Sebastian stood looking at the wall in awe. He reached out his hand slowly. Almost brushing his fingers against the fresco before pulling them back, as if touching it would destroy the magic of the painting.
I couldn’t help but smile. Looking at his face, I saw that same wide-eyed expression the villagers got when I first showed them a flipbook, a mix of superstition and genuine wonder.
“This is… This fresco is beautiful. I cannot even fathom how you did this. It is not your best or most detailed work, but the scale is incredible.” He said, wonder in his voice.
“Secrets of the trade. It is the most difficult way for me to paint, but it may last as long as the wall. I have to paint fast because the lime wash dries while you're painting, and you have to get everything just right before it hardens, or it flakes off. It is also unforgiving; one mistake, and the whole thing is ruined.”
I stood next to him, admiring my work. It may have been prideful, but this was my dream coming into reality. On Earth, I’d spent years behind a screen making incredibly detailed digital landscapes, but painting… painting gave my art soul in a way that I felt digital never could.
"My comment caused the baron to look at me in surprise. He turned his head away from the wall, his eyes searching mine as if looking for the punchline to a joke. “And you plan to cover your entire inner house in this?”
“Yes, this is only the first panel. Every wall will be a continuation of the story,” I said excitedly. Art was my passion, and making this masterpiece would be part of my legacy. It wasn’t a fantasy story, though; it was science fiction. At least it would be for these people. It would be a story about a young noble who walked through a portal into the future. What would be considered the 21st century on Earth?
It would go over all the wonders that the man found there. Cars, planes, factories, and flight to the moon. Communication across the world. Everything I could think of. Long after I was dead, if this work survived, they could look at it for inspiration just like Earth did with its own works of science fiction.
Sebastian followed my gaze, his hand finally dropping to his side, though his fingers still twitched as if he were trying to grasp the concept of painting an entire house. He looked out the window at the village farther down the hill. Houses in neat rows with street signs on the corners of every wide road, then back to the painting.
“I look forward to seeing its completion,” he said with genuine interest. I could see an ally in the making; he was processing the scale of my ambition the same way Count Vaspar had—with a mix of suspicion and a dawning realization that the "backwater" was moving faster than the capital.
To me, the painting was only part of the home's wonder. To me, this home itself was art. Not my art. I only had the idea. This was art created by the builders and engineers. I’d had this place built with a Southern aesthetic, lofty ceilings, wide porches, and symmetrical stone columns, but the heart of it was the craftsmanship of the people of North Cove.
“There is much more to show you than just the art,” I said. We started to walk, our boots clicking rhythmically against the polished stone.
The tour continued. The lower half of the walls was paneled with dark, hand-rubbed walnut, the grain. A heavy chair rail separated it from the upper half, where the raw, grey plaster waited like a blank canvas for the stories I had yet to tell. The look was Earth’s 18th-century Virginia meets ancient classical.
When we entered the main dining room, which looked more like a ballroom than anything else, we stopped. The mosaic on the floor was almost too beautiful to step on. It was the seal of North Cove. The seal was an outline of the cove with three wavy lines inside it representing the water. The mosaic, however, was made of small colored stones—lapis lazuli for the water, creamy quartz for the shore—giving it life and making it a true work of art.
Sebastian hovered at the edge of the mosaic, his boots hesitant. After staring at it for a while, he shook his head, a weary sort of admiration breaking through his noble mask. “This truly is the home of an artist. Everything is designed to catch the eye and evoke wonder. Most of us build large structures that could withstand a siege to impress, but you… You created this.”
I did bother telling him that the walls were made of concrete and would do a good job of withstanding a siege.
Then the baron paused. He did a slow 360-degree turn, his brow furrowing as he looked at the expansive, open space. The confusion on his face was palpable. “You are at the north end of the kingdom, and I have heard that the winters are cold here. Where is your fire pit?" Sebastian asked, his voice echoing in the rafters. "How do you keep this place warm? A room this size would swallow the heat of a dozen hearths and still leave you shivering.”
I let the silence hang for a second, enjoying the "logic gap" he was falling into. "How much are you willing to pay for a cheaper way to warm your manor on cold nights?"
“Cheaper?” He scoffed, though he looked intrigued. To a nobleman, "cheaper" usually meant "worse," but with me, he was starting to learn it meant something else.
“Yes, we have estimated it costs us less than half of what we spend each winter heating the old Bicman manor.” Well, it would if it weren’t for my whole open floor plan.
“Amos, promise me you are not lying,” he said, stepping closer to me. The skepticism was gone, replaced by the desperate hunger of a man who loved new things, especially things that could be used to gain an advantage over his neighbor.
“I am not a braggart, Sebastian.” I paused, giving him a conspiratorial grin. “Actually, maybe I am. I love bragging about my people's inventions. Come, let me show it to you. Then you can tell me what you are willing to pay.”
I turned on my heel, leading him toward the service wing where the "guts" of the house lived.
“You are going to show me your secret?” he asked, his pace quickening to keep up.
“You will not be able to replicate it, not without designs.” I didn't add that he’d also need a basic understanding of stonework and piping.
We entered the kitchen, where I could tell he wanted to examine the stove. He was eyeing the polished iron surface and the lack of a soot-stained hearth, but I didn't stop. I took him out the back door and down the narrow, steep stairs into the cellar.
As we descended, the air changed. Usually, a cellar in this kingdom felt like a tomb, cold, damp, and smelling of potatoes and mold. This one was more like the engine room of a steamship.
After staring at the monstrous furnace for a while, Baron Sophis just shook his head. He looked small standing next to the hulking mass of brickwork. “You are right, I have no idea how this works. Other than the fact that wood gets tossed in there,” He said, pointing at the metal door.
The reason he had no idea what was going on is that the important parts of the furnace were hidden inside brick and stone. The heating system had started as a joke, an offhand comment about how nice it would be if the floors stayed as warm in the winter as a sun-baked rock in July. I hadn’t expected anyone to take it seriously. But my builders had always seemed to take my jokes as gospel. In most situations, I would have kicked myself for not keeping my mouth shut, but this time it actually worked out.
There was a massive brick furnace in the cellar now. Wood went in, smoke came out the chimney, and between those two facts was a hot-water tank and a labyrinth of masonry and pipes I only half understood. I reached out and gripped a heavy iron lever, the metal warm to the touch through my sleeve. This was the "Winter/Summer" switch.
In winter, the heat from both the furnace and the boiler wandered beneath the floors before escaping up the chimney, turning the stone warm underfoot. In summer, the lever sent it straight upward, bypassing whatever hidden passages ran beneath the manor. I hadn't bothered to get the details on how it all worked yet. The floors were warm when they should be, cool when they shouldn’t, and the house hadn’t burned down. That was enough for me.
Sebastian stepped closer, his eyes tracing the copper lines that snaked away from the central hub. They’d even added an additional copper tank against the hottest part of the furnace. It stayed perpetually hot, like a kettle that never left the hearth. A bronze tap on the side gave the servants hot water. Once we finished working on the pump, we might even be able to run it straight to the kitchen or bath without hauling pots up and down stairs. Some hot water we were already getting from steam escaping the main boiler through vents somewhere in that tangle of pipes and brick. The rest was cycled back.
It was amazing what my people came up with once they got an idea in their heads. They were like a group of Minecraft players given a physics engine and no supervision. The best part was that only one water tank blew up before they got the prototype's pressure right. The other cool thing was that this was a first step towards creating steam power, and that it would change the world in a way not even I could understand.
Sebastian stared at the large box as if doing so would unlock its secrets. He looked like a man trying to solve a riddle in a language he didn't speak. “I do not know the exact amount that it costs to heat my home in the winter. I think it is about five wagons of wood a week.”
I shook my head. The fuel cost in my old manor had been almost double his due to the north wind anomaly that trapped the cold air against my mountains.
“I will increase your access to political information and pay in gold. If you trust me to sell the plans, then I can send you money or goods in exchange for each sale,” he said. He turned to me, the wonder replaced by the sharp, calculating look.
I leaned back against a support beam, crossing my arms. I needed him to know I wasn't just some naive artist he could fleece. “That sounds interesting, but I am not ready to release this just yet. Besides, I still haven't received anything I need so far with what I have given you. In two years, I will be ready to sell this."
I wanted to make sure my people were more advanced in steam power than others before I gave out this knowledge.
“Well, then, let's start the exchange. First, are you aware of the people who have been flooding into the Barony of Bicman?”
“Of course, I keep a strict record of people in my county. By the last count, I believe it was 431 farmers. He has brought serfs from his other lands. Apparently, he has discovered how fertile the lands are and wants to have more land prepared for next year.” I tried to sound casual, but this had been a concern of mine. I had sent a missive to Baron Yarbeth recommending that he not allow too many people into the barony this year until he could afford to feed them.
“Are you aware of how many people he plans to bring in?” the baron asked.
I shook my head. “That I do not know.”
“Two thousand people. Three thousand if possible.”
I felt the air leave my lungs as if I’d been kicked in the gut. My mind went to the sheer amount of starvation that would soon happen in Bicman. It was a population explosion I was not ready for. I was preparing for a thousand over the next six months, and I was only doing that in order to be cautious.
“That cannot be right. There is no way he can support that many.”
“He won’t get that many. Also, some will leave and then return in the spring. However, many will starve this winter. He will work them until there is nothing else he can use them for. Apparently your land is better than we were all led to believe, and he wants to get the most out of it.” Sebastian spoke with the detached tone of a corporation discussing quarterly layoffs.
I grit my teeth, the heat of the room suddenly feeling like it was coming from inside my own chest. “That is against the law.”
“What law? There is often not enough food in the wintertime. Always too many mouths to feed. Soldiers always come first. To go a whole winter without some of the population starving is considered a year that only the Endless One grants.” He looked at me then, his eyes cold. He wasn't being cruel; he was being "realistic" by this world's standards.
“He is intentionally putting the people in a situation where they will starve. I will not allow this.” My mind started to think of the laws I had read and how to stop this mass immigration. They were his serfs, so he had the right to move them between lands that belonged to him, but this… this was treating people like disposable resources.
“He is also using it to bring in soldiers acting as farmers and other general laborers.”
If he was disguising them, that could only mean one thing.
“He is preparing for a coup.”
“Yes," Sebastian confirmed.
A coup. It felt surreal to hear it spoken so plainly in a cellar next to a primitive water heater. I would need more food than I thought. A lot more.
I was going to have to train more NCDF. Possibly hire mercenaries and incorporate them into my guards.
It was good to know the enemy's moves. Information was power, as they say. Now I needed to find a way to turn Yarbeth’s plan against him. If he wanted to send me three thousand mouths, I’d have to find a way to make them my three thousand mouths.
“Do you know when Yarbeth plans to make his move?” I asked. I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow, though whether it was from the furnace or the stress, I couldn't tell.
“Not yet, but when I do, I will send out a carrier immediately.”
“Excellent, I will work on a way to turn this against him without the shedding of blood. Perhaps I could bribe some of his soldiers,” I said as I walked towards the exit to relieve myself of the heat.
Sebastian let out a short, dry laugh that lacked any humor. “Possibly some of the lower ranks, but he has a large amount of money to keep the captains loyal.”
“Ugh, this is frustrating.” I hated these "old world" problems where money and cruelty were the only two levers people knew how to pull.
“Yes, but it is also what makes life interesting, does it not?” Sebastian straightened, adjusting his fine cloak as if we hadn't just discussed the death of thousands.
I thought I was moving in the right direction. Maybe I was. But I needed to move faster. I needed more money and influence if I was going to stop Yarbeth.
*****
As we continued our tour of the manor, I coaxed more information out of Baron Sophis concerning the political situation in the Kingdom. I realized that he would color this information with his opinions, so I really needed some additional sources of info. The capital would be a good place to get those connections. Also, I soon realized that I needed Benjamin to be part of these discussions. I was not going to make sense of all this without him.
Sebastian became more excited about my various innovations. I couldn’t hide the simpler ones, like the dumbwaiter, a pulley-driven elevator that carried laundry and meals between floors. It wasn't designed for anything too heavy, but watching a wooden box vanish into a wall and realize it would soon be on the floor above was enough to make the Baron poke at the ropes. I almost laughed because it reminded me of a cat. Not that dumb waiters were not already in use, but they were not used in this way.
Then there was the bell system for summoning service, and the servant passageways. Actually, I found it hilarious how much the servants loved their secret passages. They really liked the idea that they would be able to navigate around the house without having to interact with guests if they so desired. It was also faster.
The passages weren’t really secret, but the wooden doors were built and painted to blend in with the wall. Only the staff was allowed in them. They had peepholes on the doors to make sure they didn’t run into anyone as they exited, but they used them more to jump out and scare each other rather than be careful. I’d already heard a distinct yelp and a muffled giggle coming from down the hall since we started the tour. I didn’t mind as long as they didn’t do it when we had a house full of guests; nothing ruins a formal dinner like a footman falling out of a hidden door while trying to prank the maid.
We skipped showing off my servants' living quarters. I had always hated the fact that they slept on mats in the great hall back in Bicman, like hounds waiting for scraps. They were people. Specifically, my people, and in my book, that meant they deserved to be treated like humans.
“I am confused about one thing,” Sophis said as we walked out of my bedroom. He paused, looking at the large window that looked out over the courtyard. “The windows are so large. Though they would let in a lot of light, will it not cause a problem in the wintertime? I would imagine even with the shutters, the amount of cold air being let in would pull all the heat out of your home.”
I gave a laugh. “The reason for the windows being larger is that we were experimenting with an idea, an idea that failed miserably.”
This caused Sebastian’s brow to raise. He turned away from the big hole in the side of the wall, his expression shifting from confusion to a strange kind of satisfaction. “This is the first I have heard of one of your projects not working. It is good to know that you are human, Amos.”
The problem was I had installed an iron frame and a grid in the window and attempted to put in glass. I’d used double-paned glass, two sheets with an air pocket between them. I knew double-paned glass windows were a massive selling point on Earth, the ultimate shield against the cold, so I figured I’d give it a shot.
It had been a disaster.
Fog built up between the panels, turning my "mostly clear" view into a murky, grey soup of condensation. To make matters worse, bits of dust and sawdust had somehow found their way inside the "sealed" gap, creating a permanent layer of grime I couldn't reach. The glass was not very clear to begin with, and this just magnified the problem and made it look uglier. The last problem was that the glass panes would rattle. What was once a tight seal had contracted and expanded due to temperature changes. So we had to tear out the entire thing. We had put shutters in, but as Sebastian said. it was a stopgap until we could figure out how to make the glass not rattle.
“By the way, Amos. What have you decided on for the bridal gift?”
The bridal gift. On Earth, I would have been looking at a registry for a toaster or a nice set of towels. Here, it was a political statement. “I have a few options. One is an obsidian mirror, a custom book with the main character being named Erica, a painting unique to her tastes... perhaps a dress made using the same method I use to make armor. Just no layers.”
“Interesting ideas, but I will give you some advice.” Sebastian stopped walking, turning to face me with a gravity that made the hair on my arms stand up. “Even if most consider Erica cursed, you should know that many still consider her far above you and find that this marriage is an affront to the nobility. If you do not want people constantly speaking ill of you or your bride, then the gift should not just be as wonderful as what you have shown me so far, but exceed it 100-fold. If possible, something new that people haven't seen yet. You are already known for your books and paintings. Your clothes and mirror are not known yet, but if you have shipped anything outside of North Cove, then they may be by the time you arrive.
My stomach did a slow roll. This marriage was one I was being forced into, a high-stakes merger I hadn't asked for, and before I even met the girl, I would have to shell out a lot of money just to impress people I would probably only see once. It was like being told I had to host a Super Bowl halftime show just to get permission to go on a blind date.
“Are you sure you're not saying this just to get me to show off another secret?” I asked, squinting at him. I knew the Baron’s appetite for North Cove tech was bottomless.
“To say that I would not desire to see another miracle of North Cove would be a lie,” he admitted, spreading his hands with a faint, elegant shrug. “But I am speaking the truth concerning the need for you to impress all the high nobles. They are looking for a reason to dismiss you as a lucky peasant. Do not give it to them.”
I sighed. I had one idea, something that would make a statement and turn Erica into a living work of art, but the cost of the idea made me shudder. And it was a technical nightmare. “Well, I have something, but it will be much more expensive than anything I have done so far. If I can do it at all. And I may need your help.”
“What can I do?” Sophis said, his eyebrows shooting up in genuine surprise.
“I need Erica’s exact measurements.” I started ticking them off on my fingers, my mind already drafting the patterns. “Her height, waist, hip, and bust, as well as the length of her torso and legs. Even the measurement of her neck. If it’s off by a few centimeters, it may not work, and the whole thing is ruined.”
Sebastian went still. In this culture, a man asking for a lady's "bust and hip" was probably taboo, but it wasn’t something I had ever needed to ask, so who knows. “That will be quite the challenge. When do you need it?”
“A month, no later than a month and a half.”
Sebastian rubbed his chin, a mischievous glint appearing in his eyes as he accepted the "mission." It was the look of a man who enjoyed a good social heist. “How to create a lie that will get a woman to give up her measurements. A challenge indeed,” he said seriously.
I managed a smirk, mirroring his earlier sentiment. “But is that not, as you say, what makes life interesting?”
Sebastian let out a genuine laugh. “Too true, Amos. Too true.”