They threaded through the market street slowly, the horses’ hooves kicking up little puffs of dust that hung in the sunlight. The village of Sarnok smelled like a place that lived with its hands—leather and wet wool, wood smoke and the sharp, yeasty edge of fresh bread. That smell hit Alden more plainly now than when he’d only glanced out from the manor: it was the scent of people actually working with their hands to survive, not the distant, anonymous smell of a 21st century earth city.
“As you know," Vusato began, "the main street—also known as the market street—goes right from the manor gate to the village gates in the west. This street is where most merchants set up.” He pointed toward the row of two-storey wooden houses lining the street. Lower floors were open to the road, packed with things that looked useful: bolts of cloth, cured hides, baskets of grain, bakery stands puffing steam. Above, the living rooms crowded close over the shops—small wooden windows, drying herbs hung from rafters.
A few makeshift stalls manned by older men and women leaned on the wooden houses behind them, their heavily mended oil-cloth roofs already sagging. Every so often a dog bolted across the street, or a toddler with too-big sleeves tried to chase a hen and failed, laughing nonetheless.
He looked around and saw narrow dirt lanes branching from the main street at odd angles—huts and shacks clustered along them—with natural drains worn into the earth where rainwater ran through. The huts were low and clumsy—thatch tied down with ropes, mud coated branches acting as walls—patched with whatever scrap could be spared. Only the wide main street which started from the western gates of the manor had proper houses made of planks. Those might be sufficient for the harsh winters of Sarnok—assuming they had enough firewood to heat them—but there was no way the huts on the side lanes could provide enough protection from the elements in the winter, if the people had to stay here during the colder months. So maybe it was a good thing that everyone had to leave for Garitus in the winter, even though it meant leaving their homes for months.
Alden watched everything with curiosity as he rode his horse without any problems. Vusato rode beside him, while Roderic and the guards had formed a loose half-circle behind them. The four guardsmen moved with the kind of careful casualness Alden was beginning to recognize—scanning corners, watching windows while seeming to watch nothing in particular. When they passed a woman carrying a basket of cabbages, one of the guards dipped his head and she nodded back with a smile—the way people do when they know the man will protect the house if need be.
Alden’s eyes tracked the shops. A baker pulled fresh loaves from a clay oven, the crusts split open from the heat, making his stomach grumble again. Some distance away, a woman in a stained apron was stretching hide over a frame in an alley, scraping it with a tool until the leather gleamed. The tanner’s yard stank bad enough to make Alden’s eyes water if he thought about it too long, so he moved quicker until the smell became easier to ignore.
The main street widened a little around a stone well in the center. Children ran around it, shouting and playing, while a woman drew water and another sat shelling peas in the sunlight. Conversation here was not a whisper—people shouted across stalls about prices, called for favors, chased a dog when it stole a roll. It felt... human.
A shop stood open on one side, with sacks of grain stacked like tiny towers. In the next one, a woman sat at a bench sewing linen fabric into a sturdy working shirt for the miners, her fingers steady and sure. On the other side of the well, there was an alehouse on the ground floor, which doubled as an inn with rooms available for rent on the upper floor.
As they continued moving towards the west, he saw a cobbler making tough leather shoes for use in the iron mines, a potter who was shaping a new clay pot above a manually-rotated wheel, an apothecary with ceramic jars of dried roots and herbs, a butcher with stacks of cured meat hanging in front of his shop, a merchant selling candles and soap, a carpenter crafting a handle for what was probably going to become an axe.
Soon, they passed the thatcher’s yard where bundles of straw lay in stacks and a man with a long hooked knife cut thatch to fit. At the entrance of the next alley, two blacksmiths worked across both sides of the alley in small forges, one hammering a pickaxe, the other shaping horseshoes. He also noticed how close the houses were to one another, how there was no extra space beyond the little patches where people grew turnips, onions, tomatoes and cabbage.
He looked at the majordomo. "I saw a servant carrying sacks of flour yesterday. But how do you grind the grain? I don't see a windmill here."
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Vusato snorted. "No, we don't have a windmill in Sarnok. It will take months to build, and there's no point in it when monsters could easily turn it into kindling in the winter. The miller uses a pair of darnos to run his grist mill. His shop is further ahead in the west."
Alden's memories supplied the image associated with that unknown word. A darno was a dark-skinned draft animal, a little smaller than an ox, but with its thick fur, it could survive the cold winters of this region. "Are there any craftsmen on the inner streets as well?"
Vusato nodded. "Mainly those who don't need the frontage of the main street to show their wares, unlike a baker or a grain merchant. There’s a wheelwright toward the north end, and a stonemason who visits when someone needs a hearth fixed. We also have a cooper right inside the alley where that boy’s sitting. The fishmonger comes up with a fresh haul every other day, but has to set his stall away from the main street because of the smell. We have nearly all types of craftsmen needed for the village's needs. We just don't have a Church of Light here.”
Roderic scoffed. "Thank God for that!"
The majordomo frowned at the captain for that remark but kept quiet. Alden wasn't sure either where that bitterness had come from and was curious to know more about it, but the middle of the road wasn't the place to talk about something sensitive, so he postponed his inquiry.
Before long, they rode past what had to be the miller’s workshop, where a young apprentice leaned in the doorway, flour-smudged and blinking sleepily.
They continued riding, and he wondered whether these huts and shacks, and even the wooden buildings would even stand a chance if a strong monster—like the one Caelan was telling him about—entered inside the village. That made him remember the upcoming mass migration to Garitus City, and how they’d repair after winter when everyone returned to the village. He looked at the majordomo. "Why don't the villagers build stronger? Our manor is still made of logs and timber, but it looks far more sturdy than these shops and huts."
Vusato shook his head. “It doesn't matter how strong they build with logs. Nothing made of wood stands a chance if one of those huge monsters came here, not even the manor. Only tall stone walls like those in the fortress city can resist the monsters, and we don't have the gold or manpower to build them. We don't even have any mages here to protect the village... Luckily, we haven't gotten one of the big ones in recent years, and our palisade walls haven't been breached for four winters now—which is why you even see this many shops and merchants—but that just means it's long overdue. One of those huge monsters might come here right this winter and trample over everything, leaving nothing more than smashed up splinters. That's why the baron brought those books from Garitus City last time, so we could find out more about them in case the guards had to fight a bigger monster before we left. Their attacks are getting more common every year."
He looked at Alden with a small, tired smile. "Still, even if everyone moves within the walls of Garitus for safety, this life of constant migration takes a toll on people. The villagers patch up what remains of their homes and shops in the spring after returning from the fortress city; they work hard in the summer and autumn—and save what they can to buy food for their families in the colder months—then go back to Garitus for the winter. That's our life here. No time or energy to do any more.”
Alden nodded slowly, realizing that this life was far too different from what he was used to on Earth. Perhaps... He shook his head. No, not yet. He had to familiarise himself with life in this world before worrying about what he could do to help the villagers using what he knew from 21st century earth. He still had enough time for it. His father was healthy enough that he could easily rule for another decade before he passed over the reins to him.
As they reached closer to the western edge of the village, Alden saw the palisade wall running behind the last houses—tall, sturdy logs, sharpened on top. They must have been driven deep into the ground, with watchtowers rising at each of the corners visible in the north and the south. His memories told him about similar watchtowers located in the other two corners of the village as well—not that they were anything impressive. They were simple wooden constructions, rising barely two meters above the top of the walls, which were themselves just around five meters tall.
Looking at the tall wooden gate in front of them, Alden asked, "This is the primary gate of the village, right?"
Vusato nodded. "Of course. The Lokir flows in the west, and all the grain we buy and the ore we sell is transported through boats on that river—including nearly all of our trade—so this gate is used far more than others. But you know that apart from this one, we have another gate in the north, where a rough path leads to the iron mines in the northern foothills. There’s an eastern gate too—exiting from behind the manor—where a road leads to the coastal barony of Laridan, though not many use that one any more since we barely trade with them. So it's mostly guards and the odd wagon returning from the outpost who use that gate."
"The outpost?" Alden repeated, wondering if it was the same one his younger brother was talking about.
