Banished Prince Charming

Chapter 90 - The First Sales Invoice

Marcel was too delighted that he can't characterize the way he was feeling at that time. It was an overall mix of euphoric joy, elation, happiness, achievements that could only be reaped with the echelons of other major sellers et cetera.

The way of doing business with the young master in front of him was simply incredible and he never knew that the offer he made was counter-offered with a much sweeter deal than he could imagine.

The one that caught his interest was the bread of course and he saw there were 80 loaves of bread with fillings of fruit and vegetables and 30 were of seasoned meat-filled ones.

Marcel saw that I could just simply slash the prices down to those much-anticipated ones, that he felt like jumping into the young master's arms and lands him kisses all over his face. Of course, we would not want that to happen right?

"My very good business partner, I've got a slight problem. The wagon that I have right now except for the dray from you, could not accommodate too many items on board."

"It has a height of two kegs high and I wish to have at least another 2 kegs high in order to transport your items over to Corral. If this is the case, I would transport what I could and the rest I would get my partners to come and take them away." Marcel discussed his opinions and feedback about the lack of space in the wagon.

"If I were to attach another wagon behind mine the time he did before, I am sure it would his problem but his horse would have a problem pulling it along." I thought to myself.

"How about I loan you a horse and wagon, your assistant could traverse one right?" I gave another point of view to provide a solution to his predicament.

"Actually, I don't know how to put it but I really not that well versed in traversing a horse-drawn wagon. The last time I did, and that was about a year and a half ago, my wagon wheels got stuck in a rut even though I could see it but I tried to see if I could manoeuvre around it."

"Also, I'm easily spooked if a horse got spooked and I even had ever lost a back wheel when I tried to traversed it through tight corners in the streets of Corral, and not to mention of backing up a laden wagon full of goods down the docks...!"

Marcel somewhat covered his face in embarrassment when he recalled those incidences and even the one when he backed his wagon into the waters off the dock...! It must be pretty hilarious if one witnessed that.

I looked around and saw a young engineer who was taking a short break after he had repeatedly swung the crank of the big saw blade. I called him over and told of the problem that Marcel faces at the moment.

"It's a small matter, Sir. All we need is to use these planks and....." the young engineer explained on how things worked by using the planks and some of the leftover wood to actually made a kind of hoarding to the sides of the wagon.

These hoardings would provide support for the sides of the wagon so it would load at least 2 feet higher than the present one. A rope would be thrown over the top and would be secured at the sides here. It would need some nails to drive two pieces of wood together to wedge the planks in between.

He then drew a simple ill.u.s.tration on the ground to show what he meant part by part and I was glad that Marcel had taken the idea of upgrading his wagon instead. In this way, he could be able to carry more load rather than to rely on the current height of the side hoardings.

I approved the ideas and implementations and requested for the young engineers to work right on it immediately for both of the wagons. The dray would be set aside first as we would not know how is the load-bearing since it is now on two wheels instead of four.

"Thank you, my dear friend. Without those engineers, I don't think it would be possible. Also, time is of the essence and I would take my leave once the bread is ready of course. Haha." Marcel laughed at his own joke as we understood that he would definitely not miss GraceHaven's loaves of bread at no matter what cost.

"Would you like to make a copy of this so that at least you are aware of the changes in price and able to gain quite a profit margin than before? Besides, we are also pending on you for future sales as well. Would you like to come in next week? Just to bring the loaves of bread in?"

"Sure, get me a piece of paper and I will copy the whole script that you had written. This looks more presentable than the first one though. Maybe because if different paper and writing apparatus?"

"That would be the case, Marcel. Take your time and I will compare and then countersign. The initial one would be kept by me for future references, so do you, my business partner."

"I will be with you in a jiffy. I've got to see something and then head back here, alright?"

I excused myself and handed Marcel with a piece of paper and a piece of halved bamboo to act as a ruler as he made the necessary lines and copy down the list of items accordingly.

=*=

As I go through the items that were displayed on the benches with slips of papyrus underneath each item, I was able to recall to those helpers around to slowly load the items. The heaviest would be the clay bricks and it would be halved into the wagons accordingly. At least the horses shared the weight.

The side hoardings were immediately been put up and stacks of planks were inserted in between the hoardings that it was able to stack up to an additional 3 feet high.

"You poor thing, let me get you another few more loaves of bread for your journey back OK? Then you can tell your friends on how well we treat you and feed you quality high fibre bread because of your hard work." I patted the horse's head and stroke its mane as it seemed to understand me and nodded several times and raised its front right hoof and 'hoofed' the ground.

"How times fly... Its already past midday. No wonder I saw throngs of citizens gathering to take their meal in batches." I thought to myself as I observed the stick I had plunged in the ground with a clearly marked 'W' and 'E' had a shadow leading towards west now. It was almost half a foot already.

"Sir, I would like to point out something, if I may." Eagle approached me and gave a salute before he addressed me.

"Go ahead, Eagle... Please proceed." I simply replied approvingly and he continued, "The 5 new engineers had already fine through the orientation of the sawmill operations. They are now taking their rest and would be up and about by dinner time. Would you like me to partake in the conference and introduce the 5 new members of Shadow to the citizens tonight?"

"Oh... So fast? Meaning they would be working throughout the night till break of dawn then? That's mighty helpful on your part, Eagle. The process would be quicken and they would be able to finish all the slicing of the planks and then be able to complete the finishings."

"I am truly thankful for your initiative of getting more manpower, with this addition of 5 men, our population has finally hit 5 citizens. So once the domain is complete, the 5 men would be retained and support the security and defence of this village?"

"That's right, Sir. They would be deployed here accordingly. No worries, Sir. These men were my students before in the Academy so when they decided to embark on this journey of theirs, they already had sealed their allegiance for GraceHaven and your Majesty."

"I am not yet king so you don't have to address me as Majesty, the highest would just be Your Lordship as the honorific," I explained to Eagle and he nodded his head and gave me a salute to his c.h.e.s.t as to acknowledge my wishes.

"One more thing, is the lady still under house arrest? Could you send her to the loom to be a loomer, supporting the Chadwell who was alone at the moment? At least one manpower is not wasted to idle and do nothing."

"Yes Sir, your wish is my command. I will release her if her house arrest later and send her down to the loom myself. I agree with you about her being left to waste, she is already going half-crazy since she can't leave the house and I observed she had been constantly rolling on the floor, talking and laughing to herself."

"I think one more day would definitely make her a total clunker..." responded Eagle as he agrees on my idea. Either he agreed because it was a good idea or was it because of my status. Whatever it is, I'm sure that Michelle would be better off working at something rather than counting the weaving of her thatched walls.

=*=

"Sorry mate, gone to check on things on my rounds. Have you gotten everything down as your own personal copy?" I inquired as I tapped Marcel shoulder and led him away from the outdoor dining area.

"Come with me, I will explain to you the progress of this village and what I envision for it to come in the coming months..." I ushered Marcel down to the area where the men were chopping the trees and by the second day, they had cleared a substantial part of the woods meant to build the domain.

I walked with him to the right side where the farmlands stood and he watched at the way the irrigation system that we implemented. "It's easy because we are near the riverbanks..." and showed Marcel how it was done just a few halved bamboo poles and also the drainage grooves made in the planting areas.

We then moved to the production area for the residential structures and down to the weaving production area as well as the hunting bows and fishing poles. He was taken aback at how things were organised in each station as citizens lined up doing one part and then passed down to the next station to be completed and so on.

"This system of yours sure is much better than letting one person complete a single structure by him or herself. No wonder you could make the prefabricated structures in a short period of time." I simply nodded and then I asked him a serious question for his help.

"Marcel, this village takes educating the young very important. Do you have any slates for the teachers to teach and also slates for the children to write and practise? I really need them and don't know where I could acquire it."

"I do not have such slates but there are slate mines in Wales, Cromwall, somewhere in Delabole may have them. What kind of sizes are you looking at, and If they are available, how many do you need?"

"One big slate for the teacher to write and explain and a dozen small slates for the students. Deduct the price from the sales order, there's 12g, right? I don't think the slate would be that expensive. It's like the classrooms back in university in York."

"Rest assured my friend, I will notify them once I get back to Corral and send you a message using the carrier?"

"That would be great... That would be great." I clasped Marcel shoulders and watched at the side of the courtyard as the men loaded the goods while the assistants counted them off.

The new hoardings that were fixed around the wagons make it look taller than it usually did, and due to its practicality, the modifications were soon picked up by the merchants all over Corral.