Those Malaren serfs who arrived at Fort Ross, these guys are not just sitting around and eating for free.
The strong laborers among them were instructed by Rurik to log trees in distant places, or they formed teams to pull sleds and carry axes to dig ore in the mountains. Naturally, the women among them were not suitable for such hard labor, so they were thrown to Fisk's mother Broma by Rurik and asked to do some work such as tailoring.
Rurik picked a young woman from among these serfs. She seemed to be sixteen or seventeen years old? His face and body look even more childish.
"It's not my thing anyway..."
Rurik shook his head and directly ordered her to no longer be the Duke's slave, but a man's wife.
Is there such a good thing in the world? When the grateful woman heard this order, she immediately knelt down and crawled to Rurik's feet to kiss his boots.
So what's the cost? The price is that John Invall must become a man early.
The obedient John was pulled to the temple by Rurik, where a group of Russians gathered to cheer and cheer. John endured the discomfort and passed this barbarian ritual.
This seems to be a wedding? indeed so.
"If this is not the realm of God, but a place blessed by Odin, I..." John Invall, his belief is not pious, and the woman in front of him is trying desperately to seduce him, so as a real man, in order to be with the past Cutting off the humiliation, he pounced on him after making the final psychological struggle...
He was no longer a toy that could be played with, and he even forced his past humiliation on this woman.
The woman was beaten by John until the corner of her mouth bleeds. There were bursts of wailing from John's residence at night, and witnesses saw that the woman had difficulty walking when fetching water after daylight.
John's humiliation was vented in a violent way. When he cleared his mind and looked at what he had done, a sense of guilt came back to him. He tried to comfort the woman, but the woman covered her face and cried bitterly. After a moment, she looked into his eyes and smiled stupidly, saying thank you.
John Invar, with extremely complicated emotions, accepted Rurik's summons again and explained Latin on the third floor of the palace.
As soon as he arrived via the stairs, Rurik was already waiting with a cheerful smile.
"Well done! This is what a true Dane should do. You are the wolf of the north, not the Frankish sheep." Rurik clapped his hands and said.
John knew exactly what Rurik said, so he hurried over and reported his affairs truthfully, his words full of guilt.
"So, is God going to punish you?"
"This...will definitely happen."
"But Odin will think you are a good warrior. What do you think of her?" Rurik asked deliberately.
"very good."
"Okay, she is a slave and a plaything. Maybe you can treat her kindly."
"Of course!" John said hurriedly: "I will take care of this poor lamb."
"So, is she a woman?"
"Already."
"Well done, now we are brothers. I like you very much! I mainly like the Latin you master. I have basically learned it, but I want to popularize it in my territory."
"Ah! This..."
Rurik looked directly into his eyes and continued: "Many young brothers lack knowledge. I want them all to understand Latin and even communicate in Latin in daily life. Maybe you are worried about your future work, this is Your future work. This place is far away from the Holy See, and no force can threaten my power. I don’t want to listen to the nonsense of those priests. As long as I can understand these scriptures, I can make my own understanding. Come over here, I want Learn something new…”
Unexpectedly, this docile sheep is still a wolf at heart. Many witnesses will develop what they saw into Rossberg's favorite talking points.
Brothers looked down upon cowards the most, and now that John Ingvar was no longer a coward, no one could criticize him.
In December, low temperatures and extreme daylight eroded Fort Ross. Every day, the time people could work was reduced. By the time night fell, there was nothing left to do for most things.
Roseburg, protected by wooden walls, naturally fell into silence?
Not really.
Nowadays, every household has more supplies than ever before, so it is no problem to survive the cold winter safely. Families naturally launch torpedoes that succumb to instinct. What is covered up by the wind are the moans of people and the sudden crying of babies.
It can be expected that there will be another baby boom in Roseburg next fall, when it will be normal for the people living in this settlement alone to have another thousand babies.
But Rumia's belly was getting bigger day by day, and a new life was not far away from being born.
On the equinox she became a Rurik woman. Rurik counted the time and found that the due date was around January 10th in the Julian calendar, and she had already entered the third trimester of pregnancy.
Can she still host a Hanukkah ceremony like this?
She must preside, no matter how difficult it is, she must preside.
Because on the eve of Hanukkah, a major project will be completed.
A large reindeer sleigh team returned from the north. There were more than 200 people in their group, including professional loggers and hunters who had returned early. The most important European spruce logs were shipped back, and the work of installing masts for the two large ships placed outdoors filled the Hotra family's entire time. Even if there was very little daylight, even if they were holding a torch to light the bonfire, they still had to process the logs into usable masts.
Freshly felled trees also serve as masts? The moisture inside was almost frozen into ice crystals.
In fact, it's not bad. The Vikings were not too picky in this regard. The so-called wood will eventually become dry, and the slow-growing spruce can be used as a mast.
A group of craftsmen used a variety of tools to hammer spruce logs outdoors and build them into masts.
In the indoor dock, a destroyer with one-third of its hull completed was being supervised by Rurik, who was beginning to install the propeller mechanism.
This is a complicated job, so complicated that Huotra, leaning on crutches, said that he had never taken on such a complicated job in his long life.
He complained to Rurik: "My lord, must this be the case? Don't you feel the difficulty?"
"There is indeed a problem, but it would be too stupid to give up because of this."
Huotra didn't want to say that this set of mechanisms might be redundant. Since his children liked it, he would continue to do it.
The craftsmen continued to drill holes in the wooden shell and install the roller bearings and the highest rotating rod. It took a whole day to install this array.
Every part of the ship's hull was covered and installed with white lines drawn by chalk clods. Rurik felt that he must be too worried about this.
After observing for too long, Rurik sipped the autumn chrysanthemum tea that his craftsmen drank, sat cross-legged on a leather cushion, and naturally talked about money with Hotla.
"These four ships will be launched next spring, and six hundred pounds of silver coins will be carried to you. How do you plan to use them?"
"This..." Hotela was a little surprised. This kid had never asked this before.
"Just tell the truth, I need to know where my money ends up."
"Yes. The workers must be paid, and all the servants must be paid."
"So, how much can you make?"
Hearing this, Hotela immediately hesitated. After some deliberation, he muttered cautiously: "About half."
"That's three hundred pounds of silver coins. It's really a lot. Therefore, the taxes I collected from you last year will increase a bit."
"Ah! This... this is not appropriate." Hotela was in a hurry, even speaking a little out of his mouth. He complained very much that he was so stupid that he didn't know how to say less when he opened his mouth.
Rurik shrugged and looked at the ship: "You don't need much wealth at all, or in other words, you already have great wealth. All of this comes from the protection of me and our Rus people."
"yes."
"Now, besides smelting steel, I am proud of you shipbuilding craftsmen. Next year, I will collect double the taxes from you. It is useless if you ask for too much money, so you should leave it to me."
Hotela sighed, neither rejecting nor agreeing outright. Sighing was tantamount to acquiescence.
"Two hundred pounds is a lot for you to really earn, enough for you and your relatives and friends to live a comfortable life. Now let's talk about this boat! There are two outdoor boats. The masts should be installed before Hanukkah. Is there any problem? "
"No problem at all." Hotla said firmly.
"Very good. Let me tell you frankly, of these two big ships, I sold one to the Balmoks, and we use the other for our own use. I have also thought of the name of the ship."
"The name of the ship?"
"Let's call it the Duke of Ostara and build it into the Ostara."
Hearing this name, Hotela understood everything at once. The people of Fort Ross admired their Duke very much. Rurik was young and promising, and while bringing happiness to the people, he also led the Ross army to glory.
These days, people are saying that the female leader of Ostara has become a woman and will give birth to a new son for Lord Rurik at a young age, thereby completely resurrecting the Ostara tribe, and Ostara will also Naturally, he became a vassal of Ross.
Thinking of this, Hotela laughed out loud: "Are you giving a gift to your Carlotta?"
"Yes. She has served me very well recently."
"Serve?" Looking at Rurik beside him, Hotela continued to laugh: "What a young man. It's good to be young. It's a pity that I'm old. When I was young, I didn't have the qualifications to spend as much as you do. I still suggest You should be more restrained. Now everyone knows that you have seventeen wives! You have too many women. This must be a gift from Odin, but you..."
"Can't you indulge? I am very confident now! I believe that my body can easily conquer them, and I also believe that my sword can conquer a larger territory. Therefore, these ships must be built quickly."
The topic returned to shipbuilding, and when the names of the ships were mentioned, Hotla asked casually: "Have you thought of a name for each of the eight destroyers?"
"Yes, just name them after the stars."
"Oh? I thought you would name it after your wives and concubines, and let me build seventeen ships in a short time." Hotla raised his right hand with a dry look, "This ship is being installed with propellers, what is her name?"
"Merkiori."
"What's this name?"
"This... this is a long story." Rurik was bored for the time being. He might as well tell this old guy Hotla about the wonderful world view.
The universe has no center, just like a sphere has no center point on its surface. Therefore, the sun is not the center of the universe, and neither is the earth. But will it make people feel confused if they feel that they are not the chosen one?
Rurik bluntly said that the sun (Sarah) is the incarnation of Odin. There are many small worlds rotating around it. The human world is just one of them. All the worlds together form a branch of the world tree, and the stars are one. Another bud. The small world called Mercury also revolves around the sun like the human world...
Regardless of whether Hotla wanted to believe it or not, Rurik said so.
He even explained one thing: "Just because some things cannot be seen by the eyes does not mean they do not exist. Just like we cannot see the faces of sailors standing on distant ships, nor can we find other things that are also rotating around the sun in the vast collection of stars. small world."
Hotla was not in the mood to think about these illusory things, but when he heard Rurik's naming of these small worlds, he was obviously well prepared, and it was not like he made it up at all. Considering all the signs that this child had indeed obtained Odin's Blessings, I'm afraid his words are true.
"The eight ships are: Merkiori, Vinas, Mona, Mas, Jobiter, Saturn, Neptune Nepten, Uranos."
Rurik has chosen clear names spelled in Latin letters for these ships, which will eventually be nailed to the sides of the ships, and even unique flags will be sewn on them.
Among these names, Hotla knew Mona, which was, after all, the Norse word for the moon.
"So, these eight ships are going to be equipped with your propeller mechanism?"
Rurik shook his head and pointed at the Mercury under construction: "This is a great attempt, challenging the most difficult mechanical achievement of us Russians. If I succeed, I will carry it forward and replace all the other seven ships. .Improve if I fail.”
"My lord, with all due respect. Even if you don't rely on this, there is no problem if you rely solely on the sail."
"No need to say more, I have made up my mind."
Everything was proceeding in an orderly manner, and on the day when the mast was installed, the people of Fort Ross came out in large numbers to watch.
The shipbuilding dock of Hotra is not within the high walls, and this circle of high walls has become an excellent viewing platform.
Scaffolding, wooden cranes, and the cooperation of hundreds of people, who sweated desperately and went shirtless in the ice and snow, finally stood the mast at the preset position amidst the cheers of the crowd. Next, further fixing of the mast also began.
In this grand scene, a young woman could not hide the tears on her face.
Carlotta was so excited that she cried because her own Rurik claimed that this ship with the lowered mast was the symbol of the Ostara people, the Duke of Ostara. In the future, in addition to the "oar flag" with a white background and blue stripes announcing the Russian people, the ship should also fly the "Ostara bull-head flag" with a white background and a bull-head totem, designed by Carlotta herself.
The propeller mechanism of the Mercury was also completed, although the appearance made Rurik feel too weird.
She was standing on the sleepers in the indoor dock. She was lying on the stern of the ship, and no one was pressing the pedals together. The two rotating rods on the left and right sides of the ship were indeed rotating, and the propeller was like a fan, blowing air under the stern side of the ship! In terms of design, Rurik did not make a very large paddle. Its maximum diameter is less than half a meter. This size should be enough for a small boat. The next step is to install a wooden cover where the gear is located to try to keep the gear operation airtight.
The installation of other parts of the ship is also in progress. Compared with large ships like the Aurora, the Mercury is really a small ship, but it is also longer and taller than the cargo ship. The ratio of width to length makes the entire ship The boat looks longer.
The Hanukkah sacrifice is coming soon, and the people of Fort Ross witnessed the entire process of installing masts on two large ships. They were amazed by the spectacle and marveled at the illustrious martial arts of their principality. Then, people were looking forward to the "darkest day" and The most dazzling Aurora in the dark night, and the first ray of sunshine in the new year piercing the sea level...
