Chapter 57. Letters of distress
Chapter 57 The Letter of Distress
Since some columns of agricultural decrees were published, Paul Gleiman lived a busy and fulfilling life every day, in addition to reviewing the reports on the construction of agricultural associations sent by the affairs officers from all over the world every day, he also rode his horse from time to time to inspect the villages near the town of Lakeshore.
A letter broke his life, which came from the Lord of Bairdine, Myron Garnard, who was also his “young friend”.
The letter was written on a new type of paper produced by Alda, and Paul touched the letter, secretly pleased that the paper he had “invented” had gradually entered people’s lives.
At first, the content of the inside does not seem to be much, nothing more than a warm greeting, and then say some interesting things that have happened recently in their own territory, only some phrases are not very fluent, so that Paul to see is a toothache.
“Really, if you don’t know it, you’d think it was written by a child who just started learning.”
Lord Earl shook his head and spat at this childhood friend without mercy.
Wait a minute, Paul thought about it, in his memory, the two of them had also passed letters in the past, it seems that that guy’s writing ability is not this bad ah.
Unless, of course, that was the case ……
He ran back to his bedroom and started rummaging through the box, and after a bit of work, he finally found what he remembered; it was a box, and when he opened it, it contained several thin pieces of wood, which, somewhat unusually, were hollowed out with small rectangular holes arranged in an irregular pattern.
This was the “secret word” he had agreed to with Myron, used to hide some small secrets in the letters that could only be shared between the two of them.
For example, “I got my ass slapped again last night, father is a big bad guy”, “I secretly poured out the butler’s wine, it’s funny to see the look on his face when he saw a ghost”, “I saw father touching the maid’s ass today! “, and so on and so forth things that would end badly if the parents saw them.
Whenever you write a secret letter, you first lay the wood slice on the paper, fill in the hollowed out area with the word you want to write, then remove the wood slice and fill in the remaining blank space with other words to make up a plain letter text.
Because of this, though, the combined sentences are a little less smooth, or sometimes the context doesn’t say the same thing, and it looks a little puzzling to other people.
In order to prevent writing in the same place more often than not from being recognized, the two men made a number of these thin pieces of wood, each with a different arrangement of small hollowed-out holes on them in the same set.
The party writing the letter randomly chooses a piece to use, the party receiving the letter will have to cover one by one to the letter paper to read, until the reading of a smooth statement.
“The candlestick …… flew up …… the river …… and it doesn’t look like this piece.”
“The steward …… knight fell …… into a fire …… and this piece is not either.”
“Tasty tasty …… mouse …… fell in the ditch …… try another.”
Paul took out the pieces of wood in the box and put them one by one on the letter paper to try to decipher the secret message, the first 9 times he didn’t see it, finally when he covered the 10th piece of wood, a sentence with a very fluent first half showed up:
“I overheard the steward talking to them, father was killed, now they’re going to do it to me, help, ……” The words in the second half of the sentence are just a jumble.
The horrific information leaking out of the secret message took Paul by surprise, and just in case it was a misunderstanding, he tried each of the remaining pieces of wood one by one on the letterhead, but none of the words read together were as smooth as the one he had just read.
Paul’s heart sank for a moment, it looked as if his friend was caught up in a conspiracy that was life-threatening enough.
“Father was killed”, is not it Hansel used to warn himself “old Garnard lost his footing and fell into the water”? At that time, he suspected that it was a conspiracy, because Old Garnard’s reforms had touched the interests of the bannermen, and there was a high probability that they would join together to take down his lordship.
Now that Old Garnard’s son had overheard the conspirators’ conversation, the matter was considered to be solid.
So now the question came, the other party sent a letter of distress, one’s own whether to save it, or not, the Earl Lord fell into the left and right in the dilemma.
On the one hand, after recovering the memories of the other world, although he is a bit indifferent to the interpersonal relationships before awakening his memories, but not so indifferent to the point that he ignored his friend’s difficulties, remembering the scene of the two playing together when they were young is quite touching.
On the other hand, now his territory is in the period of reform has just begun, the industry has just started, outside matters he really do not want to get involved.
There is another reason, Garnard is not a sinful family like Gleiman, under the rule of Baildin is a real earl’s domain, there are five vassals: two viscounts and three barons, if these guys are all involved in the conspiracy, and he ventured out to save people, they join together and fight with themselves, can they beat it?
It is better to find out the situation first, Paul walked out of the bedroom, summoned a servant and ordered: “Have Chief Steward Hansel come to see me, quickly!”
……
Butua, the capital of Baildin, a man slowly paced into a tavern, sat down on his butt at the bar, and called out, “Boss, a mug of ale.”
The tavern owner took a clean cup, went to the cask and filled it to the brim, placing it in front of the guest and greeting him, “Enjoy.” After a few mouthfuls of wine, the guest and the owner chatted about the sky, from the pirate invasion in the west all the way to the frontier ministers’ rebellion in the south.
When he was refilling his second cup, he inadvertently asked, “You don’t seem to have any pirates here, why are there so many soldiers on the streets?”
The tavern owner casually replied, “You’re from out of town, aren’t you? Several of the barons and viscounts of Baildin gather here, and the streets are filled with their private soldiers.”
“Has something big happened?”
“All the soldiers under Count Little Garnard have been dragged south to crush the rebels by men sent by the crown, and his bannermen say they’re here to guard the lord’s security and keep the peace in Butua. Humph!”
That last “humph” made him raise his interest, it looked like things weren’t simple, so he asked the tavern owner in a low voice, “Listening to your tone, could it be that there’s something to hide?”
The tavern owner glanced at him and didn’t answer.
The guest dipped his hand into his shirt pocket, gently slapped it on the table, and shouted, “Settle the bill!”
When he removed his hand, the table was left with a single coin, which, if it had been a copper coin, would have been nowhere near enough to pay for two mugs of ale, but the point was – it was a silver coin.
The owner looked around, at this point in the tavern there were only two other customers sitting in a corner on one side drinking to each other and wouldn’t notice this place, he put the silver coin away with great speed.
The guest sitting at the bar got up to leave, but he heard the tavern owner say, “I still have my own home-brewed beer here, so why don’t your guests enjoy a few more cups?”
The corners of the guest’s mouth rose slightly as he resumed his seat, “Then I’ll try your special brewed beer again! Come back next time if it’s good.” He tapped his right hand gently on the bar table top, visible between his fingers, and underneath was another silver coin.
The tavern owner went to fill up double the beer and brought it over, the guest continued to press his right hand down on the tabletop and picked up the glass with his left hand and drank from it.
Only to hear the owner lower his voice and whisper, “Did you hear about what happened to old Count Garnard a few years ago? To confiscate the bannermen’s territories and offended a bunch of his men.”
He nodded his head to show that he knew.
“Then the Earl fell into the water and drowned, but the death was too strange, at least I knew that the Earl-sama had been extremely good at water since he was a child.”
The guest was surprised and asked in a low voice, “So it was his bannermen who killed him?”
The boss immediately shook his head, “That’s your own guess, I didn’t say that.”
The guest asked again, “And then what? What does this have to do with the private soldiers on the street?”
The tavern owner once again checked the surroundings to see if anyone had noticed this way.
“After the old earl died, his son, Young Master Myron, inherited the title. But after that, this young earl didn’t go out much, and a child who used to be so outgoing, and who used to go to Alda to play with the young master of the Greiman family, inexplicably became a deep dweller.”
The guest took a small sip of wine while listening to the tavern owner continue, “The few bannermen now gathered in Butua are all relatives of the Garnard family, and the old earl has only one son, and none of the soldiers under him are around.” And then it went no further.
The guest put down his cup and asked, “If something happens to young Garnard as well, does the title fall into the hands of one of the bannermen?”
The tavern owner smiled and said, “That’s still your guess, that’s all I know.”
After lifting his glass and gulping down the rest of the wine, the guest drew back his right hand, leaving the gleaming silver coin underneath on the bar table.
“Your beer here is excellent, I’ll be back next time!”
He said so while walking out of the tavern in no hurry.
Today, I went outside for a half-day meeting, so I can only do one more chapter, so please bear with me.
(End of chapter)