Banished Prince Charming

Chapter 35 -The Engineers Cometh.

After the light supper, I announced to everyone to disseminate the newly acquired information to the new families when they arrive. The Ashworths and Burns families nodded their head apprehensive and they had approved to what I had proposed by handing out rations instead.

After relaxing by the fireplace and the group was awarded 3 kegs of ale, the atmosphere lightened up tremendously. They were delighted and welcome the refreshing beverage while the children, Heather and me settled for warm milk instead.

"You were a scholar before, young master? No wonder your vision was way above the horizons. Your intellect and the way you propose these matters and plan for everyone's wellbeing is just like a Lord of the house." Ashworth came forward and sat on the ground while sipping his ale as Heather and I were sitting on out 'thrones'.

"Aye, a banished and fallen scholar. Just like my wife here. We were fortunate to be schooled to learn the basics and leading the group of pioneers, we'll, I can vouch that it comes naturally as well."

"That is very good to hear from you personally. Like I've said, you are like the Lord of the house and the system you implemented just now really was a bit confusing at first, hence my sudden outburst. But when you finally narrate how the system goes, in fact, our salaries are more than 2s per month."

"Do you think you would run out of coins in the future? I mean I've heard of you bargaining using stones, buying this dragan and ends up getting more than what you had bargained for and also ability to forecast well into the months to come."

The Burns joined and added, "That's true, young master. What is being told by Ashworth is what I am about to say too. In the future, once we complete all the 60 residential houses, what would your plan be? Do you mind sharing these with us?"

I paused to think before I replied, "See those piles of clay bricks over there? The children had made a lot of samples to be sold to the merchant. Not only they made the first batch of 4 dozen bricks, but they continuously made another 8 more dozens, producing a total of 144. These clay bricks would soon replace stone houses and even cobblestones walk."

"Once the house-building project is completed, we need to build a waste disposal pit of 6 feet deep and 36 square meters of an area on both sides of the village. This pee and poop would be deposited there and a layer of dirt would be used to cover it up. At least we won't be drinking and cooking with contaminated waters."

"Once 60 houses for the residential district had been completed, there are some knolls behind it and that would be flattened. The clay and soil would be used to make those clay bricks. Composition of soil, clay, smashed stones, silt and grass were used to strengthen it."

"Soon, there would be a windmill to process grains to become flour while a sawmill would be built to produce planks of wood for other processes. As we go along, there would be a brewery, a loom, bakery, tailor and whatever the Industry Minister would think of for trading as well as for our very own use."

"It seems you have a vision for a town after all. I heard the pioneers started off with basically nothing and you have everyone hope."

"Not just a town or any other town, our vision would be an empire. We would build our future in this, in order to build once known as a settlement into a village, then into a town and then a large scale city. In the future, we would even expect to see up to 5000 citizens up and about GraceHaven and we would still be using tokens for an exchange of goods and other produce."

Upon the mention of tokens and extending its usage even to a large-sized city, Ashworth and Burns can't help but laughed when they imagined everyone juggling coins and visitors have to exchange those coins to be tokens to purchase their daily necessities.

Well, if one is to achieve something, one would have to aim higher to achieve it. The higher the aim, the higher the d.e.s.i.r.e for one to reach it and would definitely work harder towards one's goal.

Every now and then, there would be an addition to the projects to improve the citizen's lives. After sharing some views with the Ashworths and Burns, we excused ourselves and headed to our home since Heather had seen me yawning incessantly as the warm milk took effect.

Before long, we had lain down and fallen asleep in each other's embrace.

=*=

After breakfast the next day, the workers decided to perform other tasks since the construction of the 6 houses were complete. The Ashworths and Burns were assigned to dig a latrine pit 6' by 6' by 6' on both sides of the residential district.

Gwen had gone into the forest to continually set and checked her traps and she brought back a few geese in her hands upon returning. She had informed us that she would float some bamboo downstream to make some more hunting bows. A bamboo pole was lain across the river to trap the floating bamboo poles

Crystal and Burns younger sister were busy with her cheesemaking and had completed quite a number of cheeses that were air-dried and stored inside the shed meant for storing cheese and jars of milk.

Ben and Frank had gone into the forest and had chopped down poplar trees to turn them into firewood. Both worked in tandem and they were able to complete 2 whole trees with a day.

Heather and Kayla, as usual, went into the undiscovered parts of the forest to look for the more fruits and plants that they could forage and replanted and all the children tagged along riding the wagon that Sir Hope was pulling behind.

Ashworths and Burns families continued to dig the latrine pit also known as the waste disposal management system.

I had just set aside my reed pen as I had completed the compilation of the general prices of goods that we had bought in the past months. This would give a general guideline on our outgoing purchases so we would be able to compare our records with the previous months.

As I was wrapping things up with Jack, he produced a set of rectangular tokens and shown it to me that was inscribed with a hot sharp instrument that burned through it. Even he was the eldest in the community, he was able to learn simple words to represent the types of provisions as well as the family names on the back of the rectangular token.

A hole was burned through at the top and had a coil of string attached to it, so it would not be misplaced. These learning methods not only benefits Jack but also the holders. Soon, everyone began to recognise simple words and written phrases with the help of the young minds of the children.

Suddenly Sir Blackie who normally lazed under the table as I used its warm fur to rub my fate feet stood up and came out underneath the table and raised its head to sniff the air. It let out a few barks and looked at me as it circled a few times and sat on its haunches as it wagged its tail with its tongue wagging out from its jaw.

Only one thing would make Sir Blackie reacts in this way and that would be the arrival of Marcel and also a piece of roasted chicken or duck t.h.i.g.h for it. (Marcel has a soft spot for dogs too)

I cleared the stack of papyrus on the table before I place it inside the house on a small wicker display stand that held my papyrus, ink and reed pen together with my coin pouch that was bulging. It seems I would need a bigger pouch after all.

I put the pot to a boil for tea and Jack helped to fire up the furnace to heat up the bread that we had for breakfast earlier. From the horizon, I am able to notice 2 horses pulling a wagon ridden by Marcel and not only 1, nor 2 but 5 horse-drawn carriages were approaching GraceHaven...!

"It seems the engineers that you summoned has arrived to set up the windmill for grains and sawmill for to make wooden planks," remarked Jack as he clapped his hands on my shoulder.

True to what Jack had mentioned, there were 10 engineers altogether with 1 wagon load filled with readied parts of a windmill and sawmill that could be fixed, mounted and operated within a week's time.

=*=

"Good morn my dear friend. It's been some time since we had met and how are you and your wellbeing?" I greeted Marcel and we bowed at one another.

"Good morn too, young master. Life hadn't been too shabby and business had been great so far. Without your continual support, we won't be heading here and patronising to your needs. Come, we rest a while but before we begin." Marcel replied with a joyous look on his face as he had accomplished the demands of his dear client who loves to drive a hard bargain.

The 10 engineers along with Marcel and his young assistant sat down as I served piping hot tea with warm garlic bread with garlic stalks in them. I served several slices of cheese so they could munch with the bread and they compliment on how delectable the bread tasted like.

"Don't you have such bread in your place?" I asked in surprise since I can see the engineers were thoroughly enjoying the bread as though they had never tasted such 'delicacies' before.

"Oh, the bakery over there only serves sourdough bread and hard bread only. There's a few of them that I brought with me, would you like to buy some?" Marcel offered but I laughed and told him that since we would have a bakery soon, why would we buy tasteless bread from others.

Marcel laughed and he was actually looking forward to buying the loaves of bread from our bakery pretty soon. I told them that we not only have these garlic bread, but we have at least a few variants, like milk bread, cheese bread, pineapple and cinnamon bread, sweet bread and sweet berries bread, to name a few.

"My gosh...! Wif those various kinds ov bread, I fnk I would prefer ter take up reside ce 'ere as well. Do yew know I love eatin' bread Carpet times a day? I would eat i' wiv oats, gruel, soups as well as uvvers. Yaaahr Baker really 'as a way wiv bread an' I am already fallin' in love wiv GraceHaven. I wish I could make dis village as me wife...!" Marcel professed his delight over bread and frankly, I would like Marcel to remain where he was as a trader from Corral.

"Your little town sure is flourishing like the wild daisies in springtime after been hibernating through winter. It's great... Everything seems organised. I can see residential plots of land been setup. And pretty soon you would have your own fruits and vegetables as well as grains, innit right? "

"True my good friend, but we still would be purchasing the goods from you and I reckon you do bring some livestock along with you and other merchandise? Let's discuss after our meal, I would not want the food to enter and ends up in the wrong way." I inquired and quickly remembered that the dining table was not the place to a discussion point as one would spout nonsense instead.