Spring, 850 AD.
As the weather warmed, the mining district north of Stirling began operating at full capacity. To meet the duke's production targets, Kaiso, the overseer, decided to recruit additional miners for iron production.
The mine currently employed four hundred workers: one hundred freed slaves, fifty Vikings, and two hundred and fifty prisoners of war.
The first two groups required wages and bonuses. To reduce costs, Kaiso repeatedly petitioned for more POWs—but every request was denied. Forced to compromise, he spent money to hire former slaves and personally guided the new workers through the mining site.
"Here—this is our extraction zone."
Kaiso led thirty new hires up the slope. The earth around them was a rusty red, glinting under the morning sun. Dozens of miners were burning piles of firewood on exposed rock. When the rocks glowed faintly, a worker dumped cold water over them.
Chissss—
A great cloud of white steam erupted. The sudden cooling fractured the ore layer, cracks spreading like spiderwebs. Workers hammered wedges into the cracks and beat them in with wooden mallets until chunks of red-brown ore split away.
The miners collected these chunks into wicker baskets, carrying them down the slope to dump into heavy wagons. Teams of draft horses then hauled the loads several miles south to the smelting area.
Following one such wagon, Kaiso and the new employees trudged for two full hours before reaching the north bank of the River Forth.
Over the past half year, this area had grown into a large-scale ironworking complex. The outer perimeter was ringed by ditches and palisades. Beyond the gate lay barracks to the north, warehouses to the east and west, and numerous workshops scattered along the river.
The first they visited was the water-powered sawmill. Logs floated down from upstream were cut into blocks here, then carted to the charcoal works where they were carbonized into fuel for the smelters.
"Sometimes the surplus charcoal gets shipped across the river to Stirling. The charcoal you buy at the market comes from here."
Kaiso walked them through the complex, eventually stopping at the water-powered ore crusher.
Workers unloaded ore blocks into several sunken basins. Water spilled over a wheel, lifting a massive hammer. At the top of its arc, a release latch snapped open—
BOOM!
—sending a hundred-kilogram hammer crashing into the ore below. It rose and fell, again and again, until the ore shattered into fist-sized pieces.
Workers swept the fragments into slanted chutes. Large chunks were picked out and thrown back into the basin; smaller fragments were collected in baskets and carried to the next stage.
Watching this, Kaiso sighed nostalgically.
"In the old days, we smashed ore by hand with sledgehammers. Most miserable work you can imagine. You newcomers are lucky—no more of that torture."
Next, they observed workers loading crushed ore and charcoal into a man-height bloomery furnace. Once lit, the water-powered bellows roared alive, sending a constant stream of air into the furnace.
"Smelting takes a long time. No need to watch the whole thing."
Kaiso moved them into a warehouse and pointed at heaps of crude, reddish-black ingots.
"These are pig iron ingots. They get shipped by boat to Tyne Town. Because pig iron has high carbon and poor toughness, blacksmiths must reforge it repeatedly into wrought iron for tools, weapons, and armor. I hear Tyne Town has more than twenty smiths and dozens of apprentices—over sixty workers total."
Yawning, he glanced at the bright midday sun overhead and sent the new hires to the mess hall. The menu was spartan: fried fish, stewed fish, pan-fried fish, vegetable soup, and black bread.
"That's it. Ale for dinner, white bread every five days, mutton once a month. How much you eat—depends on your stomach."
While sipping his fish broth, Kaiso waited for the new miners to finish eating, then assigned them to their posts. Fewer than a third remained in the smelting camp; the rest were dispatched to mining and transportation.
Afterward, flipping through the labor roster, he grimaced. Transport consumed far too much of the mine's costs. The twenty draft horses alone devoured absurd amounts of oats—each one ate as much as eight miners.
"Horses, drivers, ore carriers—transportation is eating us alive. And the duke wants higher output… I may have to request even more draft horses."
In that moment, Kaiso recalled a strange idea the duke once mentioned—
track wagons: two parallel wooden rails laid on the ground, allowing a mine cart to be pulled easily. Two draft horses could move much more ore.
"Bah. We don't have enough manpower yet. Maybe later."
He returned to his office intending to nap, but a sharp scream rang out.
He sprinted toward the sound and burst into the water-powered sawmill—just in time to see a worker pale as death, his left arm torn open by the iron saw, blood dripping onto the floorboards.
"Gods damn it—how many times have I told you to be careful?!"
Following Kaiso's orders, two workers placed the injured man on a door plank and ferried him across the river to Stirling.
They rushed through the town center to the Temple of the Norse Gods—a wooden structure with steep black shingles. The eaves were supported by carved pillars bearing the visages of Odin, Thor, and Baldr.
"Follow me—and stay quiet."
Inside, thirty benches faced the main hall where a few townsfolk listened to a shaman's sermon. Kaiso didn't interrupt. He hurried the carriers along the right corridor to a plain wooden annex.
Inside sat a young female shaman in a white coat, stifling a yawn. She looked barely sixteen or seventeen.
"You again? I swear this hospital exists just for your mining camp."
She waved them to lay the man on a wooden table.
After washing her hands, she poured half a jug of ale down the patient's throat, stuffed a rag in his mouth, and instructed Kaiso and two others:
"Hold him down. Hard. Don't let him move."
She washed the wound with clean water and began stitching. Under the agony, the worker writhed like a fish on a cutting board, veins bulging on his forehead.
Gradually, exhaustion overtook him. His struggles weakened. The stitching finished.
"Have him rest. And keep the wound dry."
She wiped sweat from her brow, wrote the patient's details in a ledger, and pointed where Kaiso needed to sign for the monthly account.
"Wait," Kaiso added. "We've got two miners with fever at camp—need medicine."
"Fine."
The young shaman walked to the hearth, simmered a decoction of willow bark, poured it into a clay jar, and handed it over.
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