The air in the north has a more humid smell of sea salt than in the southern territory. On a gloomy morning, a tired "cartman" was driving a horse and pulling a cart of empty barrels. Six people were beside the cart. Accompanied by a slovenly traveler, he rushed to Bruges.
Bruges was undoubtedly a rich and prosperous place, and everyone knew that the Lowlanders were good at every business.
Whether it is the Vikings who troubled the English, Franks and Russians, or the Arab merchants from the emirates of the Middle East and North Africa, they can peacefully visit the two well-known trading towns of Bruges and Ghent. Get along with each other, negotiate a good price for leather, wood carvings, raw silk, velvet, woolen cloth, salt, dyes, spices and even slaves, and then take them to your hometown.
Since commerce is developed here, bandits who covet the property of merchants are also very rampant. Of course, Herta, who has been tortured to the point of being no different from a coachman who works hard all day long, is lucky enough to be part of a group of people with unknown origins and impure motives. When the robbers planned to rob them, a security team organized by the town happened to pass by, which dispelled the thieves' idea that "no matter how small a mosquito is, it is still meat."
The affluence of Bruges is also reflected in its walls and soldiers' equipment - towering stone and wood structure town walls, and lowland crossbowmen patrolling the walls with crossbows.
Like other places, there are tax collectors and soldiers responsible for collecting taxes at the gate of the town to prevent anyone from smuggling goods. What Huertala brought was an empty barrel. He only paid two copper coins, and the tax collector let him in.
Now, Herta's ordeal appears to have finally come to an end. Without hiding the disgust and disgust on his face, he threw a bag of money that he had prepared to the leading foreman. The leader of the team opened the money bag, and inside lay a dim silver Denier coin and several incomplete copper coins.
"You stingy wild dog," the leader of the team looked dissatisfied with the reward they deserved, "We have helped you resolve many dangers, wouldn't you repay us with some rewards? ?”
"Bah," Herta spat on the ground disdainfully, saying what he had been wanting to say but had not said out loud for the past few days, "Look at your tattered equipment and your sloppy lifestyle. To be honest, That’s all you’re worth.”
"Damn pig, cunning snake and scorpion, I'm going to cut you into pieces!" A grumpy bearded sniper couldn't stand such an insult. He pulled out the short hammer from his waist, stepped forward and looked at He really wanted to put a gourd on Herta's head.
"Forget it." Although the leader of the trip was greedy, he was a calm person. When he saw the surrounding guards gathering here, he knew that they would never escape punishment for killing people here. "Calm down, Lewis."
The bearded Louis was hugged from behind by the leader. After struggling for a few times to no avail, he had to give up. However, he was still upset and cursed loudly at Herta: "You shameless villain, you have been circumcised." Jewish eunuchs, loan sharks, vampire bats, swindlers selling fake wine, Esbeiburg goat fuckers..."
The crowd of onlookers burst into laughter. When the approaching guard saw that the farce that was about to cause a life was stopped in time, he shrugged boredly, turned around and walked away. When the leader of the tour led his companions away, only Herta, who was speechless due to anger and embarrassment, was left standing there.
But Herta is Herta after all. If he were an ordinary person at this time, he would probably want to dig a hole in the ground and hide in it, so that he would be embarrassed to see others, or he would scold him back fiercely. Huerta showed a victorious smile, which made the onlookers boo. Everyone really thought that Huerta was stingy in underpaying the waiter.
"You're so bad, Isaac!"
"You're not welcome here, go away, Jew pig!"
"Untouchable, why did you take off the little yellow hat on your head that proves your lowly Jewish identity?"
"Look at that fat body on your body that's even bigger than a fat pig. You must have plundered a lot of poor people's money, right?"
"Something worse than a beast!"
Now, everyone recognized the content of the tripper's insult--that Herta was a cunning Jewish businessman. Everyone gave him a "friendly" "welcome" one after another. After all, they believed that only Jews who cherish money like life can do such things as arrears and withholding of wages.
As for the ways to identify a Jew, there are three most common ways - either to see if he is wearing the little yellow hat that is unique to Jews, or to take off his pants to see if he has been circumcised, or to see if the person is extremely greedy.
Herta didn't understand why he suddenly became the target of public criticism, so he could only flee in dejection from the crowd of onlookers. He secretly cursed his stupidity in his heart. He had repeatedly warned himself to keep a low profile before leaving.
Little Klein followed Herta not far or near. He wore a large, loose hood and looked no different from an ordinary passerby.
Hurtah, who was driving the carriage deeper into the street, seemed a little alert, looking left and right to look at the surrounding environment from time to time. However, his vigilance was limited to guarding against those thieves coming back to cause trouble. He didn't even realize that he was being followed all the way.
"Get out of the way, coachman."
Several Vikings wearing Norman helmets and with golden curly hair came forward. They wore battle-scarred leather armor and carried two-handed axes with dried blood stains on them. One of them raised his head, and his ferocious eyes stared at Herta, almost scaring the latter's soul out of his body. .
"Okay, okay."
Huerta didn't dare to care about the Vikings calling him a coachman. He moved the car to the edge of the road in a panic, for fear that he would hit the other party and anger the other party.
"Hahahahaha, you Southerners are as timid as mice!" The Viking's hoarse voice uttered an unpleasant sneer. Herta lowered his head tremblingly. Even if he had ten courages, he would not dare to provoke these murderous people. pagan pirates.
Although the Vikings suffered huge setbacks in England decades ago, it is undeniable that the Vikings are still powerful warriors and ferocious pirates. They used battle after battle to leave a lot of horror stories among the Germans and Franks, so that everyone still has fear and fear of them.
Huerta parked the carriage in the yard of a tavern. He threw a copper coin to the stable boy, told him to keep an eye on his carriage, and then opened the door of the tavern. Little Klein paused for a while, lowered his hood, and walked in.
The air in the tavern was extremely turbid, and the various unpleasant smells made this narrow space seem like a fermentation chamber. But the corresponding atmosphere is full of atmosphere. The drinkers inside seemed to be having a carnival, the bard played a cheerful ditty, and everyone danced around a huge log pillar, which was a lively scene.
"I want to buy in five barrels of good ale and give out some jewelry. Of course, there are some things that are not convenient to talk about here..." Herta lay on the counter, and the owner of the tavern handed him a glass of cool wine. The beer quenched his thirst. At this moment, he was drinking from the wine glass and didn't even notice little Klein who came through the door later.
"The ale is still the same, of course there is no problem. I can also find buyers interested in the jewelry for you. As for things, is it an important thing this time?" The tavern owner shaved his head, and the mustache under his breath looked like A brown broom. He calmly wiped the shiny wine glass while responding to Herta's words.
"It's a very important matter. Maybe I have to meet the adults in person." Herta's expression was serious and it didn't look like he was faking it.
Little Klein sat down on the side and seemed to be enjoying the lute tune and the lively atmosphere. In fact, his ears were perked up to eavesdrop on Herta's conversation.
The tavern owner continued to clean the glass and was silent for a while, seeming to be thinking about something.
"My Lord is in Kortrijk now. If you must see him, you can leave tomorrow. But I want to warn you, if you bother him for some boring things, he will not be polite to you!"
"On the contrary," Herta stretched out her index finger and waved it left and right, "Maybe he will reward me!"
"Ha, really," the tavern owner chuckled, "Then you should drink more tonight."
"Aha, I'm afraid that drinking too much will delay things..."
Little Klein heard what he wanted. This further confirms Huerta's collusion with Baron Kortrijk, and this tavern owner may be an informant, or liaison, arranged by Baron Kortrijk Luke in Bruges.
In order to avoid alerting the enemy, little Klein walked out of the tavern calmly. Now, he had to find a way to get the news out and prepare Simon on the way back to Herta.
………………………
"Shameless!" Simon read a letter written with words as small as ants. He couldn't help but slapped the table and stood up. "Lange actually wants to take all the credit for annihilating the Magyar pagans this time!"
"What?"
Ludwig looked shocked. He really didn't expect that Lange would dare to go to the Bishop of Cologne to ask for credit with two Magyar prisoners of war.
Just this morning, the wheat tavern in the village of Keose provided stir-fry and fine wine to the drinkers as usual. When a customer paid and left, he mixed a small volume of letters with the coins.
"To Lord Simon."
The mysterious man left these words and left quickly without looking back.
The owner of the tavern didn't take it seriously. He thought this guy was a newcomer working for Ludwig, so he had never seen him before. He also lamented that the current new informants were so amateur and the way of delivering information was so simple and crude.
When Ludwig received the letter, he immediately realized that this was definitely not the news from his informant in Tonisburg. Then there was only one source of the news - Sir Julian.
So, he eagerly took the letter and rode on his horse to Simon's castle.
"We have to find a way to send the letter written by Father James to Cologne before Lange, so that Lange will become a complete clown in front of the bishop!" Simon said to himself as he paced back and forth in the hall of the castle.
"According to Sir Julian's news, Lange's messenger should leave today. If we want to be faster than them, there is only one shortcut." The smart Ludwig thought of a good idea.
"What shortcut?"
"Take the water route directly, but you have to go upstream. This is the shortest route."
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
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