"Yeah, bringing the logs inside is a good idea," Hudan agreed. "If we do this then it would be easy for our guards on the watchtowers to spot any bandits outside the walls since their field of view will remain clear."

"Alright then," Duvas gave a nod. "It will take time to bring all the logs inside, but it's better to start early and to finish before the roads get safe to travel and risk of bandit attack increases. I will put workers on it today itself." He continued, "Apart from that, I was also told that Darora has given all the pulleys to the dam construction site, so Yeden should be able to fix the second sluice gate by this evening with the help of some apprentices of the carpenter."

"Good, good!" Kivamus nodded, as he saw Taniok and his apprentices climbing down the ladder on the watchtower.

"The frame of the first tower is complete, milord," the old carpenter reported. "I'm going to start making the platform now. That should be done by evening, so tomorrow we can work on the parapets and the roof of the tower. So if there aren't any major problems it should be completed by tomorrow evening."

"That's great," Kivamus grinned. "Carry on then, we don't have any time to waste."

He looked at the guard captain. "We had decided that we would post some old and trusted villagers on top of the watchtower to keep an eye on the surroundings. Do you have any of them in mind for this?"

"Well, that was before we had decided to recruit women as guards," Hudan replied, "but it's also true that we are sending out hunting groups which are mostly made up of our guards, so we still can't afford to put our guards on watch duty on the towers, whether men or women. As for your question, I had Feroy ask around in the village some time ago, and there are more than enough applicants for this. I will finalise a few of them after confirming them with Sir Duvas."

"Of course, I'll help you with that." The majordomo looked at Kivamus. "Do you still want to pay them monthly wages?"

Kivamus nodded. "I do. These are the old men and women who can't do any hard labour, so we are paying them anyway right now - even if it is in the form of food rations. For now even if we say we are paying them, nothing will change and we will just keep giving them the food grains. Eventually, when we start paying everyone in coins after a few weeks, then we can give a reasonable wage to them. If we don't do this and stop giving the free meals, then most of them will just starve, since they don't have any other way to earn money, apart from begging or stealing, and I don't want that. But this way, by paying them a small amount, they will feel like they are valued in the village, which will make them want to work harder to spot any threats while using that coin to buy themselves food, making them feel self-sufficient."

Hudan grinned. "The fact that this will leave our guards free to put them on duty at the gates is only a bonus."

"It is," Kivamus agreed. "Once we have more crossbows, we can even start giving these men some training in that, since they can use it just as well as the women guards do. Still, the first few weeks after the snow melts will be very dangerous for us, so we will somehow have to manage to post a woman guard with a crossbow on top of each tower. We simply don't have enough of them to put them on duty in all three shifts, but we can still afford to do it at night when the danger of a raid is higher."

"I'll adjust the watch duty schedules for this," Hudan replied. "Still, I wish we would get more crossbows soon. Or even more guards. With so many of them out on hunting trips, we are always short on guard these days."

Kivamus thought about it. "You are not wrong. Apart from wherever we are posting our guards these days, we might also have to provide protection for Pydaso or other merchants when they go to Cinran. It's true that the danger of bandit raids on the northern road is lower now, but it would still be a good idea to protect our valuable goods by making sure we provide the necessary protection ourselves. That means we'll need more guards."

"But we just can't afford to take workers away from other tasks right now!" Duvas complained.

"I'm not saying that we need to do it right now," Kivamus reassured him. "I realise that just as well as you, but hopefully we will start getting some immigrants soon, and at that point we can start to increase our number of guards proportionally."

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"That... is a much better idea," Duvas agreed, "but I don't know if it would be a good idea to trust any immigrants enough to make them guards."

Kivamus grinned. "Of course we are not going to hire the immigrants as our guards! We will still only hire those people who have been residents of Tiranat for many years, and to fill the job they are doing right now, we will put the immigrants in their place. This way we will still have trusted men or women as guards, while making sure the immigrants are utilised wherever they are needed."

Hudan gave a smirk. "That's a good idea, milord! I think..."

His words were interrupted with the sound of the northern gate opening close to them. Immediately, Hudan and the other guards took positions on all sides of him with their hands on the hilts of their swords, just in case. But the guards at gate duty knew what they were doing, and as the gates opened fully, Kivamus saw a group of four men wearing fur coats walking inside along with a pair of sledges, with butchered animals stacked on them. This must be the hunting group which had gone to the east in the hills.

However there was a surprising addition to their group. The last guard was also herding a pair of sheep ahead of him.

"Is that...?" Hudan muttered.

The leader of the hunting group nodded. "It is a sheep. They both are. We found them roaming between the hills in the east."

"This is perfect!" Kivamus grinned. "The discovery that there are sheep living in those hills is even more important than the fact you brought two of them here. It's still surprising that none of you found any sheep in those hills until winter was nearly over, but either way, this is very good!"

The guards in the hunting group beamed at the praise.

Kivamus continued, "Make sure to keep an eye out for more sheep in your future trips." Looking at the fluffy animals, he added, "At this time they seem to have a lot of wool on their bodies, and if we can get enough of them we might be able to start making warm clothing for people. Alright, go on inside and take some good rest for a day before you leave again. You deserve it!"

The guards gave a quick bow at that, and started pulling the sledges ahead towards the manor.

Kivamus looked at the majordomo. "Shearing the sheep would be easy enough and can be done by any servant, but do we have anyone who can do any weaving from the wool?"

Duvas seemed to be thinking for a moment. "I don't think so. Leah is very capable of sewing and mending clothes, but she is not a weaver."

"That reminds me," Hudan commented, "Tesyb - who's the son of the southern foreman Pinoto - mentioned something you might like. A few weeks ago, he was telling me about his sister Isuha, who works in Cinran as a seamstress. Wouldn't she know more about sewing?"

Kivamus gave a slow nod. "More than Leah, for sure."

He knew that they would have to diversify their income sources soon, otherwise Tiranat would never get enough funds to become prosperous and secure just by selling coal. Manufacturing clothes was a relatively easy task compared to some others, as proved by the first industrial revolution in northern Europe and England. He had already been working on some ideas for making those machines, but he still needed someone with more practical knowledge of the task to finalise the designs. This seemed like a good opportunity.

He looked at the guard captain. "You know what, we need this girl in Tiranat." Regretting that there was no way for instant communication in this world, he added, "Whenever we send guards to Cinran the next time, make sure to send Tesyb with them."

"As you wish," Hudan nodded. "Although I already send him whenever there is a high threat of an attack, since he is one of our best swordsmen."

"Yeah, you had mentioned that." Kivamus added, "Before that next trip, tell Tesyb to inform his sister that I am offering her a permanent job here. She will be paid at least as much as what she is making as a seamstress in Cinran, and this way she would be able to live closer to her family."

"I'm not sure whether she would agree to move to a small village like ours after living for so long in a town," Hudan said, "but I'll let Tesyb know about it. The rest is up to him."

"That's the best we can do for now anyway," Kivamus muttered, wishing he had a way to just put a new job posting on the internet that he was looking for someone with experience in weaving, like back in London. Coming to the present, he added, "With her expertise we might just be able to move on to the next stage of making our village prosperous."

He took another look at the watchtower, where Taniok and his apprentice had already climbed to the top and were hammering a plank on the crest of the watchtower. "Alright, let's return for now."