Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 863

Chapter 863: Results(1)

There probably wasn’t another prince in all the lands who spent so much time dealing about people who toiled in shit.

That, at least, was Alpheo’s first thought as his ears trudged through the latest reports from the royal mines , half of whose output he had, by decree, redirected into the agricultural programs now scattered across his princedom.

Pontus, ever the eager steward, was rattling off numbers beside him , ore yields, smelting costs, projections for the next quarter if manpower is increased, his hands flapping like a bird trying to escape its own excitement. His enthusiasm was genuine, loyal even, but the sound of it faded to a dull hum in Alpheo’s ears.

His mind wandered.

I wonder how my life would have gone if I had become a merchant as I had meant instead of grabbing the crown I now have through blood.

The thought almost made him smile. I’d probably have bought an island by now, filled it with warehouses and docks, and made it the Venice of this world.

But the smile faded as quickly as it came. He remembered what had become of Venice , the slow decay of a state.

No, that was not the road he wished for his people.

Wealth was only useful when it anchored power, not when it replaced it.

Many of his decisions, the ones that his advisors whispered about and his rivals mocked , the unprofitable reforms, the seemingly mad spending on peasant tools, new roads, and resettlement of vagabonds and foreigners, all came from that belief.

Four years ago, his entire princedom had turned around two crafts: soap and cider. That had been its heartbeat.

And if that heartbeat had ever faltered, if one secret recipe or process had ever slipped into the hands of another nation, then his entire realm , his army, his crown, would have starved and drowned with it.

Not anymore.

He had poured his mind and gold into diversifying his dominion. Iron mines in the southern hills. Clay and brickworks along the river.Textile production , winery and oilery, restructured,

Even now, he knew that if cider or soap were to lose their market tomorrow, and that day would come , he would bleed, yes , but not die. The White Army would march still, the crown would stand still. His enemies could wound him, not ruin him.

A dull thud yanked him out of his thoughts.

A bundle of thick papers hit the floor near the door with a dry slap. Pontus startled mid-sentence, blinking toward the sound, as another man , thin and tall, bent to gather the fallen stack.

“My apologies, Your Grace,” Aron said, straightening the disordered sheaf in his arms. “It slipped.”

Alpheo’s eyes lingered on him for a long moment, he had caught his prince drifting again, lost in the fog of his own plans and woke him up.

He was growing warm to the man.

Pontus, sensing that the moment of distraction had passed, cleared his throat and tried to resume his report, but Alpheo had other plans.

He did not know at what point Pontus was, so he changed the subject

“I’ve heard enough about the mines and the furnaces,” the prince interrupted ”Tell me instead, how goes the construction of the fortress?”

Pontus’s expression relented a bit. He of course recognised the importance of what he was building, and the excitement he felt for it was only evened by the anxiety to finish it by time.

As without it, the White Army would have no shield against what was coming.

The minister straightened himself and clasped his hands around a paper in the middle of the bundle. “Until now, Your Grace, we have encountered no significant setbacks. We have started building the outer wall, as the foundations have been finished”

He hesitated for a fraction of a second before continuing. “If we proceed at the current rate…” He coughed lightly, eyes flicking away for a heartbeat. “And if funds continue to be allocated as they have been… we should finish by the early months of the third year.”

Both of them knew that the near-empty coffers were Pontus’s doing as much as Alpheo’s, though for different reasons. Pontus had spent all the silver he had been thrown, and Alpheo had no qualms to stop his hands from throwing more.

The prince did not rebuke him. He simply nodded, slow and thoughtful, fingers drumming once against the armrest of his chair. “I see,” he murmured. “Then we are still on schedule.”

Pontus inclined his head in silent affirmation, though his shoulders sagged in quiet relief.

“Leave those papers on my desk,” Alpheo continued, turning his gaze back to the flickering candlelight that danced across the table’s polished surface. “I’ll read through them later this evening.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” Pontus bowed . He placed the bundled reports neatly upon the prince’s desk before retreating toward the door. The sound of his boots faded against the stone floor until the chamber was quiet again.

“I could not hear one word more of that,” Alpheo said flatly, cutting through the lingering silence that followed Pontus’s departure. There was no apology in his tone, nor was there any need for one, he was prince after all. “My mind is already heavy as it is. I have no use for more numbers and predictions about things that are already mine, not when there are men scheming to take them from me.”

He paused, catching the slight flicker of unease in Aron’s eyes, the young royal envoy’s fingers tightening around the leather-bound folder in his hands. Alpheo’s expression softened by a fraction. “But I am digressing,” he added, with a faint sigh. “You’ve brought numbers of your own, haven’t you? Let us hear them.”

Aron inclined his head, grateful for the shift in tone. “Would Your Grace prefer to begin with the farming program or the trade reforms?”

Alpheo leaned back in his chair, his gaze distant for a moment, as though listening to something only he could hear. “Dirt,” he said at last, “is the mother and tomb of all things. Begin there.”

Aron nodded once. “Very well, Your Grace. I’ll spare you the exact figures then but suffice it to say, they cannot seem to get enough of it. The batch of iron tools you sent just a week ago is already gone, every single piece claimed. We now have a waiting list that spans three dozen villages, all eager for the next shipment.”

Alpheo’s brows arched ever so slightly. Now that is a surprise, he thought.

He had doubted from the start that simple farmers , would grasp the long-term benefit of iron tools.No one wished after all to pay double the taxes for years.

He had expected the program to trickle slowly into the countryside, taking months, perhaps a year, before word of improved yields convinced others to follow.

And yet here they were , clamoring for shovels, hoes, and plows as if they were made of gold.

How could they have understood it?

He realized he spoke the thought aloud.

Aron smiled faintly. “Well Your Grace, they did not. Most of them were probably against the idea,but when they were told that the yield could increase by half , and that the claim came directly from the crown, they needed little convincing.As a matter of fact they jumped for it, especially after hearing of the repayment method you established, nearly every village head who could still hold a quill signed up his name on the contract at once.”

He soon regretted having done that.

He had offered generous terms because he thought no one would come , because the risk was given expecting the experiment to fail otherwhise. But now that demand was higher than supply, he couldn’t help but wince at the loss it would bring him.

Perhaps I should have set the rates higher, he thought ruefully. They would have still accepted.

The entire program had been designed to bleed silver from the treasury in the short term. Each plow, each axe, each iron-bound tool cost more to produce than it returned , at least for now. He had to pay the blacksmiths, the foundry keepers, the transporters. And while the ore itself came cheaply from his mines, refining it into iron fit for farming was another matter entirely.

Fortunately, Alpheo had at least been spared the cost of miners. His mines ran on state labor , men sentenced to years of hard work in lieu of the gallows. Their sentences were measured not in months, but in cartloads of ore hauled to the surface, when they paid the fine they were assigned they would be freed.

It was most certainly not as brutal as it sounded. The prisoners were fed four times a day , with simple fare of bread, beans, and salted meat, and they worked eight hours, no more.

They, after all were not slave, and really Alpheo could not care about always finding replacements for those who died after a month of work.

Not to say that in it there were also some parts of Alpheo’s thoughts regarding the law…