They asked for cups of water before continuing, they had been talking for a long ti and were thirsty already.
Twenty thousand was a lot. More than Percvale had seen in decades, probably more than several of the previous Barons had seen across their entire tenures combined at once. It felt like the kind of number that solved problems.
It didn’t solve all the problems. He knew that. And the fastest way to turn twenty thousand into nothing was to spend it the way the previous Barons had apparently spent the fifty thousand they had borrowed, without a plan, on things that didn’t compound into anything useful.
He was not going to do that. He wasn’t going to spend it all on drinks or food or having fun or taking won.
That was just insensible spending and would bring his downfall really fast.
But he also couldn’t just sit on it. Money sitting in bags did nothing for a barony. The roads were bad. The outer walls were weak. The watchtowers that should have given Percvale early warning of an approaching force, like the two hundred knights that had walked in and burned half the settlent, were abandoned and falling apart.
There were houses that had been empty for years because people had left during the decline, their forr occupants scattered to wherever people went when a place stopped being worth living in. The military equipnt was still largely poor. There were almost no skilled workers of the specific types a rebuilding territory needed.
And the farmland, which was the center of everything, still needed proper farrs.
"What does Percvale need most urgently?" Darion asked.
Garren didn’t need to think about it for long. He had been living with the list for years.
"The farmland first," he said. "Seren’s work is nearly finished, a few sections left. But worked soil with no one to farm it is just good soil sitting there. We need actual farrs on it."
"We have knights who know how to plant," Darion said.
"We have knights who grew up in a farming barony and have basic knowledge," Garren said. "That worked when it was the only option. But we’re talking about running a proper operation now. People who know crop rotation, who understand which plants go together, who can read the soil and know what it needs month to month." He paused. "That’s different from a knight pressing seeds into the ground because it was better than starving."
Darion nodded. He had known that, really. The early planting had been survival improvisation. What ca next needed to be sothing more organized.
"Do we need to bring soone in from outside?" he asked.
"No," Garren said. "Percvale was a farming barony for a long ti. The people still here, most of them fard, or their parents fard, or they know soone who fard properly. It’s in this population. We just haven’t asked for it specifically."
"So we hire from inside Percvale."
"We hire from inside Percvale," Garren confird. "Which also ans the money stays inside Percvale, which is better for everyone."
Darion thought about that. Paying people inside the barony ant the coins circulated. The farr spent money at the market, the market paid for goods, the goods required workers. Money that left the barony to pay outside labor was money that built soone else’s territory.
"How much to pay them?" he asked.
Garren thought about it. "Farm workers in a functioning territory would expect sowhere around Four to five silver per week depending on the work. For the farmland operation we’re talking about, ten to fifteen workers to start, more at harvest ti, fewer during the quieter months." He did the rough calculation. "Starting the operation, getting the first season running properly, probably a hundred silver. Maybe a little more."
"That’s manageable," Darion said.
"Very," Garren agreed.
Darion wrote it ntally. Hundred silver, farming workers. Seeds on top of that, they had the donated seeds from the townspeople but a proper operation needed more variety and more volu than a collection of back-plot donations could provide. Seeds were cheap relative to most things. Another thirty, forty silver and they had what they needed.
"What else," Darion said.
Garren shifted in his seat. "The roads. The main road into Percvale from the east is the worst one, it’s the one the Valdenmoor knights ca in on, and it’s in bad enough condition that it slows trade and travel both. A repaired road brings more movent through the barony, which ans more opportunity for the market, which ans more coin coming in passively."
"How much to repair it?"
"Depends how much of it we do. The worst stretch is the eastern approach, maybe half a mile of it. Stone and labor, done properly, two hundred silver, roughly."
"What of the walls," Darion said.
Garren nodded. "The outer walls are the ones visible from outside. So sections have been leaning for years. A wall that looks weak tells everyone passing that Percvale is weak. That matters more than it should, but it matters." He paused. "The watchtowers matter more practically. We walked into a situation where two hundred knights were through our gate before we had proper warning. Two functioning watchtowers on the eastern and northern approaches changes that."
"Cost?"
"The walls, patching the worst sections, hundred and fifty silver. The watchtowers, rebuilding two of them to functional, another two hundred."
Darion was adding it up. Farming workers, seeds, road repair, wall patching, watchtowers. He wasn’t at five hundred silver yet and he was already covering the most urgent items on the list.
Twenty thousand gold coins, properly managed, could do a great deal more than that.
"We start with these," Darion said. "Farmland operation running, roads repaired on the eastern approach, watchtowers rebuilt. That’s the first month’s work."
"What crops grow best here by the way?" Darion asked.
Garren didn’t hesitate. "Corn. Wheat. Potatoes. Root vegetables for the colder months. The soil can handle all of them now that Seren’s done her work."
Darion nodded. Corn would work well. It grew fast, stored decently, and could feed both people and animals. Wheat took longer but sold for more. Potatoes were reliable and filling. They’d plant all of it.
Then they discussed the livestock, currently they had none. All killed. Every goat, every cow, every breeding female slaughtered by Valdenmoor.
"We need to buy new ones," Garren said. "Cows for at and milk. Sheep for wool. Pigs for at and breeding. Chickens for eggs. Horses for the knights and the farmland work."
"How much?"
Garren exhaled. "Livestock is expensive in large numbers. A good cow, full-grown, costs about twenty gold. Calves run five to eight. Sheep are cheaper, pigs similarly. Chickens are silver and should be much cheaper. Horses... decent riding horses start around thirty gold. Warhorses are double that."
Darion did the math in his head, if he bought many of this animals, they would eventually cost a lot..
"We don’t buy everything at once," Garren added. "We start small. Let them breed."
"We’ll need proper pens first," Darion said. "Fenced places on the farmland to put them. Stone and good timber. No more rope fencing."
Garren nodded.
Darion looked around the great hall. Cracked walls and faded tapestries. The ceiling had water stains in three places. The windows were drafty. The whole place felt old, not ancient and dignified, just neglected.
This didn’t look like a Baron’s castle.
If he was to invite a guest here, another Baron, a diplomat, anyone whose opinion mattered ,they would walk into this hall and make imdiate judgnts.
The cracked walls would tell them Percvale was still falling apart. The faded tapestries would whisper neglect. The water stains on the ceiling would announce that even the Baron’s own ho was crumbling around him.
First impressions mattered in politics. A guest who saw weakness here would assu weakness everywhere. They would leave thinking Percvale was still the dying barony everyone rembered, and whatever Darion had achieved wouldn’t matter because the building itself told a different story.
He definitely did not want that.
"Rebuilding fully would cost thousands," Garren said. "The outer walls should co before luxury repairs. A functional castle matters more than a beautiful one."
Darion knew he was right. But the cracked walls and ugly halls bothered him. A Baron who lived in a crumbling hall looked like a Baron who is crumbling itself.
He looked at the damaged towers visible through the window. Everything needed work. The question was where to start.
"Who do we hire to build?" he asked.
Back on Earth, you hired a construction company. You signed a contract, agreed on a price, and they showed up with workers and materials.
Here, it definitely worked differently. There were no construction companies.
So this ant master masons, carpenters, apprentices, and whatever labor a lord could muster.
He rembered seeing entire sections of the Emperor’s castle under repair for months at a ti, swarming with craftsn hauling stone, cutting timber, and shouting asurents across scaffolding.
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