Age of Heroes (Age of Heroes Chronicles)

Chapter 18: The first step (2)

"Ribs of beef and many a bread!" The yell rang throughout Julia Vermont's bakery.

"We're selling bread, dear, not ribs of beef. That's another store," said Julia.

She was calmly trying to instruct Lisa on how to sell bread.

A month had passed since they had been made nobility, and their profits had increased further.

The village of Danoba had become a city, and the market square pulsed with merchants and new city dwellers.

The reason why it became a city is because Aries combined the villages to form a city under his governance

Market Square was erected and it is a success.

Arial had advised his father to open even more shops, selling everything from weapons to fish, which were particularly popular with the High Lords Houses.

Every stall that is open need to pay for the place and that gold went into the Treasury for the city to maintain roads and to build more structures all across the city.

The Vermont's also have a meat shop, a fish shop and with the supplies that they got from the Port, they sell mackerel, herring, lampreys, cod, eels, cured salmon and herring and stock fish are the most common varieties of fishes they sell on the wet market.

Crabs and lobsters are transported live, in barrels. It cost a bit but the return for such transaction is also good.

Arial based this business on the dreams he dreams yesterday. It seems every time he dreams he could remember a bit more about what he before he almost dies, the vision of that other worlds.

He sees a family that uses this same method from a lowly status to become very rich. But it's not from this world he guess.

There is also fresh salmon attracting very hefty price.

A fresh turbot can cost even more, and usually only the noble families that buy this kind of fish usually for feast.

The Vermont's also have contract with two of the High Lords Houses.

House of Alan and House of Palais.

Other than that, the Vermont's is also selling their grains, now that they have so much in reserve.

Aries and Julia, his parents are planning to buy other lands from other places in the Dukedom.

Arial mother is also the accountant. She mentioned that she learned from a clerk that resides in her house a long time ago.

Arial then watch outside the shop.

He could see a young lad walking through the crowd bearing a tray laden with wooden bowls of cooked meats.

Arial look at him and then he ask his mother

"Is that a new worker?" Arial asked her mother.

Julia turned her head and looked at the boy outside the shop.

"Yes, a smith boy, wanting to make some money. He said he wanted to do the job so I let him"

Arial just nodded and he smiles

Arial watched the life fluster all around him.

So many people had come from surrounding villages, and Danoba had more than doubled in size.

Men in knee-length brown tunics drove their cattle through the square, wealthy merchants in long high-collared gowns and beaver-fur hats looking to spend their money, peasants leading flocks of sheep, packhorses pulling carts loaded with crates of chickens; the city was buzzing with noise.

People are talking so much that chatter could almost be the whole purpose of the market and in many ways it is.

Information is exchanged here.

Arial also notices some travelling performers performs in the corner of the market square, Arial met them yesterday when they were making the payment for their place.

Their performance looks interesting too.

The marketplace is the heart of any town: indeed, the very definition of a town is that it has a market.

The Vermont recognize this and also set aside an area for corn: sacks of wheat, barley, oats and rye that are piled up, ready for sale to the townsmen.

Then there is the space given over to livestock: goats, sheep, pigs and cows. Another corner is devoted to garden produce apples, pears, vegetables, garlic and herbs.

The rest of the marketplace performs two functions.

Producers come to sell fleeces, sacks of wool, tanned hides, furs, iron, steel and tin for resale further afield.

The other function is to sell manufactured commodities to local people: brass and bronze cooking vessels, candlesticks and spurs, pewter ware, woolen cloth, silk, linen, canvas, carts, rushes (for hall floors), glass, faggots, coal, nails, horse shoes and planks of wood.

Everyone is heavily dependent on each other for such supplies, and the marketplace is where all these interdependencies meet.

Arial smiled.

The next day he was due to leave for the Knight Training Barracks.

He had been recommended by Sir Thomas and had received his letter the day before. His one condition for joining had been that Kyle and Lisa would join too.

Their parents, Daniel and Alissa, had been hesitant, but Arial had assured them that he would protect their children, and they had relented.

He thought about all that he had done in his recent years.

The people of Danoba had been taken along such a different path than the one fate had originally had in store for them.

Daniel Lethe was supposed to have been a hunter who died in the woods searching for food during the winter following his son's death, but now he worked on Arial's father's cattle farm.

Change one thing, change everything.

Perhaps change wasn't such a bad thing.

Arial sighed happily.

Tomorrow he would begin his training. He would prove his worth and change the fate of the Dukedom.

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