Chapter 39  

It had been good to spend the few days I had with Draves. He was really impressed with what I had accomplished. For me, the changes had happened gradually, but for him, he had come back to an almost different world. Hillside was a huge shock to him. It was flooded with people brought to us from a few other cities, and they were now working in several places. 

We had been shipped, professional miners. Ones that knew how to do more than just dig pits in the ground. Retters who pulled apart hemp all day and soaked it in line wash. Rope makers. With all the cloth we were producing, the fullers also needed laborers. Any area that did not give away our secrets was being filled with outsiders. Some we sent south to help at the growing salt works. The one thing that shocked everyone was how well we were paid and that we would only work ten hours a day. With occasional fifteen-minute breaks. 

I knew most people worked 12-hour days, and I remember the social studies videos about the Industrial Revolution. Kids working fourteen hours a day in factories with little ventilation and stuff in the air that would kill them by the time they were thirty.  I wanted to pay the parents well enough that the kids could go to school. It meant that, once again, I was subsidizing part of the work, but each month we got closer to having it all done by the businesses themselves. 

Fortunately, I owned most of the businesses, and the ones I didn’t were already self-sufficient. 

Right now, however, it was harvest season, and every man, woman, and child was not only doing their regular job but also taking time to help with the harvest.

The harvest in Hillside and Cove town was meager, but everywhere else in the county was having an unprecedented harvest. 

The reapers were amazing. They and the scythe we had made created a problem. We couldn’t thresh the wheat fast enough. 

Ten men with a reaper and scythe could cut 25 acres per day. A job I was told would normally take 65 men. The fact that a few of the acres that we had planted actually broke 20 bushels per acre was incredible, and everyone was thrashing wheat, trying to keep up.

If Yarbeth had not brought in more people, he would have had a lot of spoilage. Now, however, those people were a benefit. I was curious to see whether he would obey my instructions to feed them over the winter.

I had given him options for the winter. He could either send them back to Yarbeth. Feed them to North Cove Standards. If he could not, then he would either have to turn them over to my care or buy food from me. After sending the letter, I did not receive a response. I wasn’t concerned, though. He knew that I watched him like a hawk and that I would fine him for any breach of protocol.

Harold, my new minister of agriculture, stood next to me as we looked over the numbers. His grandson stood next to him. Harold had not learned to read and write, so his grandson followed him around compiling information and sharing it. The boy probably had his writing and arithmetic down to the level of a third grader, but for our purposes, that was just fine. He was still going to school.

“It’s unbelievable, my lord. Last year, we barely scraped by, and this year. Not only will we have enough to store for bad times, but we could export the grain if we wanted to.” Harold said.

I nodded. “Trust me, no one is more surprised than me.”

“But these were all of your ideas?” The look of confusion evident on his face.

“Correct, they were only ideas. A desperate hope for a way to save all of us. But I was no more sure that they would work than you.”  

  Harold smiled. “It worked, and I guess that is what matters. We are all eating better than we ever have, and we have actual coins in my house.”

His grandson spoke up. “I have a silver penny, three copper crowns, and 4 copper pennies. I am saving up for a nice knife for Father.”

I ruffled the young man’s hair. “Good for you. Keep working hard as a scribe for your grandfather, and you will do very well. Have you learned about saving and investing yet?”

“I did. But I admit I do not understand it all yet,” he said sheepishly.

I nodded approvingly. “It will come with time.”

I had created a small class that could be taken on the importance of saving and a little on compound interest. We really didn’t have any investment vehicles yet, but I wanted people to be prepared when we finally had some.

I didn’t know a lot about investing. I had lost plenty of money to Bitcoin. Well, not really lost. It was just on a downswing when I died. Not the most stable investment. What I really wanted to create was something like an index fund that spread people's money across all of the North Cove projects. Right now, I am funding everything and taking all the risk and reward. But what if I could create something that would allow everyone in North Cove to invest in a North Cove trust fund? It was going to be a lot of work and not something I was willing to rush, but if we could pull it off, money would flow.

I just needed people smarter than me to figure out how to make it work.

We spoke for a while, reviewing the timeframe for harvesting each crop and planning for next year's harvest. The winter wheat we had planted did very well. And we were taking the best of all our grains to plant in special fields. They were aware of selective breeding, but I was taking it to a whole new level. Everything was documented and sorted. I would be leaving before the Pootba was harvested, as well as the cotton, but we would be doing the same for it. 

For the pootba, it would be finding which ones produced the most sugar, and for the cotton, the biggest balls. We were going to turn our next generation of farmers into agricultural engineers. 

I didn’t remember a lot from tenth-grade biology, but I do remember that gregor guy’s pea experiment and creating tables for dominant and recessive genes. So all my farmers had to listen to a lecture on my idea that maybe this is how things worked.

Since we didn’t have peas here, I had farmers find other plants that may work for this experiment, and we were going to try to recreate it. I wanted them to try to prove my idea wrong. The women who tended small gardens were actually going to be the ones doing the actual experiments, and so maybe they would become the world's first genetisists.

*****

So the days rolled on until there was a break between the grain harvests, and other things needed to be harvested. There was still work being done, but it slowed for about a week. A perfect time for a festival. It would have been best to wait until all the harvest was in, but unfortunately, I had to leave at the beginning of the seventh month of the year. What would be considered October of the year here so that we could avoid the stormy season on the seas? 

The festival was being held in Plimgus, a somewhat central point among all the baronies. It would have been nice to hold it in North Cove, but I was more interested in having as many people attend as possible rather than in my own convenience. With the new roads extending all the way to the cove. 

In order to move all the people, we created a public transportation network.

The Great Northern Road was complete. It was two and a half wagon widths wide, and many sections were paved with stone. The drainage was excellent, and alongside it ran a separate lane for fast travel. It was intended for horses and the new bicycles.

Several wagon designs were tested before we settled on the most efficient model. It used a four-mule team, and the seats were arranged much like those in a public school bus. Each wagon could carry up to twelve passengers. Riders paid at every waystation, which were spaced fifteen kilometers apart.

The fare was two Copper per person for each leg of the journey. A full trip from Hillside to the fair costs eight Copper and reduced travel time from a day and a half or two days of walking to roughly eight hours. With fresh mule teams waiting at each station, a fully occupied wagon generated nearly a Silver Crown in revenue per journey. It was only barely sustainable, and only during the fair when every seat was filled.

That was fine, though, because the purpose was never to make money.

The purpose was to bring people to the fair so they could spend money, sell their goods, and trade with one another. It was about creating connections between my people, strengthening the county's economy, and fostering a sense of unity throughout North Cove.

  The other reason it existed was to give us data points on what it would cost to actually run a public transportation network. It may only be profitable during times like the fair or when our population grows. Or only have it run between key points. It might be a good way to transport day workers from high-density areas like Bicman to come work at the factories of Hillside if our population doesn’t grow at the same speed at which we were expanding our industry, we may be able to steal workers from Yarbeth. 

“Oh, it’s the waterwheel,” Emily exclaimed from my side. Breaking me from my thoughts. 

We had just entered a pavilion where different booths were set up. It was the science and industry portion of the fair. She was looking at a miniature replica of a grain mill. 

“I thought the waterwheel was a secret.” Confusion written on her face.

“It was, but I have been receiving reports from people outside of the county. The knowledge of it is beginning to spread, so there isn’t much point in keeping it a secret. Notice it is not demonstrating what we use it for only the concept of the Vertical waterwheel vs the horizontal.”

We continued to walk around, looking at things that had been invented here in North Cove that were not being kept a secret. Everything from the aqueduct to the seed planter were on display in miniature. Many things were difficult to replicate without our level of machinery and would be better off being bought here. Simple things like the wheelbarrow were used to show off the ingenuity of our people. Cooper’s men were even showing off the first water-tight barrel. And explaining all the benefits of them. A man was there taking orders for barrels. That was sneaky. I had not intended this to be a place to promote products but I was not surprised someone had come up with the idea.

After leaving the tent of wonders, we went to the food stalls next and picked up some meat pies.  We were about to head towards the football field to watch the Malcomp Thunder face off against the Bicman Bears when a shout came from down the street.

A teenage boy in a straw hat was running down the street straight towards us, the was a bundle under one arm and a dagger in his other hand. When Emily saw what was happening, she screamed. But suddenly, a guard was in front of us. In one smooth motion, he pulled out his sword, and the panicked man practically ran right into it. A panicked cry rose up from the crowd, and while many ran away, an equal number gathered to watch the man bleed out.

It took almost a minute of staring at the man collapsed in a pool of his own blood before I realized Rick was talking to me. 

“My lord, are you ok?”

When I finally came to I found that I had unconsciously drawn my own short sword and stepped in front of Emily. 

Shaking my head to clear it, I said, “I’m fine. Report.”

"It appears that the man was stealing something from a stall. A pot if I am not mistaken. He was seen and bolted. He had his knife drawn and was approaching you. Though I don’t think it was with any intent to kill. He was most likely trying to get people to clear out of his way. As protocol demands, James killed him as he approached."

I turned away and gritted my teeth, trying not to vomit. Emily did not fare so well. Neither did several others in the area. James' face had turned ashen. I knew that he was just doing his job, and it was the right thing to do, but had that man run in any other direction to escape, he would still be alive. I fought against self-blame, knowing it would do nothing good.

“Rick, I want a full investigation. This is a good test to see the effectiveness of our policing SOP for crime scenes. I trust your men know what to do?” I spoke firmly and with confidence. Within moments, the body was surrounded, and half of my guards, as well as the NCDF that were policing the event, were gathering witnesses and trying to identify the man.

I was 100% serious about the test of our standard operating procedures. We were still evaluating and refining it, and I was sure it was nowhere near as good as Earth standards. I should have watched more crime shows.

I would have loved to go to one of the music events going on in different areas of the fairgrounds. It was a better way to relieve myself of my melancholy thoughts than a football game, but it was the opening game of the season, and I had to be there. 

I think the thing that bothered me most was that my life was valued so highly around here that someone approaching me with a weapon would be killed even if they had no intention of doing so. The guy was trying to scare us out of the way, I was sure of it, but because of who I was, they had cut him down.

The worst part about it. The part that made me absolutely sick to my stomach was that I understood where they were coming from. Not that I agreed. They could have just moved me out of the way, but from their perspective, it wasn’t worth the risk. I would have to wait and see what the investigation turned up. I was just hoping it made me feel better, not worse, about this.

Duke Phillip Kimton the Second

Duke Kimton sat in his office, looking over the incoming reports. It was harvest season, and that meant taxes, much of which was paid in harvested material. Though the reports and goods from further out in the duchy had not come in yet, the reports concerning the lands closest to the capital were looking good. Many places had adopted the new plow, which was proving to increase yields by up to a third. The story the crown told was that the king's scholars had created it, but the upper echelons of society, those with decent connections and intelligence, knew the truth. It was Count Bicman who was responsible for this boon. Just like he was the man who had invented the crossbow.

 In his opinion, the plan was genius. The young man had ingratiated himself with the king and was slowly becoming untouchable. When he had first created the story of the golden kayver, it was considered a moral lesson, something that many people scoffed at. Now, more and more people were considering it a subtle warning.

Phillip felt that he had properly compensated the boy by making him a count. But he was still frustrated that he did not have more control over him. If he forced the lord to give up his secrets, he was in his right, but the political fallout would be devastating. Fortunately, although technically illegal, he had been the one to give the title of count to Lord Bicman, making him a vassal of the duke rather than the king. This meant that he could collect taxes from him rather than have the profits go to the king. The downside is that he doubted that it would last long. With the most recent invention of the hardened cloth armor, he had no doubt that the king would take direct vassalage over the young man and cut off his growing source of income.

It infuriated him, but there was nothing he could do. He was currently trying to repair the damage that his father had caused. At the same time, he was trying to appease the opposing factions in his own duchy.

He didn’t even want to think about the nightmare that was his new wife. Countess Blackwell, now Kimton, was a beautiful seductress who, though passionate and caring on the surface, was more deadly than a viper.

His conflicting thoughts of both the good and the bad swirling around him were interrupted by a knock on his door. 

He straightened in his chair. “Come in.”

His steward came in wearing a neutral look on his face, for that man, it was practically a smile.

“Good news.”

The steward bowed. “My lord, our spy among the royal guards has reported back to us. Although none of the guards have been allowed into the production facilities of North Cove they have been able to discover what the paper is made of.”

The duke raised his eyebrow but said nothing.

"Tracing the entering carts back to their source, there are a few products going in. Hemp, old rags, wood, and a small amount of cotton.

“Other products are going in, but they have yet to be identified.”

“But we don’t know how it is turned into paper. It cannot be woven like papyrus.”

“No, my lord. The scholar's guess it is turned into a pulp of some type and dried.”

The duke nodded. “Do they think they can replicate it?”

“Definitely. If a baron out in the middle of nowhere was able to produce it, there is no reason we cannot. The facility where they produce it is attached to one of those new vertical waterwheels he invented. They most likely use that to grind the material. Our engineers are already working on a design to do the same thing. Once completed, we should have no problem figuring the rest out.”

“Good, if we have the information, then half the nobility also have it. I want an eye kept on all the other major houses. If they discover how to do it before us, I want the method. Some of them will not be as careful as Count Bicman. I need control of all paper making in the capital.”

“It shall be done.” The steward said with a bow.