Winter descended on Pskov like a final judgment, burying the world in a deep, silent blanket of white. For most of the Russian countryside, it was a time of hibernation, of waiting. For Mikhail, it was a crucible. The frigid days were spent threshing the meager rye harvest and tending to the livestock, but the long, dark nights belonged to Alistair.
By the flickering light of precious candles in his study, he devoured the books he'd bought in Pskov. He wasn't merely reading; he was engaged in a frantic, exhilarating process of intellectual arbitrage. He mentally overlaid the primitive understanding of the German chemistry text with his 21st-century knowledge of molecular bonds. He corrected the French metallurgy treatise with the principles of steelmaking that wouldn't be widespread for another fifty years. He was building a bridge in his mind between two centuries, and Volkovo would be its foundation.
The vodka was a steady, if small, source of income. Semyonov's clerk had already returned once, paying promptly for the next batch. But it was a dead end. To scale it would require more potatoes than he could grow and more manpower than he had. It was a stopgap, not a strategy. True wealth, the kind that could buy influence and build armies, came from production and infrastructure.
Armed with his surveyor's chain and a compass, Mikhail spent weeks of the brutal cold tramping through the snowy forests and fields of his own estate, a process that earned him more than a few worried glances from Matryona. He wasn't hunting. He was mapping, taking soil samples, and cross-referencing his findings with the topographical maps. The boy Mikhail's memories were of a boring, uniform landscape. Alistair's intellect saw a tapestry of untapped resources.
He found it on a windswept southern slope, a place the tenants avoided because the soil was poor and sticky. To them, it was useless. To Mikhail, after a few simple tests he devised for plasticity and composition, it was a discovery more valuable than gold: a massive deposit of rich, high-quality clay, perfect for brickmaking.
That evening, he called Ivan and Pyotr to the manor. The two farmers, their faces chapped by the wind, entered the study with a now-familiar mix of curiosity and deference. Instead of giving orders, Mikhail unrolled a sheet of parchment on which he had drawn a detailed diagram.
"This is a kiln," he said, pointing to the drawing. "A furnace for baking bricks. But it is a different design from the ones you may have seen. Notice the baffles here, and the way the flue draws the heat upwards and then back down through the chamber. This is a downdraft kiln. It will produce a more even, intense heat with less wood."
He then picked up a lump of the frozen clay he'd brought back. "The southern slope is not useless land. It is full of this. With a proper kiln, we can turn this dirt into bricks. Not the soft, crumbling bricks you see in Pskov, but hard, dense bricks that can build factories and fine houses. We have the clay. We have the wood for fuel. We will build an industry."
He didn't talk to them like a master to his serfs. He spoke to them like a chief engineer to his team, explaining the principles of heat convection and the economic value of a superior building material. He could see the understanding dawn in their eyes. They weren't just being told to work; they were being invited to build.
"But my lord," Pyotr ventured, his brow furrowed in thought. "To make good brick, one needs sand to mix with the clay, to stop it from cracking. We have no sand pit here."
Mikhail smiled. This was the obstacle he had anticipated. "You are right, Pyotr. But the river that marks our western border does have sand. The land on the other side belongs to Baron Fyodorov."
Baron Fyodorov was their nearest noble neighbor, a boorish, traditionalist landowner who had once tried to cheat Mikhail's father out of a parcel of forest in a drunken card game.
"Fyodorov will never give us permission," Ivan stated flatly.
"He will," Mikhail said with certainty. "Because I will not ask him for permission to take his sand. I will offer him a deal. For every ten bricks we make for ourselves, we will make one for him, free of charge. I will offer to supply the bricks to rebuild the crumbling wall around his own manor. He is a proud man who is too lazy to fix his own property. I will offer him a way to do it for free. His pride will not allow him to refuse."
The sheer, calculated manipulation of another nobleman's character left them momentarily speechless.
The next morning, the work began. It was a project born of pure intellect and will. Using his new saw and spades, they felled trees and dug the foundations for the kiln. Mikhail, using his knowledge of geometry, laid out the complex angles of the flues and firebox himself. He was no longer just a lord; he was the architect, the engineer, and the foreman.
One evening, as the structure of the kiln began to rise from the frozen ground, a tangible monument to his vision, Matryona brought him a steaming bowl of stew. She watched him for a long moment, his face illuminated by the firelight, his hands dirty, his expression one of intense, focused creation.
"Your father, he read his books and dreamed of poetry," she said quietly, her voice holding a note of wonder. "You read your books…" she trailed off, gesturing to the half-built kiln.
Mikhail looked up from his work, his gray eyes reflecting the flames. He saw the kiln, but in his mind, he saw the foundries, the factories, the steel mills that would follow. He saw the gleaming rails of a modern railway, built with his capital, connecting his industries to the wider world. He saw the banks in St. Petersburg that would one day finance his ascent.
Each brick was a step. Each step, a move in a game for the ultimate prize.
"He dreamed of verses, Matryona," Mikhail said, a cold smile touching his lips. "I dream of empires."