Sorry for the delay: Dawn.

Stone

Chapter 25 – Things progress

After the next council meeting, Rayla was appointed Marriage Officiant, and Euler was named Marriage Registrar. The Officiant would get 5 pence for the ceremony, giving her over a gold for each week, as long as the marriage list stayed at 50. She was ecstatic, having money of her own. And Stone was happy that he was given the 10 percent from his trip south. Most of the council thought he had kept it all. So they graciously accepted a commission of five percent on the Orono deal.

Next up came the elections, on the Ides of November. Stone was unopposed, and was acclaimed as mayor. Carlson ran against Rooney, who wanted to be mayor when Stone stepped down. He was slaughtered, getting just 20 percent of the vote. There were five women on the new council, including all three from the prior year. The other seven men elected also had been returned. Rooney was upset when he learned that losing as Reeve left him off the council entirely.

In the new term the council meetings moved to Chef’s new restaurant. He reserved one of the rear rooms for them. The restaurant started to do a booming business. All the councilors had raved about his food, and many brought their spouses to try it: as did many of the other employed people in the town. Rayla and Stone came once a week for ‘date night’ while others only came once a month. But the place was so packed it needed needed reservations for Friday and Saturday nights, and was always at least half full on other nights. Stone suggested something called ‘Sunday Brunch’, and Chef had two full sittings each Sunday. Monday was the off day for the business.

The winter was not a severe one, nor long, and the farmers looked forward to getting a good crop in the following year. Those who ran out of food came into town for the communal suppers, still running, but with far fewer people needing the service. Most new immigrants used the suppers for the first week or two, until they got a job in the booming town, and a first pay. Soon it was time for the spring trip south for Rayla and Stone, and their kids. The caravan had been painted over the winter by O’Breyne, and now was bright blue and yellow. Stone thought it looked a little gaudy, but Emily and Jason loved it, and Rayla had approved the color palette, so he accepted it.

The trip south this time would visit all seven towns and villages. Greenwood and Greenford were first, as always, then Sarn, which had now been on its own for a half year. Then there were the new towns: to the east were Petersville and Lakeport, and then west along the lake to Westport, before heading east back through Golden to Sarn and the trip north.

They took eight wagons and 24 soldiers, along with the caravan. The wagons were full of the trade goods that Greenstone merchants had created over the winter, slates, granite slabs, coal and coke, and lumber. The new gristmill had no flour to spare, and the bakers had asked for more to be brought north until the next crop came in during the fall.

There were also other orders for goods to be brought back. For once sawn lumber was not one, but the seamstresses insisted on a wagon full of cloth bolts, and painters were in need of certain goods to make their dyes. One thing in dire need was coin. There was enough gold in town, but a shortage of smaller coins, especially coppers. More silvers were also needed.

The trips to Greenwood and Greenford allowed the family to meet up with old friends, and Stone decided to have a meeting in each town in a special town council meeting. It allowed the town to give an overview of their progress, and for Stone to make his points to the council: particularly that he only intended to spend another year in control. Eventually the councils decided that when he was gone, each town would send one member to represent it in a new parliament in Greenstone, which would have control of the army.

The trip to Sarn was enlightening. The town still was far from what it had once been, but there were signs that it was coming back. A large inn was built on the River Road, and Stone was surprised to find that Ronald, the former Duke’s son, was owner and barkeep. He was clearly doing well, but still was holding community suppers for those people who had yet to find employment in the recovering town.

A big surprise was that Sarn had changed its name, and was now called Three Rivers. The Green River flowed into the Maniflow River in the town, and thus they decided they were the town on the three rivers, counting both ends of the Maniflow.

The lower stretch of the Maniflow flowed into Great Wolf Lake at Lakeport. Petersville was a town halfway between Three Rivers and Lakeport. It had a town council, and Stone met with them and they agreed to join the confederation of towns, mainly for defensive purposes. Three days later the caravan was on its way to Lakeport. This community also joined the confederation, but Stone had an ulterior motive in visiting the town. He spent considerable time at the docks, visiting the ships that travelled across the lake, determining fares and schedules.

Once they left Lakeport the caravan headed along the lakeshore in a long trek that involved camping out five straight nights before coming to Westport. Again, Stone spent time at the docks, and purchased many spices and specialty items that had been traded across the lake. These goods would sell well in Green Valley.

After a few days the caravan headed back towards the former Sarn. Part way along, near where the map said Golden was located, a single trading wagon was parked near the road.

Stone rode over and hailed the merchant: “Can you tell me how far it is to Golden?”

“You are pretty much in it,” the man said. “There is no downtown like other communities. There is the miners hall down that-a-way, and the assayer next to it. This-a-way is the mint. No stores. Several of us trade from Wesport and parks here at the road fer a day or so. The miners mostly live in tents near their claim. Dunno where you gonna put a big train like the one you got.”

“A mint?” Stone asked.

“Yep: you knows. Fer makin’ coins and sich.”

Stone found a road, if it can be called that, and pulled his train over onto it.

He left word for the wagoneers to sell any goods that were wanted for a fair price, keeping half for themselves, and then headed to the miners hall. There was one small man in the building, with a damaged arm. He used the other to make notes in ledgers, and demanded Stone tell him the cause of his visit.

“You the bloke who sent them army fellers here last year?” the man said. “They sure stopped the leeches the old Duke sent out to collect ‘taxes’. Robbery was what it was. Most all of them are mining now, at least part time. They club together with a few of the boys when trouble stirs up, and we votes them a bonus. Bandits know to stay away now. So whatcha gonna do now?”

“Well,” Stone said. “This meeting was mostly to acquaint myself with the area. But now that I know there is a mint down here, I intend to use it over the next week or so. I have a bit of gold, but what I really need are coppers and small coins.”

“That’ll make the grubbers happy,” the man said. “Most of the men are after gold, and silver if they can get it. But the grubbers work mines of copper, tin and other ores. You will get a good price fer yer coppers and bronze coins.”

Stone went over to the mint, and plopped down a bag of golds, about half what the family had. They had made a profit trading in each of the towns on the circuit, and would pass through Three Rivers, Greenford and Greenwood again on the way north.

“Whatcha want on the coins,” the mint operator said. “Mostly we did the face on one side and then some kind of symbol on the other. I got dies with the old Dukes face on them, and could scrape off his beard. It’d look a lot like you. Are you the new Duke?”

“No, no,” Stone said. “I am only the Captain. And I don’t want my face on the coins. Lets just put a symbol on the one side. Put the sun on the penny, the moon on the half pennies, and stars on the forthings. We will talk about tuppence and six pence later. And on the backs: what about a dragon. Something fierce looking, flying through the air.”

“With a plume of fire,” the man said excitedly at the chance to design something amazing. He took a pencil, and sketched hurriedly for a few minutes, and Stone saw a fierce-looking dragon slowly appear.

“That is perfect,” he said to the man, who didn’t answer, rapt in his work.

“Good?” the man finally held up the sketch.

“That is wonderful,” Stone said.

“Gotta get it into metal now,” the man said, turning back into his shop. “I’ll have some to see in two days. Whole order’s gonna take two weeks.”

Stone left, wondering what he would do for two weeks. Suddenly Pate started to sing, and Stone pulled the sword, expecting to go into battle mode.

«Calm down, there is no danger,» Pate said, speaking rather than singing for the first time.

“You can talk?”

«Yes. I can do a lot of things that you aren’t aware of. One of them is to see inside of rocks. Not just for things that can hurt us, but things that can help us.»

“You are confusing me,” Stone said.

«Do you see that huge bluff behind the assay office? The miners around here think it is pure granite, but in fact there are no less than three veins of gold ore in there. More gold there than in the rest of the areas being mined here.»

“So what do we do?”

«If you are smart you go to the miners office, and stake out a claim, if there isn’t one. Judging by the fact no one has been working on it, it’s open. If not, we will need to buy the stake.»

Stone went back to the office, and told the man in there he wanted to try some mining, mentioning the bluff.

“That’s gonna cost you five gold,” the man chortled. “Probably won’t give you five gold in ore, though.” The man continued to chuckle as he filled in the paperwork, giving Stone the claim and a receipt.

«Come on, let’s ride up to the top of the bluff,» Pate said.

Stone and Doug rode up taking a wide circle route: it was too steep to even think about riding straight up. At the top Pate led them to the edge.

«Over there. Take me out of the scabbard and put my tip down … right there.»

Stone felt the sword jump a couple of inches on its own.

«Perfect. Now press down as hard as you can.»

Stone did, and he again felt power coming from the earth, flowing into his body as the sword slowly sunk into the stone, causing a thin crack to creep out in either direction. Soon the sword was embedded up to its hilt.

«Now twist. Clockwise, I think.»

Stone did so, and again felt the earth magic flowing into him. Suddenly there was a loud crack, and a massive boom as the earth split. Stone was off balance from the effort, and it was only a timely snap by Doug that caught his collar and pulled him back as tons of rock slid down. About 12 feet of the bluff had crumpled and fallen to the valley below.

Stone sheathed the sword, mounted his horse, and walked down to the miner’s office, which had missed being flattened by 50 feet.

“What the hell you done, boy,” the man from the office shouted. He then looked up on the newly exposed face and his mouth dropped open. There were three areas shining in the setting sunlight, each a foot round, and looking like gold veins.

The roar of the rock fall has attracted attention from other miners, who came to see, and with gold veins clearly in view, dozens hurried to the office, only to have the man there direct them to Stone. Dozens of men offered to work for him. Most wanted to work shares, but Stone instead suggested a wage of 5 silver a week, which most of the men jumped at.

During the next four weeks the men brought out over a ton of gold. The mint completed the order of copper coins, and then spent another week minting silvers. At the end of the month in Golden, Stone had set up an operation he hoped could continue without him. The gold bars were divided up between the wagons in the train, and they pulled out. The trip north through Three Rivers, Greenford and Greenwood went well, and soon they were back in their little house in Greenstone.