"You want steel for what?" Reitz looked at Ezra, flabbergasted.
"I don't know if it's the bandits, the Arcanists, the Censurae, or you who is going to put a bigger dent in my ledgers." Reitz kept staring at him, as if the words had not parsed. "Are you that intent on looting Bren's coffers until there is no more coin?"
Ezra, however, didn't back down.
"You promised me the coin I was to save on scribes would be allotted to a project of my choosing. I am going to use the steel to reinforce the foundations of the structure."
When Ezra first proposed the printing press, he wanted it to free hands. Because of that, he had also considered building a primitive typewriter. With their current capabilities it was easy enough to make a keyboard; with brass or bronze spokes, cogs, and other parts, it could be done. AMP would even let him check tolerances and precision.
But when he thought it through, the cost outweighed the benefit. It would have been worth a mega infrastructure project. The speed increase would have been marginal, and because of the stencil-and-press mechanism, it was easy enough to scale output in a way a single typewriter never could.
So he chose something more practical: a substantial facility that could house enough people so he could start his next project—universal education.
"Look at this." Ezra gestured to the report on Reitz's table with his short arms. "See this? This is what we saved. And with the recurring income from the bids, this is the total income we secured for the fiscal year."
Reitz looked at the report.
There were graphs and charts—expected trends, projected expenditure and income. What was worse was that it was signed by Corvin himself.
Reitz closed his eyes and rubbed his glabella.
In the past few weeks Corvin, along with the other Maesters, had visited frequently. Reitz had found himself discussing The Fundamentals of Arithmetic and The Fundamentals of Accounting more often than he wanted to admit. Corvin was sharp.
Ezra already had a rough understanding of the correlation of IQ and magical aptitude. The better you were at magic, the smarter you were—roughly speaking. He had a hunch it was normally distributed, but it wasn't like he could run an IQ test on all of Bren to prove it.
Corvin, for the most part, was already applying the base ten techniques Ezra had written in the books. He used the multiplication tables, the division techniques, and he had even started teaching them to the scribes under him. At one point Corvin became convinced that Reitz had, under his employment, a secret Maester tutoring Ezra—someone who had given him the book.
Corvin, who had been pestering daily, wanted to meet this "Maester Michael James Faraday," the supposed author of both books. At one point he was practically begging.
Ezra gave him a lie that Corvin finally bought: Galwell had bought the book through the Ironbale Merchants. Now Corvin was pestering Galwell and the merchant house instead, promising to buy any book as long as it came from the author. Ezra found it funny that he had transferred the problem to Galwell.
Reitz opened his eyes again and cleared his throat.
"But this is all just on paper. We haven't even saved the coin yet, and what we did with the scribes was just shuffle them. Most of them are doing other tasks—tasks we had no time for before you freed them from copying."
"I read the plan," Reitz continued. "What you are proposing costs a significant amount of coin, akin to building an amphitheater."
He paused.
"No."
Ezra's eyes narrowed. "But you promised," he insisted. "I thought you would keep your promises."
Reitz looked at Ezra.
"Do you know how much coin we are bleeding from the Censurae's audit?" With it in place, a significant part of their mining operations were paralyzed. Reitz paused, then repeated, harsher. "Not only paralyzed—bleeding. Bleeding, Ezra. Bleeding."
"Each day we cannot mine means wages still have to be paid. I've even changed the allocation of troops protecting our mines. I've stationed the minimum required just to keep maintenance of the camps. There are only a few truebloods among them."
Reitz continued to stare.
"The dowry payments for the betrothal don't help either. Mixing blood with imperial princesses isn't cheap. I negotiated much lighter yearly payments due to the Censurae meddling, but it still hurts."
Ezra paused and stared.
Reitz wore the look of: other parents have problems like expensive trinkets, my son wants an infrastructure project and a charity scheme. Why can't I have normal problems for once.
"Teaching the children also means a recurring charge on our books. That is no small matter. Unless you can name a recurring revenue to offset it, what you propose could freeze Bren. Children are hands. They carry, they fetch, they help in stalls and fields. Put them under a roof every day and you stop work."
Reitz sighed.
"I understand your intent." He nodded slowly. "I understand what you want to do, but not only will you put a dent in my ledgers—you will slow coin from changing hands. If Bren slows, so will our coffers."
Ezra just sat and listened as Reitz continued.
"I don't know how you got your exact numbers, but your proposal is suspiciously near the amount I actually have free for the year. And if you spend all of it on your project, the cost isn't billed one time."
Ezra contemplated.
"What if we could use that money to make more money?" he asked. "Would you reconsider?"
Reitz's eyebrow rose.
"I—I can think of something," Ezra said quickly. "But it will cost. I need all of the budget."
Reitz stared at him again.
"But I still think we should do the education infrastructure," Ezra added. "It doesn't need to cost too much coin. Just a little on top of what we spend on the Press Office."
"Continue."
"Helio is a day where a lot of activity in the castle slows down," Ezra said. "My plan is to have the scribes under the Press Office conduct teaching on that day. We can entice the children with free food. The Press Office will handle the material to be taught, and we add wages for the day the scribes teach. I won't force them. They'll volunteer as long as we pay them extra."
Reitz gestured for him to continue.
"We find an open space for now," Ezra said. "Fill it with seats—or something akin to it. Then we send notices to the public. We provide paper and materials so the children can learn to read and write."
"When you say children," Reitz asked, "do you mean both in the inner and outer ring?"
"Yes."
Reitz paused, contemplating.
"You've thought about this thoroughly, haven't you?"
Ezra nodded.
"I don't think you know exactly what you are doing," Reitz said, giving a tired smile.
"What do you mean?" Ezra asked.
"The Kanzlei has their own way of doing things," Reitz replied.
Ezra gave him a quizzical look. Reitz's answer stayed cryptic.
"But that is besides the point. Whatever you have planned, you may do." He paused for breath, then added, "But I can only give you a third of the budget you wanted—for both your schemes."
"But—"
"No buts," Reitz said.
"The other thing is I can increase production of steel by tenfold," Ezra blurted.
Reitz did a double take.
"What."
"I can do it," Ezra said, "but it would require money and testing. Experimentation. But I estimate it's doable."
Reitz contemplated for a moment.
"I understand your victory with the Ink Press is notable. But for that, we barely spent anything. What you are asking now is no small sum of coin."
"I will be strict for now. I cannot part with the whole sum. Half of what you want is the maximum."
"But I don't know if I can do it with just that amount of coin," Ezra said. "But I know it will work."
"Right now I really cannot part with it until we secure our finances at the end of winter. If everything is stable by then, I might."
"If you can give me concrete evidence that your method works then, I'll consider it. Make do with what you have," Reitz said flatly.
Ezra sighed.
"Talk to Draffen," Reitz said finally. "Give him the details of your plan."
Ezra didn't go to Draffen immediately, but he did tell one of the scribes to hand over part of the plans to Draffen. He knew sooner or later Draffen would come to the Press Office anyway.
Right now it was getting stuffier and stuffier in the Press Office. Too many people were going in and out—hands that only did the pressing, scribes bent over their stencil work. The hum of quills and presses filled the room, punctuated by the tactile snap of the stencil machines.
He really needed somewhere else he could meet the scribes. He needed to brief the scribes he had planned for to teach the first batch of children in Bren, so he decided to lead them to his room instead.
For the pilot he had chosen the earliest scribes that had been assigned to him: Delmon, Hugo, and Louis.
Ezra had interviewed a bunch of the scribes—the ones that were commoners. They had come from the Kanzlei. They had been taught to read and write when they were young. Most of them had been raised in households tied to the chancery, or placed into them as apprentices.
So far most of the people he had talked to were all pretty learned. From their youth they would learn basic arithmetic, basic literature, some of the noble houses, and natural philosophy. They carried the habits of that upbringing—careful hands, careful words, and a reflex for procedure.
What Ezra didn't like about them was that they acted smug around other commoners, and most of them lived in the inner ring, which didn't help their attitude. They would bow and treat him with utter respect, but they would treat other commoners like they were beneath them.
This became more pronounced as they got older and took more prominent positions, especially those that achieved positions most commonly given to trueborns.
So Ezra chose the youngest ones, who in his opinion were easier to mold. Most of the staff in the Press Office were junior scribes. Ezra wanted to only get junior scribes strictly, but because of the added responsibility that Reitz had oh so conveniently pushed to him, he had two senior scribes whom he assigned to do the dedicated work on Reitz's pet projects: his "magazine/tour guide," and the book publishing request.
After the auction they had publicly announced to all the merchants in Bren through a notice that they would be accepting book copying requests for more coin. The result was an influx of an ungodly amount of requests. Corvin's eyes were overjoyed when it happened. Kestel furrowed because every request had to be logged, so more work came to his office, which was offset by the press.
Ezra led them down the corridor toward his room.
Delmon kept glancing at Extos as if expecting him to speak first.
Extos didn't. He just walked behind Ezra, hands folded, eyes forward.
When Ezra opened the door, the three scribes hesitated in the threshold.
Books lined the shelves, volumes that belonged in a study. There were many, and some titles didn't even sound correct: Classical Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Linear Algebra and Its Applications. Diagrams were stacked on the desk, inked with careful lines—gears, joints, odd geometries. On a low table sat carved mechanisms that looked half like toys: a segmented ironwood worm, a bird with folding wings, and a lattice of wheels and axles that looked like it might move.
Hugo stepped in first, slow. His eyes stayed fixed on the desk.
"Milord…" he said, then stopped himself, as if the word no longer fit.
Ezra went straight to the table and pulled a stool up so he could stand on it.
"Close the door," he said.
Extos did it and stayed by it, a quiet wall. His eyes lit up when he saw the books on Ezra's shelf. He rushed in, like he couldn't help it. There were titles he hadn't read yet.
The scribes looked at each other.
Then Delmon cleared his throat. "Milord," he said, stiff. "You said you wanted to brief us."
"Yes," Ezra said. "We will teach children the week after next."
Louis's brow furrowed. "Teach… as in letters?"
"Letters, numbers, and basics." Ezra nodded. "I have simpler material for people. I think we had that pressed last week. How many copies do we have? Do you remember?"
"It was around two hundred copies," Louis replied.
Hugo shifted his weight. "Numbers are fine. We learned a lot from The Fundamentals of Arithmetic," he said carefully. "But children in the outer ring?"
"We definitely need to teach them too," Ezra cut in.
Silence took over.
Delmon's eyes flicked to the floor. He opened his mouth, then he closed it. He just frowned instead.
"I know you don't think it's a good idea," Ezra said, "but trust me. In the future, we will need more people who know how to read, write, and do a lot more."
The scribes frowned.
Hugo leaned forward slightly, unable to help himself. "Milord," he said, and nodded toward the table. "These mechanisms. Are they yours?"
Ezra's eyes narrowed. "Yes, but please focus."
Hugo straightened. "Yes."
Ezra climbed down from the stool and went to the desk. He dragged out a stack of papers and set them on the floor where they could all see, because the desk was too tall for him without climbing again.
"We will ask Kestel's office and have them find a place."
Delmon hesitated. "Are we bringing them in… through the inner gates?"
Ezra nodded once. "We'll send notices. We will tell them where to go. We'll offer food."
Ezra continued, unbothered. "We split them into small groups. You will teach in turns. You will write the names of the groups of the children you will care for."
Delmon frowned. "Write names for what purpose?"
"We need to record their progress," Ezra said. "We will have to test their aptitude. There will be many vacancies for people with their skills in the future."
Louis rubbed his fingers together, nervous. "And what will we teach exactly?"
Ezra lifted the top page. "Arithmetic."
Ezra nodded. "The methods from The Fundamentals of Arithmetic. First you will teach the numbers and the placement of the numbers."
Delmon lifted a hand slightly. "How do we keep order? A hundred children—outer ring children—"
"We won't take a hundred," Ezra said. "Also that is why we are splitting it. Among the four of us."
Louis exhaled. "Milord? Four?"
"Yes," Ezra said, flat. "For now."
Louis hesitated, then said, "I can have Galwell, Dynham, Hearth, and Caspian teach as well next time. But for now Galwell and Dynham's responsibility is security, so they won't be participating. Hearth and Caspian can't go this Helio because Maester Grimfire wants to do something with them."
"The objective of the first class will be to make them familiar with the symbols first," Ezra said, "then we introduce the placeholders. After that we test them."
Louis froze. "Test?"
Ezra nodded. "At the end, each child answers five questions. It will be a recitation, but if they can write that is better. We will also hand out the materials we have prepared—the notebooks and quills. We should segregate them from people who know how to write, and test them separately. We will also instruct them to practice."
Delmon frowned.
Ezra looked at him. "If we don't measure, we don't improve."
Hugo's voice came careful. "And if they fail?"
"It's fine. We just have to teach them again. We will start small first," Ezra said. "Either way, we learn what worked."
Louis licked his lips. "What questions?"
"Just the material we taught," Ezra said.
Hugo glanced around the room again, unable to stop it. The mechanisms, the books, the diagrams.
Ezra cleared his throat so that Hugo would pay attention.
"You will be paid extra for Helio," he said.
The scribes nodded together. They were elated at the prospect.
Extos didn't move, but his presence became heavier in the room.
Ezra continued, "The Press Office will print the notices. We will have them posted in the inner and outer ring. The seating will be benches if we can get them, stools if we can't, and the ground if we must. Food will be bread and stew. Simple."
"Tomorrow," he said, "we rehearse, and then I will evaluate you."
Hugo's lips parted, half amused and half horrified. He caught himself and bowed. "Understood."
Delmon bowed too. Louis followed.
Extos opened the door.
As they filed out, Delmon glanced back one last time at the carved bird with folding wings.
Ezra smiled. Even with the setbacks, at least part of his plans were materializing before him.