Free The Belly of the Bow by K. J. Parker Page A

Unfortunately, however, the ancestors of the people who now occupy the Shastel peninsular didn’t have the choice. They were thrown out of their own country by some wild and woolly tribe or other - second cousins of your own plainsmen, so I believe - and settled in the mountains because horsemen couldn’t go there. By the time the horsemen had gone away, they’d been there over a century, and so they stayed.
    Now, it’s in the way of things that some people do better in life than others, and after a few generations there were a few families who’d done well, and a great many more who hadn’t, and there’s nothing unusual in that. What made the settlers in Shastel different was the fact that over the years they’d become - what’s the word I’m looking for? Not superstitious. Religious, perhaps? No, that’s got the wrong associations. Pious, maybe, or at least they were all very moral people, terribly concerned about right and wrong and thinking deep thoughts about spiritual matters when they weren’t killing themselves trying to scratch a living. In any event, those families who’d become better off than their fellows came together and decided that it wasn’t right that they should have more than they needed while others didn’t have enough; not only was it rather terrible and wicked, it also offended against what their philosophy saw as the fundamental principle of balance and equilibrium - I don’t know why I’m telling you this, because of course you know all about it. Isn’t that where your own system of philosophy originated, and the study of the Principle? Anyway, that’s all rather above my head. The upshot as far as this story’s concerned was that they decided to pool all their surplus resources and endow a great and good Foundation, which was to last for all time and devote itself to the two things they held to be most worthwhile: helping the poor and working out a coherent code of morality and ethics.
    This Foundation was given the name of the Grand Foundation of Charity and Contemplation, and its development and management were entrusted in perpetuity to the twenty leading families of Shastel. They built a magnificent place called the Hospital in the valley at the foot of Mount Shastel itself; it was big enough to house up to five thousand needy people and five thousand scholars, and it was open to everybody. People who couldn’t make a living, or who wanted to devote their lives to philosophy and learning, could just turn up at the gates and have board and lodgings for as long as they wanted, with nothing to pay and no obligations.
    (‘It sounds like a good idea,’ Alexius murmured.
    ‘It was a splendid idea,’ Gorgas replied. ‘They always are.’)
    Anyway (Gorgas continued) the Foundation’s endowments flourished, and the noble houses carried on adding to them, and soon there were no more poor and destitute families to be taken in and looked after; but the ones who were already there were starting to get restive, cooped up in the Hospital with nobody but the scholars to talk to. They said they were very grateful for everything the Foundation had done for them, but they didn’t want charity, they wanted the chance to work and make something of themselves, and everyone agreed that that sounded like a very good idea, too.
    So the Foundation decided that the best thing would be to lend the poor people enough supplies and equipment to allow them to go back outside the walls and support themselves. It was generally agreed that if a family was given enough food to last them five years, and the basic tools and equipment, it was perfectly possible for them to turn the wilderness into good, productive farmland, by building terraces, clearing forests, draining marshes and diverting rivers. That was how the peninsula had been settled in the first place, with hope and goodwill and a great deal of hard work. That sounded like a perfectly splendid idea, and so that’s what they did. The Foundation