The morning mist still lingered among the trees when Oliver returned from the mountain stream with the linen sack on his back.
It was packed with heavy, wet red clay, and dark-red water seeped from the bottom, running down his trouser legs as he walked.
He unloaded the clay beside the bluestone slab outside the cabin, then picked up the iron-shod wooden shovel and the short sickle before heading silently toward the rye field below.
Since the day’s tasks had already been assigned, Adrian no longer needed to supervise such routine work himself.
Lucy was also gathering fallen branches around the cabin, her small figure appearing and disappearing among the bushes.
Adrian crouched in the shade beside the stone stove and studied the pile of fine red clay.
With weeding and fence repairs now left to the children, he could devote his attention to the containers they needed not only for water, but also for storing food in the future.
He spread the clay across the stone slab, turning and beating it repeatedly with the spine of his arming sword, while his fingertips searched through the damp mass for small stones and grass roots.
Grain-storage jars had to be much thicker than ordinary water vessels.
Once the rye was harvested, leaving it piled directly on the ground would cause it to grow moldy within days, while rats from the forest would quickly devour whatever remained.
Adrian needed at least three large urns, each capable of holding several dozen pounds of grain.
They would also require fitted clay lids that could seal the openings tightly.
He pinched off a large lump of prepared clay and rolled it into a coil as thick as his arm.
On the stone slab, he formed a circular base roughly the size of a millstone, raised its edges slightly, and began stacking additional coils around it.
Because the vessel was so large, supporting the weight of its walls became the greatest difficulty.
After every few layers, the soft clay began to bend and deform under its own mass.
Whenever that happened, Adrian stopped, dampened his hands with stream water, and carefully pressed and smoothed the joints.
He then left the vessel near the residual warmth of the cabin until the lower section stiffened enough to bear the next layer.
Only then did he continue building upward.
Sweat fell from his forehead and disappeared into the clay, but Adrian did not stop.
Using a flat wooden scraper, he refined the curve of the jar little by little, smoothing the surface and strengthening every seam.
The coil-building method demanded patience.
Adrian spent nearly the entire day kneeling beside the stone slab, and by late afternoon, the rough forms of three round storage urns stood beneath the rock wall.
Each one reached nearly half a man’s height.
Their clay walls were still dark and damp, giving off a strong earthy smell.
Adrian rose and stretched his aching lower back before looking inside the cabin.
The two small water jars and the clay bowl he had made earlier had been drying for a full day.
Their surfaces had faded from dark red to pale gray, and they felt firmer beneath his fingers, though a faint powdery layer still clung to them.
“They aren’t dry yet.
They’ll need at least three more days.” He tapped the rim of the bowl with one fingertip and heard only a dull sound.
If he placed it in the fire too soon, the moisture trapped inside would turn to steam and shatter the vessel before it had properly hardened.
Oliver returned from the field that evening, his clothes covered in mud and damp earth.
He reported that the remaining fence work was already half finished.
Adrian offered no praise, merely motioning for him to wash his hands and prepare for the evening meal.
The following morning, the air still carried the smell of wet soil from the previous night’s rain.
Adrian examined the large clay vessels on the stone platform and found that their outer surfaces had dried slightly, their color beginning to shift toward gray.
He turned toward Oliver, who was preparing to fetch water, and pointed at the iron-shod shovel and short sickle resting in the corner.
“Leave the clay work for now.
While the ground is still damp, we’ll plant the vegetable seeds.” Oliver immediately set down the wooden bucket and picked up the heavy shovel.
The two left the cabin one after the other and headed toward the half-acre garden plot south of the rye field.
After several days of labor, the thorn fence surrounding the farmland had been fully completed.
Barbed branches and broken limbs had been woven together and rammed deep into the mud, forming a barrier more than half a man high.
Adrian led Oliver through the enclosure and stopped on the freshly turned black soil.
He took the small pouch of cabbage seeds from beneath his tunic.
These tiny dark-brown grains had been obtained at the cost of precious silver and represented their best chance of eating fresh vegetables during the coming winter.
Adrian did not scatter them across the soil as farmers of the age commonly did.
Instead, he bent down, drew a straight and shallow furrow with one finger, and placed one or two seeds at intervals of roughly half a palm before covering them with a thin layer of earth.
“Watch carefully, Oliver,” he said, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet riverbank.
“Don’t throw them around at random.
Leave space between each one, or the plants will crowd each other when they grow.” Oliver knelt beside him and watched with wide eyes.
In the manor fields he remembered, tenant farmers carried large sacks and flung grain across ground that had barely been cleared of weeds, scattering seed as though splashing water.
That method wasted grain and produced crops that grew unevenly.
Even so, Adrian’s slower method of placing the seeds individually seemed strange to him, almost unlike farming at all.
He did not question it.
Within the settlement, Adrian was the master who controlled the food and carried the weapons.
His instructions were rules to be obeyed, not suggestions to be debated.
Oliver knelt on the opposite side of the plot and carefully copied Adrian’s movements.
He drew the furrows, placed the seeds, and covered them with earth, making every effort to keep the depth consistent.
His fingers were stiff from the cold mud, and his movements remained clumsy, but he worked with complete concentration.
It took them the entire morning to finish planting the half-acre garden.
Adrian straightened his stiff back and looked over the neatly arranged rows of dark earth.
The presence of two additional mouths had placed greater pressure on their food supplies, but as he watched Oliver carefully fill the last furrow, Adrian understood that doing such precise and repetitive work alone would have taken him at least twice as long.
“My lord, can these tiny black seeds truly grow into those large leaves they sell at the market?” Oliver asked, wiping mud from his cheek.
Despite his exhaustion, a trace of excitement had entered his voice.
“As long as you protect the fence and keep the wild boars out, they’ll give you something crisp and tender to chew even in winter.” Adrian lifted the wooden shovel and motioned for Oliver to bring the sickle.
Looking over the growing order he had created along the riverbank, he began considering how the current of the stream might be redirected into a simple irrigation channel once the cabbage seedlings emerged.
With a capable helper, he could finally free himself from some of the most repetitive work.
The ideas in his mind for expanding and organizing the settlement were also beginning to take root, growing little by little.