Chapter 30

Chapter 30
"Food, water, shelter, weather. Jane, I don't know how ye loved in England without knowing these things. But every clan has these common worries."
Take for example food. No matter how many animals they herd, nature always has a way of being unpredictable.
The weather alone could make newborn animals lose their lives. All animals in their herd must grow to adult age before being sent to their bellies. Knights and warriors especially need meat constantly to keep their build, strength, energy, and so on.
Again, it wasn't smart to always rely on animals they heard, thus, a group of selected hunters typically went out to catch massive wild boars, bears, and other animals in the forest.
In the summer, they faced little to no issues with funding meat. However, in the harsh winters, most animals hibernate and stay hidden away, leaving many in Scotland and England to starve to death.
Like animals, people in this era also horde for winter. They also pay taxes in the form of grains. This, sometimes, their lords took more than 7/10th of their yields.
In no time, a big family could run out of food before the winter ends, resulting in some turning into thieves or beggars. In some cases, they sold their children as slaves. In other cases, some choose to starve to death with their dignity intact.
Meat is seen as a luxury that only the rich and the skilled could afford. One should know that during these times, some common foods which could be dug up from the ground and eaten were still thought of as poisonous. So no one dared to touch them.
Yes. For them, all mushrooms were poisonous!
There were so many undiscovered foods all around them, yet they only knew the common ones like wheat, apples and so on.
Listening to Tavish, Jane knew that no clan, no matter how wealthy it was, had an easy life. Even the Monarch's household wasn't so great either.
Yes. They might have their private breweries by lakes and homes built close to a water source for easy access. But this still meant that people would still have to carry buckets of water through long distances up and down the stairs, filling bathing tubs and whatnot.
Just scrubbing and cleaning the entire place was already a nightmare, and now one had to go back and forth, getting fresh water from the water sources despite the weather, be it sunny or snowy.
The more Jane listened, the more felt this was her chance to stand out and gain more allies for herself. For now many were still wary of her, including Tavish.
Tavish might like her, but no matter how she tried to get information about their clan, Tavish would brush everything off.
No. What she needed to do was get them comfortable enough to tell her a few things. What's more, she needed someone who could work with her in keeping Alexander safe.
She needed someone as her eyes and ears was in places she couldn't reach as a 'guest.'
Tavish sighed. "You don't know, but I hate washing clothes the most."
As part of the clan, she had her times when she was a laundry girl, sitting for hours and hours washing heaps and heaps of clothes. It was such a boring, tiring and annoying task. It was even worse for humans, especially during the colder seasons.
Clothes for the knights were washed twice a week. For those with partners, their wives would be the ones to do them. However, the single ones had their clothes washed by a group of selected women.
Tavish hated laundry time, as she could spend more than 10 hours doing it all. What's worse is that they had to fetch water severely from the streams.
Just thinking about it made her face turn pale. But sadly, there was no escaping it.
"That's it!" Jane's sudden burst caused Tavish to flinch in confusion.
"Sorry Tavish, I didn't mean to startle you, but I just thought of a great way to make laundry day your best!"
"How?" Tavish looked at Jane in confusion. What other way was there to do laundry except by hand? Unless Jane wanted to substitute herself in her position, Tavish couldn't see any other way it would work.
What's more, she would never agree to any substitution in the first place.
"I can make a mechanical Pump!"
"Mechanical pump?"
"No. A mechanical pump, one that doesn't need electricity to drive water up!"
"..."
Tavish blinked, wondering if Jane has lost a few meaty chunks in her head, or else how can someone drive water up when water naturally flows down?
Sorcery?
Tavish began wondering if Jane was from a witch clan. If so, that might explain why she found herself in Mackay territory as though she appeared from nowhere. If this is the case, she had a sworn duty to report her thoughts to her Laird, even if she liked Jane.
At least for now, she hasn't reached the point of keeping secrets for Jane. After all, they just today.
"Drive water up, ye say?"
"Yeah! That's exactly it!" Ajen was so excited that she didn't see Tavish's strange demeanor.
As a history fanatic, she had learned and eleven created samples of many machines before the age of electricity.
The first laundry machine was patented in the 1600s. That's a hundred or so years from now. And following that, others came up with their peculiar designs for it, using pulley systems, gears, and waterwheels.
What is a washing machine? It's a drum that spins on its own, deceiving enough force to slap the clothes in them hard, washing the stains away.
It's doing what the women in this era do, slapping clothes on slates. In modern times, one needs electricity to make it work, but she could use the force of water to keep it spinning.
When ancient Laundry machines were invented, the drum wasn't made of steel but wood, akin to rum barrels.
The absence of stainless steel and anti-rusting coatings made metal drums an unlikely choice. Of course, she decided to make pumps closer to modern ones, not wanting to use the designs of those to be born in the next 100 years.
As for the mechanical pump, that was even easier to do. With this, she could force water directly into the buildings.
Jane clenched her fists, determined to show her brilliance. However, it didn't take long before Tavish felt something wrong with her belly.