“Twelve pennies!” Cerise exclaimed. “That’s highway robbery! Even in a city, it shouldn’t be more than four.”
“Hah! That shows what you know, missy,” the ship captain scoffed. “You think I can hire a crew to brave icy gales and sea serpents for a measly price like that? I had to pay triple wages for this run, and with the casualties we’ve seen the next one will be worse.”
“Well, but, twelve pennies!” Cerise protested.
I stepped up behind her, and rested a hand on her shoulder. “It always happens, in this kind of situation. Everyone wants food and there isn’t enough to go around, so that drives the price up. If we let it float the chance for wealth will draw in merchants from anywhere that has a surplus, and we’ll have a lot more food to go around. But we’ll have food riots and starving refugees while we wait for things to improve. On the other hand, if we fix the price at something that sounds reasonable no ships will come here, so the city will eventually run out of food and everyone will starve.”
Cerise pouted at me. “I guess I can see that. But there has to be something we can do.”
And she was the one who’d wanted to let the city fend for itself. But then, I’d suspected she wouldn’t stick to that resolution if it was tested. Cerise liked to act tough, but she still had a conscience.
“I don’t know as there’s much we can do,” Lund said. “Besides guarding the docks better, if we can find the manpower for it.”
“Aye, that would be welcome,” the ship captain said. “There’s a fair few men looking for markets in this disaster, but most aren’t eager to risk docking at a major city. Too much chance of some noble confiscating our cargoes, and drafting the men for his militia. It’s safer to dock at the smaller towns, where you can sell your cargo to the garrison and take on a load of rich men looking to flee south.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” I said. “Where are you shipping from, anyway?”
“Mauritania had a good harvest this year, and Egypt was even better. The way things are going, we’ll run out of ships and sailors before we run short of grain to sell. I lost three men to the cold this run, and I keep hearing rumors about sea serpents.”
I shook my head. “If Jormungandr’s brood were really trying to blockade us you wouldn’t have made it here. I think they’re just congregating for the attack on Asgard, or whatever Loki is planning for his next move. Alright, here’s what we’re going to do. Lund, I’m going to spend the afternoon making some improvements here. I’ll throw up fortifications to guard three or four of the piers, so you’ve got a secure place to unload ships. My men will stand guard at first, but we’ll need to put together a militia to take over that duty. While I’m at it I can partially enclose the piers with self-warming stone, and the fort will include some living space for whoever you think is most critical to keeping the harbor running.”
The section of harbor we were standing in had a street with a few small buildings along it right at the shoreline, and then a steep slope rising fifteen feet or so to the level of the rest of the district. Considering how many of the buildings in the area were either collapsed or abandoned, it shouldn’t be hard to find room for a couple of small keeps at opposite ends of the area. Then I could just put gatehouses at the top of the ramps leading down to the docks, and a few sections of wall here and there to control access.
“That will take care of our dockworkers, but it sounds like the sailors need a hand if we’re going to keep the grain flowing. So I’m also going to set up a shop here to sell warmth enchantments. The version I’m selling won’t make you completely immune to the cold, but it makes a thin shirt give as much warmth as a heavy coat. We’ll put an enchantment on any item of clothing for, oh, thirty pennies or so, and we’ll take payment in grain as well as cash.”
We didn’t have enough spare clothing in the city to be selling it, but I figured I could make an enchantment factory to put warmth spells on existing items of clothing. It would run slower, but five minutes per item was still almost three hundred warmth enchantments per day. We’d just have to hire a crew of attendants to run the thing in shifts.
“What about the grain prices?” Cerise asked.
“Well, like I said, trying to dictate a price just makes things worse. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. We just need to find ways to get more money circulating in the general populace. The dockworkers could probably use a raise, and we clearly need a bigger militia…”
Chapter 5
A small crowd had gathered to watch me work, despite the bitter cold. It was another gloomy winter day, and the feeble light of the sun struggled to break through the heavy overcast. But my harbor renovations had caused quite a stir, even before I’d announced my plans for further improvements to the district. The little council of guildmasters and refugee leaders that Lund was assembling had been eager to accept my proposals, and of course they’d told their followers all about it. No doubt the rumor mill had gone wild in the last couple of days.
There were gasps and murmurs from the crowd when I waved my hand, and the broken rubble that covered the lot vanished. The wooden debris that was left behind rose into the air, and floated over to form a pile on the street.
“Where’s the property line, exactly?”
Jakob, the weathered old man who seemed to be the leader of the Fishermen’s Alliance, stepped up beside me and pointed.
“Right up to the edge of the street, milord. It starts on the riverbank at that boat ramp, and runs along Fishmonger’s Way up to Footpad Alley. That rubble along the Alley used to be some rich merchant’s warehouse, but we haven’t seen hide nor hair of his men in weeks.”
“That would be Harold & Sons, according to the property records,” the Harbormaster put in. “But their office is empty, and I have no idea how to contact them. Assuming their management is even alive.”
“Alright, then I’m condemning it,” I said. “That way I can use the whole block. If an heir turns up I suppose I’ll pay him something for the land, but it isn’t doing anyone any good as it is. What about the boats?”
There were several boat ramps along this stretch of the riverbank, and dozens of small fishing boats pulled up onto land. Most of them had been propped up with wooden beams, and covered with tarps to form improvised shelters. There were little fires burning everywhere along the shore, but even so I was amazed that anyone could survive under those conditions.
The old man spat. “Fishing’s impossible now. A few of the boys have tried it, but no one comes back. If the cold doesn’t get them, the goblins do.”
“I was afraid of that. Well, I’ll give you a place to store them for now. I’ve got some projects going that might change things, but I can’t make any promises yet.”
The warmth cloak factory was running now, but I’d need to do something about vehicle production before I could do anything to protect shipping. Eventually I’d like to get armored vehicles patrolling the river, and chasing off any trolls or goblins that were still lurking about. That would take at least a week or two to set up, though, and who could say if I’d be able to spare the manpower then? It was all too likely that some new problem would come up first.
But that was a problem for another day.
I laid out foot-high walls to illustrate the plan I had in mind as I worked out the details. The city engineer that Lund had dug up was able to point out the nearest sewer line, which helped. There was no source of fresh water, but I could take care of that myself. I’d have to knock down the few huts that were still standing, the last remnant of what had been a crowded shanty town before an earthquake leveled half the city. But that just meant I had to do things in the right order.
What I ended up with was sort of a mutant cross between a modern office building and a medieval keep. I used the same construction technique as I had on my island, with a framework of heavy nickel-iron beams supporting sheets of the same material that formed the floor of each level. The walls were all stone, and I laid down a thin layer of st
one over the metal floors as well. The whole thing was a bit over sixty feet tall, with six floors of interior space.
The outside wall was fifteen feet thick, with a gatehouse protecting the main entrance onto Fishmonger’s Way. That got two metal gates and a portcullis, with murder holes in the ceiling of the entrance area and plenty of arrow slits on the floors above. A second gate opened onto the riverbank where the boats were drawn up, but that one was just a portcullis and a single nickel-iron gate.
I didn’t bother with the towers and battlements of a proper castle, though. It would take hours to shape all that complicated stonework myself, and this wasn’t intended to be a real fortress. So I made do with a chest-high parapet around the edge of the roof, and enclosed watch posts at the corners so sentries could stay out of the weather. That would be enough to let a small militia armed with rifles hold off any monsters or hostile troops that got into the city.
Behind the rear entrance I set up a large, high-ceilinged storage area where fishing boats could be kept, or even built if a local shipwright wanted to move his operation. The rest of the interior was dominated by a large, rectangular atrium in the middle. I installed lights in the ceiling, and stairs that worked their way up the balconies around it. The surrounding space was subdivided into twelve different areas on each level, each with a doorway and several windows opening out onto a balcony. Each room was still a good bit bigger than the average house, but I figured I’d let the residents work out the details of any further subdivisions.
Of course, I couldn’t just build the whole thing at once. Instead, I started by throwing up the side facing Fishmonger’s Way. The whole structure was self-warming, so that gave the crowd that was sheltering in the boats and the huts around them someplace to move to. Most of them were pretty eager to relocate once they realized it was warm inside, and the older men organized work parties to move their meager possessions.
While they worked on that I put in a row of shops along the street, with thick quartz windows and sturdy doors of nickel-iron that would keep out monsters in the event of an attack. Each shop got a back room, a basement and a second-floor living area as well, which made them pretty roomy by local standards. A water tank on the roof provided running water for proper kitchens and bathrooms, and a hallway running behind the shops would let their inhabitants visit each other without venturing outdoors.
Installing all of that took long enough for the huts to be mostly cleared out, and then I was able to move on with building the rest of the main keep. I took the time to give it running water as well, connecting to several bathrooms and kitchen areas on each floor. One look at the filthy state of the shelter’s inhabitants convinced me to follow up with a bathhouse on the ground floor.
A haggard-looking woman poked her head in the room as I was finishing up the soaking pools, and gasped.
“A bathhouse? Oh, bless you, lord wizard! We haven’t had a bathhouse in West End since I was a girl.”
Her voice seemed familiar. I took a closer look at her face, and realized it was the widow of the harbor pilot who’d died on my expedition to clear out the river ice. The last time I’d seen her was at his funeral.
“Well, each of the new keeps is going to have one,” I said, still trying to remember the woman’s name. “I’m even putting in an enchantment to heat the water, so you don’t have to haul in a mountain of wood every morning. I take it you’ve been holed up with the fishermen?”
“Yes, milord. The house wasn’t safe after the Battle of the Docks, not with the door bashed in and rattlers lurking in the night. The fishermen don’t look like much, but they’ve a lot of strong arms with stout cudgels at hand.”
I frowned. “Rattlers?”
“Aye, milord. Them walking bones, what’s hiding in the crypts.”
Right. Six weeks ago an army of undead had attacked the docks, and some of them were still hiding out in back alleys and the crypts under the city. There were ghouls, too, and possibly worse things. Street people who wandered around alone had an uncomfortable tendency to disappear, and there were reports of houses being broken into at night.
Hopefully the work I was doing would improve the situation, but it would take time.
“They won’t be breaking in here,” I assured her. “I’m surprised the fishermen took you in, though. They seem pretty clannish.”
“I have kinfolk with them, lucky enough.” She took a hesitant step into the room, looking around. A young boy followed her in, sticking close behind her and staring at everything with wide eyes.
“So this’ll be the cold rinse, and then there’s a heated pool? Oh, there’s two sides! Men and women, then, milord? That will be nice. We only had the one pool at the Blue Mermaid, so we had to switch things on a schedule.”
“Sounds like you know a bit about bathhouses,” I commented.
“My uncle owned the Blue Mermaid,” she explained. “I used to work there when I was a girl, before he passed away and the tax men took everything.”
“Great. It’s yours, then. I’ll talk to the elders in the Fisherman’s Alliance, and get things set up. I’m sure they’ll be happy to have a relative who knows something about the business running this place.”
She gave me an astonished look. “What? Oh, my! All this, my lord? But, I don’t have any money to speak of.”
“You can pay your rent in services,” I said. “Let fishermen bathe for free, or something like that. I’ll put in a couple of extra walls to give you a dorm room for staff next door, and a living area for your family. You can work things out from there.”
“Bless you, my lord. Yes, yes I can. Thank you, lord wizard.”
As far as I was concerned, setting her up with a way to support herself was the least I could do. I still felt guilty about getting her husband killed.
Jakob didn’t seem to mind the arrangement. If anything, he was glad to pass off the details of managing the keep’s bathhouse.
“You should be able to rent out the shops along the street, too,” I pointed out. “I imagine there are plenty of shopkeepers who’d love to have a safer place to live. So that will give you a bit of income to work with.”
“Aye, milord. I expect we can rent out half the keep as well. There’s room for a few hundred more folk here, easy.”
“Good. Have you got your militia picked out?”
Giving away a giant stone keep would have set a bad precedent, so I was charging them ‘rent’ in a traditional medieval form. The Fisherman’s Alliance would be responsible for maintaining a standing militia of forty men who could be deployed to help defend the district, and another sixty who would be ready to protect the keep itself in an emergency. The keep’s position at the western end of the district would also help disrupt any attack that got through the city walls from that direction, and provide a secure base for watch patrols in the area.
“That and more, milord. Everyone wants a crack at them magic weapons.”
“Glad to hear it. Captain Rain thinks he can work you into the training plan in a couple of days, so you should hear from him soon.”
Swords and spears aren’t much use against a lot of monsters, so I’d decided to outfit the militia forces with rifles and flamers just like my own troops. I had plenty of both, thanks to the factory enchantments I’d built. But of course no one in Kozalin knew how to use such weapons, so we’d have to bring them in for training first.
Captain Rain had wanted to give them at least a six week course, but that would have been impossible. There were going to be at least six of these militia groups, plus the city watch, and we were still training my own forces as well. So instead I’d prevailed on him to set up a three-day course in weapon use and basic tactics. Just enough that they wouldn’t be shooting themselves in the foot, or setting each other on fire by accident. Anything beyond that, they’d have to figure out for themselves.
Honestly, I expected that they’d do fine at the duties I wanted them for. Sweeping the streets for stray monsters and defending a fixed
position were both simple jobs, and there were a lot of military veterans in the local population. Stray zombies and the occasional goblin raiding band shouldn’t be a big threat to them.
The plan also gave me a chance to inject a little money into the local economy. In addition to the rifles, flamers and warmth cloaks I planned to issue, the militia members would each get paid sixty silver pennies as a signing bonus. The forty who were on active duty would get another fourteen pennies a week, which was an impressive wage by local standards, and the reservists would get six. If they played their cards right, the Fishermen’s Alliance could have a prosperous little community here.
“We’ll be ready, milord,” Jakob assured me.
I took my leave, and decided to walk home today instead of flying. I had a lot of ideas about how to revitalize the Docks District, but sometimes you need to see a problem with your own eyes to really understand it. It had been weeks since I took the time to personally take in the state of the district, and things had gotten a lot worse since then.
About half the buildings I passed were in ruins, either burned during the battle of the docks or collapsed by the earthquake. Deep snow drifts covered the rubble, and choked most of the alleys and smaller streets. There were whole blocks that seemed deserted, except for the smoke rising from a handful of chimneys.
How many bodies were buried in the snow?
Thousands, probably. It was an issue Filip had already raised, and one I didn’t have a solution for. Working outdoors was dangerous in this cold, and after the earthquake what remained of the city government had given up on even trying. Here and there the streets were blocked by rubble, or huge drifts of snow. Pockets of survivors were mostly cut off from the rest of the city, scavenging the ruins for firewood and melting snow for drinking water.
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