"So it meets your approval, then?" I asked.
"Perhaps," he shrugged. "How much did this cost?"
"A little less than 30 dragons," I replied. "Though that accounts for both labor and materials."
"30 dragons for a mile of road?" He asked, eyebrows disappearing into his hair.
"I think, given more time and experience, the workers will be able to get more done in the same amount of time," I replied. "Rounding up, it's better to think of it as one work crew of 35 men and the materials to build the road costs about 4 gold dragons per sennight."
"But it takes almost 6 sennights to go a mile," he pointed out.
"For a single crew to go a mile," I corrected. "The goal will be multiple crews covering different areas."
"That's still a tremendous expense if we want to pave all the roads in the North," he countered.
"Paving the King's Road, the road from Winterfell to the coast near Deepwood Motte, the road to Torrhen's Square and maybe down to Barrowton, the road to White Harbor, the road from Dorren's Bridge to Hornwood, then the Dreadfort, and then to Karhold…" I said, listing out all the major roads. "We'll also need to make a spur from Last Hearth to the King's Road. All told, that about…"
I paused and tried to run the numbers in my head. I had to approximate distances, but better to round up, I think.
"Somewhere around 2000 miles of road, I think, give or take a hundred miles." I concluded.
"4 dragons per sennight, and it takes 6 sennights to go a mile," Ned pointed out, looking doubtful. "So 24 dragons per mile, that's… hmm, 48,000 dragons. Cat, that's far too expensive!
"Aye, it is a rather large sum," I agreed with a sigh. "With the new tariffs, I can't afford to spend more than 400 dragons per moon, if I want to keep some coin at hand…"
"I can't justify more than about 200 dragons per moon either."
"So if I spend 300 and you spend 200, we could afford to pay… what, a little more than 30 work crews per moon? And given the weather, we can only rely on about 6 months of good weather in which to build the roads," I mused, running the numbers in my head. "At the current rate, each crew would get about 4 miles done in a year, so 120 miles each year… shit, that's almost 16 years, isn't it?"
"Aye. A long time," he agreed.
"Well, if the financial situation improves, then we might be able to do it faster," I pointed out.
"How would you expect it to improve?" He asked.
"The new blast furnace will be done soon," I replied. "And, once Lord Harclay and Lord Poole increase their mines' output, I can build another one or two," I pointed out. "Current prices for iron are high, and good steel ingots would sell for an even higher price. Once production starts on them, a lot of our financial stress will be relieved."
"Hmm," he gave a dissatisfied hum. "Fine. But we'll focus on the road to White Harbor and Deepwood Motte first."
I smiled. "Thank you, Ned. I'll take care of organizing everything. We'll make this work one way or another."
"I hope so, Cat," he said, a look of irritation in his eyes as he turned his gaze south. "I hope so…"
I had gone to the steel foundry for the first tapping of the second blast furnace, if only to check to see if the safety procedures we had designed were being followed. While I didn't expect them to prevent all accidents, at least we could limit the dumb, preventable mistakes from becoming a problem.
Of course, other concerns quickly grabbed my attention.
"Orders for the basic tools are down, milady," Corin, the foreman at my blast furnaces, told me. "About half of our taps have been solely to make ingots."
"Why have they slowed down?" I asked.
"I think most of the new farms have all the tools they need, and the old ones still have serviceable tools," he replied. "They're just… not selling as much anymore."
'Damn,' I cursed in my head. While this was ultimately a good thing, since it meant that farmers and craftsmen had all the tools they needed for their work, selling them had been a little bit more profitable than just selling ingots.
'Then again…' I smiled, a thought coming to mind.
"Keep casting tools," I ordered him. "Farm tools, carpentry tools, blacksmithing tools, the lot."
"But, milady…" he protested. "They're not selling!"
"They're not selling here in the North," I corrected. "I imagine they'll sell nicely in the South and in Essos, don't you think?"
Corin looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. "I suppose they would, milady."
"And see to it that our carpenters are making good handles for them, if you please," I added. "Good work will only increase the price."
"Aye, milady."
"Well," I said with an exhausted sigh. "As fun as that was, I have to admit I'm glad to see the backs of them."
"Oh?" Ned said with an amused smile. "The lords certainly had an excellent time."
"Of course they did," I grumped. "They weren't paying for it!"
My intemperate words startled a laugh out of Ned.
We were relaxing in his solar, goblets of wine near at hand, after bidding farewell to the last of the nobility who had come to Winterfell for the Harvest Festival.
"I take it you weren't pleased with Greatjon?" Ned good-naturedly needled me. "It was quite the display…"
Greatjon Umber's Giants had faced Mormonts Iron Bears in the finals of the Team Battle tourney, and had soundly defeated them. The Bears were low on manpower after Bolton's Rams had nearly defeated them, whereas the Giants had faced a rather depleted Manderly's Chargers. At the victory feast, Umber had gotten deep into his cups, stood up on the table, started singing with a surprisingly good voice, and started stripping, much to the raucous amusement of everyone except his wife and myself.
'I hadn't expected Team Battles to become so popular,' I mused. 'And the names! Perhaps I should just call it the Northern Fighting League and get it over with…'
"It was quite the embarrassment is what it was," I retorted. "His poor wife was so embarrassed I could see the red in her face from across the hall!"
"I don't think that was from embarrassment, Cat," Ned replied with a smirk.
I tilted my head to the side, not getting it at first, until it finally came to me.
"Oh," I murmured. "Oh!"
Ned snorted.
"A-anyway!" I loudly said, waving the topic away. "How do your finances look?"
"Not as bad as they could have been," Ned replied. "We lost a bit of tax revenue, of course, but it seems nearly every farmer in the North has one of your reapers and seed drills now. This year's harvest is the best in living memory; we won't need to buy grain from the South this year."
"That's excellent news," I smiled. "I take it that the good harvests have offset the loss of revenue thanks to the tariffs?"
"They have," he nodded. "And the trading company seems to have hit its stride as well."
"One of their ships went all the way down to Dorne," I agreed with a nod. "Apparently, my felt hats are as popular among the Dornish as they are with the Braavosi."
Of course, the wool cloth wouldn't sell there. But our linen did; linen actually had a sweat-whisking quality, much like modern sports wear from my old life, though not as efficient. It would help the Dornish keep cool in the warm climes down south.
"That's good news," Ned replied, nodding along. He took a sip from his Dornish Red wine and smirked; a side benefit of the trading company was a wider array of goods from further afield. In the most recent letter, Clay spoke about an opportunity to begin importing silk…
"They're also selling cloth in King's Landing and Gulltown," I continued. "While we're getting less overall profit than before, at least we're still earning coin."
"Aye," Ned said, a shadow crossing his face. "Thanks to your cleverness…"
"It's less my cleverness and more the stupidity of whomever wrote the order,' I replied with a snort. "Still, their mistake is our opportunity."
"Speaking of opportunity, how has your steel sales been going?"