'Til Kingdom Comes - The Banished Prince Vol 2: Here Comes The Witches

Community Chest

"In that case, allow me to introduce you to Gracehaven's Community Chest. This chest would be part of your monthly contribution of a base amount of half a day's wage. For those who wanted to contribute more to it, you are definitely most welcomed."

"As mentioned by me and agreed by all of you that half a day's wage would not put a dent on your savings as well as your expenditure, I deem it appropriate that a certain sum amount would be put in on a monthly basis after the nightly conference."

A citizen raised his hands and asked, "Your Majesty, how much is half a day's wage?" to which I replied, "It's only 8 coppers, my kind citizen. Just 8 coppers per person every month to aid those who are underprivileged."

"I would like to give my 8 coppers to Gracehaven's Community Chest right now. It's not a big amount and if everyone contributes, it would alleviate their problems, am I right?" the citizen who asked the earlier question shared his thoughts with others.

Everyone who heard it agreed since they had more than enough savings due to the back pay and also the savings that they had accumulated throughout the months. What were 8 coppers and to them?

It was like having 4 mugs of ale that can be downed on a single evening. Besides, they felt that it was fair to contribute 8 coppers a month to help those folks that would be inducted soon.

Without them realising, I had implemented a kind of compulsory deduction of the salaries that could be used to help and develop other areas as well.

Gracehaven's Community Chest — a savings box that could be used to help the underprivileged and saved the treasury from the payouts for future senior citizens and invalids from the militia.

"Dear kind citizens of Gracehaven, I am deeply touched with the enthusiasm of your kind self to help others especially the underprivileged. The pioneers and we are truly honoured by your willingness to help others." I used a few diplomacy skills to riled up the emotions of the citizens and made their jingle of coins inside their pockets to voluntarily jump out and surrender themselves to our Gracehaven's Community Chest.

Eagle was smiling inwardly at the sides as he listened on how I was able to singlehandedly soften and melt these people's hearts.

"You, the kind citizen who had asked me regarding this Gracehaven's Community Chest, could you please stand up and state your name?" I highlighted and the person Rose up from his seat sheepishly and answered, "I am from the Carlisle family, Your Majesty. I was one of the 40 families that had arrived from Flamborough."

"I was in a state of underprivileged and had been jobless for some months over there and Your Majesty had shown such benevolence to everyone in employing us. Even if there's not much work to be done at times, Your Majesty still unselfishly reimbursed us with the same amount of silvers monthly."

"Your Majesty's act of kindness had touched many of our hearts and we will strive to serve more for the development of Gracehaven in the future to come." the Carlisle touched his open palm to his chest and everyone agreed on his findings.

"Alright, Carlisle, you are hereby appointed to safeguard Gracehaven's Community Chest from now on and you can place them at our domain here."

"You would be handling all incoming contributions from citizens of Gracehaven and you would keep a record on the amount in them. Would that be alright or would you prefer to delegate it to someone else?"

Carlisle looked up in surprise and immediately replied, "It is my greatest honour to uphold the opportunity and responsibility of maintaining the Gracehaven's Community Chest for the people, Your Majesty."

I signalled for the domain assistant to withdraw one wicker basket with a lid and presented it to the front of the crowd and placed it on a dining table.

"This will be the Gracehaven's Community Chest and it would be brought out here monthly to receive the contributions from every one of you. Carlisle, once you had done with the accounts, you can store them within the treasury here. Her Majesty would assist you to where you should store them."

Everyone lauded and agreed with my suggestion as I had chosen a neutral party to be responsible for the collection of monetary contributions. Normally, a royalty would assign a reeve or a bailiff to collect and maintain these but I had chosen one of their own people instead.

This improved the bond and trust between the people as well as the camaraderie among the community. Carlisle was lauded once again and praised among his peers because he was appointed as someone who would collect these funds and being entrusted by His and Her Majesty.

How cool was that?

The three wild boars that were rotisseried over the coals were slowly roasting as Firestone, the latest inductee was slowly turning the meat over the fire and had sprinkled the condiments over evenly.

*SIZZLE* - SIZZLE*

The glistening fat that had dropped into the coals sizzled and a small flame danced around before it died off. Glorious wafts of roasting meat permeated the courtyard and nearly everyone kicked their lips when the wind brought the wonderful, tickling smell of the roasting meat over to their nostrils.

Firestone pierced a small twig into some of the parts of the roasting meat and discovered that the meat was all done and ready for consumption. He had someone to help him hoist the roasting meat higher above the pits so it would not be charred.

The heat from the coals would heat the roasted meat instead of cooking it further. The crowd saw that the 6 halved wild boar roasted meat had been hoisted to the higher part of the pit and deduced that it would be time for a feast.

Sir Blackie was on all fours and the felines were clamouring over his body as they waited for morsels or meat to be fed to them. Sir Blackie, as usual, was waiting for the trotters and those felines would be able to lick at them once it was done.

"Citizens of Gracehaven, please assist Carlisle to accumulate the contributions before the feast. You may then commence once you are done with it. The feast would be in us but the drinks would be on your own this time." I announced and concluded the nightly conference.

Everyone was high spirited and they all lined up to drop their 8 coppers inside the wicker basket that would be known as Gracehaven's Community Chest from now on. Besides, having their own drinks would be fine since the main event would be the roasted meat before them.

It's was a chilly autumn evening and everyone was excited as they arranged the dining tables and some ladies helped to cleave one part of the roasted meat at a time.

Everyone had contributed their part to the Gracehaven's Community Chest and Carlisle carried the chestful of copper coins inside the domain where he and his son helped to count the coins on the conference table.

A few men had set aside a few slices of roasted meat for Carlisle and son while the ladies made numerous bread sandwiches using the tortoiseshell bread and distributed them to the sentries up at the watchtowers.

Eagle sauntered to me and remarked, "What a way to collect back the funds, eh Your Majesty? So now we don't even have to take out extras for the senior citizens and invalids from the militia over in Adewera."

"Yup... That's one of the main reasons. At least we can see how united these people are before us. They are in support of any idea we have for them since everyone benefits from this as well."

"Instead of collecting alms, or aid, we just rephrase this to become Gracehaven's Community Chest instead to help the underprivileged. This would be for the future and the first recipient would be Firestone because I did not mention to him about remunerations at all."

Eagle raised his eyebrows and was surprised since I had taken a step further in my plannings, as usual. "How much would the benefit these underprivileged would receive?"

"A silver a month, it would be more than enough. Besides, the underprivileged would also partake in the daily activities with the rest of the citizens but at a minimal output."

"If they are properly employed, then they would be released from the welfare scheme and gain full remuneration at 5 silvers a month."

"This would be announced during the nightly conference for those who would be receiving the benefit and for those who would be released from it. It is transparency and it would be good to let everyone know about it."

Eagle nodded his head and agreed that whatever I had implemented would be good for Gracehaven. In this manner, a word of mouth would entice more population to be inducted.

With the rate of harvest in crops by Penelope, there would be no problem for us to even fill the 300 residential lots this time. The drawing that was made by Heather before on the balcony had been refined by one of the engineers.

The new overview map had been drawn according to scale and there were huge spaces of land all around Gracehaven at the moment. Presently, its capped at ¼ sq miles and it would soon develop into ½ sq miles soon.

The roll of the map was tucked conveniently underneath the study table where I would reach and spread it on the table to quickly access the land size.

This way, we would be able to plan for the next expansion of land within Gracehaven.

I smiled as I rolled it back and placed it underneath the study table. A total of 115 houses had been occupied and there are another 185 residential lots available.

The production for the prefabricated housing structures had been steady and each day, 3 houses would be put up on the empty residential lot. The private privvy and bath had been earlier completed and the lands would soon be expanded once all of the houses had been filled up.

Only time will tell.

=*=

In the far distance, a solitary teenager was trudging along, pulling his donkey behind him that was partly laden with his worldly possession in its side.

The teenager had been roaming across the lands and at first, he would be accepted by the community within the village or settlement that he had visited. However, the residents yonder would somehow chase him away when he started to mumble incoherently about events that had not happened and this brought fear into the lives of those who had overheard him.

There was an occurrence where the teenager was announcing a week before that on 7 July of the year 1440, during the Hundred Years' War, that a certain John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury recaptures Harfleur from the French.

This teenager was in Worcester and when he announced it, everyone dismissed the whole occurrence because they thought that he was spouting nonsense at that time.

However, when it came true, everyone shunned him and chased him out from the village, thinking that he might be like Satan's offspring or something.

Once again, he made an unplanned announcement a week before 12 September of the year 1440 that King Henry VI founds Eton College.

That time he was in Nottingham when he announced it. People regarded him as someone with a screw loose in his head because he would mutter to himself most of the time and only made the announcement aloud in the town square.

At first, no one noticed him but a week after he had made the announcement, news of King Henry VI had indeed come true.

So once again he was driven out from Nottingham and had to travel with his donkey in tow and heads where his feet trudge on.  After some weeks he had reached Cnotinesleahemm (known as Knottingley today) and decided to make a permanent camp as it was already past a month in autumn.

He decides that the duck pond would be a great place to be at as the River Aire was just a few hundred yards away. There weren't any people around that would be of disturbance to him and for him to others as he tethered his donkey aside and unloaded a few pieces of stuff from it.

"Guess it's just you and me, Donkey. We have to stay here for some time and survive on our own, yeah?" he patted the donkey's head and it brayed back as if it understood every single word that was spoken by the teen.