Viscount's Rise

“I presume that we have the money to actually do all of this?” Nela asked. It was not something that was often brought up after Braydon got his mine working but mercenaries were not cheap. Braydon and Collin were aware of his finances but Nela did not really care to look into Braydon’s money. It would have been extremely rude if she had.

“We have more than enough. As it stands, Milord is extremely rich for a lord without a major city to his name. Iron is sold at a premium here in Fiveria since the closest source other than our own mine has been behind an embargo for a long while. The west does get some from Leighian merchants but only areas that are near the River Piety since their merchants are too worried about the cost of transporting it inland.” Collin knew more about the exact reason why iron was expensive in Fiveria but Braydon was only concerned with the fact that it was. He benefited greatly from it.

“Within reason of course. If we can manage it I do not want to have to put our other projects off because we spent too much on mercenaries.” Braydon mentioned. He would prefer not to put off his plans for turning Midbury into a de facto town, even if it would not have the township.

“Whilst just a regular expansion of our forces and hiring mercenaries should not do that, it would be prudent to keep a large enough reserve.” Collin advised. It was better to be able to hire more in a pinch than to lose everything.

“I will keep it in mind.” Braydon nodded. 

“If that is over, I would like to mention something as well.” Nela spoke up once more.

“Do go ahead.” Braydon nodded. There was only so much that they could talk about before they actually had to start doing things.

“Father Odom and I are happy with the school that we have built and it is now ready for use. All that we lack are people to act as assistant tutors to Father Odom.” Nela brought up the school that her and Father Odom had been overseeing the construction of. It had taken far longer than Braydon would have expected but Father Odom had requested that a chapel be attached to the school for him to still perform his duties as a priest. Not that Braydon much cared for the church but he did not see the harm in it. A lot of the refugees were from the considerably more religious Shuluk so it would not hurt to have one.

“How many were you thinking?” Braydon asked. Assistant tutors were just their way of nodding to the church to say that the tutor was still from the church, Father Odom himself. Even if he was not actually going to be teaching many of the students at all.

“Well, it is a small school in comparison to those officially run by the church so there is not that much room for many but I would say that we can comfortably manage three.” Nela thought about it. There were two main rooms for tutoring a group of students but the tutors would not be working all of the time.

“Our intention with this school was to mainly teach literacy so that we could have some people to help run things in Mapjess and since we are going to make Midbury a town it will be helpful for that too. At least one of them needs to teach reading and writing. We also need a lot more servant staff, so it would be good if we could get Karim to come from Mapjess to train them.” Braydon thought about the butler he had gained with the acquisition of Mapjess. Considering that Braydon only had one person who could act as head butler when he now had several residences was a problem that could only be solved with time but the lower level staff in his 3 mansions were another matter. They just needed someone to train them. Karim fit perfectly since Braydon rarely actually visited his mansions, preferring to stay in Cliforge.

“And the third?” Nela asked.

“I am unsure. Literate people and servants are all of our pressing needs right now. It would be good if we could get some skilled artisan to settle down but I doubt that they would be willing to teach more than a few apprentices.” They were already treading a fine line by building a school that barely passed muster with possible church scrutiny. Even if they did find such an artisan, the guilds would likely have something to say about it.

“Training mid ranked men for me can be done in the army camps.” Rhydian knew that it would likely be proposed so he mentioned it pre-emptively.

“A few of our men could do with learning to write though.” Braydon did point out, which Rhydian also accepted. It was all well and good if they could read simple messages but it would be better if the people handling the messages were more literate than that.

“Is there a pressing need to get three right away?” Collin raised. Just because they had the ability to get three tutors at once, did not mean that they had to.

“Not really, no.” Nela said that but it was evident that she wanted three right away. It was something that she had been working on for a while after all.

“Then I would advise that we wait until we find someone to fill that role in case we think of something we need.” Collin suggested. Even if he had more money to work with now that the mines had before, he did not want Braydon to spend money for the sake of spending money. That would only make his job harder.

“Then that works for me. We just need to hire somebody to teach people to write.” Braydon said that it would be simple but most tutors were private tutors for nobles or scribes who preferred that there be less competition for their own jobs.

Darkwood

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