Time flew by, and winter arrived; several days of heavy snow had painted the mountains, fields, and ravines a vast expanse of white.
The sudden cold weather also caused the war to cool down.
The increasingly stalemated war between the four nations of the Middle Land and the South Land temporarily halted with a sudden snowfall, and armies everywhere retreated into castles or hid in camps, lighting fires to ward off the severe cold…
The garrison of Talburg also welcomed a rare period of leisure; due to the thick snow outside making movement difficult, the Soldiers' individual combat skills and battle formation training had to be temporarily suspended.
On the second floor of the inner fort, the flames from the burning wood in the iron basin made the entire room as warm as spring. Art, dressed in thick linen casual clothes, was teaching several army Commanders how to read and write the common script at a wooden table.
Teaching officers to read and write the common script had begun when the Patrol Team was first established, but Odo and the others came from humble backgrounds; not only them, but even their fathers and grandfathers had never encountered these luxuries reserved for nobles and the Court. Therefore, from the very beginning of the writing instruction process, the Commanders showed varying degrees of resistance. They would get a headache just looking at these crooked symbols, and they never believed that learning to read had any connection to marching and fighting. Furthermore, later, due to being busy training Soldiers and suppressing bandits, the officers' study of the common script was intermittent. As battles continued, Art also focused more on teaching the officers how to march, fight, and train Soldiers.
However, with the reduced defensive pressure on Talburg, the army's combat missions also decreased. Besides training Soldiers, the officers didn't have much else to do, so Art gathered all officers above Combat Squad Leader and elite Soldiers in the inner fort every other day to teach basic literacy.
The material taught was very simple, basically just common combat terms and commands, such as "attack," "retreat," "flank," "cover," "hillside," "dense forest," "enemy," and basic, practical common characters like numbers. All officers above squad leader had to learn three words daily, and Combat Squad Leaders had to learn two words daily. If they didn't meet this standard, they would face a penalty of one fenny per word.
Initially, the officers were unwilling to accept. Only after Art's repeated insistence and bringing up military law did everyone reluctantly agree to sit in the room and listen to Art spell and write word by word.
After more than twenty consecutive days of literacy learning, except for Angus, who could already read a little, the other officers had to pay one or two fenny in fines almost every day. This amount was not too much for officers with high salaries, but it was quite humiliating for them, so after being fined a few times, everyone also started to put some effort into learning to read.
Surprisingly, Andrew, who had just become the captain of the First Squad of new recruits, was one of the fastest at learning to read. Of course, the other was Ron, Art's personal attendant and the Sentry Cavalry Captain. Ron was more proficient in learning to read because he often followed Art and frequently watched him write. Andrew, however, was more familiar with the common script than others because he often frequented the small church in the village as a child, and he would curiously watch the priest write announcements in the common script.
Time slowly moved to the end of December amidst the leisurely garrisoning of the Talburg residents.
………
With heavy snow blocking the roads and no worries inside or out, Art, who hadn't hunted quietly for over a year, resumed his identity as a hunter.
He wore a rabbit fur felt hat, a sheepskin greatcoat, and deerskin boots, carried a horn-bow on his back, a refined iron short sword tucked on his left, and a sheepskin quiver on his right, astride a short, sturdy travel horse. This attire instantly brought back Art's sense of leisure from years of hunting and foraging in the dense forests of the valley.
Since first leaving the valley and heading north to Lucerne, Art had almost forgotten the days of traversing and foraging in the dense forest like a wild wolf. Now, with more people under him and more matters to face, he spent every day thinking about how to make each step with as few mistakes as possible, so the opportunity to truly calm down and enjoy a moment of leisure became even more precious.
However, he was destined not to enjoy this leisurely hunting trip today.
To track a moose, Art had gone a bit far today, riding swiftly through the snow-covered dense forests and hills along the hunter's path southeast of Talburg. Unconsciously, Art had reached the southern edge near Bilton.
Standing atop a hill, Art looked down. A manor house with white walls and red tiles stood out remarkably amidst a desolate, pale white landscape and a dozen scattered, dilapidated thatched cottages.
Art recognized that manor, because several months ago, he had personally written a "valued" one hundred thousand fenny extortion letter to the manor lord.
Art stood motionless under a red pine on the hilltop, observing for a long time. Only one or two guards wrapped in sheepskin greatcoats were constantly pacing the manor wall, and smoke billowed from the roof of the manor house…
After observing for a long time, Art rubbed his frozen fingers, looked up at the magnificent manor house below, and chuckled softly, raising the corner of his mouth: "Lord Chares, it seems you'll have to honor your promise of one hundred thousand fenny from the letter~"
With that, he turned and descended the hill, took the reins tied to a tree, mounted his horse, and galloped towards Talburg in the northwest…
………………
Two hours later, Art appeared at the gate of Talburg. Angus, who was on duty at the gate, saw Art return almost empty-handed. He laughed as he took the reins from Art's hand and teased him while fiddling with the two wild rabbits on the saddle: "I say, Lord Art, you went out for most of the day and only caught two 'big mice'! How many bites can this stuff provide? I told you to take me along, but you insisted on going alone. If you had taken me, we might have brought back a wild ox!"
Art dismounted, took off the wild rabbits, and threw them to Angus, saying, "If you think there's not enough meat, then don't eat my honey-roasted rabbit later."
"Sergeant, go quickly and call Odo and the others to the second floor of the inner fort!" Art said, brushing the snow off his body as he walked towards the inner fort.
Angus thought Art was joking, saying, "Lord Art, with just these two mice, you're planning a feast!"
Art stopped, turned around, and smiled at Angus, saying, "I'm serious. Go call them. Tomorrow we're going to the Swabia Grand Duchy for a feast!!!"
Upon hearing Art's words, Angus ran up to him and asked, "Are you saying we're going to act again tomorrow?"
Art nodded in affirmation.
"Finally, I can go out and stretch my muscles and bones. If I stay cooped up in the military fort any longer, my bones will stiffen." With that, Angus threw the two wild rabbits to the Soldier behind the fort gate and ran towards the room where Odo and the others were staying…
………
"Tomorrow, we'll go into enemy territory for one last job!" Art excitedly told Odo and the others, who had not yet sat down.
"One last job???" Odo was confused upon hearing this.
"Yes, today, while hunting, I accidentally stumbled upon the edge of the mountainous area south of Bilton. On a hillside there, I saw a manor, the same manor we used to trick Geoffrey's army," Art said.
Ron thought carefully for a moment and replied, "Hmm, I remember now. It's that wealthiest manor south of Bilton. We sent a letter under the guise of mountain bandits, threatening Lord Chares, the manor owner, to pay one hundred thousand fenny in military funds, or we would lead a large army from the mountains to besiege his manor."
Art looked around at the people at the table and said, "At that time, we were just trying to lure out the enemy forces from Bilton Fort. But today, I thought for a long time on the hillside, why don't we take advantage of their lax defenses and do one more job? I've observed it; there are at most five or six guards in that manor, and their defenses are very lax now."
"You mean we should raid the Southern Manor now? But the heavy snow has blocked the roads; even if we steal a lot of things, we can't take them away. Although we don't have to worry about enemy troops appearing on the main road at the edge of the mountainous area now, we can't make carriages move in the snow!" Bass raised his doubts.
"We won't use carriages. This time, we also won't extensively plunder all supplies. We will only take the most valuable and portable valuables from the manor: first, gold and silver wealth; second, armor and weapons; and last, valuable goods. As soon as this heavy snow stops, the Court will send another army to garrison Talburg. Why don't we go hunting in Swabia before we leave? Consider it a farewell gift from Swabia for our return home." Art rubbed his hands, his voice tinged with excitement.
Everyone at the table had been cooped up in Talburg for too long. After the heavy snow, even Soldier training was suspended. Besides studying literacy in the inner fort, everyone was just joking around in the barracks, extremely bored. So, Art's decision received unanimous approval from everyone.
"Good, then let's now think about how to capture this wealthy manor…"
Inside the inner fort, several people began discussing how to capture the manor with the least cost.
After an hour of discussion, another insidious trick emerged.
………
The next morning, the sky was still a dark gray.
In the Southern Manor of Bilton, two manor guards, one fat and one thin, wrapped in thick winter coats and fur, were dozing in their battle positions on the walkway behind the manor's stockade wall.
The crowing of a rooster in the manor woke up the thin guard who was in a light sleep. He stretched, shook off the thick snow from his winter coat and fur, and then looked up at the rising steam from the manor house roof, cursing the manor guard captain who had assigned him night duty.
The startled thin guard found his legs stiff. Leaning against the parapet, he slowly struggled to stand up. He was about to stretch his muscles and bones when he was startled by two dark figures below the stockade wall.
"Fatty, wake up! Enemy! Enemy!" The thin guard shrieked and kicked the fat man next to him, who was still sound asleep.
The fat man shivered and woke up, quickly grabbed the short spear that had fallen beside him, and asked in terror, "Where are the enemies? Where are the enemies?"
"Over there!" The thin guard pointed at the two dark figures at the stockade gate.
The fat man followed the thin guard's trembling hand and saw that they were two "roadside corpses" dressed in old, coarse linen clothes.
Such frozen and starved vagrants were not uncommon recently. Wars were raging across the North and South Lands, and in conflict zones, many civilians' homes and fields were destroyed. To survive, civilians in war zones had to wander and beg with their families. In the freezing cold, these two individuals must have originally intended to crawl to the manor gate and wait for the owner to open it to beg for a bowl of life-sustaining thin gruel, but they were frozen to death outside the gate before the owner could open it.
"Skinny, go, drag these two poor wretches aside and bury them, or the master will scold us again when he gets up later." The fat man pushed the skinny man, telling him to drag the bodies outside the stockade gate further away and bury them.
"It's always me! Why don't you go? I've dragged them twice this month. I'm not doing it; it's your turn this time." The skinny man didn't want to do this unlucky and thankless heavy labor.
The fat man glanced at the "corpses" outside the stockade gate, then looked back at the manor house, and said to the thin guard, "The master and them will be up soon. If they see these two 'roadside corpses,' neither of us will get to eat today."
Seeing that the skinny man still didn't move, the fat man gave up. "Alright, one each. Bury them and then quickly change shifts and go back for some hot soup." After saying that, the fat man walked around the stockade wall to check if there was anything unusual below the wall, then stood on his tiptoes to look into the distance. After confirming that there were only two "roadside corpses" and no danger, he returned to the skinny man and made a gesture of invitation.
The skinny man was enticed by the words "hot soup" and couldn't help but be tempted. He nodded and followed the fat man down the stockade wall….