Chapter 1265: A knight of princes and kings(3)
Chapter 1265: A knight of princes and kings(3)
Vilon took another slow sip of the sweet sheep’s milk, a strange, profound respect quietizing his cynical heart. This last half-year on the campaign trail had been far more revealing for him than the entirety of his previous seventeen years on this earth.
Safe highways completely free of banditry, bustling roads lined with inns open for business, passing merchants with wagons overflowing with goods, and quiet valley villages equipped with brand-new iron tools and thriving herds.
He paused for a moment, letting his wooden spoon rest against the rim of his bowl as he took it all in. This was an undeniably beautiful place to live. Having spent his youth on the road, he had seen pretty much all there was to see of the world’s misery. He had seen enough villages struck by hollow-cheeked hunger, plagued and blackmailed by vicious bandits who would take women and children hostage in exchange for food and a place to hide from the royal patrolling parties.
Once, he had even watched from a distance a village with half the houses in a settlement on fire. Later, his father had grunted the truth over the camp and the usal late at night ale: the smallfolk hadn’t been able to pay the heavy summer tithe to their lord because a harsh spring frost had ruined the crops.
They couldn’t pay their rent , so their lord forced half of them to sleep on the ground.
Would the crown do the same here?
"What if you cannot pay the loan?" Vilon asked absentmindedly, the dark memory slipping past his lips before he could stop it. Realizing too late the bleak shadow he had cast over the pleasant dinner table, he flushed. "I apologize, I should not speak of such—"
"That’s quite all right, Ser," Owen’s mother said softly, her voice missing the usual defensive edge she had earlier.Owen had spoke enough of him to his mother for this change "It is always a genuine possibility, admittedly. Weaver be merciful, we won’t ever need to worry about that."
"But what if it does happen?" He pressed on.
"Well, nothing too terrible, from what they explained," she said, setting down her loaf of bread. "They would simply take back what we originally borrowed and keep the money we paid until then. There is also an alternative system of payment where we can choose to settle our accounts in lambs instead of silver coin, which is highly convenient in our particular case, we already got two hews pregnant.
Now, if we are entirely unable to give them the animals, say, if a terrible winter forced us to butcher them, or if the iron tools broke and were lost in the case of others, then we would have to pay the debt through labor."
"Labor?" Viron’s brow furrowed, his grip tightening on his cup. "I thought the Prince outlawed slavery."
"Oh, he did. Debt-slavery by bondage is illegal now, as are those ungodly flesh-sellers who used to crawl through the valley during the lean winter months with their long line of slaves carrying beind, usually children.
It’s been six years since I last saw one of those monsters," she said with a shudder. "May the Gods judge them justly.Now, they say only foreign captives can be held in chains, though I have yet to see any of that too. In our case, we wouldn’t be slaves at all.
We would simply have to send one able-bodied member of the family to work for the crown in the capital. Usually, they use them as shit-backs or for clearing heavy rocks and breaking fields for the new settlers. That, however, is a rare tragedy. You have to entirely forgo your payments for at least two consecutive years before they sends for the guards, and even then, the payments are of little weight, provided your village is still able to pay its regular taxes.Usually if you can’t pay them back, you have other more serious things to worry about.Like starving"
She smiled, a resilient look returning to her weathered face. "Luckily, there is always a ravenous market for grain in the capital, so there is always a coin to be found if the gods are good. Especially when it comes to wool. They said wool is in higher demand in the city than it has ever been."
"Especially for wool hats," Owen’s older brother mumbled around a mouthful of porridge, proudly tapping the rim of his own headwear with his spoon. "They say all rich folks and wealthy merchants in the capital are wearing them now to keep the chill out of their delicate ears."
"Well, no need to worry about that anymore, Mama," Owen muttered, a grin breaking across his face that was broad enough to split a mountain right in two.
His mother looked at him with a mixture of deep affection and tiredness, clearly bracing herself for whatever bizarre assertion was about to tumble out of her son’s mouth next.
What she absolutely did not expect, however, was the heavy leather sack that Owen suddenly pulled from his belt and dropped onto the wooden table with a loud, metallic clunk.
"They gave me coin before letting us head home," Owen said, his chest puffing out so far it practically strained the leather straps of his jerkin.
For one he was the house provider.
His mother’s hands trembled slightly as she pulled the drawstring open, peering into the dark interior of the pouch.Owen’s brother and sister shoved each other to take a glimpse.
Owen eagerly watched them, though his proud expression faltered for a fraction of a second as he struggled to remember his numbers. "Ser Vilon said that I had earned... I had earned..." He turned his head toward the knight, silently begging for assistance.
Vilon calmly wiped his mouth with the back of his dark sleeve, leaning back slightly from the table. "Thirteen silverii and fifteen bronzii," the knight supplied, his voice grounding the room.
Truthfully, Vilon didn’t entirely know if that was considered a modest sum or a king’s ransom for a footman’s share of war loot; this had been his first proper war as well, after all. But judging by the whispered, envious talk around the campfire lines during the long march back, it was an exceptionally good haul.Though it probably paled in comparison to the danger they had faced during the campaign.
A chill fell over the small cottage, so sharp it could cut hair. Owen’s family stared at the open sack, their mouths hanging so wide you could have easily shoved a whole egg inside each of them without touching their teeth.
"Thirteen silverii..." Marila whispered, her eyes fixed on the dull glint of the metal as if she were staring at a dragon’s hoard.
"By the five gods, Owen," his mother breathed, her voice barely a squeak as she looked up from the pouch. "How exactly did you come by this? You didn’t... you didn’t rob a church, did you?"
"Nay, mama. Before the host turned north, men in armor told me to march myself over to a grand pavilion tent. Someone then asked me my name, my father’s name, and my village. Then, he grabbed my hand and made me press my thumb down into some thick black ink until my skin turned dark. The moment the ink was dry, he tossed me this sack and told me to move along. I only spent a few of the bronzii on the road to buy us some dried beef, and we ate some exceptionally good apples from an orchard near the mill’s daughter..."
"We borrowed eleven silverii to buy the sheep," his mother muttered, her fingers tracing the edge of the table as she tried to make sense of the math. "Eleven silverii, to be repaid across eight long years of harvest..."
She scratched her head, still utterly unable to believe the reality of what she was looking at. But as the shock began to fade,Vilon swore that a sudden, heavy wave of guilt washed over her weathered features, her eyes darkening as she looked down at the table.
Queer, Vilon thought, his sharp eyes tracking the sudden shift in her posture. She ought to have been ecstatic, dancing around the hearth to see her boy returned whole from the slaughterhouse with enough wealth to wipe out their debts in a single afternoon. Instead, she looked entirely stricken.
"Mama?" Owen asked, his enthusiastic grin faltering as he noticed her dropped expression. "What’s wrong? Isn’t it enough?"
"It’s more than enough, my sweet bear," she whispered, her voice cracking as she reached out and took his massive, calloused hand in hers. "It’s just... when you marched away down that road with the recruiters, your brother and I... we wept for three nights."
"Wept?" Owen blinked, his thick brow furrowing in genuine confusion. "Why would you cry, Mama?"
"Yes... wept," she recovered quickly, smoothing down her apron with a watery, overly bright smile that wouldn’t have fooled a blind man. "We were just... happy for you, Owen. So incredibly happy that you went off to serve the crown."
"Oh, Mama," Owen beamed, completely swallowing the transparent lie as he squeezed her hand back with enough force to make her knuckles turn white. "I was happy too! Even more so now that I am back home. And even more for what’s coming next."
He turned his massive head toward Vilon, finally dropping the elephant he had been dragging into the kitchen all afternoon. He pointed a proud, blocky finger at the man in armor
"I am going to be his squire, Mama! I am going to serve a real knight. I’ll tend to his destrier, polish his armor, and when the time is due, I am going to become a dubbed knight myself! I am going to ride in grand tournaments, wear steel, and gallop across fields!People will call me ser and take off in bow when I pass."
Vilon watched the woman’s face closely, bracing for the inevitable waterworks. Instead it was a plain face that welcomed him.
Owen’s mother froze. The warm, maternal glow vanished from her eyes, replaced by a pale, rigid look of horror.
Based on her expression, Owen could have just proudly admitted to marrying a notorious lady of the evening, bringing her home to live in the attic, and selling the new sheep to pay for the wedding, and she likely would have looked significantly more pleased than she were now.