So, are you liking this? I seem to get about 600 reads and 150 kudos per chapter, but not so many comments: Dawn.

Stone

11. The school

Sweet smells were coming from the communal eating area as the stew started cooking for the meal in a few hours. Rayla and Stone had left the school and were admiring the house being built next to it. Unlike most of the buildings in the town, this one was being built of stone, with a mason fitting stones to the front wall. After watching the craftsman working, with his several helpers darting about to keep him supplied with new stones, Stone spoke: “What place is this? It looks very impressive.”

“Only the best for the Captain,” the mason said while setting a stone in mortar. He then turned around and saw who was asking. “Why Captain, this is to be your house. May I show you through?”

Inside the place was a hive of activity. Six men were sanding a pine floor, and another group was applying plaster to the walls. The first room was massive, larger than the entire school tent. There was a massive stone fireplace along the middle of the longer side, apparently to heat the room.

“This is the sleeping area for yourself,” the mason said, showing a suite at the rear with a bedroom and a large closet. On the other side is a maid’s room and an indoor toilet. It will be the finest house in town, with a slate roof. We should have it done in about two weeks.”

“This is too much for us,” Stone said. “We are not royalty or anything, just common people. But I thank you for all the effort you have put into it. It is beautiful.”

Later as they walked down the street, Stone commented to Rayla: “It is too much for us. We just need a tent somewhere. Then he looked at the tent holding the school. But …”

He was interrupted by a feminine sound from behind them that was an odd mixture of a scream and a call. They both turned around and saw the seamstress that had presented Rayla with her dress on that first week.

“My lady,” she said as she darted up to them. “What has happened to your dress?”

“The dress I have been wearing continually for about a month?” Rayla said. “I have managed to wash it in the evening at times, and let it dry over night, but it has been getting a lot of use.”

“The back, where you sit: what happened there?”

“That would have happened when I was sitting on a slate roof for 48 hours straight in Sarn. It did get a bit wrinkled.”

The woman was behind Rayla now, inspecting the fabric. “It can be fixed,” she said. “And we, myself and the others, have made you a few more dresses. Can you come with me to try them on? And I will want the blue one for a few days to make repairs. Oh, there is a seam coming loose.” She poked her finger into a hole at the seam where the arm attached to the shoulder.

“Can I leave you for a bit?” Rayla asked Stone. “You can wait, or go off and explore some more.”

“I’ll wander about,” the big man said. “The town isn’t so big that we won’t be able to find each other quickly.”

Rayla left with the woman, and Stone walked down the street, only getting just past the school when a young teen boy ran up to him. “They want you at the dam, Captain,” he said. “Can you come?”

“I will be there in a minute,” Stone said. “I just need to get my horse.”

At the dam, he discovered that the men had finished dressing the long pine timber, and wanted to move it into position. Stone would be the muscle. He lifted the beam quite easily, and carried it over to the dam. It weighed about half what it had originally, but the scaffolding along the river bent alarmingly as he walked out into the middle of the stream. There was a man on each end of the river with crowbars, the only two in the town. They would force the beam into position.

“Good here,” shouted the man on the far bank. “Here too,” replied the man on the near side.

“What? No!” Stone said. Where he was the beam was over open water, a full foot from the next course down. He gingerly set the beam down, and it balanced on the two endpoints. There was a bend in the dam, causing the beam to fail to line up across.

“The dam is buckled,” he said. “We will need to push it back.” He asked the men with the crowbars to move about 20 feet closer to the middle, and wedge their bars in. “I’m going to try and push the dam back. Hopefully we can snap it into place.”

Stone mounted Doug and walked him around to the other side of the dam.

«I’m not going in there,» the horse said. The water was several feet deep.

“Come on boy, you and I are the only ones who can do this.” He eased the horse into the water.

«Damn, it is muddy here. You’ll be cleaning my hooves off after this, mister.»

Stone agreed as he slid down into the water. It was just over his knees, and he sank several inches into a wet, muddy ooze. He got good traction under the mud, and saw Doug do the same. Doug put a shoulder into the dam, and Stone did the same with his arms a foot or so higher. They both pushed for several seconds, with nothing happening. Then there was a feeling of power surge. It was coming from the earth itself, and it seemed to be working on the dam. Stone and Doug were the focus for the force, but it was largely coming from the earth. Suddenly the dam gave a little, then a little more, and finally they heard a snapping sound above as the dam locked into place.

“It’s in. You did it,” could be heard from the cheering men above.

Stone reached up on Doug’s neck ready to mount. «Don’t try it Buster. Not with feet as muddy as yours.»

Instead they walked down river until they were out of the mud and there was a sandy bottom. Doug then lifted one foot at a time, and Stone washed the muck from his hooves with his bare hand and a lot of water. Only after he had cleaned the horse to its satisfaction, was Stone able to clean his own boots and trousers. They scrambled up the bank and Doug allowed Stone to mount for the walk back to town.

He saw her on the road outside the school and was struck again by her beauty. He had gotten so used to her in the blue dress, and now she was wearing a print material that had yellow flowers in the fabric, making an altogether different look.

“You look beautiful,” he said. “I mean, you always look beautiful, but that dress … I really like that dress.”

“Thank you,” Rayla said, amused at his stumbling. “There is a red one, and a brown one too, but without the flowers. And I will get the blue one back in a few days. No more wearing the same thing every day. And I will have to get a pack horse to carry all my clothes.”

They put Doug in his stall with Beauty, and walked back to the road. It smelled like dinner was ready. Someone had baked rolls with the flour brought in from Greenwood, and the aroma was astounding: the perfect complement to a venison stew.

“Were you swimming?” Rayla said, noticing Stone’s wet legs.

“More like wading,” he said. “Doug and I had to get wet to get the dam set. They will put a couple more levels on it, but they shouldn’t need me again.”

“Oh, I missed it,” Rayla said. “I enjoyed watching those muscles in action earlier.” They got into the food line, and refused to move up to the front when others offered to let them feed first. When they finally got their food, a bowl of stew and a warm roll, they headed to the benches. They took a seat across from the teacher, who was sitting with a pretty young woman about 40 years younger than him.

“May we join you, Nelswood?” Stone asked the teacher.

“Certainly,” he replied. “This is Miss Relants, a scribe. I am hoping she will be able to take on one of the classes at the school.”

“Oh, I wanted to talk to you about the school,” Stone said. “Is the workload too much for you?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Nelswood said. “I am not a young man, and I’ve taught for eight hours already, and will go to the night classes once I finish here. The adult class used to be only five to seven students, but yesterday about a dozen of your guards came.”

“Well, the first thing is, I wanted to let you know that you will be paid, two silver for each class you teach, weekly. There are probably quite a number of classes from the past weeks that we owe you for.”

“Will I get paid for teaching the morning class?” the young woman said. “Two silvers a week will help me a lot, neither me or my boyfriend have found suitable work yet.”

“Maybe more than two silvers a week,” Stone said. “Is there much paper in the town?”

“Yes, about 100 sheet of good stuff, more of wrapping paper. There are also a score or two of parchment.”

“Good. I want you to consider using the half-day you are not teaching to make some books. The students need primers: you know, with a page for each letter of the alphabet. In printing, not cursive, although I guess in time we will need to teach cursive. And we need some simple tales, fables or folklore with a picture on each page. Can you draw?”

“Not well,” she said. “But my boyfriend is amazing at it.”

“Then he is hired too, for another two silver a week. If he starts working more than a half day, then we will raise that.”

“Thank you Captain,” the girl said. “People have told me that you are amazing, and now I understand.”

“Three more things,” Stone said. “First, the stone building next to your school: it is not suitable for Rayla and I. So I want to make it the school building. There is a nice lodging in it and a smaller maid’s quarters that Miss Relants can use if she wants: as an studio if she sets up house with her boyfriend eventually.”

“Another thing: expect more students. I have heard that some of your students are walking as much as five miles from their farms to attend school. I plan to start a wagon service every morning and afternoon to go out the outlying farms to bring more students in. It will go out at 7 each morning, getting in just before 8 so the students can grab a quick breakfast. At noon those students will get a quick lunch and then return on the wagon to their farms. And another group will come in, get a late lunch, and then go to class. These afternoon students will go straight home from school and eat with their parents.”

“How many will come?” Nelswood asked.

“We won’t know until we get started,” Stone said. “But I am hoping to get the wagon set up with benches that will hold about 20. Where I come from, they call it a bus. The only problem I see is that the students that come in will be of all ages. So you might have a four-year-old and her 12-year-old brother in the same class.”

“That isn’t ideal,” Nelswood said. “The little ones have shorter attention spans, and are easily distracted, as you saw with young Lillibet this afternoon.”

“Here’s an idea,” Rayla said. “Why don’t we create something called a pre-school. The women who run it needn’t be scholars, but will play games and tell stories for the little ones: say age three and four.”

“That would be wonderful.” The teacher said. “At that age they can’t learn much more than the letters of their name.

“One last thing,” Stone said. “I want to motivate the students somehow. My solution is something you can call ‘The Captain’s Award’ for lack of a better title. I will pay a penny to the top three students, and a half pence to each of the next two. And there will be a second category. This will be for the hardest working student, to help motivate the ones who are not naturally as gifted as the best students. I suspect that your top students will continually be the same, but the hardest working should change each month. Have you been going long enough to be able to pick students?”

“Yes, I think so. The best students are easy: it will be the hardest working who will be a chore to chose from. It will certainly motivate the children at a cost of eight pence a month. I really must run now. I have a class to teach.”

Before he slipped out, Stone added: “By the time you move into the new school I will make sure that there is a bench and a table for each student, chalkboards for the walls, and slates for all the students to use.”

“Bless you, Captain,” he said as he hurried away.

“And you, my dear,” Stone told the girl. “I want you to find Carlson. You know him? Good. Tell him I said you were to get possession of all the paper and parchment. Even the packing paper: you can use it to make rough sketches and layouts for the books. I know the merchants will complain, but books are more important than wrapping papers.”

A young man came along: the girl’s boyfriend. He was her age or a little older, and the looks between them showed that they were in that early, magical stage of love. Rayla just sighed as she watched them making moon eyes at each other as she told him about their new jobs. They were excitedly making plans for books as Rayla and Stone got up to leave.

As Rayla and Stone were walking away, Rayla stopped and got a glazed look on her face. “Arthur says there are two groups approaching the town that you should be aware of. One is a small party that has just left Greenwood and is heading north. There are eight soldiers and a man in a carriage.”

“A wagon, you mean?”

“No he says it is a carriage. But the group of more concern is approaching from the west. There is a group of over 1000 slaves and 120 soldiers with them. Not merely guards: Arthur says that they are clearly a military force.”

“Well, I guess we should have expected that there would be a retaliation for our stopping the slave trade. It is a very lucrative business, and I guess those participating in it are not eager to give it up. How far is this army from us?”

“Arthur says they are three days from the town, and nearly two days from the furthest farm with our people in it.”

“That is where we will have to hit them,” Stone said. “None of those we freed will ever be made slaves again. I will need to speak with Carlson tonight or tomorrow morning.”

Stone and Rayla wandered over to the fire, where most of the people had congregated, other than those who went to the school tent. Carlson stood up and everyone quieted down.

“I have been giving these little talks for the past few weeks, but today I gladly turn over the floor to our leader, the Captain.”

There was an actual applause from the group, and Stone stood. “I really don’t know what to say. Carlson would probably be better at this than me. I’m still getting my feet wet here. Literally.” He looked down at his damp trousers, and everyone laughed. “The one thing that I do want to say is that while many of you have worked so hard to build a fitting house for Rayla and I, we have decided that a more important use for the building will be as a school house. So when the building is finished, it will get that use. I want some effort put into equipping it with desks, benches, blackboards and slates for each student. Any man who has skills that can go to that will be encouraged to do so. They will each be paid two silvers a week while they work on things, so that should get some money flowing through the town.”

“Also, Rayla and I will move into the old school, so don’t start planning anything for us. We will be comfortable there until the weather turns colder, and we have much to build before then, including a barracks and a barn for all the horses we have.”

“Speaking of which, you notice that there are a lot of soldiers here: far more than a town of this size needs. But remember, this is still on the slaver’s route, and I insist that none of you will be in danger of returning to slavery. But any of you men who want to leave the army life are welcome to any of the empty homes in the Barrens, to try a life as a farmer. I see more than a few of you have made friends with local girls.”

“The Barrens: I don’t like that name. I hereby rename this area the Greenswath.” At this there was another round of applause. When it died down, Stone continued: “I’m going to sit down. I see a lot of tiny faces starting to fidget. What comes now?” he asked Carlson.

“I come now, Captain,” an ancient looking man rose unsteadily to his feet. But his voice was not unsteady. “I am Granger, and for the past few weeks I have been telling stories about the old days and far ways. Most seem to like them: they keep coming back and calling for more. What shall we talk about today?”

“The three towers,” a young tween boy near the front called out. Stone noticed that most of the children in the crowd were nestled between the legs of one parent or another. Then he felt Rayla move into a similar position between his legs. He smiled. This was nice. A storyteller was to these people what television was to families on earth: at least in the early days when there was only one in a house and the whole family gathered in front of it.

“The three towers of power are located far to the south, past the deserts, across the ocean, and nestled in the mountains of ever-snow. They are in a valley that is covered by snow almost half the year, unlike the six or eight weeks of winter we get here,” the ancient said.

“In each of the towers lives a mighty mage, with the powers to create life itself. Of their creations, the only one known in this area are the Dolly’s they create for rich men who pay the weight of the dolly in gold.” At this Stone felt Rayla react: he tensed up himself, and began paying more attention to the story.

“The mages also create fantastic creatures to be their servants: there is a half-man/half-horse who plows their fields, a half-man/half-wolf that patrol their forests, a half-woman/half-fish that swim in their rivers, and women with wings instead of arms that fly around their towers to warn of intruders. There are some who say that the unicorn is of their creation, but I doubt that. Those creatures are so pure that only a virgin can ride them. They have a spiral horn of the purest mithril in the middle of their forehead. Mithril is worth 10 times as much as gold, and is coveted by the mages in making their other creations.”

The tale continued for nearly an hour, following the actions of heroes who tried to break into the towers. By that time tiny eyes were fighting to stay open, so the old man finished up the story so that parents could take the little ones to bed, and the group around the fire broke up.