《America's Knight》 Life Anew ¡°Another day, another dollar.¡± I said with a sigh as I reached over and turned off the alarm clock. ¡°I¡¯m never drinking again.¡± The pain lessened now that the loud noise bashing against my hung-over head ceased. All the late nights trying to make the recent divorce go away were starting to catch up to me. The booze helped or at least that¡¯s how I rationalized it. Sometimes I wondered about that as my mornings lately had been filled with aspirin, cold showers, and regrets. After wallowing in my self pity for long enough I got up drained a the few aspirin left in the bottle of aspirin on my nightstand without the aid of water. I then dragged myself carefully out of the bed and jumped in the shower. After the shower, and the shock of cold water woke me up from my daze, I went to the mirror to assess whether or not shaving would be necessary. I hadn¡¯t in almost a week and found that it was getting almost to the point of a beard. ¡°Ah hell women dig stubble¡± I said to myself procrastinating again. I brushed my teeth quickly then spent a minute trying to find the cleanest clothes I could find. I still hadn¡¯t got the hang of doing my own laundry again and the picking were getting slim. I threw on a decent pair of pants and after a sniff test a shirt that smelled clean. Then I went out to the street. London¡¯s population was going about their business completely oblivious to the foreigner in their midst. Honestly though I didn¡¯t stand out until I started talking. My accent held the tell tale signs of my Appalachian origins. The sticky feeling of humidity immediately made me uncomfortable. The sidewalk was wet from the heavy rain the night before and it combined with the summer sun was making my life miserable. I had only been in London for a week and was still getting used to the weather. London had rain and lots of it, I had already decided even I could be a weatherman here. It was a beautiful city though, with loads of History and best of all, no Rebecca. Rebecca was my ex and I had flown halfway across the world to get away from her. I was still getting used to all the activity in London as well. I grew up in the Appalachian mountains where the largest city I lived didn¡¯t even come close to London¡¯s size. I was even new to using a taxi. I still resorted to waving my arms like a mad man trying to hail one. ¡°Taxi¡± I said waving my arms causing people walking down the sidewalk to stare. The taxi was one of those ¡°quaint¡± black ones I had only seen in the movies. The driver was a middle aged man of probably German descent. He wore a shirt at least a size too small revealing a belly and he had long since lost the will to comb what little hair remained on his head. He kept his Cab spotless both inside and out though. It smelled of cleaning solution and faint cigarette smoke, which I believe was coming from him and not the cab. I told him to take me to the Bloody Knuckle Garage. ¡°Right away, Sir¡± the cabby said in a British accent. I love their accents. I was on my way to my new job. My college drinking buddy, Charles, whose family owned a garage here, offered me one. He had somehow convinced me to hop on a plane and fly thousands of miles for a mechanic gig. A couple of years ago the idea would have seemed mad. Honestly it didn¡¯t take convincing, I needed a change of scenery. It was only my third day at the Broken Knuckle as I had spent the first few days playing tourist. Charles had spent the whole weekend taking me to what he referred to as the real London. A few clubs here and a few pubs there had left a very foggy picture of what the real London was. It was a beautiful city full of history and amazing stories, which I have always been a sucker for. London went back to even pre-roman times and was one of the longest inhabited sites in the world. It had seen numerous conquerors come and go and it still was here. My reminiscing was short lived as I arrived at my destination only a few minutes after sitting down. Luckily traffic wasn¡¯t too bad as it could take a lot longer on some days. I realized I didn¡¯t have cash to pay the cabby as I started to get out my wallet. I hadn¡¯t been here long enough to get used to Euros, all I had left was US currency. Luckily plastic travels. My budget wasn¡¯t going to last long at this rate and I knew I was going to need to find a cheaper way of commuting. Charles suggested a liquor-cycle, in other words a scooter, but my pride would never let me on one. I might just start walking as it was only around 2 miles between my apartment and the Knuckle but that would mean waking up earlier which might prove impossible. As I walked to the garage I spotted a new Ferrari 458 pulling in. It¡¯s red paint and polished wheels were glistening in the sun like freshly cut diamonds. The driver was getting out as I passed by and I got a whiff of the smell of fine leather that blew the doors off of ¡°new car smell¡±. The seats alone were worth more than I made in 3 or 4 months. ¡°One day I¡¯ll be able to afford the shit I work on¡± I said under my breath as I got out of earshot. Apparently the guy who owned it went way back with Charles. I had only met him once but he came across as a real douche. You know the type, too much time in the tanning bed and the gym and not enough using his brain. He won the genetic lottery though as his parents were some of the wealthiest people in London. Daddy bought him the Ferrari for a graduation present. A graduation only 7 years in the making for a bachelor''s degree. The Bloody Knuckle wasn¡¯t much to look at but it did give me a decent paying job. Every time I see it though I can¡¯t help but chuckle. This is not how at all how I pictured my life turning out. I think back to those stupid ¡°what will you be in 10 years¡± papers they used to make us write in high school. I didn¡¯t write that I wanted to be a mechanic in jolly ol¡¯ England. When I was in the States I did a little bit of everything. Having the unfortunate disposition of getting bored easily, I¡¯ve had a half a dozen jobs in the last 10 years. I even opened my own garage which in turn pretty much ended my marriage. ¡°Hey Arthur, the Caddy in the far bay needs the water pumped replaced¡± Charles said as I walked in. ¡°Sure thing boss man¡± I said. I met Charles in my college days. We had both been walk ons for the football team after I convinced him to after learning that he played rugby. It needs a similar athlete as a linebacker. He was pretty good at it too judging by the videos I saw of him. He never did make the active roster but he had a ton of heart as coaches used to say. He ended up sharing a dorm room with me our freshman year. Mostly our college education involved fast cars and loose women and Charles was my wingman through it all. Well at least until the string of loose women led me to marriage. It¡¯s amazing how the things women fall in love with are the reasons they hate you in a marriage. She loved the bad boy until she was married to him. But I digress. Charles and I fell apart after the wedding and I hadn¡¯t seen him since he moved back to London. He was born and raised here but he wanted to study abroad. I always thought it was silly because everyone knew (including Charles) that he would just take over the family garage once they retired. His parents had been thrilled. No one in the family ever went to college before. Sometimes parents outsmart themselves.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. All it accomplished was he met me and my nefarious ways wore off on him. That¡¯s why there is always a joint or two on him now that we enjoyed on break. ¡°And the Rollback is running bloody fantastic. You¡¯ve got the magic touch.¡± Charles said. ¡°That¡¯s what the ladies keep telling me,¡± I said with a grin. Honestly the Ladies around here weren¡¯t letting me touch them much at all. It was beginning to piss me off. I just rationalized that it was the accent. I can sound like a redneck, it¡¯s the Appalachian American in me. Changing the water pump took the better part of the day. After lunch I started working on Charles 67¡¯ Porsche that I had been rebuilding the motor on. At 6 we got off and I took a quick shower. Before leaving I started looking for Charles. ¡°Hey Charles, are we going to down some draft tonight or what?¡± I said while slapping his back when. ¡°Does the pope shit in the woods?¡± Charles replied with a grin. We headed down to our watering hole, the Salty Dog. Some of the Local University girls frequent it and it was one of the few pubs in England that had decent whiskey. ¡°For Queen and Country¡± I said to Charles as I walked in. The Salty Dog was your average English Pub. Tacky stained glass windows, a replica of a hunting rifle on the wall, and the musky smell of cheap cigars and cheaper booze. There was one notable exception tonight to the usual sights and smells. She caused my eyes along with it seemed every other man¡¯s in the room to lock in one place. Her auburn hair flowed over her shoulders. She was shorter only around 5 feet tall with a shapely figure. Her clothes suggested she was a working woman as she was wearing a pantsuit. I noticed that she was alone and had multiple drink glasses in front of her. She was at the bar but I doubt she was there for company. ¡°Dibs on the redhead¡± Charles said. I knew a lost cause when I saw one. Any woman that good looking would have company in a room full of men if she wanted it. Charles on the other hand¡­. ¡°Don¡¯t forget to roll up that dangling tongue of yours otherwise it might get tangled in your feet.¡± I said chuckling. I walked over to the Bar and ordered a shot of whiskey. When it arrived Charles sat down beside me. He looked like someone ran over his puppy. ¡°Bloody hell. I have met cold women but damn she would make your pecker break off if it got too close.¡± He said. ¡°She does look like she has ¡°Fuck off¡± tattooed on her forehead¡± I said. She started writing on her napkin and I realized she must be working on something. Maybe she works at the University. She looked to be around my age and I have been out of College for close to a decade so most likely she was not a student. Whatever she was working on was consuming her whole attention span. Numerous other men walked up to her only to be brushed off as quickly as Charles. She barely looked up at them while she did it. For about half a second I thought about pulling some Hero routine walking over and seeing if I could help her with whatever she was working on. ¡°Hah¡± I said laughing at my own stupidity. ¡°What?¡± Charles said. ¡°Nothing just laughing at your grace with women.¡± This caused him to throw a straw at me which I playfully knocked back. After a few brews Charles decided to play some pool, so I ordered us a few more beers while he racked the balls. As I took the mugs of beer over I could have sworn I saw the redhead looking my way but I dismissed it as unlikely. We played a few games and they were over pretty quickly. I used to hustle pool and Charles had never been any good. After getting beat so bad it destroyed what little interest he had in playing so he decided to call it a night. ¡°What? It¡¯s early. Do you go to bed with your grandma or something? It¡¯s not even 10.¡± I said. ¡°Your pissin me off winning every game. You have my blood pressure boiling. I¡¯d hate to take a swing at you and you go all Bruce Lee on me.¡± He said knowing that I studied various martial arts in my younger days. ¡°You should head home too. You¡¯re the best damn mechanic I¡¯ve ever met but that doesn¡¯t mean you can show up with a hangover every day.¡± ¡°Yeah yeah. Let me get one more and I¡¯ll head out.¡± I said knowing he was right. You gotta grow up someday. After he left, I walked to the bar and ordered another Beer. As I did I swore I saw the redhead looking at me again before she quickly looked away. At this point I had enough liquid courage in me to go talk to her. So I asked the Bartender what she was drinking and got one and took it to her. ¡°You look like you could use another drink.¡± I said trying to lay on my most charming southern accent and smile. ¡°Go away. I have no interest in you or your genitals.¡± She said barely even looking up. ¡°Ouch you know you could hurt someone with that wit.¡± I said as I sat down confidently next to her. ¡°Did I say you could sit next to me?¡± She said. ¡°You didn¡¯t say I couldn¡¯t either. I¡¯m kind of persistent.¡± I said grinning ¡°I noticed. You must be American.¡± She said returning to the napkin. ¡°Yeah we don¡¯t give up easily. What are you working on there anyway? Anything I could help with?¡± Dammit so much for not looking like an ass. ¡°None of your damn business.¡± ¡°Oh secrets? Now you really do have me interested¡± I said while rolling my eyebrows mischievously. ¡°It¡¯s not that. It¡¯s just. Oh alright, if it will get you to leave me alone. Do you know what antimatter is?¡± She asked confidently in the fact that I wouldn¡¯t. ¡°You mean the stuff that Star Trek ships run off of? Isn¡¯t it the stuff that if you combine it and matter it will release tons of energy? E=MC^2 and all that.¡± I knew I would look like an ass. She laughed at that which I didn¡¯t know whether to be offended by or just glad that I made her laugh. ¡°Crude way of describing it but yes actually. They have a particle collider in Geneva that can create some of it by smashing atoms together at near the speed of light. It can only produce small amounts though, individual atoms really, but if we could produce enough of it there is theoretically no limits to what you could do with it. It could be the solution for unlimited energy or even power those Star Trek ships you were talking about.¡± Again she laughed ¡°I have been working on a new way of producing it at the university.¡± ¡°Amazing and to think Internal Combustion used to be state of the Art. It seemed to be a pipe dream when I heard about it though. Doesn¡¯t it take huge amounts of energy to make it. It reminds me of the hydrogen car problem.¡± ¡°Well I¡¯m working on a way to create useful quantities of it without loads of energy or a collider but it¡¯s how do I put this without hurting your hubris? It''s way over your head. But thanks.¡± ¡°My hubris is well intact, madam. I care not that you are smarter than I¡± I said in a British accent that she couldn¡¯t help but laugh at. My god what a beautiful smile. ¡°Honestly, it''s surprising you could even follow that conversation. Most couldn¡¯t.¡± She said. ¡° I have been interested in theoretical physics for a while. Not to the point I studied it or anything but I do think it¡¯s fascinating. Especially the multiverse theory.¡± I said as I kept digging the ignorance hole deeper and hoping I didn¡¯t fall into it. ¡°You know about the MV theory?¡± She said, shocked. ¡°Don¡¯t judge a book by its cover, mam. I find the theory interesting. Every mistake you made in your life you didn¡¯t in another universe because you made the opposite choice, what person wouldn¡¯t be interested in it. It makes Human Action so much more exciting if you think it affects the future. Destiny is a drag.¡± That cut a little close to home as I spoke it. ¡°Yes we all have made choices we regret I¡¯m sure¡± She said looking sad. ¡°It also makes time travel theoretically possible. Causality wouldn¡¯t be violated if it just spawned a new universe. The old universe would continue as normal and a new one would emerge. I always thought of it kind of like a forking tree.¡± ¡°Oh come now, time travel is impossible Einstein proved that.¡± She said as her nose literally went towards the sky. ¡°Mam, the scientific world was absolutely convinced just a little over a century ago that powered flight was impossible. Same thing with a controlled nuclear reaction. The biggest granddaddy of all miscalculations of accepted science was there is no way we can go to space or the Moon. Hell the very thing you¡¯re working on was merely theorized about a couple of decades ago. Why can¡¯t time travel be possible eventually?¡± ¡°Why can¡¯t pigs fly? They just can¡¯t.¡± I could come back with something about aerodynamics and weight not to mention the obvious lack of wings but that seemed pointless. After a few moments of silence it started getting awkward and she sure didn¡¯t try to bail me out. So considering I definitely wasn¡¯t getting the ¡°come back to my place¡± vibe from her, I downed the rest of my beer and decided to hit the dusty trail. ¡°Nice to meet you... Damn I forgot to get your name.¡± ¡°Rebecca¡± She said. I¡¯ll be, kiss my ass another one. ¡°Nice to meet you Rebecca, the names Arthur Collins. I guess I¡¯ve worn out my welcome hope to see you around.¡± Well that was lame, I thought as I started walking to the door before I did anything more foolish. ¡°Say, if you''re not busy tomorrow I¡¯ll be conducting an experiment in the afternoon at the University. If you want to, stop by.¡± ¡°Sounds like a nip right off the still, I mean sounds like fun. I¡¯ll have to check the schedule with the boss but if I can I¡¯ll be there.¡± She laughed again. ¡°What do you do anyway?¡± ¡°Me mam? I¡¯m a fixer.¡± What lightning through yonder glass cube breaks! I talked Charles into letting me have the afternoon off. I didn¡¯t tell him why of course. I figured that would be the best way to make sure he didn¡¯t let me off. I took a taxi as it would be a pretty long walk and the sky was threatening rain. When I arrived at the University I stopped to ask a security guard where I could find her. ¡°You mean Professor Rockefeller? She had an experiment scheduled but it got pushed back to 5.¡± ¡°Pushed back? Why?¡± ¡°I was told it was due to safety reasons. That''s between the day and night classes.¡± This should have been a warning sign. With hours to kill I went to the library. I read up on some things that I had been meaning to check into. I had even brought along my backpack so I could borrow some books. It might seem silly but it is kind of my lucky charm. I used it all the time on my ultralight single day hikes. It always had my ultralight hammock and tarp along with some other essentials like fire starters just in case I took a spur of the moment trip. On one such hike, I slipped and fell down a steep bank and almost went over the cliff at the bottom. Somehow the bag snagged on a bush and stopped me not 15 feet from the ledge. I also got lost but luckily the pack had come with a cheap compass/whistle that I had never used. With it I found my way back and immediately upon returning home I absorbed survival techniques for field orientation from the internet. Getting lost in the woods is scary as hell. While I was at the Library I found a couple of books I wanted to borrow. The first was on permaculture which is an organic gardening technique. I had quite the garden back in the States to the chagrin of my neighbors. That was one of the few hobbies the wife actually supported. She had her selfish reasons because she had an almost unhealthy obsession with tomatoes. I also found what I was really interested in, a book on England''s history. I was an avid history buff and knew the highlights but outside of the World Wars and Colonialism I didn¡¯t know much. I had read a little in a brochure but that was mostly about the Tower and the complex and didn¡¯t really wet my appetite. I checked the books out and left the library. After some searching I found a nice quiet place to light up a joint to pass the time while reading. A little before 5 I walked to the physics building and found Rebecca¡¯s Lab. I was the only person that came. I guess that was the only reason she invited me. She figured I always thought with the wrong head and she wanted at least one person there. ¡°She¡¯s right,¡± I said to myself grinning. When I entered her lab, I immediately noticed some strange equipment. In the center of the room there was a square clear box made of glass. It was around 6¡¯ foot cubed as it only came up to my nose and I¡¯m 6¡¯3¡±. Inside the box was a waist high clear tube with what appeared to be a box made of lead on top of it. The lead box had some all kinds of lasers pointed at it and what seemed to be metal pipes coming out the top. The pipes went out to gas cylinders outside next to the computer. The clear box had what appeared to be a vacuum pump hooked up to it. After a few minutes trying to figure out what the hell this thing''s purpose was, Rebecca came into the room. She somehow looked even better than the night before even with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing glasses and in a lab coat. I¡¯ve always been a sucker for a girl in glasses. ¡°I¡¯m glad you came, Looks like you¡¯re the only one who did.¡±Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. I say the human race is pushed forward by the people who don¡¯t listen to naysayers. ¡°Well when you¡¯re rich and famous you can shove it in their faces.¡± I said trying to cheer her up. ¡°I doubt that. Most of my colleagues are afraid something might go wrong.¡± She said trying not to look hurt but failing. Intellectuals get their feelings hurt when other intellectuals shun them. ¡°It does seem to be similar to Icarus flying with his wings made of feathers and wax. If you¡¯re not careful you could be burned by the sun.¡± I said. ¡°You know Greek mythology as well. You are full of surprises Arthur.¡± ¡°What can I say? I¡¯m a little bit of a history buff. I figure if you learn the mistakes of the past you are less likely to make them yourself.¡± I said hoping it didn¡¯t come off as a clich¨¦. ¡°I agree completely. Icarus succeeded in flying if you remember he just got cocky¡± ¡°And I¡¯m sure we don¡¯t have to worry about that from you¡± ¡°Of course not. Now I¡¯m going to start up the experiment.¡± She said turning to her computer. As she entered a few keystrokes on the keyboard the lasers started to hit the lead box. Then she opened the gas cylinder up and I heard a hiss as gas went through the regulator on the tank to the top of the box. Then she hit another few keys and the Vacuum pump started. At first nothing happened but after what seemed like an eternity the lead box started glowing red. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck raise up and the most peculiar sensation passed through me. The nearest I could describe it was like touching a Tesla coil. Tesla coils emit extremely high voltage but so low in amps that it doesn¡¯t harm you. Tesla actually invented it to demonstrate this as people at the time were afraid of high voltage AC power (which he invented). The whole room started to progressively get louder and louder. The lead box started to literally float in the air a few inches and then the whole container started to erupt what could best be described as lightning. A bolt narrowly missed Rebecca causing her to duck. She started frantically hitting the keyboard trying to shut it down. Then a lightning bolt hit the computer and it exploded into flames. She fell backwards in shock but luckily I was close enough to catch her. ¡°Rebecca we have to get the Hell out of here.¡± I shouted over the noise. She looked back at me with wide eyed terror. ¡°I can''t stop and it has to be stopped. The energy in that space could wipe out the school and part of London.¡± ¡°And you¡¯re messing with it in one of the largest cities in the world? Are you insane? Hell Icarus ain''t got nothin on you.¡± I said feeling absolutely amazed at the turn of events I found myself in. Frantically I look around for something to cut the power cord. Within seconds I spotted a fire axe across the room. I ran to it and shattered the protective glass in front of it. Once I had the axe out a lightning bolt hit the wall not 3 feet from my head. ¡°Shit!¡± I said as my way too late reflexes caused me to duck. I ran back to Rebecca, ducking as lightning streaked by. Intellectually I knew that I could not dodge something moving near the speed of light. You can¡¯t Matrix bullets in real life either but we all flinch when we hear a shot. ¡°Listen get the Hell out of here. I¡¯m going to cut the power cord then run like the Devil himself is after me.¡± I Shouted over all the noise. ¡°If you cut the power it could cause it to explode. I will do it, you run. It is my responsibility.¡± ¡°No way in hell. If I have to kick your ass down the hallway I will but you''re leaving. It¡¯s not up for debate.¡± ¡°You¡¯re impossible.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what the ladies keep telling me,¡± I said with a grin. ¡°Now get!¡± She grabbed me by the collar and pulled me to her. Then she kissed me with such passion that I just sat there with an open mouth as she ran out the door. Shaking my head to regain my focus I rushed to where the power cord was. After 5 or 6 swings I was through the huge anaconda of a cord. I then looked down at my now drenched shirt and realized I was sweating like a politician on the stand. My first thought was that I might just have made myself a human lightning rod. I didn¡¯t worry long as within seconds the machine let out a loud high pitch scream and it started to hiss and pop. The whole atmosphere seemed to be sizzling and full of electrical charge. I also started to feel like I was getting lighter. It was as if Gravity itself was breaking down. ¡°I think that¡¯s my signal to get the hell out,¡± I said. I started to run towards the exit when I noticed my backpack on the floor where I had set it down. I grabbed it off the floor as I ran towards the open door. I ran as fast as my legs would take me but when I was just through the doorway there was a loud noise and everything went black. When the Hell am I? A noise jolted me awake. Slowly consciousness, along with a shooting pain, crept back into my mind. As I blinked the sleep from my eyes I looked around haphazardly in confusion. The sensation of waking up in a strange place disoriented me. Slowly, the fog of sleep drifted away and I was able to remember where I was. Or at least where I should be. I looked down at the blanket wrapped around me only to realize that it was actually an animal hide. I threw it off in surprise and felt a jolt as cold air hit what I discovered to be my half naked body. The cold was so intense my teeth started chattering uncontrollably. I looked around frantically for my clothes. The ¡°house¡± I was in was little more than a handmade shack. The roof was a mixture of straw and mud supported by rough cut logs. All the ¡°furniture¡± in the room looked like it was made by the Swiss Family Robinson and made of little more than sticks and rough cut lumber. ¡°Where the hell am I?¡± I asked out loud to no one, having the nervous habit of talking to myself. ¡°This place even has dirt floors. These guys have got to be Hippies.¡± When I rose up there was an immediate and sharp pain in my side and my head started swimming. I looked down at the side of my stomach and noticed a deep purple bruise the size of a melon. Then running my hand through my hair I found there was a lump. I removed my hand from my hair and was relieved to find there was no blood. After looking around for a few seconds I saw my missing clothes on a chair at the far end of the room beside a fireplace. A better word for it would be firepit as it lay in the middle of the room with no chimney. There was a fire going through it and the smoke rose up and went through a simple opening in the ceiling. I got up and went to retrieve my clothes. Once I had my pants on I fished my smartphone out of my pocket and turned it on. I discovered that there was no signal at all. I put on the pants and t-shirt and looked around for the boots. ¡°Is anyone there?¡± I shouted but got no reply. I saw an opening that appeared to be an exit as I could see light leaking around it. Next to it on the floor I saw my steel-toed work boots. The ¡°Door¡± was another animal skin and I discovered as I neared it smelled like roadkill. I pushed the hide aside and stepped outside and was greeted by the most bizarre scene. It was a village complete with livestock and peasants. In fact I almost ran into a woman guiding a heifer as I left the shack. She was wearing what could best be described as a woolen dress but that was giving it too much credit. It had more in common with a potato sack then a dress. Her hair was greasy, unkempt, and had mud caked in it from days or weeks of neglect. At least I hoped that was mud. ¡°Morning mam. Where exactly am I? I seem to be¡­..¡± I didn¡¯t even finish before she ran away as fast as she could dropping the rope and leaving the cow behind in her wake. ¡°What did I say?¡± Not wanting the cow to get away, I grabbed the rope she had dropped. Having spent my summers on a farm I knew just how hard it could be to catch a cow that didn¡¯t want to be caught. No one wants to spend a couple frustrating hours doing that. ¡°I must be in one of those historic tourist traps. I¡¯ll be damned.¡± I said to himself as he tied the rope to the corner post of the shack he had just left. As I started looking around a gust of wind cut right through him chilling me to the bone. This caused the shivering to return in full force and I didn¡¯t have a jacket as it had been in the 60¡¯s even in the morning the whole week since I arrived in London. I was convinced this was the strangest weather I had ever seen. I looked up at the dark grey sky and saw a few snowflakes drifting lazily in the wind. ¡°Snow? In mid May? What the hell?¡± I said as I wrapped my arms around my body tightly to try and stay warm. The village I was in was made up of a number of shacks and what appeared to be a small barn that was taller. They all were built using the same materials and other than a slight difference in size I couldn''t tell any difference between one and another. As i passed through the open i was forced to bend over as the opening was a full half a foot too short for my head to clear. As I looked around I couldn¡¯t help but hold my nose as the stench of the village was awful. Speaking of smelling ripe, I stopped one of the wannabe peasants passing by and the smell almost knocked me down. I spotted another peasant and was about to ask him, when a scream went out across the village. I ran to where it originated. As it turned out, it was the shack next door to where I awoke. As I approached, a half naked girl ran out being pursued by what appeared to be a Knight. The girl couldn¡¯t have been more than 16 or 17. Her dress or whatever that tattered rag had been wasn¡¯t covering up anything. It hung onto her by only a few threads as it had been ripped to shreds. The Knight was wielding a sword and wore chainmail. Or at least the top half did anyway. I seemed to have caught him with his pants down quite literally. He was so intent on catching his prey he didn¡¯t notice me standing with my jaw dropped not 10 feet from him. I started to get pissed. You don¡¯t want to get me pissed. ¡°Stop it dammit.¡± I shouted out with a tone of voice that would make dad proud. The Knight did stop and turned to me with a look that would melt concrete. But on seeing my size he visibly whitened. He was probably only 5¡¯9¡± at best so I was at least a half foot taller than him. He began just staring at me. At first I thought he was intimidated by my size but I soon realized he was staring at my T-shirt. I had bought it at a souvenir shop on my first day in London. It was supposed to be the coat of arms of my Surname, Collins, but I figured it was just tourist crap. What can I say the girl who worked there was flirting with me and said I looked good in it. He must have recognized it for he threw down his gauntlet. Then threw me his sword seeing that I was unarmed. Everyone knew what that meant and I suddenly felt nervous. ¡°Ah well it must be a show or something. Probably a fake battle to please the tourists.¡± Though I was growing more confused by the second as to where those tourists were hiding. I picked up the sword and he went back into the shack. Soon he returned with another sword. He could take the time to do this but still not put his pants on, talk about commitment. After seeing that I had picked up the sword he didn¡¯t waste time talking. Instead he lunged at me swinging his sword like a madman. I trained for over a decade in multiple different fighting styles in my younger days but unfortunately sword fighting wasn¡¯t one of them. Other than two meetings with the fencing club (cute girl I liked was a member) I had never even held a sword. All I could do was do my best to block his attacks. He was swinging away like mad and I couldn¡¯t find an opening at all. ¡°Screw this¡± I said as I blocked an attack. Then I just went MMA on his ass. I did a leg sweep causing him to lose his balance and fall over. When he was down I jumped on top of him. As I had him pinned down I pried the sword from his hand. Then I punched him repeatedly, until he quit wiggling, as gramps used to say. In doing so I probably broke his nose but he would be fine otherwise. ¡°That will teach you.¡± I said getting up and dusting myself off. At least that''s what I wanted everyone to think I was doing. Honestly I had been checking to see if I was cut anywhere. One of those swings caught some t-shirt and ripped a tear a few inches long. Luckily it hadn¡¯t hit me. As I looked around I couldn¡¯t see the girl anywhere. She must have taken the opportunity to beat it into the next county. The peasants had stopped what they were doing to watch the fight. Some even cracked a smile but they all returned working after watching the fight and none of them helped the Knight. I knew at this point something was off. If this were a historical reenactment surely they would have stopped the act if one of their friends was knocked out. Then there was that attempted Rape. What asshole would think up something that authentic.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Then there was the obvious problem, where were the Tourists? Or maybe it''s me, have I lost it? I thought but dismissed it almost immediately as unproductive. If I was crazy, me worrying about it wasn¡¯t going to help. The only other option seemed even more ridiculous. I really was in the past. If that is the case I¡¯m screwed. Hitting a Knight was kind of frowned on since last time I checked I wasn¡¯t a Noble. It could mean death if I was caught. I decided I better get the hell out of there before anyone came to check on the Knight. If I found a cell signal it would mean I was wrong and I would call an ambulance (and the cops). If I didn¡¯t, well I just tried not to think about it. I decided to take his armor just in case. About the time I got the chainmail over his head he started to thrash around. On instinct I kneed him in what I presumed to be his nose and he crumpled again. After I had gotten the under-padding off I found he was as broad shouldered as I was. His upper body was heavily scarred and muscular and he definitely had a few extra pounds on him but we were close enough size for chainmail to fit. Even though the Knight was much shorter than me it fit, albeit a tad snug. That had surprised me as I had based his size off those chicken legs he had. He also was older at least in his 50¡¯s. His scalp was completely bald except for the base of his skull. His face was weathered with a scar running from cheek to ear and one from his neck to his other ear. This guy had definitely been cut a few times by something sharp. As I got done removing the last of the man¡¯s armor I realized I had now left an aging man almost naked and it¡¯s snowing. I couldn¡¯t do that, as he would freeze to death in this weather. I dragged him into the shack the Knight and girl came from. It turned out to be almost identical to the one I awoke in, right down to the straw mattress and hide blankets. Once inside I dragged the Knight to the bed. Then pulled back the hides and found my backpack under them which filled me with relief. I had been afraid I had lost it and it had most of the things I own in it. I pulled the backpack out and put the Knight in the bed. As I started to pick up the pack, I noticed a large black singe mark on the back. ¡°Damn that was a close call. That could have killed me if my lucky pack hadn¡¯t saved me again.¡± After looking around a few seconds I found the rest of the Knights armor on a chair. The Knight was short so it still left a few inches on my legs dangerously exposed but fit otherwise. The trousers were much too small and they also wreaked so I put the greaves over my blue jeans. Underneath it all I also found his coin purse. I looked in it to discover roughly a hundred silver pieces. They ranged from the size of a penny to that of a silver dollar. I would wager that there was close to 5 or 6 pounds all together. They looked like they had been stamped instead of cast so they didn¡¯t look like any silver pieces I ever had seen. Gramps was an avid collector so I have seen quite a few. Being stamped would make them at least several centuries old. They looked worn but nowhere near that old. This really had me worried. Silver hasn¡¯t been used as currency for over half a century. These had to be from far before then even and no one would go that far for a reenactment. I put it out of my mind and continued looking for anything else of value I could find. His boots were next to the chair but I decided against taking them. They looked uncomfortable and small. They were armored though and mine only armored in the toes being steel toed. I was wearing my good work boots which were durable and comfortable so I decided to use them instead as the armored but tiny ones of the knight. There would be a lot of walking in my future if I was right and aching tired feet could get me killed. When I collected myself and everything I now own, I left the shack. I started to leave the village when I decided I better take a sword as well. I judged them both and decided the Knight had shafted me so I took the one he had been using. It felt better in the hand and was better balanced not to mention it was better maintained. I took the other and then threw it into the woods once I got to the trail. As I did I looked back at the village. I still didn¡¯t even know where I was, I thought as the sight of the village shocked me again. From this vantage point I got to see just how primitive it really was. It was surrounded by acres of land where I assumed they harvested wheat. It was cut short so I assume it was before spring. On the hill overlooking the fields and village was a wood castle. There was a river running beside it but it was nowhere near the size of London¡¯s most prominent natural feature, the Thames. The village itself was nowhere near big enough. Even back in the middle ages it had been the largest city in the country. There were at most a dozen buildings, most of which were the same as the shack I awoke in. This couldn¡¯t be it and that meant I could be anywhere. ¡°I could be in Germany for all I know. If you can time travel what¡¯s a little space displacement amongst friends?¡± I said to myself weakly. After a coupled hours of walking I ran into an old man and his wife in a cart pulled by a mule. As I approach you could see them visibly whiten as they saw my armor. I doubt many could afford armor like this so they probably assumed I was a Knight. My guess is most of their encounters with Knights probably left them the poorer afterwards. As I approached I tried to figure out what to say. I was now pretty convinced I needed to find a church. If I was right about when I was, the best chance I have to survive is to wait in one until I can speak the local language. I figured a priest might be willing to take in a wandering traveller. They might even be able to help me learn it. Especially if I am willing to part with some of my ill-gotten booty for a donation, I thought to myself. I admittedly don¡¯t have the fondest opinion of the Medieval Catholic Church. As they got alongside me I noticed what was in the back, pigs. There were two sows and at least a dozen piglets. I used to raise piglets for butchering and they can be a real handful but are entertaining. At the moment they were fighting for their mother''s teat. They started speaking but I couldn¡¯t understand them at all. There were a few words here and there I got but who knows if the meaning is the same. I just decided to try the most direct approach. ¡°Hello, my name is Arthur Collins and I am new to these parts. Can you by chance point me in the direction of the nearest city. One with a Church.¡± They looked at each other in puzzlement. I knew it was a stretch that they would understand me but I had hoped. It turned out they didn¡¯t understand me but they did understand ¡°Church¡±. They offered me a ride in the cart which I accepted with gratitude, even shaking the man''s hand to show my thanks. You could tell they had not expected that. They also didn¡¯t expect me to ride in the back with the pigs. The woman had started to get down before I realized what she was doing. Knowing I couldn¡¯t speak their language enough to tell her I would ride in the back, I decided to just hop in before she could. Both their jaws hit the floor. A Knight would never ride in the back with the pigs so they were stunned to see one volunteer to do so. I just started petting them as I like pigs there like ugly dogs. Gramps had a small farm in the Appalachian Mountains where I spent my summers growing up. He raised a piglet for butchering every year. One of my chores was to feed them but he would always catch me playing in the mud with them. He would always laugh and then hose me down with a cold water hose. Good times. Good times. Before long into the ride, the day''s events started catching up on me. My eyelids started getting heavy and before long I drifted to sleep amidst the clunking of the mules feet, the creaking of a wood cart, and the smell of pigs. I awoke at daybreak the next day. Apparently the couple had decided to continue their trip through the night because we were at the crest of a hill looking down on a large town. Or at least I thought it was a town as I could only see one building that was taller than two stories. As we got closer to town I realized that it was a magnificent stone castle overlooking the river that ran through the city. Even though it was an absolutely beautiful castle the sight of it left me heartbroken. Especially when I again checked my cellphone signal for the hundredth time. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯m in Kansas anymore¡± I said to myself causing the couple to turn to me. It was the first tourist destination I had gone to after getting to London and probably the most famous building in England aside from Big Ben, the London Tower. There were no walls around it now but there was no mistaking it. This proved without a doubt that I was in the past. No one could or would remove the Towers outer complex. It meant I couldn¡¯t deny it anymore I was in the Dark Ages. At least that narrowed down the year. The Tower was constructed when William the Conqueror was King in the late 11th century. The inner walls were constructed during the reign of Richard the Lionheart in the late 12th century. So I must be in a year somewhere between them. Now I was really starting to feel like I was going nuts. As we approached the city the smell got unbearable. I didn¡¯t think it was possible but it was even worse than the village. Sewers must be a distant memory to these people. Romans had them but that must have been centuries ago. Their idea of proper waste disposal was looking before they dumped the chamber pot out the window. When we got further in the village someone didn¡¯t even go that far and almost dumped one right on us. It missed us by only feet. ¡°Watch where you¡¯re throwing your shit lady¡± I yelled at her. Although she couldn¡¯t have understood what I said, the terror in her eyes let me know that she understood the meaning. She started bowing and pleading for her life almost to the point of tears. I could understand a word here or there but most of them were unrecognizable. It was most likely English but it definitely wasn¡¯t modern English. I couldn¡¯t even begin to know what she was saying. ¡°It¡¯s alright mam, no harm done.¡± I said trying to reassure her with body language that I wasn¡¯t going to be yelling out ¡°off with her head¡± or some foolishness. She must have thought I was a Knight in this Armor. I doubt many peasants run around in gear like this. Peasants had it rough in the Middle Ages. Usually ¡°Peasant¡± was just a euphemism for slave. The lords pretty much owned them; they just couldn¡¯t sell them. After close to an hour of reaching the city we found a church. This must not have been the only church in London of course as it was very modest. It was made of wood which made it virtually the same as all the other buildings in the city except for the steeple. I thanked the couple again by shaking the man¡¯s hand and tried to give them a few silver coins. They were completely surprised by the gesture but flat out refused them. I could tell that they felt compelled for whatever reason to refuse so I didn¡¯t try again. I did however ¡°accidentally¡± drop a few in one of the bags they had in the back. As I walked in I spotted and then went towards the confessional. I was trying to find a priest and luckily one was there. I asked him in English if he could help me and teach me his language. I was just hoping the pleading in my voice would at least convey some meaning to him. I don¡¯t know how but after a few minutes of back and forth he finally began to understand. Or maybe he helped just so he could figure out what I was saying. He gave me a meal to eat which I tried to give him a few coins for. He refused of course so I would put it in the offering tray when he wasn¡¯t around. He brought me upstairs to a small room with a straw bed on the floor. When we entered the room he lit the sole candle in the room. I bowed to show my thanks and he closed the door as he left. It had been a long day and even that excuse for a bed looked welcoming. I sat down on the floor next to the candle and wrote down all the day''s events so I wouldn¡¯t forget anything on a small notepad I kept for this reason in my pack. Once that was done I blew out the candle and fell onto the bed and was out like the candle. Medieval Corporation I had taken inventory since I got settled on everything I had. I guess to assess just how screwed I was. I had no weapons, outside of the sword I got of the Knight. I was pretty useless with it as I have since been told. Well more like the laughter as I practiced with it told me. I had no real way to defend myself in what was obviously a dangerous world. What I wouldn¡¯t give for just some of gramps¡¯ arsenal. He had over a dozen pistols, an AR-15, 4 hunting rifles, a few shotguns, a reloading bench and enough lead to sink an aircraft carrier back home. Even just my .273 bolt action hunting rifle and few boxes of ammo would be nice. I did have the books I had borrowed from the library. A lighter and some fire starters. A ultralight hammock. A flashlight. A couple of granola bars (which have since been eaten). A bottle of water. 2 ballpoint pens. A couple of old mags. A bag of weed (that was mostly seeds and stems unfortunately), and this Journal I¡¯m writing in. I also had my Smartphone and even a small cheap chinese solar batterbank but obviously it was damn near useless but I guess the calculator would come in handy. As far as money, I had what I had gotten off the Knight, as well as some US Currency. Though since the United States of America didn¡¯t even exist it might as well be Monopoly money. I decided to keep the coins as some of the alloys didn¡¯t even exist yet. Pennies for instance had been mostly Zinc since the 80¡¯s. In metal shop we used to take them and heat them with a torch and then throw them on the ground. The Zinc would pop out and leave the copper shell. Ah rednecks and their free time, good times. I sold the paper money, believe it or not, to some of the people in town. It actually brought quite a bit surprisingly, 4 pence (pennies made of silver) a piece out of 10 bills, 2 shillings in total in other words. Which, I found strange. Here I thought paper money had no intrinsic value. To these people, pictures that detailed were unheard of. Same thing with the mags. After I saw how much I got for the Cash I started selling individual pictures and made a killing. It had taken a week of the Priest¡¯s patience before I could communicate even at this basic level. I was still in the process of learning the language but could now communicate enough to get me by. I had since learned that his name was Father Clarence and thank God he is a real saint. Not officially of course but I do believe he would have given someone the shirt (although I wouldn¡¯t call it a shirt) off his back. Then he would praise God for giving him the opportunity to help someone. He hadn¡¯t asked me for a single thing from me and he helps me with pretty much all his free time. When he asked about where I had come from (because he had never heard tongue such as mine) I told him that I had been shipwrecked after a storm and that I came from far to the west. I also told him my people were descendants of Englishmen. They had fled from the Romans to the land across the Atlantic. He seemed to believe it and it was close to the truth. Which made it at least a little easier lying to such a good man. He was even teaching me how to read and write Latin. There¡¯s one language I never in a million years saw me picking up. The only people who still use Latin in the 21st are snotty people, biologists, and Catholic priests (I might be missing a few). I decided to repay him with the sweat off my brow as gramps would say. I helped the Church by fixing the poorly constructed building. It needed work everywhere but the roof was in the worst shape. I don¡¯t even know how old it was but untreated wood singles don¡¯t last long. The building really needed a new roof altogether. I did what best I could replacing some shingles that I bought out of my own pocket. Well mostly the idiot Knights pocket. Don¡¯t get me started on the quality or lack thereof of the tools here. I¡¯ve never seen such a lousy hammer and nails, good grief are they expensive. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Even though it ended up being a larger project then anticipated repairing the roof was probably the best decision I ever made. It ended up being the best advertising possible. A few days after I fixed the roof other people in town started asking me to do some handyman odds and ends. After a month of this I was approached by a local carpenter by the name of James Bolt. He had dark brown hair that bordered on black that he kept cut short and was in his early 20¡¯s if I would guess. A few years my junior but by the look of those calloused hands he probably had nailed a few more nails than me that''s for sure. As I shook his hand it felt like he was wearing gloves. ¡°You''re a big one aren¡¯t you?¡± He said chuckling. He was on the short side even for this time period. At best a little over 5¡¯ but he had a powerful build. His clothes had rips and tears on them from heavy use and he reeked from many days without a bath. ¡°Had to be. Used to play Football.¡± ¡°Football?¡± He asked in puzzlement. ¡°It''s¡­ never mind it would take some time to explain. Can I help you with something Mr. Bolt?¡± ¡°Just James and yes actually. I wished to inquire if you would like to work for me.¡± The idea of working for him didn¡¯t really interest me but I did smell a business opportunity. ¡°I appreciate the offer but I will have to decline.¡± ¡°That''s too bad. I was really impressed by the work you did on the church roof.¡± ¡°You were? Well you know I was thinking of opening a construction business would you be interested in a partnership?¡± ¡°Construction?¡± ¡°Another word for carpentry but I¡¯m thinking of larger projects as well as traditional houses and the like.¡± ¡°What do you mean by larger?¡± ¡°Well take for instance a Castle. When one is traditionally built you hire someone to oversee the project. Then you have to hire someone else to find all the materials to build it. Someone else lays out how to build it and then still someone else to find labor. Or instead you could just hire us for an agreed on amount and we do all that for the Lord. In order to cut costs we have experienced, well trained, well fed and paid work force. We could also cut costs by coming up with cheaper ways of getting materials. Better saws for faster timber harvest and lumber production. Better ways of transporting stone. Better tools for faster building and to save labor time.¡± At first he just listened nodding his head occasionally but after a few minutes I had him convinced. Arthur and Bolt Construction was born. A&B had a logo and a small location nearby the church that I rented. The place also had a loft that I turned into a bedroom to save some money on my lodging. Bolt brought tools and experience and I brought experience and startup capital. In order to raise more capital I had to pitch the idea of a corporation to him. ¡°Corporation, I have never heard of such a thing.¡± He said in confusion. ¡°A corporation has many shares that people can buy and sell. Those shares give a share of the company. The more shares you own the larger percentage of the company you own and the more power you have over the company. You also get a dividend which is a proportion of the profit of the company.¡± ¡°Uhh¡­¡± I could tell this would take some time and was proven right. Eventually I got him to understand the concept and why I thought it was a good idea. See there is a problem in the middle ages, it¡¯s hard for you to get a loan. First of all there are no banks at all. Second, the church will literally excommunicate you if you charge Usury (interest) on a loan so it''s damn near impossible to find anyone willing to loan to someone they just met. We need money, silver in this case, to get my new tools made as well as hire some new men. I also wanted to start an ad campaign and would need to hire an artist to paint up some posters. Our only options were to sell shares or I would have to invest everything I own into the venture. That¡¯s never a good idea especially when you''re in the dark ages and the difference of having silver and not is a matter of life and death. ¡°So how many shares do I get? I have no silver with which to buy any.¡± ¡°You will have shares equitable to the tools you bring as well as your experience. We will come up with something. I will buy my shares to ensure we have some silver to use in the immediate future but we should begin looking for work. I will secure a place to set up shop if you can go out and network.¡± ¡°Network?¡± ¡°Talk to people. See if anyone needs work done on there house or knows someone that does need some done. Even if they don¡¯t tell them that A&B construction is the quickest and best carpentry service in London and to stop by and see us if they ever need any. Remember right now is the word of mouth phase. Any job where we can make a good name for ourselves will work, even a small one.¡± He looked bewildered but nodded his head and left. dun dun duuun! A few months had passed and A&B construction was taking off. Word of mouth started spreading about how good a job we did. We have started even building whole houses. I had designed and built the house that Satan stole. So aside from a few small differences they went up all the same. After I taught James some modern techniques and designed modern tools we could construct a house faster and sounder than anyone else. Man you have no idea how fast a house can be put up without codes or inspections. I also had drawn up some flyers and hired some local peasants to hang them up. Mass Marketing 1.0 has been a huge success and now we have more projects than we know what to do with. The next step is to expand beyond just the two of us. On a side note, Permaculture has been a huge hit with the natives, well the Farmers at least (which admittedly means pretty much every non-noble). It should help boost production as well as build up soil quality. Centuries of Human activity is rough on top soil. I also talked Father Clarence into starting a garden behind the Church. It will help feed the hungry during Winter. I even paid for the labor to till and plant. I also bought the seed as well. Father Clarence says that they will have volunteer labor for harvest because of how ashamed that Church members had been less charitable to the community than a foreigner. Whatever gets people to help each other. Honestly I started the garden for a more selfish reason. To plant the seeds of my little green friend. I told Father Clarence that it was for my use only as it was my medicine. I also built some of the first wheelbarrows ever. Everyone loved them. After they got used at the Church I had to start a company just for wheelbarrow production. ¡°Why has no one come up with these before.¡± People would always comment as they bought them. I had a similar question when I saw how they worked. I had finally just decided to rebuild the whole Church roof after getting tired of fixing it. Father Clarence was nearly in tears but I figured it was the least I could do for taking me in. It would have been easier to turn me in to the local Government. He even lets me confess even though I¡¯m not Catholic (or even religious). It helps to have someone that you confide in. That might be one of the main reasons why the Church was always so powerful. After months of immersion I was pretty fluent in Old English and I finally got up the courage to ask Father Clarence what the date was. ¡°July 28 1125 the year of our lord. Why do you ask?¡± He asked ¡°Our years were a little off then it would seem. We thought it had been 2019 years since the birth of Christ.¡± ¡°My word no. That is far too many. I wonder how that could have happened?¡± ¡°Only God knows Father.¡± ¡°I suppose so.¡± "I will be off Father. Have a good evening." "You as well Arthur." What are the odds I would end up here at this time, one of my favorites times in history? It was the time of the Crusaders and Knights and thank God the Black Death hadn¡¯t hit yet. It was only 60 years ago that William the Bastard sailed from Normandy. In 1066, he claimed his kingdom and the name history remembers. William the Conqueror changed the course of English and even World history. Stolen story; please report. The Normans though never really endeared themselves to the English. Their rule was with an iron fist. The Castle building they began was backbreaking to the English and most was forced labor. The ironic thing (more like sad) is that the peasants were constructing the instrument of their own oppression. After later checking the history book I found out The King of England and Normandy was now William¡¯s son, Henry the 1st. Henry had gained his position after a hunting ¡°accident¡± claimed the life of his brother. Those ¡°accidents¡± seem to to be common amoung monarchs, and people hanging out with vice presidents. cough-Cheney-cough I also found one alarming and pressing matter, a civil war broke out when Henry died as he was left with no male heir. It was referred to in history as simply the Anarchy. The war got pretty bad and went on for almost 2 decades. Pretty much the entire continent of Europe was at war off and on at the time though so who¡¯s counting. At least that is how it played out in my timeline. I was in completely uncharted territory. I knew every action I was making would have a reaction that would completely change history. This timeline would not be the same as mine. It was a tumultuous time and that allows someone like me an opportunity. I had a millennia of knowledge on people of this time on numerous subjects, most notably on waging war. Maybe In the process of world domination knock out a couple of centuries of nobility BS and slavery while I¡¯m at. But not before I¡¯ve had lunch. The food in the 12th century was right up your alley if you¡¯re a meatatarian like me and have money. Side of mutton was pretty damn good but I was always afraid of food poisoning or worse. There was an Inn not far from the Church that I had been staying at that had the best. At least that¡¯s why Father Clarence thinks that I stay there. It really was just that the Barmaid had an attractive daughter that was coming around to me. She loved my accent god bless her. Or maybe it was because I tip well. It¡¯s sometimes hard to tell these things. ¡°A Knight came by today and demanded someone meet him. Arthur I think he meant you.¡± She said when I came in. Her name was Agatha. And she was quite the looker for the 12th century which I have found to be noticeable lacking in the babes. I think it¡¯s the lack of Makeup. She had short raven black hair and was in her early 20¡¯s. Which in these times I had found was getting up there in age to still be unmarried. She wasn¡¯t quite the show-stopper as either Rebecca but she also wasn¡¯t trying to take my stuff or send me a thousand years into the past either. So it''s a wash. ¡°What makes you think that?¡± I said in my heavily accented ol¡¯ English. ¡°They said he was a giant over 2 yards high.¡± ¡°Why were they after this Giant?¡± Knowing full well they were looking for me. I hadn¡¯t met more than one or two men in the 3 months I¡¯ve been here that are over 2 yards tall. Bunch of shorties in the 12th. My theory is they weren¡¯t eating a complete diet. You won¡¯t grow big and strong if you don¡¯t eat your veggies, as mom used to say. ¡°I don¡¯t know they didn¡¯t say.¡± She said. Damn. I guess the guilds got tired of us cutting into their turf. At this time guilds dominate craftsman fields because it drives out competition thus keeping their ridiculous profit margins going. Lack of competition also breeds complacency. A+B Construction could build a house in half the time it took the guilds to build one. Some of them had 4 or 5 men working for them too. Thus we charged less and still made more bottom line. The modern tools I designed are what really blew the guilds out of the water (you have no idea how much nicer it is to have a claw hammer). We were doing so damn good it had to be drawing unwanted attention. ¡°Well where did he say for this Giant to go to find him?¡± I asked ¡°The Tower, Arthur¡± She said wide eyed. The Tower had first been built by William the Conqueror at the end of the 11th century. It was most famously used as a prison for royal hostages but in the 12th it was still being used as a Palace for the King of England. Knowing that still didn¡¯t make me feel any better about going there. For all I know this was more about my little romp with the Knight my first day in the 12th. Or the guilds could be using the State to take me down instead of doing it themselves. ¡°I guess I don¡¯t have a choice then. Did he say when?¡± I asked knowing what the answer was. ¡°Tonight. He said that the King had just arrived from Normandy and expects to have you at dinner.¡± Damn. The Tower The Tower had first been built by William the Conqueror at the end of the 11th century. It was most famously used as a prison for royal hostages but in the 12th it was still being used as a Palace for the King of England. Knowing that still didn¡¯t make me feel any better about going there. For all I know this was more about my little romp with the Knight my first day in the 12th. Or the guilds could be using the State to take me down instead of doing it themselves. I approached the gate of the Tower and was greeted by two guards. You could tell they weren¡¯t there to direct tourists. They were protecting the King so they were probably the best fighters in the whole of England. So making funny faces at them and trying to take the hats might not be such a good idea. ¡°State your Business¡± ¡°I¡¯m Arthur Collins. I was summoned.¡± I said After looking at each other one of them left and walked back to the Tower. As I was waiting for him to return I couldn¡¯t help but admire the Tower. It was a relatively new construction only being built 3 decades before. In a few minutes the Guards returned and they let me pass. I was escorted by the Guards to what appeared to be the throne room. The bloody King of England Henry I son of William the Conqueror was waiting for me. He was broad shouldered and about 5¡¯9¡± with reddish hair that showed his age as it was mostly grey. I don¡¯t know maybe it¡¯s just the nerd in me but meeting the King of England was pretty freaking cool. It also was scary as hell I had to watch myself or I could end up 10 lbs lighter all of a sudden. Fun Fact: average Human Head weighs 10 lbs. What¡¯s better was that the Empress Matilda was there as well. You know how I said 10¡¯s were unicorns? Well alert the media because I found a unicorn. Even in a world with little to no makeup she was a knockout. The history books really did not do her justice. She was about a half foot shorter than her father and she had the most beautiful dirty blonde hair down to her back. She also had a set of knockers that would make a porn star jealous. Matilda was like all princesses she had no free will at all and was married off twice for political gains. The first time while only 8 (they start them off early here) to a man that didn¡¯t even speak her language. According to Agatha she had just been widowed early this year. The other was supposed to be Geoffrey of Anjou (the eventual Count of Anjou) but that hadn¡¯t happened yet obviously. It got so bad in that marriage that they almost had a divorce which was a huge sin in those days. They never did like each other but they did sire the eventual King Henry II. She then molded him to become one of the most successful Kings (at least in their eyes) since William. She also was the Lady of the English (Queen) for about a minute before losing the crown back to her cousin Stephen of Blios. ¡°Are you this Arthur Collins everyone in my Kingdom is talking about?¡± King Henry said as I approached his throne. ¡°I am your Majesty¡± I said while bowing at the waste. I had been told I must prostrate myself in front of the King but me being a stubborn freedom loving American, I¡¯d rather have my freaking head chopped off. ¡°Why do you not kneel before me?¡± He asked. ¡°Where I come from we kneel before no man, Sir. In America a bow is the deepest sign of respect just as a handshake is the deepest sign of equality, your Majesty¡± I said hoping I would keep my head.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. ¡°Hah, did you hear that? This man has spirit. I like him.¡± He said and I almost exhaled a ¡®Whew¡¯ but contained it. It seemed that the Empress didn¡¯t mind me either. ¡°Oh damn.¡± I said under my breath. I had just realized that she was checking me out and wasn¡¯t being discreet about it. I must be the biggest man she¡¯s ever seen and I¡¯m not exactly ugly. In fact compared to my competition I have met since I got here in the 12th I¡¯m a regular Stud. No broken nose or scars on my face or anything. The man standing in the corner wasn¡¯t nearly as accepting. If looks could kill I wouldn¡¯t be breathing. The kings saw where my gaze was. ¡°Oh don¡¯t mind him that¡¯s my Sister¡¯s Son, Stephen of Blois. He¡¯s such a stick in the mud.¡± Funny that saying goes back this far. Stephen ah hell, the future Usurper in the Flesh I thought. He caused the Anarchy by seizing power after Henry died even after swearing to serve Matilda whom Henry had chosen to succeed him. Stephen was like all men in the Middle Ages it would seem. Short and barrel chested. ¡°So they tell me you swam the length of the English Channel. You can dispatch a Knight unarmed. That you rebuild church roofs for fun. They also say you have a device that spews fire like a Dragon.¡± The King said making a strange movement with his arms that I guess he thought looked like spewing fire. ¡°I have also heard of books that have images with colors and things that have never been seen. I even have complaints from the Builders Guilds that you use building magic with which you can construct a house in half the time. Not to mention you¡¯re supposedly a giant over 2 yards high but I can see that was not exaggerated. So Arthur Collins are you a warlock, a witch, or an Angel sent from God?¡± ¡°Your Majesty, all those things are possible where I come from without magic. Just as it is possible to construct such a fine castle like your father built here without magic. It just takes knowledge. I owe Father Clarence a great deal and the church desperately needed a new roof. As far as swimming the English Channel I would have to plead ignorance for I do not know how far I swam after my ship was lost or where it even was when it was lost. All I know was it was long enough.¡± He laughed at that and then continued. ¡°You must know I think talk of magic is foolishness best left to the fool minded like some in the Church. I just asked because the Church asked me to investigate. I am however less willing to overlook your maiming Sir Durant. Even though he is an insufferable ass and I¡¯m glad you put him in his place I can¡¯t have peasants defeating Knights it sets a bad example. Were you a Knight in this America?¡± ¡°We had no Knights where I come from but I was a warrior of equal status to your Knights in my country. The swift takedown of your Sir Durant should attest to my prowess in battle, your Majesty.¡± I was lying through my teeth of course. One year of ROTC does not a warrior make. I continued ¡°If you think what I have done so far is amazing I assure you it is a drop in the bucket for what I can do for you, your majesty.¡± He sat there digesting this bit of information and then said. ¡°Well I guess the only solution is to Knight you.¡± ¡°Sir you mustn¡¯t he is not of noble blood and ¡­.¡± ¡°You must hold your tongue Stephen or I shall remove it! It is the only option for he could be far too valuable to just kill him.¡± ¡°Yes my liege¡± Apparently I had impressed King Henry or someone that had pulled with him. He was going to Knight me to save face for kicking his man¡¯s ass. But why was Stephen so opposed to it? I assumed it was racism (or is the correct term classism). ¡°Now the problem Arthur Collins, is that you must kneel in order for me Knight you.¡± ¡°I can make an exception for this ceremony once, your Majesty. To show my allegiance to you but I¡¯d ask that you never force me to kneel again.¡± I said kneeling before him. ¡°Demanding considerations from a King how preposterous.¡± Stephen Said. ¡°Silence! I like his spirit. I will try to keep that in mind Arthur as long as you keep in mind your oath of fealty.¡± the King said. ¡°I dub thee Sir Arthur.¡± the King said as he tapped (more like hitting these swords are heavy) my shoulders one at a time. And then he did hit me. A backhand right across the face. I started to lose my cool and my facial expression must have shown it. The King visibly was startled before he continued. ¡°That is the last strike you will ever take without striking back. Arise Sir Arthur.¡± If only Mom could see me now I¡¯m a Knight. Dance with the Devil The Kings first request after I had said the Oath of Fealty to him was for me to demonstrate my fighting style. My first willing Victim was the obvious one Stephen. He was thrilled at the chance to go 1 on 1 with me. ¡°If you would please not permanently hurt Stephen as bad as you did Sir Durant.¡± The king whispered with a grin. I got the feeling he didn¡¯t have much faith in his nephew. ¡°I will try your majesty. But in return I ask that he fight without armor. As I will be unarmed and cannot cut his skin in any case.¡± He seemed genuinely surprised that I would be facing him unarmed but he agreed and Stephen went to change ¡°This is not a fight to the death gentlemen. That goes double for you Stephen you¡¯re the one with the sword¡± The king said as Stephan returned. ¡°I will try my best, your majesty.¡± Stephan said. I didn¡¯t believe him for a second. ¡°Begin!¡± The King shouted As I was unarmed I could not attack him I would have to let him make the first move. He would have anyway as he rushed in like an angry bull. I sidestepped him and the massive sword and then swiped my leg out as he lumbered by causing him to trip. When he hit the floor it caused the sword to come free and skid across. He rushed for it but I was on my feet and had started moving towards it earlier. He was on his hand and knees when he reached it. Just as he grabbed the hilt I jumped onto it with my boots and smashed his hand against the floor. He let out a scream and then reached and grabbed for a dagger in his boot. I saw it just in time and kneed him in the nose aiming for about 6¡± inside his skull. He crumpled to the ground with a gratifying thump. ¡°Enough¡± The King shouted. Of course it was he was out cold and wouldn¡¯t be up for a while. And I sure wasn¡¯t going to kill a man in cold blood even if he was an idiot and a prick. Among other things. ¡°Impressive.¡± The King said nodding his head. ¡°Do you think you could teach my men that?¡± ¡°With years of training yes, but it would be useless for fighting men such as yours. It is how you say, Defensive. You¡¯re not trying to kill your opponent, just make it where you don¡¯t have to fight him any longer. An army fighting this way would be worse than useless. Your Majesty.¡± I had no intention of teaching my techniques to people who may ally themselves with Stepmat down there. ¡°Too bad but what of me would you be willing to teach me?¡± He asked. ¡°I don¡¯t see how that could hurt as I doubt you¡¯re going to be rushing headlong into battle and some self-defense could save your life if you¡¯re unarmed. Assassins can strike while unprepared.¡± I said ¡°Don¡¯t get carried away now. I still want to rush headlong into some battles now and then.¡± He said while slapping my back. I might have made a very powerful friend. A powerful friend who has a very attractive daughter that is literally fanning herself because I got her so hot. Damn I might just like it here on the 12th. After the demonstration Stephan was taken away. And the King invited me to a feast in my honor. You can¡¯t very well turn down a king so I humbly accepted. I asked the King if I could borrow a trustworthy servant to retrieve my backpack as I thought I might need it and I was proven correct. ¡°Well of course my good man, Lawrence come here boy¡± and Lawrence appeared out of nowhere. Where had that little bugger been hiding? He couldn¡¯t have been even 5 foot tall and probably didn¡¯t weigh 100 lbs sopping wet. He had fiery red hair with a shotgun blast in the face of freckles. Irish without a doubt. You could see a wiry kind of intelligence in him. Better watch him I thought. I doubt these ¡°Nobles¡± even pay attention to him. I had met guys like him in the 21st and they are the ones that are best at stabbing you in the back figuratively there but could be literal in the 12th. ¡°Run to the¡­ what was the name of the Inn you¡¯re staying at?¡± the King asked. ¡°The Broken Dagger, your Majesty. It is only temporary as I hoped to build a place of my own someday.¡± ¡°That is a good dream son, to own one¡¯s own land makes him a man instead of a peasant.¡± He said. Not for long if I have anything to do with it. Everyone should be able to buy a piece of land especially now with not even 10% of the world¡¯s population of the 21st. ¡°Run to the Broken Dagger get this ¡°Backpack¡± he speaks of and bring it to him here. As a matter of fact bring back all his other belongings he will stay with me until we find him more permanent lodgings. I want to know all about this place called America and its culture and here you can¡¯t escape my questioning.¡± He said and mini-me disappeared again. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dream of it, your Majesty.¡± I just hope all my ¡°belongings¡± still belong to me when they get here. After he made the toast to me. The food was brought out and I thought I was going to gag. It¡¯s not that the food looked bad but the plates (wooden planks really) had probably never been washed. There were pieces of food that probably was feasted on by William the Conqueror. And the way they all eat. Disgusting and we in the Appalachian are not known for our table manners. They use their fingers for everything and then let the dogs lick them clean. Needless to say I wasn¡¯t very hungry.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. ¡°You eat like my Daughter Sir Arthur¡± the King said causing her to blush. ¡°I keep telling her she needs to put some meat on her bones so she can sire me some Grandchildren¡± he said tapping her thighs. ¡°I think that she is perfectly fine the way she is.¡± I said regretting it almost immediately. You have to always remember your ¡°station¡± in life here. ¡°Humph, she was married for over a decade before the Emperor passed and sired no heirs for him. I think it¡¯s the hips.¡± He said acting as if he hadn¡¯t noticed anything. Man, and I thought 21st century parents were overbearing. She ended up having 3 with her 2nd husband so it¡¯s probably that Henry V couldn¡¯t get it up. I don¡¯t know how any man could have that problem with the Empress. Lawrence returned with my Backpack and said that all my belongings were in my new quarters. At least everything in the pack was still there including what I sent for it in the first place for. After I put everything up the final course was coming out. I didn¡¯t even want to know what it was but it turned out to be a sweet bread dessert that wasn¡¯t bad. After dessert was finished and all food was removed, music started playing. When everyone stood up the tables and chairs were moved to the side of the room and people started dancing. I was afraid of this. I can dance with the best of them out on the club floor but in the 21st there isn¡¯t exactly a lot of ballroom dancing going around. ¡°Can you show us a dance from America?¡± It was the Empress. My god what a beautiful voice. As much as I loved hearing her speak the words I wish were different. I only knew one kind of dancing and it was going to be different. Way different. ¡°I do my lady but I¡¯m afraid it might be a little. What do I say? Different.¡± ¡°Oh I love different things. We have seen our dances plenty let us see yours. Does it require a partner?¡± ¡°Yes, milady, it does.¡± ¡°Well then I will volunteer¡± She said and my heart almost stopped. You do not Salsa with the King''s Daughter. My then girlfriend, future ex Mrs. Collins, had convinced me to take lessons with her. She ended up quitting and I ended up liking it. Uh hello grinding on hot women. I enjoyed it so much I continued to do it until she started getting jealous and I being the doting boyfriend stopped. At least she didn¡¯t ever try to make me take up dancing again. To anyone in the 12th century Salsa dancing might be like watching softcore porn. I think the King liked me but something told me that might be pushing my luck. I tried desperately to think of a way to let her down easily. ¡°That sounds like a great idea.¡± The king said as he slapped my back. It probably wasn''t any harder than he had the rest of the night but those slaps on the back felt like he had a sledgehammer for a hand. It felt like the life had drained from me. I could see this going bad very bad and I really didn''t need any off the top. I thought seriously about pretending to have pulled a muscle fighting with Stephen but the Empress would have none of it. She grabbed me by the hand and started taking me to the dance floor. "Hold on just a second." "Second? Do you mean Seconds? The meal has already been concluded." Matilda said. No seconds here as nothing could measure time that accurately in the 12th. "I meant I have to get something out of my pack." I rushed to my pack and retrieved the smartphone. When I turned it on I was glad to see it still had a little over half a charge. I was afraid it would have weakened after being shut off for months. "This is a device that plays the music of my country" I proclaimed to all in the room. There was a murmur of excitement. "I must have one." the King said surprised. Dammit, they don''t even have music players this early. Well I might be able to build something but I doubt that it would play sound quality nearly this good. Maybe eventually a record player or at least a phonograph. "Sir it is beyond my ability here to make a machine exactly like this one. But in time I should be able to make one very similar for you. It could take many months but anything that you desire and is within my ability shall be yours, your majesty." I said "Make it so then Sir Arthur" The King said. Now that one problem was solved another appeared. I couldn''t let anyone see what else it could do because there was no way in hell I could build a computer. I know a little about a lot but who the hell knows how to build a computer from scratch anyway even in the 21st. Computers take decades of infrastructure to build. 19th century tech is about the limit for at least a generation or two. "The device can only work if no one but me uses it. If anyone else touches it could cause injury or death. I warn you all because I do not want to see any of you get hurt." That should keep the superstitious simpletons from messing with it. They all kept their distance from my bag from then on. Lawrence looked as though he had just relieved himself of a bomb. His face was a mixture of awe and horror and what I presume to be worry about his demise for I''m sure he looked through the pack. After I knew I had their attention I turned on the music and set it back in my pack. Don''t ask me why I keep Salsa music in my playlist if you want to remain friends. "This is very interesting music." Matilda said smiling. ¡°This is a pretty active dance with a lot of movement. Is that all right in your attire?¡± ¡°I think I might surprise you with how well I can move while wearing this dress¡± She said. Was that innuendo? Luckily the dress she was wearing wasn¡¯t a Victorian era tent but it was still a bit much for Salsa. "Shall we dance then milady?" I said with a bow. She accepted of course I wouldn''t be that lucky and we walked to the dance floor. As we approached the dance floor I decided I needed to give her a little pep talk and some pointers. ¡°Just remember step, step, step, and pause repeated over and over. Follow my rhythm and I¡¯ll try to lead you as best I can. And when this is over I might need your protection from your father¡± I whispered the last sentence so only she would hear. ¡°Not if that fight was any indication¡± Yea but I can¡¯t fight every Knight in England unarmed. When I started dancing the people on the dance floor parted like the Red Sea. I started towards Matilda. When I grabbed her hand and we started dancing together I could tell she loved it. As the dance kept getting steamer she kept on better than some of my dance partners in the 21st and they had a couple of month¡¯s experience. In fact after a while I forgot that the King and everyone else were even there. I was having more fun at Salsa then I ever did back home. Matilda was the prettiest thing I do believe I ever set eyes on. At some point in that dance I begin to feel a very troubling feeling for a recently divorced man. After it was over the next song on the playlist began and I realized I knew another dance. Soulja Boy. And I delighted the crowd with that one. I do believe I started a Rap fad in medieval England. I also got a nickname. Although I would have picked a better one than that. ¡°Well Soldier Boy. I must admit you can dance with the best of them¡± the King said laughing. Laughing is good, harder to say ¡°off with his head¡± that way. Devil Between the Sheets After all the excitement I announced that I was growing tired and would like to rest. ¡°Of course Sir Arthur¡­.Lawrence. Lawrence. LAWRENCE!!!! Come here you little rodent.¡± The King shouted. ¡°Yes your grace¡± ¡°Take our guest to his quarters. And Sir Arthur I will send you up some company after you get settled¡± He said matter-of-factly. Like I said the 12th century might not be so bad. Lawrence took me to my quarters which had a fantastic view of London and a nice (even for me) 4 poster bed. No spring mattress of course. You got to enjoy a feather quill in the eye in the middle of the night but better than straw. I was enjoying the view out the window when Lawrence spoke. ¡°Please sir remove the curse that your device has placed on me. For I did touch it.¡± He said pleadingly. My God the money a con artist from the 21st could make in this era. ¡°I will son but first you must swear loyalty to me and only me above all others, other than God himself¡± I said. ¡°But I serve the King,¡± he said. ¡°I will see to it you are placed under my service. I have a need of trustworthy men but you must swear this in front of me and God. For he will be the ultimate judge of he who breaks an oath that was swore in front of God.¡± ¡°How can one make an oath in front of God?¡±If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°By placing his hand on the Lord¡¯s Holy Scripture while saying it!¡± I said and his eyes lit up with understanding. The oath will make him keep all my ¡°State Secrets¡± an actual secret and get him to believe God will smite him if he doesn¡¯t. But that along with removing the ¡°Curse of the Smartphone¡± should make him a Zealot to my cause. ¡°Now run along now son, I have company coming. I will see about you coming to my service tomorrow.¡± I said. ¡°Yes my lord¡± And he left smoke as he burned rubber out of there. After he left I crashed onto the bed still in my clothes. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. But I sure didn¡¯t stay that way long because I woke up with a redhead and a brunette in bed with me. Did I say I loved the 12th century? After they had their way with me for that¡¯s what it was, I was the victim I swear, they left as quietly as they came and I was out again like a light. I didn¡¯t stay that way. ¡°Oh hell I would really love to but I really have to sleep. I have had a long day.¡± I said not even opening my eyes. ¡°I¡¯d wager I can make you. If I must I shall order it.¡± And that woke me just as quick as if she had dumped ice water on me. ¡°Empress Matilda what the hell are you doing. If your father catches us I will be a head shorter by tomorrow night.¡± ¡°Oh don¡¯t be ridiculous he¡¯s not protecting my chastity anymore. I haven¡¯t been a virgin in quite some time.¡± She said while rubbing my whole body. So Henry V could get it up huh. ¡°I can¡¯t. But I want to. But I mustn¡¯t. But she is so damn hot, even more so without clothes on.¡± ¡°Sir Arthur you do realize I heard all that, right?¡± Dammit! ¡°Listen as you can tell by my not so inner thoughts I would love to. But I would like to do this the way it is done in my country, We go on these things called dates¡­¡­¡± And then I realized how stupid I was, this was all there ever could be between us. She was Guinevere and I am to forever be her Lancelot never to be her King Arthur. I was not noble blood. I could never marry a future Queen. Even if she never actually becomes one she could be one. ¡°Dates? The fruit, do they make you like a Lion in bed?¡± ¡°Nevermind¡± And I took her. Right Hand Man When I woke up she was gone of course. Feeling a little used I got out of bed and headed towards the shower¡­.. I had a habit of still doing that. Note to self Indoor Plumbing. The notes were starting to add up. I needed to delegate. First thing you have to learn about running a business, or any organization, is how to delegate properly. I hope to have found the first Zealot to my cause (I might make that my private nickname for them). I need a group of trustworthy people that I can trust with trade secrets. I have a couple hundred years of knowledge on hundreds of different subjects on my competition and I want it to stay that way at least until The Anarchy is over. I need every advantage possible over Stepmat even if last night is an indication of his fighting prowess. One of Sun Tzu¡¯s main tenants in his masterpiece Art of War is never underestimate your opponent. I went out into the Tower looking for the King. Eventually I found a servant who was taking him his breakfast in the throne room. He said he didn¡¯t think the King would mind if I joined him so I followed him. I bet he wouldn¡¯t, he seems to want to know everything about me and America. The King is smarter than your average Ager, as I had started to call people of the Middle Ages. He could even read and write which was unheard of for a monarch in these days. I would put him even ahead of most of the people ruling superpowers in the 21st but that¡¯s not much of a compliment. ¡°Soldier Boy! Did ye sleep soundly?¡± Ribbing me with his elbow. Is that like the universal atta boy? For a second there I was worried he meant about me giving Matilda the time of her life and her letting the castle know it. Let¡¯s just say 21st techniques are so much better than no technique at all which is what she was used to. A 12th century man¡¯s idea of foreplay was them saying ¡°Brace yourself¡±. How many people have ever sat down to breakfast with the King of England with that Elephant on their back? ¡°Do you want some breakfast? I¡¯m sure you could use some food after all that exercise last night.¡± He said. Food yes, leftovers on the same nasty plates, not no but hell no. ¡°No thank you, Your Majesty. I ate before I met your servant. Speaking of Servants may I ask a question of you, Your Majesty?¡± It¡¯s like you have to ask a question so you can ask a question. Nobility is stupid. ¡°Speak up. What is it?¡± ¡°I have a need for a servant Your Majesty, I was wanting to inquire as to whether you would sell Lawrence to me as my Vassal. I know he seems lazy and a tad untrustworthy but I cannot afford the best servant.¡± I was lying of course in a couple of years I¡¯ll be richer than he is and I think neither of those things. At least if I have God on my side. ¡°That fool you would want him as your vassal? So be it. In fact I will make you a deal. You tell me more of this America and I will give him to you. He is worth less than a good story.¡± There is little worth in a peasant life to these assholes. ¡°I gladly accept, your Majesty.¡± ¡°Lawrence!¡± Puff. He¡¯s like a little genie. ¡°Yes My Liege¡± Lawrence said ¡°I have awarded you to Sir Arthur. You are to be his vassal. Serve him well or I shall serve you at the next feast¡± I only hope he was joking. ¡°Yes My liege¡± I took Lawrence aside. ¡°I will require your oath at another time. For now the King wishes to know more about America. But your first task as my vassal is to find me a replacement for my job at Arthur and Bolt. They should have worked in carpentry, uh working with tools to build houses, for more than 1 year and preferably somewhere in the early 20¡¯s of age. Not too young to be unreliable and not too old to be un-moldable. And remember that criteria.¡± ¡°Criteria?¡± ¡°Uh, when you search for something or someone, criteria is what sets them apart and makes them more desirable to the task that we need them to do.¡± ¡°Yes Sir Arthur. I will try¡± ¡°No you will do. Trying is for losers. And you will address me as Sir. If it is a yes or no answer. It is Sir-yes-Sir or Sir-no-Sir. Am I clear¡± I always hated that crap from my coaches but it works. ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± He said. ¡°Now find me a Carpenter. And if you find one, send him to Bolt and let him try him out and see how he does. I''ll let him decide as he will have to work with him. But make sure Bolt knows I will pay him out of my half of the profit. And of course the company is still half mine.¡± ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± He said and literally ran off. I chuckled. ¡°So about America¡­¡­¡± After talking about America for about the better part of an hour, mostly about its natural resources, we somehow got on football. I say somehow but considering how almost all my interests are technology based that he has no basis of understanding in, Football is about it. Something tells me he wouldn¡¯t want to hear about my tomatoes. ¡°So you were the leader for your men in this ¡®Huddle¡¯?¡± the King asked. ¡°I was the QB. His job is to handle all his men and make sure they know their job before the play starts. The huddle is where your men come together and the QB gives the play to them.¡± In high school my senior year I lived every guy''s dream, my team went to the HS playoffs. I threw for over 3000 yards that year but we lost by a Field Goal in the game before the championship. I was good enough in High school but I didn¡¯t even get a sniff at the college level. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. I wasn¡¯t even a big fish in that small pond. But being the QB gets you attention from all the right places in HS even if you¡¯re not going Pro. I miss it, who doesn¡¯t that ever played it. ¡°And once the play starts what do you do.¡± ¡°Well it¡¯s like siege warfare. If you¡¯re on Offense you can run the ball with your RB think of a ram, he usually lines up behind the QB. Or the QB can throw it, think of a catapult. Your goal on Offense is to get to the end zone which gives your team 7 points (I was getting rid of the useless extra point in this timeline). On Defense you¡¯re the Castle you want to try to keep them from moving. You can do this by tackling the person with the ball to the ground or maybe even what QBs fear most the Sack.¡± ¡°Sack. Oh I see like sacking a city?¡± ¡°I never thought of it your majesty but you are probably right. That might be where the name comes from. A sack in football is where a defender tackles the QB behind where the play started. It is a humiliating loss for the Offense.¡± ¡°I see. How many people does it take to play this game?¡± ¡°22 minimum sir. 11 for both offense and defense. But really you need that many for each team so you can have dedicated O and D players. And you also need substitution players. It''s similar to attrition in battle; you need reserves. It is very good exercise for the Men sir.¡± My mind was already racing. KFL Knight Football League. ¡°I think we shall try this game of yours. I will have men assembled on the training ground Monday. I want to see this American Football Game.¡± ¡°Sir I¡¯m afraid it takes a fair bit of training in order to play. I would need time¡± ¡°Would one months¡¯ time suffice?¡± I couldn¡¯t see that being too much of a problem besides I smelled a money making opportunity. ¡°Your majesty, If I may be so bold I ask that they be fit and be between 18-25 years of age and they be of any birth, even peasants.¡± ¡°Peasants?¡± ¡°Except for the QBs King Henry. They should be Knights as it is a position of prestige that only can be forged in the crucible of battle and belongs only with the Knight¡± ¡°Right ol boy can¡¯t let peasants be these ¡®Quarterbucks¡¯¡± ¡°If you would allow it I would like to run what is called a scouting combine on your peasants. It will be good for you as well because you will then have a record of all your 18-25 men¡¯s physical shape so you can know what kind of assets you have.¡± I said ¡°Assets?¡± ¡°Assets are like gold, silver and castles, your majesty. A thoroughbred stallion is a more valuable asset than a mule. A fit slave, I mean a peasant is more valuable to you then a fat and lazy one, your majesty.¡± Freudian slip there. I was setting it up for failure or success depending on how you look at it. This was the best way to allow peasants and nobles to enter ¡°the field of battle¡± together so to speak without the dying. Eventually we could work them into an army. It also meant the short term success of the game had more traction. If Knights could only be QBs hopefully nobles wouldn¡¯t protest to playing along peasants. That might also eventually allow a gifted peasant to ascend to Knight just to become a Lords QB. Or it could all fall apart before it even begins by trying to include peasants at all. ¡°You shall have whatever you need within reason. What is this going to cost me?¡± ¡°Not a pence, your majesty. I will need men sir but they will be paid with a split of the ticket sales that I expect to be a decent pay for a month''s work. Oh yes didn¡¯t I tell you we charge for admission. We split the proceeds of the ticket sales for this game between you and I after 1/10th goes to the players split depending on status. I¡¯ll do the training and structure and pay for their armor. Oh yes didn¡¯t I tell you they wear armor into battle. I will require a plot of land outside the city for the stadium which I will own and maintain. As well as a loan however that will be paid back very quickly, your majesty . I will of course as well reserve for you the high box free of charge as well as proper food and drink for every game held there. Oh yes if you build it they will come, your majesty.¡± ¡°Who¡¯s they? You¡¯re a strange man Sir Arthur. I have heard enough I will see to it. Now go find these ¡®Quarterbucks¡¯¡± He said ¡°Good I will have the papers to sign by this afternoon. If I may be so bold I would like to ask to be your QB, Your Majesty. And form one of these teams as Henry¡¯s Heroes¡± I said bowed with my hand over my heart in a ridiculous gesture that of course he ate up. ¡°Yes I like it. Go build my winning team.¡± He said and shooed me away. After I left the King I went to find a Bible for the oath ceremony with Lawrence. Boy that was more interesting getting then you would think. Only Priests and a few nobles read in the 12th so a Bible can only be found at a Church and they usually don¡¯t loan them out. It can take months of hard work to copy a single copy of the Bible by hand. Luckily I''m pretty tight with the Father. But I still got the standard ¡°Why?¡± and a weird look when I asked to borrow it. It made me realize how bad a printing press is needed. Note to self build Printing Press. ¡°Lawrence!¡± Puff ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± ¡°Did you find my replacement?¡± ¡°He is heading to James Bolt as we speak. He is 23 and had been working in his father¡¯s guild in Paris before he married a Jew and his father exiled him. He had been working there all his life building houses and the such.¡± ¡°Good work son¡± ¡°Thank you sir¡± the look on his face told me he had never been praised. ¡°Here¡¯s a pence, buy yourself a good lunch on me.¡± A pence might not sound like much but I was almost tempted to pull a grandma and tell him ¡°don¡¯t spend it all in one place¡±. A pence would buy you lodging and food for the night in most places in this depressed economy. The look on his face was priceless. They never even get a tip for a job well done. Sad really. ¡°Thank you Sir¡± ¡°And then after lunch I need someone else. A blacksmith. The same criteria as before. You remember what criteria is. Good. Now run along. Wait one more thing if you ever see anyone who has a good arm I mean can throw really far like with a spear or a rock let me know.¡± ¡°Well sir that would be Sir Adrian. He is the best spear thrower in the Kingdom. He can strike a man at 50 paces with one every time.¡± Lawrence said. 50 paces could be anything from 50 to 75 yards or so. Note to self come up with a universal set of measures. ¡°I will track him down while you go and find me that Blacksmith. But first we must perform your oath ceremony.¡± I said as I got out the Bible. "I will serve my liege Sir Arthur and I will never speak of anything that he has ever told me not too for if I do I will burn forever in the fire and brimstone of Hell. I will tell my liege any information that might be important to him and will not keep any information or idea from him for any reason or the wrath of God shall punish me with thousand cuts of the blade every day for all time. If I steal from my liege God shall descend from heaven and smite me. I will be faithful, loyal, and courteous. In all these things I say before God." I got him to repeat it a line at a time because he sure couldn''t read. "You now are a paid employee of mine. You will make one pence a day as well as be provided food and lodging as well as an education that will be worth more than all three combined. Now find me my Blacksmith. Also find someone to make me a leather ball it will have to be oblong and airtight. Someone that is good working with leather." I said after the oath was done and the ¡°Curse of the Smartphone¡± was lifted. "Sir-Yes-sir" With sheer excitement like I haven''t seen in some time he turned around and was gone. For Want of a Scale After Mini-me left I went out in search of Sir Adrian. I found him on the Training grounds and guess what, he was practicing spear throwing. He was pretty tall for an Ager almost 6'' with a huge upper body not surprisingly. His lower body wasn''t nearly as impressive. All these guys do all day is swing around swords and spears. Little to no running. Something told me Football was going to go over like a rat turd in a flour sack with the Knights. "Are you the one they call Sir Adrian?" "I am. And you must be the Giant turned Knight Sir Arthur." He said looking up at me as I approached. "I am. Word reached your ears very quickly Sir Adrian." "The only times the wife stops gossiping is when she is listening to still more. Heard you are quite the dancer." That seems to be a universal constant among women. "Not so much Sir Adrian but I appreciate the compliment. Have you also heard that we wished to form Football teams?" "What are "Footbull" teams?" "Football is ..." And I explained the game in the same way I did with the King. "And you want me to be QB. I am deeply honored Sir Arthur for such sounds like a high honor indeed. But I do not know how to throw a Football. I have never even seen one. Is it shaped like a spear?" "I will have one hopefully by Monday''s scouting combine. I want you to attend if you wish but I cannot promise you the QB position. You must earn it at practice the first week or so. I do think you have a leg up on your competition because of how well you can throw a spear." "I will do my best Sir Arthur" "That¡¯s all anyone can do. Be at the training grounds Monday Morning at sunrise." And I left.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! I still couldn''t figure out a few things. First I had to somehow time the men at the combine. That is a problem because Agers don¡¯t even know what seconds are, let alone have a way to measure them. The slowest humans will run anything we will measure in far less than a minute. The second problem is pads and helmets. We could go old school with none but I at least want to try to protect them somewhat (especially considering I am a player). Plus I think a Modern Football helmet could be a powerful symbol eventually. In what way I don¡¯t know yet. It was high noon so I decided to grab a quick bite to eat at the Broken Dagger which wasn¡¯t too far away. It was the first time I had been back since I was Knighted and Lawrence of course told them I had been. So I got a lot of slaps on the backs and congratulations. It was what I got from Agatha that was really worth the trip. She dropped everything (literally dropped a plate of food when she saw me) grab me by the arm and dragged me to her bedroom. Being a Knight in the Middle Ages is good for a specific type of exercise. I know that much. By the time she was through with me I was really hungry. When I told her so she cooked my favorite Side of Mutton. When she set it on the bar and started to pour a beer out of a massive barrel inspiration struck. I could measure time by running water into a bucket and measuring the weight. The Greeks invented a water clock on a similar idea. I would have them run two times each drill. Now I was back to needing a universal set of measures. Paces and my own vague recollection of the exact size of a foot or inch or pound wouldn¡¯t cut it. I couldn¡¯t even use my height as I haven¡¯t measured myself since senior year of high school. Its was frustrating as I know all the conversions of metric and some standard ones (they''re harder to remember). Even though I grew up with Standard, Metric has always been the easier system. We in America didn¡¯t like change so we never adopted it. Well here they have nothing so there is no change. A 10 based measurement system is far easier to teach and memorize. I came to a solution through unconventional means based around the Gram as it was easy. Every stoner worth his salt knows a nickel weighs exactly 5 gram. Boom we have weights and measures. 1 liter of water is 1000 cm in volume and weighs 1 KG. Figure out a perfectly square container that will hold 1 KG of water and figure out the dimensions of the water. But so as to not upset the establishment I will call the measurement yards instead of meters. A yard in these days had been declared the length of King Henry¡¯s arm but I would just use the name and hope he didn¡¯t notice the change. They are roughly the same size anyway. Who cares if its kiloyard instead of a kilometer (other than the idiots that run this backwards world)? All this before the beer was even to me. Redneck engineering at its finest. ¡°Thanks luv you¡¯re a genius.¡± I said and spanked her ass as she giggled and walked away. She’s a Blacksmith After I ate I told Agatha thanks for the food, amongst other things, and I left. As I did I ran into Lawrence. That boy does get things done as he had already found a leather worker but was still looking for an adequate blacksmith. He said that the leather worker was awaiting us at the Tower. I told him to rustle up some old beer barrels with a spout on them that could be easily turned on and off in an instant. I told him if they still had beer in them to take them to the Tower let the King''s men partake in it. As long as they were off duty of course. In order to get back to the Tower I decided to stop by the town square to check what the Merchants had for sale. When I got there I noticed a crowd gathering around a cart that was led by a young woman. She couldn¡¯t have been more than 22 or 23 but you could tell she had swung a hammer around before. Quite a few times I''d bet because as I approached her cart I noticed what must be metalworking tools. She even had an anvil. She had the look and the physique of what I imagine Viking women had. Her dirty blonde hair tied in a ponytail was laying across arms as big around as most men in the 21st. She was averge height for the time, around 5''3" but she was still imposing. ¡°Women can¡¯t work the forge. Go back to your kitchen woman.¡± It was my favorite blacksmith. ¡°I can do the work of two of you. But come back when I set up shop I will be in need of your hot air.¡± This caused the old blacksmith to pick up a red hot poker and start running at her. I cut him off just before he got to her. I grabbed his wrist and spun it around till it was behind his back. This caused him to drop the poker and then I shoved him back into his shop. ¡°Stay in there and cool off¡± I said. Ironic as it was well over a 100 degrees in there. Probably what pissed him off to begin with. He glared at me and I gave him a look that would peel paint. He kept his mouth shut after that. ¡°I could have taken him.¡± She said defiantly. ¡°I¡¯m sure you could have mam. But I can¡¯t stand him so I wanted to put him in his place.¡± ¡°That makes two of us.¡± ¡°How about I buy you a drink and you tell me your story?¡± I said with a smile. She agreed and we went back to the Broken Dagger. Luckily she wasn¡¯t much of a looker so Agatha didn¡¯t seem to get jealous about that. I found out her name is Lilly. She was from the east so I would assume modern day Sweden or Norway. Her entire family had been killed by a group of marauding bandits while she had been with her father in town as a child. With his wife and sons dead and no ability to sire more he passed the knowledge onto her even though she was a woman. ¡°Don¡¯t look at me that way.¡± She said as she told me that ¡°I can do better work than any man.¡± She said confidently. ¡°I believe you. In my country women are all the time doing the jobs of men. I actually require the services of a blacksmith. But I must hire the absolute best as I will be assigning tasks that most men just could not do. Honestly I don¡¯t know if you can handle it.¡± Reverse Psychology on her type is like shooting fish in a barrel. ¡°I can do anything. Just give me the metal and a place to work and I will make you armor that will deflect any danger and a sword that will cut through anything like it were water.¡± Butter being scarce I imagine. ¡°I like confidence but if you want to remain employed by me I require more than that. I will give you a chance however as I like your spirit.¡± ¡°Thank you my liege.¡± Now I needed to find her a place to set up shop. After talking to Father Clarence earlier when I got the bible I found out about a building that was recently vacated when the previous blacksmith had passed away (that¡¯s why I have been forced to deal with Grumpy) it also had a room where she could stay. I rented it for a steal. Actually it was probably the first rent-to-own lease in the world. Now that I have a blacksmith, the next step would be a blast furnace but I get ahead of myself. ¡°Your first task is to make two dozen of these helmets.¡± I said showing her the drawing of a uni-bar old school football helmet. ¡°But arrows or a lance will go right through that bar sir.¡± ¡°I appreciate the feedback but these helmets will not see war. They are for a game.¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°Must be a rough game to need a helmet.¡± ¡°Yes it is actually that¡¯s probably why men love it.¡± ¡°I can do this.¡± She said after she looked at the drawing again. ¡°Remember they have to be heavily padded inside as well. Make them all one size to fit my head as it is larger than most men. Then use different padding for smaller heads.¡± She seemed remarkably quick to grasp what I was after and I left feeling very pleased with myself for finding her. My diamond in the rough so to speak. You never know what you might run into at the market. I realized how late it was getting (not having a watch or cellphone sucks) and I still had to talk to the leather worker. So I started heading towards the Tower again. Just as I was beginning to daydream, Lawrence popped up. ¡°Sir. I have obtained 2 beer barrels you asked for. The men appreciate the gesture and are enjoying the beer as we speak. I made it be clear that they could only drink if they did not have guard duty.¡± Two barrels should be enough as really I want to watch every drill anyway. That reminded me I forgot to see if Lily could make me a large counter balance scale for weighing the water. ¡°Good man Lawrence and I have found a blacksmith.¡± ¡°Good sir, for I have not.¡± ¡°That should work. Now get Arthur and Bolt to make up some uniform, it means all the same, buckets. Make them know that I need 4 buckets that are exactly the same weight. If they are not, grind down the tops until both balance on a scale. Also while there tell him to start planning the biggest job he''s ever done. I¡¯m going to need well over a hundred workers to get this stadium done in a month.¡± ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± ¡°After that get some sleep and be waiting outside my door come morning. If you wake me up without something extremely important to say I will give you a new hole to breathe. I am not a morning person. Dismissed.¡± Lawrence left and I headed back to Lily¡¯s and told her that first priority was now the scale as I would need to have it tomorrow for N&B. She griped about how that was too soon so I told her how Grumpy would have it done before he went to bed tonight. Anyway it will be done first thing in the morning. It¡¯s almost criminal how easy she is to manipulate When I got back to the Tower I met with the leather maker. I gave him all the 3d drawings of a Football I could think of and described it as best I could but something tells me it might take a few tries. But he was willing as long as my silver was still good. After that I went to the kitchen to get something to eat. The King must have been having the same idea because I met the same servant there and decided to tag along. Face time with the King is kind of important and I had the papers drawn up for the stadium/team deal. He signed them without even looking at them. He either trusts me or more likely knows that death awaits those who cross him. ¡°I hear you talked to Sir Adrian. A fine man. As good with a spear as I have ever seen. Is he to be the other QB?¡± He asked as I entered. ¡°I hope your majesty. I will award the position to the Knight I think would be my best competition.¡± ¡°Well don¡¯t get too carried away Sir Arthur I want my team to win.¡± ¡°I have no intention of losing, your Majesty, but in order to make the game as entertaining as possible we need to keep the game close. Eventually if it pleases your Majesty, we will form a league with all the lords in England. Then I will create a dominating team that will win many championships. This is the sign of a true football warrior. One that can weather a whole season of games and still win it all. Plus your highness there will be lots of silver flow into your coffers if it gets to that level.¡± ¡°Yes see to it Sir Arthur. Now where was that sandwich? Oh I do believe I already ate it. Get me another one.¡± he said to a servant passing by. ¡°Would you like one Sir Arthur¡± ¡°I would, your majesty. And if I may be so bold you may call me Arthur. I feel that you are a friend and hearing a friend call me Sir I am not accustomed to.¡± ¡°Of course my good man. Arthur is a fine name. I shall call you that at least when not in court. Now about those sandwiches.¡± I sat down and ate with the king again. At least with sandwiches I kept my appetite as the plates and dogs were thankfully absent. We talked a while mostly about America. I told him how my country would take months to cross on foot. I told him of the great forests that stretched for hundreds of miles. He liked hearing about the Forests. Europe and to a lesser extent England had been heavily logged for centuries even in the 12th. Even after mechanization of logging the US still had millions of acres of forested land. ¡°I will have to visit there someday,¡± He said matter-of-factly. ¡°Of course your Majesty. Unfortunately however, even I do not know how to return. I was a warrior not a seaman. I only know it lies far to the west across the Atlantic¡± It was mostly true. Yeah sure sail west but if you do it in the wrong place it could take months longer and stretch your food storage to the point of mutiny. Especially since no one on the maiden voyage would be even confident we wouldn¡¯t just sail off the edge of the earth. I know that you could go to the equator and then follow it west and the winds would carry you there in about a month. I also know there is a northern route that would skirt around Greenland and Iceland and without having to sail around Europe. The problem is I don¡¯t know where it is. Besides, my country is about 900 years away. It''s kind of hard to get there in a boat. The best trade goods would be in the warmer central and northern South America anyway in the 12th. There¡¯s gold in dem¡¯ der hills. This time if we go I think we will trade for it. I told him more about America and after a few more minutes I excused myself and went to my room. The redhead from the night before was there again. ¡°I¡¯m sorry luv but I have had a really long day and don¡¯t think I have it in me for a roll in the hay¡± She looked plum disappointed in that but I was dead tired. I fell on the bed and didn¡¯t even hear her leave. Once again the sleep didn¡¯t last. ¡°Oh come on¡± ¡°I had so much fun last night I came back for Seconds¡± Matilda said giggling. You can¡¯t very well say no to a future Queen she might hold a grudge. Take One For The Team When I woke up the next day it was to a knock on the door. ¡°The King wishes for you to come to his quarters as soon as you are ready.¡± The servant said as I answered the door. As Scooby would say ¡°Ruh roh¡±. That trip was probably the longest of my life. My feet felt like they weighed a hundred pounds by the time I knocked on his door. ¡°Enter¡± the King said as I knocked on his door. ¡°You sent for me Your Majesty¡± ¡°Yes sit down sit down¡± He said motioning to a chair. ¡°I¡¯d rather stand your majesty. I just woke and I am still getting loosened up.¡± Actually it was so I could defend myself. ¡°Fine. Well then I¡¯ll just get straight to the point then, this business with my daughter has to stop.¡± It felt like someone just dropped me from an airplane without a parachute. ¡°Whatever do you mean your majesty?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be coy with me boy. My daughter sharing your bed once I can overlook as just her overwhelming curiosity getting the better of her. She is my daughter after all.¡± Henry was notoriously bigamous, having multiple mistresses. The ironic thing is England had an ¡°Heir¡± and later a ¡°Succession¡± crisis when he had almost 2 dozen illegitimate children, half boys. ¡°However twice is a pattern. It must stop, surely you see the danger in it.¡± Oh I see danger all right. ¡°I will try but it is she that seeks out me, your majesty.¡± ¡°Are you man? Is she forcing you?¡± He had a point I hadn¡¯t actually flat out refused before. But in a way she was forcing me. Women can hold a lovers grudge for decades. Even in the original timeline she had power. Hell her son Henry the 2nd became King after Stephen. ¡°I will do as you command your majesty¡± ¡°Don¡¯t look so brokenhearted about it. I will find you a fine wife with a large estate.¡± My love life was the least of my worries. I left there feeling like I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. I had left the Kings room with my head still attached but when I let down the Empress would I retain the other important body parts? ¡°Lawrence!¡± ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± Just say his name and he is here in a flash. ¡°Where are my bucket''s son?¡± ¡°A&B said they should have them done by tomorrow depending on when they get the scale Sir.¡± ¡°Good. Now I need you to find me someone else. I need someone who can make a padded set of armor for the chest and shoulders only. Leather would work to protect the padding on the outside. Give them this drawing and get them to make me one set as a start. Here¡¯s your pay for yesterday now run along.¡± He beamed at me as he got another pence. When he was out of sight I went to see if Lily had the scale done. I arrived at the shop I had procurred for my future blacksmith. It wasn''t much a two story building made of extremely rough cut lumber. The bottom floor was a workspace/shop while the living quarters were above. Lily however was at the bellows working on what appeared to be a football helmet. ¡°I take it that means you¡¯re done with the scale?¡± I said pointing to the Helmet. ¡°Aye, it does. I will have your weights before Monday so quit your worrying. First one of those I ever built. What do you need outta such a large scale?¡± ¡°To weigh water.¡± ¡°Huh? Well as long as you keep paying me you can do whatever floats your boat.¡± Hah that one is this old too. ¡°I¡¯ll send Lawrence to pick it up later. Good work.¡± I said as I flipped her a pence. I left the, I guess I have to name it something, how about Lily Pad? Maybe as a nickname. Ah hell I¡¯ll think of something later. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I walked down to the Broken Dagger as I hadn¡¯t had breakfast and it was already almost noon. Agatha wasn¡¯t in nearly as receptive mood today her mom had fussed at her all night after I had left about leaving during work. I wouldn¡¯t be as lucky today. ¡°I¡¯m sorry Sir Arthur but business is bad enough without her dropping food and running off.¡± She had said trying to explain why her daughter could not drop everything at the sight of me and run off and have sex. Isn¡¯t the 12th great at least for a Knight? ¡°It''s alright Madam Claire, I understand. Is it really that slow?¡± ¡°Yes I¡¯m afraid it has been since my husband passed away. God rested his soul that was 4 years ago. We have been doing the best we can but¡­¡± It was dead in there alright. I guess the scenery was so nice I never noticed. That¡¯s when a business idea hit me like a ton of bricks. ¡°I¡¯ve got it. Why don¡¯t you sell this place to me? I won¡¯t be able to pay for it all upfront but I will give everything I have right now and pay the rest in a few months. Then you and your daughter work for me and I turn this into one of the best Inns that ever was. If I can¡¯t you keep the inn and my money.¡± ¡°Do you mean it?¡± ¡°Of course¡± ¡°Yes I would love that and Agatha probably even more so. I know you can do it, for you are Sir Arthur and you can do anything.¡± That¡¯s a little much. ¡°I don¡¯t know about that but I can turn this place around. Here¡¯s what we do¡­..¡± And the Rump Roast Inn was born. It was basically a steakhouse that had good looking women in short shorts and tank tops waiting on you, a modern sports bar if you will. The Inn was just for added income. I was going to need to build some pool tables and some darts and dartboards. I was afraid though that the attire might make an Ager think he had just walked into a strip club by comparison. In business though the only way to truly succeed is be different but may incur the wrath of the community, in other words the Church. Its kind of ridiculous but I know how much of ¡°Prudes¡± they really are You think with me feeding the hungry and keeping the rain off the Church, they would cut me some slack but something made me doubt it. I also have Lawrence trying to find a cook and I am going to train them in some 21st century cooking. These people don¡¯t even know what a frying pan is. A world without fried chicken is no world worth living in. Note to self set Lilly to making Cast Iron cookware. This investment was going to wipe out my silver. I still had some money coming in from A&B but it was quickly getting outpaced by my payroll. Luckily I had the Loan from the King but my financial future was very much at risk here. I also started a side project that went along with the Inn. I was going to take some of the cheapest beer I could find and turn it into white lightning to sell exclusively at my Inn. I was finally going to channel my inner gramps and build a still. I figure this could get me a lot of repeat business on its own not to mention start a possible antiseptic business. That¡¯s something else I have to work on 21st medical practices. At the very least washing the wound as well as the surgeons hands with antiseptic. You can also use it to purify water which had been scaring the shit out of me literally. Tainted water gives you the shits. When I next saw Lawrence I got him started on gathering the items from the wish list for all this. I also got him to point me in the direction of the city¡¯s biggest gossiper. ¡°You know her sir, the Empress.¡± I¡¯ll be... kiss my ass. Well I guess I had to cross that bridge sometime anyway. Best get it over with. I found her in the Royal gardens. She was looking gorgeous of course. Her hair fluttering dramatically in the wind. ¡°A beautiful day milady and made more so by your presence.¡± And I kissed her hand. That crap is still in here. ¡°It is. Now did you come to take me and make passionate love to me here out in the open? You beast.¡± Does she ever stop? ¡°Unfortunately I must do the opposite. We can never be milady. You know this.¡± ¡°I see my Father has seen to you. What did he threaten you with? The rack? Death?¡± ¡°No he did not threaten me. He makes a valid point. You could be Queen Matilda. I am at best a loyal servant willing to take on the world for you but that¡¯s all I could every be. To continue this could only end in my death.¡± ¡°Take on the world, you do think grandiosely.¡± She said chuckling ¡°Well it was fun while it lasted.¡± I would have thought she would have argued or at least puffed up. Done princess shit. I was shocked and I guess it showed. ¡°Oh don¡¯t be so surprised do you think you were the first?¡± Well yeah every guy wants to. ¡°He has already chased off two and I think killed one. We don¡¯t know he went out one day on patrol and never came back. The fact that you''re still here means he must like you.¡± Holy shit. ¡°Ah. Well I don¡¯t know what to say¡± I said mumbling. ¡°Thanks for the good time, would work.¡± She said with a smile. ¡°Thanks for the good time, milady.¡± ¡°Now anything else you need, Sir Arthur?¡± ¡°Well yes actually I need it to be made known that a new Inn will be opening with male centered entertainment and in a week or so strong fire water which is a drink with no comparison will also be available. It will be opening on Monday at the former Broken Dagger Inn.¡± ¡°So you want me to talk to my girls and make sure they tell their men not to go to this place because of the reasons you mention. That way they will go out in droves.¡± Wow, talk about a sharp woman. There are some psychologists back home that would love to study this girl. ¡°Yes exactly. You are incredible.¡± ¡°It will cost you.¡± ¡°I beg your pardon¡± ¡°It will cost you. That tongue thing you do. Come now it isn¡¯t even intercourse.¡± Can¡¯t win them all I guess. Maybe the King would understand. Stop Diddling the Kings Daughter When I woke up the next day it was to a knock on the door. ¡°The King wishes for you to come to his quarters as soon as you are ready.¡± The servant said as I answered the door. As Scooby would say ¡°Ruh roh¡±. That trip was probably the longest of my life. My feet felt like they weighed a hundred pounds by the time I knocked on his door. ¡°Enter¡± the King said as I knocked on his door. ¡°You sent for me Your Majesty¡± ¡°Yes sit down sit down¡± He said motioning to a chair. ¡°I¡¯d rather stand your majesty. I just woke and I am still getting loosened up.¡± Actually it was so I could defend myself. ¡°Fine. Well then I¡¯ll just get straight to the point then, this business with my daughter has to stop.¡± It felt like someone just dropped me from an airplane without a parachute. ¡°Whatever do you mean your majesty?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be coy with me boy. My daughter sharing your bed once I can overlook as just her overwhelming curiosity getting the better of her. She is my daughter after all.¡± Henry was notoriously bigamous, having multiple mistresses. The ironic thing is England had an ¡°Heir¡± and later a ¡°Succession¡± crisis when he had almost 2 dozen illegitimate children, half boys. ¡°However twice is a pattern. It must stop, surely you see the danger in it.¡± Oh I see danger all right. ¡°I will try but it is she that seeks out me, your majesty.¡± ¡°Are you man? Is she forcing you?¡± He had a point I hadn¡¯t actually flat out refused before. But in a way she was forcing me. Women can hold a lovers grudge for decades. Even in the original timeline she had power. Hell her son Henry the 2nd became King after Stephen. ¡°I will do as you command your majesty¡± ¡°Don¡¯t look so brokenhearted about it. I will find you a fine wife with a large estate.¡± My love life was the least of my worries. I left there feeling like I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. I had left the Kings room with my head still attached but when I let down the Empress would I retain the other important body parts? ¡°Lawrence!¡± ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± Just say his name and he is here in a flash. ¡°Where are my bucket''s son?¡± ¡°A&B said they should have them done by tomorrow depending on when they get the scale Sir.¡± ¡°Good. Now I need you to find me someone else. I need someone who can make a padded set of armor for the chest and shoulders only. Leather would work to protect the padding on the outside. Give them this drawing and get them to make me one set as a start. Here¡¯s your pay for yesterday now run along.¡± He beamed at me as he got another pence. When he was out of sight I went to see if Lily had the scale done. When I arrived at the shop she was outside at the bellows working on what appeared to be a football helmet. ¡°I take it that means you¡¯re done with the scale?¡± I said pointing to the Helmet. ¡°Aye, it does. I will have your weights before Monday so quit your worrying. First one of those I ever built. What do you need outta such a large scale?¡± ¡°To weigh water.¡± ¡°Huh? Well as long as you keep paying me you can do whatever floats your boat.¡± Hah that one is this old too. ¡°I¡¯ll send Lawrence to pick it up later. Good work.¡± I said as I flipped her a pence. I left the, I guess I have to name it something, how about Lily Pad? Maybe as a nickname. Ah hell I¡¯ll think of something later. I walked down to the Broken Dagger as I hadn¡¯t had breakfast and it was already almost noon. Agatha wasn¡¯t in nearly as receptive mood today her mom had fussed at her all night after I had left about leaving during work. I wouldn¡¯t be as lucky today.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°I¡¯m sorry Sir Arthur but business is bad enough without her dropping food and running off.¡± She had said trying to explain why her daughter could not drop everything at the sight of me and run off and have sex. Isn¡¯t the 12th great at least for a Knight? ¡°It''s alright Madam Claire, I understand. Is it really that slow?¡± ¡°Yes I¡¯m afraid it has been since my husband passed away. God rested his soul that was 4 years ago. We have been doing the best we can but¡­¡± It was dead in there alright. I guess the scenery was so nice I never noticed. That¡¯s when a business idea hit me like a ton of bricks. ¡°I¡¯ve got it. Why don¡¯t you sell this place to me? I won¡¯t be able to pay for it all upfront but I will give everything I have right now and pay the rest in a few months. Then you and your daughter work for me and I turn this into one of the best Inns that ever was. If I can¡¯t you keep the inn and my money.¡± ¡°Do you mean it?¡± ¡°Of course¡± ¡°Yes I would love that and Agatha probably even more so. I know you can do it, for you are Sir Arthur and you can do anything.¡± That¡¯s a little much. ¡°I don¡¯t know about that but I can turn this place around. Here¡¯s what we do¡­..¡± And the Rump Roast Inn was born. It was basically a steakhouse that had good looking women in short shorts and tank tops waiting on you, a modern sports bar if you will. The Inn was just for added income. I was going to need to build some pool tables and some darts and dartboards. I was afraid though that the attire might make an Ager think he had just walked into a strip club by comparison. In business though the only way to truly succeed is be different but may incur the wrath of the community, in other words the Church. It''s kind of ridiculous but I know how much of ¡°Prudes¡± they really are You think with me feeding the hungry and keeping the rain off the Church, they would cut me some slack but something made me doubt it. I also have Lawrence trying to find a cook and I am going to train them in some 21st century cooking. These people don¡¯t even know what a frying pan is. A world without fried chicken is no world worth living in. Note to self set Lilly to making Cast Iron cookware. This investment was going to wipe out my silver. I still had some money coming in from A&B but it was quickly getting outpaced by my payroll. Luckily I had the Loan from the King but my financial future was very much at risk here. I also started a side project that went along with the Inn. I was going to take some of the cheapest beer I could find and turn it into white lightning to sell exclusively at my Inn. I was finally going to channel my inner gramps and build a still. I figure this could get me a lot of repeat business on its own not to mention start a possible antiseptic business. That¡¯s something else I have to work on 21st medical practices. At the very least washing the wound as well as the surgeons hands with antiseptic. You can also use it to purify water which had been scaring the shit out of me literally. Tainted water gives you the shits. When I next saw Lawrence I got him started on gathering the items from the wish list for all this. I also got him to point me in the direction of the city¡¯s biggest gossiper. ¡°You know her sir, the Empress.¡± I¡¯ll be... kiss my ass. Well I guess I had to cross that bridge sometime anyway. Best get it over with. I found her in the Royal gardens. She was looking gorgeous of course. Her hair fluttering dramatically in the wind. ¡°A beautiful day milady and made more so by your presence.¡± And I kissed her hand. That crap is still in here. ¡°It is. Now did you come to take me and make passionate love to me here out in the open? You beast.¡± Does she ever stop? ¡°Unfortunately I must do the opposite. We can never be milady. You know this.¡± ¡°I see my Father has seen to you. What did he threaten you with? The rack? Death?¡± ¡°No he did not threaten me. He makes a valid point. You could be Queen Matilda. I am at best a loyal servant willing to take on the world for you but that¡¯s all I could ever be. To continue this could only end in my death.¡± ¡°Take on the world, you do think grandiosely.¡± She said chuckling ¡°Well it was fun while it lasted.¡± I would have thought she would have argued or at least puffed up. Done princess shit. I was shocked and I guess it showed. ¡°Oh don¡¯t be so surprised do you think you were the first?¡± Well yeah every guy wants to. ¡°He has already chased off two and I think killed one." I took in a sharp breath "We don¡¯t know he went out one day on patrol and never came back. The fact that you''re still here means he must like you.¡± Holy shit. ¡°Ah. Well I don¡¯t know what to say¡± I said mumbling. ¡°Thanks for the good time, it will work.¡± She said with a smile. ¡°Thanks for the good time, milady.¡± ¡°Now anything else you need, Sir Arthur?¡± ¡°Well yes actually." "Why am I not suprised." She said chuckling. "I need it to be made known that a new Inn will be opening with male centered entertainment and in a week or so strong fire water which is a drink with no comparison will also be available. It will be opening on Monday at the former Broken Dagger Inn.¡± ¡°So you want me to talk to my girls and make sure they tell their men not to go to this place because of the reasons you mention. That way they will go out in droves.¡± Wow, talk about a sharp woman. There are some psychologists back home that would love to study this girl. ¡°Yes exactly. You are incredible.¡± ¡°It will cost you.¡± ¡°I beg your pardon¡± ¡°It will cost you. That tongue thing you do. Come now it isn¡¯t even intercourse.¡± Can¡¯t win them all I guess. Maybe the King would understand. Im Going to Bolt I woke up with the Redhead, her name is Lina I found out, lying next to me. Apparently I had left quite an impression on her. She was coming back on her own now the King hadn¡¯t asked/told her to since the first night. Like I said no technique in the Agers. She was still asleep so I got up as easily as I could and threw on some clothes and left. ¡°Lawrence¡± Puff. ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± ¡°I need you to take this drawing down to a good seamstress. Tell her I will send her Agatha later as a model to do a demo and I want to see it by this afternoon. Tell her I¡¯ll pay her double and she¡¯ll make even more when I hire some more girls. Then find a shoe maker. I need a pair of these made, they''re called high heels. Trust me, I know they look strange. They can come later if need be but get them done ASAP¡± ¡°ASAP?¡± ¡°It means get it done as soon as possible.¡± ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± I decided it was time to check in on the Inn and get some breakfast. I found that Lawrence had already found a cook. That little bugger is as handy as pockets on a shirt. I had already gotten Lilly to make up a frying pan and had Agatha run get it. I had just started explaining to the cook what an omelet was when she got back. The pan wasn¡¯t perfect but it would do. I then found that we didn¡¯t have bacon. As a mountain boy a breakfast without bacon just wouldn¡¯t work. I sent Agatha back out to fetch some. As she left I said. ¡°If we had a man around the house he could bring home the bacon.¡± And they all laughed way too hard about it. When I asked about this they told me something you wouldn¡¯t even wonder about in the 21st. That saying comes from a preacher not far from here. He would give out a side of bacon to any husband that would swear before God and the congregation that he had not fought with his wife in the last year. ¡°Bringing home the Bacon¡± was a high honor. Once Agatha returned with the side of Bacon I taught the cook how to make an omelet. That is after I made him wash his nasty hands. I also told him not to throw away any grease. I should be able to use it to make soap or something else eventually. I hadn¡¯t eaten a meal that good since I got here and I shared it with beautiful company as Agatha ate with me. That surprised her but hell she brought home the bacon she should get some. If only we had scratch made biscuits and gravy. I asked him and he didn¡¯t know of biscuits but he could make gravy from the grease. I told him not to bother. Not the same without a biscuit and I sure don¡¯t know how to bake. I¡¯ve been a bachelor twice and camping plenty and you learn how to cook breakfast and frying is simple enough but baking is an art. Note to self hire a baker. Thank God I don¡¯t drink coffee. It¡¯s a couple thousand miles away. Same thing with tobacco. But oh how my heart doeth miss potatoes. Fried, mashed, baked you name it they are so good. I was really missing some hashbrowns about now. I have always been a meat and potatoes kind of guy. It''s like I¡¯m only half here anymore. I¡¯m just glad my weed crop at the Church (wow does that feel wrong now that I think about it) is doing well. All of them are not just mine. Wood chips on the surface (mulch in other words) is a great way to build up soil fertility and we had a ton of them thanks to all the building I caused. It keeps in moisture as well which is good because it has been awful hot considering I¡¯m in the near the far tip of the northern freaking hemisphere. It would get expensive as hell buying and transporting herbs and vegetables for the inn so I plan on doing a full scale garden next year to cut back on costs. Note to self get Lawrence to find all the unique herb and vegetable seeds he can that will grow in this climate. After we ate I sent Agatha to find Lawrence. I then implemented some changes in the kitchen. For starters they were to wash the dishes after every use in hot water (I made sure they knew steaming not just warm). Note to self make Soap. The frying pan was just to be wiped clean when not in use (you don¡¯t wash cast iron even in the 21st). Also the place had to stay clean and I would be inspecting it every day I was here. I also instructed the cook to get me some unique spices and herbs. Especially garlic, you can do a lot with it. ¡°Madam Claire I will need you to find me some good wholesome girls. Bring in twice what we need to whittle down one quarter by your own means and I will select the final roster. 8 to start with I think then we will go from there. Remember they must be attractive for this to work.¡± ¡°I will Sir Arthur.¡± Once I had them all started I went to find Bolt. It was time I laid out the plans for the stadium. Lawrence was out scouting out a site for it as we speak. It had to be large enough and I wanted it to overlook the Thames and London. I needed a statement to tower above the City. I found Bolt looking frazzled. ¡°A hundred men? Yesterday we were a two man company. I can¡¯t do it. What have you got me into?¡± I see I might have been mistaken trying to give him time to prepare. How could he? He didn¡¯t know how to. It was like everyone in the world was a child and I had to hold their hand through everything. I wonder if this is how Einstein felt? It was time for some positive reinforcement for my friend here. ¡°I have worked alongside you for months. There is nothing you can¡¯t do if you set your mind to it. Besides I¡¯m running this thing you''re my number 2 man like always. I¡¯ll take the heat when it comes. And hell if you want you can quit take your original tools, the knowledge I¡¯ve given you, and leave the company with my thanks but if you do you¡¯ll regret it. I¡¯m about to build one of the greatest architectural achievements since the Roman Coliseum. The builders of this will go down in history for not only building it but for spawning one of the greatest games this world has ever known.¡± I once studied Psychology a little in college. In Sports Psychology there is a theory that sometimes all it takes for someone to be great is a powerful figure (a hero so to speak) convincing them that they are. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. It¡¯s a little like the theory of positive reinforcement. If you think good things they will happen to you. It always sounded like a lot of new age crap to me but couldn¡¯t hurt at this point. ¡°Alright let us commence then.¡± I showed him the rough plans I had sketched up. It was obviously smaller than a stadium in my day. It would start at a 10,000 person capacity . It would still be over 3 stories tall. Higher than even the Tower but don¡¯t tell the King that. I would also use what would otherwise be wasted space by using the space under the seats as living, office, and storage space. As well as a Rump Roast Concession Stand. In fact I was planning to build my apartment in the highest part facing the Thames and London. It would also have a balcony onto the field but the Kings box would still be a half story above. Got to stroke that ego. I also took a page out of modern day Pro teams and I designed it so it would funnel crowd noise to the field. Home field advantage and loud crowds have won many a game. I could see I was starting to blow Bolt¡¯s mind. ¡°We have to build that in a month? Im telling you it can¡¯t be done.¡± Bolt said huffing. ¡°And I¡¯m telling you it can. We prefabricate everything at shop then assemble it on site. All the interior will be completed later. We only need the seats and the luxury boxes done.¡± ¡°Only? That would take years not a month.¡± This was going to take some convincing. ¡°It will be one of the best paying jobs of your life. In one month¡¯s time you can make more than you would otherwise in a couple of years. Not to mention this won¡¯t be the last stadium. Far from it hopefully. Do you want to be a part of this companies and your countries future or do you not? If you stay you must trust me.¡± He finally shut up and we got down to hiring of the crew. We were going to have to hire pretty much every unemployed man under the age of 30 who ever picked up a hammer. I wanted large crews at first to grade the land. It would allow me to see who worked the hardest and hopefully a few of the brightest amongst them would shine and they would stay on for the normal crew. Probably a thousand to start and work our way down slowly to a crew of a few hundred of the best of them. We still had regular houses going up so we couldn¡¯t stop that either. I decided we would keep some of the men on rotation as they got experience into the home construction. It would allow me to put the best men in the most needed place at that time. I also had crews that would only answer to Bolt and not housing. Speaking of tools I had forgot I needed to make a couple hundred sets of new tools. Not to mention all the nails. I think I am going to have to revise my priorities with Lilly. Once I made sure James understood what he had to have, I left and headed to the Pad. I had started calling it that ridiculous nickname but at least took out Lilly. ¡°I have changed my priorities I want you to start making these tools after you have made a few helmets.¡± I wanted that symbol dammit at least on the QBs. She let out a slew of obscenities that would make a sailor blush. ¡°Make up your damn mind. I already got 3 done making them thin like you asked and had started on the fourth.¡± ¡°That is perfect. It is as if you read my mind. I need one spare and I have an idea for what to do with the fourth. Give me a completed helmet.¡± I said and she handed one to me cussing me all the time. ¡°Thank you, Lilly. You are twice the blacksmith that Grumpy is. I know it isn¡¯t much of a compliment but it¡¯s the truth.¡± And I meant it. You ought to see it. It looked exactly like I remembered it except it was made of iron. There was something powerful about a football helmet. Steel isn¡¯t easy to come by so I had to make them of iron. As I looked at it inspiration struck. Have the QBs in what would effectively be lightweight plate armor. I started explaing it to Lilly which of course got more swearing. It would only cover the torso and be more made similar to football pads but the process would allow Lilly to get a head start on my eventual plate armor that I would give to my Army. The only problem would be time. I told her to put it on the backburner which got me a look. She gave me another strange look when I showed her a claw hammer and my other devices that Grumpy had already made that I needed. You might be wondering why I keep calling him that. Well it is because I honestly can¡¯t remember his name and it seemed better than calling him the other blacksmith all the time. Once she understood what I wanted and how many she of course gripped and I of course casually mentioned that Grumpy could and had done it already. I think I should have a factory on tools before long. She¡¯s a one woman factory but I¡¯m going to get Lawrence to round up some assistant/apprentices for her. Each one doing one tool with Lilly doing hammers as that is what we need the most of. We¡¯re going to need a lot of wood just for the handles. London is going to have more breathing room after I get done with the trees around here after this project. I would also need all sorts of brackets made to hold cross braces. I was designing the whole thing so we could make as few different parts as possible. Faster to make and assemble that way. After I had her started I left. Once I walked back down the street I hollered for Lawrence who didn¡¯t answer. ¡°I was starting to think he really was a genie.¡± I said chuckling. ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± He scared the shit out of me. ¡°Dammit boy you¡¯re as slippery as a greased pig.¡± ¡°Thank you sir. You called sir.¡± ¡°Yes have you found someone to make the pads? ¡°Yes Sir they are putting together a sample based around their son. Who is the second largest man I have ever seen. Second only to you that is sir.¡± ¡°Really and how old is this son?¡± ¡°18 sir and they say he eats like a horse.¡± He said ¡°More vitamins and nutrients that way I guess. If he is active he might be a promising prospect.¡± ¡°Vitamins and nutrients Sir?¡± ¡°Nevermind that. I will have to see this boy and the pads. Can you arrange a demonstration this evening?¡± It might be time for an in-home recruiting the kind I always wanted to have happen to me. ¡°I will see, Sir¡± ¡°Good what about the location for the Stadium?¡± ¡°I may have found one sir. It is heavily forested now we will have to cut many trees to clear it.¡± ¡°Won''t work. As much as I would like the Lumber I don¡¯t have time to remove the stumps. Maybe in a few months (or with gunpowder) but now I need land that is already reasonably flat.¡± ¡°I know of one other sir but it is King Henry¡¯s hunting preserve. I do not think you will persuade him to give it up.¡± ¡°I can try. Or better yet I know someone who has power over him.¡± ¡°I doubt the Pope would listen to so silly a request Sir.¡± ¡°No, his daughter. Do you know how hard it is for a daughter¡¯s begging to be ignored?¡± ¡°If you do that sir, well I would have to guess maybe there is magic in you yet sir. .¡± ¡°Do you mean I¡¯ve got the magic touch? I know that¡¯s what the ladies keep telling me.¡± I said as I chuckled and walked off. I set out in search of the Empress. I found a servant in the Tower who took me to her quarters. I didn¡¯t know what to expect when I entered them. Flashes of images of whips and gags come to mind. I shook it off as just my silly imagination ran wild. ¡°Come in¡± she said as I knocked. ¡°Oh Sir Arthur. You may leave Ida.¡± She said to the servant that brought me. ¡°You are a beast Arthur. Coming to my quarters in broad daylight to take advantage of a lady. Oh what will my Father think?¡± ¡°I have come to ask another favor.¡± ¡°What might that be?¡± ¡°I need you to ask your father to give me his pheasant hunting preserve overlooking the city. I want to build my stadium there.¡± ¡°That would be a large favor indeed. What would I receive in return?¡± ¡°Other than my gratitude?¡± ¡°You know what I want. Do we have to play this game?¡± She said with a grin. For Queen and country. A Lineman Appears I left the Empress feeling more used then a payphone phonebook. I started looking for Lawrence and was almost worried when I couldn¡¯t find him at first. You can get used to someone just being there when you need them. I found him after some searching nearby the Tower. ¡°I have arranged for you to meet the boy and see the pads at dinner this evening. They would be honored for you to join them for the meal as well.¡± ¡°Of course I will be there.¡± ¡°Oh yes while I was with the Empress I was reminded of something. Go to all the farms you know of and ask if they have piles of manure that have been lying still for a time.¡± I don¡¯t know why being with the Empress reminded me I needed gunpowder. ¡°Manure piles sir?¡± ¡°Yes there should be little crystals at the bottom. I need them for some science experiments.¡± ¡°Science sir?¡± ¡°The study of nature and the world around us. Physics and chemistry in this case but never mind that just do as I say. And this is about a secret which means you discuss it around no one but me. No one understand?¡± ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± ¡°Now before you leave, direct me to this Giant¡¯s house.¡± As I walked with Lawrence I started thinking about all those summers making gunpowder with gramps. We made homemade fish stunners. Basically double sized m-80s that would stun the fish and we could just grab them with our hands. Why buy a rod when you can blow stuff up. Just don¡¯t do this at home kids it¡¯s kind of frowned upon I found out later. The ingredients are simple enough sulfur, charcoal, and our stinky friend saltpeter. Any child with knowledge can do it as I had. He made me promise not to tell Dad as I¡¯m sure he was forbidden from teaching me any of this. But that¡¯s why I loved Gramps, he was who he was and didn¡¯t care what anybody thought. I found out later that society had a term for gramps. ¡°Prepper¡± The ingredients here in the 12th wouldn¡¯t be nearly as easy to come by. I had no idea how the hell I was going to score some sulfur. Guncotton I also knew how to make but Nitric Acid is even harder to come by in the 12th. I figured I needed a high explosive. You never know when you might need a castle wall brought down. Or who knows I might need a miracle and I wanted an ace up my sleeve. I was beginning to get overwhelmed at all there was to be done. I needed more Zealots. I might not call them that after all it''s kinda creepy. Fanatics seems worse. I¡¯ll work on it.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. We arrived at the pad maker¡¯s house. He greeted us with a warm greeting and his son came out proudly strutting his stuff in the pads. Not bad really for a first run I pointed out a few things that needed to be changed after I had learned their names. The father¡¯s name was Thomas and his son''s name was Goodwin; they were of the house of Penne they had said proudly. Turns out Goodwin didn¡¯t want to follow in his father¡¯s footsteps. Actually it sounded like he was a bit of a klutz with a needle and thread he was always injuring himself. He was a big ol¡¯ boy alright. At least 6¡¯ maybe 6¡¯1¡± easily the tallest man/boy I had seen in the 12th. He was large but not fat. Not really overly muscular either. He reminded me of our fullback in high school. I think I might have found a lineman. After laying out my best sales pitch and really channeling my inner Jerry Maguire it turned out to be the old ¡°show me the money¡± that worked. More like show me the Food. I promised to feed him in exchange for his service. They also seemed to like the idea of him getting out of the house and exercising. After the meal was over I realized why. They were not lying; he really put it away. It must have been killing a family of such limited means. This might end up costing more than I bargained for. ¡°Do you like the idea of playing Football son?¡± ¡°I like the idea of eating well sir. I will like it if it keeps me doing that.¡± ¡°It will that son but does it sound like fun?¡± ¡°I guess sir. But will I still eat even if I don¡¯t have fun?¡± Oh I was really getting annoyed of this . I just told him to be at the training grounds Monday and after the meal I excused myself. Before I left I told Thomas that I would need 2 dozen of those pads by the end of next week and 2 more dozen in a month''s time. He complained like everyone does when I start talking in my quantities and timeframes. I used my usual philosophy of paying more and getting it done right and quick. If I didn¡¯t do it this way they would drag their feet. It would just end up costing me more in time lost on the field. When I got back to the tower and the Guards let me pass. I ran into Lawrence who had done it again. He had found the saltpeter. I had barely even described it to him and he found some that quick. ¡°You are getting a raise my boy to 2 pence a day and you get Sundays off. But find me somebody to fill that roll. Don¡¯t worry you''re my right hand man. It means my number two you only answer to me in my organization.¡± ¡°Thank you sir.¡± ¡°Lets see how good you really are. I¡¯m also in need of a rock that stinks like that of rotten eggs. Once again speak of this to no one but me and the people you have to ask in your search. If they ask why you seek it tell them I make soap from it. Thank you Lawrence you¡¯re doing a great job.¡± ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± That one worried me. It would be damn near impossible to find sulfur in England. It was found usually around volcanoes. To the best of my knowledge the only one in Europe is Vesuvius in Italy which is next to Naples. Then of course Iceland but I don¡¯t even think its been discovered yet and then it was by what are to us now hostile Vikings. I went to my room pondering this and realized that my stomach was growling. I hadn¡¯t eaten since breakfast and I was starving. I went to the kitchen and they made me a sandwich. Which I took along with a mug of beer to my quarters. Lina¡¯s absence was noticeable but not regrettable. I needed sleep. I wolfed down the sandwich and drained the beer. Then I fell face first into the bed and passed out. Get me to the Church on time The next couple of days passed relatively uneventfully. I started the cook, whose name I learned was Hamen, at the Inn on frying chicken and fish. We had decided on the 4 new girls that would be waitressing. Agatha was back to trying to jump me every time I entered. I started to fill the feed bill on the Human Garbage Disposal and got a few sets of pads. The Football finally was done and pretty close to what I remember not perfect but considering the circumstances I was impressed. I had him make a spare and one more for another purpose. I had Grumpy make an Iron Bar and some Weights for weight lifting. I was already overbooking Lilly as it was. He of course balked about me coming back especially after I embarrassed him. All I had to do is remind him I was a Knight and if I wanted I could kill him for insulting me and probably get away with it. A Knight who was on a mission from the King no less. I even got a discount. The Buckets were done from A&B and James and I had rounded up over 800 men to start on the clearing and grading of the land Tuesday. I plan on going out to the site with Bolt and his new man Lago Le Charpentier (the French carpenter who will be known as Lego from now on for obvious reasons) Monday after the Combine to lay it out for them. I also got them on building some rulers and yardsticks. One benefit to ignorant rulers I can still call them yardsticks. I had already made a universal one that would always be the template. Copies of copies don¡¯t work as a rule especially with a measurement instrument. I also got them to build push sleds for the combine. It took them a while to understand what the hell I wanted. You explain that I want a cart with skis instead of wheels that weighs a lot and will be pushed by men so multiple padded posts on the front. I doubt they ever understood its purpose. I had Lawrence and my new assistant, Gilbert, rustle us up a crew to work the timers. I trained Gilbert on how to train them in working the scales and adding the weights together. Agers can¡¯t even add simple things like 10 + 10. To a modern person that just seems basic. Gilbert took to math like a sponge. He reminds me of myself in school. I was top of my class in math throughout middle and high school. I decided that after the Combine I would get him involved with the engineering crew on the stadium. Nobody really works on Sunday here which seems a waste of a day to me so I decided to go to Church. You kind of need to at least make an appearance in there occasionally otherwise people start to talk. Besides I had to talk to Father Clarence. I need him and some of his priests as stat takers for the combine as they were the only ones who could write. I would take my own shorthand notes in modern English but I want to focus on the drills not on writing. Note to self start schools.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°I would be honored to attend Sir Arthur. I will ask as many of the others as possible if they will come as well. I want to see this Game that has the whole City talking.¡± He said after Mass. I think that was the Empress¡¯ doing she knew how much it meant to me. ¡°Thank you Father¡± ¡°Now when was the last time you confessed my son?¡± ¡°It has been more than 2 weeks Father but you know I¡¯m not Catholic.¡± ¡°It is still good to confess one''s sins to God regardless of which doctrine you follow.¡± So I confessed to him about sleeping with Matilda and Agatha and Lina and the Blonde, I didn¡¯t even get her name. As well as a few other minor indiscretions I knew wouldn¡¯t cause alarm. I liked the man but I knew how easily information can slip out and to confess about lying about my origins to the King and Him seemed like one I should hold to myself. I don¡¯t recall telling anyone else about swimming and the King had known about it when he talked about swimming across the Channel. Everyone else had just got the standard, I¡¯m a foreigner from America. I could have gotten drunk and told that same lie again but I doubt it. I had been hedging my bets that he might turn me in. If he did I would need a story as to how I ended up miles inland when I was found by the peasants in the village I awoke in and was attacked by the rapist. How did a person who was from the other side of the Atlantic end up inland? This is the kind of question that is much easier explained before it is asked. Had he told the King and he had sat on the info waiting to see what I do. Speculation gets you nowhere but in trouble. Father Clarence said I should seek marriage before I found sexual desires (hah) and that I should come to Mass more. I said I would try and left. On the way out I ran into Matilda who was also going to confess I could only imagine about what. ¡°Hello milady¡± I said and kissed her hand. ¡°Hello Sir Arthur, just confessing about our illicit affair I see.¡± She said a little too loud. ¡°Please Empress, I beg you to keep your voice down or you will start rumors flowing.¡± ¡°Oh they are already you foolish man. Speaking of foolish men I talked to my father he said he would let you build the stadium in his preserve. It wasn¡¯t easy. He can just start another one someplace else you would think I was asking him to give me away to you.¡± I pretended not to notice that last part. ¡°I thank you for that and will have to make it up to you but I have many things I must do at the moment. I bid you good day, milady.¡± ¡°I would rather have a good night¡± And with that I left. Hearing murmurs as I did. Dammit that woman loves to see me squirm. I spy with my little eye, a Medieval Football team It was sunrise on the big day of the scouting combine. I was so excited I had been at the Training ground since before the sun rose. The sleds were here as well as four sets of pads, three helmets, and two footballs. Not to mention a Bar and a few weights. I was pushing the limits of our limited weight room myself and I wasn¡¯t a bodybuilder by any means. I hoped to find some stronger than me so I would have to just see how many reps each man can do instead of a max. Lawrence had hired a town crier who had been advertising about the purse that would be shared with the players who played in the game all weekend. The turnout was unreal. There must have been 2000 men here, way way too many. Once I had explained that it would take 2 hours a day for a month every morning except Sundays and that it would be hard work and lots of exercise, roughly half left. Then I asked anyone older born before 1100 to stand up. That caused another 2 or 3 hundred to leave. I had to make an exception for the Knights the King had sent. I had said 18-25 but a few had to be over 30. I then had them run an endurance test. I had measured out approximately 1 mile and had them all follow me on it at a good run. What was left at the end of the mile were about two hundred men. One of which was Goodwin but he was panting heavily. I was surprised honestly I figured I would have to pass him along based on pure size. He stood almost a head taller than most there but he had kept up. I took note of the ones that seemed not to be breathing hard. Sir Adrian was one of them. He looked ready for the next challenge. I had Father Clarence and the priests take the names of them and give them a number. It was a simple thing: a number on a board tied around the neck. They were to give it to the Priest at the start of a drill. We got their measurements in my slightly revised metric system. I also got a quick description of their talents. As well as what jobs they had done recently with more than half a year¡¯s experience. I figure I could use even the cuts somewhere in my businesses. We then were put in groups of ten and told to remember that group''s number. When it was called all ten would report to the starting line. Someone there would get them in the right order to run. This way someone in the group should recognize when they are called. Most of the Agers wouldn¡¯t be able to count to get themselves in proper order. So the priests at the starting line would have to. This ignorant workforce really made it difficult for every one of my projects. I needed a school. I had them do everything from run the 40 yard dash to the broad jump and vertical jump. I had the biggest men try their hand on the sled while two rode it trying to find some lineman. I also did a catching drill where they have to catch a ball from front and then immediately another QB throws from back and you have to catch that. I had Sir Adrian take the other QB position at least for that drill. He ended up being way too good at it. I hate naturals. I also had the Knights join us during these drills. As I wanted to get measurements as well. After the drills I narrowed down the peasants further to 100. After this it was almost noon so I called a lunch break and I fed the multitude that was left. Then I started explaining the game to them as they ate. I got rid of 10 immediately because of how difficult they proved to teach. After they understood the basics I had all the Knights throw a pass to the peasants to see two things. How they could throw obviously but also how they handle the peasants. Did they degrade them after every mistake or did they try to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it? I wanted natural leaders, not ones I had to train the bigotry out of them. Sir Adrian was running away with the other QB position, Not only did he have a natural arm but he also was less of an ass to the peasants. He would fuss but at least he would tell them what they did wrong and he never hit one. That¡¯s more than you could say about most of the other Knights. Most couldn¡¯t hit the broadside of a barn and then blamed the poor peasant for it. I had already dismissed 5 Knights for striking peasants. I made it clear that wouldn¡¯t be tolerated on a football field.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. One other Knights showed some promise. His name was Sir Hugo. He stands at 1 yard 76 centiyards (5¡¯9¡±) He was way too short to be a QB (at least for 21st century football) and he has a weak arm but he also has uncanny accuracy. Who knows though heart accounts for a lot and he had that in spades. He was however too hard on a peasant once when he clearly overthrew him. I reprimanded him and he seems to have rebounded. I ended up just deciding to play a game to let them learn through actually playing. I ended up playing middle linebacker as well because hell I was the largest man in the kingdom anyway. I could also coach both the O of my opponent and my own D this way. Which was strange to say the least. The 1st game my team trounced Sir Adrian¡¯s 21-7. Their TD came from a draw that I had taught them which the QB fakes a pass and then hands the ball off to the RB. I decided to try Hugo at QB. My team beat his by 21 points but he scored twice once on the ground and once through the air. The QB competition might not be as cut and dry as I thought. By the end of the Combine I had decided on entering the regular practice with 80 men but that would be cut down to the 32 each team by the middle of next week. There were a few prospects I was excited about. Two twin brothers who were like monkeys climbing a tree to catch the ball out of the air. I had them slotted at receiver. A RB that was one of the shortest prospects left at 162 cy (5¡¯3¡±) that was also the fastest prospect at the combine. It''s hard to express considering how I timed it but he ran the 40 in about 5-7% (margin of error) less water time then the next fastest. I had already nicknamed him the Flash and he seemed to like it. I was right on the money about Goodwin being a good lineman. He ended up getting two sacks himself playing defense. I had told him when he played on oline that if anybody got a sack on me he wouldn¡¯t eat that day. Needless to say I never got hit from the left side where he played. I was not so fortunate elsewhere on the line. I couldn¡¯t get them to understand that you have to block them not hit them. Fights were starting all the time because somebody got mad and punched somebody. Like I said they''re like kids. The weirdest part is how I was constantly having to tell the opposing defense or offense what they were doing wrong. That usually never happens. Coaches do it, not the QB or MLB on the opposite team. After the Combine it was already passed 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I had kept them much longer than 2 hours but no one complained. I had started to say hit the Showers when I realized we had none. That wouldn¡¯t work. They would be leaving everyday and going to work already nasty. It''s really miserable to work when you have dried sweat caked on. ¡°Lawrence¡± ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± ¡°I want a building built at the bottom of the hill there with at least 15 individual stalls a man can turn around in. Above it places a large water container with a pipe running into the building and into each stall. I want the men to bathe after every practice¡± ¡°But it is unholy to bathe sir¡± ¡°Not after Football son. God requires the sweat from football be returned to the field that sprung it. They must wash it off after every practice. This was written in the sacred scripture of my country¡± ¡°Don¡¯t call it bathing. It is a shower of that of the rain from God. Use a rainwater collector and a barrel to catch it above the level of the showers. Also have one to collect the water from the showers and use it to water the field. I will draw up some plans.¡± ¡°As you wish Sir.¡± Who knows if that will work but I¡¯ll be damn if my men are going to be miserable all day to satisfy some ridiculous taboo. Not to mention I have got to get these Agers to start bathing the stench was killing me. That might become literal as going without bathing is one of the reasons diseases were so rampant in the middle ages in Europe. After I left the training grounds I went out to the spot that we had selected for the stadium. It was a great location overlooking both the River Thames and London. I could see why the King jealously guarded it so. It was quite breathtaking this close to sunset. Bolt and Lego were already there waiting for me. I had brought Gilbert along and introduced him to my ¡°Engineering Corp¡±. We went on a quick tour before sundown and I laid out where everything would go and let them know what they should be doing before I got there in the morning. Lawrence and the Empress had also come, along with it seemed about half of the football players. It felt like time for a speech. ¡°Gentlemen we stand before greatness. At this site in less than one month¡¯s time we will leave the whole of the World talking about us. We will spawn a game that will endure centuries. Your grandchildren will one day wonder how a world without football could be possible. Without hope without dreams this world seems bleak compared to the one I see in our future. Go forth and tell everyone that the greatest game to ever be played will commence one month from today.¡± That got a yell that sent a shiver down my back. I might just have started something special here. Redneck Accounting Oh My After my speech I grabbed Lawrence and made some preparations to make sure I made good on it. I sent him to see if he could find me someone that could get me fireworks from China. I know they were made long before now. It took awhile for me to get across what to ask for. I told him to check with the merchants who travel by sea, especially traders that dealt with the far east. I doubted he could find someone in a month as China is a long way away. As in on the other side of the Ager known world. It was even longer here with no Suez Canal. You have to swing around Africa or go by land. Agers did know of it of course but before Marco polo it was almost mythological. I doubt he would have much success but he had proven me wrong before. ¡°Well that was a good Speech.¡± Someone said breaking me out of my thought. I turned around to see Matilda smiling . ¡°Thank you, milady. I thought the men deserved it and I meant every word.¡± ¡°I am sure of that.¡± ¡°What brings you out here?¡± ¡°I wanted to see what I had given up.¡± She said, smirking. ¡°It is a fine site for a Stadium.¡± Knowing she probably meant something else but ignoring it ¡°I should be able to finish it in time as it will require little prep work.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad. Now about the ¡°making it up to me¡± you were talking about yesterday.¡± I was starting to feel like man-whore. ¡°I can¡¯t milady. I must check in on my other venture in town. If you recall the Rump Roast Inn started today.¡± ¡°Oh trust me I know, the whole city knows. It has been the talk all day.¡± ¡°Good things I hope. It hasn¡¯t been burned to the ground has it?¡± ¡°Not yet but there is no telling what the future might yet bring.¡± She said, chuckling. And with that ominous statement I almost ran to the Inn. It was packed. I waded through the crowd to reach the bar and realized they had even thought to hire music. It had slipped my mind, somebody was getting a raise. When I reached it I asked Claire. ¡°Agatha thought music would be nice.¡± ¡°She was right. Has it been this way all day?¡± ¡°Yes and we have run out of everything except Beer thank the maker.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. If you have to turn someone away that will just build up the prestige of this place. Bars and Clubs used to do it where I¡¯m from all the time.¡± ¡°They chased them off with Bars and Clubs? I like it.¡± ¡°No. No.¡± I sighed sometimes I forgot when I was ¡°Just tell them unfortunately due to overwhelming demand for our fabulous food we no longer can serve you fine gentleman/ladies. I do hope you come back and see us tomorrow.¡± Then I had an idea. ¡°Have Agatha do it, that can be her job. It''s called a Hostess. She sits customers and turns away any undesirables, uh any who have a history of not paying or touching the girls.¡± I explained that there would be absolutely no touching of the Girls. After they were warned once and do it again they were to remove them and tell them to cool off a day or two. ¡°If they come back and do it again, place a photo, I mean a drawing of them at the entrance saying they are banned under it and for why and never let them in again.¡± ¡°How will I remove them Sir Arthur? It is just me and my daughter here with you gone.¡± ¡°I will send you one of my recent finds to be a Bouncer, uh think a bodyguard for the Inn, after practice tomorrow his name is Goodwin and he is almost as large as I am. I¡¯m afraid we may have to start our own slaughterhouse after he starts eating alongside this lot.¡± That¡¯s when another good business idea hit me, slaughterhouses and meat production. I knew a little about farming as gramps owned one but I wasn¡¯t raised on it. He had raised cattle mainly with a few chickens and a pig or two. But it was what gramps also raised that I thought would be most useful for winter that would be here before long. Rabbits. Rabbits are amazing creatures. They will live off almost anything vegetative. From grass to hay they even eat kitchen scraps. Love them actually. They also breed well like rabbits. Where do you think the saying comes from? Stolen story; please report. The best part is they eat little compared to other meat animals and are what is called ¡°on the hoof¡± meat. You slaughter them and eat them usually within 24 hours. No storing needed which in a world with no refrigeration and expensive salt was a godsend. Note to self build rabbitry. I found that Claire had saved me some fried chicken. I told her she was a life saver and scarfed it down. I talked to Agatha and I made it known that what she did was one of the most important jobs at the restaurant. I also set it up where she would get 10% of all the tips that the other girls made. In the 21st that happened informally but I wanted it set up in writing in my restaurant. Hamen and the busboys (although I decided to use trainee waitresses to do the job to see how they worked around customers) were paid by the Inn but the girls worked for tips. I however set it up where 10% of the bill was automatically a tip from me. This way they had an incentive to sell my food. They even got 20% for drinks as I had a larger markup on them. I had always not liked the obligation to have to give a server a tip in the 21st. I always thought a tip should only go to someone who went above what an average server did or who was especially nice to the point it made the visit better than just a meal. So that¡¯s how I set my restaurant up and made sure both the customers but especially the girls knew this. I would probably end up having to enforce the no touching rule more on the girls then the customers after a few weeks. My still was still a work in progress. The puns are strong with this one. I had a problem with copper tubing. As in it didn¡¯t exist. I had to go back to the basics on what a still was. Basically a still is an evaporator and a condenser. Alcohol evaporates at lower temperature than water thus it boils off quicker and once you catch it and condense it (cool it, this is what the copper pipe does) you can collect the purified alcohol. I just used the principle and built a simple one. Think of a cauldron boiling with a cone lid. The lid has a hole in it above it is a kind of copper double umbrella that drops down the side. The vaporized alcohol collects on the outer umbrella and falls down the side into a container on the bottom. Its not perfect but it does work. And It wasn¡¯t bad shine. I¡¯ve had worse trust me. It just wasn¡¯t in nearly sufficient quantities and I think I lost most of it as vapor. I had it working enough to sell a few shots to some brave men though almost none had a second. I had a plan on how to sell it by the buckets once I could make it by the buckets. My limited understanding from two classes of psychology was making it easy to manipulate people who had no experience with any, especially the nobles and their pride. I had to make the shot glasses out of copper. You never think about it in the 21st but glass making is pretty energy intensive and it is expensive as hell in the 12th. Unfortunately that was something I knew nothing about other then it was sand heated up real hot and worked somehow. Glass seems unimportant until its not there. I realized when I saw the amount of coin being thrown around here that I was going to have to start some double entry accounting. That meant having to either train someone new or take Gilbert off engineering. Either way had its plus and minuses. I didn¡¯t even know if he would work there and I knew he could probably excel in accounting. I first decided to see if any of the girls that already worked at the Rump Roast could grasp basic math. I had every employee take a quick oral test (as they for the most case were illiterate) to judge how quick they could grasp math. I was surprised by one girl by the name of Cristina who was actually a busgirl. She grasped the basics faster than even Gilbert had. I decided to cross train her in math and start some basic accounting courses and see how she handled it. I left making sure to thank everyone for all there hard work as I did. I was feeling like my investment in the Inn was a good call. It not only brought in money but lips are never looser then were booze flows. It would probably pay off more in information gathering then anything else. As I was walking I started trying to remember all those days in accounting class. After some thought, I decided it was time to start that school finally. Probably start with a basic math and accounting course, then expand into reading/writing. It is easier to teach a lot of people at once then separately as they can help each other and lord knows I need all the help I can get. Math was absolutely necessary for an industrialized country. You can get by without knowing how to read or write but you really are at a disadvantage if you can¡¯t do adding, subtracting, and multiplying. It''s my theory that''s why everyone hates dealing in large quantities. Anything more than a dozen is like blowing their minds. If I made accounting into an accreditation program that could be revoked I could cut down on corruption drastically. I could also maybe get the King to codify laws to discourage it. Maybe an ¡°off with his hand¡± clause for really naughty individuals caught cooking the books. When I got to the Tower I tracked down the King and found him in the Throne room. ¡°Good evening your majesty.¡± ¡°Hello Sir Arthur how was your first day of this football practice?¡± ¡°Good your majesty. You have some very good men under your command.¡± ¡°Some not so much it would appear. What is this of you dismissing some of my Knights?¡± ¡°They struck peasants, your grace. While I care not what happens to these peasants outside of my field, on it they will be respected as football players. If they are not, I''m afraid you will lose in football the same as in war. If you do not respect your men on the battlefield they will not follow your commands isn¡¯t that correct, your majesty?¡± I of course did care, that''s why I was doing this to begin with. ¡°Yes, yes I suppose you''re right but they are only peasants. I hope you got rid of the peasant that instigated the problem¡± ¡°I did your Grace¡± I didn¡¯t of course that was usually one of the Monkey twins and they never instigated anything. ¡°Good now, is that why you came to see me?¡± ¡°No, your majesty, I wanted to tell you more about America. Especially our economy and what is called accounting. I think it could help us both keep a lot more of our silver.¡± Saved by the grace of Fried Chicken! The last couple of weeks passed by without much cause for concern but as I have been busy I haven¡¯t had a chance to write in my journal. The King had seemed very enthused when I finally explained that accounting helps prevent those mysterious losses to the treasury. He said he would consider my laws as soon as he saw the results of this ¡°Accounting¡±. Which coming from him sounded close to what ¡°Inquisition¡± did I imagine. It could very well become a witch hunt for some that worked for the Treasury. He would probably end up with 25-50% more tax ¡°revenue¡± when the obvious corruption ceased happening if not more. It depended on how bad the corruption was. It would probably be more as there was little to nothing except fear of getting caught to stop a tax collector from pocketing it now. The stadium and teams are coming along nicely. I narrowed the teams down to 40 each and we had our draft of the players. Sir Adrian won the QB spot opposite me but I gave Hugo the backup position and he subs for both of us. I got Goodwin, one of the monkey twins, and Flash on my team. The stadium and football were already creating a buzz throughout Europe. I had high rollers coming from all over. All the luxury seats were already spoken for. The peasants would take all the rest so I had no idea how many would end up coming. I ended up realizing a couple of days ago that this project would pay for itself in the first game if I could sell it out and if Rump Roast would sell out its concessions. Labor and wood are cheap as hell in the 12th. Iron was the only real big expense. I had already started sponsorship deals with some of the local merchants and of course my own A&B Construction. It¡¯s label would be on a huge banner on the side of the bleachers facing London. The A&B logo was already becoming iconic in London as I had put it everywhere. The sponsorships ended up paying for all the pads, leather helmets, and cleats (which was fun explaining to the shoemaker). Bolt had become a damn good construction Boss. Him handling management allowed me to stay where I was needed most on the football field and with the engineers. Lego was now head of the housing division. I had found him better on the small scale. In other words he didn¡¯t like heights. Good trainer of men though. He could train a man in the new techniques in half the time that I could, even with a French accent. I had given up on the Still. At least I did, Lily came up with something in no time and now we have one that makes roughly 5 gallon a day and wastes hardly any. I charged out the butt for the stuff and made it be known that only the manliest of men could handle it and you were a real dainty lad if you couldn¡¯t. All the girls at the inn were to be much more attentive to any men who drank it to make them think it attracted the ladies. They would anyway as they made 20% of what I did on the ridiculously overpriced stuff. Needless to say I haven¡¯t been able to keep the stuff in stock. Basically I was turning into a 50¡¯s-60¡¯s cigarette advertising guru. My plans were to expand and turn it into a brand. I even had plans for a billboard on the side of the Stadium. It would have the slogan that could best be translated as ¡°Drink Rump Roast Shine and get all the ladies¡± under a painting of a man with a shot glass in each hand and a good looking woman under each arm. The problem is finding a good enough artist to paint it on the scale I intended. Speaking of the devils sauce, I had a visit about the Inn from Father Clarence. ¡°My son I do not like this din of sin you have created.¡± ¡°It is not a din of sin Father. You know me. I¡¯m the man who rebuilt your roof because I wanted to not because I needed to or was even asked to. I¡¯m not even a member of your Church, Father. Would someone like that create a business of sin?¡± He shook his head no. ¡°All the customers and ladies know there is to be no touching or inappropriate behavior. If either breaks the rules they are thrown out. The only way this place is a din of sin is if good food is a sin and I guess it is if you eat too much of it.¡± That got a lame chuckle. He tried some fried chicken and that seemed to make him realize why people come there. It''s not just the scenery or to cop a feel. I also gave him a shot of shine which made him pucker up. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s the last I¡¯ll hear about it from the Church but Father Clarence was now regularly seen ordering takeout there. He ate free as I wouldn¡¯t accept his money. That was another thing I started at the Inn a short drive thru. You could knock on a window (wood shutter really) in the kitchen and pick it up in 15 minutes or so when it was done. No fast food here, just convenience and it let people like Father that didn¡¯t want to be seen in a place like Rump Roast still get our addictive food. The school was doing well. Gilbert was now in the accounting program. I was not impressed with his engineering ability and he will do better there. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Cristina was already head of accounting for my whole business empire. She is turning into an excellent accountant. I hardly ever have to correct her anymore. Eventually I would have her take over teaching as well. Right now I was teaching a few classes a week and she was essentially a teaching assistant helping the other students on the off days. Speaking of the school I started out letting any of my employees take it for free. I planned on opening it up to their kids next and then to anyone. It was going to be a real drain on my resources but it would all pay for itself in the end. Plus it''s like an employee benefits package for the time being. Goodwin had taken to both the Bouncer and Line job with the same intensity as football. I told him if he failed in either he would not get to eat the next day. I had given him a decent salary and he could have just bought his own but he knew I would catch him at the Inn and he loved the food there. Everyone did, even the King. He would have a servant to get some for him almost every day. He never paid of course but I took that as a backhanded compliment. Speaking of food I got the Rabbitry up and have caught 10 rabbits to date. I started breeding them the other day so we should have plenty of fried rabbit before long. I had shown Goodwin how to make a snare trap and where to set it. There was already demand for as much as I could breed/catch. Fried rabbit and rabbit stew is damn good eatin¡¯ and the Agers didn¡¯t have anything near ours. I set it up next to the Inn so they can be slaughtered as needed to avoid waste. Lawrence has been a godsend. I rely heavily on him and he is now the highest paid member of my empire. I now know most of his strengths and weaknesses. You need someone or something found however and he is your man. Most of my Employees he had found and few disappointed. At least not much as you can¡¯t expect them to know how to read, or write, or do math, or think logically, or bathe frequently but they made up for it with willingness to learn. As long as I was willing to pay. He still couldn¡¯t find a sulfur or fireworks source but I wasn¡¯t surprised at that. Volcano¡¯s in this area are scarce and as I said before I don¡¯t think Europeans even had direct contact with China until Marco Polo¡¯s days. That wouldn¡¯t happen for another century. I doubt even merchants would have traded with people who have traded directly with them yet. However what I had originally mistaken for intelligence in Lawrence was in fact a hellish resourcefulness. He will follow orders to the letter if he understands them but to put it bluntly he was dumb as a sack of hammers. I had tried to teach him how to read, write, add, subtract, and even tried some philosophy. Crickets were chirping I swear. I was already training a personal assistant to take and write memos and the like because of how worthless he was as one. Agatha actually, she ended up being pretty good at penmanship and she was what the 21st business world would call Eye Candy. If you¡¯re going to have somebody with you all the time she might as well impress the natives. I treated her as an employee now and my ¡°don¡¯t eat where you shit¡± philosophy was in effect. I was a firm believer in that after working with Rebecca at her company after we got married. Beside sleeping with employees can never end well. Agatha on the other hand was none too thrilled about the new rule. On another note, every shindig the King threw it seemed he forced me to come to. Not literally but it¡¯s the King he could ask nicely and it is still forcing. What are you going to do, say no? I have performed the Soulja Boy dance to the point I was as good as he was at it or at least I told myself that. The King hinted that I should consider it repayment for granting me use of his hunting preserve. I figured he had me there. It is the dance sensation sweeping the medieval nation. Its funny as hell to see a bunch of rich white guys trying to do a superman. Or for the women in ridiculous dresses to yell out ¡°hoe¡± without having the foggiest idea what it meant. Funny thing though he never asked to see my Salsa again. I got invited to these basically to be free entertainment but it did let me hobnob with the rich and powerful so it wasn¡¯t all bad. Speaking of shindigs and their necessary accouterments, I had started to build a phonograph. The King hadn¡¯t mentioned it again so I figured I needed to make one ASAP. The hardest thing to make was actually the records themselves. What the hell do you make them with when you have no plastic? I was trying Clay but the first run of would sounded like crap. At some point I also had seemed to become the unofficial story teller of the Kings court as well. Like I didn¡¯t have enough on my plate. I had always been a decent story teller from all the camping I did growing up. Nothing to do camping at night but sit around the fire and tell stories. Here though I was a regular Steven Spielberg (literally). None of those stories from thousands of movies I had watched over the years had been told here. Who knew all those wasted hours in front of a tube would come in handy? And mom said it never helped anyone amount to anything. Ager stories I found to be dark, always about killing or something similar. Stories from the 21st usually were upbeat or at least had happy endings. I had started to realize the fundamental difference between Agers and Myself (other than a thousand years of more advanced knowledge). I had hope. I hadn¡¯t come from a world that stomped on you with the heel of its boots until you stopped squirming. Even with Nobles you could see it. Sure those at the very top are always high on the hog no matter how lousy the system of governance is but even they sometimes seemed defeated. In this time period even the King of England was a drop in the bucket to the Church. If they (or more like the Pope) wanted this Country under its heel it would have it. It could bring millions to bear on you if you pissed them off enough. Not to mention you were one bad fall from a horse or bad case of dysentery or fever from death no matter how powerful. Even the entertainment sucked. ¡°If I have to, I''ll drag this medieval cesspool up kicking and screaming if I have to, but first Supper¡± I said out loud and went out in search of it. Watch that first step it’s a Doozy. I decided to go into the Inn to eat. I got there and saw a face I hadn¡¯t expected. Stephen was at the Bar apparently waiting for me. His face still was healed but he wasn¡¯t much to look at before so it wasn¡¯t much of an improvement. ¡°Sir Arthur, I came to apologize for my behavior at your Knighting.¡± Okay what''s the game? ¡°Nothing to apologize for. In your place I probably would have acted very similarly.¡± It was BS of course a 5 year old could have been more mature. ¡°That may be so but it is unbecoming of one of my upbringing.¡± Another jab. See what happens when you¡¯re humble. ¡°It has already been forgotten.¡± It had been honestly. I had been so busy I had almost forgotten about him entirely which was dangerous to say the least. He definitely was raising some vengeance boner vibes. ¡°Now have you tried my Shine?¡± I asked with a smirk. ¡°I have not but they say it is most foul.¡± He said with a scowl. ¡°Only the dainty lads say that Sir Stephen and neither of us are that. It will put hair on your chest as they say in America.¡± I proceeded to get him hammered almost entirely by all but calling him a pussy if he didn¡¯t keep up. I could drink the best of men under the table in the 21st these Agers are a bunch of pansies by comparison. I had him singing like a canary before long. ¡°They say he sleeps in a different bed every night. Hiccup. None his wifes of course she -burp- she doesn¡¯t even ¨Chiccup- live with him no more.¡± Rough ol¡¯ English booze talk translation. He was talking of the King of course. ¡°But what of the Empress? Do you like her? If she was ruler would you serve her?¡± ¡°Hah a woman? Never ¨Chiccup- and the Church would never support it. Now as my Queen perhaps.¡± Oh hell I was right he has a thing for his cuz. Well that¡¯s disgusting. ¡°Are you in love with her?¡± ¡°Love? What does ¨Cburp- love have to do with it?¡± So it was just the legitimacy to rule. Power hungry SOB, that somehow seems worse. ¡°Nothing of course. Well I think you would be the better person to secede the King.¡± I was lying of course Lawrence would make a better King. ¡°That much is obv¡­..¡± And with that his head hit the counter. Lights out folks. I finished up my steak, tipped our waitress and picked up my drunk not-friend and carried him back to the Tower. One of the guards ran off and got the King after he saw that one. Apparently it had been made known I didn¡¯t much like Stephen and seeing him passed out on my back alarmed them a tad. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Now what have you done to Stephen?¡± The King asked chuckling. ¡°He didn¡¯t know when to stop your majesty. He just had a wee bit too much of the sauce. He¡¯ll have a splitting headache tomorrow for his mistake but nothing worse.¡± I said as I handed him to a servant. ¡°The Sauce?¡± ¡°My Shine your majesty. It was a bit harder alcohol than he was used to.¡± ¡°That stuff is harder than anyone is used to. Except you if the stories are true.¡± ¡°My moms breast milk was half full of the stuff when she was nursing me, your majesty.¡± Not really otherwise I would be about a foot shorter most likely and maybe with a couple extra or less fingers. Hey, like the Agers. ¡°Hah Hah. You are one of a kind Sir Arthur.¡± He was literally slapping his knees in laughter ¡°That¡¯s what the ladies keep telling me your majesty.¡± With that I excused myself and went to my room. When I got to the door I noticed something wrong. I have been paranoid as hell since I got to the 12th and even more so since I started living in the Tower. When I first moved in I started leaving these triggers that would let me know someone had entered my room. Pieces of string in the doorjamb usually that fell when it was opened They were on the ground under the door. My first thought was that it might have been Lina but I hadn¡¯t seen her in weeks. The obvious other problem with my foolproof trap is it could have just been Agatha or Lawrence that went in. Hell it could have just been a servant cleaning the room. Like I said it wasn¡¯t well thought out. I had seen it in a movie once and thought it couldn¡¯t hurt. So with trepidation I slowly opened the door to see if I could see anything amiss. I couldn¡¯t make out anything out of the ordinary so I decided to take my chances and enter. When I got in, the door swung shut behind me and a hooded man jumped out from behind with a dagger. I reached up and grabbed his wrist just before it got to me. The point stopped only a few inches from my eye. I kneed him in the stomach and then slammed his arm on my knee freeing the dagger. We wrestled for a few seconds until I elbowed him in the nose causing his vision to blur. As his vision was impaired I grabbed the dagger just before he lunged at me. In what was honestly an almost involuntary action I thrust the dagger upward. In a an instant I felt it enter his neck. Then the hot sticky sensation of blood trickled down my arm. I have killed before of course but they were always animals and usually with a gun or at least a bow and that was from hundreds of feet away. You never see them die usually. I got to see it this time. Every horrifying second as he gurgled on blood and the life slipped from his eyes. As I sat there in an ever increasing pool of blood, I realized three things. One was the obvious, somebody wanted me dead. The second was I had so many people that could be at blame it made it next to impossible to investigate now that the only source of info was dead. The third was that I had just killed a man. I guess someone heard the commotion because in a few minutes it seemed the whole Tower was there. ¡°What happened Sir Arthur?¡± the King asked looking worried. ¡°What happened was this assassin got what was coming to him your majesty.¡± I had to control the narrative. Who knows who sent him they could try to pin me for murder. ¡°Good man good man. I will get to the bottom of this. Guards!¡± and he left with a purpose. ¡°Oh you poor thing. I will stay with you and stroke your hair until you fall asleep.¡± Agatha said looking concerned. She had been staying in the servant quarters in the room next to mine. ¡°Like hell you will. I¡¯ll be fine I just need to wash this off and go to bed. No, dammit without you Agatha! I¡¯ve been through worse than that.¡± Sure, I felt like I had 10 years shaved off my life no biggie. ¡°I can help take your mind off it if you want.¡± Whispered Matilda as the others left. ¡°No, I think I¡¯ve had enough excitement for one night.¡± I said and pointed out the door. She left looking disappointed. ¡°Agatha get someone to clean this mess up and bring me a wash bucket with clean water and a towel.¡± About an hour later I finally got some sleep. It didn¡¯t last. Agatha wouldn¡¯t take no for an answer. I ended up just letting her sleep with me but I told her I was in no mood physically or otherwise, for sex. It was easier than arguing and it is always nicer to share a bed with a beautiful woman instead of sleeping alone. Especially after you just survived an assassination attempt. Damn My Good Training! Well today we had a setback at practice. Sir Adrian was injured and I doubt he will be playing in the Game. Goodwin has gotten a little too good at dline now. He is hard to stop and he blew passed Sir ¡°Tiny¡± Gander (Offensive Lineman) on his way to steamrolling Sir Adrian from his backside. Who the hell knows without an x-ray what is wrong with him. I don¡¯t think its too serious as he can still move all the fingers, elbow and wrist. He sure as Hell can¡¯t throw right now though. Hugo had been practicing with the 2nd team and knew all the plays as he subbed for both us. He should be alright but it isn¡¯t ideal. I actually like Hugo (who I have never been able to place the Sir ahead of) he has a lot of passion for the game but he leaves a lot lacking in every other department. Height, Speed, Agility, Strength, Arm Strength, you name a physical football characteristic and he is lacking in it. He had been like another coach on the field for me though. He has such a love of the game that¡¯s infectious and reminds me of why I love it so much. He would come to me all the time trying to get pointers. Guys like that you can¡¯t help but root for but I need this game competitive with marketable QB¡¯s and Hugo was by no means marketable. He was short as I have mentioned but it wasn¡¯t just that. He was already balding at 25 and had multiple missing teeth. Luckily there were no tv cameras yet but being tall was going to get my team a lot of publicity. A team of Giants or a Team of Hugos which do you see as making the game more likely to succeed. I had chosen my team on the size in the middle (line) speed on the outsides (receivers, running backs, and secondary players) philosophy. All the players that had made it into the top players had fit that scheme but Adrian¡¯s team had ended up with most of the remaining Knights. Knights sticking together and all that. I was afraid my Henry¡¯s Hero¡¯s were going to walk away with this one, which was not ideal. After practice was over I went to work on the Stadium. I had been heavily involved with engineering but that was over pretty much. We were just doing finishing work really. I couldn¡¯t believe how well it had gone. Bolt had turned out to be a Godsend and was really sinking into his role of Jobsite Boss well. I had been surveying the construction site for I don¡¯t know how long when I ran into him. ¡°I got everything covered Bossman¡± Bolt said. All my A&B employees now call me that. ¡°Alright then I guess I would just be in your way now¡± Look how much can change in one month. He was in control and didn¡¯t want me stepping on his toes which I could respect. We now had over a hundred and fifty full time employees and some hundred or so temps with some experience at A&B. I even had convinced some 5 dozen sets of parents to let their son apprentice for free. I paid for lunch but otherwise they didn¡¯t cost a dime. They were also untrained and usually about as bright as a Sharpie but they were free and unlike slave labor they actually wanted to be there. My house construction division had paid almost all the labor costs of A&B over the last month including the Stadium. I had hardly any out of pocket salary expenditures from the project. The nails and all the brackets set me back a fortune but it was worth it in the end. The brackets made assembly so much faster and allowed more uniform lumber to be used. It made it easier to mass produce pieces. Lego had been steadily improving on his fear of heights but I had given him a management job so there was little of that normally. I however want all my employees to better themselves (even if I have to take the ¡°themselves¡± part out). I told him he has to do anything he would ask an employee to do. After I left the stadium I went to the Pad to check on the plate armor pads. She was just getting the first set started. ¡°I hoped to have at least three done.¡± I said frowning ¡°No I can¡¯t sir. I can get the two done by Wednesday but I am backed up in orders from everything from nails to hammers.¡± I had started selling my tools but only to merchants that would take them out of London to sell them. I made it clear to them that if I found these hammers (they all had serial numbers and my A&B logo on them) back in London I would never sell to them again. I wanted a building revolution to take place I just didn¡¯t want it to compete with my own. I could have my cake and eat it too. At least for a few years anyway. ¡°You¡¯re slipping Lilly. Grumpy could get 3 done by Wednesday and then boast about being held back by sickness.¡± She complained and let out a set of obscenities that would cause the devil to call out foul. The rivalry between them had grown legendary. Grumpy had now begun to make some of the tools I had originally had him make (and I always thought patents were stupid when I was downloading music). Open disputes have now broken out and there has been bloodshed. One argument resulted in her throwing an Iron ingot that hit him and cut his lip. Needless to say I would have three sets by Wednesday though heated insults were hurled my way. I knew now I had to go see King Henry. The game was supposed to be held on Wednesday but I really needed a few more days. I had another idea to run by him to hopefully make it more acceptable to an already impatient King. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. I found him in the throne room. ¡°Hello Sir Arthur I see that monstrous building of yours is done.¡± ¡°Not quite your majesty as I still need to do some finish work. It will be done by the day of the game however.¡± ¡°Good man Good man. I grow weary of the wait. I want to see this Football game of yours.¡± ¡°Actually that is why I came your majesty. I need a few more days to prepare my men . Sir Adrian was lost to injury and will not be able to play QB and could use a few more days to prepare his substitute.¡± ¡°What! I have waited long enough for this day Sir Arthur. Why should I wait a moment longer?¡± He shouted pounding his armrest. ¡°We still have Sir Hugo your majesty, but I need a few extra days to prepare him but I came with another proposal your Majesty.¡± He visibly calmed and then chuckled ¡°Why am I not surprised? Continue.¡± ¡°We push the game to Saturday and then we start a Flag Football Tournament Wednesday with all the nobles who are attending as well as yourself. If they wish it of course.¡± ¡°Huh? What is Flag Football? Do you play with a flag instead of a ball?¡± ¡°Close your majesty. Actually a flag is tied to either side of your waist and players no longer tackle you to the ground they grab one of the flags to do so. Once the flag of the ball carrier is removed the play is over. It is the version for any person who doesn¡¯t play it professionally but still wants to try it. It also helps someone understand the game better.¡± He stroked his chin. ¡°I like it, Sir Arthur. I want to be a QB of course.¡± ¡°Of course your majesty. I will make the arrangements.¡± Something says I am going to have to take a dive. ¡°Actually your majesty, I brought you a gift to prepare for the upcoming battle.¡± I motioned for Agatha to bring out the Helmet and Football. ¡°For me?¡± He asked, taking the football ¡°How marvelous it is. It is made of leather and hollow yet it is firm.¡± He then took the Helmet and admired it in the light. ¡°Sir Arthur it might have been worth you taking so much of the Royal Treasury just for this.¡± I cringed. It had turned into more than I think he bargained for but I had already begun to pay it back as the advance luxury boxes sold out. He hopefully would get paid back in full soon. ¡°In a short time your majesty, my stadium, and the game it represents, will bring many fold more silver to your Royal Treasury.¡± ¡°I look forward to that day. As well as for more of that delightful fried rabbit.¡± ¡°I am heading to the Inn as we speak, your majesty. If you want, you may send a servant down and I will have it ready when he gets there.¡± ¡°You have convinced me of it Sir Arthur¡± Doubt it took much convincing. ¡°While on the subject after the game I will require another piece of land this time nearby. I wish to build another restaurant, your majesty. I will purchase it of course. I might require another loan for the amount but it will be repaid of course. This way I can serve your food to you fresher, your majesty.¡± It was also near the training grounds and the Kings Knights and his important guests would need some good eats. Good market for it in other words ¡°Of course as soon as you repay your loan I will see to it.¡± ¡°Oh I expect to repay that debt after this game, your majesty.¡±¡± ¡°What? How is that amount to be repaid in one event.¡± ¡°People doubted I could build a stadium to house 10,000 people in a month. I can do many things most men would deem impossible¡± I didn''t mention he had been a doubter himself when he finally learned of the scale of the project. That was unwise for one''s health. ¡°I have grown to trust your word Sir Arthur.¡± Good. After bidding my leave I left and when I made it to the Inn I told them to prepare the Kings usual. Then I went to find Claire. ¡°I¡¯ve got good news.¡± I said after finding her. ¡°My daughter is to be expecting then?¡± ¡°What? No...¡± At least I think not ¡°We are starting another Rump Roast this time only a restaurant with no inn. It will be closer to the Stadium and Tower. The King agreed to a piece of land. I¡¯m going to start building it after the stadium is built and the first game is over.¡± ¡°Oh, who should run it though Sir Arthur.¡± ¡°You will. You started this one up well enough. You will start training your replacement here now and by the time it is built they should be ready to take your place. I leave it up to you to decide who but I will have to sign off on her or him (safe bet her as there were no men working at the inn except Hamen). Also get Hamen to train up a new cook to take over here. I want him at the new location.¡± Once I made sure she got it I continued. ¡°Now, do you know everything you must do to prepare the concessions for the game which is to be held on Saturday now?¡± I had estimated what the demand for each item would be based on price. ¡°Saturday? Well at least that gives us more time to prepare.¡± ¡°Yes and no. I expect that the Nobles will still want their concessions for the Flag Football Tournament that will still be held on Wednesday . Think of it as a practice run.¡± That didn¡¯t seem to help convince her. ¡°There will be a demand for any of our higher priced items and of course plenty of the hooch, shine I mean. The word has already made its rounds causing every Noble man under the age of 50 to want to drink his weight in the stuff. Make sure the price is doubled due to unforeseen demand and our limited supply.¡± ¡°More silver for me I guess.¡± I had arranged that she gets part of all profit as compensation for her service. ¡°Yes, I expect the game of Football to make us all a lot of silver¡± and I did. The modern pro football scene made billions and it was competing against numerous other sports. Tournies hadn¡¯t even taken hold here yet. I was literally the only game in town. I decided since it was late I would just crash in my room, that I left open for myself and special guests, after I grabbed a bite to eat that is. Honestly it was more likely because I hadn¡¯t felt safe at the Tower since the assassination attempt. I will always wonder if I shouldn¡¯t have just crashed there that night and lent Stephen a room. If I had, maybe that guy would still be alive. ¡°Ah the piece of shit got what was coming to him.¡± ¡°Oh my¡± Claire said startled as I was still at the bar when my weakness occurred. ¡°Sorry, I was miles away¡± Once I ate my Rabbit Stew and then downed my beer I headed to my room. I was surrounded by four girls at once. ¡°Oh I will remove your clothes for you sir.¡± ¡°No dammit. I¡¯d love to but it wouldn¡¯t be right with you making money from me now.¡± That of course made them more ravenous. They said that was why they had to do it. They were starting to undress me in the hall. I only got them off by telling them this counted as touching a customer and I would fire them all if they didn¡¯t stop. Still I had to take inventory of all my garments to make sure they were all still there. I stripped down to my boxers (I had those specially made here) and just fell straight on the bed and passed out from exhaustion. There’s a Royal Flush in that backfield! Wednesday came and after the morning practice I spent the whole morning explaining how to play Football to the Nobles in attendance. That ended up being well over 200 nobles and their servants. Rump Roast had already sold out of concessions before the first game was played. I was already dipping into my main game stocks. I would have to get Lawrence on it. ¡°Lawrence?¡± ¡°Sir-Yes-Sir¡± ¡°I need you to run find every pound of pork,beef,rabbit, chicken, or fish you can find that''s fresh. Also flour too. I think I underestimated the demand of food stocks.¡± That was an understatement. ¡°Also before you get started on that, get Lily to make another still or two. I don¡¯t care what she is doing or what it costs but I need another damn quick.¡± He started to tell me how she was not going to like it. ¡°I know she can be a pain in the ass but she is a damn good blacksmith. Tell her I said that Grumpy would have that still done by morning if he had to stay up all night. Then he would brag about how it was the dust in his eyes that made him look so weary. Go!¡± and pointed off in the distance. I was missing a golden money making opportunity here. Not to mention getting on every noble''s good side if I deliver still more. I was starting to worry about alcohol poisoning with a few. I had anyone that wanted to enter the tournament wager 5 pounds including myself. Half the pot would go to the stadium for hosting the games and half to the winner of the tournament to be divided equally amongst them. Each team would have 15 players. In other words 11 full time players and 4 subs this is an ego trip remember these nobles won¡¯t be wanting to come off the field. I ended up having almost all the hundred or so male, even a few female, nobles that came to enter the flag football tournament. I made sure all the women knew that it would not be as violent as no one would tackle so more than I figured joined in the fun. Matilda of course couldn¡¯t resist playing against me so she joined in. The funny thing is the peasants started showing up wanting to watch the game and see nobles running all over the field. I ended up getting some of my football assistants (ok towel boys) to sell tickets for the bleachers. I sold them for a pence a ticket and you could sit anywhere there was an opening (during the game front row would be a premium). I ended up making over 5 pounds from ticket sales from what amounted to a flag football game. Pounds as in pounds of silver. Which is where the name came from even though in these days a pound was fluid. When we picked teams I ended up on the team of Charles the Good of Denmark. I thought I had heard of him but I could not for the life of me remember how. I figured it must be just getting the familiarity with my Charles confused with the name. He ended up being a pretty good guy. Hence the name I reckon. ¡°I knew you were the one that thought up this game. I made sure you were on my side. I want to win this thing.¡± ¡°I did not come up with it Sir Charles but I do know a lot about it.¡± ¡°The same I suppose. Do you wish to play QB?¡± ¡°No, I think that should be your honor sir. You having the good sense to select me should be tailor made to play QB.¡± Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. In truth he was an aging man in this day but probably only in his 40¡¯s. He was shorter like all Agers but also a powerful build and he didn¡¯t act old. I also had made it clear before the game that I was not going to play QB. I would play a new position to be fair to the other players that had never played before. ¡°Hah. I like you already, my boy.¡± Before our first game I got to know the man. He sounded like a straight up saint even for my time. Crusading for the poor, widows, and orphans he donated his time, money, and status to half a dozen charitable means. This was coming from some of my teammates, not him. In fact he kept waving it off like that was what any good Christian would do which was true. The problem was the words Good Christian and Middle Ages don¡¯t come together much. Ager Christians were more likely to invade you then try and save you. We ended up going on a winning streak and ended up one on one with the King for the final game. The King along with Matilda and to my shock and displeasure Stephen. I hadn¡¯t seen or talked to him since his drunken confession. I didn¡¯t even know if he remembered it. We approached the center field and flipped the coin. They won the toss and took the ball first. One of the rules for my flag football was you took the ball at the 20 no kickers. A touchdown was worth 7 points and instead of punting there you would just throw it as deep as you could on 4th down and treat it as a punt. ¡°It is down to us. I guess the cream has risen to the top, Sirs and noble ladies.¡± Charles said ¡°We shall defeat you and taketh the spoils¡± The King said. ¡°Shake and bake gentlemen. It''s time to shit or get off the pot¡± I said and walked off. That left everyone stunned as was my intention. I had decided it would be best if the whole kingdom saw that the royal bloodline could be defeated. Not to mention my wallet would thank me. I would suffer the consequences later. ¡°What was that about?¡± Charles asked ¡°It is what is called psychological warfare in my country. You get into the minds of your opponent. It makes them think too much in combat.¡± ¡°Your country must be a frightful place if it practices such to win games.¡± ¡°You have no idea. Women in my country are known to practice these tactics just to win arguments in marriages.¡± Where do you think I got the idea? ¡°I think I do not wish to visit your country after all.¡± He said, which got a full belly laugh from me. The game stayed tight. We were up by 7 by the end of the second quarter. I was playing running back and middle linebacker and had intercepted the King for a touchdown. He wasn¡¯t happy about that. I had to remind him that it was a game. The problem was he wasn¡¯t treating it as one. I had found that back in the 21st we are a little better at reading body language and tone of voice then the Agers are at concealing it. I think it is from the constant fear of rejection of the social world around us that makes us more attentive to those subtle signs. The King never developed defenses (he was King why would he) and he was radiating pissed off. I decided my plan was a death sentence and backed off. We ended up losing 21-14. I let the King run one in at the end by pretending to trip up. I have seen better acting on soccer fields but he bought it. So did Charles it would seem. ¡°Well its not often you almost beat the King of England. It was fun Sir Arthur. We shall have to play again some time.¡± ¡°I would be honored Sir Charles.¡± ¡°If you''re ever in Denmark I would be honored to have you stay with me¡± ¡°In that case Charles I should repay the favor and allow you use of my VIP suite at my Rump Roast Inn.¡± ¡°VIP?¡± ¡°Oh it means a very important person, Sir Charles. I use it occasionally myself and I have acquired a very comfortable bed for it. I¡¯m sure you and your wife, Margaret will enjoy it. You may also enjoy my balcony for the game as I will unfortunately be elsewhere.¡± ¡°Hah you shall be in the thick of battle where I wish I could be again. I can do nothing but accept humbly and thankfully especially of your invitation to your Inn. I hear from the King that your fried chicken and rabbit is delicious.¡± ¡°It is indeed Sir.¡± Even though I lost I still won. It¡¯s kind of hard to call raking in over a hundred and fifty pounds of silver in a single day''s work a loss. I was going to have to do this more often. It was enough to pay for a chunk of the whole stadium and I had intended it as a side show. Shes so vain The next few days passed uneventfully. Practice in the morning. Autographs at lunch. Oh yeah I kind of hinted to some kids that was what you did to football players that you respected. Ask them to sign their name to a piece of parchment or wood (for them anyway). If they were really good, eventually someone would pay for it. Shameless I know but I had never been asked to sign an autograph and it was something I had always dreamed about being a QB. Not so glamorous once it actually happens especially since they never have a pen (didn¡¯t think that one through). Honestly it was a huge mistake. I couldn¡¯t escape the little rodents and now the adult Nobles had started the crap. The second still was up and running; it would produce an extra few gallons a day. Lily had now started making copper pipe. I had her make up copper sheets then roll them up and solder the seam. It was too time consuming for large projects like water piping but for a still it would work fine. I could make enough off of one hour of production to pay for the materials (and Lilly¡¯s bonus) for the still. Gotta love these prideful idiots. These Nobles were going to have their livers looking like they had been shot with birdshot at this rate. I did however have an unforeseen crisis. I had run out of rabbits. Or at least those I wasn¡¯t trying to save for breeding stock. I decided to get A&B to drop everything and build me as many rabbit traps as they could. I also had Lilly make me some iron wire for snares. I had Goodwin round up some Football players to place them all and then told them to go back at dark and see if they had caught any. We were putting a serious dent in the furry population of the area but rabbits will bounce back quickly. I also had another visit from Father Clarence. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen you in Mass my son.¡± ¡°You know I am not a Catholic father. I do confess I should come see my friend and spiritual compass more often however.¡± ¡°Compass?¡± Dammit the compass hadn¡¯t been invented yet. ¡°Spiritual adviser is perhaps a better choice of words¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°Well I¡¯m glad to hear that my son. Still I wish you would come to know the lord as your savior.¡± ¡°But I have Father. I was baptized in his name many years ago. It was just a different subset of Christianity. You must remember my descendants came from Britana. They still knew of Christ but it was long before the established Church as you know.¡± It was even true well the first part anyway, born again Baptist. I lost the faith years ago but still, I was baptized in my youth. That didn¡¯t seem to deter him but it did seem to please him that Christ¡¯s message transcended oceans. ¡°I can not allow you to continue to force your men to bathe.¡± He said after some pause. ¡°Father please, I am neither forcing them to do anything nor are they bathing. They are returning God¡¯s earth to the field that sprung it with the rain from heaven. We use the water on the football field. It is sacred in my country. I¡¯m sorry father but I cannot stop.¡± He sighs ¡°If that is the case my son then I shall not stop you. I doubt I could if I tried.¡± I said I would attend mass more often. At least I promised I would come to confess more often as all have sinned as he said. Which is true if everything that is remotely fun is a sin. Lilly had the three sets of armor/pads done. One I kept in spare the others Hugo and I would wear. Sir Adrian I had ruled out. He of course wanted to play but I denied him as he was still obviously in pain when he threw and it wasn¡¯t nearly as powerful as normal. I had one more thing I had to do before the day was out. I found the empress in her quarters after a servant told me where to find her. ¡°Who is it?¡± She said as I knocked. ¡°It is I, Sir Arthur.¡± It¡¯s like I¡¯m in some weird play. ¡°Oh Arthur, I''m glad to see you.¡± I noticed the Sir was absent. I¡¯m too out of touch to know what the hell that meant if anything. ¡°I am glad to see you as well milady.¡± ¡°So what is it that you have come to see me about this time?¡± ¡°I am in need of your resources again. I need it to be made known that at the game one lucky peasant will receive a football helmet free of charge.¡± ¡°A peasant? Why not a Noble?¡± ¡°Because milady I have already sold out of the Luxury Boxes to the Nobile¡¯s I need to sell out the cheap seats so to speak. They need to know it will go to one of them.¡± ¡°Oh I see. I will see what I can do but I do not know many peasants. I will have to make it scandalous and it will spread through the Noble ladies.¡± ¡°That was what I wanted, Empress. Every peasant in the Kingdom will know at that point. Servants always have the best ears.¡± True of any period. She smirked evilly and started undressing "It''s a good thing you''re cute because you sure are a lot of work." I sighed ¡°I know I know it will cost me¡± The sacrifices one must make for Football. Are you ready for some Football! On the big day I of course had called off practice but I had ordered all the men to arrive an hour before the game for stretches and a quick flag football game to warm up. Hugo was as pumped as the Football that seemed to be glued to his hand since he got the starting position. I think he sleeps with it. The whole of London was pumped. I had made it so. I had hired every town crier all week to spread the word. I even had the Players go door to door so to speak to everyone they knew and tell them to come. For the game I had rigged up a kind of huge copper megaphone that would be worked by an announcer. Sir Adrian worked it as he knew more about the game than any other non-playing Ager. The ¡°Visiting¡± side of the stadium didn¡¯t get anything I just didn¡¯t have time. Every one of my A&B apprentices was selling tickets. They got to watch the game for free and they all made a pence for the day which thrilled them. They sold them at the entrances to the rows of bleachers to try to limit sneak ins. I had Lawrence and Agatha collect the money from them multiple times to make sure it didn¡¯t end up in there pockets. After the start of the game most of them would be on concession duty and all of them would at halftime. I figured at that point any seats that were left wouldn¡¯t be sold anyway if a few people got a free game I figure it could just mean more fans down the road. I ended up setting prices at a shilling for the first row, half a shilling for the second and third, 5 pence for every row after until halfway up. From there to the cheap seats it was 2 pence and the last 5 rows were a pence. I also made it known to the ticket sellers that if there was seats available after the 1st quarter they were half price. The first three rows sold out before kickoff. The lesser Nobles and some of the smarter of upper crust had bought them out. Luxury Boxes had already been paid 5 shillings apiece and the food is free (My shine not so much). I had 500 seats in Luxury so minus the King and Matilda and even Stephen (Who I let in free of course) I still brought in over 120 pounds of silver off the Nobles. Put that with the money from the Noble games and I had enough to pay off my loan to the King. That was even after his half. I made a big gesture of paying it all before the game. You don¡¯t see over almost four hundred pounds of silver that often. ¡°I thought it couldn¡¯t be done and just as this stadium sits here so does my money and it seems to have doubled¡± ¡°Our agreement was for one half the sales of tickets and the rest is a repayment of my loan. As well as a bonus as a token of my gratitude I also present to your majesty this lifetime pass for food and drink at any of my games and establishments.¡± I had a grocery club card in my wallet which I had made into his VIP card. No one in the 12th could read modern English anyway and it was made of plastic which amazed him. It was really a no brainer as he was already eating for free already and this way I get to make it out like it¡¯s a gift. There were peasants who came from as far away as Scotland to see this game. I felt kind of guilty as most of them really shouldn¡¯t be spending money on watching a game that was better off spent on food but people always do stuff like that. I¡¯ve met gamblers that would rather gamble as eat or drug addicts that feed their habit before their families. I would make far better use of that money than they would, at least that''s what I told myself. Nobles came from even more far flung places. Other than my buddy Sir Charles from Denmark we had almost a hundred high ranking Europeans attending. The Empress must have made it known to all she knew in the Holy Roman Empire as they were well represented at the Game. Before the game began I decided to sing the US national anthem. They wouldn¡¯t understand the words but that song has some powerful magic in it even to skeptics of patriotism. No one would say I was ready for American Idol but I was always one of the best at Karaoke. ¡°This is the national anthem from my home country, America. It speaks about a will and spirit that transcends time. A will of a people that would take what was their God given right to have. We all have a right to pursue happiness. That is what Football is. A dream where anyone can achieve happiness whether you¡¯re a dirt poor peasant or a noble if you work hard enough anything can happen. Seek out your happiness England!¡± I yelled through the megaphone. That roar shook the ground. I sang like I have never sang before. I was throwing all kinds of funk on it and they were eating it up. ¡°Are you ready for some Football?¡± I yelled when I was done with the anthem. The crowd was going crazy and the atmosphere was electric. With gametime finally here my team walked from the ¡°Home¡± side of the field while Hugo¡¯s walked from the other. When we arrived in the center of the field a ref joined us. Speaking of refs I had changed the rules a bit as well as a few other changes for ease and necessity. For starters, uh Agers have no clocks and there is no way in hell I am going down that headache filled road of trying to make one on short notice. There is no way to be exactly precise but I designed a type of water clock that would empty completely to signify a half. It would then be refilled at halftime. The container the clock was made out of had 30 marks to signify approximately 30 minutes. The water is shut off after a score, a timeout, or going out of bounds. There was even an official water monitor that would yell out at each mark how many minutes were left. I simplified the rules as well. Defensive contact was allowed anywhere as long as the ball was not in the air. Holding only occurred when a player was literally tackled to the ground without the ball. I kept all the obvious ones like unnecessary roughness which including things like punching, kicking, gouging, hitting below the belt, etc. Most of those would get you ejected and a penalty for your team. Then I got rid of most the others. I wanted to simplify as much as possible. No kick offs, teams started the drive at the 20 unless you punted. There was only one designated punter for both teams. That would change eventually but do you know how hard it is with no experience punting or kicking to train someone else in it? ¡°Alright pick a side.¡± The ref said holding up a silver coin I minted for the occasion. KFL in a helmet on heads and a Football on tails. ¡°You pick Hugo. You¡¯re technically the Away team they always guess the toss.¡± ¡°Heads¡± ¡°Heads it is¡± the ref said. ¡°We will kick.¡± Hugo said.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. He was actually thinking it through. If you are impatient and headstrong you almost always pick to receive the ball first. Hugo had learned from me and I knew quite a bit about the game but we never discussed the coin-flip. It had seemed pointless in the grand scheme of things. ¡°Or he could be a chicken¡± I said to myself as I got near the bench. ¡°Where¡¯s a chicken?¡± Goodwin asked excitedly ¡°No dammit there is no chicken.¡± ¡°Why did I not get to eat it before the game?¡± ¡°There is no chicken. I told you no eating right before a game because it makes you lethargic to eat before strenuous exercise.¡± ¡°Lethargic sounds delicious¡± I don¡¯t believe I have ever met such single-mindedness in a person as I have with Goodwin. Food was all he thought about although recently he seems to have gotten a taste for QB flesh. He was a sack artist so I fed the bottomless pit of his stomach and laughed about it the whole time like a mad scientist. The first half was a back and forth slugfest. We went into halftime with a tie 7-7 game. I had ran one in for a touchdown. If only we had a highlight reel for that one. I know I broke a few ankles on the 27 yards I ran to make it the goal line. Their touchdown came from a nice little shovel pass, which is when the QB throws it underhanded to the RB who is a few yards ahead of him. Hugo was surprising me at how well he retained all I had mentioned to him. I just casually mentioned what a shovel pass was to him I never even trained him or put it in the playbook. My halftime was another masterstroke if I do say so myself. I got Agatha to train some of the Rump Roast girls to be cheerleaders. They were told it was a favor for me but they all got front row seats as compensation as well. Every one of them volunteered for it especially after they saw the outfits. Agatha only had a week to train them and I only knew off-hand some cheers. I did date the head cheerleader for almost 2 years in HS but that isn¡¯t exactly being one yourself. She did however never shut-up about it so I had a pretty good grasp of a lot of them. Agatha however had made some creative adjustments. I heard it was a hell of show and we certainly heard about it from the crowd even in the Locker room. I went over our second half game plan and then I gave the boys a pep talk before we went back on to the field to fire them back up. In the middle of the 3rd quarter disaster struck. While I was getting tackled after I had thrown the ball my middle finger got jammed. I could still throw but it was definitely messing with my accuracy. I didn¡¯t let anyone know. Not to be tough but because I didn¡¯t want them to panic. I did however start running more which made me more predictable. After we punted Hugo made a great play action fake to the running back which had even me fooled and they scored a touchdown. On our next drive I lucked out calling the right play, a draw to Flash, when the outside linebackers were blitzing. Once he gets in the open field it¡¯s over. He ended up scoring a 69 yard touchdown and left a vapor trail behind him. At around 3 minutes left in the game I was intercepted. I forced the ball into double coverage which was a mistake with my bad finger. Honestly it was just a mistake bad finger or not I shouldn¡¯t have done it. I have a confession to make to my readers. Even though we only lost by a field goal my last game in High School I had been having an awful game. Threw for less than 200 yards and threw an interception. The only reason we won so many games is I had a good coach and a better defense. I was hardly ever the best QB on the field and it was happening all over again centuries ahead of schedule. Hugo pulled out one hell of a drive for the one that really mattered. He went 4/5 for 60 yards and then scored the touchdown with a nice pass to his TE (Sir Wydo). He left me with only a few gallons of water left. I threw a few Hail Mary¡¯s deep but none of them worked. We lost 21-14 which was a huge blow to my ego. I wasn¡¯t even the best QB in the 12th century how sad is that? ¡°You played a hell of a game Sir Hugo. I honestly didn¡¯t give you much of a chance but in the end it seemed I didn¡¯t have a chance.¡± ¡°I had a good teacher Sir Arthur¡± ¡°That you did, that you did. I hope you know this just might have spelled your end in London.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry sir. You must be very upset with me to be throwing me out.¡± ¡°What, No.¡± I said chuckling and grabbing him in a chokehold ¡°I plan on building other stadiums in England and eventually elsewhere. Who do you think will QB for the team that plays in them? You¡¯re a hot commodity son.¡± I then realized he wouldn¡¯t know what that meant ¡°Uh it means other lords will be vying for your services to compete with Henry¡¯s Hero¡¯s.¡± Little Hugo was probably the most highly prized free agent on the market as no one else would be as prejudiced as I was, how ironic is that? ¡°But I want to stay here and play with you.¡± He said sincerely. ¡°Well we will see what happens but I¡¯m afraid its King Henry who could in theory trade you.¡± They didn¡¯t have contracts but all here swore fealty to the King. If he told you to go play for another team I guess you didn¡¯t have much choice and I could see money influencing his decision. ¡°I will however see what I can do. I need someone to start a Football school that can train men to play for all the other teams I hope to start elsewhere. Do you think you could handle that? Coaching/teaching instead of playing professionally?¡± He didn¡¯t have an answer and since it didn¡¯t come naturally I decided he needed time. I told him to think about it. There was no rush for a decision especially since it would impact the next decade of his life. I however made sure to present his winner¡¯s trophy personally. It was bronze now but one made out of each player proportional silver from ticket sales would be presented on Monday. They could melt it down if they wanted, sell it (it should bring much more than silver value as it was unique in the Ager world), or keep it. Even my team got one but it was half that of the winners. I split mine up evenly amongst my players to give them a slightly larger statue (it was a little to me but a lot to the peasants on my team). I also gave my helmet out to a lucky fan. A kid that had come up to me after the game. ¡°You hold onto that now son. One day you¡¯ll wear it on this field as its QB if you work hard and never give up.¡± I felt a little guilty as judging by his and his father¡¯s appearance they were peasants. He probably would never become a Knight let alone a QB. However these people need confidence. I meant what I said earlier about Heros and believing in someone that looks up to them, I wanted this kid to dream big. Those that dream big will accomplish more than those that don¡¯t, even if they fall short. His dad looked like he was about to cry as he thanked me. King Henry was not as impressed however. ¡°My team was supposed to Win Sir Arthur. How could the one that created the game lose it?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t create the game your majesty, I am but one of its many players. There is football saying that is as old as the game ¡°Any given Sunday¡±. Football was always played on Sundays in my country and any given Sunday the lesser team can beat a better one if God is on their side. God saw fit to award Hugo this win who am I to question God?¡± That got mumbles but he surely couldn¡¯t complain much. I had doubled his money in a month and made England into front page news (although there was no news as there was no newspaper) around the whole old world. I was rapidly turning London into a 12th century metropolis and oh yeah his daughter was a close friend (maybe not the right word). The King might not have liked the result but the close finish and the unlikely win by Hugo had turned Football into an overnight sensation. I already had a dozen requests for a team and stadium before I left the stadium. I would have to choose my next site carefully. ¡°So how¡¯d we do?¡± I asked to Claire when the day was finally over and I got back to the Inn. ¡°I bought out every place I could find that would sell to me and we still sold out.¡± ¡°Great Job. Take a couple days off you earned it. Place whoever you have chosen to take your place in charge to see how they handle it.¡± ¡°Thank you Sir Arthur¡± ¡°I told you call me Arthur unless in a noble presence. I don¡¯t care about such formalities.¡± ¡°Of course Arthur¡± I ended up having hundreds of people show up looking for my autograph. One caught my eye along with every other man who saw her. She was stunning for an Ager, she even rivaled the Empress. Short at around 5¡¯ but with beautiful blue eyes and blonde hair almost to her waist. She had to be from modern day Sweden. ¡°God I love being a QB¡± I said as I waved her to me. I need a vacation The next day I started A&B and Lily on a joint project, a blast furnace. The hardest part had been convincing them of its necessity. I had tried to explain that it was needed for large quantities of cast iron and eventually steel. I made it clear to them that my plans would only be possible with it but it still was a hard sell. Lilly I think saw it as a threat to her livelihood. Which I guess it was in the long term but she wouldn¡¯t be out of work in the next 10 or 20 years and not at all if she adapted. Bolt just felt it was a distraction from stadium building. He wanted to start on the next one immediately. I made it clear to him that this was more important this year. I had to get more infrastructure built up. England, hell all of Europe, was still using Iron blades and chainmail armor for waging war for crying out loud. I told them both that they had doubted me in the past and had not been proven right. They agreed and when I promised them a nice hefty silver bonus upon completion they both got it in gear. Money talks regardless of the century. That leads me to my next dilemma. A blast furnace works by forcing large amounts of air during the smelting process. In the 21st they used electric or gas powered fans to do this which was obviously impossible. Steam power would also work but even that was years away. I have no way to get an airtight seal, at least yet. I would need to get better at casting and I still need a way to lathe pistons and bore the cylinders. I needed power to make engines that made power. The obvious solution was water power as that was doable with Ager tech. I just needed to find a water source with the right geography as it needs to be dammed up to create a head. I could use a fast flowing river and a water wheel although I was leaving that for the worst case as a dammed source is more controllable/reliable. I sighed. This was going to take some up close and personal scouting for this one. I decided it was time for a vacation anyway. ¡°Lawrence!¡± ¡°Sir-yes-Sir¡± ¡°Find me someone that knows every stream and branch within a week''s walk of London. I want a good scout who knows them all, especially any good fishing spots. I am going on a vacation for a couple of days. Make plans for my absence and tell all my staff to do the same.¡± ¡°Vacation Sir?¡± ¡°I need to get away from the city to clear my head. Just tell everyone I will be leaving on a trip for a few days and will be out of contact.¡± After he left I went to the market to get someone to do a rush job on what amounted to tent hammocks. They would tie in-between trees like a hammock but had a roof. When I found a canvas maker and told him what I was after he assured me he could make it almost waterproof by coating it in this tree sap he used. Similar to how tents were almost waterproof in the 21st I would guess. If it is raining you aren¡¯t dry camping no matter the century. This way though at least we won¡¯t be soaked if it rained. I decided to take Goodwin and told him to pack some clothes, a fishing pole, and his bow and quiver. As well as 2 days rations (I was afraid what he would consider rations) and a water flask. I also bought us some traveling cloaks that would help if it started raining. I packed up my lucky pack with clothes, one of the lighters, a few pieces of silver for trade, salt in case of a deer kill, and this journal. I also brought along the Bowie Knife Lilly had made me as a gift when she learned I had trained with one in Muay Thai. Sweet girl under the surface really and smart too. I only casually mentioned once what one looked like and she made one up that was damn close to one. The blade was about a foot long and of course made of iron but it was a damn good blade and well balanced. She even added a nice knuckle guard that I had said could come in handy if I found myself against a sworded opponent. I didn¡¯t want to be completely unarmed just to look that way. Along with that I also had four ceramic jars the size and shape of milk bottles that I hope to stay unused and unbroken. I also brought along a couple joints of my first bit of green as I might need a painkiller (that¡¯s why I smoked it before for the pain I swear). After I was packed I went to find Cristina to make sure she knew to take over my classes. She was capable enough to do it better herself now anyway. I then I went to the Rump Roast and met Lilana who Claire had chosen to take over in her stead. I made sure she informed Claire where I would be. It ended up taking the rest of the day to touch base with everyone and Lawrence had informed me that he had found a guide by that time. He was a local hunter by the name of Osgood of the house of Godyear as he introduced himself. He had assured us that he knew every creek and fishing hole within a weeks walking distance. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. ¡°I need to find a location close by that has a stream that falls down a hill or mountain. Preferably in a great crevice or where it has run into rock or dirt and it cuts through it. A narrow valley would also work. Do you know of such a place?¡± ¡°I know of several Sir Arthur. One you have to pass through in order to get to one of the best fishing holes around.¡± ¡°Let''s check that one out first as I want to get some fishing in. Hell if I''m not going to use this trip like a Vacation.¡± ¡°Vacation Sir?¡± ¡°Never mind, just get ready to leave. I want to leave by noon tomorrow. I have to go see the King so I won¡¯t see you till we leave. Good day Osgood.¡± I found that since it was getting late he was already in his quarters. I told the servant I had found that I needed to see him to inform him that I would be leaving for a few days tomorrow. He took me to the King''s study. ¡°Who is this late an hour?¡± He said as I knocked. ¡°Sir Arthur, your majesty.¡± ¡°Oh Arthur, come in, come in, always happy to hear from you. It seems to help my treasury immensely each time I do.¡± ¡°Yes your majesty, that is exactly why I come at this late time. I came up with another way to help the royal treasury. But first I must find a piece of land outside a city to do so.¡± ¡°More land? You are an ambitious one aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°I am your majesty. Just as that last piece of land you granted me made you a lot of silver, this one will in time make you much more. With your permission I will head out tomorrow to find a suitable location for your majesty. While I am out on your lands I asked that I be allowed to hunt your deer to sustain us.¡± Without permission that could see you hung by the neck in a tree to warn off other poachers. He frowned but nodded his consent. ¡°Also I have selected a piece of land nearby to you here to open the new Rump Roast. Your food will be able to get to you still hot your majesty. If you would just sign this I will have Cristina and Goodwin bring the silver for its purchase tomorrow morning before we leave.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t even need a Loan this time for it?¡± ¡°No your majesty the Rump Roast Concession my side project for the Games paid for it sir. I also will of course include the royal treasury¡¯s taxes in tomorrow¡¯s payment.¡± ¡°I guess before long I¡¯ll be borrowing from you.¡± Oh god I hope not. That is like flushing money away. Uh King Henry you still owe me that silver I lent you. Lent me I thought it was a gift Sir Arthur. Made me sweat just thinking about it. ¡°I doubt it, your majesty. I have plans that will help the royal treasury as well. Not just by my hand but by helping the English help themselves make their own fortunes, which you of course get a portion of.¡± ¡°You do think big don¡¯t you Sir Arthur?¡± ¡°Your daughter said the same thing once.¡± . Oops. Piece of advice kids, if you have been caught sleeping around with the King''s daughter don¡¯t act like you are familiar with her. He sighs but smiles ¡°Oh it''s alright the whole Kingdom knows that you have eyes for my daughter. Somedays I wish you were of high birth because I do believe you would do good by her but In order to give her the best chance to succeed me she must be married to one of high birth. I¡¯m only concerned about her future. You must see why I forced you to stop.¡± ¡°I do your majesty and I respect you being this candid with me. But I will leave you with this to think about. Is it really about her and her future or your own that you worry about? Geoffrey could cause as much tension amongst the barons as a commoner husband would.¡± and with that I left. Only as I was walking out of the Tower did I realize how I bad I had screwed up. Matilda¡¯s eventual marriage to Geoffrey wouldn¡¯t be announced for some time now. I also hinted I knew he wanted to name her successor. How the hell was I to explain how I had known that? I decided since it was late to just stay at my quarters at the Tower. Lina was waiting for me. I hadn¡¯t seen her in over a month. ¡°Lina, I haven¡¯t seen you in a while. How are you?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry I did it!¡± She said sobbing. ¡°Did what?¡± ¡°I hired the assassin. Sir Stephen made me do so. He first wanted me to do it but I couldn¡¯t.¡± I had always assumed he had done it but there was no way to get any proof. I also thought I might have been letting past events shape my conclusions. Now I see I was correct but I also had no more proof then I did 5 minutes ago. A peasant girl who I had been sleeping with wouldn¡¯t convince a jury back home. Let alone the King who was Stephens uncle and who knew I didn¡¯t like him. ¡°Well this is why you kept wanting to share my bed. You were his informant. Clever bastard.¡± I said under my breath but Lina heard. ¡°He is no bastard, sir. His birth was legitimate and both his Father and Mother were Nobles.¡± She said seriously. I chuckled ¡°No you are right but he is a piece of shit I know that much. And to think I tried to let bygones be bygones and he tries to kill me.¡± ¡°Lina, don''t tell anyone else this. Do you understand me?¡± I ask to which she nods her head while whipping her eyes with a handkerchief I give her. ¡°I will deal with Stephen in my own way when I return.¡± ¡°He will kill me once he learns I have told you.¡± She was probably right. Damn when did I become the protag in a Harem anime? ¡°Not if you work for me. I will get the King to assign you to me exclusively and I will place you at the Inn. That should keep you away from him and safe in my care.¡± That¡¯s going to make the King rib me again I would imagine ¡°Thank you Sir Arthur. I shall stay with you in your bed then?¡± ¡°No.¡± I sigh knowing I¡¯m making a sacrifice here ¡°My employees are not to treat me as anything other than their boss. You can stay in the servant¡¯s quarters as Agatha is at the Inn.¡± That made her pout a little but she also seemed relieved. She probably had been forced into what amounted to prostitution (not to mention assaination) and she didn¡¯t even get paid well for it. Feudalism makes absolutely no sense to me. How there were not more revolts is mind boggling to me. After she left I undressed and got into bed tossing and turning for an hour probably till sleep finally came.