And even if there had been money left, it wouldn't have mattered. Elmer had already decreed: one copper coin per person, per month.
Enough to kill any illusion that work here would ever pay.
The household guards didn't truly try to stop the crowd.
After all, with no wages of their own, they could barely feed themselves.
Elmer's voice cracked with fury:
"Is money all you people care about?!"
Someone pointed at the jade pendant hanging from his belt:
"That gold-inlaid jade alone could cover every last one of our back wages! What right do you have to lecture us?!"
"Pay us! Yeah! Pay us what we're owed!"
The crowd surged forward. Elmer's face went white.
"These ungrateful wretches! That bastard Andrew must have spoiled them rotten!"
"Rush him! Strip the clothes off his back and sell them for what we're owed!"
"Go!"
"You wouldn't dare!"
Elmer staggered as hands grabbed at him from every direction, barely keeping his footing.
"Decree from His Majesty!"
A column of soldiers marched through the gates, hauling chest after chest of royal gifts into the estate.
It turned out that King Walter Craig had visited the Crown Princess's Estate recently and taken a great liking to Elmer's renovations.
These were his rewards.
Elmer sank to his knees, trembling:
"I humbly thank His Majesty for this gracious bounty!"
The workers who had been seconds from rioting dropped to their knees as well, faces drained of color.
None of them had expected this.
The King himself was backing Elmer.
Elmer reached into one of the chests and pulled out a gold ingot at random.
He tossed it at their feet:
"Take it. That's enough to cover several months of your wages.
"And if you don't get back to work and end up disrupting the estate's business operations, don't be surprised when your heads roll!"
They had their money.
And the King had made his position clear.
Everyone scrambled to bow their thanks and scattered.
Elmer surveyed the chests of royal gifts filling the courtyard.
A cold smile spread across his face:
"Just as I thought. My approach was right all along.
"If that bastard Andrew hadn't thrown so much money at these ungrateful wretches before, they'd never have developed such an insatiable greed."
His handmaid kneaded his shoulders. "The King himself admires your integrity, my lord.
"The Dickerson family has always been a house of scholars. That Andrew is a disgrace to the family name!"
Elmer's smile turned sharper:
"Starting today, one copper coin per month becomes one copper coin every two months."
The handmaid froze.
Elmer's voice was ice. "Andrew spoiled these workers. I'll train it out of them."
It didn't take long. Within weeks, even more workers walked off the job.
Elmer, furious, dragged several of them before the magistrate.
He charged them with "willful negligence," "inciting unrest," and "disturbing the public order."
But even with men thrown in jail, the rest still refused to lift a finger.
My side of things was a different story entirely.
Business grew by the day, profits climbing steadily, and I paid the highest wages in all of Kingsport.
The people working for me were terrified of not doing enough.
Elmer seemed to think he'd found the root of the problem.
I was directing my crew to hang the sign above our new shop when Elmer's men shoved their way forward.
One of them swung and knocked the signboard clean off its hooks.
It hit the ground and split in two.
The leader glanced at the jade bracelet on my temp worker's wrist and sneered:
"So it's true. You're the one corrupting people's hearts with money."
I stared at the shattered signboard. My voice was flat:
"What exactly do you think you're doing?"
"Take your people and get lost! Stop spreading this filth! It's because of money-poisoned vermin like you that everyone's heads are full of nothing but profit!
"You call yourself a Dickerson? Our family is a house of scholars! And you drag our name through the mud like this!"
I said nothing.
I just looked past him at the men he'd brought along.
My temp workers could afford jade bracelets.
