Chapter 2
"Good day to you, my beloved uncle. Sincerely I hope that your health did not shake the wet holes of our ancient castle. Taking the opportunity, I hasten to please you with my successes and excellent health. The other day I joined the venerable knights of Aquitaine on their march to the Holy Land, where we should soon depart from the wonderful city of Venice. All of us here are inspired and sincerely hope for the success of the enterprise. I will try, as you advised, to protect yourself and, carrying the cross of the holy warrior, not to perish in the ancient sands, so as to fill with joy and pride the heart of your adored uncle.
With a good memory, a loving nephew, Eric von Lenzburg. "
After reading the letter, our faithful companion Uncle Karl mysteriously grinned. Next was the questioning of the servant about how this woman looked, what else she said and where she went after. Eric decided to cheat and, foreseeing that the old friend would decide to fidget, left through the gate leading to the Italian coast. Few of this, he poured out a whole denarius to the guards at the gate, so that they prayed for him in his difficult affair to free the grave of the Lord. Of course, introducing yourself. The guards were delighted and for a long time shouted blessings to the departing travelers. In fact, the young baron, having driven off so as to completely disappear from the eyes of the city guard, turned north-east and by the time he was on his way to Vienna. But the owl was worth the candle, because because of such a feint with beautiful ears, Venice literally in five days joyfully met completely out of breath Rudolph at the head of a detachment covered with road dust into twenty amazing snouts. From where they, without any positive results, were forced to return to the castle of Lenzburg for a report. They ran certainly noble. Well, what do you want me to do? That is life. After all, not for buns with milk, they got right up to Augsburg itself? It was quite obvious that his beloved uncle was very upset by the fleeting departure of his dearest nephew, and therefore decided to attend to his fate, and sent to search an armed detachment led by a sensible officer. It is easy to guess that the joy of meeting so many colorful figures with our hero would have come to him not only sideways, but also other, no less interesting parts of the body.
I must say that the horseback crossings caused one, rather unusual, difficulty. Not everyone, even a highly experienced rider, will get to climb into the saddle and, humanly, go, pre-wearing a lot of skirts. Since the street is warm, some Morrigan skirts were forced to take off, remaining only in the short lower, silk, and the strongest, road, of wool. And, for the time of the equestrian crossing, a long outer skirt was tied up with ribbons so that improvised pants were made. Wretched to the extreme, but still, allowing our girl more or less independently to climb into the saddle and go there. Of the modern analogues, the closest in appearance will be trousers in the Afghan style.
The way to Vienna was not close, but our hero was in no hurry, and therefore not only did not drive the horses, but also tried to choose an inn in such a way as to settle there before dark. To the pleasure of Eric, her companion was not particularly scrupulous about the issues of robbery, since she often starved and did not burn with a special love for the people who so often humiliated and tormented her, so that she could be relied upon. After noon on the third day, the robbers tried to attack them. Making a volley with arrows from the ambush, they jumped out of the bushes and rushed with axes on the travelers. Reasonable ambush - the archers missed the riders and gave a volley to them in the back, and the infantry came out on the forehead. But the archers were inexperienced and almost all the arrows went "into the milk," only one with a buzzing buzz hit the baron in the shield hanging behind him. Without lowering the course, the guy grabbed the crossbow and drove the bolt into the robber, walking with a big spear, along the most dangerous trajectory. After the baron, he fixed his throwing unit on the saddle and pulled out a saber. Morrigan reacted quickly and adequately - by clear movement having unhooked the horse's horse of his suzerain from his saddle and holding a bridle in his hand, she got attached to him in a wake. After receiving the freedom of maneuver Erik, with a completely wild and strange roar "For Mamuja! " rushed to the nearest men. He himself did not understand why this stupid motto from the old toy Anril Tournament came to him. His opponents were completely stunned by this turn of events. The fact is that usually the selected victims, seeing a strong numerical superiority, retreated, or fled and got almost a volley of arrows from a few steps. And then everything went wrong. But no one was going to give them time to enlighten the mind, and therefore the first robber flew to the side and lost consciousness, being knocked down by a horse, and the second collapsed with a head cut like a ripe pumpkin. A considerable gap was formed. Eric turned his horse to the left, giving way to leaving the girl with the baggage, and attacking the next batch of unlucky robbers. Our Irish completely justified his trust and, not hesitating, rushed into a breakthrough to retreat to a safe distance. Seeing the approaching baron, the loggers, who were not particularly brave, turned to a completely natural flight. But, alas, the chopping blows of the sword on the body closed only by the cloth do not contribute to the strengthening of health. This would continue until the final destruction of the infantry, but the archers realized and rushed to the rescue. Three arrows flew into Eric's shield, still hanging on his back, another arrow hit him in the arm and hurt heavily, but did not break the chain mail. He began to maneuver and zigzag move away, sharply changing the direction of movement in an arbitrary order. In general, broke. It was his first natural fight in the new body. He was exhausted so terribly that after reaching an hour-by-hour tavern, he decided to stop and rest, without waiting for the evening. Although it was quite possible to go quietly for three or four more hours.
In the morning his whole body ached, especially the left forearm, where the arrow hit, so they drove more slowly than usual. The end of the fourth day of the journey led them to a rather lively inn in the large commercial city of Regensburg. Everywhere there was a hubbub and noise. After talking with the people, Eric found out that Arab merchants were going through the city. Of course, he immediately went to look at them and assess their strengths and benefits from a small accident. Alas, but with the merchants there were four dozen well-armed equestrian warriors. Yes, and the wagon is huge - what to do with a whole column of carriages with valuable eastern fabrics was completely incomprehensible. In general - no luck. However, later, eating with Morrigan in the common room of the tavern, he found out that literally across the table from them sat the guys from the guard of a certain Mr. Stefan Solvati, who was going to Genoa with an order from one Krakow trading house. The guards were recruited from different nations, and therefore they communicated among themselves in broken Latin, often distorting it and babbling on their native dialects. If it were not for profound knowledge of vulgar Latin, it is still unknown - would understand what our young baron or not from their conversation. Having eaten, he went up to his room and began to explain that the young Irishman must learn by turning around in the hall. Her idea was not very pleasant, as robbing emissaries of trading houses is dangerous, but obeyed and left. After a couple of hours, when it was completely dark, she returned, carrying with her information on the protection of a curious Italian and other interesting details. In general, nothing particularly iridescent did not work. In total, our Stefan had one servant and a dozen guards. Guard experienced, sensible, in good armor and with quality, well-groomed weapons. At the same time, it was especially unpleasant that every guard had a good Hungarian bow. They were going to spend another day in the city, talking about something with the Arabs, and then leaving for Milan. They always stop exclusively at inns, move very carefully and in general the level of vigilance goes off scale. The only weak point was the storage of provisions, which they keep in the cellar of a tavern, because it's hot outside. If we summarize, then we get a strong and vigilant company, which we can not take by available forces. But the level of their equipment and vigilance was intrigued to the extreme, because only one armor cost not less than three or four marks, and about what they were carrying, it remains only to guess and to lick. After calculating the situation, the young baron began to torture Morrigan about her, extremely useful, knowledge received from a kind grandmother in the forest. By morning the plan was ready, and they went to the pharmacist for the ingredients. But they decided to stop by one by one. At first our young lady was going on, who talked for a long time about herbs, treatment and other interesting things with an elderly, esculapius. Having found out that he has the right amount of dried belladonna and hoof oil, she paid for everything without bargaining. The batch of grass was taken quite considerable, with a margin, according to our beauty's calculations, it is enough for a double lethal dose in each wineskin. The stock was taken with the expectation of an unforeseen situation.