"Quite well," I said, smiling slightly. "King's Landing is buying up all they can, and the Mormonts are buying some to resell to Westerlander and Reacher merchants that come to their island. Also, I'm considering sending a ship down to Dorne to see how the market there is looking…"
"How are the profits?"
"Quite good," I replied with a smirk and a sip of the wine. "Enough so that I'm reinvesting in Clan Harclay's and Vayon Poole's mines; if they can expand, I can make even more. Neither lord is complaining, though, since they're earning a tidy profit as well."
"And the tools?"
"Selling as fast as we can unload them from the ships," I replied, smirking. "Assuming iron prices don't start falling by springtime, I may start contributing more to the road project…"
"I'll admit, that project is going much better than I'd feared," Ned replied with a wry smile.
"Agreed," I said with a self-deprecating half smile. "Donnel is a clever man…"
The foreman of my first road crew had taken a look at how slow progress had been and came up with a solution. He came up with a machine that very much resembled a Fresno scraper. I'd only remembered about the design when Donnel had presented a sketch to me one day and asked if we could make it out of cast steel. Steel didn't cast well, but I had come up with a bastardized solution to make sheet steel.
When the steel was poured into ingots, we would take some of those ingots and pass them through a pair of my road rollers that were stacked on top of each other. With some metal guides to prevent the steel from expanding wider than the width of the rollers, and with several passes, the red-hot ingot could be relatively quickly flattened into passable sheet steel. The pressure of the weights helped keep the steel hot and malleable until the process was complete.
From there, Mikken or another blacksmith used a trip hammer setup to pound the steel into the right shape to make the Fresno scraper. Where different sheets of steel needed to be attached, rudimentary rivets held them together. In the end, we managed to make something that worked adequately well.
After the plows had broken up the soil, this clever machine would come in and scoop up the loose soil. The operator would move it out of the trench that would become the road bed, and dump it to the side. Other workers would filter the dirt through some metal grates of various sizes to recover any decent cobblestones embedded in the dirt. This improved the efficiency of the road work by a pretty significant degree.
At the new rate (close to a mile every month, even with unusually rocky soil), both the time necessary to complete the project and the overall expense would drop. More of his machines were being built, which would probably further increase the pace, but I couldn't be sure. Either way, the roads might actually get done before Robb came of age.
"You know, something occurs to me," Ned told me, a thoughtful look on his face. "That machine might be useful in the mines…"
I blinked. The design would have to be adjusted, sure, but… Ned was right, it might be useful.
"You know what, I never even considered that," I murmured. In a louder voice, I said, "I'll talk to Donnel about it. Maybe we can use it to haul loose ore to the surface..."
"Well, here's to more projects," Ned said with a wry smile.
"And to more profits," I agreed. We clinked our goblets together and drank to that.
"What is it this time?" Robert grumbled as he attended his first Small Council meeting in more than three moons.
"I'm afraid it's about the finances again, your Grace," Jon replied.
"I thought the special tariff was going to fix that?"
"It has improved the situation somewhat, but it wasn't the cure-all we had been hoping for," the Hand replied. "The North seems to have shifted to selling all their cloth in Braavos, and the other realms no longer sell across their regional borders."
"So the tariff was useless, huh?" Robert snorted.
"Not entirely, your Grace," Grand Maester Pycell cut in. "The smallfolk are able to sell their homespun cloth once more, and thus are able to meet their tax obligations again."
"Yet the expected windfall didn't materialize," Baelish countered. "Perhaps the best news is that the North has started selling iron. Steel ingots, rather, which has stopped the price of iron from rising too much."
"The Iron Islands still aren't producing, eh?" Robert said with a chortle. "Good old Ned, always coming up with something."
"Or rather, his wife is," Baelish replied. If anyone noticed the strange gleam in his eye, no one said anything about it.
"Then Ned chose well," Robert complimented his old friend. "Now if only my own wife was half as industrious…"
"The point is, Robert," Jon cut in before the King could launch into a rant about the Queen. "That we are still spending more than our tax revenue brings in."
"Then borrow the money," he negligently waved the problem away.
"We have been, your Grace," Baelish replied. "From the Lannisters, at Queen Cersei's insistence."
"Fucking Lannisters," the King grumbled. "Then what's the problem?"
"Even with the Lannister's gold, we either need more money, or we need to spend less," Jon replied.
"Perhaps we can cut back on some of the tourneys," Varys suggested. "The smallfolk are more accepting of your rule."
"Bah, tourneys are the only fun I get anymore," the King dismissed the notion.
"Aside from the whores," went unspoken, even if most of the men in the room were thinking it.
"Then perhaps a tariff on iron-"
"Hah!" Robert laughed. "You yourself said it was the price of iron that caused all of this! A tariff on iron would only make things worse!"
"As you wish, your Grace," Baelish replied, his face carefully blank. "Then might I suggest a tariff on luxuries? Jaeharys the Conciliator implemented such a policy before to great effect…"
Robert stroked his beard and nodded. "Very well. But not a large one, mind you. Cersei goes through the Northern skin cream and soaps like I go through wine, I'd never hear the end of it if they stop coming south."
"That may make up for some of the difference, but I doubt it would cover all of the Crown's expenses," Jon pointed out.
"Fine," Robert huffed. "Stannis, cut back on the Navy."
"That would not be wise, your Grace," Stannis said through gritted teeth. "Piracy is still rampant around the Stepstones, and there are rumors of reavers along the western coast."
"The Ironborn are attacking?" Robert sat up, an anticipatory look on his face.
"Lord Balon denies that the ships and men were his," Stannis answered with a sneer. "He claims the reavers are rogues and pirates…"
"Hmph," Robert snorted and leaned back in his chair. "Do you believe him?"
"Not in the slightest," the Master of Ships replied. "I suspect he will try something sooner or later. Reducing the size of the Navy would leave the realm vulnerable to his fleets."
"Oh, very well," Robert huffed. "Send a letter to the Iron Bank; we'll borrow what we need on top of the luxury tariffs."
"As you wish, your Grace," Petyr said, bowing deeply to the King. If his bow hid his little smirk, well, no one noticed…
Notes:
Ned and Cat scramble to counteract the effects of the tariff, and end up finding the East India Tr... I mean, the East Wind Trading Company. Initial profits will be low, but as the trade fleet expands and reaches new markets (like Dorne), profits will increase.
Cat starts her road project, but progress is slow. Without modern heavy machinery, construction is a lot more labor intensive. She takes shortcuts wherever she can, using local materials wherever possible, but there's only so fast. However, with better roads, transit times between cities will drop as the speed of carts increases. This will make trade easier, and as it becomes easier, more people will engage in it. Plus, in the event of a future conflict, better roads ensures faster gathering of the banners.
And the King and the Small Council realized that their tariff didn't do all that much. Baelish still manages to slap a luxury tariff on the North, but the Crown is still shit at managing money. Worst of all, both Ned and Cat are quite upset with the King.