Ash and Water.
I never thought I'd care this much about filth.
But that morning, stepping out of the manor, I caught a whiff of something sharp—piss, rot, and wet hay—and nearly slipped on what I realized was a dumped chamber pot. Right on the path.
"Great start to the day," I muttered, holding my breath.
The village stank. Not just bad, dangerously bad. People were too tired, too hungry, and too beaten down to care where their waste ended up. Water flowed from nowhere but came with a side of stomach cramps. Kids coughed like they'd been smoking since birth.
They were starving, yes. But more than that, they were getting sick.
So when my hour came, I didn't waste it. I hit the internet like a man on fire: medieval hygiene, basic sanitation, how to dig a clean well, soap-making without modern supplies, even composting toilets. Ash-and-fat soap recipes, groundwater safety diagrams, DIY well filters using charcoal and gravel I took it all in. One hour, nonstop. I scribbled so fast my hand cramped.
The next day, I stood in the village square, rolled-up sleeves and all.
"We're cleaning up," I said.
A few people blinked at me. One man actually laughed. "Clean what, Baron? The mud? The sickness?"
"No," I said. "The rot. The waste. The things making your kids cough all night."
That got their attention.
I split them into small teams. One cleared trash and waste. Another dug trenches to reroute runoff. A third started prepping soap with ashes and old fat from the kitchens. I showed them how to build basic handwashing stations using buckets and spouts made from hollowed branches. Simple stuff. But it worked.
When I joined the digging team, people stared.
"You're digging too?" an older man asked.
"Why wouldn't I?"
He said nothing, but I caught the flicker in his eyes. Respect.
That evening, I walked with three others to scout well locations. I'd learned that downhill spots, near old tree roots but away from livestock waste, gave the best chances for clean water. We marked spots with sticks and came back with shovels.
Digging wasn't fast, but it felt real.
"We never saw the last baron with mud on his boots," a woman said.
"Maybe that's why no one trusted him," I replied.
On the fifth day, we struck damp earth.
By the eighth, water pooled at the bottom.
It tasted clean. Cold. Alive.
We built a simple pulley and bucket system. The first time a little girl drew water without coughing after drinking it, her mother cried.
And the next time someone dumped a pot near the manor, a teenager yelled, "Oy! Pit's down that way now!"
The smell faded. People smiled more. They washed their hands. They washed their kids. We made soap. Real soap. It didn't smell fancy, but it didn't smell like death either.
One night, as I sat by the fire, a boy handed me a crust of bark bread and said, "Thanks for digging, Baron."
I didn't know what to say.
So I took the bread, broke it in half, and handed it back.
"Next," I told him, "we build latrines."
He grinned.
We were still poor. Still hungry. But at least now we were clean. And alive.
And maybe, just maybe, hopeful.
I noticed that the cooking skills I'd taught the peasants were starting to pay off. The food was better, and they were eating more. With sanitation finally in place, it felt like it was time to tackle the other problems that had been bugging me since day one.