The Ultimate Player Of The Game Of Thrones

9th Month of 288AC

Rickard traveled to strip of land he was granted on a horse along with Nira. Gerrard Trant and Godwin Harcourt waiting for him at the farmland. Both of the men were retainers of the house Flint of Flint's Finger and were here to help Rickard.

Godwin helped Nira to climb down from the horse, thereafter Rickard jumped down from the horse and asked

"How is the land granted to me?How much can be used for farming immediately?"

"Young lord, Your land contains about 100 acres that can be used to sow quickly. This piece of land is not farmed for last six months. Other 500 acres can be sowed after proper preparations are done. This land also contains some small ponds, and one small stream, and two small hills. " Gerrard reported their findings.

" How much of land covered with grass and weeds? " Rickard inquired further.

" Nearly 700 acres are covered in some sort of weed, Young lord. " Gerrard replied.

" Then buy atleast 400 aurochs. we will let them graze here. Take nira with you." Rickard ordered. Then he remounted his horse and looked at the Godwin and said

" Let us go to see where exactly ponds and this small stream and farmable land is."

Godwin mounted on his own horse and led Rickard to the stream. The stream was flowing in lower elevation than the farmable land.

"Young lord, there is a pond at the other side. We can let water run down from there to water the crops. Soil turning ploughs are here and I have prepared 100 small folks to start the work immediately." Godwin explained.

"Then I'll let you go ahead with it." Rickard pulled out a parchment. "I have here list of villages where we can get many smallfolk along with skilled individuals. I want to have them permanently work for me. arrange it and don't force anyone."

°°°

Small folk from flinton, town directly outside Flint's Finger castle, started to work the fields. Under the watchful eyes of Godwin all went without a hitch. Gerrard bought the aurochs and recruited the shepherds to herd the aurochs. Now Rickard's daily schedule consisted of knightly training in the mornings and coming to the Meadowgrove farm in the afternoon.

In these days Rickard had taken liking to auroch milk. It was both more sweet and more creamy than the milk served in the mansion. So he made a habit of having a afternoon snack with a jug full of freshly squeezed auroch milk everyday in the farm. This was one of the pleasant reason to visit the farm everyday, other obviously being to oversee the farming.

After a period of observation Rickard noticed quite a few problems in how his people handled agriculture. So he asked his retainers "Is it how you always grow crops?"

Their answer disappointed Rickard. Westeros being very advanced in plate armor and exquisite glass works and such lagged far behind in agricultural practices.

Soil turning Plough didn't go deep enough. They also didn't know about organic fertilizers and pesticides. They followed two field system instead of three or four field system. This limited the yield considerably.

He asked Godwin and Gerrard "If I said I want you to try out some new things, would you follow it?"

Godwin and Gerrard looked at each other then at Rickard confusingly. After a moment of hesitation they looked at each other again with a knowing look. Here was the real Rickard, who always had new ideas to try out. They didn't hesitate any longer and replied in unison "We will try our best, Young lord."

"Then I want you to dig pits that are 5 feet deep. You should put all the dung and dry leaves; once filled leave it for two months. Then transfer it to another empty pit and mix it with auroch urine and water every day. After 4 months contents of the second pits can be used as fertilizer. " Rickard instructed them.

°°°

Rickard came to the smithy to know whether the smith can understand how to make better soil turning ploughs. As he couldn't forge one because he wasn't a blacksmith.

Rickard asked for Gidden Smith and got hold of him. He gave an rough sketch of improved plough. "Can you make plough teeth that is both sharp and wide mouldboard. Both made of Iron or steel. Also make Iron handle and a floor where a man can press down all his bodyweight so that plough sink more into the ground."

Gidden's eyebrow twitched furiously. Here a lordling was interfering with his work and asking for make him new toys. Nevertheless he couldn't refuse. So he asked a question.

"Sire, how do we connect all of these parts?"

"Rivets, Gidden, rivets." Rickard impatiently replied. "You need to make bigger rivets same as chain mail rivets. Only difference is you need to heat it until its red hot, then insert it into the hole and beat it."

"Sire, We don't have rivet you speak of." Gidden answered in humble low voice.

Rickard drew the schematic drawing of the simple rivet and gave it to gidden.

" This is a high level secret technology. Make sure nobody else knows about it. Bring in only your trusted people to work on it. " Gidden didn't quibble and just agreed to it although he thought next lord of Flint's Finger will be rather eccentric one.

On Rickard's part he thought westeros had figured out rivets as he knew the existence of massive ships, plate armor, chain mail. But if westeros didn't have rivets this could make him billions of golden dragons.