This time when he came to Luces, Enyat took Ron and Kazak to stay in a hotel in the city near the trading district. After visiting Bishop Olof, Art took the two of them back to the hotel to eat and rest.
After lunch, Kazak asked Art for leave and returned to the laborer's shack outside the city of Lucesien. He wanted to go home to visit his old father who had been entrusted to the care of the laborer brother, and by the way, he would bring the military equipment he had saved in the past few months to the laborer brother.
As he was about to go out, Art stopped Kazak and asked, "Kazak, how much money do you have on you?"
Kazak took out the money bag at his waist and counted it. His military service for the past three months was 180 pfennigs, plus the 90 pfennigs for the battle at Wincheston. He spent nothing on food and clothing on weekdays. Except for spending 50 pfennigs on shopping, drinking and finding women in Tyniec and Andermatt Castle, he still had 220 pfennigs left in his purse. This money was originally enough for Kazak's father to live well for more than half a year, but considering that he had to spend money on medical treatment and give some hard-earned money to the labor brother who took care of his father, the money on hand was somewhat insufficient.
After listening to Art's calculations for a while, he took out ten small silver coins from the purse at his waist, put them in Kazak's hand, and said: "This is one hundred and twenty pfennigs, take them to your father. We don't know when we can come to Lucesien next time, so leave some more for your father."
Just as Kazak was about to refuse, Art interrupted: "This money is considered to have been advanced from your Alsburg military reward. Ron, go get Kazak's horse and let him ride back."
When Kazak, who was dressed in bright clothes and angry with his horse, returned to the labor shack outside the city of Lucesien, it caused quite a stir.
A group of laborers could not believe that half a year ago, the red-headed ghost Kazak, who was carrying bags in the warehouse at the construction site with them to support his family, was actually wearing a black burqa and cape, with a short sword hanging on his waist, and came back astride a horse.
At this time, the shack that Odo gave to Kazak to support his father was already crowded with people. Kazak was sitting on a wooden bench in the middle and spitting all over the sky, "...In this way, we recaptured Alsburg from the bandits, but three of our brothers died in the battle. Many brothers in Alsburg were injured. I was stabbed when I entered the fort and fought with the bandits, cutting off half of my fingers." As he spoke, Kazak rolled up his sleeves and showed several newly healed scars on his arm and his right hand where half of his little finger was cut off.
"Now I am the squad leader of the palace's southern border patrol team. Bass is also the squad leader, and brother Odo has become the deputy captain. Odo is the commander in the patrol team second only to our patrol officer..."
Everyone in the shack listened attentively to Kazak's exciting and exciting story, as if they were immersed in the scene. They were a little envious of the three people who followed the patrol officer south. They knew that Kazak was usually a bit eloquent, but the armor, weapons and unhealed knife wounds on his body were the most powerful proof.
At the end, Kazak also took out twenty pfennigs and asked someone to go to the city to buy half a fan of mutton. He set up an iron pot in front of the shack and stewed a large pot full of fragrant mutton. He invited some of the labor brothers who were close to him in the shack to eat the meat, saying that he wanted to thank the labor brothers for helping him take care of his old father who was lying on the bed.
While everyone went out to cook the mutton in a pot, Kazak called the laborer brother who helped him take care of his old father into the shack alone.
"Babu, thank you for helping me take care of my father. He can't get out of bed and walk now, so I still need you to help me take care of him. This is the food and medicine money I left for him for the next six months." After that, he took out fifteen small silver coins from the purse and handed it to Babu.
"This is your hard-earned money for helping me take care of my father." He took out four small silver coins from his purse and handed them over.
This laborer named Babu accepted the money for food and medicine handed over by Kazak, but refused to accept the hard-earned money given by Kazak. "Brother Kazak, you and the Odobas brothers took good care of me in the past. If you hadn't helped me, my family and I would have been kicked out by those gangsters."
At Kazak's insistence, Babu finally accepted the hard-earned money that Kazak gave him, and promised to take good care of Kazak's father, allowing Kazak to follow the patrol officer with peace of mind.
After Babu left, Kazak came to his father who was half lying on the wooden bed.
Kazak's old father was originally very happy for his son's return, but after hearing Kazak talk about all the dangerous encounters in the past six months, he became worried about his son.
"Child, why don't you go back to Lucesien and do hard work honestly, and don't risk your life."
Kazak sat on the edge of the bed, tucked a patchwork fur blanket around his father, and comforted him: "Father, it's okay, am I standing in front of you alive? With Lord Ater, I have food, drink, and shelter every day, and I can still lead the army on time. If I go back to Lucese, I'm afraid I won't even be able to support myself, so how can I let you live a good life."
Kazak's father also knew that the life of laborers was difficult, so he didn't say much more, and just told Kazak to live a good life.
Kazak gave all the more than thirty pfennies left in his wallet to his old father...
...
While Kazak was "banqueting" all the labor brothers in the shack, Art was taking Ron out of a silversmith's shop. Lucese is a trading city with many commercial shops in the city. Art and Ron took the gold cups, silver plates and jewelry they took out from the Alsburg stables to various commercial shops and exchanged them for six small gold cakes and twenty silver marks, which was equivalent to a total of 13,000 pfennigs. If Art could sell these valuable goods to those noble and wealthy merchants, he would definitely be able to exchange for more pfennigs, but he did not have the time, energy or channels, so he could only let those commercial shops make a profit from them.
In the evening, Ron arranged a table of sumptuous food and drinks in the hotel under Art's instructions, because Kazak brought five more labor brothers who wanted to join Art. Two of them were single men who wanted to join the patrol team as soldiers, and the other three were bankrupt farmers. Although they had families, their children were already over ten years old, meeting Art's basic requirements for recruiting fort residents.
It turned out that at the "banquet" outside Kazak's shack, some labor brothers who listened to Kazak's talk about the treatment of the patrol and life in the wooden castle in the valley expressed their hope that Kazak would recommend him to join the patrol or move their families to the wooden castle in the valley to cultivate the land. Kazak, who knew Art's conditions for recruiting soldiers and refugees, did a primary election in the shack area, and the five of them were the ones initially selected by Kazak. Kazak knew that Art needed to recruit people, but he couldn't guarantee that these five people would be selected, and he would not take the decision in such a matter, so he simply brought the five of them to Art for selection.
After listening to Kazak's report, Art personally spoke to several people and directly decided to accept these five people. However, Art still explained to the five people, especially the two lonely men who were going to join the patrol team, the possible dangers they would encounter and his request to obey his orders honestly. All five people resolutely agreed.
So Art asked a few people to go back and prepare to go south, and they would meet at the south gate of the city two days later in the morning.
Everyone in the hotel was singing and laughing.
The next day, after Kazak returned from staying in the shack for a night, Art took the two of them to a quarry three miles north of Lucese on horseback. Yesterday, when he learned from William that there was a quarry under the name of Serankov Monastery that was about to change hands, Art made up his mind to recruit a group of soldiers from the miners here to supplement the patrol.
Yate knew that the miners in these stone fields were engaged in heavy labor all year round, and their bodies were naturally strong. Moreover, mining stones was different from plowing the fields. The miners needed to follow the direction of the mine head to pound and lift the stones together. They needed to coordinate with each other, have a certain sense of teamwork, and it was easier to execute orders.
All in all, miners are definitely a high-quality source of soldiers.
"Sir, can we just go to the quarry to recruit soldiers? Most of the miners in the monastery quarry are slaves, prisoners of war and hard labor prisoners. Most of these people are mining slaves. They cannot leave the quarry at will without the permission of the mine owner. We have not consulted Bishop Olof. "It's important to note that those mine owners and managers are not easy to deal with. They won't let us poach those miners. And most of the free miners also work as masons. Their status and salary are not low, so they probably won't leave with us." Kazak has been in contact with those miners in Lucese and naturally has some understanding of the situation in the quarry.
Matt replied with a good chance: "If we go there to poach those miners in normal times, the mine manager and the manager will certainly not agree, but now the quarry is about to change its owner, and the new owner will definitely not use the original mine manager and manager, and they can't continue to serve anyway. As long as they can give some sweetness, they don't care if someone comes to poach their miners."
Kazak thought about it carefully and felt that it made sense.
There was a small tavern in the town. Several people tied their horses and entered the tavern. They called the owner and asked: "Man, do you know that the steward of the quarry is at home?"
The shopkeeper saw that Art and the others were preparing their swords vigorously, and they were definitely not ordinary civilians. He replied respectfully: "Sir, the steward is going to the quarry now and will not be back for a while." Let’s invite the steward and say he’s sent by Bishop Olof.” Art then took out fifteen copper pfennigs from his purse and handed them to the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper agreed with a smile on his face, turned around and ordered the bartender to prepare food and drinks, and he ran all the way to the quarry in the north of the town.
After a while, the quarry steward arrived at the inn under the guidance of the owner.
After entering the wooden door of the small hotel, the manager of the stone yard saw that the people sitting around the wooden table were all strangers, so he paused before entering.
When At saw the shopkeeper ushering in a middle-aged man wearing a tight-fitting coat with an open-breasted shawl, stockings, boots, and a sheepskin hat, he stood up and greeted him.
The manager of the stone yard quickly took off his hat and saluted, and followed Art to his seat.
The steward stared at Art and asked: "Your Excellency, I have never seen you, are you not from Serenkov Monastery?"
I am the former religious guard of Bishop Olof. I came here to ask you something."
"Religious guard? Do you have anything to ask me?" The steward of the quarry looked confused.
Matt did not answer hastily, but picked up the wine can on the wooden table and poured a full glass of beer into the quarry steward's cup, then filled his own cup, and said slowly: "Master Steward, I heard that this quarry is about to be sold to a noble in the palace, right?"
"Your Excellency, if you have anything to say, just tell me. I don't like chattering."
At took a sip from his wine glass and said, "Master Steward, I want to buy someone from you."
管事疑惑不解，「买人？阁下是想买矿工？您也有采石场？」
「实不相瞒，我现在是宫廷南境巡境官，负责维护For the security of the southern border, I need to recruit a group of people who are not afraid of death and will definitely obey my orders to go with me to the south to clean up the mountain bandits. "
The manager was relieved. He thought it was the monastery who sent people to check the accounts of the quarry. If they came to buy people, he would not care. Anyway, he already knew that he could not continue to manage the quarry. As long as there was not a large-scale exodus and the loss of a few miners, they would not care.
"Sir Inspector, you will find someone. However, the monastery gave me the management of the quarry, and it is my duty to hand it over to the new owner intact." The steward said and drank the wine in one gulp.
At clinked the wooden cup with the wooden cup in the steward's hand, and then said: "The new owner of the quarry will not reward you for having too many miners, but I will thank you for having fewer miners in your hands..."
The words have been said, what follows Things were much easier to handle. Art temporarily selected a group of miners from the quarry to serve as laborers and guards on the pretext of organizing a caravan for Bishop Orlov to the south to purchase materials needed to rebuild the church. For each miner he picked, he paid the steward fifty pfennigs. As for how to explain to the new owner of the quarry in the future, that was left to the steward himself.