As we start to walk back across the harbour bridge, Haera seems a little happier, and I don't think she's faking it, but just trying to look on the bright side. It is already clear that she has accepted what has happened and is trying to make the best of her future. Haera seems to be an optimist that finds the positives. She is looking forward to living in such a house permanently and really settle down. She stops me in the middle of the bridge, making sure there is no-one close, and I signal Alith to stay back too. There is a little wind and wind noise carrying any voice out over the water, and she looks out over the strait to the south and begins to speak in a low voice:

  "Robert, I hope our child will be strong and healthy. I also hope that you can recognise the child as yours after a few years, but regardless of that, I hope that you and Iselin can become the child's guardians. Our child does not need to inherit anything from you and it is better that the child does not, regardless of gender. My family and children have officially renounced family ties, and that means that my primary heir is our child, and that is considerable wealth few can match. Kinship with you and your future children, and growing up here will also do much for the child's reputation. I might die in childbirth, or if the child doesn't survive or are too deformed, I will name the Academy as my heir. Even if the child is healthy, I will donate my house here on the island to the Academy when I die, because my other properties are more than enough and it is better for our child to live there and control those properties directly, than to stay here. It will then have been at least 15 years. But I ask you, and I will pay you what you ask; help me to ensure that our child gets the best education and life we can give it."

  "As a resident of these islands, the child will get an education. It is many years away and I hope there is plenty of capacity so that all children on the islands can learn basic skills and knowledge, where reading, writing and maths are just the beginning and I hope it goes far beyond that. But no matter what; Any child I have will, of course, receive a good education for many years, regardless of who its mother is, as long as the child and the mother so wish, and also get as good an upbringing as I can give them. A child is not responsible for the actions of its parents, and shouldn't inherit debt. Parents are responsible for protecting and raising the children they bring into the world."

  Haera is happy and breathes a sigh of relief, and I realise that a weight has been lifted from her heart. If she's going to donate her home here to the Academy, that's one more reason for building here on Small Ackerek. Haera makes no moves to continue walking, so we just stand there looking out over the strait for a minute before she continues talking:

  "My whole life has been planned by others. As long as I can remember, from when I was a child and until a week ago, I have always played a role and known what it must be. My marriage to Asbj?rn was decided by our families when I was eight, and we got married six years later when I was 14 and he was 19. It has been a good marriage, both for us, the families and the Kingdom. In the beginning, Asbj?rn had a violent temper and was quick to react, but it has mellowed, especially in the last ten years, and it feels good that I have been able to help him with that. But I've always played the role of Queen Haera; faithful, wise and calming behind King Asbj?rn Aeriksson. The matron of the castle. But that role is now gone. It no longer exists. My role now is to play Haera; the woman who indulged in lust and betrayed the King and the Throne and two powerful families. The woman who let her lust and sex drive control her. A deceitful woman, condemned to live out her life here in solitude. I accepted this before I told Asbj?rn, because it's just like you said: Learn. Accept. Move on.

  I thought a lot about this yesterday. I realised that it's not a role, it's reality, and no one is dictating how my life should be or writing the role for me. Truthfully, I've started to feel like I'm freer. Free to live a life without having to constantly think about status, politics, intrigue and what impression I give in any situation. No matter what I want, I no longer have a say in my children, their marriages or future, and no longer have a reputation or responsibility to uphold. I can just be me and live the way I want. I don't even have to keep up a facade for the servants or bodyguards. I can just be myself, and for the first time in my life, figure out who I am."

  I just stand there and look out over the strait. I can't truly imagine what her life was like before. I have always had enormous freedom as a man in modern Northern Europe. What the hell do I know about her life? What indoctrination and pressure hasn't she had to be the perfect Queen and Wife behind the King, with demands from both families and the public. I can however, understand that it can be a relief to no longer have any standards to follow.

  "Robert, I want to ask you one more favour. Something I have absolutely no right to even ask for. But we will have sex in a couple of days, and this time it will not be in silence for a short time in the shower, not knowing it is me. I wish you let me experience everything you do with other women, give me all the pleasure you can, in every way. I am already condemned for it, so it would be nice to experience what I am condemned for."

  Her wish surprises me, but as she says; she has already been judged and sentenced. We will have sex, so I can give her a night she hopefully won't forget. It will be the last time she has sex with a man for a long time, maybe for the rest of her life. I should show her the dildos I made and send Caecilia to talk to her. I can't expect her to be incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to sex and pleasuring herself.

  I consider it 'crowded' in the stable with all the new horses there too, but according to Hrappr and everyone else there is still enough room for guests horses, and the stable-barns are 'warm' with plenty of light. I just can't help but feel that I undersized the barns too during construction, and they are yet another failure in my plans for the future. A lot of those plans didn't even survive six months.

  Four of the horses are obviously Haera's and they are what is called 'southern' horses that have come a long way from the south, and not like the common work horses here. The horses look faster and more elegant than the work horses. Frida, Elin and Shakini have told me that Radgeirrson and his father before him, was a bit obsessed with horses and trying to collect strong bloodlines to get the perfect horse, and by that he meant a big and strong horse. He and his father has been successful, and he earned a lot of silver from horse breeding on his farm Forsheim in the south, which is now mine. Is Haera interested in breeding a line of these horses? Or do Forsheim already have some? I need to ask about that. And I really need to visit Forsheim and my other properties. Ugh.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  According to Jane, there are probably no real breeds of horses as we think of breeds, but evidently there are different looking horses in different parts of this world. Darwinism and survival of the fittest and all that.

  I've been told that Hafle is waiting for me, so I leave Haera at the mansion, and walk to the Solar facility in the south. It's not like I'm complaining to have others as company and have something else to talk about. The solar facility has been built and tested to make sure everything works, but has not been put into real use yet due to weather. Trying to evaporate seawater from shallow ponds when its frozen ice is obviously not going to work. The solar reflectors are worth trying though, as they should work on a sunny winter day, and the heat help make the salt safer and cleaner. So Hafle will keep the reflectors clean and use them if the weather is okay and not all thick grey clouds or rain-snow. Hafle is free to spend all the free time between adjustment as he wish. Crafting, rest, fishing or practice archery? I don't care as long as the solar reflectors work during sunny days that should give salt. Once the salt is well concentrated, the high concentration brine is poured out onto a pan which is rolled into the small greenhouse like shelter where it is allowed to sun dry. Salt is sold in different grades according to colour and purity, with the greyest and dirtiest being used for household cleaning, and the whitest and finest salt being used for cheese. So we'll have to see what these manufacturing methods produce, and then let it be valued by someone like Ovdhon who understands salt.

  The solar reflectors are large, but not huge, and they are in a small hollow on the south side to get some wind protection, and to the north there is a few meters higher rock face. It will be interesting to see how effective the solar reflectors are and what temperature the brine reach. Hafle will spend sunny days making salt, and there is a sundial just in front of the sun reflectors to get an idea of the time taken, and to verify that the right angle of the reflectors is chosen. The length of the shadow and which arc the shadow follows on the sundial, corresponds to a setting on the reflectors.

  Several of the projects have fallen by the wayside during the past day and days, although I have been working partly to distract myself. I still find it hard to believe that all the high pressure tanks really are as good as they are, and there are no leaks that anyone has noticed. All have now been filled to 200 bar. 200 damn bars. Sure, prudence and hope led me to make the pressure tanks thick walled, and with a safer manufacturing technique that gives more accurate wall thickness on all sides, and in high quality steel, but still. 200 bar. Jesus. Now I just need to build something that uses the tanks, but that should be relatively easy. Olafr can make the barrels. In fact, since we're going to make 'a lot' of firearms over a long time, whether it be air guns or black powder guns or other, it's only beneficial if work like making barrels are given a slightly more 'industrial' process, where machines for drilling-rifling and turning the outside partly take care of themselves as craftsmen supervise and adjust-clean, but otherwise do other things. I don't want dedicated craftsmen spending several days making just a barrel.

  If there is to be a future air rifle or several, it will require some kind of small compressor driven by hydropower, because there will be so many thousands of hand pumping strokes to fill all the air tanks, and that will literally take hours. If a larger version of the air tanks is to be used for some diving, there will be even higher air consumption at certain occasions, so an air compressor is a good idea. No way to do high pressure air hose limits compressor designs.

  I had not expected such high air pressure in all the tanks, and thus more useable air gun, and actually thought about trying to use something like oxygen-hydrogen mixture. I can see huge risks in using oxyhydrogen in a firearm, but it shouldn't be impossible. It should be possible to ignite a certain volume and gas pressure for some consistency between each shot, but it becomes a huge problem if that volume needs to be large, especially if the gas is to stay there behind the bullet until a shot is taken several hours or days later. Gas tight seal even with just a few bars of pressure is tricky. Perhaps it would work with a larger tank filled with oxyhydrogen mixture, where a specific hollow volume in the chamber behind the bullet is given a certain low pressure and then ignited. But preventing this gas from leaking out past the bullet if the shot is not taken immediately, is problematic. But if lots of high pressure gas is available, it can be wasted, and be acceptable with the right mechanism that 'fills up' just before the shot. High pressure gas flow is fast, and both flintlock or matchlock have noticeable lag from trigger pull until the bullet goes flying out of the barrel. Something like a sealed brass cartridge with more precise volume and concentration of oxyhydrogen might be possible, but pretty much any pressure above atmospheric 1 bar is an issue. And the goal isn't something that just goes bang. The bullet need to go fast enough to be usable as a weapon.

  With either system, the ignition basically needs to be electric even though a tiny spark will be enough, which means at least two electrodes that spark reliably and with no electrical connection issue. That should be doable even with cartridges. Power source will be an issue, but instead of a battery, I should be able to fit a 'large' capacitor that, for example, is charged via a built-in small generator that is cranked or via pump handle. Pump action for cycling the action and producing electricity for the next shot sounds like a workable idea. As long as a larger gas tank is used instead of many cartridges, it would probably be possible to create the oxyhydrogen in the field via a relatively small, light and easy crank mechanism and any available water. A weapon that doesn't need black powder or its 'imported' ingredients would be nice.

  Although I'm working on air guns, I'm actually keen to make a new type of breech loading flintlock weapon. I can't make real cartridges with primers etc, but I can make a single shot weapon with preloaded cartridges that have a small hole in the side and are ignited by a flintlock. Pretty much like my boomstick, but with a flintlock instead of electric ignition, and a breech instead of removing the barrel. Basically a heavy steel or brass case with a protruding tab, which is loaded into the barrel from the rear, and the tab poking up and to the side in a matching grove in the barrel, lines up the small hole in the cartridge case with the small hole from the flintlock pan. The tab also helps being something to hold when removing the hot empty cartridge and reloading a new. Reloading with this system should be so much easier and faster than muzzle loading, probably under 10 seconds, and can be done while lying or taking cover behind some low cover. Easy and quick reloading from cover is important to a soldier, and a soldier can have three or four dozen such cartridges to load at leisure between battles. I think muzzle loading is annoying even on the range and in nice weather, and it is more so when hunting. Way more so in battle. A cartridge system will also be easy to make the weapons safe by simply unload the cartridge and emptying the pan, and the barrel can be easily cleaned and inspected. Preloaded cartridges carried in a good cartridge bag should also be more moisture resistant than paper cartridges. Getting the brass cartridges made is not difficult with the tooling and machines the craftsmen now have available, and the weapon does not get much more complicated.

  Anyway, it's good timing that Jane is away, because the new big blue surprise has been completed, so I show the workers where to put it by the clock tower. Engdrid and the others are sure do strange work for me, and so much work. Just the clock tower is getting a lot of strange and fairly complicated things, like its gravity driven rotating air raid siren.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyhydrogen

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beOgmCxeh7A

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghKrbNpqQoY