The grain, a mountain of impossible gold, bought Titus and his team a seat at the table. The table, however, was a rickety, scarred piece of wood in a hovel that smelled of damp and despair, and the faces around it were still etched with a lifetime of suspicion.
Elder Marta had accepted the food—she was no fool—but she had not yet accepted the premise. She sat opposite Titus, her hands, gnarled like old roots, clasped before her. "You give us food," she said, her voice raspy. "You give us plans for a new well. These are the actions of a conqueror with a long view. You fatten the calf before the slaughter. What is your price?"
"The price is that you learn to feed yourselves," Titus replied patiently. This was the most difficult part. Not the engineering, not the agriculture, but the un-teaching of a world where every gift was a hook. "The Confederacy does not want your grain. We want you to have so much grain that you need to trade it. We don't want your sons for our army. We want your sons to be so prosperous they have something to defend."
"Words," Marta grunted, unimpressed. "The King's men also spoke of prosperity while they took our taxes. How do we trade? What is the value of a shovel when we have nothing but old kingdom silver to pay for it?"
This was the opening. Titus reached into a leather pouch at his belt and placed two coins on the table. They were nothing alike.
The first was a heavy bronze piece with a unique silvery sheen, warm and substantial. He pushed it towards Marta. "This is our Hearth-Coin," he said. "We call it the Mountain Crown." Marta picked it up, her thumb rubbing over the design. It was not the face of a king. It was a stylized rendering of three great mountain peaks. On the reverse, a stalk of wheat, a smith's hammer, and a goat's head were intertwined. "This is a promise we make to ourselves," Titus explained. "A reminder that our strength comes from our land, our labor, and our unity, not from one man's decree. This is the coin of our people."
Then, he gestured to the second coin. It was larger, made of pure, gleaming silver, and it felt colder, more severe. On its face was the unmistakable, sharp profile of a young man, his gaze fixed on some distant horizon. It was an image of authority, of power personified. "And this," Titus said, his voice becoming more formal, "is the Protector's Crown. Our Lord Protector does not believe in kings. But he understands that the world beyond our borders does. The tribes and the merchants, they understand the face of power. This coin is for them. It is our nation's face to the world, a guarantee that every transaction is backed by the full strength and will of the man who defeated a royal legion."
Marta stared at the two coins, her shrewd eyes moving from one to the other. She looked from the symbol of the community to the face of the leader. It was a contradiction, but it was an honest one. This was not the simple, brutal power she knew. It was something more complex, more thoughtful. A government so confident in its principles that it could be transparent about its pragmatism.
For the first time since the Legates had arrived, a genuine, unforced smile touched the elder's lips. It was a crack in the stone.
"You are a strange people, you men of Oakhaven," she murmured, her calloused finger tracing the peaks on the bronze coin. "You wish to teach us to rule ourselves?"
"We wish to help you form a council, yes," Titus confirmed. "We will be your advisors, not your masters. You will make your own laws, based on the Confederacy Charter. You will control your own granary. You will build your own future."
Marta looked around the table at her fellow villagers, at their gaunt, hopeful faces. The Oakhaven Method was not a demand. It was an invitation.
"Then," she said, her voice firm with a decision that felt heavier than any she had made in years. "Let the lessons begin."