Chapter 20: The Horse Boy

When it was getting dark, I was still sitting on the railing of the stable

In the afternoon, I went to the hay room and brought a large bundle of hay, threw it in the trough, the old man sat on the side for some time, he boiled himself a pot of boiling water, in it a handful of hawthorn and two pieces of rock sugar, he pinched a small copper cup, and kept pouring hawthorn tea into it, he saw that I only put the hay down at will, so he shook his head

"Victor, you have to spread all the grass, the horses are very smart, I can't see who has more and who has less"

He told me to go to the fork of the grass on one side, and to spread the grass evenly in the trough, and the two horses sniffed the grass alertly, and then looked at me again, and then began to bury their heads and nibble on the grass, which they filled their mouths with the grass and squeaked and chewed

"The next time you feed them, you have to let them smell you first, otherwise they won't remember your good and won't like you"

When the old man saw that the water was gone, he took the kettle and left

Since then, I have been sitting on the railing of the stable, and now I feel that the smell is not particularly unbearable, and the two horses have eaten the forage and slowly retreat back into the stable, and one horse sniffs the neck of the other, and then buries his head and does not make any more movements

The sun went down and the earth darkened

When the birds return to their nests, the yard is lively for the last time, and then it falls silent

I am hungry

I miss the food I had when I was with Alexei, I thought of roast goose smeared with honey, pigeon soup made with fruit wine and sugar sauce, roasted pig with apple in its mouth, and fragrant lamb stewed with radishes, all of which were delicious, but now none of the old man left me a large slice of white bread and a small glass of wine, which he said was ordered by the butler, and that the horse boy who came at first could eat white bread and several times the wine for a week, and then he could only eat black bread, and swallowed it with oatmeal

It was useless for me to explain to the old man that I was not a horse boy, the old man shook his head, "I really think of myself as a young master"

In addition to the one who died, there were three horseboys in the Romanov Castle, and when we came to the Romanov Castle, the one who followed us was the head

He came to me and said he wanted to show me some rules

"The old one, who would divide half of his bread and oatmeal with me every day, was not because I was greedy, but because I wanted him to remember that I was his head," he said with a sense of urgency, "but he was disobedient, and always secretly hid the little bread that belonged to me, and brought me only one or two mouthfuls of oatmeal porridge, and was very upset that you know, so I drowned him in the river, I think you should have heard"

"," I don't want to deal with him, Christopher lied to me about eating human flesh, "The old man in the stable, said that the horse boy drowned while we were on our way to Kudan, you weren't here at all, you were helping me drive the horses"

"Uh, did I say I killed it? I asked my friend to do it," he turned back and pointed to the two men beside him, "We're all murderers and unblinking maniacs, you don't want to be angry with us, you'd better not be angry with us, or someone will be killed," he imagined a dagger with a finger on his neck, pulling it away from left to right

"What are you going to do?" I looked at the three of them

"Call out your food, I heard that you have white bread and wine today, we haven't eaten anything so good, you just came, you should follow the rules, let's eat first"

I don't think it's a big deal if I don't think white bread and wine are anything else to eat, even the rare peaches from Renault I don't think are very unusual, but now it seems that these things have become precious, and I have nothing but them, and I have nothing else to eat

"It's mine, I don't have anything else to eat," I said

"It's a rule," said the leader of the boys, "that the first man will be hungry for three days, so that he can be convinced and obedient later, and when I came I was hungry for a month, and then the man who brought me gave me the first piece of brown bread, you know?" With that piece of bread, I survived tenaciously and am now your leader."

"your rules, you big idiot," I said, "you die if you don't eat for a week, and if you starve for a month, you're a dead man."

I turned around and picked up the cup left by the old man, and poured the wine into my stomach in three sips, and the three people facing each other were stunned, they had never seen such a practice of wine, they all drank it with water, drank half of it, mixed it half, mixed it with water, and mixed it until the face of the wine turned completely white, and then drank it directly, and I drank it directly like this, which is the only thing that the young masters do

The three of them became furious, they had lost their wine, so they would not allow the white bread that belonged to them to be embezzled by me shamelessly, and they scolded and forced me to hand over the white bread

I shoved the bread into my mouth, tried to get it in, and slammed the glass into the leader of the horseboy

The glass struck him firmly in the head and bounced into the stable

"Hyde, Herman, he's hit Old Jack," the boy leader covered his head in shock

"Your name is Old Jack?" I chewed on my bread and cursed in a daze, "You're going to die Jack"

I have no peaches, no roast pigs, no Alexei, no Kaja

Christopher told me stories of the war years, sailors told me legends of the sea, and Lord Leo told me about the sorrows of his family

"What are you three?"

I punched Jack in the face, but he dodged it, and I hit him in the shoulder, causing him to stagger to the side

Christopher once told me, "When you fight, you have to keep an eye on one, or you're going to lose badly, you know the story of the mule and the two piles of straw?" A mule faced two piles of straw, it has been hesitating which side to eat first, but in the end it starved to death, and there is no next bite to fight, keep an eye on one, and then say that if you want to participate in the competitive conference in the future, if you participate in a multi-person competition, you must pay attention to this"

Keep an eye on one person

Isn't Jack amazing? Isn't he full of rules? Doesn't he kill people without blinking?

That's him

I scurried over, fangs and claws, but Jack held his head and lowered his head, slamming his head into my stomach as if squeezing all the air out of my stomach at once, and I fell backwards

Herman and Hyde grabbed my arm and tried to pull the bread out of my mouth, I spit out the bread and bit it on Hyde's finger, Hyde screamed and threw his hands and jumped away, but Herman took the opportunity to grab me from behind and put my arm up, Jack's eyes were red, and he kicked me in the stomach, I stepped back with Herman, Jack kicked my leg twice, Herman threw me to the ground

The three of them came around and kicked me together, and Jack kicked and cursed as he could

"Let you rob me of bread, let you steal my wine"

But the few kicks they stepped on my back didn't hurt, and my stomach hurt so much that it took me a while before I recovered

The three of them were discussing how to punish me behind my back, and they were bragging about hanging me with a rope, bleeding with a dagger, and destroying a hand, but the words were so loud that none of them did anything, just thinking loudly about themselves

When I thought I could get up, I sprang up and knocked Jack down

Keep an eye on one person

I sat on his chest and held him down on Jack's long arm, hitting me in the face with all my might, I wanted to hold his arm down, but now it was impossible, because Herman and Hyde kept kicking me in the back, punching me with all my might, I pressed down so that his fist couldn't be extended, and then punched him in the face

I was terrified, I felt a sweet smell in my nose, and I knew I must be bleeding and I was going to die

Although I think the three of them are bragging, but I can't guarantee what to do if what they say is true, I can only punch Jack hard, they are taller than me, very thin, not as strong as me, but they are obviously more skilled than me, I am completely relying on brute force to beat Jack A few times my fists hit the ground, and Jack hit me with almost every punch

I slammed Jack's face with my forehead and I saw a patch of blood on his face, I don't know if it was mine or his

I almost begged for mercy, I cried as I hit him, I didn't think about why I was crying, I cried and screamed and threw my fist down until I was pulled away and still screaming and waving my fist

The man behind me was so powerful that I twisted around and punched him, and my fingers hurt so badly that I smashed into the chain mail

"Victor," the man said to me, holding me down the shoulder, "it's me, Victor"

My left eye was swollen, I opened my eyes wide and saw Christopher I was panting, tears were flowing, I felt something flowing in my nose, I sniffed hard, the sweet smell of rust made me cough

"Kerry''", I couldn't speak

Christopher crouched down, "Well, I'm making a lot of progress here, have I made friends?" ”

After saying that, he turned his head to look at the three of them

Jack also suffered a big loss, and he staggered to his feet, "You're here to help?" Do you see it clearly? Obviously he was beating me, and he pretended to cry, like a, what are you crying about" Jack spat out and I knocked his nose out as well, and Hyde tore a rag from Herman's strip of clothes and pinched a roll and plugged it on Jack's nose

"Why the fight?" Christopher asked

"He robs us of our food," Herman said loudly, "it's the rule, but he doesn't follow it."

"Obviously you robbed me"

I was changing my teeth, and one of the teeth was loose, and I was always pushing the tip of my tongue against the root of the tooth, trying to get it out, but it hurt a little harder, and I didn't dare to resist it when I was finished fighting, and I didn't know when the tooth had stayed in my mouth, and I held it with a mouthful of blood

'The lower teeth are to be thrown on the roof, and the upper teeth are to be thrown under the bed,' I don't know who said that

But now I don't even have a bed, just a straw bed

Hyde and Herman talked about their rules, and Christopher stroked his chin and listened

I saw Jack's indifferent expression and hatred in my heart, and the fear I had just now turned into an urge to beat him up again

I spat my bloody teeth in his face

Jack covered his face with a groan, and then yelled at Christopher: "You saw it as a soldier, this soul egg did it first, and this soul egg did it first"

Christopher patted his waist, revealing his saber, "Are you going to wait for me to make a move?" ”

The three of them were stunned, they didn't know what this Christopher was about, "Our lord who is a soldier is here, you don't dare to do it"

Christopher made a sword draw motion, and the terrible Jack with a sinking face said, "Herman, Hyde beat him" and turned and ran away

Hyde and Herman saw the leader flee and turned and fled

The embarrassed appearance of the three people made Christopher laugh, and he turned around, "One person fights three people, it's not bad, but I remember that you didn't fight before."

"They're going to fight me," I said, wiping away the nosebleed that had been running to my lips with my fingers

"Well, it's brave, but it doesn't work," Christopher found a small piece of linen to help me plug my nose, "You're stronger than them, but you didn't scare any of them."

"I'll beat someone," I sniffed, "I'll listen to you and aim at a person to fight, but Victor won't fight, and he won't win against them"

I kept telling Christopher about the fight, and he unbuttoned my shirt and found a bucket of water to help me wash the ash and mud off my body, except for a few black bruises on my body, nothing but a broken nose and a scratch on my forehead and palms

Christopher listened patiently, and then said: "Okay, don't talk about those three boys, I know about you, Young Master Renault didn't see you at the banquet, so he asked about your whereabouts, he was afraid that you didn't eat, so I left you some food."

Christopher unwrapped a package containing a sweet loaf of bread, a few slices of jī preserved meat, and a tin can of mutton soup

I took the jar, opened the lid and poured it into my mouth

I took a few sips, stopped and said to Krestofo: "Count Kalinin doesn't like me and lets me live here"

The taste of jī meat is so good, and the spicy spices make it whet your appetite, especially after a fight

"Well, the Count has his considerations"

Christopher didn't tell me, but in fact, Renaud questioned the Count's arrangement at the banquet, and even said that if the Count didn't want me, he could let me be his servant, which made the Count not very happy

The Earl thought that how to manage his people was his own business, and not handling the other party's affairs was the basis of the cooperation between the two families, of course, the earl's tone was very gentle, but several people around Renault heard it clearly, and they immediately diverted the topic No one is willing to sacrifice the cooperation of two families for a horse boy, Renault is still too young after all

"Alexey doesn't care about me anymore," I began to eat sweet bread

"Eat slowly," Christopher said

I stopped asking for bread, "Kaja got it?"

Christopher nodded, "Young Master Renault's voice can be heard all over the table, of course Miss Kaja heard"

"Did she say anything?"

Christopher didn't answer, just smiled wryly with pity, "Eat, Victor, I'll have to take these dishes back"