Banished Prince Charming

Chapter 85 - Marcel's Wildest Thoughts

"Alright boys, we have a day of road ahead of us. Are you sure you won't want to have a wagon and horse for yourselves and instead to travel on and moved on foot and sharing wagons? There's not much space in between the cargo, you know."

"These wagons are simply laden with goods just for GraceHaven alone. If this were to keep up, I think we have to make weekly trips and assign my other travelling merchants to do so as well or employ more merchants."

Marcel remarked to the 5 engineers who were under the guise as serfs as they hopped on to the back of the wagons and made themselves comfortable on top of sacks of grains and flour as well as kegs of ale and beer.

There were 2 wagons this time and he had brought along 2 of his assistant, where one was a shadow as well, aimed to protect Marcel at all times.

The whole journey would almost take up dawn to the following dawn of travelling time with intermittent stops in between till they reached the destination. Marcel had assigned his assistants to take care of the goods while he ensured that he had brought enough silvers for the exchange of sales later on.

He was very satisfied with the way the young master (since he does not know about the Royal funeral procession yet, thus Audemars identity remains unknown) dealings in his business since the young master would purchase what he needs in stages and pay off the dues immediately.

Other villages would prefer to sell their wares to the merchants and then haggle back the goods they wished to buy at a lower price. "Sigh...how I wished that trading would be as simple as that with the young master." he sighed inwardly as he sat on the wagon as his assistant traversed the four-wheeled wagon as they made their way towards GraceHaven.

Corral was a little known establishment somewhere in Driffield where its connecting trade was cloth, spices and jewellery such as fine metals, trinkets and the sort. It was a time where the influence of those items made a boom between England and other neighbouring towns and beyond.

However, Marcel decided to be a bit old fashioned and believed not to keep up with the current uptrend of things but concentrated mainly to serve the community and makes life simpler for them.

In this way, instead of waiting to land a single elusive huge whale for weeks at end, striking smaller fishes daily would soon be able to load the whole dock with food and be self-sustained.

Looking back at the wagons, he had earlier made a decision to add 20 more pounds to each grain and flour and totals them up to be 900 pounds altogether. That alone would cost 1800c or 18 silvers. Then there would be the 50 kegs of ale that would rake in 450c or 4s and 50c for the lot.

The 50 kegs of beer that he brought along were somewhat pricier at 600c or 6 silvers. Just these 3 commodities alone would bring him a total of 28s and 50c.

"Have you loaded up the condiments and spices, boy?" the assistant that was traversing the wagon looked up and replied, "Yes sir, I ensured that we have 5 pounds each for the spices and 10 pounds for the condiments."

Marcel was glad to have his assistant to load such spices as it would consist of cinnamon, coriander, sesame, rosemary, thyme and curry from the British-India traders. Each 1/8 of a pound costs 5c and there would be 40 pouches per pound with a grand total of 240 pouches 5 pounds altogether. It costs a total of 1200c or 12s just for the spices alone.

The condiments which were slightly cheaper consists of salt, sugar, black and white whole pepper with a total of 320 pouches for the 10 pounders. That would bring in a total of 960c or 9s 60c for the condiments.

"Sir, I had loaded 1 pound each for the 10 types of fruit seeds and 1 pound for the 30 kinds of vegetable seeds. Do you think that young master friend of yours would all these in?" the assistant asked as he deftly held the reins and pulled the horses to a standstill as they had travelled for quite some time and decided to have a short break before continuing.

"I am sure he would not mind since he would stock on these and since I got the message to bring anything, he would definitely clear these two wagons. We came full and we return full too."

These 240 pouches of vegetable seeds and 80 pouches of fruit seeds would surely bring us a profit of 4s 80c and 2s and 40c respectively. This amounts to a total of 57s and 30c. It is a tidy sum since its quite norm for him to make that kind of sum every time he visits GraceHaven.

In the end, he would have to sacrifice half of it to make the sales from GraceHaven and maybe he could have a proposal with the young master to actually allow him to have consignment goods on his subsequent trips.

"Hope he does have the proposed amount of goods that I would get from him. Anything more than that would be put as a consignment. Hope he agrees to this trade and hope we could have a better mutual understanding and trade agreement in the future."

He sat on the ground as his assistant made a small fire to fire up a kettle to boil to make some tea and have some ravelled bread for their midday meal which they dunked in their hot tea to soften it. The rest soon joined and had their meal since it would yet be another long journey before they would stop for the night and camped.

As Marcel munched the bread he had brought along from Corral, he dearly missed the bread from GraceHaven, not only was it soft and fluffy, but it had unique fillings in them as well.

"Aahh... I wish I'm biting into those soft and yummylicious bread from GraceHaven right now. Nom nom nom... How nice would it be to have those bread daily just for me alone, but instead I have to put up with the bakers who had no slightest initiative to bake bread of other variety."

"Never mind, just you wait you obnoxious, prideful bakers. Wait till you have a slice of those bread and you would all be kneeling before me. As for those nobles, non-meat fillings would be bought willingly at 5c and those with meat or fish fillings would be 8c."

"If I could wait a day for those bread to be freshly baked, it would be a killing once the public knows about it. Oooh... Why am I thinking of such things now, Marcel? Can't I just wait till the next day when we finally arrive there?"

Marcel wild thoughts and d.e.s.i.r.es can't be contained much longer as he thought of those soft bread that had been freshly baked at GraceHaven. Even though the bread was not moulded but instead just folded into two after being rolled, it would still be alright for him.

The more he thought about it, the more he wished to be in GraceHaven as soon as he can and sit and enjoy his finest bread with a bowl of mushroom soup. Nom... Nom... Nom...

=*=

"Right on, sir. We had felled a total of 16 trees for the first half of the day and now are sawing them off accordingly to size for the Planks. Each trunk would have 2 logs each and each log would be able to yield a minimum of 24 to 40 pieces of planks per foot in diameter of the base log and middle log."

"Oh? So that means 16 trees would make up of 2 logs each and yields a minimum of 24 planks. That would be a total of more than 750 planks minimum...! W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L...! The branches and top log could be made firewood, and how about these leaves? Could it be of some use?" I was astonished at the astronomical yield of planks per 16 trees on a half days worth of felling trees."

"If this goes on for a period of 5 days, the team would fell a total of 150 trees that yields almost 7,500 planks. Is that too much or just right for a domain?" I asked a stupid question, knowing that the building of a half open-air two levelled domain with 8 rooms would not need so much wood I think...!

"Hahaha... Sir, your mind really worked very fast indeed. In fact, we do not really need so many planks to build your domain, sir. We could sell the planks or use it for our own purposes. Who knows, in the future, we need to build two levelled barns for storage purposes." a young engineer replied as I laughed along with him while subconsciously scratch the sides of my face without feeling any itch.

Well, habits like mine are hard to get rid off especially in my case. It would be a form of foolishness shown in that simple body language and to hide my embarrassment as well.

"How about these leaves then? Would it be of some use?" I asked as the ground was literally littered with twigs smaller branches and lots of leaves.

"Fret no sir. Goats in the wild normally would be in their hind legs to eat leaves from branches as they favoured fresh green leaves rather than the brown dry ones. We would be putting these branches of leaves over at the goat's enclosure since they had been eyeing us since we fell those trees."

"Hahaha. Great... Simply great. At least not a single part of the tree is wasted. But other livestock don't eat leaves right?"

"No sir, horses don't eat leaves as well as pigs. Maybe they don't like greens? Hahaha."

"Hahaha. Nevertheless, well done, men. You really make me proud of such accomplishments. Not just you, but the whole citizens of Gracehaven makes me proud."

I lauded them as I clasped their shoulders in appreciation as they saluted me with their hands close to their c.h.e.s.t and hurried to help to saw the remaining logs and then transport it to the sawmill.

I was simply elated at how things are going at this moment and I am sure that the rest would feel happy too with their achievements. Even when the miners had raised the matter of heading towards the mines when things had lulled a bit.

However, the situation picked up once more and this made the citizens closer to their loved ones as they worked and toiled their sweat and tears for GraceHaven.

Jack had notified me earlier that he had no need for such ores yet since there was no demand for pig irons at the moment. Besides, his demand for metalworking was very minimal and all he had done so far was making the 4 cast iron oven doors from smelting some of the weapons that had been salvaged.

There was simply no trade demand for him to produce any parts at the moment as he wished to start making those. At times, he would find forging the pig irons tends to be pretty boring at times.

But the smell and heat from the coals in the furnace would lift his spirits once he got down to work on those raw ores before turning them into pig irons instead.