2nd Week of June, 1460
Theodorus let the silence reign over the gathered headmen as they absorbed the shock of his statement.
Beside him, Zeno struggled not to roll his eyes at his flair for the dramatic.
Admittedly, claiming that he was handing land back to the peasantry was a stretch of the truth. While technically true, there were more than a few clauses tied around his words.
“What we mean by this,” Theodorus folded his hands, adopting a thoughtful pose, “is that the previous arrangement required you to lease land from the Nomikos House for a proportion of the taxes. Under the new arrangement, that lease may instead count toward the eventual acquisition of land, either by individuals or by the village as a collective, provided that an initial sum is put forward. Specifically, a sum equivalent to one tenth of the land’s assessed value.”
That drew more meaningful looks from the men seated around him.
In some ways, the knowledge that the offer was not quite as impossibly generous as it first sounded seemed to ease them. A deal too good to be true was almost always a trap, and these men had spent their entire lives beneath people who baited traps with kind words. Land was one of the great dividing lines between common and noble blood. To relinquish even a portion of that advantage was to hand power downward, and other nobles would look on such a thing with suspicion.
Naturally, Theodorus could not simply gift land to the peasantry outright. That would be a breach of his arrangement with the Crown, which had granted him a fair degree of autonomy in the handling of his subjects and the northern administration, but not the right to rewrite the Principality’s laws by personal whim. There was also the less legal matter of appearances. If it were taken too radically, this measure could be branded as populism, and among the Medieval elite, that was the sort of mark that could turn both the Church and the nobility against him at the drop of a hat.
Theodorus was operating well within the letter of the law. Leasing land in such a way that the payments counted against a later purchase was not some revolutionary invention, even in 1460. It was common enough practice, though usually between lords, monasteries, and wealthy men of standing. Doing so with the common folk was a loophole, and one he had studied at tedious length through consultation with Demetrios, Zeno, Theophylact, and his brother.
“In practice,” Theodorus said, letting his voice carry just enough, “this means that if you can scrounge up the money to acquire a parcel of land, and if you can make the payments without default, then the land will pass into your possession, and after you, to your children.”
Theodorus could see hope in the men's eyes as he spoke, though most tried to hide it beneath weathered expressions and cautious frowns. What peasant did not dream, somewhere in the secret part of his heart, of toiling for himself and his children? It was not merely a matter of paying less to a lord, nor even of pride, though there was plenty of that too. It was the thought of having something that could be named as theirs. A field one’s son might inherit. A patch of earth to stand upon and say ‘This is mine’.
“Forgive me for my impertinence, my lord.” A rough voice came from the tail end of the table.
Theodorus was not surprised to see Pantelis leaning forward, thick hands planted on the wood. The old man was craftier than he looked, and far less dazzled by grand promises than some of the younger headmen.
“But what would the payment look like?” Pantelis asked. “And how would the value be decided?”
“It would depend on the wealth, size, and productive quality of the land in question,” Theodorus answered. “First, surveyors will assess each parcel directly. They will consider the soil, water access, existing vines or orchards, proximity to roads, and the usual yield of the surrounding fields before any price is named. So it may be some time before I can give you concrete details.”
A few men murmured at that, not quite displeased, but already calculating.
“Only chartered villages will be surveyed,” Theodorus added, his gaze moving steadily from one headman to the next. “And those villages will have exclusive rights to purchase their surrounding lands before any outside party may make a claim.”
That made the room go still again. Pantelis’s eyes widened slightly as he saw the trick hidden beneath the generosity.
Theodorus was gating access to this new, radical reform behind the village charters, adding yet another incentive for communities to adopt the practice of their own free will. He could have commanded villages to obey his reforms by decree, of course. But as with most things, Theodorus believed incentives and structure would outlast blind loyalty and fear every time. Men forced into obedience looked for the first chance to wriggle free. Men who thought they had chosen a path themselves would defend it with surprising stubbornness.
“There will also be a new tax structure introduced for holdings that are being paid off,” Theodorus continued. “Such land will be taxed at a flat rate proportional to one-fiftieth of its assessed value. No fluctuations according to a steward’s mood, no sudden hikes after a good harvest, and no arbitrary reinterpretation of what is owed. Those who remain under the current lease agreements will not benefit from this arrangement and will continue under the old system of proportional tribute.”
A few men leaned back, scratching at their beards, others frowning as if trying to decide whether the words were good. Yet in Theodorus’s mind, this was one of the most crucial pieces of the whole reform.
Medieval taxation suffered from a subjective, interpretative tribute system that was ripe for abuse. The difference between a fair lord and a predatory one was often not law, but temperament. A bad steward could squeeze a village dry by deciding that a harvest had been better than the villagers claimed, or that an old obligation meant something more than it had the year before. By laying out tax dues clearly, Theodorus would reduce uncertainty for his subjects. For the first time, they could plan beyond the next season with some confidence.
That mattered more than the headmen seemed to grasp.
If a man knew the sum he owed each year, then every extra bushel, every lamb raised beyond expectation became something he could keep rather than something a tax collector might reinterpret into the lord’s share. A flat obligation turned improvement into personal gain. It gave the peasant an actual reason to drain a marshy patch, repair a terrace wall, loan animals between households, or help fund an irrigation ditch that would not pay for itself until years later. That level of agency, humble as it sounded, was revolutionary.
That was the bedrock of the entire arrangement. Not charity, not sentiment, and certainly not some foolish dream of peasants suddenly becoming philosopher-farmers overnight. Theodorus wanted to make productivity the obvious choice.
“We have to pay a tenth of the value upfront?” Stratos asked.
Agape’s father, the headman of Kerasia, spoke with careful respect, offering Theodorus a deep nod even as concern roughened his voice. “But how are we to have that kind of money, my lord? I do not know if I have a handful of coin on me.”
It was more than a fair argument.
In a state as poor as northern Theodoro, the idea of most peasants having even the few silver stavrata ready for investment was nearly laughable. Coin moved thinly through the villages, and what little did appear was usually swallowed by taxes, tools, or debts.
In truth, Theodorus’s most likely investors under this scheme were not the peasants at all, at least not at first, but the somewhat wealthy and maligned merchant class. He had already gathered investment from the nobility, who were fabulously wealthy in comparison but few in number. Now he meant to tap into the lower market, drawing coin toward Suyren’s depleted treasury in small, but vast amounts of deposits. Unlike the cement money, these funds could be used more flexibly, whether for castle maintenance, administration, repairs, wages, or the thousand mundane expenses that made governance less a glorious burden and more an endless leak in the roof.
But he did not want a monopoly of landed estates held by a wealthy commoner class. That would merely give rise to a new sort of landed elite, and he had no intention of flirting with the idea of a bourgeoisie before he was ready to. The whole point was to spread ownership outward, to decentralize it, to encourage village-based and collective holding rather than allow a handful of clever men with heavy purses to swallow everything around them. It was one of the reasons he had limited the acquisition of land around a village to the local residents and no one else.
“It is true,” Theodorus said, “that this is an amount of ready coin many of you may not have on hand. For that reason, the arrangement will allow any number of people to join together to purchase a given plot, and chartered villages may do the same as a community. There will, however, be strict limits on how many plots of land a given village or individual may acquire.”
Theodorus opened his hand and gestured to the man seated on the other side of his chair, beyond Zeno. He had been waiting quietly, dressed like a man who wanted to look ostentatious enough to cow the farmers into submission.
“You may also choose to obtain a loan through us,” Theodorus said, unveiling the next piece of the scheme, “from the soon-to-be-established Genoese counting houses in the north.”
The Genoese merchant from the noble investment meeting inclined his head as several of the headmen turned toward him.
Conflicted looks spread across the gathered men’s faces.
They had only ever heard the name Genoa spoken in curses, or else in the grim reports that came whenever another war broke out along the coast. There was no love lost between the Principality and the merchant republic, and the thought of owing money to men they had been taught to hate sat poorly with them. It was one thing to trade grudgingly with an enemy because they were forced to. It was another to sign one’s future harvests into their ledgers.
Theodorus had expected that reluctance, but normalizing the use of credit and small profit-contingent loans would be revolutionary in a place like northern Theodoro. In a sense, they were lucky to have such close proximity to one of the few economic institutions of the 15th century capable of enabling such a system.
It was no exaggeration to say that such practices formed one of the engines behind capitalism, a vastly more efficient method of generating revenue than squeezing static dues from the same exhausted villages year after year. A slow economy could be coaxed into motion if men were given the means to invest before they already possessed wealth.
And Theodoro could not wait decades.
Every policy Theodorus had introduced so far had been a careful attempt to cradle the dangerous edge between reform and modern revolution. He needed to change enough to matter, yet not so much that his enemies could point and cry radicalism before the whole elite order of the Principality. It was a thin rope to walk upon, and the drop beneath it was unpleasantly visible. But caution could not become paralysis. He needed visible improvements, and he needed them quickly enough that peasants, headmen, nobles, and merchants could all look at his administration and see results rather than promises, and have no choice but to swallow their criticism enough for him to move on to the next set of reforms.
He could have made Suyren itself take a loan from the Genoese and used that money to improve the land from above. It might even have been simpler. But simplicity was not the point. That would have accomplished little of the deeper purpose behind the measure, which was to enable agency to the people beneath him. He wanted to drive productivity, yes, but just as crucially, he wanted to teach an overwhelmingly illiterate population the power of responsible borrowing and fiscal management.
It was idealistic, and reality rarely followed theory with obedient steps. There would be plenty of growing pains before this structure became anything resembling stable. Some men would borrow too much, some would fail honestly, yet that was also why he had chosen this diluted loan scheme, rather than allowing the Genoese counting houses to descend on the countryside with no oversight. He wanted to minimize the damage as much as possible.
Every failed scheme would yield another piece of influence the Genoese would hold over them, but that was a risk Theodorus was willing to pay. In his mind, it was the lesser of the two evils.
“I can sense your reticence, and I understand it,” Theodorus said, choosing to strike at the issue before suspicion had worked its way into the men's minds. “Owing money is a risk. No one here will be forced into it, nor will any man be expected to understand such arrangements without guidance. All loans will be handled through intermediaries here at Suyren, men appointed to advise you and placed under strict orders to prevent predatory agreements from being made. We will protect you.” He tried to convey his honesty.
By placing Suyren between the counting houses and the villages, Theodorus gained tighter control over the transactions, the ability to monitor the state of each property, and a way to ease the peasantry into a system they would otherwise reject on instinct alone. It would also place a heavy burden on their fledgling bureaucracy. Every contract would have to be recorded, every payment tracked, every dispute mediated over the course of years.
“Do you not wish the sweat of your brow to leave something behind for your children?” Theodorus asked, watching the question land more deeply than any explanation of interest rates ever could. “Not merely to work land until your hands crack and your backs bend, only for another man’s steward to decide what portion of your labour was truly yours. This could be something you pass to your sons and daughters years from now. Something that bears your name because you endured long enough to claim it.”
That struck the chord he had hoped for.
Winning these men over was half the battle to winning their villages. As headmen, they were uniquely suited to become some of the first beneficiaries of the policy, possessing both more means than the common villager and enough respect to make others pay attention. Once a man saw another’s field improve, his children better fed, his house repaired with coin earned from his own extra yield, they would have no choice but to do the same or fall behind.
There were pitfalls on that path, but the men of this poor Principality were already well acquainted with hardship. The difference was that this one might actually lead somewhere.
It would be extremely slow and hard to properly implement this system and for it to gain traction in a deeply superstitious society, but that worked in Theodorus’s favour.
The entire arrangement depended on Suyren possessing enough administration to survey land, assign value and rent, monitor lending, collect the flat tax from scattered villages, and keep proper records of every chartered settlement.
In fact, almost every reform Theodorus had envisioned depended on a trained and sufficiently large bureaucracy in Suyren. At present, they were perhaps weeks away from anything resembling a functioning local administration, let alone the months it would take to create a truly bureaucratic north.
There was no raucous cheer at the end of the announcement. No swelling approval, no theatrical displays of peasants throwing themselves at his feet in thanks. Only quiet, as men contemplated their new lord’s words, his promises, and most crucially, his demands.
“Your idea’s interestin’, milord,” said a younger headman, a broad-shouldered man with no grey in his hair yet and a thick rural accent that dragged at every syllable. “But all’s contingent on the charterin’, yes? What’s that about?”
Theodorus snapped his fingers.
At the signal, Demetrios and Stefanos entered the great hall with a host of servants behind them, each carrying bundles of parchment tied in neat stacks. Several of the headmen straightened at once, eyes narrowing as the documents were distributed before them. A few touched the parchment as though it might bite.
“That which you hold there would serve as your village’s charter,” Theodorus said.
He watched them glance down at the writing, though not one face showed the faintest hint of comprehension. Still, the weight of the parchment mattered, as did the seal. Symbols had their own language, even where literacy failed.
“In sum, the charter details the benefits of becoming a chartered village, namely those I have already mentioned, as well as the obligations that come attached to them.”
Theodorus let his gaze pass over the gathered men.
“You have all seen the grain promised to your villages in our granary.”
Several heads nodded at once. They had seen it, and more importantly, they had measured it in their minds against the hollow bellies waiting for them back home.
“That grain is payment for necessary works that will now be required in every chartered village. Each settlement must construct a latrine and a proper composting pit, and each must abide by the new sanitation rules that will be carried out in any village covered by the agreement.”
He saw the confusion this caused. Theodorus intended to expand the measures he had implemented in Suyren into every village under his control, one latrine at a time if he had to.
“Representatives of the chartered villages will also be permitted to convene here in Suyren twice per year,” he continued, “to bring grievances or requests to me in person. Each village will further be required to maintain a centralized granary for food consumption according to specifications we will provide.”
That demand landed poorly.
Taking grain out of family homes and placing it into a central building, one whose contents would be known to the Crown, sounded less like protection and more like the first step toward confiscation. A man did not have to read Aristotle to understand that food gathered in one place was easier to steal.
“I will be plain,” Theodorus said. “You have seen the lack of food in the countryside. Not everyone will survive until harvest if we do not buckle our belts and ration what remains." It was a harrowing statement, but Theodorus would wield the naked truth as a weapon. "For all chartered villages, rationing through a central granary will be mandatory. Portions will be agreed upon in advance, recorded, and distributed according to household need.”
He leaned forward slightly, letting the weight of the next words settle before they were spoken.
“If your village does not pledge before God to abide by these rules, you will not receive the grain portion we have set aside for you. Nor will you receive the subsequent portions we intend to provide at regular intervals.”
Small curses passed through the gathered peasants, low enough that courtesy could pretend not to hear them. Invoking God was not done lightly and a promise made in his name was something most men would think twice about.
He planned to send relief packages twice more before harvest, each contingent on the villages obeying the protocols. It was harsh, perhaps even coercive, but hunger was harsher. If he let each household hoard in panic, the weakest would die first or turn to banditry before they did.
This was the bare minimum required for the north to withstand the coming famine. Ironically enough, even villages had their own hierarchies to preserve. The well-off families, those with larger fields, more animals, and stronger kinship ties, had likely hoarded more than enough grain to last until harvest, while poorer households would be forced to thin their meals. The problem was not merely scarcity, but inefficient distribution. Food existed, just not always where hunger did.
“I understand your plight,” Theodorus said. He’d laid out the stick, it was time for the carrot. “The north was drawn into an unwilling rebellion and is now paying the price for a war it did not choose. That is why, in chartered villages that comply with the survey and these policies, all arrears before today will be forgiven.”
“Impossible!” one of the headmen shouted before he could restrain himself, his face flushing a deep red as he realized he had spoken over his lord, but his shock was hardly unique.
Exclamations and disbelieving whispers coursed through the villagers, spreading from one end of the table to the other. Even those who managed to keep their mouths shut stared at Theodorus as though he had just announced he meant to dam the sea with his own hands.
The thunderous declaration was the final push meant to carry these men through the hard demands he was placing upon them. Theodorus was asking for much, but he would give just as much back.
Forgiving previous debts would wipe the slate clean for families that had spent years, sometimes generations, bent beneath arrears owed to their lords. Such debts were one of the subtler forms of bondage exercised throughout the countryside. An indenture that edged close enough to slavery that the difference often existed only in legal phrasing.
Monasteries and lords alike used arrears as a chain, tightening it whenever a family grew too desperate to resist. To forgive such a thing might be the first real step out of generational poverty.
It beggared belief that Theodorus would give up such control over his subjects. Zeno had said as much, and he smoldered disapprovingly now, hearing the announcement. However, Theodorus had no need for methods that ruled by crushing men until they could no longer stand upright.
Most of those families would never realistically repay the debts hanging over them. He was not giving up much actual currency. With this he was buying his subjects something money could never purchase outright.
Hope.
For the men gathered here, in the span of a scant few minutes, their new lord had broken through nearly every known convention of authority. He had not summoned them merely to demand more grain, more labour, or more obedience. He had offered land, a clean slate, and the possibility that their children might inherit something more substantial than hunger. This meal had turned whatever impressions they held of him completely on their head.
It would go down in the history and local lore of all who witnessed it. That much was certain. What remained to be seen was whether all these promises would yield anything meaningful in return.
…
The feast lasted well past noon and bled into the late afternoon before the headmen began excusing themselves for the journey home. Those from farther-flung villages were offered places to stay within Suyren’s walls till the morrow.
The hall gradually emptied around them. Servants cleared trenchers and cups, and the smell of roasted meat and baked bread lingered in the air, clinging to the rafters long after the last of the headmen had bowed himself out.
Zeno excused himself almost immediately, his part in the meeting rendered complete. He offered the necessary courtesies and left with measured steps, but Theodorus watched him go, eyes searching across the stiffness of his back.
“Something worries you,” Demetrios said from beside him.
Theodorus turned slightly, finding the older man studying him.
“I thought the meeting went according to plan. All but one of the headmen agreed to the terms. I am still not entirely sure how asking the Genoese for money will somehow make us more money," Demetrios shrugged his shoulders, "but you have been adamant that one needs money to make money, so I will trust you.”
“Using money you do not have to generate wealth through other means is the only way to quickly raise revenue when you are cash-strapped,” Theodorus said. “If the loan is paid off, then every future return becomes profit. But even before that point, the infrastructure built with the borrowed money is real. Roads, presses, mills, irrigation channels, animals, tools. The north benefits from all those things before the accounts are even settled, and so do the people who live upon it.”
Demetrios’s expression tightened as he followed the argument to its less pleasant conclusion. “Even if they default and the Bank of St. George takes possession of it?”
“Yes,” Theodorus answered, though the word tasted bitter. “We still benefit from having those things built.”
“Us and the Bank, not the people,” Demetrios's eyes narrowed in accusation.
“The exceptions do not make the rule,” Theodorus replied, his voice turning colder than he meant it to. “Some will inevitably collapse under the weight of their own greed or poor judgment. I cannot prevent every man from ruining himself without also preventing everyone else from moving forward.”
It was callous, but he had to be impartial if he meant to rule. Results mattered. He had believed that before, and after his mistake in the meeting with Thaddeus, he did not want to make another one again.
Demetrios watched him for a long moment, the lines around his eyes deepening. “That is not what is eating away at you, then.”
Theodorus fell quiet.
His fingers drifted to the arm of the chair on which he sat, tracing the worn wood.
Once, Adanis had made decisions from this same seat, decisions that rippled outward through every village under his domain.
Theodorus wondered if the callousness and arrogance of lords came from cruelty alone, or if some of it grew from the sheer necessity of having to issue decrees that will ripple out immeasurably. To sit here was to accept that thousands of lives could be bent by a single judgment from you, and then to trust that it was the right one.
How could you live with your mistakes if you didn’t believe them to be the fault of those beneath you?
“I went to great lengths today to frame the measure as an extension of the previous leasing proposal,” Theodorus said at last. “A new kind of lease, but built from old arrangements. The rents will be paid out in the long term, and they will remain reversible at our discretion. Even those who succeed will still owe a base rent to us. The bottom line is, despite all the pretty words I used, they will remain under the Crown’s yoke, though on a much looser leash.”
Demetrios did not interrupt. He merely listened, which Theodorus was thankful for. The old servant often knew when he needed it the most.
“For the clergy and nobility, the speech I gave today cannot reach their ears in that form,” Theodorus’s face darkened. “What they need to hear is that the Crown managed to scrounge coin from the peasantry by encouraging them to take loans from the Genoese. That we tricked even those poorer than us into assuming risk so the treasury would not have to. That the money drawn out through this arrangement can be used for roads, granaries, mills, and other works that will also benefit the estates and monasteries.” His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “Properly framed, the nobility can accept a great many unorthodox measures, provided those measures sound sufficiently self-serving.”
Demetrios followed the line of his gaze toward the doorway, where Zeno’s straight-backed figure was disappearing into the corridor beyond. “And you think they might not be framed that way?”
Theodorus’s eyes narrowed.
He was cradline the edge of the authority afforded to him. He had contingencies in place, but he could not afford a single careless mistake. Not now.
“Have Zeno watched,” Theodorus said, taking a slow breath to steady himself. “Discreetly.”
Demetrios’s brows rose. “You have said yourself that he was responsible for double-crossing both the Genoese and Philemon at the same time. From what I have seen of the man, he is far too canny for anyone we can put on him.”
As an unofficial spymaster himself, Demetrios’s assessment carried weight. It was high praise, in its own uncomfortable way.
“That is only true if we play his game by his rules,” Theodorus said, a small smile beginning to form. “You do not challenge a master at his own game. You use his knowledge against him.”
Demetrios looked at that smile and seemed to understand his lord was already halfway into another one of his schemes.
“Even if we have him watched,” Demetrios said, his earlier humour fading, “how do we possibly combat a man who holds many of the same powers as you, and who was placed in his position precisely to check yours? If we begin acting against him openly, it will become a drawn-out battle of seals, orders and legal accusations, and the Prince might not even back us. In the end, the policies will stall before they ever reach the villages. It is a losing battle, my Lord.” It was a dampening thought, and it was unerringly right.
Goddammit.
He could not afford to fight a corrupt system left to fester for centuries while also sidestepping and outwitting his own co-ruler.
He did not have time for this. Could none of them see past their tiny, prejudiced horizons to how backwards and rotten this whole society was? He was trying to drag the Principality into something close to a position from which it might survive the impossible storm of green and crimson banners gathering beyond history’s horizon. And all these self-serving idiots were doing was-
“Calm yourself,” Demetrios said softly.
It was only then that Theodorus realized his nails were digging into his palm hard enough to leave crescent marks. He unclenched his hand, feeling the sting as blood returned to his fingers.
“You are too hard on yourself, my Lord,” Demetrios’s tone was tender. “Look at all you have already accomplished in just a few short weeks.” He gestured around them, toward the hall where the most consequential meeting of Theodorus’s short reign had just unfolded. “Look at where we were a year ago. Since your father passed away, you have never truly rested. You have never stopped long enough to take stock of what you have achieved, only to chastise yourself for what you haven’t.”
There was sorrow in his tone, and it struck Theodorus in a way an accusation would not have. He had not truly considered what the breakneck pace of the last year might have done to those around him. He had felt the exhaustion, but stopping had never crossed his mind. For everything he had achieved, it was still so little compared to what was coming.
“I can’t,” Theodorus said, his head hanging low. The truth hurt to say aloud.
He was tired. Half the days, he had to force himself out of bed through willpower alone. He was afraid nearly every waking hour, constantly doubting decisions he had no choice but to make anyway.
“What are you chasing?” Demetrios asked, disbelief in his voice. “I have seen many of the trials you have faced, and endured some of them beside you. Yet through all the successes we have celebrated, I have never felt anything close to joy from you, my Lord. Relief, yes, sudden and short-lived, but joy?” He shook his head, the words echoing in the empty hall. “I have not seen that in you since your father died.”
How could Theodorus explain it to him? That everyone he cared for could be wiped away in a few scant years if he failed. That he was racing against history itself. That this life did not fully feel like his own to live, because it had only begun as another boy’s dream, another boy’s prayers.
This was not his story after all.
“I understand if it is too much for you, Demetrios,” Theodorus said with a sad smile. For all the impossible power that his promises seemed to have over him, they never acted upon him when he might speak of the future. “You do not have to follow me.”
Each word hurt more than he expected. Demetrios was the truest friend he had found in this time, the only person who could look at the machinery of his mind and see something more than greatness or ambition.
“Where I am going, there is only more work, more pain, and more suffering.”
Theodorus rose from the chair like a man freshly pulled from a grave, every movement feeling like a battle against some fading will that had to puppet his body forward by force. It was not joy that drove him, nor some ambition for greatness.
It was hatred.
Hatred for himself, for this cruel world, for whoever had put him here against his will.
Hatred for the fact he was only an impostor stealing another boy’s life.