Free Web NovelChapter 175: Law Made Simple
The desk had started as a place to work.
By mid-evening, it had become a monument of the work itself.
Twelve sheets in Heinrich’s hand lay in steady towers. Four more carried Beorn’s notes crowded into the margins. A cup had been refilled twice and forgotten both times. One candle had burned down completely and been replaced. The second had already lost more than a quarter of its length.
Heinrich held the current page closer to the flame, reading through it with methodical focus.
Eventually, a nod, "The foundry output schedule, distribution priority tiers, and the licensing conditions through the third quarter."
He lowered the sheet.
"The price issue is where we stopped."
Beorn didn’t look up. His quill continued moving across the page.
"Then that is where we start."
Heinrich opened the next section of notes. "The winter increased demand for essentials while reducing supply. At present, nothing limits what can be charged. The result is that essential goods have risen beyond what many households can afford."
Beorn sat with that.
"So there’s no ceiling."
"There isn’t."
He set down his quill. "Which is why I think we should establish one. Only for essential goods. Effective immediately and lasting through spring. A table listing the highest legal price for each item."
Beorn nodded. It was essentially a list of what things are allowed to cost.
"Grain and bread must be there."
The answer came immediately.
"They’re creating the most pressure on household budgets."
"Coal and firewood."
"Both are winter necessities."
"Salt."
Heinrich nodded.
"Supply remains limited even with the southeastern deposit operating. Prices are still elevated."
"Iron farming tools. With the swamp reclamation, farmers will need them before planting starts."
"Agreed."
Heinrich made the addition.
"The ceiling is based on what?"
"Summer prices."
He made another notation. "Before instability and the winter disrupted supply. We have those figures in the market records, and they can be verified. The rule would state that none of the listed goods may be sold above those rates."
Beorn marked the ledger.
One entry. Two lines.
Then he found the first weakness.
"Every ceiling creates one problem."
Heinrich waited.
"Merchants take their goods somewhere else. They sell where the higher price is legal."
"In Brennmark, that was exactly what happened."
He folded his hands. "The city imposed a ceiling. Merchants relocated just beyond the city’s authority and buyers had to travel to get what they needed."
Beorn turned it over in his head. "The ceiling applies to sales made inside our walls and on our roads. If a merchant leaves our territory to avoid the rule, they also leave our market, our supply network, and our protection."
He set down the quill.
"That’s a choice they can make."
Heinrich considered it, then nodded.
"Then the ceiling remains appropriate."
"And if they charge more than the table allows, there has to be a consequence. Namely fees."
"Very well."
Beorn wrote the formal entry and moved to the next blank space.
"The table handles goods already in circulation. It doesn’t handle what we’re about to produce."
Heinrich had anticipated the transition. He picked up another sheet.
"The foundry’s civilian products. Cookware, tools, mechanical devices."
He laid the page flat. "They won’t be sold directly by the foundry. Merchants will distribute them."
A finger tapped the sheet.
"The question is how much control we keep over pricing."
"We set the price merchants pay us."
"One option."
"They sell to customers at a higher price."
"Yes."
"But there’s a limit on how much higher."
Heinrich nodded.
"That would be the structure."
Beorn followed the consequences. "We sell the goods to merchants. Merchants sell them to customers. They make a profit, but only within a defined range."
"Indeed."
He sat quietly for a moment, considering it for weaknesses.
Then he found one.
"For instance, if a merchant buys everything we make and sells only in the high quarter."
He looked up.
"The slums get nothing."
"Which is why distribution requirements must be attached to the license."
Heinrich slid the sheet slightly aside. "Any merchant handling our goods would receive assigned districts. They would be required to serve those districts rather than concentrating only on the most profitable areas."
Beorn nodded slowly.
"If they agree to those conditions before they can sell our goods at all..."
He paused.
"Then the contract is a license."
"Exactly."
"Issued by the registrar."
"Yes."
Beorn’s quill moved again.
"That leads to the next question."
He continued writing.
"The high-quarter market. Who gets to operate there, and what do they pay for the privilege?"
"Without rules, the market develops according to existing influence and existing contracts."
Heinrich thought of the warehouse district.
"We’ve already seen the problems that creates."
Beorn nodded. "So the seat issues permission. It says where you can operate, what conditions you must meet, and what you owe in return."
"Another license. Issued through the registrar’s office."
Heinrich began making notes. "The conditions include honest weights and measures, district-service requirements, and a prohibition on restricted goods."
"And payment?"
"Two parts. A yearly licensing fee. And a percentage of market earnings paid to the seat."
Beorn pictured it simply. They would be charged to enter the market, and then charged again when they make money.
"How much is the fee?"
Heinrich set down the quill.
"It should be low."
Beorn raised an eyebrow.
The steward continued, "Low enough that an ordinary merchant can qualify. If the fee is too high, only wealthy merchants participate. Wealthy merchants target wealthy buyers and the market stops serving the people it was built for."
Beorn considered that and found no flaw.
"So the license stays affordable. The percentage on trade is where the seat earns its revenue."
"Yes."
"And if a merchant ignores their assigned district?"
"They lose the license."
Simple. Enforceable.
Beorn wrote the entry.
Then he looked across the growing pile of papers.
The pages themselves showed the scale of the work. Every solution seemed to uncover another problem behind it.
"There’s one more thing this creates."
Heinrich looked up. "The license will be for Ashmark. Eventually we’ll need something that works across the entire territory."
Slowly, Heinrich lowered his quill.
"The private market."
"Exactly."
Beorn tapped the desk. "We can finance Ashmark’s growth with what we earn here. Expanding across the territory is different, and at some point people will want to invest money into new business opportunities."
"In exchange for ownership."
"Yes."
"That would be welcome investment."
Heinrich leaned back slightly.
"A natural development for any city that reaches that scale. Capital follows output."
"The people with money will soon start to pay attention."
Beorn tapped the page.
He didn’t mention the Merchant Archipelago by name.
He didn’t need to.
The notation in the margin made the point.
Heinrich saw it immediately. "Establishing the rules before they arrive is considerably preferable to establishing them during negotiations."
"The most important point is that the core facilities stay ours."
Beorn spoke slowly, defining the boundaries. "The industrial district and machinery. None of those go into any outside agreement."
He marked the page. "Expansion projects are different. New facilities. New settlements. New production centers. Investors can participate in those."
"Capital in exchange for ownership stakes."
"Right."
"And the core remains protected regardless of what happens to the expansions."
"Correct."
He wrote the fourth entry.
Then another problem surfaced.
"The apartment district."
Heinrich waited.
Beorn continued, "When families move in, they pay rent because the seat owns the buildings. But we haven’t written down what happens if they can’t pay. Or if maintenance isn’t performed. Or if they want additional tenants."
Heinrich nodded.
"The relationship needs a document."
"What each side promises."
"Exactly."
Beorn leaned back.
"What do we owe them?"
Heinrich set aside the quill. "Three things. First, the building remains maintained. Second, no family is removed without advance notice. Third, rent cannot increase without advance notice."
Beorn nodded.
"And their obligations?"
Heinrich continued, "They pay rent and maintain the unit in reasonable condition. And they seek approval before bringing in anyone outside the household."
"The census apparatus will handle the registration."
"Yes."
Heinrich tapped one of the earlier sheets.
"The tenancy document connects directly to those records."
He paused.
"When a family moves in, they should already exist in the system."
Beorn followed the timeline.
"Then the documents must exist before the first families arrive."
He considered the remaining workload.
"That’s achievable."
Beorn wrote the fifth entry.
Only then did he reach for the cup.
The tea was cold.
He set it back down.
The motion drew his eye to the candle. The replacement candle. The one he had lit hours ago.
It had burned much farther than he’d realized.
The night was later than it felt.
He looked across the desk at Heinrich.
The last two pages in Heinrich’s hand showed signs of fatigue.
The spacing between words had widened slightly.
A small thing.
The kind of detail most people would miss.
Beorn had seen it before.
A man past sixty, awake since before dawn. Still working because the work mattered.
That determination was still there.
But it was costing more effort to maintain.
"That’s enough for tonight."
Heinrich didn’t argue.
That alone confirmed it.
He placed the quill in its holder, gathered his papers, put them into proper order, and stood.
"I’ll return at dawn."
Then he left.
The office grew quiet.
The sky was already pitch black, if one ignored the malformation on it. A single candle burned on the desk.
The sheets of completed work covered a surface that had begun the morning empty.
Beorn turned to a fresh page in the ledger.
The problems they’d solved tonight would create new ones tomorrow.
That was the nature of building anything worth keeping.
He lowered the quill to the page.
Then he kept going.
