Chapter 4. Family Time And Sweet Time
Time slips away like it's greased. Admittedly, for the given tech level, I'm actually making pretty good progress. Dwarves are beginning to arrive. There's nineteen of them now, and they've finally produced a list of things they think they will require set up. Apparently, they intend to use a number of puddling furnaces. By contemporary standards, it is a modern method, even. But for my plans this is insufficient. Oh, I will permit them to set... hm. Two furnaces will be sufficient. But for major works, I'm going to introduce them to Vagran furnace. I was considering construction of Marten furnace, but there's a hundred and one things I need to introduce first. Starting with properly heat-resistant bricks. Complicated.
Farming is a little easier by comparison. I've used the funds father rather gleefully dispensed to my discretion to set up a number of herbal fields. Mint, rosemary, cumin... Unfortunately, I have to limit myself to herbs that can tolerate a cool climate until I have enough of glassworking in place to construct some greenhouses. Apparently, herbs I'm interested in are known and used as mostly decorative specimens, due to alkaloid intensity. This is an interesting data point, by the way. By my rough estimate, plants tend to have about an order of magnitude on alkaloid concentration versus what I'm used to. Consequences of widespread magic use?
Discussing things with merchants. Requested samples of everything "exotic" they can get their mitts on. Greedy bastards. I'd need to look into establishing our own merchant guild, I think. Some regulation would do wonders for the economics here. Logistics are a horror on a stick. The best (and pretty much ONLY) cargo option over the land is horse-drawn carriages. The effects of this are widespread and less than pleasing. Trade primarily revolves around luxury goods and other things with the high price to volume ratio. Bulk shipments are... well. I shudder to think of possible famine - transporting lots of food across the land would be ruinously expensive, in time, in manpower and in upkeep. If I were to, for example, attempt to send humanitarian aid of grain to the Red Mountain (About seven hundred miles to the southeast, give or take.) a full quarter of the grain would be eaten by the porters in process, and it would take until winter to get there, given that the most economic option for that kind of ferry would be oxen-pulled wagons.
Provinces all have to be mostly self-sufficient, and that finds ready reflection in politics. Feudalism. King is nominally in charge of a country, but in practice has absolute authority only within royal holdings in and around the capital. Armies are collected by calling a levy out of provinces closest to the intended conflict, stiffened by core teams of private armies that double as police in peacetime. The big trump king has over the rest of feudals is the knight order, which is the only organization of career military men. Knights are third and fourth sons, illegitimate bastards and otherwise relatives of lords that don't stand much of a chance to inherit land. I'd expect there to be several dynasties of knights, but apparently king's policy is to award some kind of land to any firstborn serving as a knight as a retirement gift. That is, if one of the high lords didn't make an offer before that. Unstable job market in that regard, apparently losing your land is as easy as being absent from it for longer than three months. Or being caught committing treason. Or being conquered in the border skirmish. The last one is amusing - the kingdom will usually conduct an operation to retake the lands, but they won't be returned to the conquered landlord. Instead, land that had to be reconquered by the kingdom is reverted to king's "fund" of retirement parcels. The border between Kraut and Champagne is fairly static, but the borders with southern Oija Sultanate change practically daily.
Back to our muttons. I've hired several young girls to produce cold medicine. Well, mixing it. I do the final enchantment, they were... skeptical about my insistence they should be able to learn to do so quickly. Still, they do the exercises I've prescribed to them daily, and show some improvement. Insofar, about one tenth of medicine is enchanted by their collective efforts. I'm experimenting with the mix, while at it. Packaging it into wooden cups with stoppers is fine for short-range distribution, but not particularly convenient for travels or selling the stuff further than next provinces. There are sizable corn fields in the farmland just a little way out of the city, experimenting with corn starch to maybe fashion the mix into some sort of candy drops. Need to figure out something about wrappers. Honey is not a problem, thankfully, but that is simply my luck that the province I was born into has a long tradition of apiary production. Northern honey is apparently praised for it's aroma and sweetness.
Messing with roses. Rose oil would be a big seller, it has lots of cosmetic and culinary uses, but I'm not sure roses available are suitable. I've been able to extract rosewater, but reducing it to essential oils is problematic. Mother loves it, had been adding it to her tea every time she has a cup. Mixed the oils with rectified grain alcohol, made primitive perfume. Got hugs for it. Father sampled rectified alcohol, went coughing and called it a "challenge to all men". Had to take off two days and commission Rory to construct a proper still. Hired two boys to work it. Two barrels so far, racking up quickly. Grain vodka is cheap, apparently it's THE hard liquor available. Ouzo is simply that plus a handful of anise seeds into a barrel and a couple months of waiting. Primitive.
Introduced rectified alcohol cut with honey, called it "knight mead". Got the whole tavern pig-squealingly drunk by accident. More hires, tavern now offers knight mead as a standard beverage. Dwarves challenge each other to down a mug of unflavored rectified alcohol. Two went down with mild alcohol poisoning, practiced healing magic. Getting injured visitors now. Annoying. Complicated. Have reputation, overheard girls in the village gossiping about "Miracle Lady". Damn. This... is not to plan. People, what the hell. Society can not be this static, why does every single thing come across as divine revelation? If I keep up at it, I'm going to attract royal attention. Father's talking about presenting the king with ripple steel. Not yet. Maybe end of summer, I have to depart for Magic Academy anyways. Might as well. Hasslesome. Busy, very busy. A hundred and one things to do to do a hundred and two things to get a hundred and three things I want. NO COFFEE! Hear rumors about cava bean, apparently costs it's weight in gold to import from Sultanate. Literally, they weigh beans against coins. Ordered some purchased anyway, but not sure how soon I will have it. Best case, end of summer just before I depart for Academy. Fuck.
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If I were not an eldritch abomination, I would have a migraine right now. Calculating the investments I'd need to make to get some fucking coffee. Not feasible to buy it at gold's weight constantly. Wonder if I can produce something Sultanate would want to buy badly enough to consent exchanging cava for it. Setting a quill into an inkwell, I sign and rub my forehead. So tiresome.
"Ah, Alyssa, here you are." - mother has impeccable timing. I could use a distraction. "Come, leave the dusty parchments for a while." - she admonishes, nudging my side. Sighing, I follow her outside to the gazebo. Yep, we have a gazebo. One of the things I did not have to invent, thankfully. It's already set for tea.
"You really should slow down, dear. At this rate, I fear you'll enter Academy blind from all the writing and faint from all the work you do." - Elene continues, her face worried - "No need to work yourself to the bone like that. Gods witness you have already done more for our domain then some lords do in their whole life for theirs. Cures, spirits, steel, all those herbs... Gerard had to order a new chest yesterday, even."
I'm a bit taken back. A chest? What's THAT about? So I do the obvious thing and ask - "Chest? What for?"
Mother giggles. "For coin, Alyssa! With all those things going on you've been bringing so much profit it won't fit in his usual chest. Goodness, at your age you should be spending, not earning." - she proffers - "Slow down a little, give Gerard some time to get used to things. At this rate, the things we sell across the kingdom will double before long." She pauses and then inquires - "Actually, I have to ask something. Why were you so interested in those beets lately? Herbs, I understand, but what good a beet is? They're too hard to eat, unless you're a horse."
Ah. Well, that's one of the things that went right. We do have plenty of sugar beet. The thing is, it is used as food for livestock and not much else. Sugar is not a thing that this kingdom knows. Yet. The best we get is sugarcane that is imported through Kraut kingdom from far south. Maybe Sultanate also has some, but they don't seem to offer that for sale here. "Ah, that." - I offer, standing up - "Let me show you... Oh, have someone fetch buns and butter from the kitchen, alright?"
Leaving intrigued Elene behind, I quickly enter my laboratory/workshop/spare room and pick up a cask of crystal sugar. Refining that took a while, but I'm happy with the results. As I come back, the buns and the butter are already there. And all three younger maids are hovering nearby goosenecking. I may have had taken to use them as go-to taste-testers lately. Thankfully, they don't mind. Actually, all of them are acutely interested in things I make. I suppose sweets of any sort are a rarity. For now.
With a thump, I set the cask down on the table and pop the lid. "This is sugar. Zuker, if you want to use Kraut term. The part that makes zukerrohr sweet without the rest of plant." - I offer an explanation, grinning as I see four jaws fall slack as one - "Yep, it can be extracted from the white beets." Casting a gimlet eye on the maids, I continue - "I'll keep the details of extraction a secret for now. Kindly don't go spreading this around, girls." All of the maids nod spastically, their eyes practically glued to the cask. Taking a bun, I slice it into quarters, slather some butter on top and generously sprinkle them with sugar, passing the plate around then. Mother first, obviously.
...Yeah, well, OK. Moaning is amusing but probably overacting. Seriously. This is just sugar, not powdered orgasm. Have some decorum.
"Let me guess." - Elene inquires, her tone half-wonderous and half-wry - "This is actually very cheap to make, but we'll be able to charge good gold for it simply because no one else knows you can get zukerrohr from beats."
"Just zuker, mom. Rohr part only grows in the far south, I can't make it here. Not without some seriously expensive measures, at least. But then again, sugar is the valuable part of both. Take that away, and remainder is really only good for feeding horses." - I offer in return - "Yes, yes, you can try pure sugar, if you want to, but no more than a teaspoon at once. Eating too much will just overwhelm your tastes." Four spoons sink into the cask before I even finish talking.