EMPIRE REWRITTEN [Isekai • Alt-History • Strategy]

Chapter Ten: Foundations of an Empire

Clermont, February 1429

The lamb chops had cooled on Theodora's plate, barely touched, yet she watched me with a faint smile as I finished my meal.

"That was truly delicious," I said, pressing a napkin to my lips. The taste of rosemary and garlic still lingered. "When did we last share such a quiet supper?"

"I'm glad you enjoyed it, my Despot," she replied in a soft tone. Then her gaze fell to her own untouched plate, and her faint smile waned.

I studied her expression. Over the past few days, I'd noticed her absentmindedness at meals and the way she seemed to drift through her daily routines. The memory of my sister's first pregnancy stirred in my mind, prompting a question. I spoke gently. "Theodora... Could you be carrying a child?"

She glanced down, tracing her fingertips along the rim of her plate. "I believe so," she admitted at last. "I've felt the signs."

Pregnant. The word echoed in my mind, and for a moment, I let hope replace the ever-present worry. A new life, here—despite all my doubts about who I truly am or how I came to be in Constantine's body. Perhaps it didn't matter, not in this moment. A child was cause for celebration—or so I wanted to believe.

I reached across the table to take her hand. "You must rest," I said, though my voice trembled with conflicting emotions. "We can call for a physician if—"

She gave a small laugh, almost embarrassed. "I don't wish to make a fuss. But I will be careful."

As I squeezed her hand, I was flooded with a sudden tenderness for this woman who had shown me so much kindness. Somewhere in the swirl of my borrowed memories and the life I'd left behind, she had become an anchor—a reminder that the future was not solely about war and political tension.

The squeak of the heavy wooden doors brought me back to the moment. A servant entered to collect the dishes. I rose, gave Theodora one last reassuring look, and made my way through the drafty corridors to the room I'd converted into a workshop.

Winter had drifted by in waves of planning and guarded excitement. Every free hour found me in a private workshop, sketches spread across a worn table. Keeping these projects secret felt like balancing on a razor's edge, but the risk was worth it.

The printing press prototype emerged slowly from piles of wooden frames and half-finished cogs. I tested homemade ink on crude sheets of paper, my fingers perpetually stained black. The smudges on my palms became a badge of silent determination, a reminder that each of these small leaps—no matter how messy—could change our fortunes.

In another corner of the workshop, near a rudimentary forge, I refined drawings for a more advanced firearm, referencing the Venetian hand culverin that had fallen into my hands some months ago. Bronze prototypes rattled across my palms while I thought of George, still away in Constantinople. We needed genuine gunsmiths to bring these designs to life. Until then, I could only test the simplest aspects with the local blacksmiths. They were competent but not specialized in the complexities of firearms. And gunpowder? That was a problem unto itself. One crisis at a time, I reminded myself.

Out in the courtyard, more modern forms of bookkeeping had begun to take root—though "modern" was a laughably relative term here. I'd introduced double-entry bookkeeping to a tax collector who eyed my ledgers as though they were demonic scrolls. Watching him stammer over the columns of credits and debits, I almost felt guilty. Almost. We needed these methods to streamline finances. Our region bled money fast enough without the confusion of outdated record-keeping.

Despite all this, winter had left me no illusions about our precarious finances. New fortifications, new workshops, new roads—every improvement demanded coin. The treasury, never robust to begin with, was draining at an alarming pace, forcing me to sell off some of my newly acquired estates in Arcadia just to keep everything afloat. A desperate measure, but it bought us some time. I prayed George would return soon, hopefully with funds—and with people.