Banished Prince Charming

Chapter 51 - Understanding The Coat-Of-Arms..

I went back to my house and retrieved the banner of our GraceHaven's colour and went back to the windmill where the young engineer was waiting for me.

He took the flag and nodded approvingly at the colours and design that was exactly the same as my tunic and breeches that I was wearing. The clothes that I wore gave me a unique sense of belonging.

Even if Darlington had fallen, but deep inside me, Darlington still lives on...! He informed me to inform someone to erect a pole near the doorway of the windmill. "The pole would be used as a flag pole to hold this flag. Put a loop at the top, the centre and the base and run a piece of rope from this end right to the top and loop back down."

"One of the rope would be inserted through the loop while the other should be unrestrained. You understand me so far? OK, I will show you the flag that could notify the allies so that they would render assistance. I will also show you how to set up multiple signal flags as a means to give advance notice for the allies."

To show a general knowledge of a city under siege, he showed the example of the positioning of a flag. Our colours were white, red and black. I remembered what the old King had taught me before as colours of the Kingdom also mean colours of our coat-of-arms.

I remembered the day when the old king stood before our coat-of-arms and explained to me the colours and each symbol. It was as if it was yesterday. "Son, our coat of arms as well as Darlington banners and flags signifies a lot of meaning. Here, for example, this black coloured square at the top of this banner, it represents Sable: which means wisdom, grief, constancy and prudence."

"The white colour on this left-hand side represents Argent: which means truth, sincerity, peace, innocence and purity. While red represents Gules which means magnanimity, military strength, warrior and martyr."

"See this golden-yellow two-headed eagles on the black patch there? It represents a person of noble nature, strength, bravery, and alertness; or one who is high-spirited, ingenious, quick-witted, and judicious, protection for one and all and conjoining forces. The colour of this eagle means Or: signifying wisdom, generosity, glory, constancy and faith."

I listened intently to the wise words of the old king and had imprinted the meanings of the colours and symbol of our coat of arms. "Sir, do you get what I mean? You seemed to be in a kind of daze. Here, let me explain to you once more. Its very simple."

"The normal way a flag would be the red facing above the white, am I right? So the 4 forts and the central yard would turn the flag with the white facing the top and the red below which indicates unrest, war, riots and under siege. Passing by alliances would come to your aid once they see it."

"Let us talk about simple distress flags... Listen carefully and stop me if you have any questions." the young engineer repeated patiently for the part where I had missed earlier.

A black square flag and a circle flag on top or below the square flag denotes distress signals. This would be seen by scouts, miles away. Even setting up 3 fires at night or 3 smoky fires in the day, arranged in a triangular manner would also mean a sign of distress."

"It is a simple method for alarming alliances. Would there be any questions so far, sir?"

"Hmm... There are a lot of questions, to begin with. Would your head engineer be arriving back soon? How come he didn't inform us of his departure. Is there anything he needs to do so urgently or receives a message that he needs to return back immediately?"

"Coo... Coo..." I looked around and saw some pigeons roosting inside the ledges of the windmill. Looking at those pigeons, I deduce that the season now had indicated springtime would be coming to an end soon as birds, ducks and geese would flock by, staying close to rivers and ponds.

The other 8 engineers were checking and fine-tuning the windmill parts ensuring that everything would work fine accordingly. "Well, let me know when the head engineers come back because I have a proposal to ask him."

"Yes sir, I will convey your message to Jim upon his return. He should be back before sundown."

"Thank you so much for informing me about the flag signals based on our flag colours. It seems I need to have someone design the crest and we would be expecting the cloth to be here within the next 12 days."

"May I ask you a question, though. How do you know so much information? I mean, does an engineer learn all these signals like hanging the flag upside down to indicate the country or a town is at war or under attack or siege, the black flags, even right down to the positioning of the windmill blades?"

"As a person, one has to be equipped with plenty of knowledge as one moves about in the country, learning things as one goes around."

"Umm... I learn this from my Umm... Father who was working in the seas as an AB man on board a ship and my mother who was at that time working as a Miller before she decided to be a housewife to take care of us, children."

"Hey, by the way, one of the engineers with the pock-marked face is my younger brother."

"No wonder the two of you looked like peas from a pod. You looked almost identical too. By the way, how long had you been an engineer and what else were you building besides windmills?"

"I had been an engineer for the past... Umm...2 years or slightly more, I suppose? We engineers not only build windmills for a living, in fact, we build bridges, piers, large stone houses, erects towers, build defensive structures, unlike your mobile one that was pretty impressive and also very practical."

"In fact, we would be contracted to build almost anything as long as we are capable to do so. If we are not trained, then our Cap... I mean our head engineers would direct and supervise us."

"This windmill is one example. The only part is we need to ensure that the millstones would work accordingly to the parts that we had salvaged."

"Hmm, does your head engineer mentioned to any of you about anything of matter regards events or decisions after tomorrow? I mean, all of you were assigned to work for a week thus had been paid in advance."

"The works would end by tomorrow if we find the windmill to work like a well-oiled machine with no problems. Does your head engineer mention about staying through till the week ends or you have any other pending projects?

"Well Sir, in my own personal point of view, we are being contracted on this windmill project for a week. If I may recall, you did mention even if it takes a delay of one month for its completion, we had been paid for the works on that particular week."

"We umm... Sort of obliged to stay for the week because we would be interested in the whole cycle of milling, winnowing, making into all kinds of bread and baking of course."

"You may take it as a form of livelihood experience for us since we get to learn something from it. Furthermore, the same goes for building a pier."

"We have to wait till the tide recedes before we could set the stone pillars in place. It was a real challenge because no one would be able to place them when the tide rises. You get the picture, sir?"

"Yes... Hahahaha. It would be a sight for one to work blindly underwater with stones that would sink anyone to their doom. Very interesting work you have there, young man."

"Well, I'd be running off to get some information to be updated accordingly. I was waiting for the clay bricks to be fired so that we would be able to build a large 10 feet long oven that would be able to bake bread that would in separate ovens."

"Alright then sir, do met us know would you have any forms of assistance that require us to render. Your hospitality is greatly appreciated."

I waved my hand at him and walked out of the mill and headed to my house where I placed the banner back on its original position.

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"That was pretty close. I don't think the Prince noticed anything peculiar, do you?" the young engineer took a seat beside his comrade and mentioned about the close call the rest had encountered when the Prince entered without a warning.

"We may be resting on our laurels far too long then. It would be a mockery for Levingston to discover this matter."

"Hahaha. Small matter. Don't fret on it. I nearly blurted out on our leader just now too. By the way, Levingston would be back pretty soon. We will discuss later with him on the occurrences with the Prince."

"Alright then, I kinda have a good impression of the Prince. In fact, he's a little younger than me but his open-mindedness, as well as the way he socialises with the commoners, is truly astounding."

"I was truly impressed with his defensive structures, if one put a shield before them and slide it towards the enemy like a tanking guardian would you, could you imagine the type of losses the enemies would face?"

"It is mobile, light, easy to set up and deals considerable damage to those loosely unarmoured melee classes."

"I agree with you, mate. But we need to keep these under wraps and not to reveal ourselves too openly or it would be compromised and have to take necessary actions. Luckily, that Prince has no inkling about those birds up in the rafters."

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"Mars, here are the types of bread that I could think of at the moment since we started making them. There's no way for us to make like those made from your royal kitchens before. Those half-pound loaves of bread that were shaped perfectly in their moulds. It's easier to make and definitely would be able to fetch a higher price based on the types of variants that we have."

"Hmm... That gives me an idea. Could you summon the Jennings to come and meet me here with you now so we could discuss on the bread since she was also a Baker before?"

"Sure thing steamed dumplings, I go call her now. I am also interested to find out how other towns bake their bread for the masses too." Heather then skipped and went to find the Jennings.

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Author's Note:

I wish to name names for each of the households such as Jacob Jennings, Jennifer Jennings, Jacqueline and Josephine Jennings to name as an example but I would be swamped with names that would be a tad difficult for me to monitor later on in this novel. Hahaha.

At the meantime, I would just address them as the Jennings, as Heather, the Education Minister, would be my personal assistant to actually run off and locate the right person whenever they are summoned or referred in this novel.

*Sigh* it's pretty hard working alone in this novel but hey, do enjoy the reads. Cheers everyone...!

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