Lucius pushed open the door of the nearby shed, waiting for Titus and Decimus to enter before slamming it shut behind them.
He didn’t bother pouring wine. He leaned against the drafting table and got straight to the point.
"Why is the workflow operating like a mob of drunken peasants, Titus? Where are the designated transit lanes for the wheelbarrows?"
"Transit lanes?" Titus repeated. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. "The problem is that we do not know how to make eighty men move the way your father wrote it on those scrolls. We are trying to figure it out as we go, but every time we speed up, the carts crash into each other. It is going to take a lot of time to organize them."
Hearing this, Lucius mentally slapped himself.
He had become so enamored with the rapid technological leaps and his father’s legal smokescreens that he had forgotten to teach them Scientific Management.
He had assumed they would naturally figure out assembly-line efficiency. It was a massive oversight on his part.
"Alright," Lucius said aloud. "And what about the shift transitions? I need a progressive workforce that hands over the tools, not a mob that drops everything the moment the sun comes up."
Decimus bristled slightly, responding as though his personal honor had been insulted. "With respect, Dominus, that is an unfair judgment. These men are exhausted. They are hauling hundreds of pounds of rock and standing next to a furnace that burns hotter than Tartarus. They are the backbone of this estate. The shift times Cassius demanded are unnatural to them; they are used to resting when their bodies fail, not when a water-clock tells them to. We cannot simply flog them into moving faster, or they will collapse, and training new slaves to operate the furnace takes time we do not have."
Lucius fell silent. He was stunned.
He had looked at the workforce as numbers on a spreadsheet, forgetting the immense physical toll his24-hour production cycle was taking on mortal men who lacked safety equipment and proper nutritional science.
"You are right, Decimus." Lucius sighed. "In two days, I will convene the management staff in the main villa."
He patted both of the managers on the back.
Lucius already knew exactly what he was going to do.
He was going to invent the concept of the standardized factory shift, complete with designated tool-racks, painted one-way paths for the wheelbarrows, and mandatory, staggered hydration breaks to keep the men from collapsing.
"You can return to the men. Make sure they know changes are coming."
Titus and Decimus exchanged a relieved look. They offered deep bows and quickly exited the shed, returning to the roaring fires of the forge.
Lucius remained in the quiet shed, staring at the parchment on the table. However, the door suddenly clicked open again.
Cassius stepped into the room. He carried a leather satchel filled with the estate’s dual ledgers, looking incredibly smug.
"Father," Lucius acknowledged without looking up from his drafting table. "Have we received any word from Marcus? It has been nearly four days since he slipped away in the night."
Cassius scoffed, waving a hand. "Do not let that soft-hearted boy occupy your thoughts, Lucius. I sent a trusted slave to my brother’s villa in the city. Marcus is likely weeping in the lap of his uncle or hiding in a temple, praying for our souls. When he gets hungry, he will return."
Lucius nodded slowly, pushing his younger brother’s disappearance to the back of his mind to focus on drawing the new transit lanes.
Marcus was not weeping in a temple, nor was he hiding with relatives.
At that exact moment, the young boy was standing in the halls of the provincial magistrate’s compound.