting wheat, not digging a mine.”

“When I plow a furrow, the earth will never forget it,” Remin said gravely, to the sniggers of the listening men, who received all vulgarities with the delight of twelve year-old boys.

Remin rode the length of Tresingale twice that afternoon, checking on his prized breeding rams, the progress of the wooden palisade, two sites where wells were being dug, and then met his town planner on top of the east gatehouse to look at the town site. Nore Ffloce was a twitchy, excitable man with the angular limbs of a grasshopper, but he had an eclectic experience that was worth a little twitching.

“You can see we have the stakes up to mark the first two streets, Your Grace,” he said, holding up an enormous parchment so Remin could seethe beautifully visualized depiction of a future Tresingale, with artisans’ quarters, shops, and houses, a temple, and a market square that Remin could already imagine decorated for the midsummer Turning of the Stars.

The grubby reality was a bunch of stout sticks and string in the mud, like a Bhumi wind graveyard.

“What about the flooding around the back of the temple site?” Remin asked, pointing to the large stagnant pool that the men called Mosquito Pond.

“Ah, we have been working on the drainage system, look here, Your Grace,” Nore said, as if he had been dying for Remin to ask. Rapidly, he shuffled through his parchment. “It’s fortunate that we’ve had a year to observe the troublesome areas, I’ve modeled your sewage system on the city of Indhigi, in Daitia…”

Even the drains were fascinating. Remin listened, asked questions, and then left to bolt down the noon meal and head to the forest with his hunters, to see if they might get a look at a boar. None deigned to make an appearance, but they did hear some distant grunting from deep in the trees that was either an enormous boar or a very localized earthquake.

By late afternoon, he had postponed going to look at the wall for long enough. It was visibly longer than it had been even the day before, but Remin only watched the work from a distance. He didn’t want to distract his men, who were doing hazardous work in high places, and the less he saw of his wife, the better.

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