The Song of the Stars, Part 2
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The landlord spewed his drink. “Buy the land?” Incredulity dripped from his words like the wine from his beard. He examined the writ of commerce. “You’ve made just one mistake; This scrap o’ parchment only says you can buy land. It doesn’t say I must sell, and it certainly doesn’t make an offer to fund your purchase. I don’t care whose signature’s scrawled on the tail end. I’m not about to surrender that land for a few copper Feathers.”
Harrough’s face flushed, though with rage or shame, the petty lord couldn’t say. Alessi gently laid a hand on Harrough’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. Swallowing with effort, Harrough spoke through clenched teeth. “With all due respect, m’lord. My wife would like to explain our proposal.” The landlord laughed and waved for her to speak.
“My lord, I keep careful records of our yields. Using the proceeds of our surplus crops, I’ve made some rough calculations to estimate what the land would be worth to you each year. Unless I’ve drastically misjudged your prowess with coin, our land should earn you nearly twenty silver Beaks a year?” She cloaked her words in deference, but she knew the value she gave was too high. Feigned ignorance, she had found, was nearly as useful as true savvy.
The noble scoffed. “Twenty Beaks in a year of famine, perhaps,” he said, but his tone betrayed his avarice. Already he wondered if paupers could have acquired such a sum.
“As you say, my lord. As you say. We wish to pay you fifty Beaks—”
Again the lord spat and coughed.
Alessi continued, “to buy the land from you. We’d pay you forty today, and two Beaks more each month for the next five months. To a shrewd man of business like yourself, that would be ample time to arrange for new sources to fill the gap.”
The landlord crossed his arms over his chest and scrubbed at his graying beard. He feared seeming too eager. Fifty Beaks represented at least five years worth of bumper crops. “Make it sixty,” he said. “All upfront.”
“My lord, we’ve worked the land for twenty years and only just now have enough to offer the forty. Who can say how many more years it would take to save another twenty?”
“You’ll forgive me, then, if I find it hard to believe you’d be able to pay two Beaks a month.” The lord grew suspicious.
“Well, should we miss more than two installments, perhaps the land would revert to you?”
The lord smirked. “Oh, alright, fine,” he said, making a show of giving in, tossing his hands up and shaking his head. “But the land will revert if you miss even one payment.”
“So be it, my lord.” Alessi said, slumping as though she’d been had.
“Oh, thank you, my lord,” Harrough blurted out. “We shall rush home to dig up the savings from beneath our hearth!”
Alessi glared at him, a look that would have frozen his bowels and melted his mettle had they not rehearsed it beforehand.
They returned after strolling the grounds for an hour and gave the lord a double handful of coins covered in dirt from his own garden.
In her most difficult moments—the death of her mother, her father’s arrest, the cruelty of the other street urchins—Alessi nearly abandoned the call of the stars. But when the sun set, she would look up and examine the radiant pinpricks as they came into view. The stars helped her appreciate the lessons that only turmoil and fear could teach. They made her resilient. They made her observant. They made her clever.
After all, without the dark of night, no one would see the beauty of the stars.
Tonight, the stars shone especially bright; even after the waning moon rose, the stars cast a shadow.
Alessi strode through the sleeping city, rapped on the blacksmith’s door. Wild white hair stuck out from the smith’s nightcap as he cracked the door to see who had come to call.
“What’s wrong? What is it?” he mumbled, tongue thick from sleep.
“I wish to hire you.”
“Good gods woman, surely it can wait till morning. Come by my stall in the—.”
“Sir, you mistake my meaning. I don’t mean to hire you for a set of horseshoes or a dozen nails. I intend to employ your services long term. I have various projects that require your skills.”
The smith yawned and blinked. “Come back in the morning, you crazy wench.” He began to close the door, stopping when Alessi flashed a silver coin through her fingers.
“Perhaps I could come in and explain myself,” Alessi said, smiling coyly.
The smith lived alone and his hovel was no bigger than necessary. Soon, a small lamp filled the single room with the scent of burning tallow. Greasy smoke coiled up to the thatched ceiling as the smith, Fedrik, waited for Alessi to speak. She stared at him with knowing eyes.
“Argh, damn you woman. What do you want?”
“I have recently acquired a plot of land. I wish to make improvements to ease my laboring and that of my husband.” Alessi pulled out a scrap of cloth on which she’d scrawled rudimentary schematics. “The first improvement is this. Can you make it?”
Fedrik moved the lamp closer to light the cloth. He rubbed his eyes to clear them. “Is this a cart track?” His calloused finger tapped the cloth.
Alessi nodded. “Can you build it?” she asked.
“Your plans are rubbish.”
“So that’s a no…?”
“Nothing is to scale, the dimensions are all skewed. Rubbish,” Fedrik muttered. Alessi’s heart sank, but Fedrik continued, “Now, don’t go crying, miss. I get the gist of it, and I can build it. I just need you to let me draw up the next set of plans.” His eyes sparkled in the dim light. “So what’s the pay?”
Fedrik's expertise and Alessi’s ingenuity proved a remarkable match. They harnessed the power of the wind to mechanize the planting and harvest. The seasons came and went, and the land produced its bounty.
When the rains were scant, she hired a stonemason to build large aqueducts that wet the earth with water brought in from distant springs.
When the river was low, she hired a team of laborers to dig a new well, which she connected to a wind-driven pump. With each innovation, she poured her extra time into developing new ways to increase yields and automate her labor.
Year after year, their income grew. She purchased more land, hired more laborers, and diversified her crops.
She hired the miller and the baker to streamline the turning of wheat into flour, into bread. With their help and the blacksmith and stonemasons, she invented a new stonemill that ground finer flour, and better ovens that could bake two dozen loaves at once.
Over ten years, she built a trade empire. Rumors suggested she surpassed even the Queen’s wealth, and because she used hers to help the community thrive, the hearts of the people belonged to Alessi.
But that changed when the stars fell to the earth.
