86. The Winter

Novum headed to the mine out the back of the manor so that the only one that knew that he was gone was Melissa. He had even tried to avoid her but she saw right through his trickery. She gave him a smile and a nod as he slipped out the back. Fang trotted along beside him but stopped when he was about to go into the mine. Fang looked like he did not want to go.

"Fang, buddy, you have two options right now. The first one is to come into the mines with me and the second is to go and play with the kids or do some hunting away from the mouth of the mine. If you are laying out here then people will know that I am in here. And I need a day to just beat on some metal to clear my head."

Fang whimpered and nuzzled his hand before he ran off into the woods. He would patrol his area and maybe hunt something to snack on. And he smelled that a new female had moved in close to his area and he had to be alert in case another male came looking for her. He would let all the females that wanted move in but a male would not be tolerated.

Novum slipped into the mine once Fang was out of sight and went straight to the room where he had met up with Rurik the last few times. Rurik had made sure to make a few of the tunnels with the ore that Novum wanted to mine was big enough for him to walk without a lot of trouble. It was at least twice the height necessary for dwarfs but it was also in an area where all the walls and ceilings were trapped for defense.

"Mornin' Novum. I see you made it without any tagalongs this time." He handed him a cup of coffee. Novum did not need to do anything to it since he had coffee with Rurik a few times and it was always the same so Rurik could add stuff without any issues.

"Well Melissa knows where I am but the rest did not see me slip out and I sent Fang out to hunt so that should not give me away. I should have most of the day before they start looking here."

"That is barely enough time to get started." He picked up the heavy pickaxe he made for Novum and tossed it to him and started down the tunnels without a word. Finally they stopped at what appeared to be a blank piece of wall and Rurik hit a hidden button. "Found something that you need to see."

They walked into the pitch black tunnel and Rurik did not do anything until the door was all the way shut and then he lit a torch. It was not a long walk and the duo came to a room cut in the wall. Rurik held the torch up and the walls were shiny with metal ores. "This is not a normal mine. I am not sure how Three Mines missed it but this place is loaded with deposits of rare ores. This is all ores that you are not close to working yet and they are all worth ten times the same amount of gold."

"Can you, or do you work with them?"

"I can but I can only do the basics with them and not bring out their true potential yet."

"Then let's leave them where they are for now and spend the winter honing our skills and hopefully by the end of the winter we will be ready to tackle this area. You will be working it and I will be mining it. And if not as long as you direct the miners away from this area you should be able to control the people that find out about it."

"I will do what I can but with the extra miners it will be harder to control who is digging where. But I will do my best."

"If you find a few of the guys that you trust with this information, promote them and have them assist you on controlling the mine. Also if you find any of the monetary ores they need to be kept a secret and I will mine them as soon as possible. I have bleed my coffers to the bone trying to take care of everyone. Now that we are set up and everyone has started working it should be a lot easier but still need to make sure that I can handle any emergency."

"Once you get some working ore for you to train with then I will take you down another tunnel that will help you with that."

"That sounds like a great plan."

Rurik led him out of the tunnel at a different location than the one that they came in and a few twists and turns later they were at the tunnel where he could start mining. Novum saw the wall in front of him and smiled and knew that it was going to be a long hard day.

Novum could tell that the sun was down and even with his strength and constitution he was drained to the point he could barely life his arms. He would be fine in the morning with barely any soreness with his recovery but now he was hurting. He looked over his should and saw that he had filled up four full wagons by himself and that would put him in the forge tomorrow.

Rurik told him he could not lift a smithing hammer until he pulled at least three carts out of the ground and he had four. He left the four carts since he could not move them right now and realized that he still had a couple of days before he could forge. First he needed to move all of the carts to the smelting room and then he had to smelt what he wanted to work with. That would take two days to get through all of it. But things that were worth doing were worth doing right.

Novum walked out of the mine and Greg was waiting on him. "Novum, you have a guest and Melissa is stalling him as we speak. It is an envoy from Earl Ratcliff."

"Did he say what he wanted?"

"No, only that he would only speak to you."

"Fine I will deal with him. Where are they?"

"Melissa was entertaining him in the dining room with a few snacks." Novum did not even bother to change his clothing and headed straight to the dining room.

When he walked in Melissa jumped to her feet. "Baron. This is Reginald Cutwater the envoy of Earl Ratcliff."

The man slowly stood up, like he was to good for the situation that he was in. "Greetings Baron."

"Stop. Are you here with an apology?"

"Apology?" The man voiced the word like a question. "What does...."

"Stop. Get off my land. I have nothing to say to you or your Earl if they are not even moral enough to apologize. And if they are not smart enough to know why they might want to apologize then I want even fewer interactions with them."

"How dare you insult...."

Before the man could even finish his sentence Novum cross the distance between them and picked the fat man up by his throat. "I did not ask you for your opinion or even offer to entertain your idiocy. I told you to get off my land. If you come with specific apology then I might consider sitting down and talking to you about things. But if is had anything to do with anyone that is living on my land and slavery I will kill the next one. And if he wants to fight over one person then I will gladly kill him and his entire family over one person."

Novum could see the fear in the man's eyes as he realized just how serious this man was. "Now, you only need to nod the answer. Do you understand what I just said?" The man nodded his head. "Now I am going to put you down and you are going to thank Melissa for her hospitality and then you are going to leave my manor. You can stay at the inn in town and I will handle the bill."

Novum put the man down. The man instantly turned towards Melissa and gave her a bow of her head. "Thank you for your hospitality." Without another word the man tuned and headed out of the manor at a pace that could still be considered dignified but just barely.

"Baron, why must you make things harder on yourself?"

"I will not let them politic and polite me into making a mistake."

"Politic and polite you into a mistake?" Melissa was not sure what he was getting at.

"They show up and talk all high and mighty and then make it so that you are so busy making sure that you are the perfect host and do not offend someone with a higher title than you that you end up painting yourself into a corner and the only way out is the way that they left open for you or the messy way that makes you look like a slob. I will be direct and dirty from the start so that everyone is one even footing from the start."

"Well that will give you an advantage as that envoy had no idea who or what he was dealing with. He assumed like most that you are a young and gullible noble that he could politic and polite into getting his way. I have to admit that I like that term."

"Thank you Melissa. Have the kitchen bring up something left from dinner, it does not matter what as long as there is meat and a lot of it."

"Right away Baron."