Berthing at a Small Island

"Then leave that little piece of trash behind." Roger knew Bitter Melon Face still could not stop worrying about him and insisted on sending a tail along.

Bitter Melon Face nodded in thanks, then went over to Little Horseherd and gave him a few quiet instructions before organizing men to carry the badly wounded Blackhide Dog off the ship.

"Fish-stinker!" Baldhead called out to an honest fisherman who was about to climb down the gangplank.

That honest fisherman had been too timid to charge last night. Only after the overall situation had been settled had he followed the others up to join the fun.

But he was faint-hearted and did not dare search corpses for bargains. Then today, when everyone fought over the scraps, he had lost the initiative again. After bustling about all day, he had only snatched a pair of hole-ridden cowhide shoes and rotten socks.

Fortunately, Young Master Roger had paid him a gold coin in advance. Otherwise, he truly would have lost everything, down to the shirt on his back.

Hearing himself called, the honest fisherman hurriedly stopped and turned to look at Baldhead.

Baldhead fished a cloth bag from his black wool coat with a rustle. He opened its mouth and lifted it for a look. Inside were more than half a bag of silver coins and miscellaneous small change. After taking out several gold pieces, he reckoned there were still over a hundred pence left.

After thinking for a moment, Baldhead took another small handful of silver pence from his chest and put them into the bag. He weighed it in his hand, walked up to the honest fisherman, and said, "Take this money back to Brodick and personally give it to my grandmother. Tell her to buy more food, and get herself a good set of clothes too."

"Tell my grandmother that I'm following Young Master Roger to do great things and make big money now, so she needn't worry. Once I'm done being busy in a while, I'll go home."

After saying that, Baldhead took a chipped silver penny from his chest and slapped it into the honest fisherman's hand. "This is for you. Make sure you deliver both the money and my words. Don't even think about swallowing my money. This lord has killed people like flies now, so watch out, or I'll chop up your whole family."

The honest fisherman hurriedly accepted the money, bowed his head and meekly agreed, then slipped off the ship in a few quick steps.

After the group disembarked and followed the pier onto land, Roger ordered Baldhead, Ponytail, and the others to pull in the gangplank, then keep rowing toward Holy Island across the water.

Baldhead, Ponytail, and the others were all islanders, so they knew a thing or two about handling sails and steering boats. Working together, they brought the ship to Salt Beach on Holy Island.

Holy Island was about two miles long and less than a mile wide at its broadest point. Nearly all of it was barren slope, with its highest point roughly nine hundred and eighty feet above sea level. Only the northern and southern corners had some flat ground, and Salt Beach was one of them.

Salt Beach lay on the northwestern inner corner of Holy Island. As its name suggested, it was a tidal flat that produced sea salt, only a mile by boat from the little fishing village of Lamlash.

A stream on the island flowed down from a small mountain lake and entered Lamlash Bay at Salt Beach. Its flow was small, but it never ran dry throughout the year.

Setting aside the poor, coarse salt that islanders usually made themselves by boiling seawater, Salt Beach was the only place on Allen Island capable of producing salt in large quantities.

Because Holy Island and Allen Island blocked the summer currents, August and September here were windy and dry every year. Together with Lamlash Bay's year-round calm waters, the salt left behind by evaporating seawater accumulated, making the sea salt concentration here far higher than elsewhere.

Naturally, people of this era knew nothing of such scientific principles. But they had inherited the experience of countless generations, and from early August each year, salt workers came to Sea Salt Bay to make sea salt.

A few years ago, Holy Island had been placed under Roger's cheap father's rule and became part of the knight's fief. Thus, this Salt Beach and all of Holy Island were Roger's father's territory. Every salt-making season, Steward Bitter Melon Face arranged for workers to come here and dry sea salt.

After the portion of taxes owed to the Baron of Allen Island was handed over, the remainder was sold to the people of Allen Island and those on nearby mainland islands. A small amount of finer refined salt was also loaded onto ships and sold to Irish merchants. This was an important source of income for the knight's estate.

Fishing, mining, and boiling sea salt were all among the least respected trades of this era. So although Roger in this life knew his family owned this saltworks, he had never come here in person.

The pirate ship pulled into Salt Beach. Its hull was flat-bottomed and it carried no cargo, allowing it to enter the shallows.

Once they had reached the furthest point it could berth, Baldhead, Ponytail, and the others dropped anchor and worked together to lower the gangplank.

"Baldhead, you lot stay behind first. Ponytail and Little Horseherd, come ashore with me and take a look." As Roger spoke, he climbed onto the gangplank and stepped down into seawater that reached the tops of his thighs.

Walking along the gently sloping Salt Beach, Ponytail was the first to follow. Little Horseherd hesitated for a long while before rolling up his trouser legs and jumping into the water, which swallowed most of him at once.

"Little Horseherd, this is our saltworks?" Roger looked at the row of shabby thatched sheds and the small stone house before him, sinking into deep disappointment.

He had thought a salt-making workshop would at least have wooden houses, warehouses, and other tall structures. Yet upon reaching this saltworks above the beach near the hillside, all he saw were several low buildings like refugee shacks.

Little Horseherd, following not far behind, was wringing out his clothes with all his strength. He shook off the water droplets desperately and answered, "This is the saltworks. After a while, we'll send people over to repair these sheds. Then we'll dig new water channels and salt-drying ponds on the beach."

"This place can even dry salt?" Roger was somewhat surprised. It was cold and damp here year-round, and even during the brief summer, they could not dry much sea salt.

Little Horseherd had already squeezed out the last drop of seawater. Shaking his clothes, he answered, "Of course it can't dry sea salt. We mainly dry off as much water as possible before boiling the brine, so we can save quite a bit of peat fuel."

"Peat? There's coal here too?"

Little Horseherd stared at Roger as if he were looking at a monster. After a long moment, he remembered that his young master had only returned to the island this year and had recently been struck on the head. That was perfectly normal.

"Holy Island is mostly barren mountain, and Allen Island does not have much timber either. How could anyone bear to use firewood to boil salt? There's plenty of peat around the small lake up in the mountains. Once air-dried, it's just right for burning salt."

Little Horseherd pointed at the small stone house with its tightly locked door. It was the only thing here that could be called a "building." "Inside are the iron pots, buckets, cloth bags, and other tools for boiling salt. The peat dug up last year is stored there too. It dried long ago, so it can be used to boil salt this year."

Roger had smuggled quite a bit of European liquor in his previous life and knew a little about whisky, so naturally he had heard of peat.

"Is there a lot of peat there?" Roger seemed to have discovered a new continent of energy.

"I don't know. Who cares? As long as there's enough to use." Little Horseherd had no interest in that stinking rotten mud.

Roger made some calculations in his heart, then shook his head and cast those impractical thoughts out of his mind.

The three of them stepped across the soft beach and entered the salt-making workshop.

The ground here was flat and slightly elevated, so seawater could not wash up to it. Aside from the stone house storing peat, everything else was merely thatched sheds supported by a few poles. Even the walls were straw mats woven from thatch stalks, though that did suit the ventilation needs of a salt-boiling workshop.