People say that the early bird catches the worm.

Apparently, if you got up early and walked the streets of Edo, you’d often find things people had dropped.

So there really was a financial reward for rising early.

In the northern high latitudes during winter, getting up early meant gathering driftwood washed ashore to use as firewood.

Half the fuel I used for my secret salt-making operation came from driftwood like that.

“Oh, it really is frozen.”

The water Father had apparently drawn into the wooden bucket last night had frozen solid.

“If you break the ice, there’ll still be a little seawater left at the bottom.”

“And if you lick the ice, you’ll notice it isn’t nearly as salty.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t lick it.”

“You’ll upset your stomach.”

I was currently teaching my family how to prepare seawater for salt production.

There was no point keeping the technique a secret from them.

Incidentally, Erin was still asleep after hearing my explanation the other day.

Father broke the ice inside the wooden bucket with a stick.

After checking the remaining seawater, he nodded.

“So?”

“Now show me this stove of yours.”

“Sure.”

“This way.”

When we walked around behind the house, my clumsy-looking Westwind Furnace was still standing beneath a light dusting of snow.

“The opening is wide.”

“And the chimney is tall.”

“It’s thickly built too.”

Father had a surprisingly sharp eye.

He noticed exactly what mattered.

“That’s right.”

“I made the opening wider so more air could flow in.”

“And I built the chimney taller so the flames would rise higher.”

“I also reinforced it with stones, mud, and leftover sheep and horse hair so it wouldn’t collapse or overheat.”

“I’ll light it.”

I stuffed in a handful of twigs and added a burning ember from the household hearth.

The Westwind Furnace burst into flame almost immediately.

“Oh…”

“It catches quickly.”

“And there’s very little smoke.”

“You’re not using dry twigs either, are you?”

“No.”

“You can hear the branches crackling.”

Along with the roaring sound of vigorous combustion, the twigs constantly snapped and popped as the moisture trapped inside their fibers burst from the heat.

“And it isn’t very hot.”

“That’s because I made the walls thick.”

“You can still touch them safely.”

“Hmm.”

“So there’s less danger of getting burned.”

Father rested his hand against the stone-and-mud chimney while quietly thinking.

The traditional house design, with an open stone hearth in the center, certainly had advantages.

It heated the house.

The smoke helped keep insects away.

It could even be used for smoking food.

But at the same time, it was practically smoking the people living inside as well.

The drawbacks were just as significant.

The constant smoke slowly damaged people’s health.

Children could easily stumble into the exposed fire and suffer burns.

Flying sparks could even start house fires.

Those weren’t risks anyone should ignore.

I had been lucky enough to grow up healthy.

But there were probably tragic accidents in other households.

Mother was still young.

If I eventually had another little brother or sister, I wanted to eliminate as many dangers from our home as possible.

“Here.”

“Try some tea.”

With Mother’s permission this time, I filled the stone pot with water and fresh pine needles.

Thanks to the furnace’s strong heat, it quickly came to a boil, filling the crisp winter morning with a pleasant fragrance.

I scooped the tea directly from the stone pot into each person’s wooden cup.

It was a rough, rustic method that I didn’t actually dislike.

Still, I really wanted a thin iron or copper kettle.

Tea made from fresh pine shoots contained vitamins that were scarce during winter.

It was something people should drink regularly.

“Thor really likes drinking grass juice.”

“It’s not grass juice.”

“It’s good for you.”

Father and Mother frowned slightly.

Still, perhaps because they wanted something warm, they both drank the herbal tea.

Adults in the North reached for ale or mead at every opportunity.

They should really drink hot tea instead.

It was much healthier.

“Hmm…”

“It certainly doesn’t seem to be magic.”

“Yes.”

“I’m convinced now that Thor isn’t using magic.”

After warming themselves with pine needle tea, Father and Mother finally smiled with relief.

What a relief.

It seemed I’d finally cleared myself of suspicion.

“Now then.”

“If we’re going to make salt as the family’s livelihood, we’d better report it to the village chief as soon as possible.”

“…What?”

Excuse me?

After hearing how I concentrated seawater by freezing it and boiled it using gathered twigs, Father immediately declared that we should make salt production our family business.

It was almost as though I could hear an imaginary voice saying:

“Son, I’ve decided to make salt for a living from now on.”

“I’ve already quit my job.”

“Father…”

“What are you talking about?”

This was just salt made by a child playing around, wasn’t it?

Jumping straight to making it our livelihood was way too extreme.

Was Father all right?

The problem was…

He was completely serious.

“Thor.”

“As your mother has probably told you, salt is in short supply.”

“And not just for our family.”

“The entire village in this fjord doesn’t have enough.”

“I was discussing it with Chief Jarl and the other free men.”

“We were deciding whether, once winter ends, we should launch another expedition against the Angles in the west.”

“The Franks to the south are troublesome, but the Angles are weaker and have plenty of silver.”

“The problem is that, while they have silver, they don’t have much salt.”

“The sea is still rough this time of year, so deciding when to sail isn’t easy.”

Did he just say “expedition” and mean “raid?”

Still…

I understood now.

The village really did have a salt shortage.

It didn’t take much thought to realize raiding carried serious risks.

Even if you thought, “We’ll just take someone else’s salt,” the people being robbed would naturally fight back.

After repeated attacks, they’d surely strengthen their defenses.

A real battle meant injuries.

People died.

And if rough seas overturned the ships, everyone aboard could be lost.

“I don’t want you getting hurt…”

“Or dying, Father…”

Even if I wanted to suggest peaceful trade instead, there was another problem.

This tiny village had almost nothing to sell except seafood.

And seafood couldn’t be preserved well enough to become merchandise without salt.

So we needed salt to produce goods.

But without goods, we couldn’t obtain salt.

It was the same kind of contradiction as needing money to make money.

Dried cod could at least be produced without salt by hanging it in the cold wind, so the village wasn’t completely cut off from trade.

But relying on a single product meant buyers could easily exploit us.

All of that could be solved if the village produced plenty of its own salt.

With enough salt, the abundant cod, herring, salmon, and even their roe from the North Sea could all become valuable preserved products.

Salted cabbage would also help prevent illness throughout the winter.

If that happened, there’d be no need to risk people’s lives on raids.

And with preserved seafood to trade, we’d finally be able to buy silver and other goods without being forced into terrible deals.

For all those reasons, achieving a stable salt supply had apparently become the entire village’s greatest wish.

They were desperate enough to place their hopes even in the childish little method I’d created.

“Hmm…”

“I still don’t think making it our family business is a good idea.”

This fjord wasn’t very large.

If smoke constantly poured from a salt-making furnace, every nearby household would notice immediately.

Trying to monopolize something as essential as salt under those circumstances was just asking for trouble.

“Besides, this stove still needs a lot of improvements.”

“And if we wanted to build one large enough to make salt in serious quantities, we’d need far more people and materials.”

“You still have fishing to do, Father.”

“And Mother has spinning and livestock to take care of.”

As for Erin and me…

We hardly counted as labor.

Erin had started helping Mother around the house, but she couldn’t exactly be called a workforce.

If my two older brothers had still been alive…

Things would have been completely different.

“Hmm…”

“And another thing.”

“The salt still isn’t very good.”

“Try tasting it.”

I handed Father the wooden container filled with my homemade salt.

Father and Mother each dipped a finger into it and tasted it.

Both frowned slightly.

“…It has a few impurities.”

“Yes.”

“And the color isn’t very appealing either.”

Well, of course.

It was nothing more than boiled seawater.

Personally, I liked the flavor.

But it wasn’t refined enough to be considered a premium product.

Then again, I’d never intended to sell it in the first place.

I hadn’t done anything to purify it further.

“I don’t really know much about it…”

“But surely someone in the village specializes in making salt.”

“We should ask for their help.”

“…You’re right.”

“But still…”

Father seemed reluctant to let go of the idea of controlling the salt business.

As for me, I had no interest in becoming a professional salt maker.

I’d much rather let people who actually specialized in it provide the labor and resources to scale it up properly.

If I ever needed salt myself, I could simply make enough at home.

“…All right.”

“I’ll at least go discuss it with them.”

“Yes.”

“The sooner, the better.”

If a sudden increase in the village’s salt supply disrupted someone’s income or monopoly, and that someone happened to belong to one of the powerful families serving Chief Jarl, our own house might end up burned to the ground in retaliation.

Or perhaps the village chief simply wouldn’t be interested in local salt production at all.

Either way, it was far safer if Father could honestly say we’d consulted him first.

“Then I’m off.”

“It’s best to deal with matters like this immediately.”

Father never hesitated once he’d made up his mind.

He immediately set off for the chief’s residence.

The chief’s longhouse stood on slightly elevated ground near the innermost part of the fjord.

It was positioned to defend against enemies while also serving as a lookout.

It wasn’t terribly far from our home, but it was still several kilometers away.

Not far enough to launch a boat.

Far enough that walking through deep snow was exhausting.

So Father put on his skis.

Yes.

There were skis.

They looked remarkably similar to the ones I knew, with slightly upturned tips.

He tied the toes of his fur boots to the wooden skis with leather straps and used a spear instead of ski poles.

With smooth, practiced movements, Father glided effortlessly across the snow, pushing himself forward with the spear.

It looked pretty cool.

Once I grew a little bigger, I definitely wanted to try it too.

“…All right.”

After seeing Father off, it was time for my own work.

Naturally, that meant completely rebuilding the Westwind Furnace.

Now that I no longer had to hide it from Mother, I could work openly.

First, I planned to relocate it.

Closer to the sea.

Carrying buckets of seawater was simply too much work for a five-year-old.

I needed to shorten the distance as much as possible.

The fuel was driftwood anyway, so collecting it along the shore would kill two birds with one stone.

Having a slope behind the furnace would also make building a taller chimney much easier.

It needed to face west to catch the prevailing winds…

That narrowed the possible locations quite a bit.

Besides, Father probably wouldn’t be able to explain my ideas very well.

Anyone he spoke to would inevitably say, “Show us the actual thing.”

So I wanted to build a sturdier, more impressive-looking furnace before that happened.

And then there was the accidental cold smoking.

I absolutely wanted to reproduce it.

To do that, I’d need to build a much longer smoke tunnel so the smoke could cool properly.

I wasn’t interested in monopolizing salt.

But if I wanted to keep eating delicious smoked cod… then I’d have to keep improving my design.