Emi and I are wakened by kisses. Once we are awake our bed buddies ask if we would enjoy some libidinous fun this fine morning. To answer I suck the nipple that is in front of me into my mouth, swirling it with my tongue. As she is astride me, she begins rubbing her folds on mine. I switch nipples, pinching the one just released lightly. This produces an increase in pressure and tempo at my crotch. The nipple in my mouth swells, becoming harder. I grip it gently with my teeth, pulling on it, all the while sucking. She moans, the tempo increasing. I help, pressing myself on to her. I moan, vibrating the nipple in my mouth. She starts shuddering, collapsing on me, breathing hard in my ear.

When I glance to the side, I see Helen and Emi, their faces buried in each others crotch. They are moaning, heavily. Soon they are both shuddering, collapsing on each other. Unnoticed, Sophia has positioned herself between my legs, until she starts licking. Her long tongue caresses my folds, doing laps around my nubbin then darting into my channel. After wiggling there for a while, it returns to swirling around my nubbin. My nubbin swells, her lips clamping onto it, her tongue caressing it. My back arches as several fingers enter me, rubbing the spot, my juices flow wetting her face. Her long tongue licks those juices from her face. Kissing me, she shares as her long appendage explores my mouth.

We must have fallen asleep because the next thing I notice is Tilly pulling on my toe. "Wake up Rufina, time to train."

"Morning Tilly." I mumble. I check my bed buddies, the two closest are laying on me, Emi on the right with Helen behind, Sophia on my left, leg draped over mine the same as Emi. Both have their arms laying on my stomach, heads on my shoulders. Tilly lights a pair of candles then departs. Now the problem is how to extract myself. I move Emi's leg off mine, then I am able to rotate on to my left side so I am facing Sophia. I then rotate so I am end up atop her. Now it's just a matter of climbing off, right foot to the floor, left leg beside her and stand. But she clasps me by the hips, pulling me down against her, her mouth seeking mine.

"Good morning, dear one. Is it time to train?" She asks after the kiss.

"Yes, sorry to wake you but I was buried under bed buddies." I stand, pulling her up to a sitting position. I kneel, knees on either side of her, straddling her lap. After kissing her I say, "Thank you for earlier. Have you changed your tongue, it seems longer?"

"I changed it's length by an inch or so, the better to give pleasure."

"Well, it does it well. Will you help me put on my armor?"

"Yes, dear." Now it's her turn to kiss me.

I stand, pulling her to her feet. I check the water, there is enough for a quick wipe down. After pouring the water I wet and soap a cloth, wiping my face then rinsing the cloth I turn to her, wiping hers and cleaning her as she has used the pot. I do my toilet then wipe myself. Sophia has pulled clean clothes for me from the wardrobe in the mean time. As I put them on she starts removing the armor from the rack. Once I'm dressed she helps put it on me, kneeling to tighten the grieve over my boots as I pull on the gauntlets. Fully armored I take up my sword belt, carrying it in hand.

"Thank you Sophia. Why don't you fetch some more water then wake Helen and Emi, they would probably enjoy a bath. See you at Tai Chi." After giving her a kiss, I leave, a smile on my face.

Arriving at the rear courtyard I place my sword next to the stairway as I greet Kalvin, "Good morning, Kalvin. What are we doing this morning?"

He hands me a an oval shaped stave, two inches on the long side, one and a half on the short, six foot long. "More spear work, your majesty." We review the moves from the last couple of days, doing sets of lunges, parries, and thrusts, both high and low. Then we spar, attempting to stab each other or at least cut each other. By the end of the hour I am sore, I can see how a quarter staff would be a good weapon, if it can inflict this much damage without much power behind it. I hobble to the side, where I greet Emi then allow her to remove my grieves, boots and stockings as I remove my gauntlets then my helmet.

The rest of the family are greeted as we go to the patio. Settling into vertical centering, I wait. "Thirty rotations to the right, begin." Thirty five minutes later, "and resume vertical centering." After collecting my armor, Emi and I stop by the kitchen, I need some weak wild wood flower tea. Sophia and Helen appear carrying pitchers, one which get filled with hot water, the other cold. By that time my tea is ready, which I sip at first then gulp down. Then the four of us climb the stairs to my rooms. Once there I am surrounded, the armor is stripped from me and hung on the rack. My clothes are thrown in the basket and I am scrubbing, my hair washed and then i'm dried from head to foot. Then I am dressed in panties, bra, a knee length tunic and anklets with my slipper.

Once Emi brushes my hair, I am led down to breakfast. The tea has begun working, my bruises no longer ache. Tilly and Abbey have the table set, pots of tea ready. Pouring myself a cup then passing the pot across the table, I sit sipping my tea. Breakfast is brought out and served, Pancakes, bacon and an egg over easy. Applying myself to the food, it is soon finished.

Sipping tea again I ask, "Who is going to be help sort and assign the applicants to the apprenticeships?"

Emi, Sophia, Helen, Aden and Eliza all indicate they will help.

"I am thinking we should sort the applicants first by craft, removing those preapproved by the masters, then arrange them by age. If an applicant didn't ask for a specific craft they will be in a separate pile. Aden, I would like some data collected as we sort the applicants so you will need pen and paper. All right, let's get breakfast cleaned up and get started."

Emi and I do the dishes as the others start sorting the applications. We soon join them at the table, where they have several stacks of the papers laid out. I instruct Aden on the data I want recorded, sex, ages, craft and full, partial or no grant. He prepares the needed pages to record these data on.

I have pages given to the others, who will fill them out, as Aden and I say the data to record. We soon have the data recorded, there are near even numbers of male and female applicants, over half are older than twelve, the oldest is twenty two. Of the 97 applicants fifty eight are asking for a full grant, thirty two a partial and seven none. There are five that have already have approval of a master, these are removed and assigned to their master, their names added to a letter addressed to each master.

The remaining applications are laid out in stacks by crafts applied for, oldest applicants on top. The crafts that only have one or two applicants are paired to a master and put aside. Aden keeps track of which openings are assigned. If a craft has more openings than applicants the top applicant from the unspecified pile is paired with that opening. Soon the least popular crafts are filled, leaving the the seamstresses, the weavers, the wood workers, the potters and the blacksmiths the only open crafts.

There are a large number of openings for weavers and seamstresses with a near equal number of applicants. When it turns out there is one applicant short, Helen asks if she can accept an applicant at a later date. When asked why, she replies she would prefer an applicant who wishes to be in the craft to begin with, not one assigned to it. I allow it.

The blacksmiths are soon filled, the five positions going to the first five applicants on the stack, one of which is a woman. She is in her late teens, the daughter of a serf. We discuss which of the masters to put her with, John or Barry, deciding on John.

There are three openings with the potters, Harry wanting two and the other only one. The top three applicants, two male and one female, are all older being in their late teens. After discussion we assign the woman applicant to Harry, along with the younger of the two males. The other potters, the one that failed the bidding, get the older of the males.

We only have the wood working crafts left; the furniture makers, the carpenter, the cooper and the boatwrights. Jason had two openings, one which he filled himself. We assigned him Christopher, the young man I interviewed first yesterday. The boatwrights get the next four from the stack. Claude the cooper, get the next two. This leaves Daniel and Steven, the furniture makers, who have three openings. The next three applicants are two eleven year old boys and a nine year old girl. The girl, Jerrie, had been interviewed and is known personally by Eliza. After discussing which master would best suit her we decide on Daniel, thinking he would have more time to train her than Steven would. The girl, Jerrie is the youngest applicant assigned so far, being nine years old, a season short of being ten.

The crafts that few or none applied for are assigned from the stack that didn't specify a craft on their application. With those opening filled we are finished. We create a list of applicants and the master they are assign to. This will be posted at the town hall at noon, after an announcement in the morning. After adding each apprentice name to the proper letter, Aden takes the list to the Domain Office, locking it in his desk. The rest of us, sit and relax. It had been a busy morning.

Tilly comes from the kitchen, proclaiming that dinner is in fifteen minutes. We scatter to our rooms to visit the necessity and wash up. Emi and I set the table afterwards. We are served another delicious stew with bread, followed by a fruit pie.

The pie causes me to ask Tobias if we are going to have enough produce to store for the winter? We have been eating well since I arrived and there are more of us being fed also.

"I have planted more turnips and beets, the greens have also been replanted. The fall crop of cabbages will be planted in a few weeks. The second garden is growing well, so we should be fine over the winter."

"Where is the produce stored? In the cellar?"

"Some of it is, most is placed in pit caches out in the orchard."

"Is there much spoilage of the stored produce over winter?"

"Most winters we lose about a third of it. Do you have a better way to store it?"

"I may. Have you seen or heard of a root cellar? It's a artificial cave used to store crops in. Most crops need a certain temperature range to prevent spoilage, which a root cellar is designed to maintain, while providing ventilation which is also required. I will sketch one to show you this afternoon."

I wish to speak with Tilly so I volunteer to help Eliza with the dishes. We gather the dishes, taking them to the kitchen where we prepare the tub of water then set the dishes to soak. After filling the rinse tub with hot water we start washing the dishes. As Eliza washes I rinse and dry and speak with Tilly.

"Tilly, what would a two and a half gallon pot of stew cost to make if you had to buy all the ingredients?"

"It would depend on the season. In spring the costs would be three time what they would be now. Why do you ask?"

"Part of the apprenticeship program is to help support the apprentices. I thought I would supply them with one nutritious meal a day at kingdom expense. I would like you to come up with recipes for stews and soups that could be served to them by the inn keepers."

"What size servings are you thinking? And ingredients?"

"Any of the common meats; beef, pork, rabbit, lamb, chicken, fish. And the common vegetables; carrots, onions, celery, turnips, beans, beetroot, chickpeas, grains. I was thinking a cup to a cup and half per serving."

"How many would we feeding per meal?"

"That is unknown. When I talked to Scott I was unsure how many would be in the program. We now know there will be 55 new apprentices, how many will be fed is not know yet. The masters could send their current apprentices to eat also. Or the masters could feed them themselves, it depends on how many people are in the shop. Daniel, would probably send his apprentices out, while Steven would feed them himself as he has many journeymen and apprentices already. Figure there will be at least fifty to start."

"I'll base the recipes on two and a half gallon batches then. It would be better to have to much than too little. I will assume that you wish these meals to be as cheap as possible."

"Cheap, yes. But still good. The masters will be paying for the meals out of the stipend they receive per apprentice."

"So a bowl of stew or soup, buttered bread and a cup of tea?"

"Or Milk. Yes. Will you come up with recipes I can use?"

"Of course, it sounds like a fun project. When would you need them?"

"Within the week I would think, so we can get them to Scott with some cost figures. And so the apprentices can get their meals."

"I'll start this afternoon then." She continues to work on what she has been working on.