SS - Chapter 38 - What really matters

I spent most of the day running around the refugee camp making sure that all my new citizens were settled properly. 

Since I hadn’t planned for a kitchen ahead of time, I needed to find not only a cook, but someone that we could trust with access to the food supply. Thankfully my mother had a couple of suggestions, including the former head chef from the Ashbourne manor. I figured if the man could be trusted with my mother’s meals for over ten years, he could be trusted with the food supply. 

Next I checked on the tent situation. The maids had done an admirable job of setting everything up, creating a small village at the back of the meadow. Most of the tents were just large enough for four or five people, a small family. Although I didn’t want to assign tents, I positioned a couple maids around the area to prevent people from fighting over them. While I was investigating the temporary town I made a note to myself, I needed to send over some straw over as soon as possible. 

Although my mother had brought enough bedrolls for everyone, most of these people were probably used to indoor living. Even though I’d do my best to get some proper houses as soon as possible, many of these people were going to be stuck sleeping on the ground for a couple months. The least I could do is provide them with something soft to put under the bedroll, so they weren’t all sleeping on the hard ground.

By the time I’d arranged for communal firepits to be built, it was getting late in the day. 

I found my mother sitting on the back of one of the wagons, with my brother, while most of the knights were still scattered around the area. 

“I’m sorry to say we don’t have enough space back at the village for you all,” I announced as I walked up. “I plan to allow my family to stay in my house, and Lady Amber can probably stay with Camille, but we took in a group of refugees before I was aware of the situation back in the dutchy, so we’re already over capacity. Gabriel may have room for one or two of you, but I don’t know his exact situation.”

Gabriel nodded. “My place is a little small, but there’s enough room on the floor for two of you,” he proclaimed.

“I’ll let you decide who gets that ‘honor’ among yourselves,” I said as I strode past.

My mother, who had been reading to my brother, looked up as I arrived. 

“Finished your inspection?” she asked with a smile.

“For now. Everyone has a place to lay down, access to fresh water, and will get three meals a day. I’m sure it won’t be the most comfortable place to stay at first, but I’ll do my best to improve the situation as soon as possible,” I said.

“I know you will,” she replied as she slowly closed the book on her lap, much to Emil’s displeasure. “What now?”

“Now? We’ll take both your wagon, and the one carrying the magic stones, back to the village. The road’s a little rough still, so it’s going to be a bumpy ride, sorry,” I said apologetically.

“You don’t have to apologize for that. I’m actually impressed that you managed to get the road finished in the time you did, a month isn’t a long time.”

“We just did what we could with the time we had,” I replied. “You and Emil should slide inside, and get comfortable, we’ll be leaving soon.”

My mother nodded, and slipped into the wagon. When she reached out to grab Emil the six year old waved joyfully. “Bye bye.”

“See you soon,” I replied quietly. 

Once he disappeared into the back, I stepped over to the second wagon. It was packed with lock boxes, so many that I wasn’t sure if I had enough space to store them all, but what really drew my eye was the large plain coffin sitting in the middle. 

“I know we didn’t see eye to eye,” I muttered to the coffin, “but I know you loved my mother, so why did you betray her? What happened?” 

My stepfather never answered, and now that he was dead there was very little chance we’d ever learn the truth. 

“I have no idea how I’m going to tell Emil either, he’s probably too young to understand,” I growled at the coffin. 

I wanted to yell, scream, throttle the man inside the box, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. All it would do was attract everyone’s attention, including Emil’s. Instead I stepped away, I could yell later.

As I turned, and started heading down the narrow gap between the two wagons I nearly tripped over Alex. The head maid had been standing at the corner, silently watching me, a solemn look on her face.

I looked down at her for a moment. “Can you command the other maids at a distance?” I asked quietly.

“Hup,” she replied equally quietly, with a nod. 

“In that case, can you get a small squad to dig a grave out the back of my house? Maybe just short of the treeline?”

“Hup,” she acknowledged again.

“Thank you,” I whispered before stepping around her. 

When the two of us arrived at the front of the wagons Camille was already there, hooking up some oxen to the front of the wagons. We had quite a selection of oxen and heavy horses, considering how many wagons my mother had brought.

“I didn’t ask anyone to create a temporary pen for all those animals,” I groaned. 

“They’ll be fine for tonight,” Lady Amber said. “They have plenty of grass to eat here, and they’ll instinctively avoid the woods since they’re both harder to travel through, and full of predators.”

I frowned slightly, looking at the heavily armored knight. 

She laughed. “Did you forget? Our family used to raise the duchy’s warhorses. Camille and I might not have had many chances to visit the ranch while working for you and your mother, but the knowledge and skills are in our blood.”

“Good to know,” I replied.

“We’re good to go!” Camille announced as she tightened the last strap of the harness. The oxen stomped their feet impatiently, rearing to go.

“What about Gabriel, and the others?” I asked.

“Those idiots decided that the best way to determine who gets to move in with Gabriel was to challenge each other to games of skill,” Lady Amber replied with a snort. “I’d bet that we’ll see the first rays of the morning sun before we see that lot again.”

“If that’s the case, we won’t wait for them,” I declared. “Let’s go.”

With all the foot traffic heading back and forth between the village and the camp the road was in better shape than it had been when I’d taken a group to knock out the dungeon, but it was still in rough shape. The wagons would rock violently whenever they hit a particularly deep hole, and they got stuck more than once. Even though the trip was a little slow, we still managed it in a little over an hour and a half.

Once we pulled up behind the village hall, Camille and Amber went to see too the animals, while I checked on my family.

“Is this it?” my mother asked, as I helped her from the driver’s seat. 

“Yup, this is home,” I declared, walking around to the back of the wagon to get Emil. “It might be a little smaller than you’re used to. When the villagers tried to build me something bigger I told them I wouldn’t use it until everyone had a roof over their heads.” 

The little boy practically jumped into my arms, and after swinging him a couple times, eliciting giggles, I lowered him to the ground so he could run to my mother.

“Do you need any of these tonight?” I shouted, looking at the pile of luggage.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get what we need. Most of those contain the family relics, and various magical items,” came the reply.

“There are relics in here?!? And you didn’t assign guards to defend them?” I asked, surprised.

“They were guarding the outside until the wagon passed through the portal, and I was close by after,” my mother explained as she rounded the end of the wagon. “Unless you think a knight would do a better job protecting them than I would?”

“No ma’am,” I snapped, remembering all the times she thrashed me on the training field. “Still… For you to send them in a basic locked box, without any additional protection…”

“Medea, listen to me,” my mother snapped. “The family relics have been passed down through the generations, and contain a ton of history, but at the end of the day they’re just extremely strong magical items. Even though I wanted to keep them out of the king’s grubby hands, at the end of the day I would have sacrificed them if it meant keeping you or your brother safe. They’re just things.” 

She wrapped her arms around me and planted a kiss upon my forehead. “The family’s future is worth more than the family’s past. Got it?”

“I got it,” I replied softly.

“Ummmm… Medea? We’ve got an… issue? Over here,” Camille called from the other wagon.

My mother and I exchanged a quick glance before I pulled away from her embrace, heading towards where Camille was standing.

“What is going on? It sounded like you didn’t even know if there was a problem or not!” I said.

Camille, who was standing at the back of the second wagon stepped aside, pulling the curtain with her. There, right at the end, was one of the little maids, sitting on an opened box. As I watched she munched on one of the mana stones, like a child would eat a cookie. It only seemed to realize we were watching once it finished its little ‘treat’. The maid opened her mouth in surprise, and let out a little burp.

‘Urp!’

“Okay, that’s different,” I muttered.