The Tenfold Lord
Chapter 6: A Practical Partnership
The engine of Stonecreek had begun to turn. It was a slow, grinding, protesting sound, like a great water wheel long seized by rust being forced into motion, but it was turning nonetheless. The daily infusions of duplicated food had transformed the gaunt, hollow-eyed despair of the smallfolk into a wary, but growing, vigor. The sharp, rhythmic clang of new steel axes biting into the wolfswood was a constant, percussive reminder of progress. The western fields were cleared, the rich, dark earth turned and ready for the spring planting and the implementation of his three-field system.
Kaelan had successfully navigated the first, most critical phase of a corporate turnaround: stabilizing the cash flow—or in this case, the food flow—and upgrading core production assets. He had asserted his absolute authority, crushing dissent not with cruelty, but with the cold, undeniable logic of results. [1, 2] His word was law, and his law was proving to be profitable. [3, 4] The people of Stonecreek looked at him now not with the familiar pity they'd held for the sickly boy-lord, nor with the terror a tyrant might inspire, but with a kind of bewildered awe. He was a force of nature, as strange and powerful as the winter winds, but one that seemed, for now, to be blowing in their favor.
But Alex Vance, the mind behind the lord's eyes, was not satisfied. Stability was not the goal; it was merely the foundation. He was building an empire, and empires were not built of oats and timber alone. They were built of stone.
Stonecreek itself was a testament to centuries of neglect. The walls were crumbling, the mortar eroded by countless winters. The main keep leaked, and the watchtower on the southern wall listed at an angle that was actively alarming. To expand, to fortify, to build the infrastructure for the industries he envisioned—the charcoal kilns, the smithies, the granaries—he needed stone. A vast, unending supply of it.
And so, his attention turned to the quarry.
It lay a half-mile east of the holdfast, a deep, ugly scar gouged into the base of the foothills. It had provided the stone for the original keep centuries ago and had been worked sporadically ever since, a resource plundered with brute force rather than skill. Kaelan went to inspect it himself one cold, grey morning, Harlon trailing behind him like a grim, disapproving shadow.
The sight that greeted him was one of primitive, dangerous inefficiency. A dozen men toiled in the pit, their movements sluggish in the biting wind. They were using the same pitted iron tools as the woodcutters had before he'd replaced their axes: dull picks, heavy hammers, and iron wedges. [5] The work was slow, brutal, and perilous. Men worked on narrow ledges with no safety measures, chipping away at the rock face. Below them, others broke the fallen chunks into smaller, manageable blocks with sledgehammers. It was a scene of back-breaking, soul-destroying labor. [6, 7]
Kaelan's eyes, accustomed to analyzing process flow and operational bottlenecks, saw nothing but waste. Wasted energy, wasted time, wasted lives. The quarrymen were not extracting stone; they were pulverizing a mountain with teaspoons.
The foreman, a man named Morrec, was old before his time, his face a leathery mask, his back permanently stooped. He bowed low when Kaelan approached.
"My lord."
"This is unacceptable, Morrec," Kaelan said, his voice sharp, cutting through the cold air. "The output is pathetic. At this rate, it would take a decade to build a single new wall."
The foreman's face tightened. "The stone is hard, my lord. The tools are soft. We do what we can. It is dangerous work." He gestured to a man whose arm was wrapped in bloody rags. "A rockfall yesterday. Tormund was lucky to lose only the use of his hand for a moon's turn." [6]
"The danger is a symptom of the inefficiency," Kaelan countered, striding closer to the rock face. He ran a hand over the stone. It was good, solid limestone, the famous "Paris stone" of his old world, perfect for building. [8] "You are attacking the face head-on. You should be using the strata, the natural layers of the rock. You're fighting the mountain instead of letting it do the work for you."
Morrec stared at him, his expression blank with incomprehension. "My lord?"
"Never mind." Kaelan dismissed the technical explanation. He couldn't teach geology to a man who'd likely never seen a book. He needed a new approach. He needed better tools, yes—he could duplicate steel quarrying tools as easily as he had the axes—but he also needed a better mind overseeing the work. Someone who could understand a plan, not just follow an order.
It was then that he saw her.
She was standing near a cart at the edge of the quarry, a basket in her hands. She had come to bring her father his midday meal. She was young, perhaps seventeen, with a lean, strong build from a life of work. Her hair was the color of dark honey, pulled back from a face that was not beautiful in the delicate, southron way, but was striking in its intelligence. Her eyes, a clear, steady brown, were not looking at him, but at the quarry face, her brow furrowed in concentration.
She was Morrec's daughter, Lyra.
Kaelan watched as she handed the basket to her father. As Morrec turned away to eat, she lingered, her gaze still fixed on the rock. Her lips moved silently, as if she were making a calculation. It was this, more than anything, that caught Kaelan's attention. In a world of dull, resigned obedience, here was a mind at work.
He walked over to her. "You see something, girl?"
She started, her eyes widening as she realized the lord was addressing her directly. She dropped into a clumsy curtsy. "My lord. Forgive me. I was just… looking."
"At what?" he pressed.
She hesitated, glancing at her father, who was watching them with a wary expression. "The… the crack, my lord. Up there." She pointed a slender, work-roughened finger. "The one the men are working near. It runs with the grain of the stone, not against it. If they placed their wedges there, instead of where they are, a much larger, cleaner slab would break away. And it would be less likely to shatter and fall on the men below."
Kaelan followed her gaze. She was right. It was a simple, elegant observation based on a clear understanding of the material. An observation none of the experienced quarrymen had made. He looked back at her, his assessment shifting. This was not just a clever girl. This was an untapped resource.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Lyra, my lord."
"Can you read? Can you write?"
She shook her head, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. "No, my lord. I am only a quarryman's daughter."
"That can be remedied," Kaelan said, his mind already formulating a plan. "Your father's foreman is old and set in his ways. I require someone to oversee the reorganization of this quarry. Someone who can understand a new way of doing things. I need someone to help me draw the plans." He paused, letting the weight of his next words sink in. "I believe that someone could be you."
Lyra stared at him, speechless. Her father had scrambled over, his face pale with alarm. "My lord, she is just a girl! She knows nothing of these things. Please, do not mock her."
"I am not mocking her," Kaelan said, his gaze still locked on Lyra. "I am offering her a position. She will report to me, in my chambers, after the evening meal. She will help me draft new plans for this quarry, and for other projects. She will be compensated for her time." He turned to Morrec. "And you will ensure she is there."
It was not a request. It was a command, and it was utterly bizarre. A common-born girl, a quarryman's daughter with no letters, summoned to the lord's private chambers to act as an advisor? [9] It was scandalous. It was unthinkable. But it was the lord's will, and his will was now law. [3]
That night, Lyra came to his chamber. She was terrified, her hands twisting the fabric of her simple wool dress. She had been the subject of whispers and stares all afternoon. She likely expected the worst, a lord's casual cruelty or unwanted advances.
Kaelan ignored her fear. He treated her not as a woman, but as a new hire undergoing an orientation. He had a table set up with fresh parchment, charcoal sticks, and the book on stonemasonry he'd acquired from White Harbor. [2]
"Sit," he commanded, gesturing to a stool. "We have work to do."
For the next hour, he spoke. He did not condescend. He did not simplify. He spoke to her as an equal, an engineer outlining a project to a colleague. He explained the principles of the three-field system, drawing diagrams of the crop rotation. He laid out his plans for the charcoal kilns, explaining the process of pyrolysis, of heating wood in the absence of oxygen to create a more efficient fuel. [10, 11] He showed her the diagrams in the book, explaining the concepts of load-bearing walls, buttresses, and arches.
Lyra listened, her initial fear slowly replaced by a rapt, intense focus. She could not read the words, but she understood the diagrams, the shapes, the logic. She asked questions—sharp, insightful questions that cut to the heart of the practical challenges.
"If we build the kilns so close to the wolfswood, how will we stop the forest from catching fire?" she asked, her finger tracing the edge of his drawing. "A stray spark could burn everything."
"We will clear a hundred-yard perimeter around each kiln," he answered.
"And the clay for the kiln walls," she continued, "the best clay is down by the Coldwater Burn, but it is heavy. It will take many men and many hours to haul it up the hill."
It was a logistical problem he had overlooked. He had focused on the science, she saw the labor. It was this synergy, this fusion of his high-level, theoretical knowledge and her grounded, practical intelligence, that he had been searching for.
Their sessions became a nightly ritual. The whispers in the keep grew louder, but Kaelan ignored them. He was forging his most important alliance. Lyra quickly proved to be more than just a sounding board. She had a keen mind for systems and a deep, intuitive understanding of the people of Stonecreek. When he designed a new, more efficient hand-cart for moving stone, she was the one who suggested making the handles thicker to be easier on the hands of men softened by a long, hungry winter. When he laid out a schedule for the spring planting, she was the one who pointed out it conflicted with a local festival, and that moving the festival would do more harm to morale than the slight gain in efficiency was worth.
She was his COO, his head of human resources, his quality control manager. She was the bridge between his 21st-century ambition and the 3rd-century reality of his world.
One night, as they worked late over a detailed plan for the new quarry—a plan that now included terraced levels for safety and a winch system for lifting stone that Lyra herself had helped design—he found himself simply watching her. The candlelight caught the honeyed strands of her hair, and her face was alight with the passion of creation. In that moment, Alex Vance saw her not as an asset, but as a partner.
He had considered marriage, of course. It was a political necessity for a lord. He could trade his name and title for an alliance with another Northern house, perhaps a daughter of the Glovers or the Tallharts. [12, 13] It would be a standard political transaction, resulting in a wife who would be a stranger, a woman concerned with embroidery and courtly nonsense, a liability in his great enterprise. [14, 15]
But Lyra… Lyra was different. A marriage to her would bring no lands, no soldiers, no powerful alliances. It would be a scandal. A lord marrying a common-born quarryman's daughter. [15] But it would give him something far more valuable. It would give him a queen who could help him build a kingdom. It would bind the sharpest mind in Stonecreek to his cause, permanently. It was the most logical, most efficient, most ruthless move he could make.
He pushed the plans aside. "Lyra."
She looked up, her brown eyes clear and direct.
"I am going to build this house into a power the North has not seen in a thousand years," he said, his voice a low, intense hum. "I will have wealth that rivals the Manderlys and strength that makes the Boltons wary. But I cannot do it alone. I need a partner. An ally who understands the vision. An advisor who is not afraid to challenge me."
He stood and walked around the table to stand before her. He did not kneel. He did not offer poetry or promises of love. He made a business proposition.
"A marriage to a noble lady would be a chain around my neck. I require a partner, not a political pawn. I require a mind, not a dowry. I am offering you a permanent position as my chief counsel, my partner in all things. The title for that position is Lady of Stonecreek. My wife."
The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the crackle of the fire. Lyra stared at him, her face a mask of shock, disbelief, and something else… something he could not quite name. He had laid his terms on the table. Now, he waited for her answer.