Chapter 7

After dinner, we talked more, and the King broached a subject with which he was obviously uncomfortable. “Should I assume that you are the so-called ‘Ghost of Lancaster’ who led the raids against York?”

“I am,” I answered, suddenly as nervous as the King was and wondering where this was leading.

“Would you know what became of Rachel, the junior Baroness Porter?”

“She is alive and well, living in the Manor House in Lancaster,” I answered. I didn’t tell him she was a slave or that she was pregnant with my child.

“She is my niece, my brother’s daughter,” he explained. In turn, I explained about the King’s agreement allowing me to keep as slaves the prisoners I didn’t execute, and my reluctance to execute wives and family who hadn’t been directly involved. I also offered to have her brought here and released as part of the accord.

Six days later, my hundred troops arrived from the border, surprised that they had been allowed to fly both the English flag and my personal banner alongside the flag of Scotland and the banner of the Scottish King as they rode amicably side-by-side through the Scottish countryside.

They left for Lancaster the next morning with Grace, who refused to ride in the lavish carriage her father had readied for her. Then there was the fact that she was dressed in pants just as the men were. Stomping her foot and publicly challenging Baliol, she insisted on riding her own horse. Nervous about her outburst in front of me he looked to me to see if I was upset.

“May I?” I asked him, motioning toward his daughter.

“By all means,” he replied, the relief evident in his voice. As I approached, she turned on me, eyes blazing, ready for anything--well, almost anything.

“May I have the honor?” I asked, standing next to her horse, and holding my hands on top of my left knee for her to use to climb up on her horse.

She recovered quickly from the shock and suddenly became very ladylike. “Thank you, Milord,” she purred in a sultry voice as she made a perfect curtsy.

I took her hand and kissed it before helping her onto her horse. “I hope this trip goes well,” she said suggestively.

“Just be yourself and it should go fine. You should fit in quite well with my other wives,” I assured her. Margaret would love her feistiness. I also gave Grace the cloak I had been wearing against the chill of the early morning.

For the next two weeks, I toured nearby towns and manors. Each manor was similar, yet slightly different. I noticed that most of the manors had small herding dogs that were exceptionally efficient. I finally managed to convince one Baron to let me purchase a young man who was agreeable with moving to Lancaster to breed and train the dogs for me. The young man had been trying to convince one of the girls in town to marry him, and now that he had a promise of a steady job, she agreed. The cost of moving her was added to the purchase price. I bought a wagon and two horses for them to use during the move, commissioned a comfortable mattress for inside the wagon, and gave the young man enough money to provision the wagon for the trip south and to purchase at least twenty good dogs for breeding, more if he could get them.

Yet another town had a unique way to keep food cold all year. A small hill near their river housed a large underground room roughly the size of the manor hall in Lancaster. They had built the room entirely from stone and even though it was almost spring, it felt like the middle of the winter inside the room. The room was completely covered with soil and green grass, the only access via a narrow ramp covered by heavy wooden doors. Several frozen full and partial carcasses of beef, venison, sheep, and swine greeted me when I entered, as well as boxes and barrels of fish, vegetables, and grain. They showed me the layout of the room. It was similar to a maze with two-foot square blocks of ice stacked along the walls and around the room, then covered in sawdust to absorb the moisture and to help insulate the ice. The floor was covered in thresh topped with sawdust.

That allowed water from the melting ice to drain off without making the floor slippery. The floor was gently sloped to the middle of the room where there was a one-inch drain hole. To prevent the ground beneath the cold room from getting soggy, clay tubes channeled the water away. The clay tubes were about eighteen inches long and slightly bigger around one end, almost looking as if they’d been shaped around someone’s forearm. The smaller end fit into the larger end of the next and was sealed with mortar. The water ran slightly downhill from the drain hole, and I was shown where it dripped out of the hill nearly two hundred feet away.

I was excited by both the idea of the cold room and the idea of the clay tubes when we finally left the town and headed back to the castle to await Grace.

I spent the next day recreating the design of the cold room on paper and contemplating the clay tubes. I was as excited by those two ideas as I had been when I found out about the Welsh bows and about silk bow strings.

Lunch the next day was interrupted by a messenger bringing news that Princess Grace and her retinue were returning. Once again, the Princess was riding her horse, as were my wives Claire, Dorothy, and Anne. For once, they had decided--not that Margaret or I insisted--to observe proper etiquette. The wives who were riding stayed on their horses until Margaret, my senior wife and carrying John, had stepped from the carriage. She was followed closely by an obviously pregnant Gemma and a similarly afflicted Abby.

After the four mounted women had dismounted, one last woman, followed by her two young children, emerged from the carriage. I was grateful that Rachel’s pregnancy wasn’t obvious yet. After an obligatory curtsey to her uncle, she flew to me, practically bowling me over as she literally jumped into my arms and kissed me hard enough that her uncle could tell she was happy to see me.

“I get the distinct impression that my niece has no desire to return here,” the King snickered as he stood next to us. Blushing, Rachel finally let me go and gave her uncle a hug, too, while her two youngsters used me for a climbing tree.

“I am very happy in Lancaster,” she exclaimed.

“Perhaps your majesty would care to also discuss Rachel’s marital status with my wife Margaret,” I suggested. I felt that marrying Rachel was the least I should do since she was the niece of a King.

“Too late, she already made that decision,” Rachel giggled.

Grace finally made her way up to her father in such a demure and proper fashion that her father had a quizzical look on his face. Only the pants she wore instead of the customary dress showed any resemblance to the feisty young woman who left here two weeks ago. Grace curtsied before hugging her father and mother and then introduced each of my wives to her parents.

“What happened to my daughter?” the King chuckled towards me.

“Your daughter is showing her appreciation for the wonderful marriage you have arranged for her,” Grace interjected. Seeing that her father’s interest was piqued, she continued. “His wives are allowed to ride horses, hunt, wear pants, work, and take part in the governance of the Duchy if they so desire. The people work out of respect for and loyalty to the Duke, rather than fear. He treats his people so well that even his slaves have nothing but good things to say about him. You see how Rachel feels about him.

“He has begun implementing major changes in Lancaster that will make the lives of his subjects more bearable, will improve their productivity, and make him and his subjects wealthier. All he requires from his wives is that they not embarrass the family or him in front of other nobles, so I am taking this opportunity to show him that I intend to abide by his rule and look forward to becoming his wife,” she finished, her eyes practically devouring me.

“It would appear that my daughter has found someplace where her free spirit will fit in well,” the King said happily, followed by a chorus of giggles from all eight women.

It took a while for each of my wives to finish greeting me personally, and then Grace took a turn. “I’ve heard a lot about you and am looking forward to our wedding night,” she growled quietly into the ear away from her father. I hoped he didn’t notice her pressing herself against the bulge in the front of my pants.

If he did, he didn’t seem to mind as he jovially wrapped his arm around my shoulders and led us back to our interrupted lunch. I had to admire the efficiency of his staff. While we had been outside, much of the dining room had been re-arranged, adding more places for my wives, fiancées, and Rachel’s two children. When lunch resumed, it was a boisterous affair with a lot of female laughter and chatter. Grace and her mother sat together and talked in hushed tones throughout lunch. I was glad that her mother was smiling the entire time.

Rachel’s parents arrived right before dinner. The messenger the King sent had already informed them of everything and her father got me in a bear hug, thanking me for sparing his daughter and for making her so happy. Mother and daughter shared a tearful reunion and then spent dinner in hushed conversation like Grace and her mother had at lunch.

After a brief conversation with the King, his advisor came to me and asked if a wedding in two days would be acceptable. After checking with Margaret, I agreed to the date. A few moments later the King rose and made a formal announcement of the two marriages, embarrassing me thoroughly by extolling my pursuit of a permanent peace between our two countries despite being the most formidable warrior he had ever met. Following that, he teasingly wished me good luck with his daughter and with his niece, which got a knowing round of laughter from everyone assembled.

Rachel begged off joining us for the next two nights, not that she was under any obligation to sleep with us. It seems that two nights of “getting to know” my wives had left Grace a little on the horny side and Rachel volunteered to help her survive until our wedding night.

I was again the subject of a round of laughter when I had to drag myself to breakfast the next morning, yet my wives all had that happy, serene, well-fucked look and were fawning all over me. Rachel did manage to drag me off to the bedroom later in the morning. As she left after our little tryst, she taunted me telling me that she was going give Grace her first taste of my cum.

The King and I agreed upon what I considered an exorbitant dowry he would pay to me, £8,000. In return, I asked permission to purchase large quantities of shale and rock to use for building more stone houses for everyone in Lancaster as well as for the large addition planned for the manor house. He agreed, promising that the first ship full of shale and rock would sail within two weeks and would be his gift to the people of Lancaster. The second ship would also be free, a gift to the people in the name of his daughter. After that, a ship would sail every two weeks until we had purchased all we wanted.

I waived the usual examination to confirm that Grace was, indeed, still a virgin. I didn’t tell her father that my wives were intimately familiar with Grace and had probably performed their own in-depth inspection with tongues and fingers already. In fact, I would be surprised if she was still intact.

Unlike many state and church functions, the wedding was fairly short and simple. My wives were stunning in their green silk dresses and conducted themselves with proper decorum. There was a lot of good-natured ribbing at the feast afterwards about having my breakfast delivered to the room the next morning since I probably would be in no shape to get out of bed. They were almost right, too. Grace had been almost insatiable until she was too sore to continue.

We finally bid farewell to Baliol and his family and boarded a ship bound for London to make a complete report to the King. I had already sent a messenger with the gist of the treaty and sent another to Lancaster to warn them about the stone and shale that would begin arriving soon. If necessary, I authorized hiring up to five hundred able-bodied peasants from nearby towns if they needed the extra help and sent the plans to build a one-hundred-foot square room ten feet below ground, right next to the extension of the dungeon under the manor house.

I also changed my mind about extending the dungeon and decided to use the new extension as a larger pantry and larder. I also included diagrams of, and an explanation of the round ceramic tubes to carry away the water from the melting ice in the cold room, explaining about using eighteen-inch pieces of water-soaked wood wider at one end than at the other. As the clay dried, the wood dried too, making it shrink enough to remove from the clay tube. The wood was then removed and reused while the ceramic tubes were fired.

The three-day trip to London aboard a ship was interesting. Having made the overland trip from Lancaster to Edinburgh, most of my wives had never been on a ship before. Aside from a few queasy trips to the railing, they all enjoyed the trip.

While the ship was still tying up at the dock, messengers were dispatched to inform the King of our arrival in London. By the time we debarked, carriages and a double column of cavalry awaited us.

Appropriately wearing their fine dresses, the women were assisted into carriages, one carriage for each woman. I was given a beautiful horse to ride near the head of the procession, next to Captain Rutledge who had succeeded Captain Weber.

The King actually came out to the courtyard to meet us. He hugged and slapped me heartily on the back. As each of my wives was helped out of her carriage, he greeted her. I saw his surprise when Grace stepped out of her carriage. “Princess Grace, it is both a surprise and an honor to see you. Are you here as an emissary for your father?”

I saw the mischievousness flash in her eyes for a moment. “In a manner of speaking, Your Majesty. My father offered my hand to your Duke to seal the treaty he brings you and now I am one of his very happy wives, as is my cousin Rachel.”

The King nodded and commented to Rachel “I am glad to see you weren’t involved in the plot, Duchess.”

Rachel curtsied as she replied. “On behalf of all the wives and children who weren’t involved and who were spared by His Majesty’s charitable gesture, I would like to thank you and promise that, in spite of their new station, they are very grateful just to be alive and are still loyal to the Crown. My uncle also asked me to personally thank you on his behalf,” she said solemnly.

“You’re married to the man ultimately responsible for that decision. It was entirely his idea,” the King countered.

“Still, thank you for agreeing to let him do it,” she answered graciously.

While the women invaded the shops in London, the King and I reviewed the treaty with Scotland and then planned for the pending invasion by Castile and Aragon. While the Castilians were the ones prosecuting the war, the Aragonese King was lending a hand, both financially and by sending troops so he could earn a cut in the hoped-for spoils. I explained that King Baliol and I had worked out a plan where he would continue to lead Castile and Aragon into believing he was going to attack and would let us know the exact date they planned to attack London. Castile and Aragon were under the impression that the planned attacks were still on since the shipments of arrows and warhorses had been purchased for York. My agent had purchased another two thousand horses from other countries.

On the day of the planned attack, Baliol and his troops would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my troops and me while our ships sailed in behind the Castilian fleet and blocked their retreat, pinning them between the King’s army and us. Once the ships were captured and the troops defeated, I would sail to the main ports of Castile and Aragon, namely Barcelona, Valencia, and Cartagena, and sack the ports, using the empty Castilian troop ships and any ships we captured in the ports to fill with booty to send home. As usual, they would stop first in London when they returned and the standard one quarter of what we looted went to the King. From my cut, one tenth would go to King Baliol for his help as per my agreement with him. I would split the remainder with my men.

“‘Tis a bold plan,” the King commented.

“I figure it will accomplish three things. First, it will punish Castile and Aragon, weaken them, and make them think twice about ever sending so many troops away with just a weak defensive force remaining. Second, the plunder will strengthen us further, and third, I plan to bring back a lot of slaves to help build up the towns and defenses of Lancashire and Yorkshire,” I explained.