The Keep's kitchen was a stone oven of misery. It smelled like woodsmoke, roasted fat, and raw yeast. The fires were roaring, heating the damp room to a sweltering temperature.
I was currently sitting on a three-legged stool in the corner, holding a cup of water, completely mesmerized.
I was performing quality assurance.
Bess and Sienna were standing at the massive wooden prep tables. They had rolled the sleeves of their already-shortened tavern dresses all the way up to their shoulders. They were elbow-deep in the massive pile of premium white flour Marta had bought with our new tavern silver.
Kneading dough is incredibly heavy, physical labor.
Bess leaned her entire body weight into the dough, pushing down with her thick, muscular arms. The exertion made her breathe heavily, and every time she pushed, her massive chest heaved against the thin, sweat-soaked wool of her dress. Her face was flushed, her forehead glistening with moisture in the firelight.
Sienna was right next to her, slamming the dough onto the table with athletic aggression. Her toned shoulders flexed with every strike.
"My Lord," Willem's panicked voice broke my concentration.
The old steward was pacing back and forth behind my stool, clutching his ledger. He looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
"My Lord, I must protest!" Willem cried, pointing a shaking finger at the table. "That is premium, milled white flour! It is the food of Kings and high Lords! And you told the maids to bake it for the merchants in the courtyard!"
"I did," I nodded, not taking my eyes off Bess's rhythmic kneading.
"But you told them not to charge for it!" Willem shrieked, his voice cracking. "You said we are giving the bread away! We are going to go bankrupt! We will lose all our silver!"
"Willem, relax," I sighed, finally tearing my eyes away from the sweaty display. "Have you ever heard of the Freemium Model?"
The old man blinked. "Free...mium?"
"It is a highly advanced economic strategy from a distant land called Silicon Valley," I explained, standing up. I walked over to the prep table. "Bess. Sienna. Pause the kneading."
The two maids stopped, wiping the sweat from their foreheads with the backs of their flour-covered hands. They looked at me, panting lightly.
I reached into a heavy burlap sack sitting on the floor. It was filled with cheap, coarse rock salt we used for preserving meat. I grabbed two massive handfuls of the jagged salt and dumped it directly into the wet dough.
"Mix that in," I ordered.
Bess blinked in confusion but immediately started folding the massive pile of salt into the bread.
"My Lord, you are ruining it!" Willem gasped. "It will taste like the ocean!"
"Exactly," I grinned. "Willem, men are simple. If you sit a tired merchant down and immediately give him a basket of hot, rich-man's white bread for absolutely zero coppers, he will think he is a king. He will think he is robbing us. He will eat the entire basket in five minutes."
"And then he will vomit salt!"
"No, Willem. Then his throat will become a desert," I corrected him. "He will experience a level of dehydration he has never felt in his life. And when he desperately looks around for something to wash it down..."
Willem's eyes slowly went wide as his medieval brain finally caught up to the scam.
"...he will order three times as much of our Artisanal Sour Mead," Willem whispered in horror.
"Bingo," I said, tapping the side of my head. "The bread is free. The hydration costs silver. But we aren't stopping there."
I turned to the counter behind me. There was a wooden bowl filled with the Keep's standard butter. It was gray, lumpy, and tasted like absolutely nothing.
"Marta!" I yelled toward the pantry.
The Head Maid stepped out of the shadows. "Yes, My Lord."
"Take those wild garlic weeds the peasants pull out of the mud. Chop them up. Mix them into this gray butter until it looks green. Put a tiny scoop of it in a nice clay dish." I looked back at Willem, my smile growing wider. "The bread is free. But if they want to spread the Premium Garlic Herb Butter on it... that costs one silver stag."
Willem dropped his ledger. It hit the stone floor with a thud.
"One silver stag?" Willem choked. "For weed-butter? My Lord, that is extortion! That is the price of a sword!"
"It's called a micro-transaction, Willem," I said, patting his shoulder. "Now, get the baskets. It's time for lunch service."
Twenty minutes later, I stood at the window of the Great Hall, looking down at the packed courtyard.
The merchants were freezing, huddled in their heavy cloaks. But the moment Elara walked out carrying a steaming basket of fresh, premium white bread, the entire courtyard went silent.
Elara strutted up to the largest table. Her legs were bare, her shoulders rolled back. She gave the merchants a brilliant, practiced smile and placed the basket down.
"Compliments of the Lord," Elara purred. "Completely free."
The merchants practically wept. They tore into the hot bread like starving wolves. It was the finest thing they had eaten in months.
I watched from the window and counted the seconds.
One. Two. Three.
Down in the courtyard, the lead merchant stopped chewing. His eyes bulged. He grabbed his throat. The massive dose of rock salt hit his system like a physical blow. He started coughing, his face turning red as he desperately looked around for moisture.
Elara didn't miss a beat. She leaned completely over the table, giving the choking man a generous view of her cleavage.
"Are you thirsty, good sir?" Elara asked sweetly. "Would you like our largest pitcher of Artisanal Sour? And perhaps some Premium Garlic Herb Butter to soothe your throat?"
The merchant couldn't speak. He just violently threw a handful of silver onto the table, nodding his head so hard I thought his neck would snap.
I wiped a single, proud tear from my eye. They were growing up so fast.
Two hundred miles to the south, Inspector Vance was having a terrible day.
His luxury, heavily-sprung carriage bounced violently over a jagged rock, sending his velvet-clad body tumbling into the side door.
"Gods damn this primitive country," Vance hissed, righting himself and pressing his lavender-scented handkerchief firmly against his nose.
"Apologies, Inspector," Captain Rhol grunted from the opposite seat, holding onto a leather strap. His heavy plate armor clattered with every bump. "The roads in the Goat Marches are not maintained. The terrain is entirely vertical."
Vance glared out the window. They were currently traversing a massive, treacherous mountain pass. The air was thin and freezing.
Outside the carriage, Vance could see the local peasants. They were terrifyingly agile, leaping from rock to rock while wearing nothing but poorly stitched animal skins.
Suddenly, a peasant standing on a high cliff above the carriage opened his mouth, cupped his hands, and let out a massive, echoing scream that bounced across the entire valley.
"Yodel-ay-hee-hooooo!"
A second later, another peasant on a distant peak screamed back.
"Yodel-ay-heee-hooo!"
Vance shuddered in absolute disgust. He pulled his silk coat tighter around his thin frame.
"Listen to them, Captain," Vance muttered, his voice dripping with elitist pity. "It is a tragic biological reality."
"They are just signaling the other herders, sir," Rhol said, looking out the window.
"Signaling?" Vance scoffed. "You give them too much credit. This is the result of centuries of inhaling goat dander and chewing on high-altitude moss. It has completely eroded their vocal cords. The pseudo-science is quite clear on this matter."
Vance unrolled his map of the Kingdom again, tracing the jagged mountains.
"Because of their diet, their throats have mutated to mimic the beasts they herd," Vance lectured confidently. "They can no longer form human words, Captain. They can only emit these high-frequency, animalistic distress calls to declare dominance over their territory. We are essentially driving through an open-air enclosure."
Rhol looked at the Inspector blankly. "Sir, I heard one of them speak King's English to the toll collector not an hour ago."
"An anomaly," Vance waved his gloved hand dismissively. "Probably a mimicry reflex. Like a parrot."
Vance looked at the northern edge of the map, tapping the tiny dot labeled Ravenhold.
"It does put things into perspective, however," Vance sighed, leaning back against the velvet cushions. "If the Goat-Lords of the middle country have devolved into yodeling beasts, one can only imagine the state of the Turnip-Eaters on the Northern Border."
"The King's pigeon claimed Lord Elaric is building a secret army with poisoned water, sir," Rhol reminded him, adjusting his sword belt.
Vance laughed. It was a dry, arrogant sound.
"The King is paranoid," Vance sneered. "A Turnip-Lord is genetically incapable of complex logistics. By the time we arrive at Ravenhold, I fully expect to find Lord Elaric Voss crawling on all fours in the mud, trying to mate with his own horses. We will audit his dirt, confiscate his shiny rocks, and be back in the Capital before the snows truly set in."
Vance closed his eyes, completely comfortable in his absolute ignorance.
He had no idea he was driving straight into the most ruthlessly capitalized, overpriced, predatory tourist trap in the history of the medieval world.