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of Ghent, he had entered into a new relationship with another beautiful young burger woman not much older than the bride. Finally, he wanted to mend his relationship with the van Weir family. In that light, he made sure that the noble lords and ladies in his entourage brought many gemstones as wedding gifts for the newlyweds. The wedding was a joyous three-day event that ended with the couple consummating the marriage in the castle’s highest tower. The single young noblemen in attendance serenaded the newlyweds from the courtyard as again tradition prevailed. The following three days, even after the guests had left, Hester and Jacobus still secluded themselves in each other’s arms in the tower. Such a long seclusion was highly unusual and marked an excellent beginning to their marriage.
    The night after the wedding, the Regent summoned Lord Derick to his bed chamber for a private conversation and spoke to him as a father would his favorite child. He wanted to know how the reclamation project in the Droger Land was progressing, and why he had not married his son off to a wealthy widow with property, rather than take on the grueling task of developing new farm land within his own domain. The Regent knew other, less honorable noblemen with the baron’s military assets would have found some excuse to acquire needed farmland from neighbors by force of arms. The Regent also found it quite astonishing that Lord Derick placed his son’s contentment in marriage above the more normal desire of nobles to use the opportunity of a marriage to obtain greater wealth and power. It was also significant to him that all of the previous lords of the Droger Land kept their ambitions within their own border. Count Albert thought the less threatening posture of the family over the ages was the reason they survived the rule of the Romans, Frisians, Saxons, Franks, Norsemen, Germans, French and his own Regency, when salacious lies attempted to link Lord Derick to the plotters. The regent knew it was prudent to have good relations with the honorable and prestigious van Weir family.
    Rather than punish the liars, he had already decided to make amends for any strain in their relationship with the gift of a very special man. The Regent had rescued a monk from the clutches of the inquisitor’s court. He was a priest who had no inclination for prayer and had caused a disturbance at one of the great agricultural monasteries with his belief that nature, not God, controlled the destiny of crops. The good brother had refused to let any field in his care lay fallow and had gathered or even stolen seeds from the countryside to grow things on vacant fields that were suppose to lay fallow. He grew plants that no one recognized and was finally charged with witchcraft and sorcery, facing excommunication and death. The regent learned of the monk from a bishop who personally believed the man’s greatest sin was having too much talent for the times. The Bishop told the Regent the monk had the ability to grow crops even in the most inclement weather. Once his services were obtained for a price, the monk had rejuvenated the Regent’s gardens and helped many of his own tenant farmers become more productive. Albert thought the man and his ideas might be useful to Derick’s efforts in the Droger Land. As the hours grew late, the Regent suddenly showed his age by giving Lord Derick his leave, but as the Baron turned to walk out of the door the Regent yelled, “It was amazing what you did at the Battle of Vroonen with your shopkeepers and farm boys, just amazing. I hope my peculiar monk can do similar things with your farmland.”
    The following morning, after seeing the Regent and his party off, the Lord of the Droger Land, with only a few horsemen began the return journey home. In a few weeks, his son and daughter-in-law, accompanied by a much stronger escort, would follow at a slower pace, burdened by three wagons of the bride’s