Banished Prince Charming

Chapter 24 - The Price Negotiations

"Gentlemen, please follow this fine young assistant here and haul down the things I had purchased while you were helping to bring the working tools for our 'Master' Jack here. Those things would come in directly to the shed first and one of it be placed over here."

I announced with the men and soon followed the young assistant and they hauled in the 6 barrels of ale. They carefully placed one on the dining table while 5 other barrels were placed inside the shed.

When Frank saw the barrel he immediately recognised them as ale...! His eyes shone up when he placed the barrel on the table and was waiting for me to give the signal to break the top of it and share it with the rest of the settlers.

"Young Master, that's ale right?! Blimey! Oh me goodness...! I never thought what we would be able ter taste ale once again. It 'as been so long since I 'ad tasted a drop in a long while an' I almost 'ad forgotten 'ow i' tastes like...!" Frank whispered to me but it was still within earshot with the others.

They knew it was ale and was favoured with the men and ladies alike after a hard day's work. It costs 1c per mug at the tavern but what they didn't know was that it costs a mere 3c per barrel which was slightly more than 3 gallons each. It is much more economical in that way to purchase in bulk...!

The livestock that was brought down from the wagons after being paid by Heather was ushered to the clearing near the fowls' enclosure. The livestock was tethered down to the ground with a leash around their necks including the piglets so that they would not be running off anywhere as they please.

It was quite an unorthodox method at this moment but its better than nothing and it seems that the men would be busy to build 4 individual sties to house the piglets. As for the goats, a single shelter would suffice.

Goats would not likely to grow into the size of a cattle but the piglets would definitely grow as long as they have the right feeds. Besides, the piglets actually were of Yorkshire breed with pointy ears and a full-grown pig would weigh at least 450 to 750 pounds.

"There's a male piglet among it. They would m.a.t.u.r.e between 3 to 6 months time and during that time, once a sow is pregnant, it would be up to 4 months."

"Right now it would be fine for the 4 piglets to be together but once they become pregnant, we have to segregate them. Each sow would have a litter twice a year with up to 10 piglets each."

"And their life span would be between 6 to 10 years each. Having said these, be prepared to see a boom in the pig population between the next 12 months to come. Yorkshire is nearly 95% and has little fat on them, making their meat ideal."

"Besides, it's omnivorous, so it's plant and meat feed for them once they had grown. The pig feed that you had gotten is just considered as a gift for them," explained Crystal as I nodded in apprehension which means there would be an extension of a few enclosures of pigs within the time period.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pinch on my shoulders and I nearly jumped and immediately rubbed at the sore part. "You really loved to daydream, yes? I can see a vision of pigs circling above your head as you fantasise having so many pigs in our land, eh?"

I glanced and saw the smirking face of Heather and I can see how her face beamed with delight and only the Lord above knows what goes around her mind right now as she had pinched the skin off my arm...!

"Aauuw...." I whimpered as I rubbed furiously at my arm that had just been pinched and it was rather painful. This is the first time I had received corporal punishment and it comes from my 'wife'.

Crystal then continued after she let a hearty laugh at me, "Those nanny goats are just a little over a year old. They would be able to provide 6 to 12 pints of milk daily for a period of 305 day period."

"Then milk could be pasteurised and also be churned to become butter and cheese. As for this process, Kayla knows best on how to turn these into butter and cheese."

"It could be kept in the shade and for the mouldy part is quite harmless and can be eaten. Soon we would have garlic bread, butter bread, cheese bread and sesame seed bread." Crystal concluded after telling me the information which I intend to record down on papyrus.

In this way, the younger generation would be able to understand about agriculture and livestock better. I turned about and stood up to make yet another announcement.

"For this time around, we would like to order 50 pounds of grains and flour. Would our good friend here provide the services of an exchange for the unhusked grains for those processed one based on a pound for pound exchange in the future?" I placed a hand on Marcel's shoulder as he looked at me and replied, "Aye, a pound of unhusked grains for a pound of processed grain at a small cost."

I quickly countered and mentioned, "If that's the case, 3 pounds of unhusked grain for 3 pounds of processed grains without any costs but will readily purchase a gallon of ale instead at 3c. How does that sound? At least instead of gaining a small cost, you could easily move your products at a faster rate ain't it right?"

"My gawd. This laddie sure drives a hard bargain. But what he said is true, an exchange of grains would be made and he would be purchasing the ale instead. At least it is worth my trip." Marcel thought for a while and rubbed his chin. He then lifted his he's and looked at me and confirmed the deal.

I smiled when I listened to him agreed to my proposal as I told one of the settlers to bring out the brooms and the woven mats along with some bows.

"The next would be brooms, woven mats, rabbit pelts and hunting bows. We have other things but they are too minimal to make a significant sale. What are the prices that were agreed earlier, Gwen and Kayla?" I motioned for the others to speak since Marcel did mention to them before.

"A broom would cost 1c each, the woven mat costs 5c per square foot, and these pelts costs 3c before curing and 5c after being made into tanned leather."

"We have decided to lower the prices because there's quite a lot of goods to be cleared off and instead of coins, we would like to barter for other things instead."

"If there's nothing of Interests, then we would exchange for coins for now and would require the necessary products in your next trip." Gwen and Kayla took their turns to speak and Marcel nodded his head instead.

Since there was no written agreement, it would be hard to go against each other's words. Besides, this is one of way to see if Marcel was a sneaky person or not.

"The price seems to be very fair. By the way, could we lower the prices for the woven mats to 3c per square foot instead? It seems that you ladies really worked hard to produce these fine mats."

"Of course, you should know that I'm just a middleman and what I buy would be sold at a slightly higher price. As for these bows, I would put them aside first. So let's begin, shall we?" countered Marcel and it seemed to be an honest deal since he does not hide the fact that he was a middleman after all.

In the end, the list of sales came as following:

80 brooms costing 1c for a total of 80c.

A dozen of 2' by 5' woven costing 30c were bought for a total of 360c.

A half dozen of 5' by 5' woven mat costing 75c was bought for 450c.

A half dozen of 10' by 10' woven mat costing 300c were discounted to 200c and were bought for 1200c.

30 cured and tanned rabbit pelts costing 5c were bought for 150c.

12 hunting bows costing 100c were bought for 1200c.

Marcel took out a small parchment and wrote down his purchases and name it GraceHaven as its heading. After making the proper calculations, the total sales come up to exactly 3440 or 34 silvers and 40 coppers after conversion.

Marcel took out his coon pouch and produces the exact change and placed it on the table and asked his young assistant and some men to load up the items that had just been traded. No one touches the coins as it would be customary for a merchant to produce the coins in front of the sellers as a sign of faith.

It would be decided if the sellers would take the coins or buy off certain other products later on. After finding out that he does not have the item that the ladies were looking forward to, (the ladies wanted to buy a bundle of cloth to make clothes as well as prepare for the winter to make clothes filled with fluff but Marcel did not bring any) Kayla was the one who is in charge of the incoming finance and held them inside her coin pouch.

As she pushed the coins forward to pay for the grains, I stopped her and told, "Kayla, your coins have no worth here unless I am not around. The purchase of the grains and flour would be borne by me. Keep it with you first to be used for later purchases."

There was a lot of movement to and fro the wagons and to the shed and even if one looks like it was a dumb way to do, but at least each transaction was being settled in the spot so there's no way for one to miss any of the transaction sales or any missing item.

Very soon, 50 pounds of grains and flour exchanged hands and I paid a total of

Spices such as black pepper, cinnamon, rosemary, thyme and white pepper costs 25c per quarter pound and I bought half a pound each.

The cheapest spice was salt costing only 10c per pound and we bought 25 pounds of it. It would be used for our everyday meals as well as to make salted fish for preservation.

Sugar costing 1s per pound was bought a sack each weighing 5 pounds. These sugar would be grounded to make caster sugar for dusting on bread. So at least we have a variety of different flavoured loaves of bread to come in the future.

After I had Heather settled the payment, the next purchase would be some bundles of cloth and Marcel promised to bring a few bundles each and would try to bargain at the lowest price as possible.

At the meantime, since we do not have a spinning wheel and no one actually knows how to covert the reed fluff to make into cloth, we decided to buy the ready ones instead.

The almost full wagons that were filled with all sorts of merchandise were almost half empty and the young assistant was shifting all the goods to consolidate into one wagon.

Before Marcel left he asked, "Would anyone fancy to have a horse? At least one could travel from one place to another in the shortest time possible." he then showed up 10 fingers in front of him. Was he asking for 10 gold?