Stronghold
Chapter Two
February 16, 1353, today we are finally getting on track with the new kingdom, we have got the castle up which we named Fort Windsor and we are now building a stone wall. I have not yet found a job, since there isn't a whole lot to choose from because of the low supply of food many people are waiting until we have enough food to feed the workers, but as for now I'm just doing vonlunteer work building the Fort and it's surrounding walls. My family and I are settled into a nice small hovel big enough for 8 people, we only have a family of 5 so it was very spacious, and I am looking for a job. The Governor of our new island settlement has been very gracious to some who didnt have enough to wood to build a hovel and he's holding them in the fort until they can build. We so far are not very happy with the Lord Governor since taxes are raised and we have no food, many people are going around with their pants falling down to there knees or some have been very sick and on the verge of dying. With the news that's going around many are saying the High King of Grandular County sent his son here out of anger threatening to kill him if he didn't leave, and his son brought us here to die with him, that's only because nobody has any faith now, they believe we will neevr have food, well I think they are all wrong and some day we will have food overflowing the granary and have to build a marketplace and sell it there will be too food.
Well it's another day, today I found a job, I am going to a well where I just sit all day watching for fires, now, it's been a while since I wrote in this book so let me catch you up. Taxes have been raised, no suprise, that's all that man does, I'm beginning to hate him, taxes taxes taxes, we were all wondering what the gold was going to him for on this little tiny island, well it turns out he wants an army, is he expecting a war or what? Well apparently that was right, there was a war coming all right, but not the kind of war you could expect, see it's been about 5 months and so now we are settled, we have a marketplace, I'll talk about that later, and we have not got enough space for anymore buildings. Well, the King ( As he was anointed 3 months ago) has cleared some land and built an armory, fletchers, poleturners, armouries, everything, so now we wonder what he's gonna do, he built a training ground and the barracks, so today I couldn't count how many men marched past my well by the Fort and over to the barracks. So now we have an army, but the war will not start until later on so now I will talk about the industry. Well, in April, hundreds of woodcutter's huts went up, we were short on land nad wood, so hundreds went up, and hundreds of cutter's went to work, well as they got chopping they got farther and farther away from the forest so the King laid some off and built new ones closer to the wood, he kept doing this, and then on the third week of April, the forest was gone, it sounds hardto believe but there was literally no tree left on the island, this caused one of the biggest rebellions I've ever seen these people have, nearly sixty percent of the industry of this whole island was done, many were laid off and others left stranded with nothing to do until the King got off of his throne and finally realized that the wood industry was done and gone and that men were sitting around doing nothing, so he decided to get tons of pitch and burn them down. So yes you know now there is pitch industry too, not much, only two pitch rigs are going, we have a very small oil marsh so that's all that we could fit on it, so now the stockpile has got pitch also. So the King got some pitch and put it all around the woodcutter's huts and set it on fire, no person on the island was expecting it, we all thought he was preparing for a battle maybe, but then he got an archer to set it on fire, bloody man could haev refused, he's just like the King, don't care about anybody but himself and just obey orders, so he set the pitch on fire and immediately it caught around the huts and burned then all down along with every man surrounding them and they died, and then nearly 100 people walked through the fire and got burned to death too, luckily the pitch around the castle and the walls didnt catch fire either, I was part of puting this fire out just to let you know, it was devastating to watch those people burn but if I had tried to save them I would just burn myself too, so I could just stand by and watch and throw water on the fire, it was horrible, I'll kill him if he ever does that again.
Now incase you didn't know I'm not only fire fighter and well watcher but I also help build, not volunteer anymore but I've been assigned a contract and now get paid for it, I always loved carpentry and so now my biggest jobs are just building industrial buildings.
It's now the third month of our new settlement and things are going quite well, but taxes are constantly being raised, the granary is always empty so we have to pay extra to buy goods from the marketplace, but all the bad things going on in our community do not add up to the thing the King did last month, the fire was just devastating and some families are now slowly perishing because the father or husband died in that fire and can not pay for food or pay taxes, some have been persecuted by the king, others have been threatened, if I could go back in time I would never have come here, my family is still traumatized by it and they live in fear of what he will do next, we just don't know.