Ustaimo smirked. "I'm an accountant, milord. People like me always know of a way or two to delay things - not by much, but holding up any task for a couple of days is certainly in my power." He lowered his voice even more. "I will tell Sir Tuilas that I've noticed some small discrepancies in the tax ledger, so I will need some more time to check the numbers again. Of course, I know the numbers are already correct, but it's a valid enough reason that the knight can't force us to leave tomorrow without risking the Count's wrath. I think... I can hold him up tomorrow for sure, and likely even for another day, but any more and he may get suspicious. So you have to find a way to pay the taxes in the next two days."

"That still wouldn't help us as much as we need," Kivamus said with a thankful nod, "but it's probably all we can ask for right now. Thank you for this, Ustaimo. I won't forget your help."

"I just want to do what I can to help common people," the tax collector shrugged, before he glanced at the inner door again. "My back is going to hate me for this, but now I should probably get busy with the tax ledger again."

Duvas grinned, and handed him the ledger once more.

Kivamus felt glad that the tax collector had eventually turned out to be sympathetic to them. Duvas' old friendship with him must also have helped in this, apart from what Ustaimo had seen and heard in the village. However, they had been expecting at least one merchant to arrive in the past few days, but so far the northern road had only seen the knight and his group.

Hopefully someone would arrive soon, which would help them a lot in selling the coal and raising some gold. There were also a few other things he could think of which they could try selling to the merchants, and if they didn't buy it, perhaps they could barter for it directly with the tax collector. There were some other considerations to think of before doing something risky like that, but that was still an option.

He stood up from his chair and started to pace in the manor hall. It was time to think of some solutions.

***

It was evening now, and Kivamus was strolling near the vegetable patches which were being grown in the northern and eastern side of the manor by the maids, with Duvas walking next to him, and other two guards following nearby. With the snow having melted a couple of weeks ago, the new vegetables which had been planted in the empty spaces in the manor after the ground had thawed were growing well, although they would only provide a very small quantity of fresh greens and such.

Sir Tuilas had taken his squire and some of his other guards and had gone to visit the alehouse again after he had found out that the tax collector needed a couple of more days to recheck the revenue numbers, which is why Ustaimo was still inside the manor hall with the tax ledger so he could continue that pretence of thoroughly confirming the numbers. The guard which Ustaimo had pointed out to be working for Zoricus had initially been told to stay inside the servants' hall along with the other guards who had come here with the knight, but when the knight went out to visit the market place, Feroy had to let him go outside the manor as well, since they couldn't hold back that particular guard without raising suspicion. Still, it shouldn't cause a problem hopefully, since as long as Zoricus' man was outside the manor he couldn't try to assassinate him anyway.

Kivamus looked at Duvas. "How much can we sell our remaining coal for? That is our only major source of raising more gold."

The majordomo glanced at one of the nearby coal barns where a few wagons which had just arrived from the eastern hills were being unloaded by servants. "We started coal mining nearly a month ago, although for the first two weeks only a small number of workers were working in the mines. By now, my estimate is that we have around 20 wagonloads of coal already stored here. That should sell for around 240 gold at the usual rates, although we'd still be short by nearly 200 gold to pay the taxes after that."

"True. The next two days are going to be crucial for us, and hopefully at least one merchant will arrive in that time. It's still unlikely that we can sell all that coal immediately, since a single merchant isn't going to arrive with 20 empty wagons with him. But more importantly, we need even more gold after paying the taxes to buy enough wheat for sowing and as food for the village."

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Duvas hesitated for a moment. "What about selling them the losuvil powder? Ustaimo might not want to take back coal, but that won't take much space even on his single wagon, and I'm sure the Count would be more than happy to get a good stock of that medicine. We only have a very small amount of it left, but even that could be exchanged for a good amount of gold right now. We also have some paper stocked up which we wanted to sell to merchants. Why not barter them directly with Ustaimo?"

Kivamus stopped walking and after making sure there was no one else in earshot, he turned to look at the majordomo. "You already know the reason, Duvas. We simply can't risk the Count finding out that we have such a revolutionary medicine here as well as the way to produce more of it. Just look at what he's doing - sending a knight and guards wearing chainmail to threaten us to pay the taxes. What do you think would happen if he finds out that we can make that medicine here?"

He continued without waiting for an answer, "If Ebirtas even gets a wind of it, he will send all his knights here the same day he gets that news to carry off Syryne - who knows how to make it - to Cinran, along with all the remaining stock of the medicine. It will only take a few days of looking around for his men to find out that there are huge growths of losuvil vines in the eastern hills. That wouldn't be a problem normally, since they can't just take it away or the leaves would be useless by the time they reach Cinran. But now? They will make a permanent encampment in those hills and in our village to force us to produce that medicine at swords' point, and with only him keeping all the profits. Most likely we won't even be given enough medicine just for our own people. We would simply be powerless in front of him, if the Count decides to force us to do anything." He muttered, "For now anyway..."

He added with a sigh, "The knowledge to make paper is already present in other places of the kingdom, but even that is going to be very profitable once we can scale up its production, which means we simply can't risk any other noble finding out about either or those things. That's why we need to wait for Pydaso to sell those. He is the only merchant we can trust with that knowledge, and he will be able to fence it in bigger markets like Ulriga without disclosing the real source."

"I understand your point," Duvas said, "but what if he betrays us too? There is a lot of gold at stake here."

"Oh, he will never betray us," Kivamus snorted. "Just think about it. He knows that at the moment he is our most favored merchant because we both helped each other before winter, and right after we tell him about the losuvil powder, he'll immediately realise just how much profit he's going to make by being the only trader selling that revolutionary medicine. But he's not stupid. He knows that the moment he lets anyone know that we can make that medicine or even paper here, other nearby nobles would gang up on us and will take everything away from us by force, and Pydaso would never see another gold coin of profit after that, would he? None of the nobles are going to let a paltry merchant take any profit from something as lucrative as that. Most likely he would be murdered so the knowledge of the source doesn't leak anymore after whoever is the first noble to attack and capture Tiranat."

Duvas sighed. "What is the solution then? You keep saying that you want to scale up the production of the medicine and the manufacturing of paper, and knowing your track record, who knows what else in the future. Just how much of it can a single merchant fence anyway without the buyers getting suspicious about the source?"

Kivamus laughed. "I never said that I wanted to do this forever. You know that Tiranat is surrounded by all kinds of threats around it, which is why I want to use Pydaso as an intermediary for now instead of revealing us as the source of those things and risking an invasion from our greedy neighbours." He added with a grin, "But this is only a stopgap measure to buy more time - so other nobles don't attack us and take everything from Tiranat before we are ready for them."

He smirked. "Why do you think I'm focusing so much on building our defence and enticing more people to move here and increase our workforce? Of course, increasing our production capacity in everything to earn more gold is a major part of it, but I am building up towards the day when Tiranat will be able to repel any attack on it in the future by other nobles who might want to take what we have by force. I don't know how long that will take, but I will get Tiranat there, that's a promise."

Duvas snorted. "If anyone can do it, it would be you. But why do you keep talking like they're going to attack you anyway?" he asked with a frown. "Such a thing has never happened in this village in the whole two decades it has existed."

Kivamus glanced at Duvas, realising that while Gorsazo knew a lot about his real origins, the majordomo didn't, which is why he had no idea of the kind of changes which were coming to Tiranat in the future. For all the majordomo knew at this time, he likely believed that the medicine was made by an accidental trial and error, while the paper wasn't something which would have much of a demand here, since what would illiterate peasants of the kingdom do with it anyway?

However, by now he trusted Duvas enough that he believed he could risk letting him know about the kind of knowledge his mind held in it, but that was a long conversation and would have to wait until they were free of more immediate concerns and any snooping knights in the manor. He pondered about how to make the majordomo understand about his intentions for the future of this village, but without disclosing too much for now.