The soup tasted like boiled hay and despair.
Alaric, the soul of Arthur Vance in the body of a seventeen-year-old, sat propped up against the cold stone wall of his bedchamber. The wooden bowl in his lap was chipped, and the thin broth sloshing inside it was a testament to the "prosperity" of the House of Oakhaven.
"The Count is in the solar, my lord," the servant, Martha, whispered as she tidied the straw on the floor. "He's... he's with the tax collectors from the Duchy. They say the winter tithe is short. Again."
Alaric nodded, his mind already spinning gears. He closed his eyes, pulling up a mental map he'd memorized years ago, not of this world, but of the principles that governed any feudal economy. Low yield, high taxation, lack of liquid capital, and primitive logistics. It was a textbook death spiral.
He forced himself out of bed. His legs were shaky, a lingering effect of the "fever" that had conveniently masked his soul's arrival, but his mind was sharper than a razor.
He didn't head for the solar. Instead, he walked to the narrow, unglazed window and looked out.
The Castle of Oakhaven was less a fortress and more a glorified stone barn surrounded by a crumbling curtain wall. Below, the village was a cluster of hovels sunk into the mud. Beyond that lay the "Great Fields", a patchwork of gray, exhausted soil.
"They're using the scratch plow," Alaric muttered, his voice a low rasp.
He saw a team of six oxen struggling to pull a wooden spike through the heavy, clay-rich earth. It was inefficient. It barely broke the surface. Half the seeds planted there would be washed away by the first spring rain or eaten by birds before they could take root.
"Martha," he called out, not turning around. "Where is the blacksmith?"
"Old Tom? He's at the forge, my lord, though he's got no iron left. Just fixing hoes and shoeing the Captain's nag."
"Bring me charcoal," Alaric commanded. "And a flat piece of wood. A large one."
An hour later, Alaric sat on the floor, the smell of burnt wood filling the room. He wasn't drawing art. He was drafting.
Using a blackened stick of charcoal, he sketched the Moldboard Plow.
In this era, plows merely scratched the dirt. Alaric's design featured a curved plate of wood, ideally reinforced with iron, that would not only cut the earth but flip it. It would bury the weeds, aerate the soil, and bring nutrients to the surface. It was a simple invention that had historically triggered a population explosion in Europe, and he could build it with a carpenter and a scrap of metal.
He was interrupted by the heavy thud of boots. The door swung open, complaining on its rusted hinges.
A man stood there, clad in a gambeson that had been patched so many times it looked like a quilt. This was Count Valerius, Alaric's father. His face was a mask of exhaustion, his beard shot through with premature grey.
"You're awake," the Count said, his voice devoid of warmth, though his eyes lingered on his son with a flicker of relief. "Good. You'll need your strength. The Duke's men have taken our last three horses as 'collateral' for the debt. Tomorrow, you start training with the levies. If we can't pay in gold, we'll have to pay in blood when the Border Wars resume."
Alaric looked at the charcoal sketch on the floor, then up at his father. The man saw a son who had fallen off a horse; Alaric saw a failing CEO in need of a radical restructuring.
"Father," Alaric said, standing up. He felt the weight of the medieval world pressing in on him, the smell of the mud, the threat of the sword. "The Duke doesn't want our horses. He wants our land because he thinks we don't know how to use it."
The Count scoffed, glancing at the blackened wood on the floor. "And what is this? Scribbles? Sorcery?"
"It's bread, Father," Alaric replied, his eyes cold and steady. "And if you give me three days with the blacksmith, it's the reason we'll never be hungry again."
The Count stared at his son. There was something different about Alaric, a stillness, a terrifyingly adult clarity in his gaze that hadn't been there before the fall.
"The blacksmith has no iron, boy," the Count sighed.
"He doesn't need iron yet," Alaric said, a small, knowing smile tugging at his lips. "He just needs to follow the measurements. I've spent my whole life waiting for a world that wasn't finished. I think I'm going to like it here."