Chương 75: Chapter 2.12: Trust and Verify

Marcus's smile gained a vicious edge as they stared at each other, and Favius's thoughts raced to find a good answer. Was I too aggressive? Not aggressive enough? Hell, there's a reason why I studied physics and not management. Well, when in doubt, win time and understand the situation.

"You see, Father, as you said, those projects are still in their infancy. Much about their viability, or rather their potential, is still to be determined. Therefore, it would be unwise not to have the people who most deeply understand them be in charge." Marcus simply kept staring across the room, his face a cold, stony mask.

"Son," he said, his voice low and somewhere between danger and amusement, "are you telling me that there might be unfortunate consequences in case we are not careful about reaching the right kind of agreement?" Favius swallowed. He groaned internally. Now, how do I extricate myself from this particular mess? Well, assumptions are what kill. He looked at another tablet. I kind of jumped into my plan. But...

"Tell me, Father, what is your vision for how the soap production should be managed?" Marcus hummed and leaned back in his chair.

"The soap is an especially interesting project, son. You and your sisters have shown yourselves capable of achieving impressive things. Thus, I believe that what ultimately matters is support. In the material, financial, political, and mercantile aspects of the venture. Providing it without, as you certainly meant, damaging the structures that led to this success in the first place." Favius nodded gently as Marcus turned to the side, brushing his hand against Caliga's shoulder.

"After all, why would I deprive my children of an opportunity to learn the art of managing property that they themselves created?" Favius nodded and forced himself to smile while biting his tongue. Seems like I did no damage. Then again... He briefly closed his eyes and focused. No. Not a trace of aura right now. But it could have faded already, which means he could have provoked me into being more aggressive with his cultivation at critical moments.

He looked to the side, to Brutus, who only returned a blank stare. Favius took another long breath. And I need to work on communicating using meaningful looks with my sworn protector, apparently. Caliga cleared her throat and shifted excitedly in the chair, interrupting the tension.

"Well, let's not just sit here. Can we talk about the beehives first? After all, it was the first thing we did." She looked at Marcus. The man chuckled.

"Well, that sounds as good as any other plan." He looked at Favius, who nodded. Serran cleared his throat and selected a piece of parchment from the papers in front of him.

"The results of the new hives are certainly beyond impressive," he began, "especially through the practice of adding another module on top of an already filled hive. It reduced swarming, the migration of bees out of hives. At the same time, it increased the amount of honey they produced. Then—""Yes, yes," said Marcus, smiling fondly at the middle-aged Majordomo.

"We are all aware of that. But you are always insistent that the numbers are what really matters. So do not leave us in suspense." A broad smile spread over the man's face, and he leaned back, steepling his fingers.

"The old hives produced about three stoneweights of honey per hive. The new ones, not all of them, but those that were managed best and set in the best spots, produced ten stoneweights of honey. And one of wax. All without being destroyed during the harvest." Favius whistled in appreciation, and Caliga grinned broadly. Urania nodded before she spoke up.

"If I remember correctly, Serran, you said that the estate made about ten silver senati from the honey and the same from the wax."

"How do we make the same from the wax if there's so much less wax?" asked Caliga. Serran smiled broadly.

"Because for all that wax is but a tenth as plentiful as honey, it is also ten times more valuable." His sisters hummed as Favius nodded. Come on, old man, don't leave us hanging.

"However, the truth is that only a few of the over five hundred hives of the estates under my management have been converted to the new design. If what the beekeepers say is true, we might go from producing fifteen hundred stoneweights of honey per year to producing five thousand of them." Urania gasped as appreciative murmurs rose from all sides of the room.

"That would be almost sixty-seven silver senati from the combined sales."

"That's... That's so much," murmured Urania before grinning.

"We're gonna be rich!" Favius began shaking his head, but Serran beat him to the explanation.

"Well, young lady, there is an important distinction to be made between revenue and profit."

"Indeed. If making money didn't cost money, I would be a rather rich man," interjected Marcus with an exaggeratedly pained smile.

"Still," Favius spoke up and leaned forward, his elbows on the cold, polished wood.

"The profits will be substantial, and they will only be the beginning." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. He took one of the wax tablets and pushed it to the center of the desk.

"By my estimate, it takes one and a half copper senati to produce a hive." Caliga nodded eagerly.

"Yes, and the woodworkers got it down to six days." Favius nodded.

"Let's assume that proper production of a hive, once we've gotten all the kinks out of the system, will take a worker five days." The people around the table nodded, and Favius continued.

"Thus, assuming a reasonably sized workshop with twenty-five woodworkers..." He paused briefly, looking across the room, and smiled. Serran nodded encouragingly while Marcus tilted his head in consideration.

"That means two hundred hives per season and eight hundred per year," murmured Caliga. Serran tilted his hand from side to side.

"Not quite, young lady. There will be errors, mistakes, and delays, but still. The estate's need for hives might be fulfilled within a year."

"So there would be wisdom in selling them to our allies," ventured Marcus. But Favius raised a hand.

"Well, Father, I wouldn't dare to comment on the wisdom of selling them to our allies. Yet I would like you to consider that the log hives of old killed four out of five hives through the harvest and the winter. With our current ones..." He shrugged.

"It's quite plausible that nine in ten hives might survive. And if we don't have to capture wild hives..." He spread out his hands, and Urania nodded, continuing excitedly.

"We can scale up our own production. Just produce and sell more honey. There's no need to sell any hives." Marcus paused and looked at Serran.

"Is there truly capacity for more hives in our lands?" Serran paused briefly, then rubbed his chin.

"Well, that is far from a simple question, Dominus. While it is certainly true that our current beekeeping is limited by how many wild swarms we can capture each spring..." He looked at Favius.

"I do not know if there are enough flowers to feed thousands of hives on our lands." Favius made a dismissive gesture.

"There certainly is more capacity because, after all, there must still be a substantial population of wild bees out there. Yet it is true that there are only so many good places to place hives." Marcus nodded and made a decisive cutting gesture.

"Majordomo, might I trust you to undertake a survey so you may estimate how many hives my lands could reasonably sustain?" Serran's face showed a pained expression for a moment before he inclined his head.

"Of course, my Dominus. But..." He continued with a smile.

"Though I must say I have little certainty in making such an estimate successfully. And I do not believe that sending out the slaves to count flowers would be a productive use of their time." Chuckles erupted from around the table, and even Favius couldn't help but join in. He made a vague gesture.

"Well, the beekeepers can probably help with that. But right off the bat..." He briefly considered the size of their lands.

"I would be very surprised if we can sustain more than ten thousand hives. But even if that is truly our capacity..." He shared a smile with Serran.

"What we ultimately care about is making money, not producing honey, yes?" The two older men nodded, and even Brutus chuckled beside him.

"So you are saying that you could be convinced that selling would be the correct choice?"

"If we set the sales price high enough, yes." Serran scratched a few quick numbers onto his wax tablet and looked up.

"Do you believe two copper blocks per hive would be sufficient?" Favius hummed and nodded while Brutus laughed.

"Certainly a tidy margin of profit, even with the cost of transportation."

"That is what I like to hear," said Marcus, and Favius couldn't help but join the man's grin. That's what we all like to hear. But Urania raised two fingers and spoke. Her initial interjection was hesitant, but quickly she found confidence.

"If we sell the hives, won't people simply copy them? After all, I've already seen Hesnia's syco..." She swallowed the word, her face reddening as she looked between Marcus and Brutus.

"Followers," she corrected herself.

"Sniff around the hives. Surely they'll just be stolen." Marcus's expression darkened.

"True, true. That is an argument in favor of keeping their production secret and centralizing their use under guard." Favius took a deep breath and looked at another tablet. Luckily, I'm from a world that has figured out this problem a long time ago.

"I still believe that selling the hives could be of benefit. First of all, to whomever we sell a hive, they should sign a contract not to replicate the design without our permission."

"Why would they stick to that?" asked Urania.

"Why would we permit it?" interjected Caliga. Favius turned his head from one sister to the other.

"It is rather simple. Some inventions are really hard to copy. They have a sufficient moat." He swallowed. God damn it. Modern Earth terminology slipping into my language again. But he pressed on.

"So if the knowledge will spread no matter what we try to do to stop it, we might as well embrace that by offering people a legal way where we earn a small profit by supporting them in their use of our hives. We own the idea but franchise it out." Marcus studied the ceiling, clearly considering the idea, when Serran began to murmur.

"You mean we would not only sell hives, but also legal approval, training, and counseling?"

"Exactly. As well as..." Favius's smile grew wolfish.

"Future improvements." He nodded to himself. It's not that I'm at my wit's end when it comes to bees. We might have modern hives, but we don't have modern bees. And it can't possibly be that hard to figure out how to breed better swarms, right? He allowed himself a self-deprecating smile. Marcus cleared his throat and began speaking with careful diction.

"This idea of a moat. It is a rather fascinating way of viewing such things. Your other inventions..." He trailed off before making a sharp hand gesture.

"Never mind. However, even if we sell such a contract..." He smiled broadly, and Favius instantly understood. He's testing me again.

"How would you ensure that your franchising contracts are actually followed? That the people who sell your hives and swear your oaths would not be secretly resentful and looking for loopholes?" The smile on Favius's face grew brittle as another memory came to him. A faceless man, probably his Earth father's boss, had spoken to him at a party when he was much younger, still in the last years of school. The words came to him, and he spoke them in a somber, solemn voice.

"If you need a contract to trust a man, do not partner with him. If you trust a man enough to partner with him, write a contract for every contingency." Silence settled over the room for a long moment before Marcus nodded his head.

"Indeed, indeed. A great maxim for a principle that I've known for a long time, yet never heard put so succinctly." Caliga narrowed her eyes.

"So... So you are saying we should only do business with trustworthy people?"

"More than that," Favius replied.

"Our partners will have an easy time going against our contract. There is no way around it. Even studying or stealing a single hive..." He shrugged, seeing Serran's helpless expression. Favius paused and took a sip of wine. Why is my throat suddenly so dry? He shook his head.

"We should be modest in what we ask for and make it clear that there are greater benefits to cooperation."

"Indeed," Marcus nodded.

"However, there are three things that you have not yet sufficiently addressed before we get to the terms of those contracts you envision. Firstly, what are we to do should another family violate the contract, despite our best efforts?" He raised another finger.

"Secondly, how do you propose we deal with the collegium of woodworkers? After all, selling such devices might be seen as encroaching on what they view as their rightful monopoly. And finally..." He stared at Favius with an unreadable expression.

"How do you propose we deal with the Temple of the Hearth Mother? After all, the maintenance of vast apiaries has long been a specialty of her priests."