The blacksmith's forge was a cavern of soot and broken dreams. Old Tom, a man whose skin looked like cured leather and whose beard was perpetually singed, didn't even look up when Alaric entered. The rhythmic clink-tap, clink-tap of a hammer hitting cold iron was the only sound in the drafty shed.
"My lord," Tom grunted, finally resting his hammer. "If you're here for the stallion's shoes, the iron's thin. I'm stretching scraps just to keep the Captain's mare from going lame."
Alaric stepped over a pile of rusted horseshoes and laid the flat wooden board on the scarred workbench. The charcoal lines he had drawn were crisp, an engineer's precision cutting through the medieval gloom.
"I'm not here for horseshoes, Tom," Alaric said, his voice calm and resonant. "I'm here for the soil."
Tom squinted at the drawing. To him, it looked like a strange, twisted wing of wood and metal. "What's this then? A toy?"
"It's a Moldboard Plow," Alaric explained, tracing the curve of the blade. "The scratch plows your boys are using in the Great Fields... they're useless. They just poke at the earth. They don't turn it. They don't bury the weeds. This... this curve will lift the earth and flip it over. It will aerate the soil and double the depth of the seedbed."
The blacksmith let out a dry, hacking laugh. "Flip the earth? My lord, the earth is heavy. It takes six oxen just to pull a spike. You try to 'flip' it, and you'll snap the beam or kill the beasts."
"Not if the angle of the share is correct," Alaric countered, tapping a specific point on the sketch. "It's about friction and displacement. And we aren't using just wood. I need you to sheath the leading edge in iron. High-carbon if you have it, but I'll settle for whatever scraps you've salvaged from the old gate hinges."
Tom went silent. He looked from the boy, the boy who had supposedly just woken from a death-fever, to the drawing. There was a mathematical beauty to the lines that the blacksmith couldn't name, but he could feel.
"The Count said you were touched by the Silent Halls," Tom whispered. "But this... this is a mason's craft applied to a farmer's toil. Where did you see such a thing?"
"In a dream," Alaric lied smoothly. "A dream of a kingdom where no one goes hungry. Now, do you have the iron?"
"I have enough for a thin blade," Tom admitted, his professional curiosity finally outweighing his skepticism. "But the wood... that curve is a devil to carve."
"I'll help," Alaric said, shedding his heavy fur-lined cloak.
The next six hours were a blur of sawdust and sweat. Alaric didn't just watch, he directed. He taught Tom how to use a plumb line to ensure the draft of the plow was straight. He explained the concept of a 'coulter', a vertical blade that would slice through the thick sod before the plowshare hit it, reducing the strain on the oxen.
By sunset, the prototype sat on the dirt floor of the forge. It was ugly, a Frankenstein's monster of rough oak and hammered scrap iron, but to Alaric, it was a piece of high technology.
As he wiped the grease from his hands, a shadow fell across the doorway. His older brother, Kaelen, the heir to Oakhaven and a man who lived and breathed for the weight of a broadsword, stood there with a sneer.
"Father is looking for you, little brother," Kaelen said, eyeing the wooden contraption with disdain. "He's in the counting room with the Bailiff. Apparently, the grain stores are even lower than we thought. We'll be eating bark by mid-winter."
Kaelen kicked the plow with a heavy boot. "And you're down here playing with carpentry? Should have stayed on your back, Alaric. At least then you weren't wasting the blacksmith's time."
Alaric didn't flinch. He looked at his brother, a man who represented the peak of feudal chivalry and the absolute nadir of economic foresight.
"Bark is hard to digest, Kaelen," Alaric said softly. "I prefer bread. Tomorrow morning, meet me at the South Slope. Bring the oxen. I'm going to show you how a 'carpenter' wins a war."