Early in the morning, Roland was awakened by the cold. He crawled out of the icy bedding, put on a wool coat, and immersed his feet in a bucket of warm water.
This was a **privilege** he enjoyed as a prince—every morning, a maid would place a pot of hot water beside his bed, along with a clean towel and warm milk, allowing his body to instantly regain warmth.
Of course, compared to the common practice among nobles of having bed-warmers, he felt he was being quite restrained. Originally, the Fourth Prince brought the head maid, Tilly, over with that intention, but he died before enjoying it. Roland didn't like this practice, so he gave the vacant position to an older maid with rich experience in handling affairs. In fact, this choice was very correct; currently, many witches resided in the castle, but she still managed the inside and outside of the castle in an orderly manner.
The fire in the fireplace had long been extinguished, leaving only white ash. Gusts of cold wind blew in through the cracks in the window behind him, chilling him to the bone. It was hard to believe it was still mid-autumn. Roland dried his feet, washed up with another basin of hot water, and walked to the window to close the window that had been left open all night.
Although open-flame fireplaces were very common in this era, he was still worried about carbon monoxide poisoning, so he had to leave a crack open every night. In the first half of the night, the indoor temperature could still be kept warm, but as the firewood burned out, it was no different from the outdoors in the early hours of the morning.
He had to find a way to solve this problem, Roland thought, otherwise he wouldn't be able to sleep in anymore.
After breakfast, he took Nightingale, the Chief Knight, and a group of guards to the city wall area for a routine inspection.
A large patch of grass separated the new city wall from the old city wall, which had now become a vast expanse of white. Walking on the thick snow, his shoes made a creaking sound.
Looking up, the sky was a pale gray, and occasionally a snowflake would drift into his neck, bringing a hint of coolness. He knew that this kind of weather was likely to last until next spring... or even longer.
"How's the defense?"
"Much better than last time," Carter Lannis looked relaxed. "Most of the First Army soldiers have been on the battlefield and have revolving buqiang. A section of the wall about a hundred meters long only needs ten people to guard it, and they can suppress the evil beasts circling below. Moreover, the new city wall is half a meter higher than the previous stone wall, and it's also difficult for wolf-type beasts to jump directly onto the wall. It's completely for the soldiers to practice target shooting. As long as no mixed-breed evil beasts appear, these monsters won't be able to cross the defense line."
"That's good."
Roland ascended the city wall, and along the way, the soldiers stood tall and saluted him. Just looking at their spirits, they were already completely different from the original militia fighters. At that time, although everyone stood on the wall, seemingly stabbing out wooden spears in unison, it was just a conditioned reflex formed by repeated training of a single action. Their eyes were full of numbness, their movements were stiff, and if you looked closely, you could see that most of them were trembling slightly in their legs.
Now, however, the soldiers' eyes showed confidence. After saluting, they refocused their gaze forward and continued to monitor the battlefield.
Following the city wall to the Mischief Forest side, it was much more lively here.
The temporary residences built for serfs and fugitive slaves were arranged in this area. Looking down from the wall, only long, parallel rows of earth mounds could be seen, like undulating wavy lines. Each raised earth mound had more than a dozen rooms inside, with a structure exactly like a cave dwelling. The thick earthen walls could maintain the indoor temperature, and with the heating artifact, the heated kang, a hemp cloth could keep them away from the cold.
The entire residential area was divided into two major blocks. The block near the city wall was called the West District, which was used to house fugitive slaves; the East District, which was far from the city wall, was allocated to the serfs.
Every day, the City Hall would send people to distribute food and charcoal here, and the fugitive slaves also needed to provide logistical transport work for the First Army guarding the city wall; as for the serfs, most of them had already saved enough wheat for themselves. Except for some clever people who went out to find odd jobs to earn extra money for themselves, others rarely left their warm houses.
At this moment, a fierce quarrel suddenly came from the junction of the East and West Districts. Roland followed the sound and saw a group of people gathered on the main road in the center of the residential area, arguing loudly about something. One of them was wearing blue and white z
hifu, seemingly a clerk from the City Hall. Soon, the quarrel escalated into a fight, and the two groups fought into a ball, the scene was a mess.
"Your Highness?" Carter asked.
"Let's go take a look," Roland nodded.
The group came to the scene of the disturbance. The Chief Knight took the lead, rushing straight into the crowd of fighters, and knocked several of the most troublesome people to the ground in a few blows. Roland's guards also drew their long swords and shouted for everyone to stop. The scene was quickly brought under control.
After discovering that the person who came was actually the lord, the two groups of people knelt down together.
"What's your name?" Roland looked at the clerk with two punches on his face and frowned. "What happened here, who attacked you first?"
"Your Highness, I am Koya Harvis," he yelled, covering his face. "That damned fugitive slave started it, the guy in the brown linen clothes! I was still distributing food when he pounced on me like a rabid dog."
The fugitive slave pointed at by Koya raised his head and said, "Your Highness, things are not as he said. These people colluded with the serfs to extort us, and they charge money for every serving of wheat porridge. When you took us in, you clearly said that these were distributed for free!"
Roland was a little surprised. The Eastern Territory fugitive slaves had already been sorted through by the City Hall. All the craftsmen, people with special skills, or those who were literate, had moved to the inner ring. In principle, the rest were ordinary civilians. However, from the tone and wording of his speech, he didn't seem like a civilian.
In comparison, the City Hall member who constantly used insulting words such as damned and rabid dog was really disappointing. Since he had a name... it was likely that he was a knight who had surrendered under Duke Ryan.
"I did say that—before you are officially incorporated into Border Town, the wheat porridge and accommodation are free," Roland repeated to all the fugitive slaves, "Now, these words are still valid!"
"Your Highness is benevolent!"
"Long live the Lord!"
"Thank you, Your Highness!"
The fugitive slaves kowtowed and shouted.
Koya Harvis's face suddenly turned livid.
"However, fighting and injuring people in the territory also violates the law, especially attacking a City Hall member," Roland gestured to the guards, "Arrest all the fugitive slaves and serfs who started the fight and take them to the castle. I will personally try this fighting incident."
He paused, then looked at Koya with great interest, "I would also like to ask you, what's going on with the charged wheat porridge."