Juliette X

PA 1.6

Over the past several months, the city of King’s End had undergone massive changes as it settled into its new relationship with the rest of the Red Kingdom.

To start with, many people had begun migrating throughout the Kingdom, as new opportunities cropped up in each of the capital cities. The Red Capital, for example, granted people new opportunities to join the army or increase their social standing by interacting with the King. In Smaran, the capital of Duchess Saanvi, granted people a position in the navy, the large dockyards also allowing fishermen and the like to ply their trade more easily. And finally, in King’s End, primitive industry had begun to pick up, attracting skilled artisans and laborers to the city. Tools, weapons, and pottery had all begun being produced en-mass, requiring large warehouses along the city’s smallish docks just to store everything before they were transported to the rest of the Kingdom.

The movement of so many people throughout the Kingdom had only just begun to slow down, and while Juliette had managed to keep most of her population within King’s End, many of the people beyond the walls of the city had left her territory, while an influx of foreigners had moved into her capital, forcing the city to rapidly expand.

At first, she’d tried keeping everyone within the old walls, but soon realized that that wasn’t going to happen, and instead allowed them to start building outside the walls, tearing down the old walls for material as they went.

It wasn’t like it was much of a loss after what Billy-boy’s catapults had done to them anyway.

But once things had finally begun slowing down last month, she’d been able to breathe a sigh of relief and begin rebuilding new, better walls around the city. These walls would be made out of stone.

Well, not fully out of stone. Even with the small quarry they’d set up near her Outpost, most of her stone was taken as tribute by the King, leaving her with barely enough to work on all of her projects. Instead, they would end up being wooden walls that would be covered in stone bricks, granting them the illusion of being made out of stone.

It turns out that despite being in the Stone Age, stone itself was difficult to get a hold of.

But while stone was difficult to get a hold of, clay was another matter entirely. The King didn’t tax it and, unlike stone, was easily mined all along the river. With that in mind, it was only natural that she began focusing on industry like she did.

Pottery became the main export of King’s End’s early attempts at trade, along with clay tablets for record keeping and stone tools. The pots would be made by her ‘expert’ craftsmen (some of which she’d poached from elsewhere in the Kingdom) and painted with beautiful artwork by others, including occasionally Juliette herself. Then they’d be sent on boats up and downriver, trading with Smaraan for fish, the Capital for stone, and even to the other foreign kingdoms around them for ‘exotic’ goods, like wheat and fruits.

King’s End, being at the edge of the Red Kingdom, had since become something of a proto-trade hub over the past few months as somewhat peaceful relations were forged with their neighbors. Even if she didn’t control as much of the trade as she wanted to, her warehouses were still consistently filled with foreign goods waiting for Saanvi’s navy to come along and transport them throughout the rest of the Kingdom.

Her current situation as a vassal of the Red Kingdom wasn’t ideal. But she could—begrudgingly—admit that even as it made several things harder, it had made many other things much, much easier.

Now if only that bastard King would stop taking all her stone, then maybe she’d actually be able to finish these walls already.

--

It was late morning one day that found her in the foyer of her ‘palace,’ casually chatting with her friend Li as she prepared to go check on some of her projects.

“Are you sure Qian will be fine alone with the kids?” Juliette asked the older woman, a concerned frown on her face. “I know his injury has healed well enough, but I still worry. He’s only stopped wearing bandages last week, I don’t know if he should be pushing himself so soon…”

“He’ll be fine,” Li smiled reassuringly at her. “He’s a stubborn old fool. To tell the truth, he’s been pushing himself further than he should be for months now—he just likes to play nice whenever you’re around, since he knows you’ll nag him.”

“Damn right I will! What do you mean he’s been pushing himself? He should be resting! What if he injures himself more!?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine~” Li waved her off. “I find it quite manly, truly. The injured soldier, going above and beyond for his family… especially his wife~”

“Eurk,” Juliette choked. “Forget I said anything.”

“Are you sure? Is it because you don’t have a lover yourself?”

“Quickly changing the topic!” Juliette hissed, feeling her cheeks burn despite herself. “I need to check on the forge, would you like to come with me? Or should I send you away, before you corrupt my virgin ears with your salacious married-woman tongue.”

“Oh? My tongue is salacious? Perhaps we really do need to get you a lover, if you’re spending time thinking about a married woman’s tongue~”

“Ack! That’s it, shoo! Away with you, away!” Juliette hissed, mock shoving the woman away, her face burning. “I need to speak with some very important people today, and I can’t have you destroying my reputation with your perverted innuendos!”

“Okay Juliette,” Li chuckled, walking out the door. “Should we tell the kids to expect you tonight?”

“Only if you stop talking now and leave,” Juliette grumbled, shoving the woman out the door.

As she left the other woman, Juliette took steadying breaths, forcing herself to calm down. As she forced her blush away and replaced it with a ‘Queenly,’ regal mask, she considered her relationship to Li, Qian and their family.

Over the past few months, despite having a largeish palace of her own, Juliette had been increasingly visiting Qian’s house. These days she only used her palace as a place to sleep and work, while Qian’s house had become what she increasingly thought of as ‘home.’ It wasn’t that her own place was that bad—in fact it was much more impressive than Qian’s home would ever be. But it was just…

It was lonely, staying there all by herself.

‘Well if that wasn’t a depressing thought.’ Juliette shook the thought away, repressing it as she did all such thoughts. It wasn’t healthy, she knew, but it wasn’t like they had psychologists in this world to call her out on it!

With her regal mask firmly in place, Juliette finally started walking down towards the docks.

As she walked through the city, she took note of the buildings surrounding her. While the city wasn’t that big, there had become a definite difference between the ‘old city’ and the ‘new city.’ The old city, the small area around the original firepit, was made up of the remaining dozen or so huts she’d built in the new year, before her Kingdom had been conquered. The new city, in contrast, had higher quality buildings, as her carpenters had used the skills they’d learned to slowly build better and better houses, leading to the current log-cabin style of building that looked almost like something people from the modern day would be willing to live in.

Well, it was a work in progress at least. Even now, King’s End wasn’t big enough for any true change or diversity to exist, but she liked taking note of it where she could. It let her feel like she was making progress, no matter how little it might be.

Beyond the city proper were the docks down by the river. And while the docks themselves weren’t that impressive—being just planks of wood jutting out over the river—she’d still taken the time and resources to include them in her new plans for the city, extending the walls to protect the docks against a siege. Between the docks and the city proper, though, there wasn’t much going on. Besides the rows of half-empty warehouses, the only thing of note was the barracks, which had been relocated out of the city proper for two reasons. The first was an issue of space and location, moving the large building to make more room within the walls for housing. The other reason, however, was to hide something important.

Her forge.

Behind the barracks, hidden between the building and the walls of the city was a primitive forge, whose existence was only known of by a trusted few individuals.

Hiding the forge had been a pain in the ass, since Things 1 and 2 were always snooping around, trying to catch her out on anything they could complain to the King about. Not that there was much, since Billy-Boy really did jack all about anything so long as she kept sending tribute and showing up for his parties. But something as big as a forge wasn’t something he’d overlook—if only to tax her on the crap she made with it.

So, she hid it. As far as anyone knew, the only door leading to the forge from the barracks just led to the armory, a place only people with permission could enter. Which it did. But in the armory was a second, secret door which led out to the small courtyard behind the barracks, where the forge was placed.

The forge itself was little more than a large, upside-down cup made from mud and stone, with holes cut out for the fire burning below and the place to melt the ore. Off to the side was a cooling station and a large slab of stone that worked as a primitive anvil.

Stepping into the courtyard, Juliette walked towards the only other person there.

“Shimisi,” she nodded solemnly, stepping into the forge room. Out of habit she glanced up at the walls to check for patrolling guards, despite knowing that the walls had been designed in such a way as to make it impossible to see down here. “How’s the work going? Have you made any progress?”

The other person turned to look up from where they were squinting into the forge, blowing air into the furnace with a bellows made from a sheep’s bladder. They wore thick leather all over their body, with an apron and mask covering the front of their body and their face. The only part of their body not covered was their upper arms, revealing thick, corded muscles.

“It’s certainly going,” Shimisi grunted, standing up and revealing themselves to be one of the few people in the city who matched her height. Reaching up, they yanked the mask off their face, revealing a woman with blunt features, emphasized by a square jaw with her hair pulled into a tight bun. Along the left side of her face was a large burn scar, one of several that had occurred during their early tests. Juliette had gotten some too, its just that hers had healed while Shimisi’s had not. “I’m still not sure what you’re looking for with this, but whatever it is I don’t think it’s what happened here.”

With that the woman grabbed a pair of (wooden) tongs, reaching into the furnace to grab the mineral that she’d been working on. Pulling it out, she lifted it up to show her Queen what she’d been working on.

It was a rock. A melting rock, but just a rock nonetheless.

Juliette clicked her tongue, scowling down at the lump of molten stone. With a shake of her head Shimisi sighed and tossed it into the pile with the rest of the failures.

Scowling down as the furnace, Juliette crossed her arms, glaring at the failure of a forge.

Well, okay, perhaps that was a bit harsh. She’d discovered a lot of things messing around with it, but she had yet to actually succeed at what she’d set out to do—creating iron.

Or any type of metal, really, but iron was the goal she’d set for herself now.

The issue wasn’t a lack of trying, or even necessarily a lack of ability, but a lack of resources. Specifically, Juliette had no idea was raw iron ore looked like, or even any other type of ore. So instead she was forced to figure it out through trial and error, having Shimisi melt down every different type of rock she found in the vain hope that maybe one of them would be a metal of some kind.

“Have you gotten through everything I sent you? The miners hit some sort of weird ore in the quarry last week—have you tried that yet?” Juliette asked her (only) blacksmith, forcing her face to return to a somewhat more dignified expression.

“Not yet, My Lady,” the smith shook her head. Suddenly she stared coughing, pounding her chest as she did so. Juliette moved to help, but it was over before she could do anything. “I’ve been working through them in order like you said—I’m still on the ones you brought me last month.”

“Are you alright?” Juliette asked worriedly, filing away that information for later. “When was the last time you took a break? Have you left the forge for anything other than work since I last saw you?”

“Bah, I’ll be fine,” she grunted, before giving Juliette a beaming smile. “So long as I can figure out this mystery you’ve handed me, everything’ll be worth it. You’ve given me a task, My Lady, and I plan to see it through to the end.”

Juliette huffed lightly, narrowing her eyes at the other woman. “That doesn’t mean you have to die to complete it. We aren’t on that big of a time crunch. You need to rest, do you understand?”

“I’m unworthy of your concern, My Lady,” she smiled, dodging the question yet looking distinctly pleased. “In fact, you’ve inspired me! I’ll finish the next batch even faster now!”

Juliette sighed, closing her eyes. While Shimisi was without a doubt one of her most loyal followers, she could be… zealous, at times. And, somehow, that zealousness made her more likely to just ignore her when she gave her an order. It could get very frustrating, some times.

At least she could keep a secret, if nothing else.

“No, you aren’t,” Juliette grabbed her by the back of her apron, dragging her away from the forge. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you are a mortal. You need food, water, sleep, and air! You’ve spent so much time here that you’ve got smoke in your lungs! Tell me, what’ll I do if you die on me? Who’ll work the forge then?”

“Eh!?” Shimisi yelped, wriggling in her grip. “But! But what about now! Who’ll smelt the ores if I’m not there?”

“Nobody. We’re taking a break. Come on, we’re heading up into the city—I’ll have one of my servants make us some venison skewers, get some food in your body. Then we’re going on a nature walk, maybe then you’ll get some fresh air for once.”

“But… but!”

“Just shut up already and listen to your Queen!”

“I… yes, My Lady. I’ll be in your care.”

9,884 God-Kings Remain