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The youngest perhaps, but for every rumbling stomach the most vital of all.
As the other cities flourished, so it became clear to many of the need to extend the hinterland available. Fishing stocks were becoming strained and the land immediate struggled to keep up with the growing mouths.
Vetiver is unique amongst the City-States in being entirely landlocked. It is a giant bread-basket, providing the other cities with a bountiful harvest of crops, livestock, and grape. Production on such a scale requires organisation, and it is for this reason that state has found the need to rely upon feudal mechanisms unknown to the citizens of other cities.
Vetiver’s development led not just to the prosperity of those who sort to meet the needs of the market, but for the cities as a whole as the price of produce fell dramatically, thus improving the lot of the common citizen.
Fields do not have walls however, and others are not so respectful of the borders a fence would provide. Raids from gaelic tribes began to increase as sweat and toil made rewards for such ventures worthwhile. Livestock would be lost to wandering ferals, as well as any farmer who would challenge them. The change in circumstance and lack of martial tradition threatened to undermine the expansion before it began.
To protect their investment, these challenges were met by the noble houses with the adoption of local militias; farmers could be given spears and taught to hold a line. These were then reinforced by the creation of professional military companies, often inexperienced but well-equipped men hired as a group to a local lord by a noble or merchant guild.
If this combination proved effective in making Vetiver’s bounty less attractive than Tirnalis, it came at a cost, and this cost as ever has been passed on. Cities in the South have accused their northern cousins of exploiting such reasoning to make wild claims upon the price they would charge. The reply has been simple; if their goods are unaffordable to some then those few are undeserving in any case.
Now however the nobles are fearful once more for they hear the tales from Jahan of the coming of the Urdaal, and they worry, both that these measures may not be enough and of the reaction should they raise prices still further.
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