Not exactly intellectually stimulating, but then very few of these people were intellectuals. It cut wood.
What’s more, the strange, Rube Goldberg monster worked right the first time we tried it, and it was fast’ enough. The only problem was that sixty men was half our workforce.
But why did they have to be men? A man’s arms are stronger than a woman’s, but this machine was worked by the legs, walking. A woman’s legs are as strong as a man’s. Why not?
I put it to the women one night, during supper and got a lot of cold stares. Finally, I asked why. One woman got up and talked on and on about her hardships for the longest time until it dawned on me that she was assuming that I was not going to pay for this extra work.
When I shut her up and said that I planned to pay for what I got, she turned right around and gushed so enthusiastically that I had to shut her up again.
It was the men who were against it. They’d been starving when I’d hired them and now they didn’t want their wives earning extra money. Ridiculous’ Finally, I got together with the foremen and we worked out a deal.
The women would each work a half day, some before noon and some after. (A half day at this time of year was almost eight hours.) They would receive half pay and their money would be paid to their husbands. Stupid, but that’s the way they wanted it. And some of the bigger children could work if they wanted to, being paid by the pound.
Loading the logs into the sawmill was a job for all our men and horses, despite all the ropes and pulleys we had going. But this could usually be done in a few minutes first thing in the morning and again just after dinner. After that the ladies could work without assistance for half a day.
It had been an exhausting day, and I hoped whoever I found in my hut wasn’t expecting much. Except for Annastashia, who was regarded as Vladimir’s property (or vice-versa), the ladies-in-waiting had apparently decided to share me equally, with Krystyana somehow being more equal than the other three. I never had anything to do with it and I never knew who I’d be sleeping with that night. But I never asked questions because when you’re in pig heaven, you don’t want to make waves in the mud.
A few mornings later, there was a lot of shouting by the trail, so I went down to see.
Vladimir, in full armor, was on his horse and leading two others that I recognized as being my own pack animals. Loaded on them were a lot of my steel tools and two dead bodies, former workers of mine.
I ran over to his left side. “Vladimir! What happened?”
“They stole your horses and property. I went to them,” he said in a quiet, strained way.
I was suddenly furious. “God damn you for a murderous bastard! You killed two men over a couple of lousy tools?”
He stared at me, his face white and strained. “No. I killed them for putting an axe into my side. Now help me down.”
He leaned toward me and I caught him around the waist. My hand was bloody and there was blood running down his right leg, filling his boot. I eased him down on the ground and started shouting at people. “You! Run and get my medical kit. One of the ladies can show you where it is.”
“You! I need a bucket of clean water.”
“You! Get Krystyana. Tell her to bring all her clean napkins.”
“Stupid of me,” Vladimir said. “I didn’t realize that there were two of them. I had the one at swordpoint when the other struck me down before I knew he was there. He struck me from behind, the bastard, but then I suppose you can’t expect honor among thieves.”
“We’re going to have to get that armor off you. I think I should cut it off.”
“Cut my armor? Not bloody likely! It’s worth a fortune! My father had to save to buy it. Here! You peasants! Sit me up.”
We had to pull his hauberk off over his head and lifting his right arm must have caused him a lot of pain. I saw his eyes bulge and his jaws tighten, but he never cried out, or even publicly acknowledged the agony.
The leather gambezon laced up the front and was easier to remove. Under it was a remarkably feminine-looking embroidered shirt.
“Annastashia’s work. A pretty thing. I’m afraid I’ve ruined it,” he said, referring to the blood.
The medical kit arrived and I went to work, washing down both the wound and my hands. It contained a bottle of white lightning, my only antiseptic.
“This is going to hurt a bit, Vlad. Would you like a shot of this stuff before I pour it on the wound? It might dull the pain a bit.”
“Do what you must, Sir Conrad. As to drinking that devils brew of yours, well, I tried it once and I would prefer the pain of the wound to the pain of the medicine.”
The crowd was getting bigger and pushing in on us. “Yashoo, get these people out of here. And do something about that,” I said, gesturing toward the horses, tools, and dead bodies.
I had the wound clean by the time Krystyana got there. Annastashia was with her, almost hysterical but keeping it in.
“Krystyana, your sewing is better than mine. Why don’t you stitch him up? Two of his floating ribs are broken and the wound is pretty deep, but it didn’t cut an artery and I don’t think it penetrated to the stomach cavity.”
“Annastashia, why don’t you hold his head up? He looks uncomfortable.”
So our gallant ladies took over, and I stood back.
After sewing him up, Krystyana put a hefty pad of peat-bog moss over the wound. The girls swore the stuff had antiseptic properties, and their mothers agreed with hem. I’d long since used up everything in my original first-aid kit, so falling back on folk medicine was the only thing I could do. I suppose there was some truth to their beliefs, since we rarely had problems with infections…
This was not the brown peat moss that is sold in modern garden supply shops, but the green plant itself, cut while alive and dried. Peat-bog moss was remarkably absorbent, more so than a paper towel, and it absorbed odors as well as moisture. Besides using it to bandage wounds, the ladies used it as a disposable diaper as well as for menstrual pads.
Thinking about it, peat-bog moss doesn’t rot. That’s why you get peat bogs in the first place. The new generations just grow on top of the old. Maybe killing off decay organisms with some natural antiseptic leaves more nutrients available to the young. Anyway, it worked.
Yashoo came up.
“The horses are taken care of, the tools are in the shed, and Sir Vladimir’s property is back in his hut except for his byrnie. I took that to the blacksmith for repair. But what do I do with two dead bodies?”
“Bury them, I suppose. I guess we should get the priest.”
“For a couple of thieves who tried to murder good Sir Vladimir? Why, no priest would let them be buried on hallowed ground, even if there was any around here.”
“What about their families?” I asked.
“Those two were bachelors. Never heard them mention any kin.”
“Then get twelve men, take the bodies far into the woods and bury them. Best do it now.”
“Yes, sir. We won’t mark the graves either.”
That evening, I was still feeling guilty about shouting at Sir Vladimir when he was wounded. When I visited him, all of the ladies were tending him in a style that Count Lambert would have envied.
“Sir Conrad, have you set a guard for the night?”
“Yes, there will be two men with axes awake all night. Look, about what I said when you rode in this morning–”
“Think nothing of it, Sir Conrad. You had a perfect right to be angry.”
“I did?”
“Of course. Not only had I killed two of your men without your permission, but in so doing, to a certain extent I had usurped your right to justice. In truth, I only defended myself, but you couldn’t know that at the time.”
“Well, thank you for forgiving me.”
“I said it’s nothing. But if you want to do something in return, I ask a favor.”
“Name it.”
“Listen to my advice and heed it. I haven’t said anything so far because these are your lands and you are lord here. Your ways are strange and eldritch, but that’s your business. But what you’ve been doing with these peasants is so stupid that I just have to speak out!”