Chapter 97 - Noble visits
Scarlett spent two more days in Freymeadow being instructed by Arlene about the difference between normal pyrokinesis and true pyrokinesis. Those days had been used refining what the woman had told her, trying to gauge the difference between the two ‘skills’. Unfortunately, beyond explaining that there was a difference, and showcasing a couple of examples, Arlene hadn’t actually deigned to provide much further explanation, so Scarlett was still in the process of actually trying to figure out how to implement the new knowledge with her magic.
Right now, however, they had returned to Freybrook, and she had other matters to prepare for. Evelyne had left shortly after she and Livvi visited a few days earlier, and the woman had left some documents regarding the fiefs for her to go over. Scarlett didn’t really know much about noble duties, tax laws, fief management, or even the land that belonged to the Hartford family, so much of the contents went over her head. It seemed Evelyne had suspected as much, though, since there had been written outlines summarizing much of the material, which was helpful.
As far as Scarlett understood things, the majority of the Hartford family’s revenues and assets didn’t actually originate from their fief. They had an old keep—Stagmond Keep—to the northwest of Freybrook, which had a small number of staff ensuring its upkeep, but it didn’t appear to serve any real purpose other than being the family’s ancestral home. In the region near Stagmond Keep, there were a few villages that belonged to the barony, but none of them seemed to have any major exports. Their populations didn’t even surpass a few hundred. All in all, the Hartford barony probably didn’t encompass more than a thousand people, which was nothing when compared to just some of the towns that bordered it, not to mention Freybrook itself.
Despite that, the Hartford family had been a relatively prestigious house throughout the empire’s history. They owned several mansions, had several notable mages in their family tree, and were even at the level where the emperor himself would acknowledge them. It was somewhat of a conundrum to Scarlett how the family was as prestigious as it was, considering its ‘humble’ origins. She’d learned enough about the empire’s aristocracy to know that there were a dozen other baronies of similar size just around the Freybrook area.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t exactly an encyclopedia for these kinds of things. Not to her knowledge, at least. There were probably family chronicles and the like detailing most, if not all, of the empire’s noble houses, but she doubted any of them had a simple answer written in plain text. From what she could gather, though, it was a mixture of the Hartford mage-producing endeavours and them just making good business decisions.
Or at least it had been before the original Scarlett became the head. She was neither a skilled mage nor a talented businesswoman, if any of what she knew was true. Noble politics seemed about the only thing the original had been truly skilled at—maybe—but that was so far out of Scarlett’s area of expertise that she still couldn’t be entirely sure. All she had to go off of was other people’s reactions to her actions.
She wasn’t sure whether things started getting worse for the Hartfords before or after the original became the baroness, but she doubted the woman’s actions had helped the situation any, at least. Over the last few weeks, she’d gone through past financial accounts on more than one occasion and seen some of the costs the original Scarlett had racked up. Even for minor things, like clothes and jewellery, the numbers had astonished her. It was figures in the six digits. Probably enough to buy an entire neighborhood in this world.
Still, all of that was in the past. Things were on the upswing in those regards now. The money Evelyne had been bringing in from selling all the loot was slowly mounting up. Scarlett had also made sure to sell some of the more expensive jewellery pieces she found. Even with the expected costs for repairing the mansion—when that time came—she wasn’t expecting any actual issues on the financial front, as long as they weren’t pressed for time.
Although that was assuming no other sudden costs popped up out of nowhere. Their current expenditures ranged everywhere from salaries for the employees spread out across their different homes and fiefs, to costs for the new orphanage that was now up and running or the business investments Evelyne was in charge of, as well as a few miscellaneous costs here and there that included a few different stipends and the like that the family had been financing since previous generations.
Honestly, all this management and economy stuff was a bit much for Scarlett. Even with her already delegating the majority of the work to Evelyne and others, she didn’t enjoy having to look over what still ended up at her desk. In fact, it annoyed her even having to bother with most of it. Sometimes she felt like she would die of boredom from some of the documents. But she also didn’t feel comfortable just ignoring all of it.
…Actually, that was a lie. She was pretty sure she could ignore all of it without feeling an ounce of regret. In general, she’d always felt a sense of ambivalence to most matters that didn’t directly affect her. That went doubly now that her personality had been affected so by the original Scarlett’s. There were a lot of things she just didn’t care enough about.
But she felt like she should. Or rather, she thought that she should. Which was all the reason she needed to force herself to do it anyway.