Thirty miles southwest of Lane, by the creek at the foot of Rummel Mountain, an old man in ragged clothes, with a yellow face and skinny muscles, and a shape like a dry stick was staggering northward along the stream.
Before arriving at this creek, the old man had been walking along the Lamel Mountains for more than a month, and there was no trace of the pursuers behind him. For a month, he walked through dense forests and deep mountains, staggering on uninhabited paths, bypassing castles and villages, sleeping in the open air, eating frost and snow, avoiding all human traces, and relying on a small bag of black beans and grass-rooted mountain rats to get here. One day further ahead, across the wilderness in front of you is the southern border of Burgundy.
"Damn weather." The old man cursed softly and stepped towards the pile of boulders in the snowfield step by step. His bare toes were already chapped and pus-filled, and the wounds on his back oozed dark blood...
About twenty miles south of Lane, Art, who was riding a green mule, took off the water bladder hanging on the front saddle and took a sip of water mixed with ale. He was in a good mood. He got into the haystacks next to the farmland and had a good night's sleep last night. The green mule also had a good free dinner.
On the way back, Art took a detour to Lane Manor. He took note of the grudge against the manor’s steward, but he didn’t want to cause more trouble now.
The strength of Green Mule's feet did not disappoint Art. The evening after he left Tyniec, the boulder he passed through when he came had already appeared in the white snowfield. He planned to settle in the boulder heap tonight.
The snowy sky is getting darker and darker. Art jumped off the green mule, took off the horse mattress cover and a bundle of firewood tied to the back of the saddle, took off the saddle, took off the reins, pulled out a bundle of hay and placed it under a boulder. The green mule grazed under the boulder, while Art picked up the dead wood and prepared to turn around the boulder to find a place sheltered from the wind and snow to light a fire to keep out the cold.
Just after turning around the boulder, Art glanced at him and took a step back in shock. He threw away the firewood and pulled out the hunting knife from his waist.
Just around the corner, a dark figure huddled there.
"There are wolves!" Art thought, his back pressed against the boulder, his hunting knife held flat against his chest, and he gently moved forward to poke his head... After a long while, he slowly put down the hunting knife.
"Bastard!" Art cursed heavily.
…
Att slowly approached the guy who fell in the pile of boulders, crouched forward and patted his shoulder with his dagger. Seeing that he didn't respond, he opened his clothes and stepped forward to take off the half sickle with a shabby linen handle from the man's waist. Knife...
The snow has stopped, and the blazing fire illuminates the boulder pile red. Art is facing the fire, leaning against the boulder, holding half a piece of browned rye bread in his hand. Beside the fire lay the unconscious old man. Art checked the old man and found that he was hopeless - he was out of breath, his back was covered with bleeding wounds, his ankles were swollen, his feet were purple, and his toes were bleeding... In the food bag around his waist, there was only a small mountain rat that had bitten off a frozen head and a few pine nuts.
Matt dragged him to the fire, poured a few mouthfuls of hot water and ignored him. He was not God and could not pull back a person who was about to enter heaven.
Until he started packing his bags early the next morning, Art didn't bother to check the old man's breathing or heartbeat.
After cleaning up, Art placed a small piece of rye bread and the broken sickle beside the old man, and gathered the remaining embers of the fire. After doing this, Art got on his mule and strode away.
br/> "God is merciful, he may have woken up, eaten bread and left..."
Throughout the morning, Art's mind was filled with the shadow of the old man, and he had to admit that the memory of his previous life made him somewhat womanly.
“Oh, damn!!”
～～> by Att tightened the reins and turned the mule's head around.
……
One month later.
At the fence of the unnamed valley and forest cabin, Art was leading a green mule back from a canyon five miles away. On the back of the mule was a wild goat that was tightly bound on its four hooves and screamed "blea".
"Master, you are back~" A rosy-faced old man wearing a short shirt, trousers, and a sheepskin jacket came forward, took the reins from Art's hand, and carried the wild sheep down.
"Cub, don't call me master anymore. I told you I'm not a master, so just call me Art." Art once again corrected the stubborn old man named Cooper Alfred on how he called himself.
"Okay, sir~" Cooper bowed slightly.
A month ago, Art's kindness saved the old man's life. After carrying the old man back to the wooden house in the valley, Art used the common sense he had accumulated over the past three years to crush some useful leaves, grass roots and apply them all over the old man. The old man's life was tenacious enough, and the thick soup, fresh water and the stove in the thatched bed house by the door dragged him back to earth from heaven. In less than ten days, the old man could get up from the straw bed and light a fire for Art to cook; half a month later, the old man repaired the inside and outside of the wooden house and wrapped the fence outside the yard with hemp vines to strengthen it.
Old Cooper didn't like to talk much, and he didn't mention his past, and Art didn't inquire about it. No one wanted to spread the word about the past.
But Art could see that the old man had had a very difficult time for a long time in the past. After basically recovering from his injuries, Art once asked Old Cooper intentionally or unintentionally if he wanted to leave.
“Outside is a hell that eats people, but here is the real world.” Cooper shook his head and refused.
"As long as you let me stay here, I am willing to be your servant." Cooper said sincerely.
Matt was noncommittal. He couldn't afford to support idle people, but he was unwilling to kick the poor old man away.
The next winter, Art saw the old man's ability and was glad that he did not leave the old man in the wilderness to feed the wolves.
Three years ago, Art spent the summer and autumn building this log cabin with a thatched roof that was only seventeen feet long and fifteen feet wide. In the following years, Art only sparsely put up a man-high fence around the wooden house to prevent wild beasts from attacking. In short, it was very crude.
After recovering from his injury, Old Cooper has been knocking, whittling and chopping. He used thatched clay to lay a thick layer on the exterior wall of the wooden house, and opened a small window with wooden lattice next to the wooden door facing the sun. In winter, he needed to burn a fire all night for heating, and the cabin was always filled with thick smoke, so Old Cooper made a band of stone and clay at the root of the wooden wall on the left side of the entrance. There was a fireplace with a flue, and Art began to fall in love with this capable and stubborn old man...
With the advent of severe winter, there were fewer and fewer animals wandering in the forest. Apart from riding a green mule to a few traps to try his luck every now and then, Art rarely went out hunting. When the weather was clear, Art took his green mule to the forest to hunt pheasants and hares, while Cooper carried a linen bag in the nearby woods to pick up pine cones, beech, oak chestnuts, hazelnuts and other dried fruits or edible grass roots and wild vegetables.
Some simple tools bought back from Tinets became the hands of God in the hands of the old man. During the day, he would either follow Art up the mountain to collect dried fruits and cut grass, or knock things near the cabin; at night, he would use scraps of wood to make square tables, round stools, or wooden bowls and spoons by the fireplace.
"Sir, can we tear down the east fence and expand it?" Cooper stopped what he was doing, raised his head and said to Art, who was skinning a rabbit.
“Why?” Art felt that the current fence was very strong and durable.
"During this period, I have cleared up the forest to the east. I think we can dismantle and expand the fence on the east side, and then move the stables and small sheep pens outside the fence into the fence. I am very worried about the green mule and the goat. I have seen wolf footprints nearby in the past few days." Cooper said worriedly.
At was convinced.
In the following days, Art became Old Cooper's right-hand man.
On the north side of the stream, the appearance has changed at this time: a flat open land about fifty feet long and thirty feet wide is densely surrounded by a circle of pointed birch fence as high as a person. The gate is facing the creek; after entering the gate, against the wall on the right side is a stable with wooden bars around the pillared thatched roof. Next to the stable is a sheep pen, where a green mule and a goat are grazing; on the left side of the gate, the original fence wall has been completely demolished, and a cobblestone path leads from the gate to the original wooden house. A new thatched roof cabin about ten feet long and eight feet wide was built opposite the wooden house. Between the large and small cabins is a passage about ten feet wide.
On the wooden table in front of the fireplace in the large wooden house, a large plate of softly cooked mutton was smelling fragrant. Two large wooden cups were filled with watered ale. On the wooden grill in front of the fireplace, a roasted rabbit smeared with honey was sizzling.
Even though he mixed it with water and drank a large glass of ale, Art was already a little tipsy, and Old Cooper was even more drunk.
"Sir, today is the happiest day I've had in years." Cooper said with a wine burp.
"Yes, you are a capable and stubborn old man, and you have changed this place in just three or four months. Now, you also have your own house, and you have become the second resident of this uninhabited valley." Art said happily.
Old Cooper raised his head and drank the remaining ale in the glass.
"Master, are the words on the wall your family motto?" Cooper looked at the wall behind Art with half-squinted eyes.
"Until the lamb becomes a lion," Cooper whispered.
Matt suspected that he was hearing hallucinations, and he stared at the old man in front of him in surprise.
"Yes, sir, I can read and write." Cooper's eyes turned slightly to Art.
"Please forgive me for hiding my past. I should be honest with you..." The old man recounted his past under the influence of alcohol.
……………
Forty-five years ago, Cooper Alfred was born in the Alfero Abbey in the south of Provence. Yes, he is the illegitimate son of a monk.
Cooper grew up in a monastery as a child and received a systematic theological education.
At the age of thirteen, the monk died of illness, and the underage Cooper was kicked out of the monastery. In the next seven years, Cooper worked as a beggar, a thief, a bartender in a tavern who was in charge of food and money, a laborer on the dock carrying bags, and a clerk in a business...
At the age of twenty, Cooper's life took a turning point.
That year, Cooper followed a caravan to Genoa and met an old craftsman who was repairing the temple at the Holy Cathedral of Genoa. The old craftsman discovered that Cooper was a talented person who could read and write, so he accepted Cooper as an apprentice to teach architectural techniques.
With his intelligence and talent, Cooper became an outstanding construction craftsman after only three years of apprenticeship. Soon, the old craftsman married his daughter to Cooper.
Having experienced a difficult life, Cooper knows how to work hard and fight hard. In the following ten years, Cooper built town stone houses for merchants, designed manor castles for knights, and participated in the construction of churches and monasteries...
Thirty-two-year-old Cooper is already a young craftsman in Genoa.
At the age of thirty-seven, Cooper independently designed and supervised the construction of Busala Monastery. With this feat, Cooper was rated as an architect master by the Genoa Architectural Guild, which made him famous for a while.
But then, Cooper's life took a turn for the worse.
In the second year after becoming an architect, a monastery in Rapallo collapsed. The chief architect committed suicide in fear of guilt. Cooper, who had participated in the design of the monastery, was naturally the scapegoat. The church court found Cooper guilty and confiscated all his property; the building guild banned him from being a builder and banned him from the construction industry for life.
Hibernated, Cooper left Genoa with his wife and children, returned to Alfero, and started farming in an ownerless wasteland.
God rewards hard work, and five years of hard work turned the ownerless wasteland into fertile farmland.
Just when life was promising, neighboring lords and county tax collectors began to visit frequently. The lord demanded to "take back" this "fertile land" that originally belonged to him; the tax official forced Cooper to pay the huge grain tax that had been "overdue" for five years.
Cooper could not bear the oppression and argued hard. Finally angering the lord and tax collector, they colluded with a group of robbers to attack Cooper's small farm. Nugan killed Cooper's wife and daughter and cut off his son's head.
Cooper, who was lucky enough to escape with his life, was hiding everywhere, lingering, waiting for an opportunity to take revenge.
Last summer, the southern Principality of Lombardy invaded the southern territory of Provence, and the entire south was in panic.
Cooper took the opportunity to sneak back to Alfero, assassinated the tax official, and cut off the head of the lord's only son with a broken sickle on the bed of the lord's mistress.
Hence, the lord launched a thousand-mile pursuit of Cooper...
It was during his escape that Art rescued him.
"It's also a run away! It seems that the world is dangerous?" Art was not only sighing with emotion.
"Master? I don't understand." Cooper didn't understand what Art's "also" meant.
"It's okay, Cooper, you can stay here peacefully, the enemies can't find it here." Art comforted him.
………
Spring returns to the earth and everything revives.
A little further downstream from the creek in front of the door, in an open field of about half an acre, weeds as tall as a person have turned into a thin layer of ash. Art held a light plow with his left hand and waved a long whip with his right hand, driving the green mule in a decent manner...
“Master, you’d better stop, you really have no life as a farmer.” Old Cooper quickly stepped forward and snatched the plow from Art’s hand.
"Your plowing method of deep and shallow, fast and slow, no matter how strong the draft horse is, will not be able to bear it, and the wheat seedlings will grow unevenly in the future~" Old Cooper smiled and took the plow from Art's hand.
"How come the plow that works like an arm in your place is not as good as a broken iron hoe in my place?" Art turned his head and glanced at the winding ridge of land behind him, scratched his head, and said angrily.
A month ago, just after the severe winter, Yate took his silver coins and rode a green mule to Tyniec. When returning, in addition to two large bags of shelled wheat and rye bread, the green mule also carried a single-share light plow and several iron hoes, iron rakes, short sickles and other agricultural tools on its back. The cloth bag on the front saddle contained barley seeds. The wheat and bread were bought by Art, as they could not eat meat every day; the seeds and farm tools were bought at Old Cooper's strong plea.
Matt has seen farmers farming in his past life, but he has never cultivated the land himself. He does not think that he has to rely on farming to survive. The prey in the valleys and forests are enough to satisfy him. Even if Cooper is included, he can always make ends meet if he works harder. But after the stubborn old man accidentally discovered an open wasteland in the south of the valley, he kept begging Art to let him try to cultivate it ~
Unable to resist the stubborn old man, Art had to agree.
Matt also knew that half a day's journey south of the Nameless Valley, passing through a low valley, was a vast flat valley sandwiched between two mountain ranges extending north and south. The creek on this side of the Nameless Valley continued into the valley, forming a trickling river. When they first arrived in the Nameless Valley, Art and his father had explored the valley plain, which was a vaster and more uninhabited wilderness... But Art had no intention of telling Cooper about this for the time being, otherwise the stubborn old man would have to immediately clamor to reclaim the entire wasteland in the valley into fertile farmland.
As the weather gets hotter day by day, the barley in the wasteland is also sprouting and heading. Looking at a large expanse of lush wheat seedlings, the wrinkles on Old Cooper's face were relaxing day by day.
Having just finished the work of surrounding the wheat field with thorns and dead branches, the old man began to work again to feed the animals.
Three days ago, Art went into the mountains with a hunting bow and planned to shoot some pheasants and hares back for a taste. In the spring and summer, all things grow and reproduce, and Art rarely goes into the mountains to hunt, but after several months of bacon and thick soup, Art is a little tired of eating.
In a tree hole, Art found seven or eight wild boar piglets that had just been weaned. After making sure that the mother wild boar was not nearby and there was no danger, he quietly took away the three piglets.
Back at the wooden house, he excitedly handed the piglet to Cooper and asked him to spread wild honey on it and make some roasted suckling pigs to reward his internal organs.
But the old man's eyes glowed again as he stared at the piglets...
"Cooper, it's useless, I've tried to feed them but they can't survive." Art said and quickly pulled out the hunting knife and planned to do it himself.
“Master, master, wait, let me try, I will definitely be able to feed him~” Cooper stepped forward to stop Art.
The old man became stubborn again. So, next to the sheepfold where the two wild goats were kept, there was another pig nest with three little piglets sleeping.
"Do you think those are your sheep? Now those guys have learned to be clever and will not fall into my trap at all~" Art was really not in a good mood after not eating roasted suckling pig with honey, and Art had no intention of hiding in the valley and dealing with livestock and wheat fields for the rest of his life. He needs to farm, but not in this way.
"How about I try my luck tomorrow..."
"It's up to you!"
……
The summer weather is slowly dissipating, and early autumn is approaching.
A whole summer, Art seemed to have nothing to do. In previous years when there was less hunting in spring and summer, Art would maintain and repair hunting bows and arrows, and make traps such as traps and cages in the cabin. He spent more time repairing wooden houses, cleaning drainage trenches, and strengthening wooden fences. This summer, Art is obviously a redundant person. Except for helping Old Cooper harvest barley at the end of summer, most of the time he is either maintaining and making autumn hunting tools in the wooden house, or riding a green mule and carrying a hunting bow to explore the depths of the valley~
When early autumn comes, the nameless valley is filled with the joy of harvest.
The land that Old Cooper carefully cared for contributed all the fertility accumulated for hundreds of years. Fifty pounds of barley seeds turned into nearly 500 pounds of wheat grains after a spring and summer growth; the wild sheep in the sheepfold also continued to produce fresh milk, and the pig nests finally contained The surviving little piglet also turned into a guy that was fatter than two goats. Even the surroundings of the wooden house were planted with wild parsley and cabbage...
They could be self-sufficient for a long time.
"Perhaps it's good to hide in the valley like this."
Don't forget the oath you swore." The thought was extinguished as soon as it appeared
...