As he wrapped both mother and child in a protective embrace, Lavern inspected the child. Displaying for Dag ten fingers and ten toes, all in order. Dag kissed the top of her head, “You were amazing! He is wonderful.”

Lavern winced slightly as she shifted position, “He is strong like his father.”

Dag smiled at her, but the boy squalled again. Lavern’s milk had not yet come in, and he wanted to eat. Shirley and Jill arrived at this point. Shirley said, “We need wash him now.”

Dag saw Lavern’s arms tighten as her whole body stiffened. Dag got the message, she wasn’t ready to let go just yet. “Thank you, but we need just another little bit with him first.” He smiled at the girls to let them know he wasn’t mad. Hearing Lavern’s shuddering sigh, he knew he had made the right call.

He gave her a little time to try to quiet the baby as he held her close, then said, “They really do need to clean him up. I’ll go with them to watch over him. You should try to get your rest, it is still likely to be a long night ahead of us.”

He could see that she wanted to argue, but exhaustion was starting to overwhelm the adrenaline in her system. After only a moment’s hesitation, she nodded, and held the baby out for him to take. Dag froze. It was so small, and while he had held babies before, never one this new and never one if his very own. Fighting to keep his hands from trembling, he took the boy into his hands. He left the mother with a kiss to her forehead, noticing as he rose to his feet that her eyes were already drifting closed as if they had lead weights on them.

The girls were waiting with a crock of water that he had boiled just two hours earlier. Both were smiling widely as they held eager arms out to take the boy. Dag saw Oona head back in to where Lavern was lying. She had another crock of water, and a soft sheepskin. She looked at Dag, “Must clean her, you stay here.”

Dag didn’t argue, she was alive, and so was his son. He would be happy to stay here while Shirley and Jill were cleaning him up. Dag had made additional chamoise soft leather diapers for the boy, with little buttons to help hold it in place. It was far from ideal, but it wasn’t like they could run to the corner store for pampers. They hadn’t even had access to cotton for cloth diapers. Dag sighed, he had found over the last almost two years that it wasn’t as much the big things that one missed about the modern world, as it was all the little things that one just took for granted.

He couldn’t say that he really missed TV, or going to the bar, or the movies, but little things like metal pans, or hot water, and don’t even get him started about toilet paper... It was the little things that caused life to be so much more difficult than he knew it needed to be. He knew that he shouldn’t focus on what was missing in his life, but instead all the blessings he had been granted, but there were just a few things that the absence of were really demoralizing.

As the girls finished cleaning him up, they smiled and handed the child to him. Dag smiled, then walked outside onto the walls of the castle. Below was the entire clan, awaiting news. When he held the boy up above his head for all to see, the people went a little wild.

Then, as they ran off to celebrate, Dag brought the little one back in out of the bright sunlight. He grinned as the child yawned and stretched, but Dag could see that he was almost as worn out as his mother. He just couldn’t keep his eyes open. Dag put him in the soft sheep skin lined basket, and carried him back into the room where Lavern was now finished getting cleaned up, and was laying back on the furs barely able to do more than smile at the sight of her family. Dag sat the babe down next to his mother, and he too took a long shuddering breath and felt the adrenaline dump out of his system.

◆◆◆

Planning Session

After a nap through the heat of the day, Dag woke and kissed Lavern gently on her brow. She didn’t even stir, and he slipped out to let her rest. Shirley and Jill were waiting to go in to watch over them for him. The girls just smiled and bobbed their head in greeting as they quietly slipped into his room.

Jack and Ajax were waiting for him just outside of the tower on the top of the wall. Ajax greeted him loudly with, “About time you woke up!”

Dag hissed at him, “Quiet fool! If you wake up either of them, you’ll be pulling the predawn watch for the next month!”

Ajax’s eyes went wide, “Oops, sorry.” he whispered. “Didn’t think about that.”

Dag snorted, “You’ll think about it soon enough. Shirley looks like she is ready to pop any day now.”

Ajax just gave him the goofy grin of all soon to be fathers when they think about what’s to come. Jack saved them from any more useless banter and asked, “I know you’re going to want to stick close for a while, and Ajax can’t really be away either... Do you want me to lead the next hunting party?”

Dag shook his head. Ever since Jack had finally gotten strong enough to draw one of the composite horn bows he had been eager to test it on a hunt. “We have meat for now, and if we’re going to go for a big hunt, I want to take all of you.”

Jack looked frustrated, “I can do it you know?”

Dag nodded, he wanted to laugh, but he didn’t think Jack would see it as funny. He wanted to prove himself, and Dag understood that. “I want to keep most close by to work on building projects before the winter storms kick up. If you are still in such an all fire hurry to test out the new bow, get two of the spearmen to go with you, then when Jill, or I guess Pipi now go out to collect birds and eggs, you can try to bag a crock, or maybe two.”

Jack thought about that, “Not much of a challenge if you have two spearmen with those wicker shields keeping it off of you.”

Dag snorted, “It is the perfect thing to use as a test. Make sure exactly what kind of damage you can do before you’re out there without them. Take the shield men with you if you want to test it out.” He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, “They can help you carry your prize back, if nothing else. Some of those crocs are getting damn big.”

Ajax smirked, “From eating over confident archers no doubt.”

Jack glared at him, but before they could argue and get noisy, Dag intervened. “While a hunt won’t be needed for a little while, I wouldn’t mind someone doing a little scout past the coconut grove. As far as I know, no one has pushed more than a few hours past it.’ He frowned, “For as much as we’ve made the most of our local area, we really haven’t explored very far beyond a day or two’s travel in all directions.”

Ajax quirked his head to the side, “How far you lookin’ to expand?”

Dag shrugged, “I don’t know that I am. Looking to expand that is. At least not where more land is concerned. I’m just looking for more resources that we can gather.”

Jack gave him a confused look, “Like what?”

Dag sighed, “That’s the problem, you could walk right by a resource and not recognize it. It isn’t your fault, there just hasn’t been time to teach you what to look for. For instance, if you saw a pool of black liquid the consistency of cold stew, what would you think?”

Jack shrugged, “Walk around and not get it on me?”

Dag smiled sadly and hung his head, “If you ever, ever, ever, see that, let me know right away. That stuff would keep the boats from getting waterlogged, and it burns hotter than wood.”

Jack’s eyes went wide with surprise, “Okay... well, what else?”

“Rocks. Not just any rocks, but very white rocks that you can scratch with your screwdriver... that is likely limestone, and if we could get our hands on enough of that...” he just shook his head. “Green rocks too. Not grass growing over them, but actual green rocks, or yellow rocks that smell like Ajax after he’s had too many crabs.”

That got Jack laughing, “Why would you want something like that?”

Dag laughed, “Well, it isn’t much good on its own, but if you mix it with other things you can make everything from medicines to even weapons.”

Jack looked down at his feet, “I see what you mean.”

Dag tapped him on the shoulder, “Not your fault. In time, you’ll know all of this stuff too, but until you do, just bring me anything that looks like it is unusual. You’ll have more misses than hits, but even a few hits can improve life as much as capturing that calf did.”

Calm Before

Gathering Supplies

Dag sighed. Turned out it wasn’t just young Jack feeling restless, but plenty of the young boys were in a hurry to ‘prove’ themselves, and a lot of the older men simply weren’t used to living in one spot this long so had what Dag’s grandfather called ‘itchy feet’ and wanted move. Even with productive work to occupy them, and full bellies, people were still people and found something to be discontent with. He supposed it was human nature, and he should be happy that no one had decided to leave the comforts of the life he was providing on a permanent basis and instead contented themselves to planning elaborate resource gathering trips to scratch their itchy feet.

In addition to Jack’s explorations over the next few weeks, Dag ended up approving the construction of a crude camp upon on the river’s bank where the entrance to the canals was cut. The first attempt they had made to camp there had ended up in disaster. Fortunately, more humorous results than actual loss of life and limb, but the man who would forever after be known as ‘Bait’ fell asleep at his turn on watch. The only thing that saved him from the visiting crocodile in the night was the war club laying by his leg. Not that Bait was able to use it against a crocodile in any way that was remotely effective, but rather that the club got in the way when the monster tried to latch onto his leg and functioned as improvised armor. His fellow hunters woke in time to spear the croc before Bait could be dragged off to the depths of the river, saving his life. His pride however, that was another story altogether.

While comical in hindsight, Dag was realizing more and more that what his people needed most, was the concept of delayed gratification and a little personal responsibility wouldn’t go amiss. Dag just wasn’t certain how to encourage it without resorting to unpleasant punishment and reward systems often used for training animals.

Even with all of the drama, the gathering of supplies before the stormy season went relatively well. Dag spent a lot of time fishing during this time, though he limited underwater exploration because he was simply too tired. Lack of sleep was becoming an issue. His son John had an amazing set of lungs, that he was all too happy to show off in the early hours before dawn. Of course, Dag wasn’t the only one experiencing this. With Shirley giving birth just less than a month after Lavern, Ajax as well as Jack and Pipi were discovering the joys of having a newborn in their room.

Despite the battles with exhaustion, supplies came in smoothly and the village needed to build a smokehouse in addition to the one at the castle just to make sure that none of the meat went to waste. Add to it the promising first handful of olives off of the new trees and future success was looking promising.

◆◆◆

Poultry

After cracking the third egg that was already developing, Dag was frustrated. Jill had been taking regular trips out to gather birds and eggs, but so many of the eggs were too old and already developing birds. This was a great waste because not only did you lose the egg, you also lost the bird it could have been. Dag however wasn’t one to just get frustrated and deal with the situation as is, he knew that there were alternatives, if he could just figure out how to do it.

Something as simple as a rubber band, or more accurately, the lack of one was holding him back from a functional bird trap. He needed to spring load the trap’s mechanism, and was having difficulty figuring out how to do so with the current materials and supplies. He had tried several times to do it with a small bit of wood, but the wood was just too stiff to bend on the lightweight of a bird. Even when he tried to whittle it down to the proper thickness, it still was sub-optimal. He managed to catch a few mice, and even a squirrel like creature, but birds just flew away before the trap could fully ‘spring’.

In desperation, he came up with the idea of using a ‘spring pole’ much like he used on the lathe and the grinding stones. It meant using a much longer piece of wood than he had originally considered, and a long string. He shook his head as he looked at the prototype. It looked more like he was trying to go fishing than hunting birds, however the day he went with Jill’s group to bait and lay out his trap, he caught more birds than he had brought baskets for.