Amelie and the rest of the workers were fast.
Just a day after I handed over the town plans to them, they'd already started digging the deep channels we needed to build our primitive sewer system. I would have preferred to create something more modern, out of sight and out of mind, but I didn't know enough about sewers to be confident in it. While I knew a lot of things that the others didn't, that did not mean I was an expert on everything.
I needed some other smart people to come help. My grand scheme to enforce rapid economic development in the area relied on one key thing, education. Education was the great equalizer. By forming a strong academic community in the town, I could fill in my gaps of knowledge by recruiting the best and brightest from around the world. I could point them in the right direction and let them figure things out.
Not to mention the benefits it would bring to the children. A full decade long curriculum was probably just a pipe dream, but teaching them some basic things like mathematics, reading and writing would pay dividends very quickly. A well educated society is a productive society. It was the competitive edge that would make the difference between success and failure.
While it was all too easy to make these types of plans in my mind, the real problem would be convincing other people to go along with it. I had no doubt that the traditional farming families would question the value of having their children educated when they were destined to inherit the family business. What good would reading and writing do for them? All they needed to know was how to plant and harvest.
This would be a persistent problem.
I need political capital, I needed trust. If every townsperson didn't want anything to do with my fancy modern ideas, I wouldn't get very far trying to implement them. "This is just how things should be," isn't a convincing argument; especially not when it flies in the face of every norm that they know.
I decided to drop by the worksite, which just so happened to be a very short walk from my office in the barracks. They'd already marked out the areas that needed to be unearthed, and palettes of stone brick had already started arriving from the miners. Amelie was busy directing the workers.
I called out to the leader of the team, "How are things going boss-man?"
The foreman, Andrew, turned back to me with a mixed expression, "They're going well. I wasn't so sure about her at first, but she knows what she's doing. Where did she even come from anyway?"
"That noble who stopped by a few days ago ditched her here, she's his sister."
He scoffed, "Why would he do that?"
"Probably to try and keep an eye on us. Not that there's much need considering there are spies running around in the woods."
"You gonna' do something about it?"
"As long as they don't cause any trouble, it's fine. They don't have the men to spare to come here and shake us down for what little coin we have."
"If they do?"
"Bad. We need to open trade with other towns soon so we can get money flowing inwards, but it'll be a while before people have things to sell."
We had a surplus of food on the way. The farms we had already were enough to support the population of the town, which was odd. Older farm technology essentially required that a huge portion of the population worked as farmers to support themselves. I suspected that their techniques were more advanced than I first thought.
My hope was that those farmers would sell the excess to nearby settlements to earn some cash, bring it back to our town, and spend it here. This would distribute the money into our economy and cushion us from any potential deflation when the taxman came calling. Transporting those goods would be the problem. The nearest settlement (by land) was a long way to the north. Some of the farmers hadn't been able to save their animals when they fled, meaning they'd have to potentially pull a very heavy cart by hand.
Jerimiah had been adamant that getting a horse or two to every family would make the farms even better, for both production and output sold. But where would we get them from? Somebody would have to find the money and make the long walk to a farm selling them. Jerimiah told me to not worry about it and focus on town planning. He was the farmer's collective head, so I listened to his advice and left solving that problem to him. It was probable that he'd take the mules from the travelling wagons and use them to get things going.
Amelie clambered out of the ditch and approached me, "Jeeze. I've never such an ambitious plan for such a small town in my life."
"The idea is that it won't be just a town soon enough. When more people move in, we'll be glad that we took these steps to prepare for them."
She planted a hand on her hip and frowned, "You did include a toilet for these new houses, didn't you?"
"Of course I did."
The people living on the farms would have to make do with an outhouse for now. Ideally we'd evolve our sewerage system over time and spread it out to every home in the area. The people on the farms were used to handling their own waste, and had the space to dump it without causing too many issues.
One of the other major developments in the town was the construction of a well. Again, that was outside of my wheelhouse, but some of the other settlers knew how to do it. I pointed out a good spot using my magic eye and left them to it. Some of the stone bricks had been used to build the surround structure, and the wooden bucket I used to collect election candidates was tied to a clever pulley system.
Another small building had been erected using logs and stone. Unlike the houses, this warehouse didn't need sewerage, so we were able to build it before everything else. It was a convenient place to keep our perishable goods safe from the elements. We had enough food to last us until the first harvest came in.
Amelie broke my reverie, "This location is good. You could easily hold a shipping lane from here to the Black Cove. Were you the one who decided this was the place to start building?"
"Yeah."
"Once we're done with the sewer channels, we should prioritize building a small dock for ships to use. A place for small trading ships to moor and load goods would be a great boon."
"And you know how to build one?"
"In principle."
It was better than what I knew at least. The waters were also good for fishing, but none of the people in the caravan had worked as fishermen before. I wanted to make that a reality soon enough – it would help with our food security.
"How long is this going to take?"
"We started here so that the homes can be built, I'd say a week for this section; the masons are going to come this evening and begin working on the tunnels. The hardest part is the output into the sea. It's a long distance away and the largest channel we have to dig. For a fully working system? A month, assuming we get some more help."
"I think some of the others will join in when they're done with their own work. Hopefully we can get ahead of schedule and get these homes built."
The houses weren't going to be anything special. I'd spoken with the builders, and they told me that they could easily set up something quickly and easily. I wanted to get everyone into a home of their own as quickly as possible, as camping out in the barrack or outside in the cold was a major driver of low morale. Additionally, these wood and brick homes could be dismantled in the future when new building techniques became available to us.
"Where did you learn how to do all this?" she asked again, "You have a strange talent for identifying points of weakness."
"I told you already, I'm educated."
"Where?"
I reached up and tightened the leather band around my replacement eye, "That's a secret."
"Pah. I should have known, you're just leading me on."
"We all have secrets, don't we? I'm sure there's a lot of things that you wouldn't like to tell me."
"And if we exchange a secret between ourselves, an equivalent trade will do, will it not?"
"I guess. But what could you tell me? I don't really much care for details about your personal life."
Amelie thought on it for a moment, "I can tell you what my brother intends for you and this town. In exchange, I want to know how you know all these things."
"…Very well."
Amelie's expression told me that she still felt sour about being left behind, "My idiot brother was tasked by the King to secure the loyalty of these people. As you can probably guess, he did not see the profound irony in earning 'loyalty' from people abused and persecuted by his men. Much to his frustration, neither my father, nor the King believed he was in a position to take over as the Count."
"So who is?"
She pointed to herself, "Me. He believed that my guiding hand would create a prosperous new source of tax money for his hungry war machine. Officially though, daughters of noblemen are second in priority to the male heirs. Instead – they proposed that I come here and use my 'womanly charms' to seduce you, the witless idiot, and assume a position as the lady of the county and real powerbroker. I nearly expelled my stomach on the spot."
"I'm not that bad, am I?" I jested.
"This was before I knew what you looked like," she assured me, "A cynical and foolish plan, as I have come to expect from my father."
"You'd be the one pulling the strings."
"Yes, that would be the case. Though my initial assessment of you was of a man too savvy to fall for such a scheme. You have a firm hold on the mechanisms of power here. That is beside my own objections to the plan, of course. Call me a romantic if you must, but marrying a man merely to assume control over a half-built hamlet is a bridge too far."
We agreed on that, at least. "Nobles are something else…"
She smiled and held out her palm like a child demanding candy, "Now, a secret of your own." I sighed and reached up for the leather strap I had tightened nervously just a moment before. Her confusion soon gave way to shock as she saw the distinct glow of the eye inserted into my socket. "I… oh my. Is that?"
All of my town plans appeared in glowing yellow lines behind Amelie, "Yes, yes, it is."
"I never thought I would get to see one of these for myself. A Holy Relic… so confidently utilized by a mortal man."
I redressed myself and shook my head, "It's called the King's Eye. That's how I've been planning out this little town of ours. If I want a piece of information, or want to see through the ground, that's how I do it. These ditches you're digging? I used it to calculate the flow of the water running through them."
"Incredible. Ah, to have one of those for myself."
"I have reason to believe they're very rare, Lady Amelie. I do hope I won't awaken with a spoon in my eye-socket."
She was offended by the suggestion, "Yes, of course. Don't take that the wrong way. I have no intent of outing this to others, or scooping the thing out of your skull and swapping it with one of mine. I'm a firm believer in the principle that those who are worthy are granted these gifts. But there's clearly more to this tale that you're not speaking of."
"Like I said, we all have things we feel the need to keep secret."