Chapter 90: Not Everything Belongs To The Lord

Raymond discovered the flaw in his new government before breakfast.

He had barely finished dressing when a servant announced that a merchant named Cedric Morn wished to speak with him about enlarging his market stall.

Raymond stared at the servant for several seconds, wondering whether this was somehow a joke arranged by Boris.

Cedric believed only the Lord of Althoff could authorize it.

Raymond sent him to Ysabel and continued downstairs, only to find a farmer waiting near the entrance hall with two brothers arguing over the boundary between their newly assigned plots.

Raymond redirected them to Harlan. He made it another twenty steps before Torren intercepted him with two carpenters disputing workshop space.

"Public Works," Raymond said immediately.

Torren blinked. "They’re already under Public Works."

Raymond stopped. "Then why are you bringing them to me?"

Torren slowly turned around.

Things somehow became worse after breakfast. A foreman requested permission to take timber from a government stockpile for repairs to three communal houses.

A warehouse clerk wanted authorization to replace two broken handcarts. One of the castle clerks had brought six payment requests for workers whose wages had already been approved during the development council.

Then a guard appeared with a written request for replacement boots because his old pair had split along the sole.

Raymond read that one twice.

"Why," he asked with dangerous calm, "am I approving boots?"

The clerk standing across from his desk looked terrified. "The quartermaster said the expense requires authorization, my Lord."

"From whom?"

"He wasn’t certain."

Raymond placed the paper down. "So because nobody knows who can authorize one pair of boots, the request climbs upward until it reaches the ruling Baron?"

The clerk swallowed. "Apparently, my Lord."

Raymond leaned back and covered his face with both hands. They had created Departments, appointed Administrators, divided military commands, and somehow everyone was still treating him like Althoff’s most expensive clerk.

By midday, Raymond had accumulated seventeen matters that should never have reached him.

That was precisely what made them dangerous. If five thousand people generated only a handful of trivial requests each day, Raymond could lose every waking hour deciding where merchants placed tables and whether a mason could collect another cart of stone.

Althoff’s population, economy, construction, and military would keep growing. If every decision traveled upward because officials feared acting without the lord’s personal approval, the government Raymond had spent days creating would become decorative.

He summoned Alaric and the relevant Department leaders to the council chamber that afternoon, dropped the seventeen requests onto the table, and said, "We’re fixing this today. I refuse to govern boots."

Boris picked up the offending request and failed to suppress a laugh. "Good boots are important."

Raymond pointed at him. "Then you approve them."

"Gladly."

"Excellent. Government has advanced."

A few people chuckled.

"This isn’t about boots. Everyone is still operating as though authority belongs to me unless I personally hand it out for each decision. That worked when everything was an emergency and there were twelve hundred people here. It cannot work now. If I have to approve decisions you’ve already been appointed to make, then your titles mean nothing."

Alaric nodded. "We defined jurisdictions. We have not yet defined decision limits within those jurisdictions."

Raymond tapped the table. "Then that’s what we’re doing. I want every Department to know what it can decide without seeing my face."

They began with Trade and Commerce. Ysabel would have authority to assign ordinary market stalls, approve routine business registrations, organize caravan spaces, resolve minor commercial disputes, and enforce already established market rules.

She did not need Raymond’s signature because a merchant wanted a larger stall. Territory-wide fees, major agreements, monopolies, strategic restrictions, or policy changes still required higher approval.

Ysabel nodded as Alaric recorded the limits. "That gives merchants one answer instead of three."

Raymond replied, "That’s the idea. If someone asks me where his vegetable stall belongs after today, I’m sending him to you personally."

"I’ll prepare a chair." "Don’t encourage them."

Agriculture followed. Harlan and his Department could allocate farmland within zones Raymond had already approved for settlement and cultivation, organize irrigation schedules, distribute ordinary agricultural tools from designated stores, assign livestock under existing programs, and settle routine field-boundary disputes using proper records.

Major grants of land, opening entirely new settlement zones, transferring strategically important property, or decisions affecting noble holdings remained above the Department’s authority.

Gideon observed that this meant more people would come directly to them.

"Yes," Raymond said. "That’s called having a job."

Harlan frowned. "I had a job before this."

"You had six jobs badly disguised as farming."

Even Alaric smiled at that.

Construction and Public Works received similar authority. Mara could approve ordinary repairs, issue construction permissions consistent with the city plan, assign public construction crews within approved projects, and draw routine materials from budgets and stores already allocated to her Department.

She could not independently begin a new city wall, redirect a major road, demolish occupied neighborhoods, or commit Althoff to enormous expenditures because she had woken up feeling ambitious.

Logistics and Stores could release approved materials without asking Raymond whether every beam, sack, wheel, or shovel was truly necessary.

Corvin would enforce allocation limits.

Natural Resources could authorize routine timber cutting, quarrying, and extraction inside designated zones, while strategic deposits and unusually valuable resources remained reserved for higher approval.

The Treasury rule pleased Raymond most. Once the Lord’s Council approved a budget or expenditure, Alaric did not need to return with every individual payment beneath it.

Treasury could pay wages, honor approved contracts, purchase authorized supplies, and reimburse routine expenses within established limits.

"If we approve ten thousand Gold for a project," Raymond explained, "I don’t want nine hundred requests asking whether you may spend portions of the ten thousand Gold on the project."

Alaric nodded. "There will still be records and audits."

"Absolutely. Delegation is not permission to become stupid with money." Raymond wanted authority pushed downward and records moving upward.

Departments could act independently within policy while remaining accountable for what they did.

Darric’s Watch received jurisdiction over ordinary civil disturbances, petty theft, fights, gate incidents, minor investigations, and prisoners accused of lesser offenses.

Serious violent crimes, organized criminal activity, matters involving nobles, threats to territorial security, or cases likely to require severe punishment would move upward.

Boris followed the same principle. Routine training, patrol deployment, equipment replacement, recruit organization, and defensive readiness belonged to the Captain-General.

Mobilizing large forces beyond ordinary territorial duties, launching offensive operations, or committing Althoff to military action remained Raymond’s decision. Jonathan retained operational control over Household Knights within assignments Raymond gave him, while major deployment of those forces still required Raymond’s authority.

By evening, Alaric had produced an authority charter for every Department. Raymond insisted on one principle being written clearly at the top: matters should be resolved at the lowest level possessing both jurisdiction and sufficient authority.

A clerk should not send a problem to an Administrator if established rules already allowed the clerk to solve it.

An Administrator should not send a routine Department matter to Alaric. Alaric should not bring Raymond something merely because asking the lord felt safer than making a decision.

"I want mistakes reported," Raymond told them. "I want unusual problems brought upward. I want people asking when the rules aren’t clear. What I don’t want is everyone protecting themselves from responsibility by making me responsible for everything."

That habit needed to break. Under the old Althoff, authority had been personal. People asked the lord, the captain, the headman, or whichever recognizable figure seemed powerful enough to answer.

Raymond was trying to replace that with institutional authority. A merchant needed Trade and Commerce, not Raymond’s favor. A farmer did not need to beg the Baron personally for every field adjustment; Agriculture possessed lawful authority within designated land. Public Works did not need permission for every broken roof.

The Watch did not need Boris or Raymond to settle every drunken fight. Government required citizens to trust positions and procedures.

The next morning tested whether any of it had worked. Raymond entered his study and found only four documents waiting for him. One concerned a proposed expansion of farmland beyond an approved zone. Another involved expenditure for a major bridge survey.

The third was Boris’s request concerning the scale of spring military recruitment. The fourth involved a merchant seeking exclusive rights to purchase certain Magic Beast materials, which Ysabel had correctly flagged as a strategic commercial matter.

Raymond stared at the stack, then suspiciously checked beneath it for hidden papers.

Lily, arranging his breakfast tray nearby, watched him. "Are you looking for something?"

Raymond glanced toward the empty side of the desk where yesterday’s mountain of nonsense had stood. "Apparently not."

He sat down and opened the first document. For once, every matter before him required the Lord of Althoff.

Raymond smiled. He finally had time to rule.