“So what way is this?” Fred asked with Scepticism.

“At the moment you are too young to govern as a prince, or duke, heck, you don’t technically have a county to your name,” Jean explained.

“What about Bristol?” Fred asked.

“Bristol is under Countess Isabella, your mother might let you run it, but officially it’s hers. Most of this army is hers, or Thomas, or from the mainland.”

“So, what does this mean for me?” Fred asked.

“Well, the Dukes have decided, Isabella, will become the Duchess of…” Jacques forgot what Fred called it.

“Wessex,” Fred answered.

“Yes, with you as heir apparent, to the Duchy, and Edward will be the duke of…, have you thought of a name for that side?” Jacques asked.

“Well, I was going to have 3 duchies in this area.”

“3 duchies?” Jacques and Jean were shocked.

“Don’t forget, Normandy have colonies to the northeast of us, with that there is enough land for all three.”

“I see, well, for now, it would be better to just have two duchies, otherwise, you would be antagonising the king and the two dukes, if we go after the colonies of the trader duchies you would have roughly 4-5 duchies under you, enough to form a kingdom,” Jean explained.

“I see.” Fred answered, “So the other duchy would be called Essex.”

“Essex, well that would be handed to your father, with you heir apparent, as he is currently in Castile, your mother will act as duchess regent.”

Fred went silent for some time to think about this. “wouldn’t that mean Harold could challenge me for the title of duke of Essex,”

“In essence, yes, but his recent actions have made him fall out of favour within your father’s circles, even his mother and father have started to treat Holly like the heir,” Jacques explained looking at Fred. “This seemed to have started from their visit to you.”

“It wasn’t my fault he was too old,” Fred whispered.

But Jacques caught that, “Too old for what?”

“I could tell you, but it might cause the same problem with your sons as it happened with Harold.”

“We are not like Harold, he was always petty and arrogant,” Jackson commented.

“Come on, we are family, plus, sooner or later, Harold might use that secret against you, it’s obvious he knows what it is,” Jean commented.

Fred looked at George, who nodded, except Thomas, he was actually the only other person here to know what this was, Edward and Thomas kept it a secret as Fred was too young to deal with the consequences, especially Thomas, as Fred had shown trust and confided this with him and offered his kids this chance.

“I am not human,” Fred stated.

“What?” they were all confused.

“To be more accurate, I am not a basic human, I am an Adeptus Astartes.” Fred continued his statement.

“You, you are the.”

“I triggered the message 6-7 years ago,” Fred confirmed.

Daniel’s face went pale, he had tried to kill the first Astartes when he arrived here, he would have totally received negative points to luck from the system.

“No way and Harold being too old, what did that mean?” Jacques asked.

“The process needs to start before puberty, otherwise, there would be complications with the body, most likely killing the person,” Fred explained.

“And Harold was too old, but that wouldn’t explain why he went off the rails,” Jean answered.

“Because Holly Luke and Lucy were not,” Fred explained again.

“They were not…” their eyes went wide from this. “They have gone through with the process?”

“Yep.” Fred acknowledged, “Harold now has to contend with his younger siblings, who will have a massive advantage over him in terms of strength. Something Harold seems to rely on more than anything.”

“But he can just train harder, or study more if he can’t beat them on strength, he can use intelligence.” Jacques was picking excuses out of thin air.

“The Astartes multiplies all stats by 8, all of them.”

Their faces went pale. Even Jackson and Ronald had younger siblings of their own, it would be disheartening to know that their younger siblings could have a ‘free ride’ to the top.

The surrounding went silent, it had caused a lot of shock, today.

“You said possibly 8 duchies under us, we have only listed 5” Fred broke the silence.

“Er, yes, the 6th would be the land we grab in the north from the trader duchies, when the king comes back, most likely we would have to go to war with Burgundy-Savoy. At that, we can sweep north to take the lands, plus Maine has claims on those lands.” Jacques explained.

“Maine, what do they have to do with this?” Fred asked.

“Well, Maine used to be bigger, going from our borders to the channel, and with that, they had a port, they were the original colonisers of that land, recognised by the king,” Henry explained this time.

“Then what happened?” Fred asked.

“The last time the king went into hiding, Normandy conquered their lands, cutting them off from the colony, at this, the colony was taken over from the trader duchies, they had set up trade posts along the shore to trade with them, and it was only when the king went into hiding this time, that the duchy, under burgundy took it over,” Henry explained.

“Well, Maine, from that incident was reduced to in size, however, it is a dying household, the Earl lost too many sons in conflicts, both to Normandy, and the last war with the empire,” Jean explained

“Now that Earl has only a grandson and granddaughter. The dukes have been in talks with them about two marriage proposals, asking him to set the granddaughter as the heir to the colony,” Jacques explained.

“Who are the marriage proposals?” Fred asked.

“Well, it was Holly to marry the Grandson, at first we were confused about this, as Maine would be giving up a lot, and they would be more or less absorbed into our Aquitaine family. But now that you mentioned the Astartes to us, the family would be gaining a lot.” Mendes explained.

“I see, and the granddaughter?” Fred asked again.

They all went quiet and looked at Fred.

Fred’s eyes went wide, “Me!” he pointed to himself.

“Well, it would get you those claims on the Colony up north.”

“I thought we were declaring independence.”

“We aren’t savages, we can’t just take any land we want without claims, others would see us as warmongers, and diplomacy would be extremely difficult. A reconquest, of lands that were once ours, always looks better, as third parties, can see the end goal of our conquest.” Jean explained. “It makes us look predictable, and potential allies want to see a pattern of predictable ambitions from us.”

“Plus, we can drag Maine into our independence,” Jean commented. “don’t forget, declaring independence isn’t a guaranteed option yet, we may find it beneficial to stay in the kingdom for a while, a good reason is to take lands from Burgundy-savoy.”

Fred needed a breather, he knew arranged marriages were expected, in a sense, in medieval times, but he hadn’t realised that he would also have an arranged marriage, “I refuse, I haven’t even met the girl.”

“It isn’t as easy as that, and you will have your chances to meet her.” Jacques Laughed.

___

The next day, they were in the meeting room discussing the war plans.

If it wasn’t for Fred being an Astarte, he would have been groggy from the lack of sleep last night. There was way too much information to digest.

“So, what’s the plan, it is mid-September now,” Jacques asked.

“I would like to use this county as our base for the winter,” Fred said, “As well, I would like to have two attachments sweep up east and northeast to capture the last towns including chelemsgue. Leaving Sundende-an-meer, for early next spring.”

“Why next spring?” Jacques asked.

“The enemy would be too cut off, they would double their efforts to supply Ludnus for being cut off, the Ludnus siege is going to be a long one, the scouts have sent reports saying they have built up dirt mounds in front of the walls and made the walls thicker, this will reduce the effectiveness of the cannons.”

“Who’s going East?” Jean asked.

“You two, you wanted the experience, these sieges will allow you to understand what the cannons do to standard towns, Ludnus has been modified to counter the cannons and it will allow us to compare countermeasure designs,” Fred explained.

“Sorted. We will get the troops ready,” Jacques was up for it. He fell in love with the cannons when he first saw them in action on Vachegue “How many cannons do we get?” He asked in excitement.

“15 each,” Fred said.

“15, we have 60 cannons,” Jacques exasperated.

“We need cannons here, we are very close to the enemy town, we heard rumours that the enemy has managed to get 3-4000 soldiers in the city, and another 6000 from the mainland is coming,” Fred explained.

“I’m surprised they aren’t trying to stop us,” Jean asked.

“Do they know we took wizards from the mainland?” Mendes asked.

“Probably the mainland does, they could also be trying to use your tactic with Bristol, they may want to recreate the situation with their wizards,” Arthur said.

“Then they will be rudely awakened,” Fred said,

“What do you mean by that?” Jean asked.

“If I know how to use cannons then I know how to fight against them,” Fred commented.

___

They spent a good month taking the remaining cities.

Fred spent this time making sure he had enough supplies stockpiled, with this siege they would be spending cannonballs faster than they can make them. Fred sent a letter back home to focus all nonessential factories on the production of cannonballs.

He also sent in that letter a request to commission another round of ships, this would take a lot longer than the rest, but with the infrastructure in place, it should be manageable. And finally, a request to commission a chemical plant to increase the production of gun powder.

“He had also been in talks with the Steam engine design team, suggesting moving on to more cylindrical water tanks and boiler tanks, this would increase its proficiency by leaps and bounds.

This was the first new years he would be spending without Isabella; he ordered a load of food and alcohol from Bristol to share it with the men.

“So, this is that famous end of year celebration people has been talking about,” Jacques asked with a leg of some animal in his right hand a mug of ale in the left, and grease dripping from his chin.

Fred felt his character was so cliché for some reason. “Yeah, I guess so.” Fred toasted him with a mug of his own.

“What’s on your mind, you seem down,” Jean asked.

“O you know, Morbid, philosophical thoughts,” Fred said.

“Haha, your still a young kid, what is there to worry about at such an age,” Jacques said.

“Go on tell us.” Jean ignored Jacques and asked.

“Well, it’s my first time having an end of year celebration without my mother, and it’s like, with the mention of marriage, and the fact that, in a normal world, I would live longer than my mother, and my wife and a lot of people who are currently around me won’t have the same life expectancy as me, with this Astartes body.”

“Ha, fuck man, proper morbid stuff,” Jacques commented, “look man, you just got to make sure you resolve all of your regrets, regrets are what eats the soul,”

Ronald and Jackson were in deep thought about this issue now it was brought up.

“He’s right,” Henry said. “And you probably know that better than all of us.”

“Yeah, here’s to resolving our regrets,” he raised his glass in cheer.

“Resolving our regrets”, the rest joined in.

___

It was the middle of February, Fred had received constant reports from the navy down south, the enemy had managed to get their fleet past the navy and had transported most of the soldiers to Ludnus, the navy reckons they got 4-500 soldiers sunk, with 20 or so ships in January when they crossed.

However, with Aquitaine’s navy moving into the channel, they now had naval supremacy, albeit the enemy could still manage to sneak a few odd ships around.

It was time to march on Ludnus.

Fred first sent Jean and Ronald to capture Sundende-an-meer before the war started.

And with that, they finally landed eyes on the city of Ludnus.

“Ugh, this is going to be a pain,” Fred said.

“What, is it that difficult,” Jacques asked.

“No, just long, very, very long,” Fred said.

After they set up the command camp Fred addressed the troops “Right, troops listen up, we are going to create a barrier around Ludnus, as you do with normal sieges, only a little different, you are going to dig a trench line around the perimeter. This should protect us from enemy sallies and wizard bombardments. So, hop to it.”

Fred went into more details, making sure they were in a zigzag position. He had sent designs over winter for the production of steel hedgehog’s and barbed wire; however, the barbed wire couldn’t be made at the time, and they found it easier and cheaper to make the hedgehogs out of logs, which was fine with Fred, he was acting a little ambitious but didn’t really need to stop a tank.

What they could do was build caltrops, and loads of them, they were as easy as making 2 nails,

Fred now had 350 marines/musketeers, he stationed them around the camp, and where the construction was taking place.

___

On the next day, the enemy sallied out, trying to charge Fred’s camp on the hill, only ten cannons were set up at the moment, however, when they fired, the 3 cannonballs that hit only knocked over 5 of them, blue flickers were going wild from the impact,

“What happened?” Fred asked.

“They are the noble guards; they are being shielded by the wizard corps behind them. Man, Normandy didn’t hold back at all.” Jacques explained, “Wizards, counter spells now.”

“They are too far, we are not in range,” a wizard commander shouted back.

Another round of cannons went off as other artillery regiments scrambled to get their cannons operational. This time they managed to hit with more cannons, but the damage was so minuscule.

“Look, their wizards, some of them fell off their horses,” Fred exclaimed.