British hegemon

Chapter 4 Visiting the Prison

Twenty days later, the world was still the same world, the room was still the same room, but the layout had changed.

The hard wooden bed in the room was covered with sun-dried, soft rush pith, and a patchwork sheepskin mattress and a brand-new wool felt blanket.

The old, crippled chair beside the bed has been replaced with a leather-covered armchair. In the open space behind the armchair, there is a large wooden tub that can hold an adult, with two clean linen short coats draped over the tub.

In the corner of the room, a stack of palm-sized fresh, tender leaves sat beside the freshly washed toilet.

A hemp rope was tied to the crossbeam in the middle of the house, and hanging from the rope was a leather bag full of fine sand. The bag was covered with fist marks and was about to burst.

On a low square table against the wall next to the sandbag, a set of cutlery and two cans of barley beer were neatly arranged, along with a copy of Beowulf written in Old English and a Latin Bible with a few pages turned.

The only two books in the entire Milk House Manor are concentrated on this wooden table.

Beside the two books, on an oak cutting board, lay a hunting knife with a wooden handle that had just been used to cut meat; the blood-stained blade was polished to a gleaming shine.

A young man wearing loose knee-length shorts and a short-sleeved robe sat on a stool near the fireplace under the chopping board.

The large scar on the man's head had scabbed over, and his narrow eyes were slits from the smoke in the fireplace.

He held a long-handled wooden spatula in his hand, the other end of which he occasionally flipped the contents of the frying pan over the fireplace flames...

The period after his awakening was the most comfortable time Roger had experienced in recent years.

In his childhood, he was orphaned and destitute, wandering around and begging to make a living, sometimes eating a full meal and sometimes going hungry.

As a teenager, he was like a wild horse roaming the rivers, causing trouble, fighting, and getting covered in bruises.

He had a sudden change of heart in his youth and was able to go to school with the help of the government. However, he ended up in a juvenile detention center after seriously injuring someone in a fight. When he came out, he had already gone astray.

At the age of twenty, he started a smuggling business with the older brother he met in the juvenile detention center. After ten years of hard work, he was doing very well, but he was killed because he ruined his rival's business.

Looking back on my short life, it was truly filled with sorrow...

The creaking sound of a door being pushed open startled Roger from his reverie.

The freckled young man was hiding half a piece of ginger in his hand.

He placed the ginger on the cutting board like a precious treasure, and said proudly to the man frying lard in front of the fireplace, "Young Master Roger, the spices you ordered have arrived."

Roger didn't even look up. "We only just got it back now, and the lard in the pot has almost melted away."

"My mom locked it in the cupboard and only allowed me to take some after the housekeeper gave her permission."

The man said impatiently, "Hurry up and cut it into strips and throw it in the pot."

The freckled youth looked on in surprise. "All of them?"

Roger looked up at the piece of ginger, barely the size of a knuckle. "You're planning to eat this for a year? Stop arguing and hurry up."

"A whole sevenpence! That's my mom's weekly wages!" The freckled young man picked up the hunting knife, tears welling up in his eyes.

The freckled young man sliced ​​ginger into thin strips, then used a hunting knife to scrape the bits into his palm and carefully placed them into the pork in the pan.

A moment later, Roger poured the sliced ​​pork from the cutting board into the oil pan, flames rose, and the room was instantly filled with a fragrant aroma.

Roger kept stirring the wooden spoon, turning the slices of meat back and forth in the pan.

The freckled youth standing to the side had wide eyes; he couldn't believe food could be prepared this way, and drool was already dripping from his mouth.

"Did you find what I asked you to find?" Roger sprinkled a pinch of coarsely ground salt into the pan.

The freckled young man's eyes never left the slices of meat in the frying pan.

"There is no world map on the island that you requested. The butler went to the church several times, but only found some hand-drawn world maps."

"The priest said that the land east of Jerusalem was a wild and desolate place, a hell ruled by devils and pagans."

The meat slices in the pan had already changed color, so Roger quickly removed the pan from the fireplace flames, picked up a slice, and chewed it a couple of times.

"Pah!" Roger spat the piece of meat into the fireplace. "This is fucking awful!"

Seeing the unmelted, brownish-yellow coarse salt grains in the pot, I thought, "This salt is of very poor quality."

Roger tossed the frying pan onto the square table and said with a roguish grin, "Tell the butler that if he can't get the map, I'll go get it myself."

The freckled youth waved his hands frantically, his face filled with terror. "Young Master Roger, please don't go out! The butler said he'll break my legs if you escape from this bedroom."

"How about I go out again tomorrow to look for them for you? Perhaps they can be found in the Baron's mansion."

Roger has been wielding considerable power in the manor lately. Whenever he threatens to escape from his bedroom, the grumpy-faced butler immediately backs down and grants him any unreasonable demands.

Roger walked smugly to the leather-covered chair, plopped down on it, looked at the guy staring at the sliced ​​meat in the iron pot, and waved his hand, "It's yours."

The freckled youth was overjoyed, grabbed the frying pan, and grimaced as he burned himself.

"Slow down, don't get burned."

The freckled youth had already reached out and stuffed a large piece of stir-fried meat into his mouth.

Roger looked skeptical. "Is it really that delicious?"

The freckled young man didn't care about the strong salty smell, saying, "This is meat, I rarely get to eat it even once a year."

Roger didn't believe him at all. "Your mother's a cook, can you honestly say she never sneaks a bite?"

The freckled youth, his face exposed, forced an awkward smile through his mouth stuffed with meat slices.

Roger didn't seem to care. "Alright, it's all yours. Take it out and eat it."

"Have your mother boil a few more buckets of water tonight, young master wants to take a bath."

The freckled youth swallowed the half-chewed piece of meat in his mouth. "Young Master, you just took a bath ten days ago, and now you want to take another one?"

"Get out and do as I say."

The freckled youth grabbed a frying pan and dashed out of the room, not forgetting to lock the door behind him.

Roger got up and went to the square table, picked up the earthenware pot, poured a large glass of beer, and put the barley beer with light brown foam floating on it into his mouth.

After a few drinks, a few barks came from outside the window.

"It's finally here."

Roger, holding his wine glass, strolled to the window, peeked out, and saw the bald, green-clad thug climbing up the wall pillar, half a roasted chicken dangling from his mouth.

Ever since the Baron of Arran Island led his army into battle, this scoundrel has come to visit Roger almost every day.

However, the sour-faced butler beat him and drove him away several times, so now he only dares to climb over the wall.

The green-clad thug, sporting a bald head, skillfully climbed to the square window of the attic bedroom on the third floor, reached one arm through the windowpane and grabbed it, hanging his body diagonally against the exterior wall without feeling awkward at all.

He took half a roast chicken from his mouth and held it out to Roger, who was leaning against the wall by the window drinking wine. "Young Master Roger, we have avenged you."

Roger took half a roasted chicken with one hand. The two rows of jagged teeth marks on the charred chicken meat were particularly irritating. He handed the wooden cup with a little bit of wine residue to the green-clad thug, tore off a chicken leg from the side without teeth marks, and tentatively put it in his mouth.

The chicken was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, with just a few grains of salt for the perfect flavor. It tasted much better than the stir-fried pork with ginger that he had spent an entire afternoon making.

The green-clad thug had already licked the last drops of wine from his glass. With a gentle wave of his right arm hanging from the window frame, he embellished the story of how he had led the "wanderers" of Arun Island to the village of Locklandza to deal with the rich village chief, Gary, and boasted to the young master Roger, who had suffered greatly as a result.