With Marton Garcia, the barony’s chief forester by his side Amondo left the castle by its gatehouse and walked through the village until he reached the north gate of the village. There they were meet by Edvard Gruven the current reeve of Membe village and two others. At thirty-five Edvard was rather young as reeves go but he took after his now-deceased father Augustme. He had held the quasi elected position of village reeve fifteen times during the reign of Amondo’s father and brother. This was Edvards second one-year term as reeve having replaced the farmer Bruno Leckie who had served the two terms between Edvards first and second terms as reeve.
Every year at the same time the Baron of Membe or his designated representative selected three individuals to content for the position of reeve with the villagers selecting one of the three to fulfil the role during the following year. Besides Edvard and Bruno, the other person Leonid’s Steward had nominated for the position the last time had been the villages carpenter Alvin Maas. It had been the first time Alvin had been nominated and at fifty-six it would probably be the only time too.
Amondo had requested that Alvin join him on his inspection since he would be responsible for supervising any repairs that the wall might require. His hands had recently become riddled with arthritis so most of the actual carpentry work was done by his son Marcus and others. Marcus hadn’t been invited on the tour, but he turned up anyway and upon being informed of the reason why Amondo allowed him to stay.
They started their inspection tour of the wall on its inner face and walked around it clockwise. Once they got beyond the North Gate it soon became clear that the wall was in desperate need of repair. It wasn’t too bad in places and the gates were all in an ok condition, but it still needed some major work done to it. Once they arrived back at the north gate, they then started inspecting the outer face of the wall. This was in parts in an even worse condition than the inner face, it wasn’t a complete disaster even if you didn’t include the gates and the area surrounding them.
Seventy to eighty percent of the wall was in reasonable condition and only five to ten percent of it needed to be completely rebuilt. Still, the amount of work the wall required was staggering and while all the materials and the manpower needed to do so was available locally it could be better spent elsewhere. Who knew whether or not the wall would see use in the coming conflict or not? If it was needed then it could make all the difference between victory and defeat and save many lives to boot.
“Well it will have to be done regardless, the protection of the people of the barony had been the responsibility of my family for many generations. Now one way or the other it has fallen upon me and I will not let them down that is if I can help it”
“That may be so sir but most of the work will have to wait until after the harvest is done and we don’t have nearly enough cut lumber on hand to even finish half of it.”, stated Alvin.
Marton had this to say, “I can get my boys started on getting you the trees needed as soon as you give the word and the mill at Outleck is more than capable of turning it all into lumber. We’ll need to keep our axes as sharp as possible which will require extra work from the blacksmith.”
“Besides the lumber requirements, my men will need a lot of nails, perhaps more than the blacksmith can manage,” Alvin informed Amondo.
“Let me worry about that.”
“With these walls being in such a sad state there is no telling what condition the ones elsewhere are in. I know for a fact that upkeep of the walls around Hasford hasn’t been going on since the present lords’ grandfathers time and the wall around Outleck is practically non-existent.”, Morton added.
“Too true but I can’t do anything about that just now and they can’t all be in such a bad condition. The land-owning knights and the yeomanry, Adrian Fiske being I hope the only exception, are more likely to have taken better care of their walls than my brother ever would.”
“Sir, Adrian Fiske died nine years ago it’s his son Darian that is the yeoman of Outleck these days.”, Edvard informed him.
“That little shit besides, time will tell, thanks for all your help everyone, better to know a problem exists than to be ignorant of it. That way it’s less likely to bite you in the ass when you least expect it. Especially when it’s not the only one you might have to deal with, and your neck is on the line.”
“Amondo I Edvard Gruven am sure that if we all put our minds to it and by the will of the Gods plus a lot of work on the part of us all and a whole load of luck besides we will ultimately survive Eugene Haas and whatever he may throw at us.”
“I too feel the same way but not if I don’t first survive my wife Olga’s wraith for being late for dinner, so if you excuse me I have a home to get back to.”, we’re the parting words from Alvin.
“Go ahead I to must head back for dinner soon, Marton have your men start felling trees as soon as possible and send word to Outleck that their mill will need to process them as quickly as possible once they arrive”.
“I’ll get right on that but without time to properly season them, we’ll have to be picky concerning the trees we cut down which will delay things.”
“All I can ask is that you get stuck into it and do your best while I try and make sure we never need the limited protection the wall provides.”
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