The morning after seeing the three barrels lined up, I went around to the firewood storage area behind the inn.
In the previous chapter, I switched our ale supply back from buying it in the city for two denari to buying it in the neighboring village for one denari. Three barrels, ten gallons each. The kitchen deficit was gone.
In exchange, we didn't have enough fuel for winter.
Twenty bundles of firewood. Five baskets of charcoal.
“Will this get us through the winter?”
Maren looked at the stacked firewood.
“At the current rate of use, it’ll last ten days.”
The inn had a kitchen. We had to heat the guest rooms, boil water, warm ale, and bake the morning bread.
Once the firewood ran out, guests would sleep in cold rooms. Once the charcoal ran out, the kitchen fire would weaken.
“Spring is still a long way off.”
“We bought it at the wrong time.”
Maren drew her brows together.
“Firewood’s something you buy when you need it, isn’t it?”
“You buy it before you need it.”
Even the price of an identical bundle changed with the season.
In early autumn, one bundle cost one denari. Now it cost three.
Charcoal was also one denari a basket in early autumn. Now it was two.
I pointed to the empty space.
“I’ll buy as much as we can tonight.”
“Even at these prices?”
“Before they go up again.”
If you waited until you needed firewood and charcoal to look for them, you could only buy them at whatever price the sellers demanded.
The gap wasn’t the firewood seller.
It was that the inn had missed the cheaper season.
The twenty bundles we’d bought before had cost one denari each. If we bought the same bundles now, they’d cost three denari each. Something that had cost forty denari would now cost one hundred twenty.
“Three times as much?”
“Even if the price triples, the fire doesn’t become three times stronger.”
We’d use the same amount. Only the money paid would increase.
A gap caused by buying at the wrong time couldn’t be sealed through saving alone. We had to put the things we needed in place before we needed them.
The town’s firewood seller had bundles stacked in his backyard.
The trees had been cut the previous summer. They were dry, and each log made a different sound.
“It’s three denari a bundle now.”
“It was one denari in early autumn.”
“Those who bought it then got the better deal.”
The firewood seller was right. Cutting wood in winter was difficult. Snow blocked the roads, and more horses were needed to transport it.
I wrote down the amount we needed.
Sixty bundles of firewood. Twenty baskets of charcoal.
In early autumn, the firewood would have cost sixty denari and the charcoal twenty. Eighty denari total.
Now, the firewood would cost one hundred eighty denari and the charcoal forty. Two hundred twenty denari total.
The difference was one hundred forty denari.
“Do we really need that much?”
Maren drew a sharp breath when she saw the figures.
“Twenty bundles last ten days. Even if we count thirty days until spring, we need sixty bundles.”
“And the charcoal?”
“Five baskets last ten days. Twenty baskets.”
The inn’s fuel became more expensive the later in winter we bought it.
I lifted a bundle of firewood. It was dry. If we bought it now, we could stack it and keep it.
“Can we pay for twenty bundles already?”
“That’s thirty denari.”
For each barrel of ale in the previous chapter, we’d paid ten denari extra by buying from the city. Three barrels meant thirty denari. The equivalent of today’s twenty bundles of firewood had disappeared there.
“So we’re trying to make up now for what we couldn’t buy before the price went up.”
“Some of the difference can’t be recovered. We’re stopping the prices from rising further.”
The firewood seller said he’d charge ninety denari for thirty bundles.
“If you transport them all at once, I don’t have to break up the load.”
There’d be no separate transport fee.
“What about sixty bundles?”
“One hundred eighty denari.”
I considered the cash on hand at the inn and the horse expenses ahead of us.
If we bought everything today, we’d be short on money for food and wages.
But if we bought ten bundles at a time, the price might rise another four denari before our next purchase.
“Thirty bundles first. The rest in two days.”
The firewood seller nodded.
Winter prices wouldn’t wait for us.
There were still dry bundles left in the firewood seller’s yard. In a few days, snow would block the roads, and he wouldn’t be able to transport them this far.
While there was still an amount we could buy, we had to decide where to put it. The day it arrived mattered just as much as the price.
Back at the inn, I opened the old fuel records.
Firewood in early autumn: one denari per bundle. Charcoal: one denari per basket.
We’d bought ten bundles and five baskets. Only a quarter of what we needed.
“We bought just a little while it was cheap,” Maren said.
“We planned to buy a little, use it all, and buy more afterward.”
“Winter doesn’t stay at the same price.”
Firewood didn’t rot easily. If we had a dry place, we could stack it and keep it.
Charcoal absorbed moisture. It had to be kept under a roof.
I wrote down both the purchase date and the storage location.
I divided the required amount by where it would be used.
Kitchen: thirty bundles of firewood and twenty baskets of charcoal. Guest rooms: twenty bundles of firewood. Water heating: ten bundles of firewood.
If we thought of the inn’s warmth as one single pile, we couldn’t tell where we’d run short.
“If the kitchen fire goes out, we can’t serve ale or food.”
“Even if we heat only the guest rooms, the guests won’t come down to eat.”
“That’s why we secure the kitchen’s share first.”
I wrote out a plan to divide the ninety-denari cost of thirty bundles of firewood across two nights of horse fees.
For six horses, the horse fees came to sixty denari per night. Eighteen denari for oats and twenty-four denari for dry straw. That left eighteen denari.
Thirty-six denari over two nights. We’d need another fifty-four denari to buy thirty bundles.
We could pay it with the combination of guest-room fees, meals, and the remaining ale sales.
But if we bought everything at once, the maid’s wages would be delayed.
“We’re not putting the wages off,” Maren said.
“We’ll divide the firewood payment over the next three days.”
The firewood seller recorded the promise to deliver the rest in two days on a wooden tally.
We put dates on the money for buying winter fuel, too.
That night, we made a place for the charcoal baskets. We moved the empty barrels and laid boards across the floor.
If it got wet, charcoal wouldn’t catch fire.
Fuel dwindled not only because of when you bought it, but because of how you stored it.
I wrote: thirty bundles of firewood, twenty baskets of charcoal, two storage areas.
The person who counted the bundles, the person who carried the charcoal, and the person who checked where it was stored. If we divided the duties within the inn, we’d notice even if one place got wet.
Simply paying for fuel and stacking it wasn’t enough to prepare for winter.
The next morning, the firewood seller’s cart arrived.
Thirty bundles. Every log made a dry sound.
Of the ninety-denari cost, we paid thirty denari up front. The remaining sixty denari would be paid over two nights.
We stacked the firewood along the back wall.
We kept it off the ground. We avoided the path rain would take. We stacked it high enough that the number of bundles was visible.
Tina counted them.
“Ten, twenty, thirty.”
When she finished counting, a row of firewood stood in the backyard.
“That’s thirty days’ worth for the kitchen fire.”
“Not all of it. We still need the other thirty bundles.”
Even so, a pile capable of carrying us through winter had appeared in the empty space.
That afternoon, twenty baskets of charcoal arrived as well.
Two denari per basket. Forty denari total.
We lined the charcoal baskets up under the roof. If we put them in the same place as the firewood, they’d absorb moisture.
Maren pressed a finger against the lined-up baskets.
“So we write down the date we bought the charcoal, too.”
“One basket is two denari. Even if it’s three the next time we buy it, today’s price won’t change.”
“I never remembered what price I’d paid before.”
That was why she’d accepted winter’s high prices every time.
That night, we kept the guest-room fires low so we wouldn’t waste firewood.
We didn’t let the kitchen fire go out. We needed it to serve food and ale.
Six horses entered the stable, bringing in sixty denari in horse fees.
We deducted eighteen denari for oats and twenty-four for straw. Eighteen denari remained.
We set aside six denari for the maid’s wages first, then put the remaining twelve toward the firewood payment.
The remaining balance on the firewood was forty-eight denari.
We kept the money moving and stacked the firewood first.
Three days later, we bought the remaining thirty bundles.
The price was still three denari per bundle. Sixty bundles cost one hundred eighty denari.
In early autumn, sixty denari would have been enough. The difference was one hundred twenty denari.
That difference wouldn’t come back.
But we had secured what we needed before the next bundle became four denari.
The firewood seller wasn’t happy that we’d bought before the price reached four denari. From the seller’s perspective, customers who bought late were more convenient.
For us, it was the opposite. We secured the amount we needed at the price before the increase.
We tied wooden tallies bearing the purchase date to the stacked bundles. That way, we wouldn’t forget the price of each bundle.
Maren checked the number of wooden tallies.
“Sixty bundles. Now we don’t have to worry about tomorrow’s price.”
“We’ll add enough to last until spring while watching how much we use.”
“So we don’t end up late again.”
“When autumn comes, we’ll buy ahead of time.”
Sixty bundles of firewood were stacked in the backyard.
The stacked firewood was a concrete amount of money set aside to get us through winter.
Sixty bundles of firewood. Twenty baskets of charcoal.
The firewood cost three denari per bundle, and the charcoal cost two denari per basket. Two hundred twenty denari total.
If we’d bought it in early autumn, it would have cost eighty denari. The difference from delaying the purchase was one hundred forty denari.
Even so, we had all the fuel we needed before the next price increase.
The maid moved the charcoal baskets to a dry place. We hadn’t simply turned the cash on hand into winter fires. We’d protected the wages of the people who worked for us while protecting the inn’s fuel as well.
Sixty bundles of firewood were stacked along the backyard wall. Twenty baskets of charcoal were drying under the roof.
By recording the purchase dates and prices on wooden tallies, we wouldn’t fall into the same gap next autumn.
The winter fire didn’t begin burning the instant we bought it. It began supporting the inn from the day we managed to keep it dry and stored.
Tina counted the sixty bundles of firewood, touching each one with her finger. A pile that could be counted was already inside the inn before it ever burned.
Next autumn, we’d buy before the snow fell.
We’d decide when to buy the fire before using it.
The pile of dry firewood lightened the winter ledger in advance.
If we recorded when to buy, we wouldn’t have to pay the same difference next winter.
Stack the firewood first.
Don’t let the charcoal get wet.
Don’t let the firewood get wet.
Don’t dismantle the winter pile.
Count the bundles we bought.
Count autumn.
The next gap I’d have to look at was the price war started by the neighboring inn.
Lower the lodging fee and guests would come. But if we lowered the horse fees too, the stable’s figures would collapse.
I looked at the sign of the inn across the highway.
It read: Seven denari per horse.