That damned Duke Hawth. He has truly fucked us over this time.

A sharp knock on the door interrupted Duke Carrow’s thoughts, and he kept his attention on the reports that spread out on the desk in front of him when he answered the call. Collector’s reports, he mused. Oh, how they manage to both excite me and creep me out at the same time.

“Yes, what is it?” He didn’t have time for this interruption now. The afternoon was booked solid with meetings and conferences, and his wife had insisted that he finish up early to join her for a walk. “It’s been too long, Rob,” she had said over breakfast this morning. And she was right. It had been too long. A sharp pang of regret reminded him of the promises he had made to himself as a young man, when he observed his father neglecting his wife and slowly and inevitably dragging his marriage to an inevitable doom. His father had always stretched himself too thin with the demands of the dukedom. Which made his last advice to Carrow so ironic: “Delegation,”–his father had declared with that voice which always filled the room, just days before his premature death–“delegation is the key to happiness when the responsibilities of thousands rest on your shoulders.” His father had known, even as he failed to follow his own teachings.

Carrow closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The quota reports on his desk were not going away anytime soon, and the collector’s reports were the same as last week and the same as next week. There were more important matters to attend to. That travesty of a campaign that Duke Hawth had rolled through his lands over the last weeks was making a complete mess of everything. He enjoyed a good scuffle now and then as much as the next noble, but Hawth had kept pushing and pushing and pushing, forcing Duke Robert Carrow to commit more and more manpower to defend his lands. So many people were killed unnecessarily, so many farms laid waste, so much fertile land put to the torch. So much future potential that was gone, and now they would both need to replenish the losses. Somehow.

Hawth should just have asked him for some land, and Carrow would happily have handed over some to avoid the battles and the ruination of war. The land, and the people, would change hands back eventually anyway.

Carrow made a note to send Duke Hawth a bottle of that dark red grape wine that he liked so much. There should be a supply coming into Brook one of these weeks from Lyril, and nothing smoothed out negotiations as well as a good bottle. He really didn’t have the time or manpower to spare on pursuing a war right now, and he wanted–no, he needed it to end. The northern towns were prospering more than ever before, with average litter size increasing from three-point-seven to four-point-two children in just three years. It was really much better than he had any reason to expect, and maybe… Yes. He had hesitated for too long, but there was no reason to wait. He would share the successful recipe that he had discovered in exchange for a ceasefire.

He felt a headache coming on. He had finally turned around a downward trend that had gone on for generations. Shortly after coming into power, he had taken to spending long nights in the archives, and what he had seen there had chilled him to the bone. His father’s production had been more than twice in the beginning of his reign than at the end, and his father before, and so it went on and on. Every generation halved, or more than halved, the previous. He had seen the same pattern continuing after taking over from his father; more farms were laid fallow every year that passed. Houses in ruin and good fertile soil conquered by weeds and woods. The cities became towns, and the towns became villages. The villages that remained in the end were just a few people scrounging an existence out of nothing, out of the greatness of the past.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

His uncle had told him stories of a far-away past when the cities had been built. When humans could still work stone and metal and wood to construct buildings that were now just ruins. His own palace was just what remained of a construction which had long ago fallen into disrepair and eventually torn down before it could endanger people.

And the production quotas, which had been designed for a time when the cities were bustling with life. He cast a look over at the collector’s reports, his eyes confirming his suspicion as he looked at the final sum at the bottom. Brook used to yield over twenty each week, and now there was a simple number 4 staring back at him.

Who would have thought how easy it was to increase production? He should really have thought about it years before, but the idea was so far out there. And of course, the Church had been against the idea since his quartermaster suggested it, and then kept working against every step of the day. That damned cult. His jaw clenched when he remembered the last council meeting. Duke Carrow had no idea why they were so opposed to the idea, even after the plan’s success was obvious to everyone. Just because they somehow wielded an unnatural power, they thought they could dictate how he should run his dukedom.

Centralised social programs. The words still sounded foreign to him, and he didn’t know where Tom had gotten it from, but the idea had proved sound. Make food supply predictable throughout the supply-chain, from sowing through gathering and distribution. Ensure seed stock was maintained at stable levels. Professionalise farming as a predictable industry. Rotate workers so they get rest, and make sure everyone has enough to eat. Even people who, for some reason, could not contribute directly to the economy, got their ration of food, every day. The food was just a method to increase production.

In the beginning, he–and his chancellor–had feared it would prove too expensive. Giving out food to the sick and the young and those who could not work just seemed so alien. But the proof was in the pudding. Sure, it was expensive to distribute free food, but the long-term benefits to building a sustainable production base meant more people survived to marry, more people had babies, again resulting in a more predictable mortality base to meet his quotas. Even with the number 4 glaring up at him, he knew it would have been lower if he had not acted when he had.

A graph on his wall brought a smile to his face every time he looked at it. The line that had fallen steadily for so many months and years was now pointing upwards.

The door remained shut. “I said, come in!” he shouted, and the door finally opened. Looking up, he saw an unkempt soldier stumbling into the room, holding a rolled up missive. “What is it?” he said sharply, dropping his gaze back to the report he had been reading. He might still have time to join his wife for a walk this afternoon.

The soldier took a ragged breath before wheezing something.

“Speak clearly, man!”

“News from the north, milord.” The man was trying to stand straight, but the Duke picked up on the slight shaking of his legs as he handed over the scroll. “Here!”

Duke Robert Carrow received the scroll and broke the seal, unrolling the parchment to peer down at the writing. Reading the brief message just left him scratching his head in confusion.

What was so important about this?

Apparently, a group of deserters from Hawth’s Rangers had escaped into a cave in the mountains north of Brook. Carrow didn’t know why this was reported all the way up to him. They would run out of food eventually and perhaps join one of the neighbouring farms. Hawth would lose some people, he would gain some. That was just a benefit, wasn’t it? I guess I could ask Tom to have a look.

Moments later, the scroll lay forgotten in a pile of other paper on the Duke’s desk, as he turned his attention back to the quota reports that were due in just a few days. The Church was not known for its benevolence in general, and when it came to upholding the quotas, or failing to report… Carrow shivered as he imagined being late, or even worse–falling short of his quarterly quota of death. The image of an inquisitor in full regalia flashed before his eyes as he forced his focus back on the paperwork.

His wife would have to wait. She would understand.