Chương 216: 213. Bargaining

Tesyb gazed around the snow covered dirt path while the horses kept pulling the wagons. Since the past hour or so, the scenery around them had changed completely.

For most of the journey from Tiranat, the path they had been following was just a clear track of ground between the leafless trees of the forest which surrounded them on both sides, but as they had reached closer to Kirnos, they had started to see some small farms on the sides of the path, until eventually they were passing between huge farms on both sides of the road.

Of course, right now all those farms were completely covered by a few inches of snow, but it wasn't difficult to recognise that they were cultivated lands from the scarecrows and the hedges surrounding them. This was the first time Tesyb was going to Kirnos, so he wondered how his life would have been in Tiranat in the past if it also had farms like this around the village. Maybe the villagers wouldn't have been so close to starvation in that case?

Nobody could tell the answer to that, but at least Lord Kivamus had made plans for that in the future. He did know that Tiranat was only founded less than two decades ago when the coal mines had been discovered there, but Kirnos was a long established village, and people had been living there for who knew how long. So it probably wasn't surprising that they had so many farms near the village.

Even though Kirnos was located on the coast and had access to fish all the year-round, they still needed to eat grain, and it would have been too difficult for them to buy wheat from anywhere else if they didn't grow it right here, since in his knowledge, the only other major habitation that Kirnos was connected to by road was Tiranat, which didn't have any farms at all, not to mention it didn't even exist two decades ago.

There was certainly the option to buy wheat from any visiting ships which might be coming south from Ulriga, but that would increase the prices a lot, making it too costly for anyone but the baron. Suddenly he heard some unknown sounds which he couldn't recognise the source of. Looking around, he saw that there was nothing close to the wagon which could be making that weird sound, and it was too loud for that anyway. Somehow, it felt like the sound was coming from everywhere around him.

"What is that sound?" he muttered.

"Hmm...?" Feroy looked at him.

"You mean the sound of waves? It's the Dujtaar Ocean ahead of us, which surrounds Cilaria in the west."

"Oh..." Tesyb mumbled. So that was how the seas sounded like... He certainly hadn't heard that unique sound before in his life. There was even the loud squawking of some kind of birds, whose silhouette he could see far in the distance towards the sun. His father Pinoto had told him that he would get to see a lot of seagulls at the coast, so these must be those birds. Soon, they passed a bend in the road, and he saw the first sight of their destination. They had finally arrived at the coastal village of Kirnos.

As they reached closer, he saw that there was a decent sized palisade wall surrounding the village - probably the same height as that around the baron's manor in Tiranat. That must be invaluable in defending Kirnos in case of a bandit raid or a wild beast attack. Of course, it wouldn't be long before Tiranat would be completely surrounded by a palisade wall too, once all the gates had been built - and those new walls were at least half again as high as these were, making Tiranat much better protected.

However, neither of those walls could compare to the mighty stone walls of Cinran, which had been built for protection from Binpaazi raids in case of war, and a simple wooden palisade would do nothing against them. When he had gone to Cinran in the past with the merchant Pydaso, he had seen that there was always a steady stream of wagons, horsemen or even farmers from nearby areas walking on foot to the gates, but here in Kirnos, there was nearly nobody visible outside the gates.

He had already seen that the farms were covered by snow, which meant the local farmers wouldn't have any reason to go outside from this gate, but there still should have been at least a few people here... He slowed down the horses as they approached the village while contemplating about it. Before long, they had reached the tall wooden gates, which were open at this time since it wasn't dark yet, and Feroy gestured to him to stop the wagon.

Pulling up the reins, Tesyb followed the order, noticing from the corner of his eyes that the second wagon had also stopped behind them. There were two fat guards wearing fur coats who were lazily sitting on a bench just inside the open gates. Noticing the newcomers, one of them stood up and slowly walked towards them, with the other not even caring enough to stand up while he gazed at them with a wicked glint in his eyes.

"Hol' up right there!" the standing guard drawled, as he squinted at them in the light of the setting sun, which had dipped behind the walls by now.

"Haven't seen the two of ya before... Where ya coming from?" You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Tesyb kept quiet as he had been instructed by Feroy earlier, and let him give the answer.

"We're from Tiranat - in the east," the ex-mercenary replied with a jerk of his thumb in the direction.

"Been a while since we'd wagons coming from that pitiful village..." the sitting guard commented. Feroy stared at the guards.

"Why would you think it's pitiful?" The standing guard frowned.

"Didn't ya all get raided by bandits a few months ago?" Feroy tilted his head to the side.

"How would you even know about that?" Tesyb noticed from the corner of his eyes that Feroy had very gently moved his hand to his side, right where he had kept his sword next to him on the wagon seat. If he wasn't paying attention to the ex-mercenary, he was pretty sure even he would have missed the action. That meant the guard wouldn't have any idea about that either. Following his lead, Tesyb did the same, just in case. The standing guard shrugged.

"Jus' heard rumors, is all."

"How would you have heard about any rumours about Tiranat," Feroy inquired, "if like you just said, no wagons have come from the east in months." The standing guard frowned and looked at the other fat guard who had been sitting for all this time.

"Where'd ya hear about it?" The sitting guard tilted his towards the inside of the village.

"From a pottery merchant in the marketplace, I think. Not sure about it though, it's been a while." Feroy just glanced at Tesyb for a moment, and he understood what must be going on in the ex-mercenary's mind. By now he had also heard from the other guards in Tiranat that Torhan's group - which owned a clay mine somewhere to the north of Kirnos - was the one which had raided and burned half the village including his own home before Lord kivamus had arrived.

If that bandit group mined clay, and needed to sell it in Kirnos, then a local pottery merchant would be the best place for it. They still didn't know where Nokozal had run off to after his own raid on Tiranat had failed, since he could also have told the local merchants about it, but the guard had said that it had been a while since he had heard that rumour. That confirmed their earlier suspicions that Torhan's group had regular dealings in this village.

They would have to be on their toes while inside the walls of Kirnos. Who knew just how much influence that bastard Torhan had in this village.

"Anyway, what are ya here for?" the standing guard asked while gazing greedily at their wagons. Then he looked at the ex-mercenary.

"Ya don't look like a merchant though..." Feroy gave a lazy shrug.

"Oh, I've been around... buying and selling stuff. You might as well call me a merchant." Tesyb had a sudden pang of unease, remembering just whom he was sitting next to. While the guards in front of them wouldn't have gotten the reference, he was quite sure that by that sentence, Feroy meant taking money and attacking and killing people in return as a mercenary. He was as far from being a simple coal merchant as anyone could be. Then Feroy shrugged.

"We are here to sell coal, of course. What else does Tiranat have worth selling anyway..." The local guards snickered at that, before the standing one added, "I get ya, man. Like I said, Tiranat's a pitiful village, after all." Then he grinned at his partner before looking back at them.

"Either way, ya do know there is a tax for outside merchants entering the village, don't ya? The baron needs four silvers of taxes from every outside merchant at his entry, and double that at his exit." Immediately, the sitting guard interrupted with a raised eyebrow, "Did ya forget, ya fatso? He'd added an extra two silvers to it just last week..." The standing guard grinned while rubbing his palms together - which Tesyb was quite sure wasn't because of the cold - before he looked back at them.

"Oh... of course, of course. How did I forget about that..." He gazed directly at Feroy.

"It'll be six silvers for ya all to enter Kirnos, and another twelve when you exit."

"That's too much!" Teysb exclaimed, before a single glare from Feroy reminded him that he was supposed to keep quiet. Still, the guards really were asking for too much. Even if they managed to sell their whole cargo of two wagon loads of coal - which was far from guaranteed - they would get around twenty-three golds in total. If they were real merchants instead of guards doing the tasks of their baron, they would expect less than two golds of profit from this trip at most, which was just fifteen to twenty silver.

This border tax was extortionate, even without the bribe being asked by the guards. However, he had forgotten just who was sitting next to him. He continued watching the haggling with a frown, as Feroy shook his head in total dejection, perfectly playing the role of a trader who was down on his luck.

"You are killing me here, man... and you know it! How would a poor merchant like me from such a pitiful village even have that much coin to spare...? Even if I manage to sell all my stock, my profits would still be lower than what you are asking as taxes." Tesyb knew that it wasn't quite true, but he kept quiet and didn't interrupt Feroy, who gave a visible sigh before adding, "I might as well turn back right now, in that case. I'll still be saving money that way..."