Matt scribbled out his last reply and slid the stylus back into the case, saw the notification and tapped it with his finger nearly spitting out his coffee as he read her snark. It would have been fitting if he had sprayed her with the coffee after that, but the day was starting out too perfect to waste the caffeine.
“Ouch! Scorched you good!” MJ laughed, handing her tablet to Kinsey Hart, who was already wheezing from laughter at the reply:
‘@AngelinaReyes: ¡Y tu madre, tu vaca, tu cabra y también tu desayuno!’
“Always knew you were a bad ass, but to go so far as to curse his breakfast. Epic!”
“Exactly what were you thinking, telling the world you are hot,” Matt said, half sneer, half disbelief. “I thought your mother raised you with more brains than Elliot!”
“Don’t bring me into this, Uncle Matt,” her twelve-year-old brother said, setting down a tray of breakfast sandwiches and a new pot of coffee from the kitchen.
“And don’t go blaming me either,” Angelina added. “She is your goddaughter. I believe the listed duties included teaching her The Ten Commandments, The Nicene Creed, The Lord’s Prayer and not to tell the troll scroll you are hot! Did you release the digital hounds? Yes?”
“They’re on it,” he sighed shaking his head. Matt waved to the new comer’s “Good morning. Join us for breakfast?”
“We have eaten,” Marie said with a smile. She had eaten in military dining facilities before, which is what his staff dining hall felt like to her, even if the food had been much better than she expected. “I didn’t realize you also had tables outside. This really is a lovely spot,” she said admiring the lovely garden space set against the orchards.
“It was a great breakfast, too. Biscuits and gravy just are not popular in Boston. I might have come to Missouri just for them. We wanted to make sure the kids were not going to be any trouble this morning.”
“None, at all,” Matt said looking to Angelina.
“Kevin is working, Alexandra and Polly are set to go with the pair of them over to Hart Farm this morning,” Angelina said running through her morning checklist.
“How are they?” Marie asked somberly. She had heard a description of the injuries and knew even in Boston things might have ended tragically.
“Recovering well. Even the baby, who was hugging the V’ren baby in the same amniotic tank this morning.”
“I hope there are pictures of that,” Angelina said, giving Kinsey’s hand a squeeze.
“Once again, you did really well and handled the situation better than most people could possibly have done, young lady,” Leonard said with a smile for the girl. “I hope my daughters can learn something from you.”
“Thank you, General,” she blushed. “If everyone will excuse, I see them now, and we are headed back to the farm,” she said kicking MJ under the table and grabbed a breakfast sandwich and an orange.
“We will be off too,” Leonard said. “Marie and the sorority ladies are touring the ship and I have briefings concerning the other people we might soon encounter” he added quietly not saying the ongoing alien threat, since there were three V’ren sitting at the table with this group.
“They worked very hard at being polite,” M’rak said in V’ren, getting a chuckle from the table.
“You would almost think they were high born V’ren,” S’rala added.
“Not green enough,” S’ola V’renn, which, caused her new High Lord and boss to break down in laugher, when she realized she had said that in English even she couldn’t help but laugh.
“This is why you are going to be the perfect aid for Matt,” Angelina said in very animated V’ren, patting the teenager on the arm.
“We really do thank you and do not mean to judge,” S’rala said for the group. “It is an honor to serve.”
“You are honest and we like that,” Matt said.
“How is your son, this morning?” Angelina asked, pouring more coffee for her and Matt before sliding it toward the others.
“Excited to play to with the other children,” M’rak said, relieved that he wasn’t being judged by his willingness to work while there were still childcare needs to be met by a father.
“Excited, for more Bluey,” S’rala added, worried for her mate who she knew was having a hard time fitting his desire to be a father and to be useful to the High Lord together.
“It was our favorite at his age,” Matt agreed, knowing the boy would be just fine.
“I have heard this music several times, now, what is it?” S’ola asked.
“That is the sound of tinikling,” Matt smiled.
“You need to see this,” Angelina added, getting up and snagging the last breakfast sandwich, before it went cold and her cup of coffee, while Matt grabbed S’rala’s wheelchair and M’rak her crutches. Someone would be along to collect the rest, but was glad to see S’ola grabbing the tablets and other electronics.
“I could manage,” S’rala said embarrassed by the attention of her high lord.
“I am sure you can but we will be walking down a graveled path, so sit down and enjoy the ride and allow us to get there in a timely fashion,” he said and just waited for her to slide into the chair. “M’rak if she is always this stubborn, you have a woman who will always take care of you, that is a treat you should always be thankful for but never listen to.” He laughed and pointed to the seat. Looking and smiling at the woman who knew she had no choice but to obey the offered kindness. Being cared for wasn’t in her nature. Matt knew that in his soul, and it made him want to do it all the more.
“Now honestly, how much does the leg hurt?” Matt asked, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
“More than I want to admit,” S’rala said, giving in to the inevitable.
“Pain is a reminder we have limits. Has anything helped relieve it?” he asked casually as he pushed the chair.
“Don’t worry about admitting it,” Angelina chuckled. “Matt and I have both been injured, and despite his arrogance in the face of inevitability, it won’t be long before he’s the one in need of knee surgery. I had my first one a year and a half ago. Simple, mundane task—throwing salt on an iced porch—and got knocked off my feet by that beast right there,” she said, pointing at her husky, Fred. That meant Floyd had finally gotten out of bed and come over.
“There are things that would knock me out, but nothing has so far eased the pain except good company. Thank you again for breakfast.”
“You are part of the family, now,” Matt said, wishing T’mari was back, but she had a job to do and no one could do it better he thought. Her reply to his inquiry told him that his feelings might just be reciprocated. He paused for a moment and took out his phone. “Jamie, can you send over a small bag of Loco 4 Brownie Bites. Eight, no make that twelve. Just listen for the tapping of the poles.” He looked to Angelina, who just grinned. They would get this girl feeling something other than pain.
Matt and Angelina watch with serious approval at the class. School might be out, but learning on the homestead never stopped.
“And now the dip. Start on the right side of the poles, your weight on your right foot. Left foot, tap tap, up. Tap, tap, up. Tap, tap, up. Tap, tap, up.”
“Matt, Angelina, have you come to show them how it is done,” Kelly Hathaway asked twenty-minutes later.
“Sure, why not,” Matt said, grabbing Angelina by the arm. “Take us through the full routine. Start it slow so they can see, but then get us up to competition speed, level one.”
Both of them were in their element here, toeing off their shoes and stepping into the grass, letting their toes become accustomed to the sensation while they listened to the clap of poles against the boards.
“Well done,” Kelly called as they finished with a bow towards the growing crowd.
“One hundred dollars to anyone that can take him to level two,” Kelly called to the crowd that had stopped to watch.
“Game on,” Aurelia Wachowicz said with a smirk. She might not be a Filipino or a freehold native, but she had been dancing this since the age of two when her family immigrated from Warsaw. She undid her boots and loosened up a bit as music began.
“That was fun,” Matt said, pulling the C Note from his own wallet and waved off Kelly. “Level Three for three hundred, keep track of it Ange.”
“How long can you keep it up?” someone in the crowd shouted as he passed level four and into level five.
Kelly sighed wondering that herself, but since he was a cousin tried not to dwell on that long ago teenage fantasy. “He will pay a grand to anyone who can keep up with him at level six.”
“Two, and I will do it blindfolded,” he said getting a little bored with this game in what was going to prove to be a sticky morning.
“You were generous today,” Angelina said, watching matt trying not to limp his way over to the shady log where the rest were sitting.
Matt took the offered paper bag and pulled out a zip-top bag and looked at the small chocolate squares with both fond memory and the pain of necessity. He looked to the cooler Floyd had brought along and wondered just what stories he had been telling L’tani as she passed him a cold Dr Pepper.
Matt took the first brownie in a single bite and washed it down with a swallow of Dr Pepper. He handed one to S’rala who was already sucking on a cold one. He cut one in half handing each piece to M’rak and S’ola and offered up the bag to the others before taking a second for himself and S’rala.
“So what were you up to this morning?”
“Animal control,” Floyd said dryly. I came over looking for you, but she was sitting alone in your kitchen. L’tani here can shoot. This time next year you won’t need me to deal with this.”
“Did you really punch a bear in the nose?” L’tani asked finally trying the small weirdly scented thing he had handed her.
“Oh he most certainly did,” Angelina laughed. “We were out at the river catfishing one night. He and Amy were in their first summer together and Floyd and I hadn’t had MJ yet. Matt was drunk as skunk and a great big black bear, not quite the size of a grizzly, but a well fed bear none the less. He was between it and the barbecue pit. Mister bear looks at him and roars for him to pay up.”
“I couldn’t get a shot off without risking Matt.”
“I appreciate that since we were into our third bottle of tequila by that point. Anyways I just roared back at Yogi.”
“Who promptly went back on his haunches, lifted up clawed paws ready to rend flesh, and roared in reply.”
“I had done had enough of that shit. I don’t play well with rude people.”
“At which point, Matt just delivers a huge right cross to the bear full on in the nose.”
“Yogi, walked away wisely.”
“So what happened to bear?”
“When we sobered up in the morning we hunted him down. I can’t have something like that running around with so many kids. So what did y’all take down this morning?”
“A tiger,” L’tani grinned.
“Big sombitch, too,” Floyd agreed, it was the one spotted on the other side of Brunswick, a few days back. I already took care of issuing the fine for letting it get across the river. “We picked off a razorback sow and a few piglets too. She took down her first buck and a pair of turkey.”
“Lord Marmaduke, Scott Pierce, Chicago Tribue, we were told we might run into you out here in the forest. Do you have a moment for a few questions?”
“Hardly a forest, just an orchard, Scott. If you want to see real forest I can arrange for you visit the Hundred Mile Forest which is on the west bank of the Missouri between the ruins of Omaha and KC.”
“I have heard of that. I also hear it is full of bandits and marauders.”
“Not likely, or at least not anymore, I suspect the tigers ate them into extinction long ago.”
“The last time Chicago heard from you, you were talking about soft power and song. Today it’s tigers and farmland, how do you square the poetry with the practicality?”
“Matt is a Filipino, he always has a song in his head and heart,” Floyd answer for his friend.
“Sounds good to me,” Matt agreed.
“You’ve mentioned restoring agriculture on thousands of fallow acres. Is this a personal project, or part of a wider Freehold economic plan?”
“I am always wanted to produce more food, but never had the labor to increase it significantly.”
“Some of my readers still picture Missouri as wilderness. How much of this is truly reclaimed land versus managed wild?”
“The wild will manage, us if we aren’t on top of it every single day. Floyd here had to take a crew out this morning to hunt down a rogue tiger, a sounder of razorbacks, and deer that had gotten into the fields.”
“I saw V’ren kids at the ballfields yesterday. Are they also part of the agricultural crews, or is that a separate integration path?”
“We are integrating kids into farm work slowly, right now we are doing what we can to make them feel like they belong which is the first step in learning to trust the people you work with. Right now, most of the skilled work is being done by my people with lots of V’ren helpers. By the end of the wheat harvest I hope some of them will have learned enough to be more help come the fall harvest.”
“You joke about tigers, but regional security is no small matter. How far does your jurisdiction really extend now?”
“That is a complicated legal question. I am the Freeholder which gives me sole authority to do whatever I want to whomever I want on my land. I don’t run wild, because that would be a sure sign I had gone mad and my people would quickly put me down to save themselves and their family. Simply put just because I could, doesn’t mean I would. Then I am ultimately the supreme authority in several others by virtue of being the biggest investor. Then I am part of a committee in other places. Then there are lands I am paid to manage. That last category is the trickiest. The mega corporations that laid land claims on those lands centuries ago are required to provide for their upkeep according to the CCA charter that let them have them. Their corporate bean counters hate paying us to maintain the lands, but their legal departments and resource fund managers are not about to let us do anything with them beyond the scope of maintaining it. In the end that means no one would bat an eye if I killed someone for trespassing on those lands, but if I tried to build a house or plow it up for farming, they would want me to pay them several times what they pay me to manage the ground.”
“People up north are calling you ‘the most famous farmer in the galaxy.’ Does that label sit comfortably with you?”
“It isn’t as bad as some of the things I have been called.”
“There’s a lot of interest in how the Freehold funds all this without taxation. Can you explain that to people used to governments running deficits?”
“I own all the crops, the woodlands, and pretty much everything else. People who call this techno-feudalism aren’t far off. Under the letter of the law all my people own are their own actions. Or to paraphrase one medieval English Abbot, all they own is their own bellies. I contract with them to provide much, much more, but in the end when we go to market I sell our excess at the best prices we can get for it, which is usually a far better price than they could get on their own. That is one source of income and under the contract my people are entitled to a share of it. Then the freehold is invested heavily into a lot of other businesses, often the very ones that my people rely on for their jobs. This pays a lot of the bills as well. Lastly, I don’t take a personal salary from the freehold, which frees up a lot of cash. Things used to fall short in my father and grandfather’s time, and they paid it off with earnings from our family trust investments or earnings from Marmaduke Inc. I did too in my early days. I now have businesses like AgriSolutions and Marmaduke Logistics that I have built into successful companies and the Freehold is one of the direct investors in both companies. Good management, with an excellent export market has allowed us to become one of the wealthier countries on the continent when you figure per capita income.”
“When you speak of sovereignty, critics call it feudal. When you host ballgames, they call it soft power. What do you call it?”
“They aren’t wrong when they call it feudalism, but they also ignore that is the very system they base their own land tenure in as well. They might call my ballgames, soft power, I call it baseball.”
“Some of the Freehold contracts are now being studied at universities in Chicago and Boston. Would you ever release them publicly?”
“There are plenty of them that are public, because they were made with entities that require public statements. The freehold’s private business dealings are just that though, private. I don’t require you to show who you do business with because that is your business. The freehold is just as much a private entity.”
“And a lighter one—if I survive the Hundred Mile Forest, what should I bring back for proof?”
“We will just stick an air tag on you and run drones to follow your movements. I am sure my media department could sell it as pay per view.”
