Chapter 9: Young People

We waited inside a stone hall for Jill's reception

The decoration here is simple, except for a few rows of benches against the wall, it looks like a village church, and a few oil lamps have fallen from the ceiling, but now it is not lit, and the only light comes from a row of long windows in the stone wall, and the light from these windows hits the ground evenly, and the ground is a number of diamond-shaped stone bricks, which cover the whole floor

At the end of the hall was Jill's room, with a few pots of flowers and a dry pool of water in the doorway, and a shì stood in the doorway and watched us quietly, waiting for a call from within

Alexei was taking some contracts and the entire book of accounts from a Wen's hand, he carefully flipped through the documents, and talked to the Wen in a low voice, and they also found a few letters from a leather bag, Alexei carefully checked the hot paint on the letters, and symbolized a breath on it, in Vecchia, it is believed that blowing a breath before opening a letter will bring good luck

Ivan had been in for a long time, but it didn't seem to have the slightest intention of coming out

The bookkeeper of one of the Romanovs, who had come with the ship, was a little uncomfortable, and the chubby man was sweating even in this cool stone house, and he took out his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his head uneasily, and muttered that Jill was too inhospitable

In one of the side doors of the stone hall, I saw an open inner room with some heavy buntings, and I tried hard for a long time to recognize only some of the Zeda letters, and I did not see any of the Vikian letters, all of which were hung on some majestic spear heads, and under the flags were some wood-carved animals, such as eagles or lions

Curious, I slipped into the house, but Alexei didn't notice my movements, and continued to talk to the people around him

There is a wall with beautiful murals painted on it

I saw a picture of a cavalry fighting the enemy, and in the sky, God and the Virgin looked at the world fighting below with pity, and on another fresco, there was a noisy banquet in a corner of the feast, and a woman with silver wings was quietly on the side, and if I hadn't looked closely, I almost missed the woman

I was more impressed by the painting of the cavalry than the banquet

It was as if I could close my eyes and see the cavalry rushing across the shallows in bright armor, the hooves of the horses splashing in all directions, the roar of which was clearly audible

I was very pleased with the first two paintings, and then I walked to the third one

It's a small valley

The farmland in the valley floor is well regulated, the wheat fields spread out on both sides of the stream, the low stone walls and wooden poles and fences follow the path, the stone bridge crosses the blue stream, the colorful fallen flowers fall from the branches of the trees on both sides of the stream, and the shadows of the trees in the orchard are girls with baskets, these people are dressed in long clothes, dressed in white, playing in the woods, picking fruits, and on the other side of the picture, by a stone mill, a group of carpenters are grinding a few pieces of wood, and a dog sleeps on the ground in the sunlight, Two boys were about to wake it up with a basin of cold water, and a carriage was slowly climbing up the hill along a mountain path

At the top of the hillside, a castle sits there

The castle is serene, as clean as a white dove, and several slender blue flags flutter in the wind, and there are birds trying their wings in the wind, straight up to the sky

I suddenly felt trembling all over my body, and the painting made my eyes widen, as if I had been to this place

"This, this" I couldn't move as I looked at the mural

"Who are you?"

As I was in a daze, a voice came

I turned around and saw a tall, lanky young man with broad shoulders and a strong look

He had the pale blue eyes of the Nords, but his head was like a flame of red sè, and he would have looked handsome had it not been for his freckles and unkempt beard

"Why did you get here?" he walked up to me and looked at me condescendingly, "This place is usually not allowed to be entered"

"But you're coming in too," I said, staring at him

"Of course I can come here, I'm going to move things in," he said nonchalantly, then he looked up through the curtains, and when he saw Alexei's group, he suddenly patted his head, "Oh I should have thought you were here with those Wikibians"

I looked back and saw a group of people sitting boredly on the benches chatting, and the chubby bookkeeper opened a bag of watered wine and poured it into his mouth, as if it was too hot to be hot

"Yes" I noticed that the young man's attitude suddenly changed for the better after he noticed that I was a Wikibian, "I am a Wikibian"

"I know," his eyes twinkled, "I know you're going to the other side of the mountain, and my father is going to let me go, you know?" I'm going to go with you."

"Where to go?"

"Over the hill," he said with a smile, "come, come, I'll show you something," he said to me waving his hand

I looked back uneasily, worried that Alexei would be anxious when I was gone, so I perfunctorily said to the young man, "Didn't you say that you are not allowed to enter casually here?"

"It's okay, as long as it's not a hairy guy, you can visit here casually."

He led me into the room and asked about the Wiki people as he walked, and if I couldn't tell, he immediately jumped on to the next topic, never leaving me with nothing to say, but I was really struggling because my Wiki wasn't very good, and even if I could see it, the young man's Wiki wasn't very basic

He stacked the boxes on the side of the aisle, then kicked away the rags and pieces of wood that had been thrown on the floor, and I realized that the inner room was actually bigger than the long hall outside

"Damn, this place is a mess," he muttered, emphasizing in broken Wikibian dialect, "messed up like a Wikibian's head"

I touched the short on my head, not knowing if I was offended

He glanced at me and immediately corrected, "I didn't mean you"

"Messy like a Wikibian's head?" I asked

"Well, you see, I didn't mean to say it but it's a statement, Wikibians never wash their hair, so it's always a mess, I really don't mean you," he said, lying down, leaning under a pile of leather boxes, and then trying to find out what was going on, with a bang, he pulled out a long wooden box, the eight corners of which were wrapped in iron sheets, and the nails were evenly nailed

He knelt in front of the wooden box and untied the key from his belt, looking like he was going to open it

I looked at his head and smiled and said, "Then you must be a Wikibian, too."

He raised his eyes and looked up, then blew on the tip of his forehead, and when he couldn't blow it up, he said, "Okay, boy, my head is as good as a wiki today, let's stop talking about it, you can come and see my good stuff"

With a snap, he opened the box

I saw a mess of things: a few tin cans, an iron cross, a marching hoe without a handle, two yarmules, three dust-stained leather boots, a few large rolls of rope, a pile of tangled silk threads, some pieces of iron, and two pieces of chain mail

"Pretty," I commented, "pretty guy"

He smiled inscrutablely, ignoring my compliment, "It's all rubbish, the really good thing is this"

He brushed aside some of the miscellaneous items on top, and then pulled out a long cloth gray sè wrap with black sè threads tied to it

"Want to see it? If I go with you, this thing will be my most precious thing," he said with a smile

"What is it?"

"Just look at it," his eyes lit up, and he seemed to be in a hurry to open the package more than I was

The top of the package was tied in a knot, and he rubbed it with his hands for a long time before he untied it, and he carefully tore the silk threads, and then began to untie the bag, and I watched carefully at his movements, watching him unfold the gray cloth little by little

Finally, I saw a long sword

This long sword is as quiet as a lake in autumn, deep and quiet

"Look," he said in an almost loving tone, "the cold iron sword"

"Cold iron? The knives used by the shavers on our ship are also of cold iron."

He showed a look of disbelief, "Nonsense, cold iron is the most expensive Salander iron, if the shaver can afford it, the warriors in this world can each be equipped with a full set of cold iron armor"

I couldn't convince him now, so I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Maybe I heard him wrong."

"Enlen iron is only produced between a few oases in Salander, where the magma is exposed under the sky, and it is as hot as the day and night, and the iron ore there was bought by the Sultan before it was dug up, you know? The reason why the current Salander Sultan was able to defeat his brother was because his Mamluk guards were all armed with cold iron sabers when charging, and the Mamluk soldiers only needed to level their swords and cut everything they encountered in half."

"I don't believe it"

"But you believe that a shaver can use a cold iron trough?" He raised an eyebrow and said, "Look, I'll give it a try for you."

He found a piece of wood and put it on the stool, stepped on it with his left foot, and raised his sword like a samurai

"Boy, look ahead"

He swung his sword down

I laughed because his sword was stuck in the wood

His eyes widened in surprise, and then he pried the sword up and down, trying to get it out, but it still stuck out without a trace

He blushed and lost his face, and I comforted him and said, "It's okay, maybe the wood is too hard"

As I spoke, I reached out to help him hold down the wood so that he could draw his sword

Just as I stretched out my hand, he drew his sword, and I felt a sudden chill on the back of my right hand, and then it was as if a thousand layers of fire had begun to burn there

I lifted the back of my hand in a daze, and blood flowed out of a neat little opening, as if a piece of red silk had been pulled out of my body

"Victor? Victor? Are you in there? At this moment, the bookkeeper gasped and shouted as he walked in along the clutter, "Vidor, Alyosha told me to watch you, don't run around this is your hand my God, my god Vido, come here, what's wrong with your hand"

The bookkeeper looked at my hand in horror, then angrily at the young man, and pulled me away

The young man himself was confused, and he followed with his sword, "Sir, I didn't mean to."

Our sudden appearance caused the hall to fall into confusion, especially when the young man appeared with a sword, the Wikibians in the hall all stood up and looked at him vigilantly, and the Wikibians saw my hand, and their eyes flashed with angry flames

The voice of the soul in the hall reached the room at the end, and there was a voice of inquiry from inside, and the shì at the door poked his head into the door and said what was happening outside

After a while, the shì got the order, and he walked up to us, and said to us carefully, "Mr. Jill said that he has a kind of ointment, please take the child in, and it will be fine alone."

Alexey walked out, took my hand and looked at it, comforted me and said, "It's okay, it's just that the skin is broken, it's like a cracked nail"

I was pulled into the room by the bookkeeper

Through the crowd, I saw a man in a gray coat, he leaned down, took out a small box, and then, he slowly walked towards me, his movements confirmed some people's rumors: he walked very slowly, limped, but he didn't use crutches, and he walked very strongly, not at all the yellow and thin feeling in the legend

He walked up to me, squeezed my hand, looked at the back of his hand, and without looking back, he told the young man standing by the door in a calm voice:

"Renault, put your sword away"

At this time, the young man named Renault handed the sword to the side under the accusatory gaze of everyone, and then he said to Gil, "I didn't mean to, Father."

"I didn't say you did it on purpose, to go busy with your business, we'll talk about this at night"

Renault wanted to say something, but Ivan walked over and beat him away

Jill dipped a white towel in water and wiped the blood off the back of his hand, then he opened the wooden box, took out a small jar from it, and scooped something like jelly from the small jar with a small wooden skewer

When I looked at him now, he smiled, "Don't be afraid, it'll be fine in a while"

"It hurts," I said, holding back tears

"It'll be fine in a while," I was shocked, he said Swadia must have been Alexei telling him that I could speak Swadia "When I was a child, I broke my knee and bled out," his voice was gentle, as if to soothe me, and as if he was recalling himself, "My mother also used this medicine to rub it on me, I promise, it won't hurt the child for a while, this is the best recipe"

After Jill finished speaking, he began to carefully treat my wound again

His Swadian spoke so fluently, and the tone and accent were so familiar that I almost suspected I had grown up with Jill