Looking at Fringilla's back flying away, Prajna had a smile on her face. There were more smiles on her face today than she had in the past month.
Lothar's footsteps sounded behind Prajna.
"Where's Flynn?"
"I'm going out to play, don't worry about her."
"Um."
Lothar replied absentmindedly. He was still considering promoting the list of knights. In this battle, Ryan and Model made great contributions and must be promoted.
In addition, Ulm and Andreas, two outstanding wing cavalrymen, can also be considered for promotion to knights.
However, the Knights also had several servants who fought bravely, and the knights they were loyal to had died in the battle. Lothar was considering whether to recruit them into his ranks and become his true own.
"Let's go find her."
She pointed to the streets not far away. The war did not seem to have much impact on the city. Greeks with short beards, orientalized Latins, Germans...
People are walking inside in an endless stream.
There is a faint smell of spices and cooked food.
Some sergeants of the Royal Knights wearing red and white robes were already attracted and quickly negotiated the price with the wandering warblers shipped from Europe.
Alcohol and women are important magic weapons for extinguishing the wounds of war.
Lothar lacked the latter link, so it would naturally be completed by these Crusader sergeants who had just made a fortune in war and had bulging wallets.
But the direction Prajna pointed in was completely opposite to the direction Fulin left.
With a faint smile on her lips, she said: "Take this opportunity, let's go shopping. I have served you for so long, and you haven't given me a gift yet."
Lothar looked at Prajna in surprise.
Her eyes were clear and bright, and she met his gaze and asked without any guilt: "What, can't you do it?"
"Of course, I'm just a little surprised. This is the first time you've made such a request since we met."
Lothar naturally agreed.
"It's just that you have to put on the veil first, otherwise I'm afraid it will cause chaos."
"good."
The two of them walked side by side in the streets.
Montreal was once a material transit hub for the Crusades, and later transformed into an important trade node for trade between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the eastern chiefdoms.
It is not small in size, with nearly ten thousand permanent residents, a considerable third of whom are pagans.
This number may not sound like a lot, but how many people are there in Paris and London today?
Twenty thousand?
Or thirty thousand?
That's the number at most.
Throughout Western Europe, cities with a population of up to 50,000 are all city-states in the North Apennines. Even the Papal City, where the Pope is located, only has a population of over 30,000.
Although the barbarians who conquered the Western Empire were full of martial virtue, they seemed not to be good at governing the country. The prosperous City of Seven Hills in the past was far behind its sister city, Constantinople.
In this era, Sasanian Ctesiphon and Ayyubid Cairo each had a population of half a million.
Constantinople in the Eastern Empire had the largest population, with a population of 600,000.
The city of Kaifeng further to the east is said to have a population of over one million.
As for Jerusalem.
Although the city has only 30,000 permanent residents, the constant flow of pilgrims often more than doubles the city's population.
Before the Crusaders left, the population even approached one hundred thousand.
Lothar and Prajna stopped in front of a shrine.
This religious building also incorporates oriental styles and looks like a stage set.
On Palm Sunday, clergy will hold crosses and palm branches respectively, circle the city for a week, then gather here and pray to Heavenly Father.
It must be admitted that the various customs of the church in Jerusalem are significantly different from those of the Catholic churches in Western Europe.
Western European civilization is blending with Eastern civilization at an extremely fast speed.
Lothar felt a little emotional. In this era, many Crusaders had begun to speak Arabic, and many of them even stopped eating pork.
Intermarriage between multiple ethnic groups is no longer uncommon.
Although this was highly resisted and disdained by the newly arrived pilgrims, Lothar thought it was a good thing.
If I can control this kingdom in the future, I must knead these various ethnic groups into one. After a long period of intermarriage and language assimilation, they will become indistinguishable from each other.
In previous lives, the Habsburg predecessors have proven that a diverse empire will only end up falling apart.
"The one in front is Count Leonard's mansion in Montreal. It is said that it has matching gardens and fountains, painted ceilings and marble floor tiles. It would be great if I could own such a town. If it were in a non-war state, The commercial taxes I can collect in a year are enough to maintain all the troops under my command."
Lothar said with some envy.
"If you want it, we can capture this city. At worst, if we cooperate with Saladin, the Crusaders who arrive later will not be able to conquer this city after a difficult journey."
Lothar shook his head: "I have no intention of betraying Baldwin IV, and... there is no such possibility. The soldiers of the Royal Knights are more loyal to the king and the Heavenly Father. This cannot be bought by me with a small favor. "
"Let's go. This street is full of people selling leather goods. Be careful not to step in dirty water. Let's go over there. I saw the sign of the goldsmith's shop."
Lothar and Prajna walked through the alley and came to a more prosperous neighborhood.
The shops here are more sophisticated than before, and the crowds are denser.
Lothar stopped in front of the goldsmith's shop and frowned.
He saw an eye-catching T logo engraved on the signboard of the goldware store.
This means that a portion of the store's proceeds will be donated to the Knights Templar.
There are other symbols, such as ANNA, which means that most of the proceeds from this store will be donated to the Cathedral of Santa Ana.
Some believers who were pious but not pious enough to donate money directly to the church were happy to spend money in such a store - but Lothar naturally chose to refuse.
"They are all promotional methods to raise prices. It's not because they are afraid of the price, but mainly because the goldsmiths who use this as a gimmick often have poor skills. We'd better find a shop opened by a Greek, maybe we can buy Byzantium Style jewelry.”
Seeing Lothar thinking seriously, Prajna could not help but raise the corners of his mouth slightly: "Okay."
The system's prompt sounded suddenly: Your five-star follower, the vampire banshee Fringilla, killed a "Day Demon", and your milestone [Witcher] progress increased to 2/3.
Lothar was stunned.
He looked at Prajna in confusion and asked doubtfully: "Didn't Fringilla go to play?"
Prajna lied calmly: "Maybe I happened to bump into a demon spirit on the way to play."
She was used to being expressionless, and it was absolutely impossible for her to show a guilty expression.
...
Ten minutes ago.
In the deep alley.
The two corpses lying on the ground were covered with bruises, as if they had been eaten by wild beasts. Not even a piece of intact skin could be found.
One of the corpses was lying not far from the alley, just one step away from escaping this dangerous place.
Scott gasped violently.
"Honest Man" John said with a sad face and weakly cursed: "I said don't go there yet, now it's better, the two of us are running into the scene where the evil spirit kills people."
Scott swallowed, his voice a little dry: "I...I didn't expect that evil spirits really exist in this world, and they can come out during the day."
The two of them hid in the corner.
Looking at the evil spirit outside, it was two meters tall and had a long tongue sticking out.
It was wearing a withered and yellowed white gauze garment, and its long tongue was densely covered with barbs. The scars on the corpse were scraped from the barbs on this tongue.
