Alauna Civitas, Caledonia, 15 August 128 CE
Thiophorus raised his cup in salutation to David who’d just entered the inn. The old veteran was sitting at a corner table in the settlement’s newest addition, a building he’d had built with his own money and to his own design. He did not want any savage to be able to torch his investment so there was little wood in sight beside the tables and benches. No, the building was all stone and mortar, with a large barrel-vaulted main room on the ground floor and a number of rooms under a tile roof above. A stone stair led to them while a large chimney provided heat and light when the fire was lighted. A number of windows had also been pierced in the wall giving on the courtyard, but none on the wall that faced the military road.
The courtyard itself was made by the inn with it’s back toward the wall, the bathhouse and the stable on each side and a low wall pierced by a large arch that gave on the path leading from the military road to the settlement of Alauna Civitas. A well had been dug in the corner between the bath and the inn, and overall the complex provided the travellers with a rather comfortable place to stay when travelling between the wall’s fortresses. The inhabitants of the village could also benefit from the facilities for some coins or some goods that Thiophorus could sell to his other clients.
David saw the gesture of the veteran and saluted him before heading in his direction. Now the father of three after Esther had given birth to twins in the spring, the man was tired. The villagers had just finished bringing the wheat in the silos, and the harvest was not good. They would probably not starve, but it would be a near thing. Should too much of the stored grain be eaten by rodents or spoil…
“Greetings, David. You seem preoccupied. Allow me to serve you some wine to help you lighten up !” said Thiophorus while making a sign for his slave to bring a cup, before adding : “yes indeed, you certainly seem to need it ! What’s troubling you and why are you coming to me ?”.
David snorted : “As if you were not the head of our community and its most opulent member ! You know my problem, it’s the same as last year. We can’t seem to grow enough grain in this land. Our plow barely makes a dent in the earth and we are now at least a dozen more hungry mouths than we were when the Empire settled us here. We need to find either new ways to grow stuff or new ways to get food.” This said, he took the cup the slave had filed while he spoke and he drank some, before he continued : “thanks for the wine. It is indeed welcome. I worry about the future of Esther and our three children. I don’t want Shimon, Matthias and Solomon to die of hunger in a few years…”
The roman shood his head in agreement. “Indeed, we need to improve things. The locals seems to have the same issues as you, they never tried to improve on their poor methods… You know, I’m a soldier, not a godsdamned farmer, that’s why I’ve had this inn built… Still, when I look at the ground around here I don’t see that many trees, the land does not seem to grow much by itself… Are there not methods to make the land richer ?”
“Oh there are, such as spreading manure on the fields at the right time, but the wind and the rain seem to take it away every time... “
“Ah the wind, don’t tell me about it. That’s why I built the inn this way, with the door to the south and the other buildings on the sides, so that the cold does not blow inside them… Maybe that’s what you should do, built wall that would help retain the fertile ground and the manure…”
“I’m not sure it’d be enough… and beside, wall for all our fields ? That would take ages to build, even using the stones found in the fields themselves…” David sipped some more wine. “Although we could plant edges, they would provide a bit of small wood and cut the wind, at least if they manage to grow…”
Thiophorus nodded. “Yes, it seems like it could work, but it would take some time… Although I know that in Italy many farms and domain do have both vallum and ditch around their fields, with threes and hedges growing on the vallum… Might be for the same reason. I also wonder… I’ve seen the gardens of some rich peoples during my travels, and sometime they made… how can I name them… flower beds ? They had those elevated stone beds upon which they grew their flowers. I’d asked a villicus once, he’d told me it was because the bed was hollow, and the earth was softer and more fertile than basic ground. You could not do it for wheat or cereals, of course, but you could try some for vegetables. It could help you grow more of them, thus making you less reliant on cereals.”
“We could build some, yes. And maybe if we make them high enough we won’t have to lower ourself to the ground to take the vegetables out of the ground, that would save some efforts on our back ! I’ll discuss it with the others. But maybe you could ask some of your other friends if they’ve seen other things being done in other villages to improve the situation or if they know of something that could help ?”
“Sure David, sure. I’ll do it. In fact I may even ask some officers when they stop here, because they often have some ideas we grunt don’t…”
