The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Kilns, Charcoal, and Row Houses

As the construction of roads and houses advanced, occasions to call in craftsmen from nearby towns and the ducal capital to improve the village were also increasing.

The management of laborers was left to Lutz's son Fritz, a leading figure in the village, and to the craftsmen giving orders on site, but there were quite a few matters that required the lord's approval.

This was a world with no means of instant communication. If Melfina, the final decision-maker, ran around from place to place, contact would stall, so lately she had been spending more time waiting at the lord's manor, processing documents.

In exchange, Marie went out often, meeting the craftsmen frequently and checking whether there was any excess or shortage of tools and materials, making adjustments as needed.

She was truly a reliable secretary.

"It seems we have enough wood drying sheds."

"Yes, the sheds built for drying corn have been converted, so there is no problem there. However, the craftsmen have raised a request regarding roof tiles and bricks."

"A request?"

"They would like to add more firing kilns."

For the construction of houses, almost all the materials could be procured locally. For lumber they could use timber cut from the Forest of Moltre and dried, and for roof tiles and bricks it saved the trouble of transport to make them here rather than bring them from other towns.

Fortunately, there was a place near Lake Moltre where good-quality clay could be dug, and they already had donkeys and wagons for carrying loads. If they built furnaces in a hurry and called in craftsmen to fire building materials, they could use them right away.

Roof tiles were the work of specialist craftsmen, but the former serfs were playing a very active part in carrying loads and shaping bricks.

"Construction is progressing faster than expected, so firing hasn't kept up and shortages have started to appear in places. In the meantime they are working on things like laying the foundations of other houses, but if that continues, bricks will become even scarcer, so they say it would be best to quickly increase the kilns and set up a system for greater output."

"I want the residents' houses at least finished before winter comes, so they can build as many kilns as they need. Once we're done with them, they can be converted to other uses."

"Other uses?"

"I want to burn charcoal. A lot of it."

At those words, Marie let a small smile slip out.

"Lady Melfina's 'a lot'... could that, by any chance, be an enormous amount?"

"Well, charcoal has so many uses, and its by-products are useful in all sorts of ways, so there's no such thing as too much."

Winters in the Enkar region were bitterly cold. And farmhouses were basically earthen-floored, with a layout in which a hearth built of stacked stones, something like what is called an irori, sat in the middle of the house.

Building a fireplace in every house was not realistic for the moment, and preparing firewood to burn in the irori or fireplace was a fairly heavy labor for the farmers as well.

Charcoal, which gave off less smoke than firewood, was light and easy to use, and she very much wanted to introduce it.

"Then the kilns will be expanded."

"Yes, have them build as many as they think are needed."

"Understood. Also, the master carpenter Ricardo has requested a meeting. He asks whether after lunch would suit you."

"Yes, that's fine."

Ricardo was currently in charge of coordinating the construction of the new Enkar Village. If it was urgent, he would be welcome to come directly to the lord's manor, but given his station it was probably not so easy for him.

"And one more thing: Rad has just returned from the royal capital. The item you ordered has arrived."

"Really?!"

She stood up from her chair with such force that she could not help it. Making a clatter was bad manners for a noble, but just this once she hoped it would be overlooked.

"He says he will carry it down to the cellar, so please check it later."

"I'm going now!"

Melfina left the office with a bouncing step, and Marie and Cedric hurried after her.

"Lady Melfina! Please don't run on the stairs!"

"Got it!"

Though she said so, her speed barely changed, and Marie and Cedric, flustered as they chased their mistress, could not help smiling at how happy she looked.

\* \* \*

After lunch, while she was finishing the work that had been interrupted in the morning, Ricardo came to visit.

It had just reached a stopping point, so she invited him into the reception room rather than the office and had Marie make tea.

"Welcome, Ricardo. Please sit."

"Thank you for making time for me, Lord."

Ricardo took off his hat with a swing and bowed his head.

"I wasn't so busy today, so it's fine. How is the construction in the village going?"

"Very smoothly. With only the craftsmen and apprentices I brought, it would have been a question whether we'd finish just before winter, but the laborers who joined from the village are surprisingly hard workers, and the meals here are generous, so I expect that's part of it."

"I see, that's good. I heard that roof tiles and bricks are running short."

"Ah," Ricardo said, scratching his bald head with a sour look.

"The one who pointed it out wasn't one of my apprentices but a child from a nearby settlement, so I've just been yelling at everyone."

"Oh, could that be Rod?"

"Yes. My men told me he was a child who looks to have a 'talent.' From the number of houses being built now and the number of roof tiles delivered daily, he worked out in exact figures how many days until we run out."

"He's always been a sensible boy, but lately he has become quite dependable."

It was somehow ticklish and happy to hear a child who adored her being praised by a third party. The corners of her mouth rose without her meaning them to.

"Yes, and not only that child, the villagers working as laborers seem to hold the lord in great affection too."

She said she'd be glad if that were so, and then, remembering something, asked.

"Ricardo, if I ask the guild for a potter, would one come? Or is it more usual to place an order and have things made in a town or village and delivered?"

"It depends on the item. To produce ceramics you need a kiln, and there are clays and methods suited to each locale, so basically orders are more common, but if you need a large quantity of something that doesn't require much fuss, it might be better to have a craftsman come. ...May I ask what you want to commission?"

Melfina drew a round shape with both hands, about as high as her knee.

"A ceramic hibachi about this size. You put charcoal in it and burn a fire. It's used..."

"Hibachi. Hmm, I don't believe I've ever seen one. In what situations is it used?"

"Mainly for humidifying and heating a room in winter. Think of it as a portable irori. With one, you can also do simple cooking. If possible I'd like every house to have one before the snow falls."

At the words "one per house," Ricardo stopped the cup he had been bringing to his mouth.

Enkar Village had a population of about two hundred. Since the lord in front of him surely wouldn't leave out the former serfs who had recently been raised to freemen, the total came to around three hundred residents, and counting by household, there would be some seventy families.

To install one in each of them would be a tremendous number.

"With that many, it would be better to build a kiln in the village and call in craftsmen. But why do you want such a thing?"

"Cold causes all sorts of illnesses, and I want people to spend winter as warm as possible. A hibachi doesn't just warm the room; you can boil water or put a pot on it to make a stew. Above all, you can bake corn flatbread on it."

"I see, so they could eat something hot without going out to the communal cooking area."

Melfina nodded.

For farmers in particular, breakfast was simple: potatoes steamed the night before, or hardened bread with grains in it, with ale.

For lunch they used the communal ovens for bean and vegetable soup, steaming potatoes, and baking bread every few days. It was farming-village wisdom that cooking a large amount at once saved firewood.

Houses had, in the middle of the earthen floor, a space for burning a fire called an iro, close to an irori, but it was used mostly to keep warm in winter.

Since firewood was burned directly indoors, it produced smoke and soot, and an open flame was dangerous in all sorts of ways.

"If the heat source is in the house, no one has to go out in the cold, and if possible, I want people to drink a cup of warm tea in the morning."

Though they had become freemen, the houses of the former serfs could only be described as crude. They said they would patch the gaps before winter, but it was amateur work, and she had heard from the children that on winter nights the family huddled around the iro and slept wrapped in a single blanket.

She would even have liked to provide houses, but if she did, a gap in support would arise with the villagers of Enkar Village.

They too were pioneers who had endured hard times and built the lives they had now. And the funds for the buildings being constructed now were, originally, the taxes they had paid, so if Melfina built houses for the serfs, it would naturally breed a sense of unfairness.

Yet she did not want to make them spend a harsh winter shivering.

After thinking it over, Melfina newly introduced a system of row houses.

A farmhouse was basically two rooms, an earthen-floored room and a bedroom, but a row house had one room, without an iro, with eight units in one building, and sixteen units facing each other made up one row-house set.

And for each row house, a communal iro and toilet were installed.

This toilet was Melfina's other aim.

*—If you don't put in an iro, you don't have to pay the hearth tax. And I recall that in the Edo period in her previous life, there was a theory that the landlords of row houses made more from selling human-waste fertilizer than from the rent itself.*

She intended to introduce communal toilets to Enkar Village eventually, but the habit of tossing excrement casually anywhere remained deeply rooted. This was not limited to Enkar Village; apart from the noble quarters of the ducal and royal capitals, it was done everywhere as a matter of course.

It would be hard to ask them to change a long habit all at once. But in the case of row houses, the owner of the building was Melfina.

She thought that designating the place for excretion by an owner's authority would be relatively easy to accept.

As for rent, since the former serfs' settlement had been permitted ownership of half of the vast farmland opened this summer, they would pay a fixed proportion of the wheat and corn harvested from it.

*—Maybe I could make it so that after living there for some period, ten or fifteen years or so, the rights are transferred.*

As Enkar region developed from here, the number of people who saved up their earnings and owned their own houses would surely grow.

It was only a hope, but by then the temperature difference between the new Enkar Village and the former serfs would be gone.

Both pioneers and former serfs were, to Melfina, equally the people of her land. She wanted to cherish them without distinction.

She wanted to believe that it would turn out that way.