Port Graelwuld, 2nd Frosthearth 1786
My Dear Ashford,
I write to you with upmost excitement and humility – to think that I, the fourth son of a minor Viscount, should be appointed Superintendent of the new convict labor project at the northern port of Graelwuld. I know I have you to thank for it, brother, and understand that my appreciation and loyalty to you and our patron, Duke Chandal, knows no bounds.
I must say this northern port is somewhat dilapidated. I offer this only as a way to begin reconstruction of the port. While the overall goal is to reopen the Grael Mines and re-establish the Kingdom’s presence here, a safe port is absolutely essential to this undertaking. You would find this climate bitterly cold, but with a rough beauty to it; Helena has already moved the domestic girls into Grael Keep’s staff chambers and set about making the place a bit more hospitable to visitors.
Gods know we all have a lot of work in front of us. Repairing Grael Keep, returning the surrounding farmland to cultivation, shoring up and reopening the lead mine; this will be the work of generations. The convicts that have been transported north with me seem like reasonable men – one can hardly blame them for petty theft or forgery given the Kingdom as a whole is still recovering from the Demon War. I sincerely believe in the scheme our high-minded patron has proposed, and I am certain these men can be reformed into a life of productive citizenry if they can serve out their remaining sentences. The Keep girls will make excellent wives for the best of them, and this should further reform their characters. The retired soldiers, or “Veterans” of the Demon War are, alas, a different matter entirely. I accept your argument that settling them on their own blocks of land is a deterrent to a convict uprising; they are also a deterrent to everything else. The Veterans are, to a man, rude drunkards unwilling to defer to my appointed authority.
On that note I have had the opportunity to meet Master Santelle Grael, who has been appointed as the Duke’s surveyor and draftsman. While the Grael family has an indisputable connection with this port, they have fallen on hard times since the Demon War and made the most of Duke Chandal’s offer to take over their lands. The meeting in Master Grael’s former home was somewhat awkward, but progress marches on and Grael’s survey work to date has been of an admirable quality.
I must do all I can to build up the economy of this region. There is very little money among the free settlers and Veterans, and the bursary for the costs of the transported convicts only goes so far. On that note could you order Dyett to send me up some good white shirts (mine are already horrid with dirt), some decent quality spoons, forks and knives, as well as my personal store of ale, spirits and claret. Barely enough to entertain visiting traders but we must all make do in these hard times.
I am thinking of establishing a whaling station at the port. The Republic’s whaling vessels have been given free reign in our waters for far too long, and we must make it clear that our borders – and our fisheries- are sovereign.
Give my best to all at home, tell them I miss them all terribly but it shall be a grand adventure.
Yr. Affectionate Brother
Sir Henry Cranford.
———–
Port Graelwuld, 28th Frosthearth, 1786
My dear Ayshford,
Progress on the reconstruction of Port Graelwuld is, I am sorry to report, proceeding for more slowly than I would like. The farmlands of the Grael family estate require extensive fertilization and improvement, and much of the seed we have brought up from the Capital has not thrived in the rocky, cold soil. There are very few unindentured laborers, and the free settlers are already crying out for the convicts to be sent to their own fields and farmhouses. This however would bring work at Grael Keep to a standstill, and I must have the place looking presentable if we are to attract investment to the settlement.
The Veterans have not helped in this regard. I am, of course, humble to your will and that of Duke Chandal, but the same cannot be said of the ex-soldiers. More than half of the claret, ale and spirits I requested from our family estate have mysteriously gone missing between the Graelwuld docks and the keep. The Veteran storekeeper denied any wrongdoing but I could smell the alcohol on his breath. What bald-faced impudence! I have banned the Veterans and their wives from Grael Keep until they send me a formal note of apology, and they should consider themselves lucky I do not take up the matter with their former commander in the Capital.
Please ask Dyett if he can find out when my three whaling vessels are due to arrive. How does one make soap from whale fat? Ask Dyett this also; I am sure there are lots of profitable uses for a whale carcass on top of rendering the fat down for oil.
The Republic whaling vessels gave begun to frequent the port. While I welcome this sign of free trade, I fear the minerals being sold by the Graelwuld Mining Company are being shipped for but a fraction of their worth, and not in exchange for money, seeds or even tools, but for weevily flour and half-rotten vegetables. Bottles of spirits appear to be the currency of choice bartered by the free settlers and the Veterans. If we could simply pull together under the common stewardship of Grael Keep I’m sure this settlement could flourish – but as it is, everyone just scrambles to grab whatever they can from the government funds and stores.
I am sending down some samples of Grael lead as well as some produce from the Grael Keep gardens. Please also note that if any of my accounts are brought to you unpaid I will set things right next time I am down in the Capital. Helena sends all her love, and misses you all.
I am, as always,
yr. Affectionate Brother
Sir Henry Cranford
———–
Port Graelwuld, 5th Yuletide, 1786
My dear Ashford,
Finally some good news – the whaling vessels have arrived, and I have begun getting a whaling station in order. The men building the sheds and tryworks are all honest and hard-working, so I hope I shall soon send down to you our first barrel of whale oil. Graelwuld’s signs of progress have not gone unnoticed, and I have heard rumors that a group of prominent figures from the Capital may visit soon to propose a Trade Hall. Sadly, these first green shoots of success have not been replicated in our fields – whether it be the crows, or some deficiency in the soil, the 128 acres of corn we have planted shows little signs of growth.
Could the Duke send up a mage to assist with developing the colony? Not a conjurer, obviously, but a good elemental mage with proper accreditation from the Mage’s Guild could be tolerated at Grael Keep. The Veterans would no doubt protest (the reasons for which I can sympathize), but surely they will see the greater good in such a move?
Despite all this, I will succeed, through pluck and perseverance. It is obvious what this colony needs if it it to survive: if you can, please send me up some ornamental plantings, as well as some bolts of cloth for bunting. I must have Grael Keep looking merry if I am to charm my visiting business partners!
On that note, we have recently had a small celebration at Grael Keep. The first of the transported convicts, Evans, has earned a Conditional Pardon, allowing him to live as a free man save that he may not leave Graelwuld until his original sentence has expired. I am pleased to say he has married Patience (one of my domestic girls), and a small party was held for the happy couple. Helena would have liked to have done more in the preparation of this event, but the winter has not agreed with her and she has been bedridden for a significant period.
While you know that I generally abhor rumour-mongering, I must privately express my growing concern with Surveyor Grael. While he professes great loyalty to my face, I fear he may be spreading misunderstandings and falsehoods about my plans for the settlement. I have seen, or have had it reported to me, on more than one occasion that Grael has been carousing with the Veterans. I am certain however when these men see the real good I am doing for Graelwuld, they will submit to my appointed authority.
Send my regards to Father and all others at Court. If you can, inquire to the Duke as to whether he has heard good things about me.
Yr. Affectionate Brother
Sir Henry Cranford.
———–
Port Graelwuld, 28th Yuletide, 1786
My dear Ayshford,
Paper supplies have been running low (as have many other necessities), so you will forgive me for replying to four messages with just the one.
While the winter is almost over, morale at the colony remains low. We are down to our last barrels of flour, and while my estate has produced a modest crop of grain and vegetables, not all the settlers and Veterans have been so lucky. For the Veterans, I have no sympathy. If they spent more time at honest labor than at drinking they might not be in their current situation.
For the settlers, I will admit more of a fellow feeling. I have provided food where I can spare it, and extended credit on a number of loans, but have received very little thanks in return. There has been a shortage of farmhands, and those few free laborers can set their own wages – the landlords have switched places with the workers, and must beg for the help.
Accusations have been raised about my use of the convict laborers who were brought up to Graelwuld, and I suspect much mischief about me, with the most positive aspects of my progress blackened so that my every move appears nefarious.
I am sorry to say I got into a terrible row with Surveyor Grael last week, and threw an axe at his head.
The surveyor is still alive, but has lacerated his wrist severely. I found myself needing to dirty my hands with the garden (can you imagine), and the scoundrel accused me, in front of witnesses, of stealing from his grace the Duke. I admit I made an impudent move; a strange madness overcame me. I have been struggling for quite some time now, trying to bring progress and attract investment to Graelwuld, yet for all of my good intentions I have received nothing but scorn and rebelliousness! Helen and I had an awful argument about it that evening, but I cannot further undermine my position by apologizing to the blackguard. You understand, don’t you?
The mines are producing well, however our kingdom’s ships captains complain that the port is too shallow and needs buoys to properly navigate. As if I could afford such an expense right now! Thankfully my whale boats have arrived – splendid vessels, all of them – and I have made arrangements with some of the sea captains visiting port to bring up a whaling crew. The season is already upon us but I am proud to report my men have completed the whaling station and tryworks. The settlers may complain about the resources used in its construction, but as the building begins to bring money in, their caterwauling will cease. I am certain they are just jealous that I have brought in a Republic crew, but I can hardly trust local farmers struggling to bring in their crops to pilot a vessel in such a dangerous enterprise as whaling, can I?
On that note, please also ask Dyett to send me up some mill stones. I believe there is a good opportunity here to provide our own flour, and I have already selected some land for a mill. I apologize once again that the last set of bills I asked for you to see to for me ended in such embarrassing circumstances. When I am next “down below” (as they say up here), I am sure I will have the necessary funds to settle all my accounts.
I am, as always,
Your affectionate Brother
Sir Henry Cranford
———–
Port Graelwuld, 15th Snowmelt, 1787
My dear Ayshford,
Everywhere I turn I am surrounded my whisperers, their tongues flapping sweetly to my face but their hearts full of bile. I am convinced there is not a single one of the free settlers who does not bear some envy or resentment towards my efforts to restore Grael Keep to its former glory.
We both know the cause of this. Surveyor Grael barely checks in at the keep to update me on his progress – I am certain he is cultivating the ill-feeling towards me. I suppose it is easier for the dirt-scratchers lay their failures at someone else’s door. Let them snarl and make accusations; the Cranfords will persevere.
I have already replied to Father’s letter regarding the Board of Inquiry being sent up to investigate my management of Port Graelwuld. I do not need any further reminders about what is at stake should the colony fail. You cannot know how hard it has become, Aysh, truly. I must stay silent, and mistrust all, yet every ship bring with it news of fresh rumors against me, particularly regarding my use of the stores and colonial funds designated for the transported convicts.
I am adamant the free settlers and Veterans have only brought this about through envy and spite, caused by the failures of their own farms. So what if I used convict laborers to construct the whaling station rather than sending them to the farms? They are all good men, and the building work was instructive to their reformation. And this squabbling over barrels of flour and timber planks? Do the scribes and money-counters in this Board understand that the niceties of their accounts separating convict works and the restoration of Grael Keep are meaningless in a small port more than 500 leagues from the Capital?
And these rumors regarding the convict men marrying my domestic girls? I can swear by the most holy of oaths that Evans was not, to my knowledge, already married when he was joined to Patience. I admit I did not know I was to send for permission from the Court before I could allow the union, but the rumor that Evans returned his woman to keep after “using” her for a week is completely false.
Helena has remained ill, and thankfully is unaware of the storm building around her. She is a strong, virtuous woman, and I fear she may mistake the work I have put into the progress of Graelwuld for something it is not. Everything I have done is for the greater good! I fear though she might not see it that way. I tell you, Aysh, I even had to send my man Evans and his wife Patience down to the Veteran’s wives to see if they knew of any home remedies to cure Helena. They gave Evans some thistlewort and dwale, and replied that the proffered remedy was good for groin pox. Barbarians!
Whaling season is in full swing but I have barely sent the boats from the harbor. Harrison, the ship-keeper and a Veteran (of course), has drunk himself to death. Meanwhile the Republic ships are swarming through our waters, and we will be lucky to bring in a tenth of the oil I had originally hoped. I would like to send for a new team, but I cannot afford any new debt at this point.
One bright spot in this misery however is that a shipload of merchants will soon arrive to determine the investment possibilities of the port. If Graelwuld can pull together, just once, I may yet drag this ungrateful colony into prosperity.
Yr. Affectionate Brother,
Sir Henry Cranford
———–
Port Graelwuld, 17th Snowmelt, 1787
My dear Ayshford,
It’s all gone horribly wrong.
The barque containing the potential investors arrived a few days ago, amid a terrible storm. I have since learnt that early Spring storms are common in this part of the North. The ship, I am sorry to say, ran aground trying to find berth, and the Captain is suing me for not having proper buoys installed. Thankfully, all of the passengers and most of the cargo has been safely brought ashore, but the storm severely damaged the ornamental garden I had installed at Grael Keep.
I did my best, Aysh. I really did. However when I brought the guests to the Keep, Evans let me know there had been a riot while I was at the Port. The settlers, obviously in a fit of madness from the failure of their farms, had attacked the Keep, and made off with most of the food stores – and anything else they could get their filthy, ungrateful hands on. Evans was able to protect Helena and the domestic girls in the keep tower, but he tells me that the Veterans were seen raiding what remained in the cellars, as well as carrying off a number of valuable artworks I had bought to impress my guests.
Nonetheless, I persevered. I supplied the Captain, crew, and all passengers with whatever supplies I could spare, including flour, tea, sugar and meat even though very short of these goods myself, and put them up in Grael Keep for the night. I refused no request or favor (and spent not a single coin from the Duke’s accounts, since your coming Board of Inquiry seems so punctilious on the matter).
And then in the morning Surveyor Grael sailed into harbor, in a boat filled to the brim with provisions, seed stock, and tools for the settlers. The winter has been harsh, he said. The soils would take time to become productive, he said. They all cheered him; the settlers, the Veterans, even my convict men. And all the investors I had spent months cultivating all clapped and cheered along with him, the fools.
Damn him!! This was obviously part of his plot to undermine my authority. If everyone at the Port had just pulled together, I could have brought wealth and prosperity to these wretches. Instead I must now contend with the investors travelling back to the Duke’s court to further blacken my (mis!!!)represented character.
I will succeed, somehow – despite the vermin the plague me at every turn.
As for the debts you refer to in your last letter, I am hardly in a position to repay you at this moment! Father has made it clear he will pay no more debts, but in spite of all my other losses, the whaling might yet pull me through.
I have, and always will, try and act in the greatest good.
Believe me
Sir Henry Cranford.
———–
Port Graelwuld 21st Songborne, 1787
Ayshford,
Your Board of Inquiry has left port, their hands still bloody from stabbing my reputation in the back.
The Duke’s lawyers did their task well; there was not a single part of my stewardship of this port that they left unmolested. That I should sit in the hall that was appointed to me and listen to these dry old bones talk about “proper accounting” and “cultivation of a community,” when they have not had their actions misconstrued by so that the good and right I have done is hidden from view!
Helena has left me. I ordered her to stay and told her she would regret losing her marriage to me, but she has had her head turned by rumors and gossip. Such is the constancy of women! She was still sick when she left port, but declared she would rather risk the sea voyage than spend another night with me. How can she not see how hard I have tried? How can she not see the good I have tried to bring to this wretched port?
This separation is not the only loss I have been forced to endure. My man Evans and his wife Patience lost their first child. The babe was only just beginning to show, but Patience miscarried while Evans was away bartering with the Republic vessels for food. Poor Patience has been so thin and sickly during these last few months, and I am certain it was the shock of the Veterans and settlers ransacking Grael Keep that is the root cause of this tragedy.
My whaling enterprise has been sabotaged in its entirety. The whaling season is practically over, yet I have lost all three boats to the sea. Two ships have disappeared entirely. The third has washed up, in pieces, after being dashed against the rocks. The harbor master tells me that it was a simple act of carelessness, that the Republic men I brought up hadn’t moored the vessels correctly, and the boats floated out on the evening tide.
Filthy, pus-eating, pox-ridden liars. That three boats should drift out to sea in a busy port? Against the tide? I do not know who to blame; the settlers, the Veterans, or perhaps the Republic ships, scared that I might wrest control of these waters back from them. It matters not. My crews have been dismissed and by this point the creditors will be breaking up the whaling station to sell the timbers and equipment.
The transported convicts who have time left on their conditional sentences have begun disappearing from the Port, I suspect either bribing traders for passage back to the Capital, or leaving the Kingdom entirely on Republic ships. The harbor officials and Veterans are supposed to be on guard against such escapes, but many of the these men have simply stopped turning up to their appointed tasks. Truth to tell it may be something a mercy; what little food stores remain will soon be exhausted.
It doesn’t matter. I suspect it will all be Grael’s problem soon. Master Grael the man of the hour, the beloved savior. Grael, who helps the poor and lowly and inspires the Veterans. They are all talking, whispering about how he will “turn this place around.” Yet none of the can see that everything he has done has been to spite me! I expect he will sweet-talk the Duke into letting set up his own whaling interests next, and that he will sit in Grael Keep after I have spent so much time and effort to restore the building his family let fall into ruin. And again, they all just love him, even when he was whispering against me. That dud bitch Helena would probably open her legs for him if he spoke sweetly to her.
And you, my dear brother? Where have you been during this? Cozied up at the Duke’s court, while I have struggled so long in this Gods-forsaken colony? You have always been Father’s favorite – you were always the one who was given the easiest, the best of things. Where were you when I needed you? All I have received from you is harsh lectures, warnings from Father and complaints about money.
I stand as a man unjustly condemned by all you should have supported him. My ambitions to bring all that is good to the colony has been thwarted, and my every action attacked. Well, before your damned Board makes their damned report to your damned Duke, I will at least rob them of that last satisfaction.
I resign this poisoned station, and all that goes with it! You and your powdered bigwigs may laugh at me resigning this paltry position, but let me tell you, you have not yet seen all I am capable of.
I will show you all.
Henry
———–
Leadlight Abbey, 3rd Yinbolg, 1789
To the honorable Sebastian Ayshford Cranford, Secretary to His Grace Duke Chandal II
My Lord, forgive this unsolicited missive.
My name is Sister Dominique of the Order of the Avatars of Hospeth, a minor Abbey on the border of the Kingdom and the Republic. My Sisters and I are dedicated to the care of the sick and the injured, regardless of which side of the border they are from.
We have recently taken in a vagrant, brought to us as a wandering madman. This man was on the verge of starvation and his body riddled with disease, but over the last few weeks we have nursed him back to health. He has regained the strength to speak, and claims to be a member of the Cranford family in the court of Duke Chandal.
If this is true, do you wish to collect this man?
Our Order relies on the generosity of those we have helped, so I also humbly pray that you might consider a donation to the Abbey to cover the costs of our work.
Yours, as a servant of the Incarnate Goddess,
Sister Dominique
Matron, Order of the Avatars of Hospeth
Leadlight Abbey, Austen River
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