Legends Never Die: The Wider World (ch. 83) (Patreon)

Things were different now that I was recognized nobility. I had already possessed everything that a noble did -- great wealth, a sizable army, and noble marriages. By that logic, I was one of the most powerful nobles in the Empire. The only others that could compare were the Strategos, and they were few in number. And if it came to a fight, I felt confident I would win.

Yet, I had lacked lands and a recognized noble name. Or, rather, the noble privileges that came with being recognized nobility. The nobility of Rome still didn't like me -- I suspected that they liked me a great deal less than when I was just a pagan barbarian now I was considered their peer in fact. However, they couldn't dismiss me like they had before. I was nobility, and protocol had to be followed. My lands were small, and only in my hands for a few short years, but Norland was already a prosperous port and its value would only increase with time.

However, what I enjoyed the most about my new position was that I could now freely cultivate the land. I could establish villages and the like, rather than attempting to cram everything inside of Norland's expanding walls. I could make the town more self-sustaining, setting up a network of farms to feed it rather than relying on fishing like we had so far.

Which was why I had a thick rope in my hands, thrown over my shoulder as I fought to take a step with a plow behind me with three men pushing it from behind. The plow cut through the earth, shoveling soil to the sides for the seeds that would soon be buried. There was grunting and groaning as we all worked to move the stubborn and heavy plow.

“Faster! Faster!” I heard Thorkell calling out, working a plow that was being pulled by a stocky workhorse and a half dozen men. “Put your backs into it!” He urged and I had to fight a smile as he was red in the face, pulling with all of his might, but I still managed to hold the lead. It was an impromptu competition, with the end of the field marking the finish line. And I knew that it was a competition that would repeat itself time and time again.

I had been mistaken about Crete's fertility. In a way. The soil was very poor for grain -- wheat would never grow here, but it was not poor for everything. Olives grew on the island almost better than anywhere else. Grapes as well. And various root vegetables. The Romans did not have four field crop rotation, and I was reluctant to give it to them. Though, I'm not sure if I could in the first place because the soil seemed only rich for a handful of specific plants.

Another issue was that the land was more like Norway than Denmark or Francia. There would be no vast fields of crops where acres and acres of farmland would be cultivated. Despite being the exact opposite in temperament and weather, Crete and Norway were similar. Farms had to be small and spread out. Some of the largest would cover an acre, maybe two but no more. Most would barely be an acre.

Which explained why Crete was so sparsely inhabited. An acre of farmland was barely enough to feed a small family through the year, and not if they ate only what they grew on the farm. It was a challenge to be sure, but a welcome one. The information I earned from this experience would be invaluable to King Hoffer.

My answer to the issue was first to walk the land, surveying it with Earth Wealth, which allowed me to see the fertility of soil in lands that belonged to me. Fertile soil was marked with stakes and twine, and usually the soil was scattered about. In some places, it would be clumped together -- disparate enough that it couldn't be called a large fertile field, but close enough that I could see a farming village set up somewhere between family farms. Other times, you could walk many miles without seeing soil that wasn't marked red.

It took some time, but it was worth doing. Then, with all the fields marked, I chose which ones would develop what and fed them all into centralized villages. One cluster of farms would produce wine. Others olives. Another vegetables. All of it would feed into the village, who would then sell their crop to Norland as a whole.

It wasn't a perfect system, even on paper. It would take one bad season from a village that produced only grapes to turn into wine to prove ruinous. Which is why I was subsidizing what would be wine or olive villages. When things worked, they would sell their crop to winemakers or olive presses, they would turn the crops into goods, and the goods would then be sold to merchants. To ensure that the villages that produced cash crops remained fed, and so they weren't constantly beggered by purchasing food, Norland would cover a percentage of their food costs. In the event of a bad year, the cost would be offloaded onto Norland entirely to be repaid in taxes.

It was a system that when it worked, it would work great. But… Things didn't always work like they should. Perhaps Norland wouldn't have the money to pay for the food that its villages produced. Perhaps there was a raid and a village was destroyed to the point that a gaping hole opened up in the system, which would cause shortages, and shortages would cause increased prices, and the entire thing would become difficult to manage.

I was still working on it. I wanted something more robust. Something that could take some heavy knocks and still function as intended. But, for now, I hadn't even gotten to the point to see if the system worked in the first place.

Sweat dripped off of me, my shirt soaked with it until I simply tossed it off like so many others. The sun shone overhead, the sky devoid of a single cloud, and my muscles had a deeply familiar ache in them as I raced towards the finish line. Thorkell and his crew’s efforts grew more desperate, and they steadily closed the gap between us but it was far too late for them to overcome me. My victory was punctuated with their cries of dismay and my team’s cheering while I dropped the rope to see that I had developed more blisters.

I chuckled, looming out at the field while I rolled my shoulder, a deep ache setting in. “I missed farming,” I admitted to myself as Thorkell finished his line with far less enthusiasm.

It was a strange thought. When I was a boy but a few years ago, I would dream of leaving the farm. Sailing off with my father and brothers to raid distant lands and finding incredible treasures. It wasn't a real thought or plan, but I always thought that once I became a warrior that farming would be beneath me. That I wouldn't ever do it again simply because I would have people to do it for me.

But I had missed it. The scent of soil and sweat, breaking the earth, and knowing that soon, we would reap the bounty of our labor. It almost felt like home, despite being half a world away.

“Most people don't take being called a workhorse so literal, Sieg,” Thorkell pointed out, and I laughed. “Ah, well, we'll get you next time.” He said and I rolled my shoulder again, already feeling a bruise forming. I looked at the horses on the other plows for a moment, seeing that their harness wasn't much different than mine. I imagined that pulling the plow made them ache as much as it did me.

But my attention was stolen when beyond the horses I saw Jill and Jasmine approaching with a few guards and Alim to serve as a translator. Jill caught my gaze and she offered a smile as they approached while Jasmine barely seemed to take notice of her surroundings as she gazed out at the field with an odd sense of wonderment. Lagging behind her was Rajah, always alert for threats. Which he found in me, based on how his feline pupils narrowed into thin slits.

Rajah still didn't like me much even if he stopped snarling in the direction of everyone else, provided that they didn't come too close. But I was fairly certain that was because of the blessing that I gave Jill, since Jill and Jasmine were frequently seen together.

“What brings you two here?” I asked Jill while Alim quietly translated the words to Jasmine, who hardly seemed to listen.

“Princess Jasmine was interested when she learned that you were setting up farms,” Jill answered while Jasmine walked over to the edge of the freshly plowed field before poking the dirt. “Astrid wanted to join, but she got to the door before thinking better of it, and she refused to be carried.” I felt a rush travel through me at the reminder. Winter had come and gone. Spring as well. Summer had gripped the land, and with every passing day, Astrid and I inched closer to being parents. “And Morrigan is snooping again.”

I hummed. Morrigan had yet to bond with an animal, though that was mostly because they hadn't hatched yet. Odin cast his watchful eye to this land, and because of it, it had been a simple task of getting Morrigan a clutch of raven eggs when a mother failed to return to her nest. A sign, as far as I could tell, but I knew little of such things. So, until then, Morrigan watched people the way she had since the start.

“Why did she want to see a farm?” I asked and to that, Jill seemed pensive.

“She… claims to have never seen one before,” Jill informed and I blinked at that before turning to the Abbasid Princess, who was rubbing dirt between her finger and thumb. She seemed to sense our attention, glancing at us, before an expression of embarrassment flickered over her face. I could hardly believe it -- she had never seen a farm before. The very thought was a strange one.

She also seemed to guess why I was puzzled. “I know farms grow things, but… I never left the palace before I followed my brother to Acre.” She admitted, turning her gaze out to the field and I couldn’t help but find it odd that she would eye something so mundane with a sense of wonder. I had looked upon Constantinople with that same expression. “Before that, I never even entered Baghdad properly. Father always refused me. And caught me when I tried to sneak out,” she admitted with brazen honesty.

Alim translated the words to Jill in Norse, and now Alim was speaking the language as if he had grown up speaking it. While he did, I spoke in Arabic, “You used the war as a chance to leave?” I asked, wondering if she regretted the course of action now.

Jasmine nodded, “Everyone was so busy with preparations it was easy to attach myself to a party.” Then she pointed to the soil, “What will grow here?”

“Here? Grapes. This will be a vineyard,” I said, looking out at the field. We had farmers that knew how to grow and manage a vineyard, and I had seen them in Francia. Stakes would be set up for the vines to grow on. Frustratingly, I was told that it would take at least two years, most likely three, for the grapes to mature. If I was lucky, by the time we left this land we would produce our first batch of wine.

Jasmine looked at me with confusion, “Wine comes from vineyards, yes?”

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I nodded.

She looked back out at the field with an expression of fascination and vague disgust, “Then… grapes… grow from the dirt?” She stressed, and I scratched at my check, seeing that the news was nothing short of a revelation to her but I had no idea how to respond.

“...Aye? Most things come from the earth.” I replied and I was starting to see the depths of her ignorance.

“What about… bread? Apples?” she pressed, her expression almost combative when she saw my blunt disbelief.

“Apples grow on trees. Bread comes from wheat that's ground into flour, mixed with water, and then baked.” I explained and I saw that my words troubled her ever so slightly. Her brow furrowed, her lips thinned before she poked the dirt once more.

“I didn't know that,” she muttered to herself more than to me. “I thought bread came from the kitchens.” Then her lips quirked up ever so slightly, “I did know that apples came from trees though. I've seen them! I just wanted to make sure you weren't trying to trick me,” she admitted and I found that an incredibly strange thing to take pride in.

I was… puzzled. Confused. And I felt some stirring of pity for Jasmine, who gazed out at the farm, because we had the opposite issue. To her, she only knew the grandeur of a palace. An army of servants catering to her every whim, and she was beholden only to the most powerful man in the empire. To her, a farm truly was every bit as strange and wondrous as Constantinople had been to me.

Her attention drifted over to the horses and plow as Thorkell gathered up the men to start making another run. She watched the plow work, “Does that hurt the horses?” she asked with some worry and I opened my mouth to say it didn't, but then my shoulder ached once more.

Instead I pursed my lips, “It does. But I think I have an idea how to make it easier for them,” I admitted and Jasmine lit up with an earnest smile. I glanced at Jill, “Do we have any spare cloth and leather?” I asked, looking out at the horses for a moment.

Our bodies were rather different, but given our job was much the same, I had an idea of what I wanted to make. Something that would make pulling less of a pain while also making it easier to pull. I would need some wood, but that was easy enough to get my hands on. Jill seemed faintly surprised by the request, but nodded.

It didn't take much time for a runner to fetch the supplies and upon Thorkell's completion of another row, they were eager for a break. Jasmine followed behind me like a second shadow, inadvertently dragging Jill with her. The princess was simply delighted to watch the work happen, as if it were a great play. Though, it didn't take her long to start asking questions when I used a length of twine to start taking measurements.

“What are you doing?” She asked and as far as I could tell, she was genuinely interested in knowing.

“What causes pain is that all the weight and resistance is located in a single point,” I said, gesturing to my shoulder that was a bright red where the rope had dug into it. “I intend to make a harness that will spread out the weight.” Cloth and leather to help cushion the load, while several points would hook into the wood parts of the harness to the plow. So, instead of a single point, it would be ten points to evenly distribute the pressure.

What I wanted to make was pretty simple, truth be told, but more time consuming to do well. I was more concerned with if the idea would work at all rather than it looking good. I handed over the folded cloth and the leather to Jill to stitch together while I worked on the wooden mantle. What Lay Within helped guide my hand as I took large chunks of wood off with a hammer and chisel. And, before long, I had an extremely rough version of what I wanted. A long mantle that would loop around a horse's neck, and settle between their front legs -- there were ten hooks for the plow to latch onto.

Attaching the padding to the mantle would take too much time, and it wasn't strictly necessary to test the harness. So, once Jill had everything roughly stitched together, I threw it over the horse’s head, followed by the mantle. It roughly fit, the wood going over the padding while the wood tapered around his neck and joints to avoid impacting his mobility. The old workhorse stood idly, watching me then attach the harness to the plow with thin rope. It wasn't perfect because I had to somewhat awkwardly tie the ropes to the plow, but it was more or less what I envisioned.

Now all that was left was to try it out. Under Princess Jasmine's watchful eye, I went out to do a new run of the field with the workhorse, and the effects were near immediate. The workhorse prodded forward with much greater ease than he had before, and it was only then that I realized that the old harness was likely choking the horse so it didn't want to use all of its strength. The ground parted as the plow did its job, and just with the two of us, and another guiding the plow in a straight path, we finished the line.

It was a simple change, I thought while Jasmine clapped as if it were the conclusion to a play, but one that made a significant difference-

Padded Horse Collar Technology discovered 21 years in advance.

Learning experience awarded: 2500

I blinked at the message before the experience was applied, crossing the threshold to grant me a Learning Perk. My first one in what felt like entirely too long. Despite myself, I smiled widely, looking over my choices.

Early Scandinavian Ship Building

Blacksmithing: Armorsmithing Intermediate

Basic Architecture

The choice was an obvious one, I decided. Armorsmithing and Ship Building were tempting, and if Crete had any trees and I wasn't half a world away from home, I could see either of the two being chosen. But what I needed was Basic Architecture. I was building a city. I was building roads. And I had seen the pinnacle of what could be made with human hands.

Making my choice, knowledge flowed into my mind -- I had already learned some things on my own. A roof needed support, wood needed to be burnt before being buried if the stakes would serve as a foundation to avoid rot. The knowledge from the gods expanded upon what I had learned. It informed me how a roof would sag and ways to prevent it beyond planting a pillar underneath a point of weakness. It taught me how to build a stable foundation, clarifying weaknesses I had seen with Structural Analysis but couldn't understand.

The knowledge was exactly what I needed, I decided.

I almost couldn't wait to try it out, only for the moment of celebration to be ended with a messenger riding up on a horse. “Lord Wolf-Kissed! An Abbasid ship is sailing towards the harbor!” The man shouted and that stole my attention away from a moment of triumph. My gaze flickered to Jasmine and I could tell that she recognized the word Abbasid. A conflicted expression passed over her face before she hastily tried to hide it by pulling up the veil she wore.

I nodded, then looked to Jill. “It's likely the shipment of knowledge that Prince Harun promised me. But, they will likely wish to check on their Princess.” I informed, taking the horse from the messenger and throwing my leg over it.

“I'll take care of it,” Jill said, nodding back at me and I wheeled the horse away to gallop up to Norland. I was eager, I decided, heading down the dirt path as I envisioned it being made of stone. The knowledge did more than just fill gaps in my knowledge. It expanded upon it, giving me ideas that I never otherwise would have considered. My mind was alight with possibilities, and I hoped to learn more from these Abbasid texts.

Making my way through Norland, I approached the wall that faced the harbor and got on top of it. As the messenger said, I saw an Abbasid ship sailing for the mouth of the harbor. It wasn't one of ours, I swiftly noticed.

The ships that we had stolen were all marked, and most of them had been turned into trade ships. Some were sold to the Romans, some to merchants, but most were filled with purchased goods from Constantinople and then sent out across the Mediterranean Sea.

Leaning on the wall, True Sight marked a few of the men on the ship as red. Hardly surprising, really. What was surprising was that there were two gold figures standing on the bow of the ship. I recognized only one of them.

I sighed, finding myself rather annoyed with who was delivering my hard-won knowledge.

“That bastard.”