"Odo, arrange for everyone to rest on the spot, and get some sleep before dawn."
"Ron, take your men and scout a mile around."
"Kazak, your squad is on guard duty."
Art issued commands to the Commanders around him one by one.
The caravan passed the manor watchtower safely and sped on, arriving at the ruins of Hades Village before the moon set, after traveling all night.
The thrilling surprise attack and the overnight journey left Art feeling exhausted, but he was still in a combat zone where enemy situations could arise at any moment, so Art dared not relax in the slightest.
After Spencer briefly bandaged his arm, which had been pierced by a spear, Art got up again to check on the Patrol Team's Soldiers and the caravan's drivers.
He didn't want any of his subordinates to have problems at this time.
A moment later, Ron, who had been scouting the surroundings with the scout cavalry, returned to the ruins.
Learning that there were no enemy sightings within a one-mile radius, Art relaxed slightly.
Leaning against a collapsed earthen wall, still dressed in his armor, his eyelids closed together in moments.
"Who is it?!"
A furious shout woke Art from his light slumber.
Opening his eyes, he saw Odo with his axe aimed at a haystack in the ruins.
"Come out slowly, or my battle axe will chop off your dog's head!" Odo's voice continued, and the startled Soldiers around him also picked up their weapons and surrounded the haystack.
After a long while, rustling sounds began to come from the haystack, and a disheveled, blood-stained fellow slowly crawled out of it.
Odo and the Soldiers looked at this ghostly figure and slowly lowered their weapons.
"Stand up slowly, don't make any sudden moves," Odo commanded, stepping back half a pace.
The fellow clasped his hands over his head and slowly got to his feet.
This blood-stained, ragged fellow looked as if he had crawled out of a pile of corpses, but at his collar, a fine pure white linen undershirt could be seen, and his physique was quite plump, which seemed completely incongruous with his attire, making him look particularly strange.
"Tuba, send more men to search the surroundings carefully; don't miss a single danger," Odo ordered Tuba to search the area.
"Who are you? Why are you hiding here?" Odo's interrogation began.
The strange fellow wiped the dirt from his face, looked at the crowd surrounding him, and asked, "You're not the Lombardy army? Nor are you Southerners?"
Odo was stunned by the question; this fellow seemed not to fear them, a group of strangers holding sharp blades and steel knives.
"Who exactly are you? If you don't speak, I won't be polite," Odo didn't want to say more to this strange fellow.
"I knew you weren't those bloodthirsty Bastards from Lombardy ~ This lord is a Northerner, right?" The strange fellow began to take off his ragged clothes.
Odo was also somewhat flustered by this nonsensical fellow and was about to raise his axe to threaten him.
"Don't worry, sir, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, my name is Sartre Medici, I'm a small merchant..."
It turned out that this middle-aged man named Sartre Medici was an itinerant merchant from the South Land, who had followed an old itinerant merchant doing small businesses in various parts of the South Land since he was a teenager.
Last winter, after more than a year of suspending business due to war and observing, he finally decided to make a fortune from the war between Provence and Lombardy.
So, he exhausted his savings of many years and borrowed a large sum of money from city merchant houses, buying a large amount of grain and urgently needed supplies at high prices from various parts of the North, intending to smuggle them into the war zone for an exorbitant price.
However, the caravan he hired was intercepted and killed by the Lombardy army just as it touched the edge of the war zone.
His years of savings were all plundered, all the caravan members were killed, and he himself, being clever, had changed into a ragged outfit beforehand, and by smearing himself with human blood and crawling into a pile of corpses to feign death, he narrowly escaped.
Ron looked at Sartre, who was squatting by the carriage, gnawing on rye bread like a hungry dog and rolling his eyes from choking, and said to Bass beside him, "He really did crawl out of a pile of dead bodies; how many days has it been since he ate anything?"
Art walked up to Sartre and handed him a water skin.
Sartre hugged the water skin and gulped down a belly full of clear water.
Upon learning the identity and experiences of this fellow, Art immediately had the idea of recruiting him.
He squatted down, leaning close to the fellow sitting on the ground, and said, "Sartre, what do you plan to do from now on?"
Sartre returned the water skin to Art, wiped the water from the corner of his mouth, and took another fierce bite of the hard bread.
With a mouthful, he mumbled indistinctly, "Nowhere ~ to go ~ lost everything ~ ~ I'll be a beggar."
Sartre, having survived the great disaster, didn't have much sadness.
Art greatly admired this uninhibited merchant and said, "How about coming with me?"
Sartre stopped chewing, stared at the young man who looked like an officer, then looked at the group of black-clad Soldiers behind him, and replied, "Sir, do you want me to be your warrior? I can't hold a sword steady."
Art laughed, "No, no, it would be a pity to make someone like you a warrior.
I'll give you a decent job."
Sartre replied without hesitation, "Alright then, I'll go with you."
"You're quite decisive.
Aren't you going to ask who we are or what we do?"
Sartre replied nonchalantly, "Why ask? I can see you are definitely not ordinary good people; following you is absolutely the right choice."
Art was amused by his answer and asked with a smile, "Since you know we're not ordinary good people, you still dare to follow us?"
Sartre put down the bread and muttered with a serious expression, "Being bad is good; in this world, only bad people can survive."
Everyone was speechless.
After the caravan left Hades, it had basically escaped the war zone, and there was no more harassment from the Lombardy army around, but the caravan's journey was not smooth sailing.
When the caravan traveled south to the Osta War Zone, because it had Baron Belian's banner and was transporting military provisions to the war zone, the various checkpoints and local lords along the way did not obstruct it, and of course, no taxes had to be paid.
However, when Art led the caravan on its return journey, those lords whose family fortunes had been plundered by the war were not so polite.
They reverted to their true nature, demanding a cut from anything that passed through their territory, even if it was an iron rod, they could scrape off a layer of iron filings.
Although Art had a sealed document written by Baron Belian proving that they were a caravan transporting military provisions to the Osta War Zone, those lords completely disregarded a letter.
Even though Art had Soldiers with him, they were still in someone else's territory, so they had no choice but to obediently pay taxes at the checkpoints.
Along the way, the lords levied taxes under various pretexts, even the usually patient Odo lost his temper: "Sir, it's really f*cking uncomfortable, having to pay so many commercial taxes for crossing the border with empty carriages.
I really want to kill those Bastard lords!"
Art was also somewhat helpless.
Now, a large number of troops had also gathered in various parts of northern Provence.
Once Art got into a dispute with the local lords here, he would ultimately be the one to suffer.
However, Sartre, the merchant who had just joined the Patrol Team, quickly found a solution to their predicament.
Sartre had spent the past two days since joining the Patrol Team assisting "Quartermaster" Spencer with miscellaneous tasks like lighting fires, cooking, and managing military supplies.
During casual conversations with Spencer, he learned about the identity, background, and purpose of this army's southward journey.
"Sir, are you really letting these dozen or so carriages return north empty?" Sartre looked at Art in disbelief.
Art was puzzled, "Some of these carriages are mine; I plan to buy a few carriages of supplies in Kitzby to take back."
"What about the remaining dozen or so carriages? Empty?"
"That's another noble lord's caravan, not mine."
"But they are now under your management."
According to Sartre's idea, Art's caravan would, on its return journey, purchase commercial goods accumulated due to the war from various towns and lords.
Now, during wartime, many lords had a large accumulation of goods in their hands.
Their goods could neither be sold to the southern war zone nor were there northern merchants to purchase them, so many lords could only watch helplessly as the commercial goods in their warehouses rotted and spoiled day by day.
Especially fruit wine, spices, and olive oil, which are abundant in Provence; these goods, usually quite valuable in normal times, appeared so cheap during wartime.
After all, fruit wine and spices cannot replace grain and bread, and when even food supply is difficult, luxury items become dispensable.
So, for the rest of the journey, the caravan led by Art transformed itself from an empty caravan rushing back to Sap into an armed merchant caravan that acquired goods from various places in Provence for the North.
Identity determines treatment.
Once the local lords learned that Art was a northern merchant coming to purchase goods, their attitudes immediately changed dramatically.
They waited early at the castle gates to welcome the caravan that brought money.
Since the caravan bought their long-accumulated goods and solved their urgent problem, there was, of course, no need to pay any commercial taxes when passing through.
After six days of travel, when they arrived at Kitzby, eight of the caravan's carriages were already loaded with various goods, including local specialties of Provence such as spices, olive oil, and wine, as well as ironware, salt, cloth, pepper, and cloves from the south, and even a considerable amount of raw silk, brocade, tea, and porcelain from Central Asia and the East.
Thanks to the merchant Sartre's eloquence, comparable to a sophist, and his skilled business techniques, the price of these goods acquired from various places was almost half of that in normal years.
Eight carriages of goods cost Art just over twelve thousand fenny.
Art could have bought more goods, but firstly, for safety reasons, he did not carry all his money with him, and he didn't have much money left on him; secondly, it was his first time buying so many goods, and if Lord Galvin did not purchase the goods when they arrived at Sap, Art would have to sell them himself, which carried a relatively high risk.
Sartre, having demonstrated his value, gained Art's attention.
Art assigned him a blue mule as his mount, and he stayed by Art's side at all times.
Sartre turned his head to glance at the caravan behind him and said, "Sir, if these goods can be safely delivered to Burgundy in the north, their price will quadruple, but these carriages are not yours, and it's not easy to transport so many goods through the long and dangerous north-south trade route at this time of year.
So, the goods can only be sold to the owner of the caravan, but rest assured, I will definitely raise the selling price and ensure your silver coins are not spent in vain."
Art indeed saw the shadow of an excellent merchant in Sartre, but he needed more time to understand the integrity and character of this merchant beside him.
"Sartre, I've never asked, do you have a family or children?"
Sartre, as always, was nonchalant, "I have a son and a daughter, but they are now with my ex-wife, who married an honest farmer."
Art was not surprised by Sartre's family misfortune.
As an itinerant merchant, he was constantly on the road, naturally unable to take care of his family or provide them with emotional warmth.
Moreover, being an itinerant merchant was not like farming; one day he might be living in luxury, the next he might be on the streets.
Such an unstable life was not something every woman was willing to accept, and over time, Sartre's wife naturally became unwilling to live in constant fear with him.
