Inspecting the Village Defenses
No matter how much they said the patrol captain had nothing to do, didn't I need to at least know what his subordinates were up to? Philip, the deputy captain, had insisted it was fine to do nothing at all. But if I took that at face value and really slacked off, it'd be no different from some spoiled president's son parachuting into a mid-sized company, drawing a salary without lifting a finger. Even if others said it was okay, I couldn't convince myself—and who knew what the guards might think of a do-nothing captain like me? Word would spread, and it'd shape my reputation. Plus, there was no guarantee Philip—who handled every last bit of the patrol's work—wouldn't report my behavior to the butler. He might've even lied about the captain having no duties just to gauge my personality or competence. Better to consider every possibility if I wasn't sure. Until I received my official knighthood, I had to avoid anything that might lower Father's opinion of me. Titles were serious business. With all my experience from my past life, I wasn't dumb enough to fail at basic organizational life—knowing what must be done and what mustn't. At the very least, until Sir Roland finished handing over duties and left for the frontier, I needed to take initiative and grasp what the village guards did day-to-day, and what the captain absolutely had to handle.
That said, barging up to Philip and demanding explanations would be rude. A few other military no-nos came to mind—like things a newly assigned lieutenant to a company shouldn't do in this situation. I vowed to steer clear.
"……."
Man, I really hated office politics. I'd just endure it until I hit adulthood.
*
After finishing the inner village patrol, I headed back to the manor and first soaked my padded armor in lye water. Lye was easy to make—just dump wood ash into a barrel, pour in hot water, and steep it for half a day or more. The manor always kept some ready for laundry, so no waiting around brewing it fresh. In modern terms, it'd be a potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution. Clear brownish liquid, pH 11-13, a potent base.
Lye reacts with fatty acids (oils) to make soap. Mix oil into wood-ash lye, and you get liquid soap; use ash from certain plants (mostly seaweeds) with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) content, add oil, and it's solid soap. Records showed medieval folk across East and West mixed oil-rich plant powders or straight oils into lye to wash their bodies and hair. Chemically, they were synthesizing liquid soap on the spot. The downside? Residual alkaline liquid irritated the skin. But medieval people (especially the upper class) empirically knew to expose it to air long-term, letting the base react with CO2 to form carbonates—aging it to neutralize the alkali and leave pure soap.
So those stories where a modern guy in a medieval world makes solid soap and sells it for a fortune? Impossible. They'd had liquid soap as a substitute forever. How pricey could oil and wood ash be? If you wanted to profit on soap, you'd have to overhaul societal hygiene norms to boost demand, then mass-produce high-quality (relatively) stuff cheaply. That meant massive supply chains from the start... Never mind. Pointless without nation-scale capital and power anyway.
Back on track. Soak clothes in lye, and first, the alkaline liquid dissolves bacteria and mold. Second, oils soaked into the fabric turn to soap, adsorbing dirt and rinsing it away. Strip the metal fittings from the padded armor, steep it in lukewarm lye for an hour or two, agitate with a stick, rinse alternately in clean water and vinegar water, and dry in the shade. Laundry done.
Instead of shade-drying the wet armor, I placed a wooden board engraved with a magic circle on top and activated it to forcibly extract the moisture. Come next morning, I donned the fluffy-dry armor and headed to the guard post in high spirits.
Today's task: assess the defenses. Trailing the guards would just make them uncomfortable, so I'd check whatever I could on my own.
I strolled down the main road and soon reached the guard post. I looked around just in case, but Sir Roland was nowhere—off who-knows-where. Was it because he usually had nothing to do? Seemed he didn't show up every day.
I told Philip I'd inspect the palisade walls and bastions, climb the watchtower too, then set out. First stop: the bastion at the palisade gate. Above where the gate opened and closed, wooden planks about two paces wide served as a platform. I climbed the ladder, and a broad view opened up—wide farmlands stretching out. Nice scenery aside, from a defender's perspective, something felt off. The palisade rose to waist height, sure, but standing straight up exposed your whole upper body to arrows. Sitting would cover you, but you couldn't just hunker down in a fight. If combat broke out here, we'd need shield-like panels to hide behind while shooting arrows.
I think I saw some wooden structures like shields at the guard post. For this?)
Looking left and right, not far off was a section where the palisade protruded outward like a bastion. It looked equipped to function as one, with its own bulwark. The ones hugging tight to the gate meant attackers here would have to expose themselves outside the wall—impossible mid-battle—so nearby protrusions handled those spots.
Saw what I needed, so I climbed down. Next: circle the palisade. I followed the route from yesterday's patrol that checked the walls.
The palisade was wooden structures linked together: five logs side by side, horizontal grooves carved in them to slot planks, nailed secure, then braced to prevent toppling. The buried ends were charred with fire for simple carbonization, blocking moisture and bacteria—making them last 2-3 times longer than raw logs in the dirt.
The village's encircling wall was these linked up, and when a section rotted, they'd swap the whole unit. At local prices, one section might run 3-4 silver? Installed, it'd last about 10 years, but fully encircling the village took over 1,000 sections. So every decade, at least 250 gold in maintenance?
Oof.
Just thinking about it, the upkeep was insane. I recalled a book saying stone foundations doubled the wood's lifespan atop them. Construction cost about 4x a palisade wall. Break-even: build stone base upfront, and after 60 years, maintenance halves for profit. An eternity. Plus, village expansion meant relocating, so charred wood was way more economical than hasty stonework. Explained why the village stuck to palisades.
Walking the wall, I reached one end. Opposite the gate, farthest from the entrance: the watchtower. Up close, its scale hit home. Twice the palisade's height—ten man-heights or so?
Built like a corn silo.
Four thick logs bore the whole thing. Same girth as other buildings' pillars, but the height made them taper visually upward. Cross-braces latticed between, topped by tiered platforms. Looking up, past the upper railing against blue sky and fluffy white clouds, two soldiers stood watch. Watchtower sentries.
Between the pillars, an inner ladder caught my eye—same style as the bastion ones. But the height meant one ladder wouldn't reach; midway up, a narrow landing let you switch ladders. Safety issues galore.
As I approached, a soldier above spotted me.
"Who's down there?"
"Acting patrol captain. Mind if I come up?"
"......Come on up."
The ladder, leaning awkwardly steep, was trickier than expected. Nothing solid to grab nearby, so I clutched it in a awkward crouch. Why not just make it vertical...? Leaning on braces for strength, maybe. No clue on the real reason.
Soon, the top level.
─Whoooosh!
A crisp, panoramic view swept in from all sides.
"Oh."
Taller than nearby trees, nothing blocked the vista—endless landscape like a scenic overlook.