Chương 223: 220. Medicine

"This is a medicine..." Feroy explained, pointing at the reddish powder inside the folded leaf, "something which will heal your child. Just give a small pinch of the powder inside these leaves to your son with some water, twice a day. You will see improvements by this evening, and your son should hopefully be fine in a few days."

"This... is this witchcraft?" the man asked with fear, before he looked down.

"It doesn't matter though... I will take any chance I need to save my child's life."

"There is no such thing as witchcraft!" Tesyb gave the answer. The man still looked reluctant.

"What is it even made of?" Tesyb was going to tell that it was somehow made from losuvil, even though he had no idea how Lord Kivamus had managed to turn the leaves into the reddish powder, but Feroy put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. The ex-mercenary looked at the other man.

"I don't know the full details about that, but I can guarantee that I have seen it work wonders on people who are sick. This medicine is only made in Tiranat, where a lot of people are already migrating to find work and housing - including free housing for those who can't afford it and free food for those who are unable to work - whether through sickness or injury. Nobody goes to sleep on an empty stomach in Tiranat, nor does anyone have to brave the cold nights in the open. Not anymore."

The man's eyebrows seemed to have vanished into his hairline.

"Free food... and free housing..." He shook his head, before looking at them in wonder.

"That sounds... impossible!" Feroy shrugged.

"I'm not lying about anything to you, and you are free to come to Tiranat and check it out yourself. Anyway, we need to leave now. Just follow my instructions, and your son will start running around in a couple of days." The ex-mercenary reached into another pocket and brought out some more biscuits and dried meat and provided it to the man.

"This should help you to feed your son for a while." The man just stared at them for a moment before he gave a thankful nod.

"I will do exactly as you say. If my son survives, I will be in your debt for life!"

"No need for that," Feroy assured him.

"I hope the Goddess saves your son's life - with this medicine's power, of course." With that, they turned around, and started walking back towards their wagon.

"I didn't know you had brought that... medicine with you," Tesyb commented. Feroy shrugged.

"I already told you that I had a second mission given to me by Lord Kivamus."

"So that's why you were out for most of the night yesterday..." Tesyb muttered.

"Why didn't you give some of our smoked fish to the man?"

"That's different," Feroy replied.

"It is our job to buy as much smoked fish as we can at the lowest price, and we can't take anything from that to give to locals. What I gave to the man was from our own share of the food rations. That is ours to use as we wish, even though I believe Lord Kivamus would have understood if we had to use some smoked fish for the second mission he gave me." Tesyb nodded understandingly, as they climbed the seats on their wagon. Their wagons began moving again until they reached the guards at the eastern gate.

Feroy talked with them for a while to explain that he had already paid the exit taxes, but they didn't believe him. The young master hadn't provided them an escort to explain it to the guards after all, probably because he knew that he had been fooled so expertly by Feroy. Eventually, one of the guards on watch duty mounted his horse and rode towards the south to confirm it from someone at the baron's manor.

It took a while for him to return, but eventually the guards at watch duty grudgingly accepted that the taxes had already been paid. Tesyb even heard them grumbling about the young master taking an opportunity to earn some coin from them. Finally, the wagons started moving again, and they exited the village of Kirnos from the eastern gates.

Once they were far enough away from the gates that the gate guards couldn't see them anymore, Feroy saw a path going towards north between two farms, and ordered them to turn their wagons around before they started travelling towards the north-west. Eventually they reached the path exiting Kirnos from the north, and waited for a while until the merchant and his guards found them on their horses.

The merchant began complaining once again about the greedy guards and the predatory nobles, but he looked glad to see that they had arrived there. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. They kept travelling north with them for probably close to an hour before he saw a few huts in the distance.

Soon they stopped near the huts which he found to be smokehouses - just like the one Lord Kivamus had made recently in Tiranat - and the merchant began talking to the workers who were already there to load up all the fish which had already been smoked into waiting barrels. Feroy jumped down from the wagon to talk to the merchant, while the other guards also helped in loading the fish.

Once everything had been loaded and both of their wagons were full and covered with an oilcloth tied over the wagon beds, Feroy gave a wave to the merchant, and they turned their wagon back to the path they had come from, so they could return to their homes through the road going east. Being very curious by now, Tesyb looked at the ex-mercenary who was sitting next to him on the seat.

"Why did we load fish here? What about the taxes for this sale? Wouldn't the baron's guards find out about it? How did the merchant even agree to give you anything on credit?"

"Calm down," Feroy said, "I'll explain everything. The baron's guards rarely come here because they don't suspect the merchant of selling smoked fish right here. Who will buy it from him here in the forest?" He snorted, "Certainly not the bears and adzees living here! The locals don't buy any smoked fish anyway, so it is sold to visiting ships which can only dock inside Kirnos near the marketplace, like you saw yesterday.

Anyway, by exiting from the east the guards wouldn't suspect us of going to meet the merchant at his smokehouses. They would believe we were going directly towards Tiranat, but this way, the merchant avoided the taxes he needs to pay on every sale, and in return he gave a good discount to us."

"That's... genius!" Tesyb exclaimed. Feroy chuckled.

"As for giving us a wagon load of fish on credit, let's just say we found a common ground after both of us had been extorted by the young master. I have made a deal with him to return here by the time winter ends, when we will pay the pending amount to him, and will load up any more fish he has smoked by then by directly coming to his smokehouses.

We will still have to enter the village to sell any coal, and for that we'll also have to pay the entry and exit taxes, but it still benefits us because the taxes which the merchant doesn't have to give to the baron, he passes to us as a discount, while he's also glad that he can fool the young master in a way Lanidas or the baron would never find out.

Anyway, there aren't that many cargo ships coming here these days to buy fish, so he was more than happy to have found a regular customer in us, so taking a small risk and giving us some fish on credit was just him extending goodwill to us."

"This trip has gone much better than I thought..." Tesyb said with a grin.

"I can't wait to reach Tiranat and tell Lord Kivamus about it!"

"It is very much possible that the young master Lanidas will increase the entry taxes for us a lot more when we come here the next time," Feroy explained.

"He doesn't seem like a guy who will accept defeat too easily, and it might very well make it impractical to sell coal here, but it's still possible that Baron Farodas will prevent him from doing anything like that so the rest of the merchants don't rise up against him. He did seem like a man who wouldn't like to lose face by denying his son's promise to buy more coal from us." He shrugged, "Well, only time will tell how it goes."

Tesyb nodded in understanding as they finally reached the road connecting Kirnos to Tiranat, before resuming their journey towards their home village.

~ Kivamus ~ In the evening of the first day of the new year, Kivamus had just exited the manor hall and was going towards the training ground where the feast was held yesterday night. It had started snowing again, and this time it didn't seem like it would stop any time soon. Still, he wanted to take a look around the manor, so he had decided to go outside despite the snowfall, his fur coat being invaluable in this weather.

Hudan and Duvas were walking alongside him, while Gorsazo had gone to teach in the longhouse blocks at this time. Reaching close to the training ground, he saw with satisfaction that Yufim - who was their best archer - was teaching other guards and even the manor servants and grooms about archery.

By now, they had nearly a dozen warbows in the manor - compared to just two of them when he had arrived in this village - which meant they could provide two of them to each of the hunting groups, while still retaining enough in the manor for use in an emergency like a bandit raid or wild beast attack. That's why Hudan had ordered Yufim to use any free time between his hunting trips to teach any interested manor residents about how to shoot an arrow better.

It would take a long time for anyone to become competent in it - if they ever did that at all - but that wasn't his target anyway, especially since they were going to have a lot more crossbows in the future. All they needed was to make sure that if it came to the worst, even the other manor residents would be able to help out any frontline swordsmen and spearman from a distance in a battle - just in case.

It was also easy to see that all the manor guards were quite fit now after more than two months of regular training by Hudan. Kivamus had also seen such effects in his own body, and perhaps even the start of some muscles, since he was also spending some time training with the guards. The original Kivamus likely never had seen any muscles in his flabby body anyway.

However, despite trying to learn swordsmanship from Hudan with a wooden sword everyday, that was something that simply didn't come naturally to him no matter how much he tried, and he wasn't sure if he would ever become competent in it. He sighed. Ah, well, it probably didn't matter. Once they had enough crossbows in the manor, he would probably keep one of them for himself, and he would be a far better shot with that instead of using his weak sword fighting skill in case he had to fend for himself.

Looking to the right side of the training ground, he saw the maid Leah walking towards the servants' hall. Being curious about how her disagreement with Madam Nerida was resolved, he asked Duvas about it.