Zerial

If you've never had a class on manorial management and commercial logistics count yourself lucky. It is a very dry subject, which sucks, because it's also an extremely important subject in a feudal society like ours. The gist of it was easy to grasp, it was the minutiae that caused me so many sleepy afternoons in the scriptorium. Pervalia is an agricultural land, and the economy is driven in part by the harvest. What peasants bring in to harvest is largely dependent on a few major factors like soil suitability, what the manor or castle is demanding in rents, and the time of year. Basically, the vast majority of peasants as a class fell into two categories: those that farmed the land and those who assisted those who farmed the land. Each peasant household maintained a garden in which they grew vegetables they ate and they worked in huge communal fields that grew whatever cash-crop was needed to pay rents and taxes.

In Agile Valley, the peasantry largely owned their own communal fields split between many families and as such they could keep more profit from their fields as they did not need to split their harvest. This meant that they usually sold to merchants directly instead of giving it over to my father, and paid his tax men directly with coin. The farming peasants then were the driving force behind any major agricultural economy because they then also paid artisans and skilled laborers for the multitude of tools needed to harvest and manage their farmlands.

Fascinating right?

However while manorial economics was a large part of any countries economy, a much bigger portion of how money was generated and spent was split into commercial logistics. The art of moving to a location, fleecing the locals out of their hard-won earnings, and then moving said fleeced goods to another location and fleecing other people out of their hard-won coin, making a profit off of the margin's by increasing the cost of the good. Simple stuff.

In Agile Valley we had three chief trading economies competing against each other. They were, in order of economic power; The Sunward Trade House, Bocceli and Sons, and Green River Traders respectively. My father, as lord of the land, had to have someone who specifically dealt with the merchants. Let them run loose and your towns would eventually be owned by them. Keep them too weak and they couldn't generate profits, or they might move away depriving you of a strong mercantile class to buy shit from.

The merchants needed to be allowed to make a profit from the peasants and other artisans, but they needed to be regulated so as not to leave everyone and everything destitute or indentured. So between, we had merchants who dealt in various goods and services but were always looking to monopolize or expand into their competitors territory, and peasants who needed to be protected from the raw purchasing power that merchant houses possessed, and ourselves who needed to not be rebelled against and keep collecting taxes to pay OUR overlords while enriching ourselves as much as possible.

Oh. And the military. You should always pay your military. It is a very bad idea not to pay them. They get rambunctious when they have no coin.

And so we were taught about the basics of supply and demand. The peasants had supplies of cash-crops and literal food. The artisans had supplies of tools and cool stuff needed to run an advanced economy of any kind. The merchants had coin and the ability to move things from a to b and back again, increasing and decreasing scarcity. The lords who provided leadership and direction and wanted wine and fancy clothing and gifts to keep their feudal subjects in line while pleasing their overlords. The military who provided protection and also wanted basically everything in order to function properly.

The complexity came from the balancing act. It is relatively simple to understand that a man who is hungry wants bread, and so you can sell some to him for a profit because he is willing to pay to eat. Ask for too much and you might get a dagger instead. But when you've got a merchant who wants some fancy moldy cheese from a province three hundred miles away, you have to figure out how to get it there. Solved by a simple cart, horse, and driver. But you have to pay that driver to maintain the goods, deliver them, and he is going to want enough to live off of. Simple enough, just add the price of his service to the price of the cheese and scale your margin up a bit for the extra trouble. But then one of your carts gets attacked on the road, and your precious cheese is stolen. Now when the next shipment goes out you have to pay for the deliverer and enough guards to deter theft. They, oddly enough, will also want to be paid. So now you take the price of hiring however many men to walk however many miles to whichever province wants the damn cheese, and add it to the total which increases the price of cheese even more. Now you've got a ton of cheese that previously had cost maybe 10 silver for the wheel now costing roughly one gold for a wheel.

Now multiply that transaction by however many trading goods you're managing to ship over the course of a year. It is a lot of work, and not every single cheese wheel you sell will go for the exact same price and so now you need someone trustworthy to manage your books and track your spending and income. More guards to protect your warehouses, and agents to seek out markets who want to buy stinky cheese. If you send too much cheese to a market you'll crash the price of stinky cheese for awhile and lose out on profit, and so you have to make sure to supply enough to just barely fill demand.

Cheese economics. Complex stuff.

Now, as the future lord of the land, I have to understand the best way to tax those cheese peddling merchants so that I can afford to pay my own taxes and buy my own stinky cheese. Multiply that taxation process by literally everyone in the land and now you'll understand why we sponsor monks to manage our books for us.

"What is the process by which you can ensure that a merchant is paying the proper taxes and not cooking his books?" Tika asked me during my examination with him. As the future lord of the land, I warranted special attention for the economics exams. No one wanted an idiot for a lord.

"Ensure the punishment for tax evasion is punitive enough to deter the would-be thief but not too harsh that actually carrying out the punishment is seen as cruel. Have the coin monks conduct regular audits, and have a few accountants on retainer who you can send to market. Conduct audits of merchant warehouses and have an understanding of their spending and buying power," I responded, wondering how such an open ended question was fair.

Tika said nothing and just marked something on his parchment, as he had for the previous questions.

"You have a town where a merchant has bought the territory out from under the peasants and is now acting as de-facto ruler."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Several ways this can be done. Legally he has done nothing wrong in buying up the properties. The first step is to evaluate the problem itself. Is the merchant owning the land actually harming your income as a lord. Is the merchant mistreating the peasants in such a way as to harm the overall productivity of the properties? What are the chances of rebellion forming," I continued on in this vein for several minutes and then proposed several legal and technically illegal ways of regaining the land. It was not much of a problem, as nobility tended to refuse people who tried to buy land from them. Or we would set exorbitant prices for the land.

Two hours later

"Congratulations young master Zerial, you passed" Tika told me after grilling me on every possible subject we had learned over the years. "Your father will be most pleased."

"Thank you Master Scholar Tika. It was all due to your excellent teaching," I kissed his ass just a little. It was always better to be on an archmage's good side. "Ah, what did my scores say?" I asked, pointing at the paper Tika had been writing on for hours.

"Oh this? These are just doodles. I get very bored by these things, and I have even more to do," Tika replied, setting the parchment down and showing me a masterful sketch of me sitting in the chair. "I like to draw my students, so that when they inevitably leave and forget about an old man I have something to remember them by," Tika laughed and after a moment of stunned contemplation I joined him.

"Well then how did I do overall?" I asked after our mad cackling had subsided.

"Very well, you answered most things in an acceptable manner and the ones where I didn't like what you had to say are ultimately a matter of personal taste. This open-ended question examination is more for me to get a feel of how you will respond in various situations so that I can help guide your future studies. I know you kids pretty well after so many years but it is still a great time to trick everyone into thinking that this examination is more important than it really is," Tika laughed again and then kicked me out of his office. Jordan went in next as I headed off to my next examination.

Elsewhere...(Narrator)

After conquering the edges of Dather, Pervalia's king was convinced to hold off on further aggressive expansion. He was swayed into such a course by his councilors, who wanted to utilize a period of peace to help the Duke of Iron gain control over his new lands. The sparsely populated lands were soon inhabited by a great number of colonists who were convinced to move out into the region by the Duke after he proclaimed that any who did would receive assistance from the coronet.

It took the mages of Pervalia a year to cut numerous channels across the swampy lands all the way to a series of water-falls responsible for the flooded planes. Once the waterfalls were redirected into the new channel the land drained rapidly, allowing for numerous farmsteads and a few towns to begin construction. In the four years following the conquest, the citizens of the Duchy of Iron were able to open up three new mines in addition to the iron mines that Dather had been exploiting already. Fresh metal flowed into the duchy and soon tools and weapons were being crafted en masse. With the cost of weapon and armor smithing being subsidized by the Crown, many lords were able to expand their armies and afford to equip more levy's.

Now that summer approached, Pervalians all over the country looked to what Kind Eddard would do...

Council Chambers

"Very well then gentlemen, issue the call for muster. We want the grand army fully put together in a few months time, and we will march on Aurelia," Kind Eddard spoke to his assembled councilors and the seven dukes and duchesses of his nation. "Brother, you will be the primary duchy gaining from this invasion and so it will be on you to prepare the majority of your troops for war. As per usual inter-duchy wars will be suspended for the duration of the war. We all stand to gain in the coming years and by working together Pervalia will become an empire that spans the continent. Gentlemen ladies, you are dismissed. Brother, stay back"

Everyone shuffled out of the room as Eddard led Jarod into an attached study and took a seat near the fire, sighing and gesturing for Jarod to sit as well. "Are you prepared to double the size of your duchy?" Asked Eddard with a small smirk.

"Absolutely. I love doubling the amount of paperwork and missives I have to read," Jarod said with a deadpan facial expression.

"Hah. But you'll have access to the oceans, and with the Iron Duke getting so much more land he poses a threat. One that expanding your territory would counter easily" Eddard said as Jarod poured them both a fine bottle of Dather Red.

"You do so love to pit me against that idiot," Jarod complained and handed his brother the glass.

"You are a very useful tool though," Eddard laughed and Jarod scowled at him.

"How is the home life?" Eddard asked Jarod idly as he swirled wine around his fine crystal glass.

"It is well, though I do miss Minerva." Jarrod said simply.

"And your daughters?"

"Growing too fast. We're entertaining suitors for Jessica in a month. Some kind of ball or tournament. How is the prince?"

"Ah, the little bastard is growing well I suppose. He's only a year old right now but he still keeps the maids up all night," Eddard smiled with fatherly pride as the topic of his son came up. It took him a long time and no few amount of women to get his heir. Luckily for the kingdom the heir ended up coming from his actual wife Queen Harissah. It would have created a lot of trouble and political instability in Eddards camp had the child been born a bastard. Queen Harrisah's family was not one you wanted to anger, even if they were from across the ocean.

"So you haven't bothered bringing your son home eh?" Eddard asked suddenly, and Jarod froze. "Oh yes, i've known about him a good long while. It was foolish of you to send Gerald off like that, it immediately made me suspicious considering you two were attached at the hip for the entirety of our childhood," Eddard laughed.

"We felt we had to send him away. During the... events... thirteen years ago you were a little... hard... on everyone and everything around you." Jarod said hesitently.

"Ah. Yes, well I think the issue was solved," Eddard admitted with some chagrin.

"Did you ever find the bastards who were poisoning you?" Jarod inquired and Eddard smiled grimly.

"Yes, we tracked them down to a temple. It was a front for another countries organization, and from the plans we recovered they intended to keep feeding me that damned root until either I died or I had the wrong person killed."

"So it was poison.." Jarod whispered to himself. Eddard had always been a greedy, self-centered child even when they were growing up together. But he took a drastic turn 14 years ago and became very paranoid about everything and everyone. It caused him to fly into fits of rage and act extremely erratically, so much so that even his own flesh and blood began to fear for their safety whenever he was around. The plot was initially discovered by Archmage Tika, and he was able to subdue the king in the very same room they sat in now and purge his blood from the malignant substance. It was called Kings bane in Pervalia.

"So, now we come to what I wanted to talk to you about," Eddard said after a period of silence where both men were thinking similar thoughts, remembering the past. "I want you to bring your son back to your court and officially claim him. You need a proper heir and it will strengthen the duchy. I won't say you were wrong to send him away considering the circumstances... But to leave him gone any longer would be stupid at best."

"Do not worry brother, you need not tell me to reclaim my lost son. I had planned to do so soon anyways, and I have had him trained the same way we were."

"HAH! Is that old bastard Tika still teaching at the monastery?" Eddard asked. Jarrod nodded and Eddard smiled again, seeming almost like a young boy again. "I remember the trouble you and I got into with him when we would sneak around at night pretending to be valiant knights slaying goblins."

"Or when we stole Knight Commander Beauregard's armor and hid it in a latrine?" Jarod laughed and Eddard went pale.

"Not something I want to remember! I still smell the stink after all these years from cleaning the damn armor!"

The two continued to laugh and trade stories through out the night.