ã€ŠThe Petty Queen of Lullã€‹


 Chapter 1

    I float in the murky darkness, weightless, for I lack a body, but also so very heavy. My conscience sinks deeper and deeper, with an overwhelming desire to close my nonexistent eyes, and sleep.

    Is this what death feels like? Somewhat cliche, falling into an irresistible sleep, feeling a separation from one¡¯s own body, but there is no light pulling me towards heaven. There is nothing to see without eyes and no force to make me fall upwards. Only sinking and this morose feeling.

    In all sincerity, it¡¯s a bit of a letdown. I had wished for something a bit more spectacular but life and death are just natural, nothing to get excited over, I guess. Spectacles are a human construct, not tarry of gods to use, everything in nature just is and nothing more.

    Thinking these thoughts, I lull myself to sleep.

    ¡°Your majesty?¡±

    I jerk my head backward, gasping for breath and bug-eyed as if I had been drowning and desperate for air.¡°Your majesty!¡± an unfamiliar voice rings out beside me as footsteps creak on the floorboards. I feel two hands on my shoulders and the concerned look of this woman at my side.

    Wait a second, I know her- Evie? ¨C the maid, that¡¯s her name, that¡¯s right.

    With both complete understanding and befuddled surprise, I stare at her ¨C I don¡¯t know how long ¨C as the world comes into focus I almost jump noticing my shoulder at a glance. I bring my arm up to study its fair complexion and brownish freckles, this isn¡¯t me.

    My name is also Rosa Cruz Alvarez, born in Peru, daughter of a pair of engineers, I graduated from college 1 year ago, with a degree in history. I was working on my master¡¯s degree but had been hospitalized, and remember falling asleep what now seems an eternity ago, before waking up here.

    But no, I¡­

    My name, or at least, the name of this person whose body I¡¯m currently inhabiting is Eriu Oisin-Lluc, born in Algatolla and 20 years of age. Oisin is a prominent family in the mainland, ruling over the prosperous duchy of Eoghan, our side of the family had married into the Lluc house to the south and set up in their ancestral homeland in the island of Lull.

    While writing, Eriu suddenly felt very sleepy and laid down her head, that was her last memory before I got here.

    ¡°Evie,¡± I call out with some difficulty to the person holding me and realize my breathing is ragged and hoarse.

    ¡°Yes? Here, drink this¡±, she places a cup of water in front of me, which I gratefully, ravenously swallow, almost choking in the process. After some time, I¡¯m finally able to calm down a little bit, I take a long breath, and speak.

    ¡°What time is it? What was I doing? Ugh¡­¡± I bring my hands to my forehead and cover my eyes, I have a splitting headache all of sudden.

    ¡°Uh¡­¡± She takes a moment to consider my questions, but then continues ¡°It is the late afternoon, you were just about to sign a document provided by Lugh, as he asks you to once a month or so.¡± She pauses for a second and picks something off the table, I look up to her holding the bottle of wine that had been by my side ¡°It doesn''t do you good to drink so much alcohol, your majesty. You probably have become drowsy from it. You are no disciple of the god of wine to drink this recklessly.¡±

    God of wine? Already, there¡¯s a lot of questions floating around in my head, and Eriu¡¯s memories can only answer some of them,¡°That''s true,¡± I say dismissively as I stagger up and go to the bowl of water on a side table to rinse my face. The reflection in the bowl greets me, green eyes, burned chestnut hair, an impossibly pale and freckled face. Taking another long breath, I turn back to Evie, I open my mouth to speak, and then notice she is not human.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    I almost jump in surprise, causing her to step forward with a concerned look once again. Beyond her human face and body, she has a pair of cat ears jutting out of her head, and a tail that right now is tucked to her leg.

    I sink my face into my hands again, my headache only grows stronger as more of Eriu¡¯s memories flood in. There are dozens of other sentient species in this world beyond humans.

    Evie is the only maid Eriu had hired, and despite being the youngest was immediately promoted to head maid as soon as Eriu became queen. Looking at Evie plus Eriu¡¯s memories I can understand the reason why, though she never did anything too much to Evie as far as I can tell from her memories, she¡¯d ask for shoulder massages every now and then but that¡¯s as far as she went.

    Well, not that I¡¯m any different, I avert my gaze, trying to avoid looking at Evie directly and calm the strong desire to have her lie on my lap while I scratch the back of her ears.

    ¡°Wait,¡± I realize something and focus on it instead ¡°considering the size of my territory, shouldn''t my workload be larger?¡±

    Certainly. As I recall Eriu is the Petty Queen of Lull; the island isn''t big enough nor developed enough to be considered a true queendom, hence the petty in front of queen, but she was an independent ruler and there are multiple settlements in the island, Given the size of the domain¡­

    My maid was now giving me a curious look, ah yes, ¡°Nevermind, I remember now.¡± Eriu lets Lugh handle almost all of the administrative matters of the land, so I have more time for generally lazing about, I am not the most productive noble out there.

    I shake my head as I feel more and more memories flood in, it''s not really her fault either. As a woman in this primitive society, she never really expected to inherit. Her ¨C I guess mine now ¨C elder brother died when his ship sunk on a trip to the mainland, my father and younger brother perished soon after from a disease epidemic in the mainland when they were visiting our relatives¡¯ duchy, I guess measles or something.

    If her younger sibling had survived despite being younger by current inheritance laws he had a stronger claim than hers, and so should have inherited. Given the minuscule chance she would be able to inherit the title, she decided to embrace a life of pleasure and dallying, spending most of her time away from the domain in parties, never bothering to study much or find a suitable partner.

    Given that paying enough ships to come conquer this island would be more trouble than it was worth, the Oisin-Llucs didn''t need the alliances that come through marriage ties either, and female nobles were more or less useless otherwise, so they left Eriu to her own devices, idleness is an accepted role of the aristocracy, after all.

    How fortuitous to the people of this island, that they should come under the rule of such an incompetent queen, I smirk at the thought. Well, diligent nobles are often worse for the common folk, if the island is run mostly by freemen administrators they are unlikely to be needlessly cruel.

    ¡°Uhm, your majesty?¡± Evie had come closer while I was thinking, and now she was very close, and unavoidable, startling me, ¡°You haven¡¯t finished signing the documents¡±

    The small stack of papers on the table, Eriu never reads any documents before signing them, and he only sparingly sends something over, so her monthly workload for the realm barely scratches an hour, given some other small obligations she occasionally has to do.

    I cover my face with my hands once again, pain is still ringing in my head, but at least it gives me an excuse to not look at Evie.

    I¡¯m no longer Rosa, this world is not called Earth, but Dominion, and there is no country called Peru as far as Eriu¡¯s memories go. No United States, no England, no Brazil¡­ No Rosa.

    I¡¯m Eriu, Eriu¡­ What a weird name.

    It¡¯s all so unreal, but this headache certainly feels real enough, at least¡­

    I draw a deep breath, then exhale and open my eyes.

    ¡°Bring... Miles here, I''d like to schedule an appointment with Lugh at the earliest convenience, it might be too late today, so tomorrow would be fine.¡± I tell her while dragging myself to my desk, this time paying more attention to the documents. If I¡¯m taking over this life, then I need to change the way Eriu did things, no more dallying.

    She stands silent for a few moments, probably confused at my sudden energy, ¡°It will be done, your majesty.¡± I finally hear her say with a bow, and she promptly leaves the room to fetch Miles.

 Chapter 2

    This new vitality didn''t surprise only my head maid. My personal assistant, Miles, who was accustomed to mostly fetching Eriu alcohol and representing her in all official business was startled at my sudden request for a meeting with the minister Lugh.

    Nonetheless, he quickly delivered the message along with the documents I had just signed, and a meeting was scheduled between the minister and me for tomorrow, at six in the morning.

    Man, I haven¡¯t had to get up that early since high school. I¡¯m not sure whose bright idea it was to have kids start class at 7 but he was probably an asshole.

    I suspect the reason for Lugh to schedule it so early is simply to avoid me. Despite being her subordinate, I¡¯m pretty sure that the minister had a very poor impression of the old Eriu, to put it charitably. Knowing that the queen is unlikely to wake up before noon, he scheduled our meeting first thing in the morning to discourage this newfound enthusiasm on my part.

    Who does he think he is, anyway? If I¡¯m the queen I should just be able to barge into the town hall whenever I want right?

    No, no. If I want to change Eriu¡¯s image for the better I need to do this right. I don`t wanna rule through might and fear.

    I will admit that waking up early when you are hungover is a struggle, though. Old Eriu circumvented the problem by starting the morning with more alcohol, as a good cure for a hangover is to just get drunk again, but I decide to just stomach it.

    Setting foot out of the palace, I take in the fresh air and the salt spray of the sea. If I had to compare the weather here, it''d be similar to that of a Mediterranean country. I''ve only been to Spain but this is a bit colder than that. In my imagination, this is how the southern coast of France or maybe northern Italy might feel.

    The level of development, of course, is nowhere near those places. When one thinks of the Mediterranean images quickly spring up of buildings of marble or roman concrete, great columns and Greek forums, but all the structures here are made of simple wood. Nothing uniform and seemingly picked at random from all of the native woods available, the roofs either thatched or made of large tiles for the nicer houses. It¡¯s not too far from a modern shantytown, I suppose.

    The palace is a bit of a letdown too, it is only called such because it houses a queen. In reality, it is nothing more than a large manor, the type a count or rich baron might have in the mainland.

    Algatolla as a whole is quite small, although it is called a town this place must have hardly two thousand people to it if you count the serfs in the surrounding farmland. A fair amount of people for this level of technology, I suppose, but it¡¯s even fewer people than my old neighborhood.

    It¡¯s just a quick stroll to the town hall, which has a single employee. Lugh used to work out of the palace, but I think he wanted an excuse to be away from Eriu. He made up some justification for building a town hall and Eriu signed it away like she did everything else, she was pretty glad to be rid of him, too.Stolen story; please report.

    I try to take in a deep breath before entering the hall but am impeded by my clothing. Eriu was sensible enough to have some tunics among her dresses, but even those are pretty heavy and tight-fit. I pull at the tight collar with my hand trying to adjust it, I¡¯m gonna have to cut half of the fabric away to make this bearable.

    ¡°I have brought the queen,¡± says Miles, who accompanied me despite my protests, it will take a while to get accustomed to being nobility and having people follow me around everywhere. Along with him, there¡¯s also Kavanagh, my personal guard, and Evie.

    ¡°What?¡± Lugh, clearly stupefied at the idea I''d get up so early and actually follow through on the meeting. He is sitting at his desk already working on other things as if he had never expected me to show up in the first place.

    He hurriedly gets up and with a flustered expression asks me to sit down, he sits opposite to me and asks ¡°So¡­ How can I help, your majesty?¡±

    He is so clearly annoyed it¡¯s amazing he never got scolded by Eriu for acting this way, but she wanted as little to do with him as he did with her.

    ¡°I''d like to get a better understanding of my domain, to that end I''d like to look at all the current data concerning production, trade, and population. We can start with Algatolla and the surrounding farmlands, then go over the data for the other settlements¡±

    The minister appeared stunned, seemingly not even listening to my request. I cough loudly and he finally snaps out of it ¡°Ah, uhm¡­ Might I inquire why you have the need for all this information, your majesty?¡± recomposing himself, he straightens out some papers he had brought from his desk ¡°I already handle all these things for you, so it is unnecessary for you to look at all this information,¡±

    His contempt once again clouds his expression, he certainly thinks all of this as a huge waste of time, ¡°I have decided to take a greater interest in the development of my queendom, but to start I¡¯d first like to get a clear picture of the situation. Until now I had neglected my duties so it is only natural I need to catch up¡±

    ¡°I see,¡± he shuffles around in his seat, If I let this idiot take the reins she is gonna run this country into the ground, he¡¯s probably thinking something along those lines. Understandable given the temperament of old Eriu, in his own position I''d also try to find any excuse to deflect this sudden enthusiasm.

    ¡°If you wish to help there are many activities you can take upon. Appearing before your subjects more often, for example¡­¡± he¡¯s sandbagging me.

    Uh, I¡¯m not good at talking to people, I don¡¯t know how to convince him politely, so I guess in this case I should just use the power I have over him, right?

    ¡°As your queen, I''m sure you understand you are in no position to refute me¡± with these words he immediately shuts up.

    Damn, that worked even better than I expected.

    I dislike the idea of threatening people but this is the only way to get anything done right now. Given Eriu¡¯s past disposition towards him, he probably doesn''t doubt I''d send him to the gallows in a fit of rage.

    ¡°A-as you wish, your majesty, I will immediately prepare the reports, it should take a while for me to organize all the data into a report, so I will send it to you later¡­ Now, if you will excuse me¡± He is already getting up from the chair while speaking, considering this matter over, but I interrupt him: ¡°No need to sort it out, the sooner we can get this done the better, pick the documents as you can find them and I will start reading them here immediately. If we cannot finish all the documents by sundown today I will bring the remaining ones to my palace and read them there. Then come back here in the morning every day until we finish¡±

    Lugh stood with a surprised expression, so once again I cough to gain his attention, ¡°Well, where are the documents? Get to it!¡±

 Chapter 3

    Despite the clustering of houses forming the town of Algatolla, there is very little manufacturing. Only a small parcel of the population are craftsmen, working out of their own houses and producing low-quality goods mostly for local usage. The vast majority of the people are farmers, all serfs tied to the land and belonging to me. There are also many fishermen who bring in a variety of fish local to this area.

    Commerce is based around agricultural goods, the farmers grow wheat, which we sell to passing merchant ships in exchange for some money and commodities like wine, which is apparently mostly consumed by yours truly. We also produce other crops in small quantities, like a variety of beans, turnips, radishes and so on, these are used by the peasants in their own nutrition, I imagine to make pottage. They also grow some flax to be hand spun into rudimentary clothing, again for their own use.

    Maybe I should buy some clothes from them. Peasant clothes ought to be practical and actually breathable, unlike this shit I¡¯m wearing.

    The most productive industry right now is hunting, some of the peasants apparently possess rudimentary bows and clubs and hunt small game in the forested hills further inland as permitted by me, the lord of the realm - Or, to say more accurately ¨C as permitted by Lugh in my stead. In exchange for hunting rights, they provide me with the pelts of hunted animals, which are very valuable compared to the rest of our production.

    Weirdly enough, one of the most important pieces of data in the documents, given its prominence, is that the island of Lull has no shrines and at the moment no resident gods. The god thing comes up again, like when Evie talked about that god of wine, seems this place has a polytheistic belief system, though I¡¯m not sure what they mean by resident gods, Eriu¡¯s memory doesn¡¯t help very much.

    Finally finished with all the documents in front of me, I sigh and stretch my arms. The state of the island¡¯s economy isn''t great. Foodstuffs are good for their obvious utility in feeding our people and the reliability of their price - people will always need to eat - but unprocessed they have very little value.

    Our most profitable industry can¡¯t be expanded too much either. Hunting is not a sustainable practice if done extensively. It should be fine at this informal level of a few peasants bringing in game when they have no other work to do, but if we expand it too much we might deplete game and destroy the island¡¯s ecosystem. Not to mention the trouble of training people to shoot bows or lay traps, neither of which I know how to do.

    According to Lugh, in the south side of the island, opposite to Algatolla in the north, there is a mine near the village of Sarda, which produces some amount of iron. We have yet to find the relevant data but it sounds like a very small operation.

    Ores, of course, would be the backbone of any serious industrial development but given the amount necessary to start building machines even if I try to expand the mine as much as I can I will probably have to import minerals from the mainland eventually, with money I scarcely have.

    Given that, my priority, for now, should be to both expand the mine and look for ways to boost the economy and generate more income to buy the resources needed for industry.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

    ¡°Why do we only practice subsistence agriculture?¡± I ask Lugh, who is startled at my question. He seemed pretty surprised that I actually stuck around all this time too.

    ¡°Subsistence agriculture?¡± He asks somewhat puzzled, I suppose they don''t categorize things the same way we do in modernity.

    ¡°Crops that are meant for feeding the farmers and their families. Wheat has low market value and selling it isn''t profitable compared to selling crops such as grapes for wine or olives for oil.¡±

    ¡°The serfs are mostly left to their own devices and grow what they want, although part of their production is yours by right. Since they have to feed their own families they obviously would grow crops that can feed them. The kind of crops you are talking about is normally farmed in plantations where the serfs are paid in food and shelter¡±

    ¡°Hmm, I see¡± our current circumstance does make sense given the feudal mode of production, but it is too inefficient, I will need to look into the situation of serfs sooner or later. ¡°What if I told some of the serfs to grow those high-value crops, and then gave them part of my income in grain the other serfs farmed?¡°

    ¡°That¡¯s quite unorthodox, your majesty. If you would like we can ask the next merchant ship to bring seeds for the next time they come around and pick out some serfs to use the plantation method, or we could ask the serfs to grow some of those crops in their land as part of their tax and let them keep the grain.¡±

    The first method is abhorrent; I don''t like the idea of serfs already and making them completely dependent on me would be a step backwards, I want to set them free as soon as feasibly possible. However, the second method made me realize something very simple.

    ¡°Do you know what four-field rotation is?¡± he looks at me strangely once again, and shakes his head, ¡°Four fields? The farmland in Algatolla is separated in two, your majesty.¡±

    That makes sense. Since we produce mostly just wheat, given the Mediterranean weather we can probably plant it all year round, and leave the other field fallow to recover nutrients, then we switch the fields every year. And of course allow the serfs their own small gardens to plant their flax, cabbages, onions and so on.

    At least, I think so? This would all be in line with what historical documentation we had in Earth, but it¡¯s tricky to study organic matter that would naturally decompose, and contemporary first-hand sources were wholly unconcerned with serfs and what they farmed. Historians were a lot more interested in talking about all the wars going on rather than the daily life and goings of the people.

    A lot of what we know about medieval farming is nothing more than speculation, sadly. Thankfully I have the opportunity to talk to the farmers first-hand now and find out exactly what they do.

    Hehe.

    Although this might sound stupid, as a historian this is the most exciting thing about being reincarnated in a medieval land so far. It makes me unreasonably giddy, it would be great if after this I could write a book about medieval farming then somehow send it back to earth. I¡¯d become one of the greatest historians of all time, I think.

    ¡­Either way, if I¡¯m right, If I introduce four-field rotation I would be able to immediately increase food production, which would both give us more money and also free people from having to work the fields, so they can do other useful things.

    It would be better to introduce modern farming with nitrate fertilizers, but we can¡¯t make modern fertilizers as is, and I know nothing about modern farming and machinery.

    Of course, with four fields that will mean introducing more crop types at a large scale, and for that, we will need to inform the next ship of our need, then wait until they come back again with the seeds we request. We could get lucky and they can simply have the seeds we need already on board too, though there might be other ways to procure crops, too.

    ¡°Lugh, tomorrow I''d like you to accompany me to inspect the fields, furthermore, I''d like to talk with some of the hunters to prepare an ecological survey of Lull.¡±

 Chapter 4

    ¡°Uhm, your majesty, your wine is ready¡­¡± I hear Evie say behind me, I turn to her holding up a silver plate in one hand, on which rests a bottle of wine and a glass.

    As I understand, one of Eriu''s daily rituals was to have wine in the late afternoon, to the point where her maid had grown so accustomed that she would bring the bottle unprompted.

    Well, I¡¯m not a prude or anything, drinking is fine. But Eriu was a bit much, wasn¡¯t she? Her father should have talked to her about moderation at some point.

    Evie must have been surprised when I stayed at the town hall until night today, and once I came back to the palace immediately passed her by to go to the study, which once belonged to her father.

    ¡°I am not in the mood for drinking. Also, from now on, if I want to have a drink I will ask you to bring alcohol, do not bring me any more if I don''t ask for it.¡± I say while turning my head back to all the bookshelves in the study, Eriu hadn''t read a single goddamn book here.

    ¡°Should I no longer replace the ale by your bedside?¡± Evie inquires, completely honest. That was Eriu''s hangover cure, how she never died from cirrhosis, I do not know.

    Actually, did she?

    I don¡¯t know what dying from alcohol poisoning is like, but if I died back on Earth, maybe Eriu died too, and that¡¯s how I got into her body.

    Does that mean she is going around in my body back on Earth?

    I shudder at the thought and shake my head to clear things up, let¡¯s not think about that. It¡¯s pointless, yeah.

    ¡°It will not be necessary, no, thank you.¡± I finally reply to her, she stands for a couple seconds, perhaps perplexed at my sudden shift in tastes, but leaves to put the wine away ¨C Oh! - I run after her and catch her in the corridor, ¡°Please have someone clean this room thoroughly tomorrow, I will be using it from now on!¡±, she turns around and slightly bows, before resuming her exit.

    Maids are true champions, their lord can have such a huge shift in attitude and they barely bat an eye, must be a hard life to live at the whims of some petulant idiot.

    I turn my attention to the room once more; although dusty it has a good, sturdy desk filled with quills, ink, and parchment. Furthermore, the shelves have only a modest collection of books, but they are well balanced in lots of areas of knowledge: some fiction, geography, history, the sciences and so forth. It''s a shame Eriu hadn''t bothered to read much until now, but if I brush up on just this much I should have a good grasp of the culture and technological level of this society.

    It¡¯s fairly exciting too, a lot of sources we have on medieval society are actually second-hand. For example, our best depictions of life in 9th century Europe are from a book written in the 11th century, that refers to books written back then, none of which survived to modern times. Having access to so much contemporary writing of a medieval society is a completely new experience.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    I must acquire more books as soon as I can¡­

    Though I should probably buy stuff to boost the economy first. Right, priorities and all that.

    All the normal books can be saved for later, though. I finally find what I¡¯m looking for and pull a book out of the shelves, titled ¡°The Known Gods of Dominion.¡±

    After what Evie had said about a God of Wine and the documents concerning Lull, I have grown very curious about what exactly religion is like here.

    Flipping the pages, as I thought people here believe in many gods, although belief seems to be a bit of an understatement. Now I finally get why Lull having no resident gods is a big deal. They aren¡¯t just some metaphysical concept, but real, immortal beings that walk among mortals.

    It¡¯s not a matter of believing in them or not, but rather of which god to favor. Most kingdoms have state religions centered around specific gods, they buy their favor with rituals and sacrifices, and in turn, these gods reside inside these countries and grant special benefits to the people of the country.

    In most countries people are generally allowed to worship any gods they desire, as long as they are not allied to enemy states. But they must provide a yearly tribute which is then given to the State Gods to appease them and to make sure they remain in the country.

    Men and women of honor are not only bestowed titles and land but power too. Based on the whims of the rulers they may ask the gods to grant special powers to certain subordinates.

    The God of Wine Evie mentioned can skyrocket your resistance to alcohol. More usefully, the God of Fire can allow those who have his blessing to create and manipulate fire.

    It is basically what we on Earth would think of as magic, but granted by divinity. Like paladins and clerics I guess, but instead of healing people you shoot fire at them.

    It makes sense then that all the big kingdoms would go to great lengths to buy the favor of the most powerful gods, in this archaic age a wizard that can shoot fireballs or other crazy stuff would have tremendous battle power.

    If a kingdom does not wish to pay tribute, even if they are strong and can field thousands of men they will quickly be destroyed lacking any divine favor of their own.

    I¡¯m sure there¡¯s a lot of fighting over the gods favor too, their gifts being so useful, countries are probably constantly trying to steal each other''s gods with promises of greater tributes.

    ¡°Your majesty, it is already very late. You should retire so that you can wake up in time for your survey tomorrow.¡± Evie warns me from behind, after storing the wine she must have come back and was standing next to the door patiently. Must be a hassle to stand around all day like that, waiting for your master.

    I rub my eyes, I spent all day reading today so they are pretty watery and strained. Reading by unstable candlelight is a huge chore too, I should invent light-bulbs at some point, though I have no idea how they work.

    Will I be able to make electric light in my lifetime here? I dunno, though if I can¡¯t even do that then that means that I will never be able to watch anime again¡­

    Yeah, I¡¯m not gonna invent anime studios by the time I die here, shit, maybe there¡¯s an Anime God out there I can curry the favor of.

    Although, maybe I can invent modern pens and then draw a manga, and it will be so popular everyone else will copy the style and I will have tons of manga to read, at least¡­

    God, I¡¯m tired, I think this train of thought shows I should take Evie¡¯s advice and go to sleep already.

    I look outside, to the complete darkness of late night, I wish I had more time so I can figure out more about gods, but it doesn¡¯t sound like they will be useful to me. I don¡¯t like the idea of kowtowing to some deity either, anyway.

    ¡°Alright, I will go to sleep.¡± I get off my chair and turn to Evie at the entrance of the room, I have an urge to tell her to come to bed with me so I fade away while giving her ear scritches, but that would definitely be fucked up given our master-servant power dynamic.

    Thankfully my morals speak louder than my corrupted mind. Only consensual, non-coercive scritches for me, yup.

 Chapter 5

    Lugh fidgeted in place, he stood awkwardly next to a wheat field as Eriu talked with a man a few meters away, Miles and Kavanagh patiently stood guard next to her. Their little entourage caused quite a stir, and Lugh saw many people in the little shanty houses who gazed at their direction with curiosity, but too scared to come close.

    It was simply inconceivable, that bottle of wine he prepared for her somehow ended up frying her brain instead of killing her, Lugh concluded. Completely demented and lacking in reason she decided to undertake a series of meaningless actions and, as her seemingly loyal servant, he could do nothing but comply, lest Kavanagh or another guard decide to rough him up at her whim.

    What kind of noble goes down to the farms to speak to their serfs directly? When she talked about inspecting the fields yesterday, although a quirky request, he thought they would merely ride on horseback and inspect the serfs work, to make sure they did it correctly. Punishing serfs who tarried in their obligations was a common practice, after all, but he never imagined she would get down from her horse and actually talk with them.

    He overheard part of their conversation, she was asking the farmer a number of inane questions, such as characteristics of the soil, what exactly they grew and when, whether the harvests were enough to feed their families, etc.

    What did the color of the soil and it¡¯s consistency matter? What noble cared to hear the opinions of the lowest of the low? Eriu was lucky she was the only true blue blood in the island, even him and the guards were only freemen. If any nobles saw this scene her reputation would hit rock bottom, much worse than being merely a drunkard.

    At that point, the mainline of Oisin might not even need subterfuge to acquire the rights to the Petty Queendom.

    Furthermore, what was an ecological survey? After she mentioned wanting to prepare one yesterday, he asked her to elaborate, but even after hearing the explanation it still made no sense to him. Why would she want to know what species of plant grow in the island? And talking to the hunters, more peasants¡­ It''s as if the queen lost all sense of etiquette overnight!

    Not that she particularly cared for etiquette before, but at least she didn¡¯t dally with mud farmers.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    ¡°Lugh, are you taking notes?¡± Eriu stopped talking to the serf and looked at him instead. His purpose in accompanying her, apparently, was to record everything the serfs said about their current farming methods, and later the hunters¡¯ information too, in writing, so that she would have an easier time looking at ¡°the big picture¡± when improving production later on.

    ¡°Ah, sorry, your majesty. I was lost in thought for a second, could you please repeat what you had just talked about?¡± He braced himself but if the queen was angry about his mistake, she did not show it. She replied with a small nod and repeated what had just been said. While Lugh wrote it all down he wondered how the queen could be so calm. Given her usual temperament, he was sure she''d at least hit him for his mistake.

    Well, he couldn¡¯t be certain of anything after the poison failed. If it didn¡¯t kill her, maybe it altered her whole personality? There was nothing he could do, other than follow her in this weird charade and try to minimize the damage she could cause to the island.

    Unless¡­ She didn¡¯t change suddenly, and is actually just faking it? Could it be she discovered the wine was poisoned and is now acting out of the ordinary to uncover the traitor?

    No, of course not, Eriu is as dumb as a sack of bricks, gullible too. She couldn¡¯t think of something like that. But, maybe¡­ Evie?

    Just as Lugh handled all the administrative matters of the realm, he also handled all talks with merchants, he was the one who received the last wine shipment, and the one who poisoned a bottle before sending it off for the palace personnel to handle. Any wine drunk by her majesty would first be inspected by the head maid, he didn¡¯t have much contact with Evie recently, but she struck him as much more competent than Eriu.

    Shit, what about that rumor? He scooted over to Miles and asked him, ¡°Is it true that her Majesty has given up drinking?¡±

    ¡°Hm? Seems so, Evie said her majesty refused the bottle yesterday.¡±

    Fuck, fuck, fuck, she knows. Lugh thought, and his desperation grew by the send. He stared a hole into Eriu, concern flooding his mind, she noticed his stare and returned the look, curious as to what happened.

    He smiled, nodded, and looked back to his notes, trying to act as natural as possible. She couldn¡¯t have, could she? Just look at her, she doesn¡¯t know anything. She drank the poisoned wine too, I¡¯m certain of it. If Evie knew the Queen would have stopped drinking a day earlier.

    He calmed himself down with a heavy sigh. It was probably just a change in mood, women are prone to moodiness, yeah. Along with the poisoned wine, it all just altered her state of mind a bit, it¡¯s fine.

    He would have another opportunity and be given charge as a Count of Lull under the Oisin mainline soon enough. He just had to put up with her for a little while longer, all he needed was a bit more time.

 Chapter 6

    My conversations with the serfs do not reveal much beyond what I had already speculated, they are indeed using a system of two-field rotation, with wheat as the main crop while leaving half of the field fallow.

    They plant spring wheat both in spring and in autumn, as the winter temperatures here are very mild and allow it to be grown all year round.

    As I suspected we do not have much livestock, our small wheat crop can only support so much. I would prefer to have more animals, horse and oxen can be used to help with tilling, and all the animals can graze upon the fallow fields and fertilize the land with their droppings, increasing overall efficiency.

    I wonder if livestock can be transported in merchant ships? I¡¯m not even sure how they do it in modern times, it¡¯s probably expensive. If I can increase fodder crop production we can probably just intensively breed the ones we already have, though that will take a long time.

    I do make a good discovery, among the many vegetables the serfs plant for their own food supply, a few had grown beets last season, and they have more seeds than they can plant in their garden. It isn''t a huge amount but in the future, it might be wise to farm them in large quantities to produce sugar.

    We go talk to the hunters, Kavanagh rounds up a few of them from their homes before me, and I ask them to take us inland so they can direct me in the forest.

    On our way, I ask one of them about the animals they usually encounter. They mostly hunt rabbits and sometimes deer, there are boars in the island too but the hunters leave them alone for fear of injury. There are foxes and wolves, which are the main predator, though Kavanagh overhears and quips that they are smaller and weaker than the mainland variety.

    Finally arriving at the forest, I ask them to show me any plants that bear fruit, they immediately shuffle off the beaten path, and following them we quickly come across a wild chestnut tree. Apparently, the ones near Algatolla are scavenged regularly as one way the serfs use to boost their own meager nutrition, but they grow wild over the whole island.

    If I were to plant a chestnut farm, it would be years before they bore fruit, but it is a good investment for the future: the more complex and diversified I make the island''s economy, the more resistant to market fluctuation and natural disasters it will be.

    As it stands now, I fear that if a drought destroys our next crop of wheat, a lot of the population will starve. For now, I can easily send people to pick chestnuts, which will certainly sell better than wheat, while also storing a few to build an orchard outside of town.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    We search for anything else notable, the hunters point out to a few eye-catching plants, most of which I do not recognize and the hunters do not think have any value. Most amusingly a species of berry brush that produces very tasty berries that also regrettably give anyone who eats them terrible diarrhea. They tell me the story of the scavenger to first find and try the berries, who regrettably died from them, but praised their taste on his deathbed, nonetheless.

    One of them points out a plant with bright blue flowers, finally something I recognize, alkanets! No one but me seems to understand their importance beyond being pretty. Thankfully, that class I had taken on the history of dyes and textiles is finally paying off, maybe I should search the coast for sea snails to make Byzantine purple, too.

    Unlike the chestnuts, they grow much faster and once processed the red dye they produce should claim a very good price in the market, I want to uproot a few exemplars and start a garden as soon as possible.

    We don¡¯t find anything else of note, so we get back from the forest, bid the hunters goodbye and set out to walk along the coast. One of the geographical documents I read pointed out a small, natural inlet a small ways away from Algatolla, protected from the sea waves by a peninsula.

    Coming closer, I quickly notice the small white crystals resting in the calm shore, this sort of place naturally builds up sea salt.

    Salt in medieval times was hard to come by, and very expensive, if I could grab some of the serfs and create drying beds to further refine the briny water here, this would vastly increase the value of our current trade.

    Furthermore, salt is not only a great commodity to sell, but it is one that has various uses in the creation of value-added products. In economic theory, if you improve a product and the cost of labor is smaller than that of the increased trade value, then that is a product to which value is added.

    An example using salt, if you take cow meat and salt to make jerky, if the resulting jerky sells for more than the cow meat plus salt separately, plus accounting for the hours of work a person needs to make the jerky, then by making jerky you increase the overall value and your profits.

    Of course, sometimes doing this is unprofitable, but in that case, you can simply sell the raw materials, and salt has so many uses you can create tons of different products without flooding any of the markets enough to lower the price, dried meats, cured leather, cheese¡­

    My pathway for the next few months has become clear, right now we are preparing for harvest, there isn''t much I can do about crops that already in the soil, so I must use the time in the next couple of months well to be prepared by next sowing season.

    I''m not sure which of the many resources I have found I should pursue first, but given my power over the serfs, it should be easy enough to pursue any of them, sad as it might be that I have this much power in the first place.

    If I collect enough resources and couple them with whatever useless valuables I can find around the palace, plus the savings of the realm, I will definitely have enough to buy sufficient livestock and seeds to implement reforms in all the corners of the island.

 Chapter 7

    A couple days later, we receive documents from the other settlements in the island, finally giving me a more precise picture.

    Algatolla lies in the northernmost tip of the island, hugging the delta of the river Dalgas. It is located in a natural harbor and surrounded by the largest expanse of flat land in the island which is suitable for extensive farming, so it is the natural capital.

    Beyond Algatolla, there are four other villages, going clockwise: Tristan, Sarda, Piana and Isola.

    Isola in the west is technically the closest to us, except it is on the other side of the mountain range that covers most of the island. To get there by land we need to follow the road on the east coast and pass by all the other villages on the way. Apparently, the west is so mountainous the western coast is composed of sheer cliff faces that drop vertically to the sea.

    Similar to the cliffs of Dover in Earth, I guess? I want to go see them but I should focus on more important matters before I act all touristy.

    Beyond that, along with Tristan and Piana, it isn¡¯t terribly interesting. It produces lots of wheat, it has some fishermen, not much else.

    Sarda in the southern tip of the island, opposite to us, is also situated in a natural port. Making it the 2nd largest settlement at around 1 thousand individuals.

    Beyond that, it also has the iron mine Lugh had mentioned a couple days ago. It is, as I had thought, a very small affair, but still accounts for a large amount of our revenue. I¡¯d rather put that iron to use in industrial production than to sell it, though.

    So, it has exactly 42 workers... Snakemen slaves?

    ¡°What is this?¡± I inquire to the minister who was busy looking over his own papers, ¡°The reports from the other settlements, clearly.¡±

    ¡°Yes, but here in the report from the mine, it says that the miners are 42 Snakemen slaves?¡± In my memories, I could recall people like Evie and others species that closely resembled humans, but no Snakemen. I ask Miles to fetch me a book I had seen in the palace¡¯s study, meanwhile, Lugh answers me.

    ¡°Yes, the product of a war generations ago, the last time we were called to arms by the mainline Oisin. We launched raids upon small villages to keep them distracted from the main force. At that time we captured the ones we could as slaves along with other loot and opened the mine for them to work in, away from Manfolk, and they have lived near the mine ever since.¡± He calmly described the completely sordid affair as if it was nothing to be concerned about.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

    I could sense the disdain he felt for them in his words, ¡°Although, some of them had been recently bought from a pirate by your father, so they weren''t from the original batch.¡±

    Just a little later, Miles appears with the book, ¡°The Races of Dominion¡± and I quickly glance over the contents, there are dozens of different sentient species in the world, commonly divided into three categories, according to this book:

    Manfolk, which includes humans, elves and dwarves. Species that according to this book have no discernible animal features to them.

    Halfolk, which are composed of species that have discernible animal features, but are still mostly humanoid. This included the feline Lunarians, like Evie, and the sheep-like Gwynne.

    And finally, Beastfolk. Other than generally being bipedal have very few to no humanoid features, this includes the Snakemen: bipedal brutes with scaly skin and long, snake-like necks over a foot long that can contort in extraordinary ways.

    This ordering is also the rough hierarchy that can be found in the countries of Aedh.

    Aedh¡­ The namesake of the Kingdom of Aedhag, where our line comes from, he led a host of humans some centuries ago and conquered large swathes of land from the old Sjollander Elven Empire, which used to rule most of the known world before crumbling to various invasions at the same time. After signing a peace and taking huge swaths of territory Aedh promptly died and left his many children and generals to squabble over his conquests, which led to many successor kingdoms and decades of warfare between them. Though it is mostly stable now, these are what could be considered the human countries.

    Manfolk are considered the most intelligent and civilized, though specifically in the Aedh kingdoms humans hold the most titles and privileges.

    Halfolk are generally accepted as freemen and some even hold titles. It isn¡¯t uncommon for Manfolk nobles to have affairs with Halfolk, and a few species can actually crossbreed. They are seen of generally lesser intellect but very wily and should be distrusted, half-breeds aren¡¯t seen as much better.

    Beastfolk, the lowest of the low, are considered barely better than animals, and fit only to be slaves or serfs. The book actually points out that it is illegal for Beastfolk to hold titles or own land in most of the Aedh countries.

    Of course, despite my lack of knowledge of this world, the bare amount of logical thinking disproves this whole theory. The three nonsensical taxonomic groups aside, we took our slaves in a raid from a village, and surely they have their own country, since we had to declare war on them, would mere beasts be able to create complex social structures like that?

    ¡°Kavanagh, come on, I''m going to see the Snakemen¡± I say and before anyone can protest I rise from my chair and walk towards the door, this is something that needs to be fixed immediately. The serfs too, I had been far too complacent with the ways of this world.

 Chapter 8

    Kavanagh suddenly felt his heart race; the queen once again surprised him with her eccentricity. He had thought her mostly harmless, even if her behavior turned utterly alien, such that he was complacent and listless when she declared she would go see the Snakemen immediately, he only understood what happened after she had already left and Miles hurriedly shook him, before exiting himself.

    He was terrified. The queen had grown increasingly unpredictable, how could he have been so careless? A knight¡¯s first and foremost vow to their liege is to always be by their side and to protect them from all harm, including harm they bring to themselves. He needed to stop her, right then and there. The Snakemen were dangerous, the path to Sarda took days and one needed supplies too, he thought she was going to die in the dead of night before even reaching Tristan.

    They hurried out of the town hall and into the stable, an unwitting guard helped her upon a horse and she was already trotting towards the beaten path that led around the island.

    Thankfully, as she hadn¡¯t left the city yet, the queen did not start a full gallop. They got on their own horses and started pursuit. Before leaving, Kavanagh shouted to the guard that had helped Eriu to get another guard and quickly come assist him, and to inform the head maid Evie that the queen had gone out.

    Kavanagh did not know what to think of the queen''s new temperament, although she had completely stopped drinking, she now had very peculiar orders that made him weary. She took more of an interest in ruling the realm, but no other monarch would rule this way.

    He was glad that she hadn¡¯t ordered him to beat a single person since her change of heart, though. He trained for warfare and to serve royalty, roughing up people whose crime was no greater than beating her majesty at dice made his conscience ache. She did not even get angry all that much anymore since she stopped her habit of day drinking, it seemed that constant drinking really could affect a person''s humours and change them for the worst.

    She is acting more like a queen should. he thought for a brief second before shaking his head, her recklessness doesn¡¯t befit royalty, I¡¯m the one who trained to face adversity, not her.

    While thinking about all this, they finally caught up to her Majesty. She was not the greatest of horse riders, so it wasn¡¯t too difficult. She simply nodded to them and focused back on the road, clearly intent on still going.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

    ¡°Your majesty, this is utterly absurd!¡± exclaimed Miles in exasperation ¡°Why do you want to see slaves? Snakemen are¡­ maybe you do not know, as you have not seen one yourself before, but they are gigantic brutes, hardly smarter than a bull, they get angry easily too. There is no point in talking to them.¡±

    ¡°Whether there is no point is something I will judge for myself. Kavanagh is here to protect me and I''m sure he will do a good job, besides he already asked for backup, did he not? It should be fine.¡±

    Although she guessed correctly, Kavanagh did not nod in agreement, he was intent on bringing Eriu back. ¡°Your Majesty, we should go back to the palace, we will organize a party to Sarda to leave tomorrow morning¡­¡±

    ¡°If I let you stop me now, what¡¯s the chance I will actually get to meet the Snakemen face to face? Your job is to protect me, you won¡¯t let me do as I wish for fear of me dying.¡±

    ¡°I swear you will get to talk to them.¡±

    ¡°Behind twenty guards, fifty paces away, with you relaying my messages, right? Or some similar arrangement. I don¡¯t care how dangerous it is, I want to talk to the Snakemen face to face.¡±

    She had guessed correctly, once again. Kavanagh did not know what to do, he needed to keep her safe, but he couldn¡¯t raise his hand against her to stop her from going, his persuasion was all for naught, what could he do?

    ¡°Are you afraid of the Snakemen? do you think a small retinue will not be enough to deal with them?¡±

    ¡°No, your Majesty, we can deal with them, but your safety¡­¡±

    She smiled, ¡°Royalty needs to put itself in harm¡¯s way from time to time, don¡¯t we? What would Aedhan say of a coward queen the just huddles in her palace?¡±

    Kavanagh jolted, he had read stories of Aedhan¡¯s brave host, and in his youth dreamed of being part of such a legendary group. But the age of adventurer kings had long since passed. This is how a queen should be, he thought once again.

    It should be, brave, a bit reckless. This was better than Eriu¡¯s old temperament.

    ¡°It is your job to protect me, not to mollycoddle me. I¡¯m an adult, I can take some risks.¡±

    While Kavanagh doubted himself, Miles offered a last bit of resistance.

    ¡°Your majesty, even with a very small group on horseback going at full pace, Sarda to the south is two full days away.¡±

    ¡°Is that a problem? The Queendom has functioned without my supervision for years now, it can afford two days of my absence. Lugh will welcome my absence, I¡¯m sure.¡± she said, seemingly missing the danger to her safety ¡°As for supplies, once your men come here tell them to go get enough supplies for all of us, get fresh horses and then catch up, we will wait for them.¡±

    With such clear instructions, Kavanagh could do nothing but nod. Miles looked at the pacified knight and seemed to be going through a mental breakdown, wondering how they could keep their liege safe through all her mad requests.

    Kavanagh decided that once his two men caught up, they should go back and bring four more guards along with the supplies, it will be enough men to deal with the Snakemen if they decide to attack.

 Chapter 9

    Maybe I acted too hastily, I must admit that my base aversion to the very thought of slaves means I acted emotionally. At the same time, how can a person not act emotionally about such a thing? If I had more rationally requested to come see the Snakemen, and waited until my charges had better grasped the situation, most likely they would have refused to allow me to get on a horse at all.

    They really seem to be fearful of them, Miles is wholly convinced I now have a death-wish. Kavanagh is confident enough, probably thanks to his martial training, but his less-trained subordinates have a harder time hiding their apprehension, one of them shakes briefly out of the corner of my eye.

    It is quite unusual, seeing as we took these people as slaves, at some point we had superiority of arms over them, and I imagine we were less fearful, though I guess at this point all the people that had fought in that war are dead and no one who has actual combat experience against them remains.

    Really now, by Lugh''s description, the ancestors of the current Snakemen were villagers who were too slow to run away when we came to loot their village. The place they lived in was probably very similar to Algatolla and so were its people.

    In the end, all that¡¯s left is the animosity between the two sides. Humans take Snakemen as slaves, but as Miles so politely reminds me over and over, so do Snakemen rulers take human slaves. Raiding is common in this era and this is the most common faith for prisoners taken, not many things can match the potential value of a sentient being pound for pound, beyond silver and gold.

    Although, if the description given by Miles is true, having to face a Snakeman with no prior experience against them must be terrifying. Their neck is like the body of a snake and flexible, and can both extend and coil around itself, even with their necks coiled they absolutely tower over humans, apparently over six feet tall on average.

    At this point though, I''m less scared of being in danger and more concerned that the nerves of my men will cause an incident I won''t be able to smooth over, if they attack the Snakemen that will be it, I¡¯m never gonna win over their trust. I am absolutely positive they will not allow me to meet the slaves on my own, though.

    Am I right for taking a stand? Getting angry about things in a place I don¡¯t understand, against people that have been hurt by the conflict in a way I can¡¯t understand? These Snakemen I¡¯m about to meet have had their lives stolen away by humans, likewise, there certainly are families in my domain who have lost much to Snakemen.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    Lull is safe from a kingdom bothering to conquer it, given how poor it is, but not from raids. There was a raid a few years ago, apparently, and they took quite a few people away. How would the families of those taken feel about what I¡¯m about to do?

    I didn¡¯t even know what the hell a Snakeman was until today. Maybe I really am over my head.

    To tell everyone to make peace and forget the past, like we¡¯d all suddenly become best friends and live happily ever after together? Such an ideal vision belittles the emotions of everyone¡¯s who have been hurt so badly by our actions, they are all justified to be angry, fearful and skeptical.

    But no, that¡¯s beside the point.

    All that matters is that there is injustice happening right in front of me right now, and it¡¯s injustice I have the power to fix. I can¡¯t fix everything and make the world ideal, but I can change this much. Whatever else, this one action I¡¯m taking is rightful, maybe things will get more complicated.

    The first step of a new path will always be frightening and filled with doubt. But if I want to change things here for the better, it¡¯s not good enough to just make this place richer. I will make it somewhere anyone will feel welcome to live in, without fear nor doubt.

    Yes. I take a long, deep breath and exhale¡­ I¡¯m so worried, but I actually feel a lot more resolute about what I¡¯m doing, now. I¡¯m not gonna modernize this island just because, I have a very good reason for it, and I swear I will do it.

    We rode all day long, until we finally reach the small village of Tristan a fair bit after sundown, we greet the local administrator and commandeer the houses of a few craftsmen to stay the night, much as I want to camp and not disrupt these people''s lives, but both Kavanagh and Miles insist that at least I should sleep in a house.

    Afterward, we continue southwards and then west as we reach closer to Sarda. As it is right now, most transportation in the island is done along the coast, it would be useful if we could cut through the middle, but as the land is very mountainous in the center so this won''t be feasible for a long time.

    We arrive at Sarda in the dead of night, so we must once again stop to rest. In the morning we find the locals responsible for keeping the Snakemen in check, they accompany us some ways up a dirt road, winding along the landscape into a forested area, until finally reaching our destination, Kavanagh orders them to stay with us but I intervene, the fewer people here the better, in my view.

    For their part they thankfully quickly depart after I allow them to, not wanting to deal with the slaves any more than they absolutely have to.

    There is their camp, a few hovels with so many holes I wonder how much they can protect from the elements. There is an open fire cooking up some sort of stew, and finally some Snakemen around it.

    I dry swallow. No getting cold feet now, let¡¯s do this.

 Chapter 10

    He saw the contingent of humans approaching a while ago, but other than informing some of his fellows nearby, he thought it would be best to observe for now. The others, looking to him, agreed.

    It was an unusual party, he reasoned, nine people all on horses, seven of them carried expensive weapons and armor. The only ones on the island with the resources to arm themselves thus were the Royals.

    Whatever reason they had to show up then, he did not know, and that''s why he explained to his fellows they should be cautious.

    They were born on this island, already slaves, working their entire lives in the mines and deprived of freedom or education. They did not know many things about this world and instead came to rely on him and the others who had been recently captured.

    As the party came closer to their camp more and more Snakemen took notice and, spreading the news, all of them became aware of the humans, yet did not move. The Snakemen were many, but deprived of proper nutrition and education at arms the seven guards armed with swords and shields would be more than enough to best any rebellion.

    As the humans approached, he saw that a woman led them. She calmly dismounted from her horse in front of the camp, she then said without much fanfare. ¡°I am the monarch of this island, Petty Queen Eriu of Lull, I''d like to talk to you; whoever is your leader, if you would be so kind.¡±

    This immediately made him concerned, why would the queen request an audience with slaves? This had all the air of typical human treachery.

    All the same, once she mentioned a leader, all others looked to him, with a small sigh he got up from where he was sitting, and slowly shuffled towards the party.

    A man beside the queen stepped towards him as he came closer, but she held him back with her arm and came forward herself instead, gazing at the man, ¡°Don''t worry¡±.

    She certainly looked like a queen or at least wealthy, if nothing else. She wasn''t wearing a dress, but her quilted clothes were clean, expertly-made and warm, a sign of wealth, she also had the green eyes customary to people from Aedhag, which was the ancestral home of the royal house of this island, if he recalled correctly.

    She turned towards him, her facial expression betrayed no clear purpose ¡°Are you the leader?¡± he nodded ¡°What is your name?¡±Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    He thought for a second before spitting out ¡°Silver-Eyes.¡±

    The man beside her started to step forward again, saying something about etiquette, ¡°A slave must kneel before his liege, and never look them in the eye¡± but the woman quickly shushed him.

    ¡°That is the name we gave you, but is it your true name?¡± he was surprised by this question, a lot of slavers would christen their loot anew, completely disregarding their old names.

    When he first set foot on this island, a bureaucrat looked over him and the others and without asking turned to the pirates that had captured them, he asked the pirates for names, age, illnesses and so on. The pirates said their catch was healthy and young but did not know their names, so the bureaucrat gave them new ones on the spot and he filled documentation. He was called Silver-Eyes unsurprisingly because of his eye color.

    ¡°Why do you want to know?¡± Silver-Eyes asked bitterly.

    ¡°The most important things to me are respect and understanding, if I do not use your real name, I neither respect nor bother to understand you. So I would like to know your actual name,¡± she said many weird things for a human, especially for a queen.

    ¡°¡­My name is Casteddu¡± he finally replied, after considering everything for a few seconds, ¡°So, why have you come before us today, your majesty?¡±

    ¡°It is nice to meet you, Casteddu¡± The queen gave him a small bow to the astonishment of her guards ¡°I have recently started to administer the island and have decided to change certain arrangements, especially concerning your people.¡± This left a bitter taste in Casteddu''s mouth, he had nothing but suspicion of humans, although their situation was already precarious, he was afraid it would only get worse.

    ¡°Oh, by the way, all the books I have on the subject of Beastfolk refer to your people as Snakemen, is this how you refer to yourselves?¡±, an inane question out of nowhere sent him into a state of confusion, just as he had steeled himself for whatever vile thing she would impose upon them.

    He did not know if she was a master negotiator constantly throwing her opponent off-balance or simply a naive idiot with a little bit more empathy than your average human.

    Seeing the expectation of the party in front of him, he composed himself and decided to answer without betraying any signs of unease, ¡°We call ourselves Arboreans, and we categorize things a bit differently from you humans. For us there is no such thing as Beastfolk; one of us and a Taurean have about as much in common as a snake and bull, so why should we be grouped together? It is a weird distinction created by you.¡±

    ¡°Besides,¡± He continued, spite getting the best of him ¡°what is the idea of Manfolk? You say that you are purer because you have no animal characteristics. But most of you have rosy skin like pigs, live in the mud like pigs, don¡¯t bathe like pigs, are you not pigs? Pigmen is how we refer to you in the mainland.¡± He immediately thought he said too much there in the end, and expected punishment, the men around the woman certainly looked about ready to go hit him, but she simply nodded.

    ¡°You are right. Then excuse me for using the other terms beforehand, from now I shall refer to you as Arboreans.¡± She coughed to clear her throat, ¡°Today, I''d like to free the Arboreans of this island¡±

 Chapter 11

    ¡°Your majesty!¡± one of the men beside her shouted, seemingly as surprised as Casteddu, either they are very good at acting or she is truly a naive idiot, he thought.

    Either way, he could not let his guard down, all his fellows depended on him, this is either a trap laid by them beforehand, to humiliate them further, or an empty gesture of a naive monarch, whose actions however sincere will only cause them trouble in the future.

    He crossed his arms, ¡°Why would you do this? Are we not more profitable to you as slaves?¡± he probed the other side, even though he expected a dishonest answer, the longer they talked the more he could discern.

    ¡°Truthfully, yes, it is in my economic interest to keep you as slaves.¡± She replied ¡°However, I simply find the idea of slavery abhorrent. Up until now, I had left management to my ministers and only recently found out about your situation, thus I rode out here to remedy the situation immediately.¡±

    Casteddu looked over the party, given the way her entourage had acted plus the relatively small size of the retinue guarding the queen, her story was plausible. An idealist ruler suddenly finding out about wrongdoings in her land and rushing out to deal with them while her exasperated servants must follow.

    However, he remained wary, he decided it was time to simply be upfront to see how they would react, ¡°Frankly, I do not believe you, you wish to win our trust to somehow put us in a worse situation.¡± The guards beside her immediately took offense to his words, but once again the queen stopped them, while also looking pensive.

    ¡°I truly give you very little reason to believe I''m sincere, and however precarious your situation already is, the risk of trusting me is a lot.¡± Even if she was naive, she could understand situations like this pretty well, at least.

    ¡°So, how about this?¡± She asked her guards to put their swords away and step back, which they reluctantly did after she threatened them.

    Then, she simply walked forward.

    This surprised everyone around, and the man that had been standing beside her immediately jumped into action, but she once again stopped him, ¡°Do not move forward, Kavanagh, this is an order from your queen. Don''t forget who is in charge.¡±If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    The man, to his merit, hesitated for only a second before moving ahead again. Royal guards should protect their liege at all costs, even against their own wishes.

    ¡°If you come any closer, I will strip you of your title of knight, I will fire all my other guards, and then I will come back here alone.¡± She looked at him with a totally serious expression, the previous levity in her words gone, she really meant it. ¡°If you want my best chance of survival, then you will stand down now.¡±

    With this ultimatum, he finally stopped, but refused to take a step back, she seemed satisfied with this much. She glanced at the others, to see if they would make a move, and finally turned and kept walking towards Casteddu.

    Previously they had been a few feet apart, with her guards on either side of her, even if he desired to attack her, he would have been quickly parried and cut down. But now she stood directly in front of him, with all her guards far away.

    Right below him, she stood and looked up at his eyes. The girl was only five feet four, while him with his neck extended easily cleared eight feet, his body mass was easily triple hers, and with a single strike from one of his hands he could break her body and toss it around like a ragdoll.

    ¡°What are you doing?¡± he asked, unsure how to react.

    ¡°I''m asking you to put your trust in me and believe, but that is far too risky for your people. So, to make this fair, it''s only logical that there should be risk for me, too¡± She lifted her right arm towards him, with her hand open awaiting a handshake. ¡°I have put my trust in you, so now I ask you to put yours on me, that''s all.¡±

    Casteddu looked at the minuscule, fragile woman. Physically, it was no contest, but she stared at his face, unwavering, without blinking, he was almost sure that behind her green irises he could see the faint outline of a raging fire.

    He was taken aback, he almost felt like looking away from her penetrating gaze. He had seen eyes like that but a few times before, someone who thinks they can change the world. Among commoners, people like her would frequently go off to join an army or mercenary band in search of a greater purpose or some lofty goal, and then their enthusiasm would immediately get themselves killed in the first battle they took part of.

    A fool.

    And what is a person who follows a fool into battle, but a fool themselves? Allying with this girl, there will be nothing but tragedies for them in the future.

    Yet, a fool¡¯s enthusiasm is contagious, when someone feels so deeply about something it is hard to not get caught up in their wave. She really wants to help us, this idiot.

    That much was true.

    He looked down at her with a neutral expression, without betraying his internal thoughts. Whatever her body might look like, he understood she was stronger than most men he had met. Or, at the very least, far stupider.

    He lifted his own right arm, and gently grasped hers; they shook hands while Eriu smiled.

 Chapter 12

    ¡°Every Arborean slave in the Petty Queendom of Lull will be released and become a freeman of the state, furthermore, if they wish to maintain their work on the mine, they will now be remunerated with two scudi per month for their contributions. As freemen, they are granted the right to travel and may leave the state if they so desire. Are these terms satisfactory?¡± I ask Casteddu, who decided to sit down on the grass as we made our final arrangements.

    I wish I could remunerate them for their past work, somehow. But with the current treasure paying them for all their and their ancestor¡¯s work is simply not feasible, that will need to wait until a little bit later, I guess.

    To properly heal the wounds of hatred, you cannot simply brush the matter under the rug and let bygones be bygones, as a show of respect and for the satisfaction of my own code of ethics. I will pay them for every piece of ore they have ever mined for us.

    ¡°How can we be sure you will not renege on the deal?¡± He was still trying to ensure the safety of his people, ever a good negotiator.

    ¡°We can not pay you immediately, as we did not bring sufficient money from the treasury. However, as promised, we have brought some of the surplus grain in the silo of Sarda here, to ensure no Arborean will go hungry for the time being. Once we get to Algatolla we will send back another party with your salaries for this month in advance.¡± I point to the cart standing beside us, as a show of goodwill I sent Miles back to Sarda to organize a party to transport grain up to here, serfs came with a cart loaded with many sacks that were now being unloaded and brought to the Arboreans¡¯ shacks.

    Casteddu looks down, deep in thought.

    ¡°To ensure we will keep to our end of the bargain, I also wish you to accompany us. If that¡¯s alright.¡±

    ¡°How can I be sure this isn¡¯t a trap?¡±

    ¡°To some extent, you will simply need to believe me. Instead of killing you, I would much rather offer you a new job, honestly.¡±

    ¡°A new job?¡± Casteddu betrays some surprise.

    ¡°You can read and write, you are one of the Arboreans that was recently bought from slavers, right?¡±

    He nods, ¡°My father was a wealthy merchant back in the Kingdom of Tatari, we were traveling in one of our ships when we were attacked by pirates, my father and most of the crew was killed, I and a few other lucky ones were simply knocked unconscious and then taken as slaves.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry to hear that.¡±

    He just closes his eyes and nods once again.

    ¡°You can read and write, are a great negotiator and seem to be very knowledgeable, keeping you in this mine is a waste. Do any of the other Arboreans here have any skills of use?¡±

    One of them in the back pipes up, ¡°Sossu, you were a stonemason right?¡± Another one of them stood up, I guess that¡¯s him.

    ¡°Casteddu and Sossu, I¡¯d like to hire both of you. Casteddu as a new minister and Sossu as a stonemason, six scudi per month.¡±

    Miles, who is standing next to me, whispers, ¡°Your Majesty, a Snakeman-¡±

    ¡°Arborean,¡± I interject.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    ¡°An¡­ Arborean minister?¡±

    ¡°If he agrees to it.¡± I look back to Casteddu, who himself looks to Sossu, they nod to each other and Casteddu turns his silvery eyes back to me. ¡°This is satisfactory, we will accompany you. To make sure you keep your end of the deal and also as your employees.¡±

    So far, so good. Although promising salaries to people is not ideal either. In the end, even if this brings greater economic prosperity in the short term, there will be problems in the long run, all power in this island still rests with me for now. A benevolent dictator is still a dictator. So I should fix this as soon as possible.

    That gives me an idea though.

    ¡°I would like a representative of the miners to accompany us, too.¡±

    ¡°A representative?¡±

    ¡°Since you are now minister and stonemason, you are no longer miners. I want someone who will stay a miner to come with us to act as their representative, he will stay with us for a couple months before coming back here.¡±

    ¡°Do you have anyone in mind?¡±

    I look at the mass of Arboreans standing some distance away, ¡°Anyone is fine, you can choose among yourselves for someone you think will be a good representative, I will respect your decision.¡±

    They look a bit confused, Casteddu stands up and walks to the mass of people behind him, they start discussing on their own, huddled so I can''t overhear. After a while, Casteddu walks back to me with Sossu and another Arborean, this one a bit on the short side for their species.

    ¡°This is Bastia, he will be the representative.¡±

    ¡°Very good,¡± I turn to Kavanagh ¡°Let us go back to Sarda to organize regular deliveries of food here, this cart of grain won¡¯t last forever. I also want to meet with some people.¡± Kavanagh kneels and accepts my order and our party prepares to depart.

    We go back to Sarda and organize deliveries with the local administrator, under the supervision of Casteddu to ensure no foul play. I then ask the administrator to go send messengers to Piana and Isola further north. The serfs in those regions should convene and choose a representative amongst them, who will travel to Algatolla and will need to stay there for a couple months, the representative¡¯s family will be compensated with some grain from the local silo to make up for their absence.

    That last point makes the administrator look at me weird, I guess since they are serfs I¡¯m supposed to just move them around at my will, but that¡¯s too brutish.

    Likewise, I round up some of the serfs here in Sarda and ask them to pick a representative, someone they all know and trust, a real pillar of the community kind of person. After some discussion a man called Mahon steps up, I give him the same speech about him coming with me to Algatolla for a while, he readily agrees once I talk about his family being compensated, apparently that really is unusual around here.

    I will do the same once we reach Tristan, and get someone in Algatolla, too. Then I just wait for the Piana and Isola people and I can start my plan.

    With all that done, we finally depart. A most unusual caravan of 10 humans, soon to be 11, and 3 Arboreans, though you would be forgiven for mistaking it for two caravans that are simply traveling right after one another, the humans and Arboreans are still wary of each other, I guess that much is to be expected.

    As we don¡¯t have enough horses for everyone anymore we simply have them carry our supplies while most of us walk. Kavanagh insists that a Queen should not have to march on her own feet, and so I¡¯m the only one still riding, with my horse slowly trotting along, led by a stalwart Kavanagh.

    I guess I shouldn¡¯t complain about this little stuff, I should give my knight a break from my constant challenges. It¡¯s a good opportunity to rest too, stuff is gonna get busy soon.

    Why am I doing this again? I¡¯m usually not this proactive¡­

    For the people, right, right. I can¡¯t let the lazy routine I had back in Earth start back up, there¡¯s a lot of people who depend on me right now.

    Either way, this whole trip was very worthwhile. A literate person and a stonemason! However reckless my actions were, they helped the queendom tremendously, we were wasting resources by keeping those two there. They will greatly help me modernize Lull.

    Especially a mason, that was a nice find. However knowledgeable I am, as a modern person, I have huge gaps in my knowledge. I know some stuff about historical metallurgy and even some basic geology but I¡¯ve never worked a furnace or constructed a building before.

    I was planning to just trial and error stuff over and over using my incomplete knowledge, but with someone with real experience, the whole process will be much easier, even if he doesn¡¯t know what a blast furnace or a cement kiln is yet, once I show him it shouldn¡¯t take long.

    No woman is an island, I nod to myself, which elicits a weird look from the people around me. From the very beginning, the quickest path to progress is by relying on others.

 Chapter 13

    Half a day away from Algatolla, Kavanagh orders one of the guards to ride ahead to inform every one of our return.

    Coming back into town, Evie, my other two maids and some of the guards are thusly already waiting for us at the edge of town. Evie seems ready to scold me for my recklessness when she notices the giant Arboreans beside me and halts in fright. The others are likewise scared stiff.

    Geez, I wonder how bad their reaction would have been had they not been informed beforehand.

    ¡°Good morning Evie, I''m sorry for leaving so suddenly,¡± I say nonchalantly with a smile, all she can manage is to stare at me in disbelief, remaining silent even after several seconds, I take the opportunity to continue.

    ¡°These are Arboreans I freed from the mines, some of them know how to read and write while others have very useful skills we could use, so I hired them.¡± I gesture towards Casteddu and for his part, he nods towards me and bows elegantly towards Evie, the others pick up his cue and follow suit. ¡°We will be working for her majesty from now on. My name is Casteddu, this is Sossu, and this is Bastia. It is a pleasure to meet you.¡±

    Evie remains frozen - I do hope I didn''t overwhelm her brain so much that she has gone into shock - She is still staring at Casteddu, petrified. Should I tell her that I''m planning to have them stay in the spare rooms of the palace until we build more houses? That might just give her a heart attack.

    I should give them their own time to get used to things, I suppose? I turn to Kavanagh and Miles.

    ¡°Let us please go back to the palace as soon as possible, for now, the Arboreans are our esteemed guests and I expect them to be treated with nothing less than the utmost respect.¡±

    ¡°Yes, your majesty.¡±

    Kavanagh and Miles both reply, followed shortly after by the maids and the guards, all of whom also bow towards me, startling me slightly. I thought they would take longer to take it all in than this. Did my last sentence sound like a threat? Maybe I chose my words wrong.

    I notice all of them are still bowing ¨C Shit, in this kind of situation they are trained to not rise until I allow them to ¨C Uh, hm, how do I do this again?

    ¡°Uh, you may rise, uh, please?¡± They finally stop bowing and I breathe a little easier, this whole monarch stuff is way too fucking hard. Nobody treated me like this before, it¡¯s kind of upsetting I have this much power over them.

    I can kinda understand why people get obsessed with power once they have a little taste, though, bending others to your will is probably pretty intoxicating to certain personality types.

    After those awkward moments, Kavanagh thankfully takes charge and start walking around the wooden houses of Algatolla towards the palace further inland, there aren''t many people up at this hour, beyond fishermen preparing their fishing boats staring at us, clearly as terrified of the Arboreans as my maids are.

    It will be pretty challenging to turn the minds of these people around. Bastia also notices the people and as soon as he turns his head to look at them, all the people cower and immediately go back to their duties.

    ¡°Don''t worry, as my guest, they won''t dare do anything to you¡± I reassure him.

    ¡°Ha, I can fend for myself, I''d be more scared for their safety if they try anything funny if I were you, your majesty¡± he sneers while keeping his gaze at the houses.

    ¡°Please,¡± I smile softly ¡°You are the only people on this fucking island that have referred to me normally, don''t start with the ¡®your majesty¡¯ shit now.¡±This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

    Bastia laughs, ¡°As you wish, Eriu.¡±

    -x-

    As I open the front door of the door hall, I immediately call out to the minister, ¡°Lugh! I have hired a new employee for the administration, please come here.¡±

    ¡°New employees? Your majesty, given the size of your land, I am enou-¡± he freezes upon seeing the Arborean, but unlike the others actually manages to stammer a few more words, ¡°W-what is a Snakemen doing here, your majesty?! Where are the guards!¡±

    ¡°No need to call the guards, Kavanagh is right here, anyway, this is your new coworker.¡± I step aside to let them enter the room, although they have to slightly bend and shuffle to enter, we will have to expand the doors, clearly. ¡°This is Casteddu, he will be your coworker from now on.¡±

    ¡°...¡± Lugh just stares blankly at me ¡°Your majesty, this is inconceivable, I understand if you personally dislike the idea of slaves, but how is this Snakeman going to help the town hall?¡±

    ¡°They can read and write, and by my own assessment, Casteddu at least has had a far better education than you,¡± I say with a neutral expression, trying to reveal no intent to see how Lugh reacts.

    ¡°I-I can not work like this, your majesty, this is completely out of parameters¡±

    ¡°So, are you resigning?¡±

    ¡°Your majesty, I¡¯m sorry, I do not understand, why would I resign?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m hiring him, you said you cannot work with them, hence you are resigning. Have I misunderstood?¡±

    ¡°Your majesty, are you going to choose this thing over me?!¡± he yells, changing his tone from one surprise to anger.

    I shrug my shoulders, ¡°You are the one saying that you can¡¯t accept this, I¡¯ve already made up my mind on hiring him. As I said, Casteddu has a better education than you, I believe he could take over as head minister immediately if you no longer want the post. If you wish, you can of course resign and go seek employment elsewhere, the next merchant ship will come along soon, with your credentials you could easily find a job in the mainland.¡±

    ¡°But your majesty, this¡­ this Snakemen doesn¡¯t know the intricacies of your domain yet, it will need time to look over the documents, it will not be proficient as I am, and it might not be as lenient of you as I am...¡± He has reached the bargaining phase, it seems.

    ¡°I already started taking more of an interest in governing a few days ago, I have no intention of taking a backseat once again. So are you resigning or not? I will not punish you if you do, if you are uncomfortable working with Arboreans, it might be for the best.¡±

    He takes a moment, looking at me, then at the Asani, he sighs and finally says, ¡°Very well. If you allow me, your highness, I would like to be relieved of my post. I will be going to the mainland with the next ship to seek employment elsewhere.¡±

    This was all the confirmation I needed, he wouldn¡¯t have ceded his post so easily otherwise.

    ¡°Alright, that makes things easier then, Kavanagh.¡± I motion to the guard standing guard outside, ¡°Yes, your highness!¡±, he shouts in return. ¡°For now, arrest Lugh, then go and search his house, his savings should be well beyond his salary,¡± Kavanagh shouts in agreement and moves towards Lugh.

    ¡°W-what! Your Majesty, you had just said you will not punish me, what is this?¡± Lugh protests but I simply walk over to one of the stands in the town hall and pull out a few papers.

    As soon as he sees them, his expression immediately changes. He opens his mouth to speak but closes it without saying anything.

    ¡°Since I cared so little about managing the realm, you got really sloppy with your corruption after father died. I noticed the discrepancies between our income and treasury. If you had double-checked everything I probably wouldn¡¯t have noticed.¡±

    He looks down, not offering any further resistance, he knows the game is up. Kavanagh takes him to the guard house. After they leave, I turn to Casteddu, who seems pretty calm, even though I didn¡¯t tell him about my plan beforehand.

    ¡°Is it really alright to imprison your minister so suddenly after you got back?¡± Casteddu inquires.

    ¡°I wanted to get rid of him as soon as I figured out he was siphoning money away from the treasury.¡± I cough a couple times to clear my throat, ¡°I had planned to investigate it more but bringing you here was a good opportunity to confront him, the way he reacted made it obvious he was doing something wrong.¡±

    ¡°So you used me to catch him.¡± Casteddu nods ¡°Should have stuck to just being a loyal accountant, if he was gonna get sloppy with his grift. Only a matter of time until someone found out.¡±

    I guess it could be seen as using them, I thought it would be a good way to make the other servants more accepting of the Arboreans, if Lugh is corrupt there¡¯s no one who can take over his job except Casteddu. So we have no recourse but to accept them.

    At least he doesn¡¯t seem to be mad about it.

    ¡°Well, now that that¡¯s done, let me show you around the town hall, I¡¯d like you to start working as soon as possible if that¡¯s alright¡±

    ¡°Sure. Holding a quill again will be much nicer than swinging a pick all day long.¡±

 Chapter 14

    I show Casteddu around the building and where all the documents are. Lugh¡¯s chair is a little bit too small for Casteddu, so, for now, we have to improvise with a crate, just another thing we will have to replace, I guess. Casteddu was true to his word and can both read and write, not only in the Aedh language we use here but also his native Tatarian and even a couple others I don¡¯t recognize.

    I feel a bit outclassed. If we count Earth languages then along with Aedh I also know Spanish, English, and Portuguese but those are all pretty useless over here and people would just think I¡¯m talking gibberish.

    Well, someone like this is good to bring me down to earth a bit too, I think I was subconsciously starting to look down on all the people here, a bad habit of mine. I did really well in school when I was a kid and would receive constant praise from everyone, so I¡¯d end up feeling like I was the smartest person in the room a lot of times.

    Looking back, I was a pretty insufferable teenager. Really can¡¯t let myself fall back to that mentality.

    Anyway. After showing everything to Casteddu and catching him up with the state of the realm it soon became night. We go back to the palace, where my maids and guards were helping all the people I had picked up get settled.

    Evie runs to the entrance as soon as my first footsteps echo inside the manor. ¡°Your majesty¡­¡± She says and then stops to look at the Arborean beside me before continuing. ¡°We have procured beds for the serfs, although it is unusual to let them stay in the palace. As for the¡­ Arboreans¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s up? We have enough rooms, don¡¯t we? Since the rest of my family died we hardly use 1/3rd of the manor.¡±

    She looks down while gripping the sides of her maid dress tightly, she seems to want to say something but can¡¯t.

    God, that¡¯s adorable.

    Wait - no, no, no - Focus!

    I imagine the maids are simply uncomfortable with the idea of Arboreans living here. There are probably some difficulties given their great size, our beds and chairs will definitely be too small for them, but we can improvise and get new stuff made in time. This shouldn¡¯t be a huge problem.

    ¡°The Arboreans are freemen and also my direct employees. Given the housing situation here in Algatolla, it is not unusual to have servants live in the palace, is it? Kavanagh and Miles do, so did Lugh, for a time.¡±

    ¡°That is correct, your majesty, but¡­¡±

    Ah, I can¡¯t be a hardass with Eriu like I was with Lugh. She at least is already calling their species by the correct name, so she¡¯s trying her best.

    ¡°It¡¯s nothing much, don¡¯t worry about it. Just trust me and in time your doubts will fade away. Arboreans are just normal people.¡±

    She doesn¡¯t say anything, but nods. We go over to the rooms where the Arboreans will be staying. The bed frames are too small for them, so we put crates side by side to put their mattresses on instead, and use crates once again for chairs.

    Evie and the other maids are still so afraid of the Arboreans, but at least they weren¡¯t completely scared stiff while helping them move stuff around at night, I hope everyone learns to get along better soon.Stolen novel; please report.

    -x-

    The next morning, I go along with Casteddu to meet with the serfs, they are all scared at the sight of my new minister, but don¡¯t dare to say anything, instead just looking ahead silently.

    I announce my decision to free them, and that instead of taking the larger part of the wheat harvest as tribute, I will pay them a flat rate of two silver scudi per month for their labor and the rights to the whole harvest, with them also keeping whatever vegetables and flax they grow in their own garden.

    With this, they completely forget about the Asani standing next to me writing things down, some rejoice as this would be a much better deal than a serf could ever hope to get in life, others were skeptical, of course, as people usually are of deals too good to be true. It doesn¡¯t matter though, as long as I keep my word and they get paid at the end of this month all their fears will be allayed.

    I also tell them that beginning with the next sowing season I will fundamentally change the way we plant our crops, and told them roughly about my plans, I don¡¯t think any of them understand why or how it would better things, but none seemed to oppose the change either, since the scudo they will earn will be enough to buy food regardless of how the harvest goes.

    I instruct them to go ahead and divide the half of the field that is fallow in two and to also divide the other half after the harvest so that there will be four great fields.

    Afterwards, I tell the hunters that they would no longer be assigned to the main field and to follow me. In the forest we gather many chestnuts and we carefully remove some alkanet plants, both fully grown and seedlings.

    For the chestnuts, I demarcate a section of land further inland, and tell them to clear out the woods and plant the chestnuts there, I pick out a few of them to work in the chestnut orchard permanently after everything is set up.

    For the alkanets, as I remember, they prefer sandy soils and warm temperatures, so I decide to plant the seedlings in a wasteland closer to the coast. Once again I instruct them to clear the land and select a few to maintain the area permanently, then I also took the adult alkanets and showed that they are to cut off the roots then leave them to dry in the sun, the result can be mixed in water and then applied to fabrics to give them a red tint, and is sure to be profitable.

    I¡¯m not sure how many alkanet seedlings will survive to adulthood, as I probably skipped some details of how they should be farmed, but if even half of them do that will be successful, we will sort it out in time. I tell the hunters to go look for more alkanets in the forest when they had downtime, the more dye we can have for the merchant ships, the better.

    After taking care of all these tasks, it was already early night. Going back to the palace with Casteddu and Kavanagh, I stretch my arms in front of me, and look closely.

    Eriu has really fair skin, almost pale, with dark freckles peppering her whole body. I think most people would love to have this kind of complexion, but I really hope more days like this make me tan a bit, I¡¯m used to having olive skin, so it¡¯s a bit unsettling.

    ¡°What are you doing?¡± Casteddu asked with curiosity, Kavanagh also looked on while waiting for an answer. ¡°Uh, I wonder if I¡¯m going to tan from being out in the sun all day, that¡¯s all.¡±

    ¡°Do you want me to bring cover from the sun when we go out, your majesty?¡± Kavanagh asked, no no no no, that¡¯s the exact opposite of what I want, I mean, I should be worried about skin cancer given how pale I am now, I guess, but given this time period I¡¯m probably gonna die from dysentery or some other stupid shit long before that¡¯s a concern.

    I end up panicking trying to think of an excuse and blurt out an awkward no, surely leaving them confused. If I just said no normally it wouldn¡¯t have been anything unusual, but I had to over-think things.

    I wanna bury my face in a pillow after that. Ugh, it¡¯s a lot easier to seem competent when there¡¯s something at stake, fighting for people¡¯s freedom and the like, I probably looked really cool talking with the Arboreans¡­

    Wish I could just act without thinking too much like that all the time, day to day stuff is like, there is no intensity so I need to act casually but then I end up thinking about what it means to act casually then I try way too hard at it then I end up, I dunno.

    I was always the loner kid in school, I don¡¯t have that much experience talking to people like that. One thing that the old Eriu was definitely better than me at, looking through her memories she¡­ sure had a silver-tongue, in more ways than one, but let¡¯s leave it at that.

 Chapter 15

    Beyond directing farmers, I also have to direct our new stonemason Sossu.

    I go to the town hall so I can have quick access to documents regarding the island while drafting up a plan for Sossu to follow. A stonemason requires materials to work, especially given what I want him to do. Whatever maps there are of the island are incomplete and imprecise and beyond that, there¡¯s only a lot of written records describing the terrain and resources of the island.

    This is how surveying was done back in old times, with no standards at all. Cartographers often times had no tools beyond parchment and charcoal, in richer countries, like ancient Egypt, they had some standard measurement tools and were able to correctly map a lot of stuff with scary accuracy. Back in the time of the Roman Republic, the Egyptians had already correctly measured the length of the Egyptian kingdom in stadia, their own standard measure.

    This world has its own measurements, of course. In Aedhag the most commonly used measure for length is the feet, which is described as the average length of a grown adult human male''s foot. Same as was done in medieval Europe back on Earth. Of course, once again, there is no accepted international or even local standard. In Aedhag the use of many other length measures like forthings, halfdans, quiplings and others I forgot the name of are also very common. In addition, without standardization, the conversion between them is very arbitrary. Forthings are commonly used for very long distances, and around 45.6 feet equal a single forthing, such a confusing conversion is not very good for accurate measurements.

    Was it NASA that had an accident because of having to convert metrics into the confusing imperial system? If this world just had a logical decimal system, everything would be much easier.

    Even within a measurement, it is hard to find any consistency. As I said, a forthing is AROUND 45.6 feet, because there is no accurate measurement of how long exactly a foot should be right now, it should be around 26 Earth centimeters, from what I understood, but it varies from place to place, person to person.

    Going back to the issue of tools, too. Ancient Egypt was a rich country while Lull is not. Our surveyors set out with just enough to draw a map and no measures beyond their own understanding of what feet and forthings are. There are incomplete measurements for how big the island is, but there is no way they are even close to accurate.

    The glorious metric system is something we take for granted back in Earth, and right now I''m really feeling its absence, the best I can do is look at the written records about unexploited resources here and take the measured length to Algatolla with a very, very large pinch of salt.

    Anyway, going back to the issue of resources. If nothing else, Lull is blessed with a fair amount of resources. There is limestone in the hills along the shore between Algatolla and Tristan. The beaches there very quickly give way to sharp hills that immediately jut out from sea level up some twenty meters; these hills apparently have a lot of clay in them.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    Those are the two main ingredients for making cement.

    Of course, beyond that, I also need to create enough heat for the calcining process to take effect. Otherwise combining the two just creates useless slurry.

    Thankfully my interest in useless history gives an answer, there were many types of kilns used to make cement historically. As production ramped up in the 19th century, there was a quick burst of innovation and new types of kiln would be created almost every decade.

    I can''t recall the more complicated later designs, which is a shame as they obviously were more efficient, but I can recall the early beehive kilns and the later Johnson chamber kilns that replaced them. It will be a bit of a bother to create the bricks necessary, given the lack of infrastructure here, but with a chamber kiln we should be able to make cement.

    I joyfully start describing a chamber kiln, pouring out my mind into paper in preparation for explaining it all to Sossu, only to remember Sossu can''t read.

    That''s right! That''s right! That''s not a problem I''d ever have back in Earth, I could just assume people were literate, at the very least. Here though, in this island of some six-thousand inhabitants, you can count the number of literate people with just your fingers.

    I really need to think about education too...

    Well, I should focus on this for now. I already have too much stuff to do and I''m rushing things as is. For now, just sweep that thought under the rug and come back to it later, that kind of thinking has never failed me, yup! Never.

    I go ahead and start drawing a diagram of a chamber kiln that I can show to Sossu, if he doesn''t understand writing, then drawings will have to suffice.

    "Hm, you are a pretty good artist."

    Casteddu looks over my shoulder, probably curious at what I was doing, "Is this some sort of kiln?"

    "Yeah, it is a new design from Aedhag," I lie, no way I can explain to him where I actually learned this. "See here, the beehive shape at the bottom lets a lot of material burn at once, and the chamber above with a single exhaust on the opposite end lets the heat simmer and build up. This allows the heat to accumulate and become very high over a long period of time."

    "Drawing well makes sense for an idle member of the nobility, but why do you know so much about kilns?" Casteddu prods me, god, can¡¯t he be a little bit less suspicious? Having a skeptical person who always thinks rationally is pretty useful, but it''s also very infuriating, we aren''t compatible at all.

    "You didn''t have many friends back in Tatari, did you?" I say what''s on my mind, with some contempt.

    "What''s that got to do with anything?" He''s actually taken aback by what I said, wow, I was right wasn''t I? That''s a bit sad.

    Not that I can shame him for it, I was a loner on Earth too for different reasons, maybe we are more alike than I want to admit.

    I sigh to give me a couple more seconds to think of an excuse, "I saw the new prototype kilns while visiting family in Oisin a while back. I was interested in them so I talked to the supervising masons and bought a few books on the subject before coming back. It was just my passing fancy, that''s all."

    "You were so interested in them, but you didn''t think to hire one of the masons and have it built before now?"

    "Uhh," Is having this guy around the right call? He might actually find out I''m lying eventually from all this prodding. "It... Wouldn''t be very nice to just pilfer craftsmen from my relatives, right? Besides, I had to take time to read up on the subject to grasp it fully, I couldn''t have brought a stonemason from elsewhere that hadn''t seen that type of kiln until I fully understood it myself."

    "Ah, I suppose that''s true. And Sossu just happened to show up at the right time."

    "Yeah, yeah, a lucky coincidence, I''m glad I don''t need to look for a stonemason now." Phew, dodged that bullet.

    "Anyway, we both have work to do, please let me finish drawing this; I''d like Sossu to get started on this as soon as possible," I say and Casteddu finally lumbers back to his own desk, satisfied with my answers.