Planning

"Oh, don't think too much of it I am still mad at you."

My frown turned into a suppressed smile, "That is true, but you are not only mad at me, you also find me charming, and sweet and now you are exasperated with me."

"See, this is why I told you not to try lying to him, he knows too much." Isa had looked over her shoulder at 112.

"Oh, that is right before I ran away, he asked me what was wrong, and I told him I was tired." 112 nodded like that explained something.

Isa shook her head and looked back at me, "I gave her a playful snap that didn't touch, and she informed me it was not technically a lie. Which I guess is technically true, since there is no way someone whose body was going to shut down on any minute could possibly not be tired. Even if she isn't in danger now." Isa gave me a confused look, "She would have been dead before morning. Her body might have been getting food in but it had lost the ability to do anything with it, that she is recalling events so well right now is amazing. Really what threw me about her turning me down was I had been expecting to double task the time to see if there was something unique about how she was built for why she is still alive at all." I shrugged and sighed, "Oh well, come here, I want to hold you."

Isa smiled at me again and crawled up to the bed letting her dress fall open so I could her exposed front in the process. She closed it again as she curled up against my side, much to my disappointment. Guess she had decided she wasn't done being mad at me quite yet. "So plans to prevent more like her?"

Isa snorted and laid her head on my shoulder, "For now, not much. We could hore the slave men, but that would only help with the ones that are eating. We can feed our people for now, and I think with how our fields are being worked the house of Estro might have a surplus, but I doubt we will be allowed to sell it as the other houses are sure to protest to the priesthood about our house hoarding supplies. Just because we paid in advance and did the work doesn't mean we will get to keep it."

"Well, then we will have to be sure there is not a surplus."

"Which means what, the priests know what was planted and how the weather has been, they should be able to get a close idea to what we will harvest."

"I am sure they do, and I am sure their patrons are counting the days until they get to protest, but there won't be a surplus because we will have already sold it." 112 moved to the chair with the blanket and sat down moving the blanket back to her lap.

"Sold it? To who?" Isa didn't look at me as we talked, but she did let me hold her.

"The street women."

112 frowned and spoke without thinking that she might not be wanted in the conversation, "women who live on the street have nothing to sell to buy food, if they did they wouldn't be on the street, sir." She almost left off the sir. Sometimes she used it, sometimes she didn't, wonder why.

"Oh, so were you wrong, would you not have done almost anything for food."

"No, sir. I meant it. I mean that I am very lucky to have ended up here. Not dead yet."

"Good, then there is one thing you owned even as you starved on the street that is a use to me, and probably my house, if we are willing to pay for it."

"But if you feed street women they become sisters of your house and you are responsible for them. What could they have that is worth picking up their debt?"

"First off you are wrong."

Isa shifted to tilt her head to look at my face. "Oh?"

"A sister of the house is a woman born to the house who works for the good of the house, it's men, and it's children. All their work ideally goes to the house to whom they owe allegiance. They raise the next group of fathers and fighters with more focus in fighters. A free agent woman doesn't belong to a house and must buy time with a man, most of these are farmers or craftspeople but right now none of them are doing that well outside a house. Because the houses can either make what they need themselves or are strong enough to take it without a fair exchange. Yet this group still exists and it creates a precedent that you can buy goods at least, and not take the woman on as a sister. Now, mainly because people get caught up only in what could arguably be called our most important exchange, to blood debt we owe our lord, most exchanges that do occur are strictly in liters of blood or time on a man's life, but that is far from the only thing of value that can be traded."

"Still doesn't change that street women have nothing to trade, sir."

"Goods are easy to understand, I give you a knife, you give me leather. So I can see why you would get stuck on what a group that currently cannot feed itself might give to get food, but you are thinking too narrowly. Now, how about I give you a knife and the leather and you make me armor, you get to keep the knife and whatever is left of the leather as long as you make something better then I can," 112 looked sceptical "or I give you dinner and you shear some sheep for me, or bail hay or clean the house, or any number of other things that need done and I would rather pay you to do then do them myself or tie up a sister doing."

"But you have enough hands for those jobs."

"But I really don't, I cannot ever have enough to do everything that needs done. I need spies who will tell me what is going on with the other houses. I need laborers that can move around, in and out of the city, to move the supplies we have. I need guards to make sure my stuff gets where I need it intact. Even with the men helping on the farms we have, in spring and fall there is no such thing as enough hands. Most of these are temporary jobs that change with the seasons you wouldn't be able to devote yourself to them and survive at least for now. So hiring free agents would be perfect, it also helps that most of what I need is unskilled labor. Things that require skill will have to be done by a sister still. Also all the house would pay is food, but it sounds like we might have a group that will buy." I was watching 112 as she frowned in thought.

"I would have taken that offer in a heartbeat. Hard to be worried about having children when you are worried about where your next meal will come from. I have a feeling most of the women I had known would agree, sir. But how does that prevent you from having a surplus?"

Isa tilted her head back down and played with my niple as she responded, "Because he is going to have me and the other wives track down as many street women as we can and offer them specific jobs at specific prices based on what our harvest should be at this point, then he will have us offer some flexjobs to the people that take the guaranteed jobs that they will only get to do if we end up with a bigger harvest which means when the priest come around to count inventory, stores, and surplus they will find no surplus as it will have already been sold, just like Mir said. You will have to tell your mother this scene you thought up. The other houses might boycott her matches for this."

"Not if they want matches at all. All we have to do is shamelessly trade on my relationship with our lord. If Mother cannot get matches, I will just have to ask that he continues to not approve any matches until the other houses play nice."

Isa's hand paused for a moment, "If our lord agrees that could work, if he doesn't…"

"Then I will ask if he has scheduled me a match yet. Since he isnt letting mother make them but did say he would still make them."

Isa sighed, "This is just a break isn't it?"

I shifted to look at Isa, "Our lord serves the lord and I serve them both."