Banished Prince Charming

Chapter 33 - Pioneers' Fair Judgement.

"Industry Minister Ben... Have you allocate the new members on their new tasks tomorrow? Have you forgotten about it?"

"Young Master, you did not inform me anything at all..." rebuked Ben as he turned around and sat properly after lying down and leaning on his elbow.

"Maybe I did not inform you just now but I am informing you right now..." I put on a stern face and glared at Ben who happened to be a bit flabbergasted but Heather was the one giggling beside me that gave the suspense away.

"Hahaha... You were just pulling my leg... Gosh... You nearly make me have a seizure!" Ben chortled as he realised that I was only joking.

"Alright, the young master has spoken. Tomorrow we would be continuing to complete the houses for you. Who would be in?" Ben shot a question and tried to be as serious as he could.

5 excited hands shot up immediately and that means there would be 9 to 10 people working on the constructions from now on along with the original group.

"There's an order of 6 more new houses from tomorrow onwards too. After you had completed the 3 houses, moved to the other side and plan for another 6 more. Remember to take note of the number of days that they worked together with you. You would be in charge of the housing projects as well as the building of at least another 2 more stores here."

"It might be empty for the moment, but I need a storage facility to store the ores and coal for sale. The 6 miners would be bringing in their families here and I guess the building if the houses would be in full swing once you have a handful more workers."

"Understood, young master," replied Ben affirmatively as he gave a thumbs up to me. His face lit up hearing they there would be 6 more workers coming in so we need to open up more trade opportunities.

I turned to around and hollered, "Agriculture Minister Crystal, where are you? I need to ask you if you were able to make cheese already on order for is to have some cheese bread in the future."

"Cheese? I did not receive any task to make cheese...Would you require me to make cheese?" Crustal blinked at me when she heard that she was required to make cheese even though she had not gotten any tasks for it.

"Aye, we need cheese to make fine cheese bread to sell to the merchants. By the way, you do have some milk left from the nannies right? Pass some to Kayla tomorrow to make 10 loaves of bread for the miners to take away."

"In the near future, starting by tomorrow onwards, you need to be able to manufacture as many cheeses as possible and airdry them before it would be sold to Marcel. These cheese would be for our consumption as well as for sale. The price for 80 pounds of cheese would be 5s 20c. 40 pounds would cost 2s 60c and 20 pounds would be 1s 30c while 10 pounds cost 65c while a 5 pounder costs 13c."

"Once the project has been completed you need to find the workers to help you make cheese. You can discuss with Kayla on the process and the procurement of certain bacteria to cure the cheese. It would be similar to curing the ale later on too. Let Ben know the number of manpower that you require and he will thus report the manpower that is deployed. I need to keep records of the salaries."

I explained to Crystal since she was the only one that does not have any artisan job assigned. So cheese would be the option for her to start. Once she has lots of grown-up pigs, she would be able to sell them as a whole or by parts.

Red jungle fowls could be snared and domesticated. I learnt that eggs only cost 1c for a dozen so there's no point to sell but instead to incubate and increase the fowl"a population.

There are 3 nannies at the moment so there would have a tendency to increase its population once Marcel brought in some goats pretty soon. More people would mean we need to to have more food to feed and for sale. In these 2 months, I guessed that I would be handling all the purchases then.

"Alright, young master. I would take note of it and hand you the report when I start in the new project. So I would be having permanent workers innit right?"

"That's right. I guess I had rounded up all the loose ends and don't forget to pass the milk to Kayla and to make more than enough bread for us tomorrow then." I reminded Crystal as Heather looped her arm in mine as we excused ourselves and heads back to our house.

=*=

"Do you realise something, Mars? We have indeed come a long way to achieve this far. When I look back the time when I know you and the today, its like 2 sides of a coin. I am happy for you and what you had done for GraceHaven."

Heather lay down beside me and I cradled her head when she placed hers on my c.h.e.s.t. I embraced her shoulders close and gently stroked her hair that was falling loosely across one side of her face.

"It's for the future of GraceHaven after all. Look at the pioneers, they didn't give a squeak when they worked with me and willingly takes up new responsibilities and roles without any kinds of monetary reward or salary. Take a look at Ben, he is a woodcutter and his main job was to fell trees and replant the young as a forester does."

"Ben may start earning some coins through the sales of firewood very soon. As for Frank, he is a carpenter and with his expertise, he is able to produce these fine bamboo furniture to accommodate us for our seating and dining areas. If there's a wood mill, I am pretty sure both he and Ben would work together to produce planks that could be sold to Marcel, thus increasing the income."

"As for Crystal, she would soon be churning out cheese for sale and consumption. Gwen would be hunting and there would be game meat, pelts and hunting bows for sale. Kayla would be able to make medicine, herbs and potions to sell them out as well. With her excellent foraging skills, we never did once go hungry."

"Jack is awaiting for some projects to come his way so that he would be busy tinkering his usual 14 hours in his shop. Ahh... It only seems yesterday we were just sleeping under the stars and today you and I are in each other's arms."

"Mars, meet Kayla and Jack tomorrow. They have something to say about the last sales transactions that were performed since we had sold quite a number of goods to Marcel. I didn't want to mention this but I think it's the right time now. Go see them before the day starts."

"Oh, what's the issue? Do they have important things to tell me then? Why not discuss them during the evening conferences?"

"They decided to tell you only when the right time comes and the time indeed has arrived. Furthermore, they would like to tell you in person so that the others would not know about it, such as the new settlers. Don't think too much about it. You had done quite a lot today and tomorrow would be another new day."

Heather pointed out as she snuggled close to me as I let her burrow her head close to my c.h.e.s.t. She raised her head and looked deep into my eyes and asked, "Do you love me as your wife and the future Queen?"

"I love you just the way as I love myself. A Queen you say, there's no throne or a coronet on our heads. Hahaha..." I laughed when I replied to her and I pinched her nose playfully.

"Oh, there's a throne alright. It is outside ** the Royal courtyard made of bamboo. Hahaha... As for the coronet, we could weave some and place on our heads in the future. Hehehe..." Heather gleefully answered and kissed me in which I responded to hers as well.

"Well, Education Minister Heather, and future Queen of GraceHaven, you now have 6 children under your wing and would have more pretty soon. So you better have your materials ready to teach those children to learn how to read, write and learn math."

"Yes, your Lordship, the wise and just Prince Charming... Hehehe."

We laughed as we pulled ourselves together closer and soon we drifted off to sleep until the rooster crowed just before the break of dawn.

=*=

"Both of you had been mentioned by Heather that you wanted to meet and speak to me?" I queried Kayla and Jack who were stocking firewood to prepare the morning tea and bake some loaves of bread for the miners to take away and for the villagers.

"Aye, young master. It's been a while since we both had been holding on to this and this is an agreed fact that all the pioneers had been discussing since the last transaction. As a Commerce Minister, I guess its better for you to hold on to this." Jack explained as he handed out to small pouches and when it was handed to me, I immediately knew it contained some valuable coins.

"This is the coins that were collected on the last sales transactions. We and the rest do not require any coins at all and would be willing to undertake any forms of tasks at hand, the way you deem fit. Any future sales would be handled by us and all proceeds would be returned back to you."

"But you do require some form of coins to purchase right?" I questioned them as I had not heard any hush-hush about this matter at all.

"You had invested everything in GraceHaven. We do not require any coins at all and we would work doubly hard to ensure that you would be able to gain a stable foothold with these coins as well as future sales. We are all grateful to you for being supportive and without your selfless act, we would not even see much growth from being a tiny settlement to where it is now."

"That means I would be in full control of the whole commercial affairs from sales transactions right down to the salaries while Kayla would be handling the taxes when it's due, am I right?"

"That's right, young master. We will act on your behalf in the sales while you would do your part on the purchasing. The wages could be paid daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Any way you deem fit and as for the taxes, it would be waived for the pioneers while it would still be imposed for the workers." Kayla added and I fully understood their intentions.

No matter how many years they worked, the current pool of wealth that I have would dwindle and I would be poorer than a peasant. This way, all the sales proceeds would be handled by me and rolled back to Marcel and the workers.

Even though I won't know how the workers would be spending their money at this moment, their way of saying indicates we need to have a few more stores to display the wares for the workers to purchase and thus the coins would be rolled in back to me.

"I now fully understands what you are trying to convey. It means the stores displaying the finished wares would be handled by the pioneers so you would channel the proceeds back to me, ain't that right?" I finally gave my response as the pioneers' fair judgement was highly favoured and its a win-win situation for both the pioneers, me and the new residents.

"Alright, I would gladly accept this and would pool together with the rest of the resources that I had. I still have some gold coins and these would go towards the further development of GraceHaven. Thank you so much for your kind thoughts and actions. I would work even harder to serve the citizens of GraceHaven." I was elated at their thoughtfulness since they had come up to this conclusion.

"The pioneers all knew you would be a great ruler. Not only are you young, but you have a very m.a.t.u.r.ed mentality and your bloodline as a Macleod does not fail us one bit and never falls short out of expectations. Thank you so much, your lordship. May you be guided by the stars from the old King and Queen." after saying that, both Jack and Kayla bowed down to me and I bowed back to them.

"Thank you again. I appreciate everything that you had decided on. Together, this village will grow in the future even more." I bowed as I went back and gathered up some of my writing materials and set it on the table just outside my house. This set of table and chair was being constructed by Ben and Frank with a small stool across me to do my recordings et cetera.