“My Lady? My Lady?” Skera said with a concerned look on her sunkissed freckled face. Wait, was it my imagination, or has Skera gotten pretty lately? Her hair was no longer wild and unkempt. It looked like some minimum effort was taken to look presentable. Good for her!
“Oh, right. Sorry, Skera. What did you say?” Gods, I had trouble focusing on anything after that morning meeting. The way Rummy tenderly cared for his daughter stirred some very deep emotions within me. I felt a powerful torrent of envy towards that adorable child for having such a loving father, and an equally potent torrent of lust towards the man who could make me the mother of a blessed child. As long as these torrents of sinful thoughts raged in my mind, I doubted I could do anything productive today.
“Forge-master Rummy asked me to inform you that his caravan to the city will depart tomorrow at noon. So you should be ready to depart by then.” Skera intoned.
“Right, excellent. Than… thank you for letting me know.” I stammered.
“Perhaps it’s not my place to say, but you should take a rest, my Lady.” She said with some concern in her voice. “You seemed… distracted.”
“If I could, I would, my dear Skera.” I said with a bitter smile. “But I still have to look over the plans for settling the new residents, the new trade school curriculum, and the farm expansions. I’m leaving the town for a fortnight. There simply is no time for breaks.”
“My Lady, we have 3 clerks who could take some of that work off your shoulders.”
“No Skera, I will not be like my father. I will not abdicate my responsibility as the Lady of the City and indulge my sloth while danger looms ever closer to Pridwen. The clerks run errands and archive files just fine, but I will not have them govern. That is my burden and my burden alone.”
“But how long can you last like this?”
“Over 300 souls entrusted their lives to me and chose to live out here in the Wilds thanks to the miracle that is named Rummy. I cannot squander this miracle. We must succeed, Skera, or I shall die trying.”
“But my-”
“I shall hear no more of this, my Knight.” I intentionally used her title instead of her name. “My heart is touched by your concern, but we must move forward with our respective tasks. Time waits for no one. Go back to the militia, Skera. I believe you have a class to teach soon.”
Skera gave me a helpless look before replying. “... Yes, my Lady.” She saluted me and left.
***
“Yes, my Lady. This the land we gonna grow them potatoes on. If all goes well, we could harvest by Fall.” Celio, my chief farmhand, reverently answered my question with his eyes on the ground. There are times when I get frustrated by how reverential most of the commoners are to me, but I’d long give up on trying to get them to stop that.
I took in the scene and the smell of the outdoors. I didn’t get to go out often, so I always did enjoy my farm inspection tours. The sun and the breeze did wonders for my distracted mind. “And you think the potatoes should be enough to feed all the incoming residents for the long term?”
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“Yes, my Lady. I reckon there should be enough here to feed 30-50 more people if nothing goes wrong.”
“Excellent. I approve of this plan. Get started on it while I have the clerks finish up the paperwork.” I commanded.
“At once, Lady Natalia!” Celio quickly saluted and ran towards the tool shed.
Well, that was one crisis resolved, or at least partially delayed. With new residents constantly streaming in, our food reserves were dipping below comfortable levels. We should be fine this winter, but there’d be no guarantees next winter.
Rummy had suggested expanding the fisheries and caravan as backup stopgaps. But at the end of the day, it was much better to eat the food that we grew. Relying on external sources could spell trouble if we were to get cut off for whatever reason. Father wasn’t much of a City Lord towards the end of his life, but he did teach me this much.
***
“This curriculum plan is acceptable to me. Thank you, Rose. When can you start interviewing and sorting the children?”
“Within a fortnight, my Lady.” Rose quickly replied. She clearly had an easier time interacting with nobility than poor Celio.
“A fortnight? Why the long delay?” I curiously asked as I filed the proposed plan into a drawer in my office.
“Apologies, Lady Natalia, but I still need time training the teachers. After all, some of these teachers are new to their trades and none of us has more than 3 winters worth of experience.” Rose profusely apologized.
“Please don’t take this as criticism, Rose. I know you’re all relatively new in this. Just do the best you can- that’s all I’m asking for as your Lady. In either case, a fortnight is fine.”
“Thank you, my Lady.”
“Very well. You are dismissed, Rose.”
Gods, what a brilliant idea this “Trade School” is. Instead of a bunch of stubborn and paranoid men jealously guarding their secrets, Pridwen had a school dedicated to openly teaching any given craft to any number of students. This instantly raised the productivity of the residents and gave them a sense of purpose.
More importantly, Pridwen would soon have an industry that’s mature enough to support mass productions of the light weaponry. From mining iron to refining steel to forging parts, there was industrial support for all portions of the production line. Once we had all of these industries fully staffed and running, our production capacity would drastically dwarf what we had before. Having previously witnessed the inhuman killing power of a single MG-42, the thought of making dozens of them in a fortnight truly excited and frightened me.
***
The next issue of the day would be the public bathhouse. Ever since the first one was built, the residents had clamored for another one. It was a pretty popular way for people to relax together after a hard day at work. I’d have to admit that Rummy’s foresight on this topic was truly impressive. Now I have to consider proposals for building 2 more in the town.
Rummy rarely lobbied for anything outside of his purview as Forge-master. But he did vigorously lobby for the bathhouse on grounds of “public hygiene and cleanliness”. He claimed that this is to prevent disease, but with the availability of <
5 moons later, I realized the true reason for his intense lobbying. After he’d built a public one for the town, he borrowed the blueprint and infrastructure to build a private one for his harem. Gods know what perverted things he had done to Emma and Sapphire in that bathhouse of his.
Oh no, I was thinking of Rummy again. Sigh, there goes my productivity for the rest of the day…