The Woad Rebellion

The Reunion

Rigurd wiped the sweat from his brow as he stepped outside into the afternoon sun. He was a well-built man and being in the workshop still to this day made him uncomfortably hot. There was always work to be done however, even in a small village like this.

Irvin and his woodsmen were forever needing an axe re-edged or new tension hook forged. Then there was farmer Ebass with a broken plough blade or bent forks. As well as nails, so many nails. For repairs to the palisade and other general maintenance to the imperial buildings. The smith had initially thought Samel the carpenter to be unskilled, what with using so many nails. Rigurd had been convinced by an old Icanii carpenter once that 'intersecting joints' were a superior method for building with wood and much cheaper.

Though what men say over mead in taverns cannot be taken so readily and Rigurd worked with hot ore not wood. Samel had only sourly told Rigurd "That's not the imperials way though old friend" in response to the information. Chuckling to himself, the smith thought about how it was the nails that kept bread on the table and oats in the barrel for the most part. "Leave them to their own dilemmas" the large man chuckled aloud.

After allowing the furnace to die a little Rigurd sealed it. Then locking up the workshop he turned south to make his way home. Entering the central palisade, he passed a dirt courtyard, centred with a water well and surrounded by rectangular stone-built shop fronts and the tavern 'Rams Hide' in the northern corner. Where he noticed it was busy.

Several men with thick mountain accents were engaged in a debate about how best to travel to Knol Hagen. "The Old North Road, that would be the safest!" clamoured the shortest of the trio, with a flat nose, wide neck and thick black beard.

The taller man with his back to Rigurd loudly retorted with "That'd be a week by horse from this backwater, and we nae have horses! I'd be a damned fool to track a fortnight through bear country an nae get ma chance to sink the end of my pick into some gold!"

"Miners" scoffed Rigurd as he strolled on the opposite side of the courtyard.

There had been an increased number of prospectors passing through of late, a surly bunch. "Unpleasant to have too many in town at once. Glad they're all in such a hurry to get to Hagen" muttered Rigurd thinking aloud.

Then he recalled a conversation between two prospectors recently, about a rush. A gold 'rush', it sounded as though somebody had finally struck it lucky up in the Icanii Peaks. Even though the majority percentage of what is dug out belongs to the Council Lord of Fort Hagen, people with picks would flock from leagues afar to have a swing at the sparkling veins of ore. Rigurd had heard such stories from his grandfather about the last time Gold was struck up there. About how the town was full of life, people full of hope, trade was booming and people not short on coin.

The blacksmith sighed. That was before his time. When the North was not under Imperial rule and the Icanii were not a conquered people. He recalled how his great grandfather had hated it here after the conquest. Rigurd had always put that down to the bitter resentment of a once proud peoples, for it was only his great grandfather's generation that would truly remember times before.

Exiting the palisades of the village centre, the large smith strolled through the southern quarters. Passing circular cob dwellings with thick conical thatch roofs, the old Icanii round houses. Outside many of which hung rabbits and small game aging in preparation for winter. How the new village centre with its bleak stone square mansion and shops compared with the humble dwellings outside the palisade, most of the stone in these homes lay in the foundations, if they had any at all.

The smith preferred it modest. Just off the southern route to Skelba about a half hour walk from the imperial courtyard, the homes were sparse but not so much as to not call each other neighbours. On the southern side of the palisade they were shielded by thickets of Pine and Fir woodlands to the west, which offered ample windbreak.