>>5149764>>5149792>>5149814Noted.
>>5149855>>5149874>>5149938>>5150025You decided to know more about the two men, and you asked Oldfossil in a low tone.
-This Cresus, is he an honest man ? I mean, do they like him in the community and trust him ?
The councillor nodded, appreciating your wisdom of consulting him about the claimant before agreeing or not. He said.
-My Lord, it depends, he is seen as a good worker and he is clever so he always pays all his taxes but the fact that he bought, sometimes cheaply, the lands of his neighbours and that he sold at low price to ruin them has made him unpopular with the peasantry. Some of his neighbours, like the old widow Longgone have disappeared mysteriously and if it was never proved that it was him some people think he did it because he bought her land to her children who were very young and could not work on it, for cheap. He bought some unused land from us too and made it productive, we can thank him for it. Some craftsmen like him because he commonly lowers the price of grain to ruin those who are struggling after a bad harvest, and it’s cheap grain for them.
During famines he helped though, because he keeps some stockpiles, even if he sells them at a quite high price.
Lord Random ordered him to stop speculating during famine and sell at a normal price once, he refused, so Lord Random menaces to make his guards beat him. It was three years ago. He seemed to respect more our Lord after that. He has some family, a brother who works as a scribe in Podunk, two sons that are right here, and a sister who is married to the miller. It is why his grain is the first to go to the mill. His wife is from a family of farmer, she was the sole heir and he married her, it was the beginning of his fortune.
Oh, and sometimes when caravans were on the road to baronial lands he offered to pay adventurers himself to solve the problem, to be seen as an honourable man by the community.
