Chapter 63

Chapter 63: Ration your food wisely, please! part

Early in the morning a lot of people were gathered in front of the Silver goddess tavern, but when the doors finally opened it wasn’t for the reason they expected.

“I’m deeply sorry dear customers, but we don’t have enough food to even open our doors today and our hunter is currently sick. If you were so kind to stop knocking at our door we would really appreciate it”

Rina repeated word for word what Ryu asked her to say in front of the crowd with the best smile she could fake.

“Hey Rina, don’t be like that, we all know that your tavern is loaded!”

People started yelling and complaining in loud voices, one of them even dared to pry the door open but Rina was holding it with tightly.

“I said we have no more food you idiotic braindead musclehead! now scram before I get mad for real!”

She yelled to the top of her lungs, making everyone in the crowd flinch and she closed the door behind, she leaned on the door behind her breathing heavily.

.....

“Those idiots, even after what we did for them yesterday they still have the guts to try and get in by force!”

“It’s not their fault miss Rina, they must be starving”

Claire said still holding the broom tightly as if it was a sword. Helena walked down the stairs hurriedly.

“What was that noise?”

“Don’t worry Helena, it was just a bump. How is Anne doing?”

“Not great, her fever is even worse than last night and Ryu doesn’t know what to do”

Ryu was upstairs tending to Anne, he was holding her hand while soaking a wet towel on cold water. Ever since he grabbed her hand she hasn’t let go, making it impossible for him to leave the room and he had to do everything only with his left hand. she was making tending to her difficult, but Ryu didn’t mind, all he cared about was for her to get better.

Last night Anne asked Helena to leave town with her, and since she found it weird she put a hand on her forehead noticing the high fever. She called Ryu and he’s been tending to her since last night, without resting or eating.

He watched in horror how her health was diminishing every passing hour, and he couldn’t think of anything he could do to help her.

She’s been in and out of consciousness speaking nonsense and holding onto Ryu’s hand. Dylan, who has been waiting outside the whole night, entered the room with a complete poker face.

“is there anything I can do to help boss?”

“Yes, actually, go ask Claire to make some soup for Anne”

The situation was dire and everyone knew it. Anne got sick in the worst possible moment, since they don’t have enough food supplies nor funds. Helping everyone in town seemed to be a great idea at first, but now that they don’t have enough food even for themselves they knew no one was going to help them.

The guy who tried to open the door early in the morning ran to madame Bianca’s brothel as soon as he could with a huge smile on his face.

“Tell me dear, do you bring any good news?”

“Of course madame, i wouldn’t dare come if I didn’t. The tavern is closed and they even claim their hunter is ill”

“Oh Oh Oh, Good job, thanks for informing me”

She laughed as she put a silver coin on the man’s hand and the miner retreated swiftly.

“See? this is how you get things done”

She said to Thomas.

“You can’t possibly compare your skills with mine, I’m but a lowly merchant”

He said humbly, knowing she could end not only his career if she decided he was useless.

“At least you know your place, you know what to do, right?”

She said the last part very slowly, making it sound more like a threat than a question.

“Of course madame, leave it to me, i won’t fail you again”

Thomas was sweating buckets, but at least he was given a chance to redeem himself.

As soon as madame Bianca received the news that the tavern was low on food she raised her prices and asked Thomas to buy up to the last grain of food he could on the stores.

The timing couldn’t have been better since the mayor went to an expedition before the freeze and he didn’t come back after it ended. The only explanation was that he was dead, even Rudd went with him so everything in town was ripe for the taking.

She set all her plans in motion and in just a couple days it was paying off.

After people noticed that the tavern wasn’t going to open any time soon, people started heading off to the brothel to eat. The only problem was that madame Bianca had already raised the prices asking for 15 copper coins a meal. She did so with a sad smile, she even managed to cry a little in front of everyone.

“We simply don’t have enough food for everyone, though I wish I could help you all, you know how this is”

People bought her act and started falling in her clutches not long after. At first parents would sell their weakest children to the brothel, just so they could live. Then, the elderly and the weakest ones started selling themselves, either to people they knew or to madame Bianca. But, since the mayor was not at his residence, people sent the documents to madame Bianca asking her to be a witness.

This was unexpected, but it wasn’t so surprising to her. It meant that after the mayor, she was acknowledged as the next most important person in town, feeding her inflated ego even more.

A week after the tavern closed the results of madame Bianca’s plan were showing up, hundreds of people were gladly selling themselves as slaves and the only one with enough money to buy them was, of course, none other than madame Bianca herself.

There were some unfortunate souls that preferred to take their own lives before becoming slaves, but it didn’t matter to her, Ironwoods was almost done for and no one could do anything to stop her.

There were so many slaves that she didn’t have enough space to accommodate them, the brothel was full to the brim, her barracks were full and also, her hidden dungeon was full too. The only sensible thing she could do now was wait until spring, when her fiancee would come to pick up the last batch of slaves she would ever provide.

Everything she had worked her entire life for was within her grasp, she could already savor her future life in the big city, hosting parties and becoming part of the high society as a noble. A baron was a bottom tier noble, but a noble nonetheless, and even if it wasn’t her first choice, she was too old now to worry about small details.

“Are the preparations ready?”

She glared at Thomas.

“Yes madame... I mean, yes my lady. Just say the word and I’ll be on my way”

He corrected himself as soon as he saw a disgusted expression on madame Bianca’s face, she was going to be wed to a baron after all and a lowly merchant needed to address her properly.

“You may go now”

She said arrogantly, even if nothing had changed she felt the power of nobility already.

Thomas hurriedly went out of the room, found his way on the brothel’s hallways, reached the exit where twenty armed men were already waiting for him.

They headed downstreet, turned to the right, went past the mayor’s house, kept going just in front of the Silver goddess tavern. Thomas took a second to look at the now run down tavern, people in town had been harassing them the whole week throwing mud and stones over the walls, it was a pitiful sight. He wondered how was Rina doing, even though he didn’t actually love her and it was just an act, she was indeed the most beautiful girl in town. If only she had accepted him she would be living a life of lushness with him, instead of suffering at the hands of the same people she tried to save.

Thomas let out a heavy sigh and then he kept walking until they reached the northern outskirts.

A big house with a mysterious moving wooden wheel was in front of the small band of armed men. Thomas, who was ahead of everyone stood in front of the wooden fence. For just a brief second he was amazed at the contraption on the side of the house, but then he remembered that it was his own head at stake on this occasion. If he failed, his only chance at surviving would be to seek shelter in a far away land.

Even if that was the case, he couldn’t help but fall prey to the envy that besieged his heart.