A Celebration Party
A Celebration Party
Besides the witches, all high officials of City Hall and the First Army attended it, including noblemen such as Barov Mons and Carter Lannis and civilians like Iron Axe and Kyle Sichi. Roland had tried every possible way to persuade Kyle to come to this, in his words, "meaningless" banquet.
In order to share his happiness with his subjects, the prince gave a public speech and ordered his kitchen to bake a large sum of white bread with the left refined starch for the people of the town. Today, everyone who showed his or her ID card to City Hall, could get one piece of this delicious bread there. In this way, most people of the town knew the victory before the return of the First Army.
They might not understand the purpose and significance of this expedition, but as long as they could get free bread, it was a day worth celebrating.
This was the first time for Roland to organize an "elegant" banquet, following the fashion trend of the king's city.
It was similar to a buffet in the modern times. Instead of serving chunks of grilled or stewed meat, all the food was diced or sliced and delivered to the table in white plates. Besides the dishes, different sauces were placed in a big bowl for the guests to use according to their preference.
He walked toward Anna, with two glasses of fruit wine in hands. "Welcome back. Thank you for your hard work."
Anna took a glass of wine, saying, "You've already thanked me at the dock. It's my pleasure."
When they clinked glasses, Roland saw the happiness and sweetness in the girl's eyes. He resisted the urge to hold her on the spot and then toasted to the other witches.
"What about me?" shouted Lightning.
"You shall have some, too." Roland beckoned to a waiter and took a glass of cider for her. "Thank you for your hard work."
"I want white liquor!" the little girl looked up and said.
"Uhm... All right, but only one glass of it." After a little thought, Roland agreed to her request. He thought that if he continued to refuse her plea like this, this curious little girl would follow Nightingale's example and sneak into the kitchen to steal liquor for herself.
"Yes!"
The moment Roland handed her a glass of low-alcohol white liquor with ice cubes, the little girl suddenly came up and kissed his cheek.
"Ahem... Is this a social etiquette of the Fjords again?"
"Yes, my dad told me that!" Lightning nodded vigorously.
The witches of the town, who had seen similar things happen before, did not seem to heed this action, but Sylvie and all the other Sleeping Island witches stared at this in surprise. After that, they all looked at Roland with accusing looks in their eyes, seriously doubting this strange Fjords etiquette of kissing the lord during a celebration party. Feeling quite awkward, the prince turned his head aside to avoid their eyes.
After that, he moved to toast to his officials.
When he came to Chief Alchemist Kyle Sichi, he leaned toward him and whispered, "Your Highness, I've read "Intermediate Chemistry" twice, but still can't understand many parts of it."
"It expounds microcosmic composition of substances and involves lots of physics knowledge. You have to read it together with another book to get a clear idea. I suggest that you read 'Elementary Physics' before you read the incomplete chemistry book. In this way, you can find answers for many of your questions," Roland explained.
"That's what I intended to do, but..." He hesitated. "Your Highness, why do the covers of the ancient books have different colors? Do the colors suggest anything?"
"Well..." Roland continued after a little thought. "The colors represent different levels and different degrees of difficulty."
With a thoughtful expression on his face, Kyle said, "I see. The covers change from green to purple, and the deeper the color is, the more difficult the content of the book will be. Given that, the cover of 'Advanced Chemistry' must be black, right?
"No, it's orange."
"Ah?" Kyle was greatly surprised. "Why?"
Roland smiled and said, "Who knows."
…
Halfway through the banquet, the prince walked out of the hall and came to the castle terrace. In the evening breeze, he felt a touch of coolness and then realized that half of the autumn had already past and before long the Months of Demons would bring a long, cold winter to the whole Western Region.
He was happy to have witnessed many good changes of the town in this year. After the deals with Margaret's Chamber of Commerce, the town was awash in liquidity. Most of those gold royals were distributed to the subjects as wages, except for some used to buy food and goods. A recent survey conducted by the Convenience Market showed remarkable sales increases in all kinds of goods of the market, especially those goods which could significantly increase life quality, such as steaks and eggs.
No doubt, the statistics suggested that the living standard of the people was improved, especially that of the locals. Now that they had free brand new houses and much higher incomes, they started to buy good food for daily meals, which they had only been able to enjoy in festivals in the past. As to the newcomers of the town, they were still saving money to buy houses. Roland believed that when they settled down, the market would see a new sales peak.
What did the people need? In some era, they would be grateful and loyal to their lord, as long as they could eat and drink well.
Just like in this era, most people were easy to be content.
"Your Highness, be careful not to catch cold." Nightingale appeared behind him with a thin leather coat in her hand. She tossed it to Roland and then took out a piece of dried fish. She stood beside him, asking, "What're you doing here?"
"Nothing." He smiled and put on the coat. "I just wanted to see my domain in a sudden."
"The town still seems bustling." Nightingale pointed to the square lit up by firelight. "It's getting late now, but there're still so many people outside."
"Because tonight is the first night of the new drama 'Dawn'." Roland smiled. "It's the first show after the troupe comes back here. The audience has waited for several months. They just can't wait any longer to see Miss May and Ms. Irene again."
He suddenly thought of the fact that Miss May would soon become Ms. May Lannis. To his great surprise, his chief knight had quickly won the affection of Star of the Western Region. He had been dumbfounded for a long while when Carter told him about it with an expression of absolute honesty. By tradition, a chief knight's marriage needed his lord's approval. As Carter's lord, Roland would never object to such a happy thing. Carter and May's wedding would be held after the Months of Demons this year, on the same day of the city-building announcement of Border Town.
Nightingale was also moved by the lively scene, saying, "When I sneaked into the town for the first time, it was still a dull, backward place, but now I can feel the joy of the people even when I'm standing inside the castle."
"The people's life is getting better day by day." Roland looked up at the cloudless, starry night sky, thinking that he still had a lot of things to do, such as expanding education, establishing public health care system, strengthening cultural construction, encouraging births, etc. All these things would thrive his Western Region and give him enough strength to unify the Kingdom of Graycastle.
"What about us?" Nightingale tilted her head and asked, with a crafty look in her eyes.
"You'll be getting better, too." Roland patted her head. "I promise."