The morning after the manager's expulsion, a nervous quiet lay over Eskildsgård. The staff spoke in whispers, their eyes darting towards the study door, wondering what their strange, new master would do next. They expected a summons, a lecture, or perhaps for the young Baron to lock himself away and mourn.
Christian did none of those things.
He emerged from his chambers just after dawn, not in the fine clothes of a mourning aristocrat, but in sturdy riding breeches and a thick wool coat. His boots were heavy and practical.
"Have my horse saddled," he commanded the first servant he saw. "And tell Soren the tenant and Lars my valet to prepare to ride with me. We are inspecting the lands."
An hour later, the trio was cantering away from the manor. Soren, mounted on a stout workhorse, looked deeply uncomfortable. It was unheard of for the lord of the manor to conduct such an inspection himself, much less with a common tenant farmer as his guide.
Christian, however, was in his element. This was a site survey, a data-gathering mission. He rode with a purpose that awed his companions into silence, his eyes scanning every field, every forest, every cottage.
He saw it all not as a landscape, but as a system full of gross inefficiencies. He saw the vast tracts of land lying fallow under the archaic three-field system—a third of his potential production, wasted by tradition. He saw the tenant cottages, small and poorly insulated, a drain on the health and productivity of his workforce. He saw the forests, hacked at ineptly by Madsen's thieves, now in desperate need of proper management.
"The soil here," he said, reining in his horse at the edge of a field. He dismounted, grabbing a clump of dark earth and crumbling it in his fingers. "It's rich in clay. Good for holding water, but it needs aeration. It needs lime."
Soren stared, dumbfounded. The old Count had never once touched the soil of his own fields.
Their tour ended at the perpetually soggy north pasture, the site of Soren's survey the previous day. The ground squelched under their boots.
"Your measurements were excellent, Soren," Christian said, pulling a rolled-up parchment from a saddlebag. He spread it on a flat-topped boulder. It was a detailed map of the pasture, marked with lines and figures. Soren peered at it, recognizing his own survey data, but seeing it incorporated into a design of baffling complexity.
"You see here," Christian traced a line with his finger, "the land slopes gently towards the creek. A single ditch, as our forefathers would have built, would only drain the land immediately beside it. We will do better." He pointed to a series of interlocking V-shapes he had drawn, all feeding into a central channel. "This is a herringbone pattern. We will dig trenches and lay fired clay pipes, surrounded by gravel. The water will seep into the pipes and be carried away efficiently."
Soren squinted at the drawing. "Pipes, my lord? Under the ground? They will not crush?"
"They will be fired in a kiln for strength," Christian explained patiently, his 21st-century knowledge flowing as easily as if he were briefing a team of engineers. "This method increases the surface area for drainage a hundredfold. It is a proven technique. When we are finished, Soren, this useless bog will be fifty hectares of the most fertile pasture on the estate."
The tenant farmer was speechless. He could not grasp the science, but he understood the promise of fifty new hectares. He understood the authority with which the Baron spoke. This was not the idle fancy of a young lord; it was the detailed plan of a master builder.
Not content, Christian led them to the estate's port. He walked the length of the single, rickety pier, tested the depth of the channel with a weighted line, and inspected the musty warehouses. Klaus, the port foreman, scurried behind him, sweating despite the cold.
"Klaus," Christian said, turning to the foreman. "Tomorrow, you will organize a work crew. This pier is to be reinforced with new oak pylons. I want Warehouse B cleared out completely; we will store grain there and only grain. And I want the channel dredged another two meters at the mouth. We must be able to accommodate ships with a deeper draft."
Like Soren before him, Klaus was stunned by the sheer practicality and foresight of the orders. This new lord did not just give vague commands; he issued precise, technical instructions.
That evening, Christian sat in his study, a map of the entire barony spread on the desk before him. His fine leather boots were caked in mud, a sight that made Lars nearly faint when he came to light the lamps. The young Baron looked tired, but his eyes burned with a fire that had nothing to do with grief. He had spent the day walking his domain, not as its owner, but as its chief engineer. He had taken the measure of his foundation.
He made a small mark in pencil on the north pasture. The first project was underway.
Drainage is the foundation, he thought, leaning back in his chair. It makes the land willing. But a foundation is useless without a structure.
He looked at the vast areas of the map marked 'fallow'.
The three-field system must be abolished. Next, we teach them how to grow.