The Queen’s eyes widened, just enough to betray her surprise before she mastered her expression again.

  While I held my breath for what felt like eternity, the sea kept its steady chant, eternal and indifferent to our troubles.

  “No one,” she said slowly, “has proposed to me in such a brazen manner.”

  Her tone was indignant, but the faint crinkle at the corners of her hazel eyes ruined the severity.

  At least I was entertaining. Sigh.

  “It’s because they like their heads attached where they are, and because they're a bunch of wimps.”

  To my relief and surprise, a smile tugged at her lips.

  I could say without a doubt that I was brave. Stupidly brave, perhaps, but brave nonetheless.

  She seemed to be taking my proposal seriously, so I decided to press my claim.

  “Your Majesty, you want Nanon to be secure and I want it to progress. That is quite fortunate, as our goals are interdependent; we will achieve neither without the other.

  Nanon cannot defend itself as it is. Weapons, no matter how advanced, won’t be as effective if they are wielded by soldiers led by fools. Nobles like my father aren’t rare. If Nanon keeps stumbling along the same path it is following, it will not survive even with Chadom’s weapons. Together, we can change that.”

  She rang a bell before addressing me.

  “None of that is news to me, Viscount. I have to deal with self-important fools every day, but I cannot simply remove them either. Each of them has hundreds of soldiers loyal to them.”

  She exhaled, long and weary. “Typically, I would marry a royal or a high ranking noble from another realm to forge alliances, but with our troubled relations with Sindhu, my pool of candidates has become much smaller. Maybe you are a better choice,” she narrowed those bewitching eyes, “if you can deliver on your promises.”

  I stared back.

  I can do all that and more.

  She was the first to look away, a faint blush on her porcelain cheeks.

  The door opened and the aroma of roasted pheasant, butter and toasted spices drifted in. Two well dressed servants placed a large, beautifully prepared whole pheasant on the table.

  The Queen rose, took a large knife and fork and carved the meat herself in precise, practiced motion. Unqueenly in a queenly way.

  She placed a portion on my plate herself.

  What would have been a gesture of diplomatic goodwill was something much more after my proposal.

  She caught the hint of a smile on my face. Her brows furrowed, then her eyes turned stormy as she understood the implication. She placed the next slice down just with enough force to make her point.

  She huffed and sat down. “Eat. And finish telling me about the utopia you were so excited about.”

  “Ah, sorry. That will require a whole lot of smart people and heaps upon heaps of gold, which will in turn require a thorough reform of the economy.”

  She paused mid-bite. “What kind of reforms?”

  “Right now most of the wealth Nanon produces is extractive in nature: crops, fiber, timber, ores. All those depend upon how much land you have, but acquiring more will cost more than what it would provide.

  It’s a zero sum game; someone has to lose for you to gain. We need to change the game by introducing new ways of creating wealth: methods that reduce the cost of producing items and multiply output, especially for cloth, metal and food.”

  Her eyes widened at that.

  “We will introduce new high value products like unique tableware that will sell at high margins. All of that will require that enterprising people have the freedom to implement these new methods of production and sell their products.”

  I ate some of the pheasant. The exquisite flavor showed me we had been eating like savages in Chadom.

  I continued, “We will also need to remove bottlenecks to trade, such as monopoly licenses and under-developed infrastructure that limits how far products can be transported from their origin. I expect resistance from nobles, the biggest traders and the guild leaders as much as nature.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Hmm. That is a lot of promises you are making. Assuming you can deliver on them, I can see how nobles will be against their land holdings losing relative value, but why the guilds and traders? They will end up making more money.”

  “Eventually, yes. But the process of creative destruction can be very turbulent. Let's say a new loom design can do the job of four weavers in the hands of one. Now three are out of a job, unless the owner has orders and money to invest in three more looms. If it's not handled properly, the unemployed and the loom owners who want to stick to the old ways will riot. We will have to ensure the early adopters get the clients, money and protection to expand their business and provide opportunities to the unemployed people elsewhere.”

  “How?”

  “By establishing a Ministry of Development. To support early adopters, retrain displaced workers, and ensure no guild can stall progress through outdated rules. They will have to be guided to change their tenets and policies.”

  “We'll be making more enemies within the Kingdom!” she said in frustration. “I have enough problems as it is!”

  “That's why I'm asking you to marry me, to share the burden. The royal House will work with them to make the transition smooth. Let me show you something.”

  I took out a small biscuit of steel and put it in her palm. Her fingers touched mine, cool and delicate, and a spark ran up my arm. We pretended it didn’t happen.

  “I gave some steel to your armorer this morning. Did you hear about that?”

  “Yes. I was told it was of surpassing quality.”

  “And do you know how much he valued it?”

  “Not as much as our best, even though it matches the quality. He was confused why you didn't ask for more.”

  “We don’t need to. We can consistently produce high quality steel in large amounts, so our production costs are a lot cheaper. I can introduce methods that will revolutionize industry in Nanon, but people with entrenched interests and lack of foresight will fight it tooth and nail. I need your support to counter that, Laira.”

  She looked at the steel, weighing not just the weight but what it represented. Then set it down gently. “I will think on it. What else?”

  “All that economic reform will be meaningless if we can’t safeguard Nanon. For that, the system of every lord and their cousin having their own personal army needs to go. A realm should have one military, whose every member is loyal to the crown alone, not to this or that lord.

  These pricks keep getting hundreds of good soldiers and poor peasants killed for their personal vendettas. They will also threaten us with military action whenever our economic reforms go against their interests and positions. We can't have that.”

  “If those forces aren’t under the vassals, we will have to pay for them. Where will we get that much money? Your economic reforms sound like they will take years to implement.”

  I suppressed a smile.

  Are we, we already?

  “Through taxes and profits, of course. Chadom can produce a lot more than high quality steel. We will supply those products at reasonable prices here, which Nanon can then sell to other countries for a hefty profit. Enough to support a proper professional standing army.”

  “You would give up that much profit?”

  “Anything for my Queen,” I said, while looking at her beautiful eyes. I took her small hand in mine and kissed it’s back. “Your gain will be my gain.”

  She pulled it back, though her ears were pink. “So you say. Tell me about the battle. The reports paint quite a picture. Fire raining from the sky and archers shooting arrows every heartbeat without any quivers. I would like to see your soldiers in action.”

  “You want spies to see our weapons? We will lose the element of surprise.”

  “Of course I'll take you to a secluded area, away from prying eyes, idiot!” she chided.

  I wanted to tease her for those words, but this was a serious matter with grave consequences.

  “Laira, our weapons were only a part of our overwhelming victory. Most of it was my father's arrogance, but there's more. Weapons, however advanced, are worthless if not wielded by men with training and morale, but they are ineffective if not led by leaders who are educated and smart, who will get nothing done if the operating procedures aren't sensible, which will not guarantee victory unless your tactics and strategy are sound. If you want to survive the behemoth that is the Zoran Empire, a severe reform of the Nanoan military must happen.”

  She studied me. “I didn't know you were a military genius, although I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “I'm not; I'm just standing on the shoulders of giants. But I can't reform the Royal Army as an outsider or a mere Count. And I doubt even officers loyal to you will accept such radical reforms if they come only from you.”

  She harrumphed in agreement and resignation.

  Even the men who respected and supported her wouldn't be very receptive to a short woman telling them how to run the military, and with Zoran creeping closer, she didn't have the time to fight them.

  “You've had a long journey,” she said at last. “Please enjoy Nanon’s hospitality while I consider your proposal.”

  ──────── ??? ────────

  We finished our lunch and bade each other farewell, in a much better mood than we’d begun.

  Finally away from her pesky beauty, I could think clearly.

  If we get together…

  I get a chance to uplift an entire kingdom, dragging the majority of its people from their terrible existence, and get whatever I need to make Chadom flourish, while Laira gets to protect her kingdom from the manifest destiny shenanigans of a power hungry empire.

  Easy to say, but so hard to accomplish.

  The challenge would be to make sure the nobles do not get access to our weapons.

  There was less of a chance of them adopting our policy reforms, but even a bit of adoption by a competent officer would weaken our already weak position further.

  So, build a competent military corps absolutely loyal to the Crown, empower it and only it alone, and increase its size until we can somehow deal with the pesky aristocrats, and the external enemies.

  Then reshape the nobility through incentives and pressure: privileges in exchange for giving up control over their armies and lands, like what Japan and Korea did with family owned conglomerates, the Zaibatsu and Chaebols.

  Then gradually break them up into smaller and weaker entities over decades.

  I chided myself for again mulling on the remote future, which wasn't even guaranteed.

  It all depended upon one woman’s decision.

  Thank you for reading the chapter!

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