Being a boss is a bit like being the city's fireplace. Sometimes, you have to know how to throw employees into the furnace to fuel the fire, but ultimately, it's thanks to us that everyone stays warm.

I believe it was around 1416. Grandpa was already getting old at that time. After all, at thirty years old, he was already what one could call an old man, but he still had a long way to go before becoming the most powerful boss.

Do you remember his first son, Henry? Grandpa was afraid he would grow up to be a complete fool. Times were tough back then and there wasn't much money, so choices had to be made. Either they bought iron stocks for the forge or they sent their son to school... Well, that's also why they had two children.

That said, even though he didn't go to school, my father, Henry, wasn't a good-for-nothing. It was decided to send him to an artisans' guild to learn how to forge weapons.

The pen is mightier than the sword. Maybe, but in the meantime, the sword can cut off the hand of the one holding the pen.

And they were going to need a lot of swords to repay our debts. Times were hard and we were heavily in debt, and to make matters worse, grandpa's wife, Sabrina, gave birth to another child, another boy.

Oh, I mean, grandpa was from another era, another time. If we had been in the blessed time of the Crusades, he would have rejoiced with joy, can you imagine? Three brave young men to offer as sacrifices to our lord.

He would have been the most respected man in the city. But alas, those days are over, we are in the Renaissance, and now we need girls to marry off to rich gentlemen.

Out of frustration for not having a little girl, he decided to call him Catherine. He thought that maybe if he put him in a pretty dress and married him off to an old, nearsighted man, maybe... Ah, no...

Finances were gradually improving over the summer of 1430, and grandpa decided to hire a bodyguard. He felt a danger lurking around the family, and with two lucrative businesses, he feared attracting the wrath of rival families.

Moreover, he had the advantage of arming his guards with the best weapons and armor straight from his forge.

He also began investing in the purchase of new carts, this time drawn by horses, faster, stronger, and more efficient than humans.

You know, to reach the top, you have to be willing to take risks. Even though the last loan had brought him to the brink of bankruptcy, he decided to take out another loan to obtain a title from the town hall, all for a total of 2,000 gold coins.

Well done, we had to pay the state crooks just to change a line on a piece of paper.

But Grandpa used to say that these corrupt government officials would pay soon because one day they would lead a revolution. Well, it wouldn't really be them leading the revolution, it would be the peasants, but they would make them believe the idea came from them... but no, that will never happen.

In any case, thanks to his new title, he was finally able to open a third business, which he decided to entrust to his wife.

Oh no, but wait, Grandpa was a progressive at heart. He was all for women's work, especially when he didn't have to pay them.

He thus had a farm built at the northern exit of the city. Sure, it wasn't the best location, but all the others were taken. He mainly produced barley and wheat there, but the real goal was, ultimately, to be able to produce leather.

Leather is dreadfully scarce these days, and the production of his tailor shop and forge was slowed down by the lack of raw materials.

That's the rule of all suppliers: when your supplier is failing, buy them out and fire them; but if your supplier is efficient, buy them out and fire them.

As for his children, his eldest idiot had finally reached adulthood. It was time for him to find a wife. But since the lad had never set foot in school, they would have to find something at his level, like a goat or a peasant girl.

And apparently, even that seemed too high for him. Getting rejected by a peasant girl, what a sadness.

Fortunately, his third son, Catherine, had completed his studies. He probably shouldn't have named him Catherine after all.

In the meantime, even if his children had the intelligence of a pig, for him, business was going well. Grandpa had just expanded his house, by the way.

When you're rich, the goal, of course, is to be able to show that you're rich so that others are jealous, otherwise, it would have no interest.

But now that wealth was there, Grandpa decided to take it to the next level by running for a position at the town hall. It wasn't going to be easy because these old geezers had their butts glued to those seats for too long.

He decided to try a sweet approach with one of the councilwomen. You never know, it might work, after all, his charm hadn't waned over the years.

Maybe it had after all, because this approach brought him nothing better than a slap. Ouch.

Grandpa was livid with rage. He screamed that back in the day, when he was young, they would have hung her by her feet in the village square, but now, with the progressive ideas of the Renaissance, you couldn't say or do anything anymore. He even ended up swearing that one day, he or one of his descendants, would strangle each of these idiots. God knows how right he was.

He didn't get discouraged though and decided to run for the position of master of the artisans' guilds. He already owned three thriving businesses, so it was a done deal for him.

He continued his efforts by trying a less brutal approach with the ladies, but to no avail, these old bags were impervious to any of his compliments, and the other idiot wouldn't be corrupted by a small purse.

Finally, the winner was drawn by lot, and it was some kind of moron who was elected.

Missed this time. But still, Grandpa thought he should hire another guard, just in case. Politics seems to be a dangerous field, and rightly so.

Not even 24 hours after his candidacy for a political position, someone set fire to his farm. What a bunch of amateurs! If they had waited a bit, they would have burned his wife and employees as well.

The first step was to heal our wounds, renovate the partially burned building, and heal his partially burned wife.

The second step was to become a monster. He didn't mince words anymore and decided to build a bakery in the center of the city.

How could a bakery contribute to his revenge, you might ask? Just know that every croissant sold was one step closer to the annihilation of his enemies, and every chocolate croissant, a nail in their coffin.

He also took the opportunity to build a mill north of the city. He also intended to build a guard tower on his properties. Gradually, Grandpa surrounded the city with arrows, towers, and croissants.

For now, he tried his luck in politics again, but to no avail, the old bags on the council clung to their posts like mussels to a boat.

Speaking of mussels, his son Henry had finally managed to seduce his wench.

Good, it took him time, but at least the wench seemed determined to have children. So she herself ran to the marital home without even asking him. She ran, the wench, she ran, ran as fast as she could, but all the carriages in the world wouldn't allow her to escape a man who hadn't relieved himself in 10 years.

Finally some good news, even though the wench, like all the women in the family, would only give us a male child a year later.

With so many boys, Grandpa even thought of setting up a gladiator team at this rate. But well, at least the lineage was assured, and this one, at least, unlike the others, would have a good education.

Now Grandpa could clear his mind and focus on his work and also motivate his employees: "Listen up, you bunch of wenches, you won't stop until the work is done. Now get moving, before I kick you in the behind."

Oh, Grandpa knew how to motivate his employees. And if they didn't want to be insulted, they just had to become bosses and not employees.

The good news finally came in the winter of 1444 when Ulrica, my mother, gave birth to me. Me, Castille, granddaughter of Edward Linderberg, I was born.

Financially, we had nothing to complain about; the business was doing well now. We owned a bakery in the city center, a tailor shop, a warehouse, a beautiful house, and the entire northern exit of the city belonged to us because our field and mill took up all the space.

Ah, how Grandpa loved to see our family flags fluttering in the wind in the city. But you know, in life, nothing is eternal, except God and money.

So, Grandpa invited Henry to take his first steps in politics, but apart from a good slap, he got nothing good out of it. Bravo champion, I can die peacefully, the succession is assured, Grandpa told him sarcastically.

And that wasn't all either. When Grandpa asked him to send a letter to settle a trivial dispute with a rival family, the response was scathing: never in life.

Grandpa came to think that all the men in this family had inherited their mothers' peasant genes. So, he decided to send me, Castille, his granddaughter, to school.

A girl in school, do you see what they had reduced him to honestly? Oh Lord. It's true, Grandpa was getting old, and who knows how much time he had left to live, but one thing was certain, he would do everything to put his butt in that town hall, and that was a promise.