The Duke's tent was a cathedral of silk and arrogance, pitched just out of range of the "Thunder-Tube." Inside, the air smelled of expensive wine and the cold sweat of terrified men. Duke Alaric of Blackhawk, a man whose name the young Architect now shared, sat behind a heavy oak table, his fingers tapping rhythmically on a map of the valley.
"You've broken the King's Peace, boy," the Duke said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "You've used hellfire to strike down a knight of the realm. By all laws of God and man, I should hang you from your own tower."
"The 'King's Peace' is a romantic term for a stagnant economy, Your Grace," Alaric replied, stepping into the tent alone. He didn't bow. He didn't wear a sword. He carried a small, leather-bound book and a singular, heavy coin of Oakhaven's new "puddled" steel.
"I didn't come here to talk about laws. I came to talk about Dividends."
---
Alaric tossed the steel coin onto the table. It rang with a clear, high-pitched frequency that made the Duke's advisors flinch.
"That is steel," Alaric said. "Not the brittle iron your smiths hammer for a week to make a single dull blade. This was poured in an hour. I can produce enough of this to arm five hundred men in a month. But I don't want to."
The Duke picked up the coin, marvelling at its smooth, uniform surface. "You have a weapon that shatters stone and steel that doesn't break. Why wouldn't you want an army?"
"Because an army is an expense," Alaric countered, pulling out a chair and sitting without invitation. "An army eats grain, wears out boots, and dies in the mud. I want a Consortium."
---
For the next hour, Arthur Vance, the man who had memorized the rise and fall of the Dutch East India Company, laid out a concept that shouldn't have existed for another six hundred years.
Shared Risk, the Duke would cease his "tribute" demands and instead become a primary shareholder in the Oakhaven Development Company.
Infrastructure, Oakhaven would provide the technology, the plows, the steel, and the "Thunder-Tubes", while the Duke provided the trade routes and protection.
The Patent, Alaric explained that the "knowledge" was his. Anyone who tried to replicate his furnace without his specific "chemical formulas" (which he called Alchemy to satisfy their superstitions) would only result in a heap of molten slag.
"You're asking me to treat my vassals as... partners?" the Duke scoffed, though his eyes never left the steel coin.
"I'm asking you to stop being a landlord and start being a Capitalist," Alaric said. "If you attack Oakhaven, you might win, but you'll burn the only man who knows how to make that steel. If you join me, within three years, your Duchy will be the wealthiest in the Highlands. We won't just be selling grain, we'll be selling the tools that grow it."
---
As the Duke looked at his advisors, Alaric felt a familiar, cold weight in his chest. This was the Architect's Dilemma. He was introducing the concepts of greed, industrial competition, and centralized wealth to a world that was still struggling with basic literacy. He was fixing the poverty of the present by planting the seeds of the industrial smog of the future.
Is it better to let them starve in the mud, he wondered, or to give them the gears that will eventually grind them down?
The Duke stood up, reaching out a hand. It wasn't the hand of a lord accepting a vow of fealty, it was the hand of a man closing a deal.
"Three years," the Duke said. "If Oakhaven isn't the jewel of the North by then, I'll burn your 'miracles' to ash."
"Agreed," Alaric said, shaking the hand.
As he walked out of the tent, he saw Kaelen waiting in the shadows of the tree line, his hand on his pike.
"Is it over?" Kaelen asked.
"No," Alaric sighed, looking up at the smoke rising from the North Tower. "The war of swords is over. The war of Supply and Demand has just begun."