Chapter 19

Marion and the rest of the group rapidly settled down into the village. Bard discovered Luke was a man of many parts when he started making reaping machines they could rent to the local villages for a tiny amount of their harvest. Luke told Bard that the machines would save so much grain that the villagers would still be ahead even after paying the fee. This way, everyone would win. Marion’s group would get the food they would need for the winter, and the villagers would get even more grain than usual. A bonus was that the locals would start trusting Marion, which was more important than food. By the time the harvest had come around, Luke had built six reaping machines and made harnesses so horses could be used instead of oxen. This would further speed up the harvest over the old ways.

While Luke was making machines, he also taught Bard how to make knives and swords. Before long, Bard was making magnificent swords that were very balanced and were very good at holding their edge. Bard kept working on his swords, for which he soon made good money by selling them all over England.

One of the long-range projects Luke worked on was a steam engine that would power the shop and enable Luke to work on more significant projects much faster. For this project, Luke’s foundry got a major workout. He would melt down the captured armor and cast it into bars. The bars would then be flattened into sheets using a primitive rolling mill, forming sheets with the required thickness. This took the longest because all he had was hammers to work with. With the steam engine, Luke could power better metalworking machinery, enabling him to make weapons much faster and more accurately. One of his side projects was making gunpowder. Marion had already decided that if Luke could make the weapons in time, she wanted her troops primarily armed with firepower, not cold steel. Making gunpowder was simple for Luke; he once did it for a school science fair. Finding the needed materials wasn’t nearly as simple.

Then, there was the problem of what kind of guns to make. Muzzleloaders would be much easier to manufacture, but they were slow to load, and the ease of manufacture could work against Marion before she was in complete control. Breechloaders solved those problems but presented problems of their own. They needed better precision in manufacturing than Luke could currently provide, and they needed a primer. Despite the issues, Marion decided to arm her army with breechloading rifles. With this decision, Luke began to manufacture gunpowder and store it in barrels lined with lead to keep out the moisture and prevent sparks from coming into contact with the powder. Every day, Luke was thankful for Bard because he was proving to be worth his weight in gold to Luke. Bard was proving to be flexible enough to learn any task.

In the meantime, Alice was rapidly growing her skills as a doctor and an apothecary. As soon as Marion started drawing more people to her banner, Alice’s skills began to come into high demand. At first, Alice completely memorized every scrap of medical information on Luke’s computer and every last bit he had floating around in his head. Alice wrote everything down in the common language, English, instead of Latin or Greek. She then gave this information to Pollyanna, who had set up a print shop in town and printed books using a press she designed. It was based on an idea that Luke had given her, based on what he could remember about the Guttenberg press. At first, she knew there would be little to no market for books, but she would be ready once more people learned to read. In addition to Alice’s books, Pollyanna printed every other book from Luke’s computer so if Luke’s computer were ever lost or destroyed, they wouldn’t lose the knowledge stored on it. Marion had banned more than two printed copies of some of the books because they contained information she wanted to keep for herself for the time being. Examples were Luke’s copies of On War, The Art of War, and his advanced chemistry books. Pollyanna also printed books designed to help people learn how to read and write. She even wrote her own children’s books. One of the other things she printed was maps of the area so that Marion’s troops would know where to go and how long it would take to get there.

Luke had taught everyone the metric system, which he was most comfortable with, even though he was American. Since he had been an engineer who had worked worldwide, Luke exclusively used the metric system to ensure there were no screw-ups in specs. Pollyanna also helped Luke engineer his new machines. Luke worked on everything from lathes to mills for machining, from powered looms to sewing machines for textiles. One other significant thing that happened to Pollyanna was she got pregnant, and Matt was the dad. When Pollyanna gave everyone the news, the group erupted in celebration. They all loved Pollyanna and Matt.

After Gabriella set up the lookout post surrounding the villages, everyone took turns standing watch. One of the things that Luke had already made was a telegraph, and every post was equipped with one. He had made them while they were still hiding in the forest but had to wait until they had gotten themselves set up in town to make the needed wire. After he made the first couple of devices, Pollyanna took over and made the other six needed. She then installed them. Luke liked this arrangement because he disliked working with electrical devices. With the telegraph, the lookout could immediately warn everyone through code if enemy troops were sighted.

When Gabriella wasn’t standing guard, she was Marion’s bodyguard, a duty Gabriella took seriously. After everything Marion had done for her, Gabriella would gladly give her life to ensure Marion survived and stayed out of Cecilia’s grasp. With everything Marion was doing, Gabriella had her hands full, but that was the life of the personal bodyguard of a competent ruler.

Just after the group had settled down in the village, Robin died. He had never fully recovered from his earlier brush with death, either physically or mentally. His death had hit Alice hard because she had poured her heart and soul into helping Robin recover.

“Alice,” Luke quietly said to her just after they buried him, “The first rule of being a doctor is that you WILL NOT win every battle. Some people will be too badly injured physically or mentally. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t try to save everyone; you have amazing skills, but always remember you’re not God.”

“I know Luke, but that kid was so innocent. I mean, what did he do to anyone? Why did he have to die when there are plenty of evil people that could have taken his place?”

“Alice, that is a question humans have been wrestling with since we started killing each other, and there’s no good answer. The religious would say it’s God’s plan, but I have never found that line to be of any comfort. You have to accept it and move on. Learn everything you can from each case, and that way, even if they don’t make it, then at least they wouldn’t have died in vain.”

“I keep forgetting that you’ve been through all this before.”

Luke nodded and put his arms around Alice as she sobbed quietly, and he kept it there until she had cried herself out. He didn’t bother to say anything because he knew there was nothing for him to say. After the funeral, Alice poured everything she had into her studies.

Marion had the busiest time of everyone. She was the one who would travel to the surrounding villages to talk with the leaders about joining her. At first, nobody could even believe that she was still alive. Her next battle would almost always be about being female and why they should follow her. A couple of things always helped her with this argument. First, she already had a reputation for being ferocious in combat. The second was that she was nobility, whether she liked it or not. The third thing was that she projected leadership like nobody else. In meetings, she was the dominant personality, but she wasn’t domineering, and she would always go out of her way to make sure everyone could speak and ask questions. When someone contributed to one of her plans, she always ensured that person got the credit. It took Marion almost three weeks of nearly constant effort before the first village signed on with her. They were almost immediately rewarded when Marion stopped Cecilia’s tax collectors from visiting that village.

As word of this spread, other villages signed on with her. Marion was also always on the lookout for recruits for her army. Yes, she would be building it from scratch, but she had the help of Gabriella and especially Luke. With minimal effort, Luke could get the most thick-headed person to follow orders within an hour. The army they were building would be the most professional in Europe since the Romans. Marion knew she couldn’t compete with her sister based on numbers for a while, so she would have to make up the difference with quality.

She managed to get one of the villages to agree to try Luke’s mechanical reapers, saying that if the results didn’t live up to her promises, she would make up the difference herself. Once Luke had finished the first field, the villagers were amazed. They simply had no idea just how much grain they lost every year. By having Luke harvest the field, the village got almost a quarter more grain than they would have harvested themselves. Within days, every other farmer in the area wanted Luke to harvest their fields. Instead, Luke taught some farmers how to use his reapers and subcontracted them out to do the harvest. Luke had enough on his plate the way it was, plus he also wanted to make sure that the locals learned how to do these things for themselves.

These reapers worked by cutting the grain close to the ground and automatically gathering the grain stalks into bundles that kept the seed off the ground. The bundles could be picked up and thrashed to remove the grain from the head. In the old way, when the stalk was cut, it would lay on the ground, and a good portion of the seeds would fall off and be ruined.

In Marion’s personal life, she was just as busy. Her pregnancy was starting to show, and one of the things that Luke liked to do was play his music for the kid. He would place his old cell phone on Marion’s stomach and play different music. He just loved the feeling of the kid kicking. Before Marion gave birth, an additional person lived in her house; Gabriella moved in with her and Luke. At first, it was just Gabriella being dead serious about protecting Marion, but it became much more as time passed. Everyone realized Gabriella was falling in love with Marion, and Gabriella was deeply ashamed of her love for Marion and Luke. This feeling continued until a rainy day when all three were home.

“Gabriella?” asked Marion and Luke. “Can the three of us talk, please?”

“Yes,” replied Gabriella, who was so nervous that she thought she might pee at any moment.

“Gabriella,” started Luke. Gabriella knew he was serious because he usually called her Gabby. “We know that you have fallen in love with Marion, and after talking, we have no problem with this. You have no control over who you love; we don’t believe anyone can tell you who you should love. Back in my time, we had plenty of men and women who were homosexual or bisexual. FYI, bisexuals are attracted to both men and women. There were plenty who didn’t like this fact in my time, but repressing this fundamental human emotion is exceptionally cruel.”

“Gabriella,” started Marion, “I am fine with you loving me and being completely honest with you; I also find myself falling in love with you. I ask you to remember Luke is and always will be my primary love, but he has agreed to share,” giving Luke a funny look “a bit too eagerly now that I think about it.” Luke just gave a shit-eating grin, and Marion gave him a playful punch.