>>5951586As you made your way out of the Kaisersgut along the road, you saw that the peasants had already begun the process of ploughing their fields. Men with oxen and draft horses plough, and women and children sow.
It is a quaint paradox. Here, at the heart of the imperial and royal power, the nobility is oddly absent. Free men plough their fields here, not the serfs. In many parts of Greifswald and Tautenland, such an arrangement is more of an oddity that can be easily overlooked, but here it seems that the common man farms for his own profit and pays directly to their emperor rather than through a local lord. Not that you disapprove of such a practice, Ehrenfried, for whom you have squired for many a year, has always had a strong adversion to the institution of serfdom.
Being at the figurative heart of the country does always have its benefits, and in this case, it comes on properly maintained roads. Your father had done similar construction in his domains, but he never got around to creating a proper paved road network. But then again, this road is also made out of sand, dirt, and gravel. A hardened new road outside the cities has been a rarity since the fall of the old empire.
It is nearly midday when you stop in a quaint little farming village to resupply the water supplies from the nearby river. When you spot an old mill atop the hill, it has been abandoned for a long time, it seems. And you are curious enough to inquire with a local villager.
<span class="mu-i"> ''May I have a moment of your time, good sir?'' </span> You approach an older man; if anyone has local knowledge, it is going to be him. <span class="mu-i"> ''A sodger, sodgers appearing during the planting season is bad luck, my pa used to say; matter of fact, sodgers appearing is bad luck any time of t'year. </span> The rural mannerisms get on your nerves, but you bear it for now.
<span class="mu-i"> ''Ya mean tha ol' mill? Place's been abandoned for more than thirty years. Miller was found dead one day, as was the next one. The fourth one gave up and built a watermill over yon'' </span> He makes a wave with a grubby little hand, marked with years of toiling in the fields.
<span class="mu-i"> ''And you never found the killer?'' </span> This sounds mildly concerning and interesting as well.
<span class="mu-i"> ''Ah, what do you care for it huh?'' </span> The man is quick to dismiss you it seems, perhaps it is because you are a soldier, perhaps because you are nobility, or maybe because you are an outsider.
