Bab 28: 0027 One of our own
We're pirates, fierce pirates.
[Bottle of wine in left hand, treasure in right]
[We're pirates, pirates with skills]
[Beautiful girls, please come into my arms]
[We are pirates, free and easy pirates]
[Guided by the skull and crossbones flag, toiling for survival]
[We are pirates, pirates without tomorrow]
[Never ending, on the seven seas, floating pirates ...]
"To Viking!"
"Cheers!"
"To the whalers!"
"Cheers!"
"To Dusk!"
"Cheers!"
"To the Nootropics in the sea! And to the Hall of Valor in the sky!"
"Cheers twice!"
"Boys, party all night long!"
"We are pirates, fierce pirates, with a bottle in our left hand and treasure in our right ..."
Long nights, starbursts.
Huge bonfires burned on the docks of Stavanger, and forty or fifty large, unkempt men with unusually clean hands and feet sang merrily around them, glasses raised high.
It's the gala venue for the great Twin Pirates and the equally great Drake Chamber of Commerce.
Drake out of wine, Twins out of men.
The pirates held hands and danced lamely as Pierce Jr. and Keren, accompanied by the first mate of the pirate crew, toured the Brigantine-type Gemini with gusto.
And the protagonists of the Double King Duel ...
Hina was the least injured, with a red forehead, and was rubbing Lorraine with bruise-reducing ointment in the corner by the sea.
Bonnet was a little more badly hurt than Heena, and the big blob of gauze on the bridge of her nose at least didn't interfere with drinking.
The one who seems to be the most miserable of the four is Leif, who to this day is unable to move on his own.
The doctor from Black Harbor was at the fire to dispose of his wounds, and the supposed disposition was to wash them, sew them up, rub them with medicine, and wrap them in cloth ...
Lorraine couldn't use such a brilliant doctor for a while anyway.
His body had a large number of abrasions and bruises, and a certain degree of displacement of internal organs, all of which were beyond the surgeon's reach.
It was Hina who tended to his wounds.
He was cozily sprawled on Hina's plump, soft thighs, facing away from the hot meeting place, enjoying a careful, gentle application, happy and relaxed.
After her back was wiped, Hina patted Lorraine on the shoulder, causing Lorraine to roll over and meet her turquoise, vaguely glowing eyes against the night sky.
Haina's eyes were beautiful, with deep sockets that made them look extra large and expressive.
But Lorraine's attention always drifted away uncontrollably, to the swollen, reddish bulge beneath the wide hooded hat with its shiny spikes.
It's like growing horns ...
Lorraine snorted out a laugh, "Haina, obviously the knife was clutched in your hand at that point, what made you think of smashing someone's nose with your brain? And smashed it off ..."
Hina gave Lorraine an uncharacteristically blank look, "If you'd come out of the water a little later, I would have sliced open his heart."
"That's quite a catch ..."
Hina's slender upper finger traced circles around Lorraine's heart, "Why didn't you kill anyone from the beginning?"
"See?"
Hina nodded, "Leif is bulky, and with your sword skills, you could have stabbed him through the throat to begin with if you wanted to kill him."
Lorraine shrugged, "I didn't expect him to awaken the bloodline of a berserker, I missed a trick."
"And?"
"See that quack?" Lorraine pouted in Leif's direction, "His name's Eddie. Garman."
"Garman?"
"Sir Garman's third son. He runs a clinic in the harbor area, and his main customers are the Viking pirates."
Hina raised an eyebrow, "You already knew?"
"How can ... it be," Lorraine laughed bitterly, "the pirates dared to enter the harbor under the pirate flag, indicating that they don't need to hide their identity here. Since this is the case, their relationship with Sir Garman must be very good, and as for an heir to a post ordinal position who is not good at medicine ... is just a surprise."
Hina released, "When do we get to meet Sir Garman?"
"Three days." Lorraine frowned and made herself lie down more comfortably, "At least three days before Leif and I can barely make a move ..."
As it turned out, Lorraine had overestimated herself, and Leif, and mostly the Viking bloodline heritage.
It took him five days to be able to get out of bed on his own, and it took Leif a full seven days before he was officially free of the sailor's hold.
On the eighth day the party rowed across the channel in a dinghy, and, under the guidance of Dr. Garman, ascended to the flat meadows of Ustine Island.
Sir Garman was a standard Viking aristocrat, tall and with hard features.
Tuxedos and white wigs have basically become standard attire for aristocrats on the continent, but he still clings to the traditions of his ancestors, wrapped in bearskin and tattooed on his face.
He even has a polar bear named Yello.
Lorraine met him in the atrium of the Utstein monastery.
Jazz was lazily leaning back in a chaise lounge, with an equally lazy Yello at his feet, both with eyes half half-closed, and for a moment it was impossible to tell whether they were awake or asleep.
Dr. Garman was formal in his presence, his hands bunched up in the seams of his pants and his body standing straight.
Instead, Leif, who was hanging on by both arms, came up to him with a grin and whispered in a voice like vibrating thunder.
"Sir, I bring you a warrior!"
Sir Garman lifted half an eyelid, "Reckless Great Eriksson, I hear you've been taught a lesson?"
"Half a pound, eight or two!"
"But I don't see the same straps and splints on him that you do."
Leif rubbed his bald head in embarrassment, "He's got internal injuries, the bruises have only been wearing off for the last two days."
"Still mouthy." Jazz laughed twice and sat up, crossing his fingers and looking at Lorraine, "Dark hair, brown pupils, you're a whaler?"
Lorraine smiled and nodded, "My mother, her name was Helena. Arnason."
"Jarnasson ..." Sir's expression became solemn, "King of Iceland, Yngg. Jarnasson?"
"Exactly the family ancestor."
Jazz ooohs and ahhs and stands up and kicks Yello in the ass.
A man and a bear circled Lorraine from side to side, violently opened their hands, and heavily embraced Lorraine in their arms.
He excitedly shouted to the heavens, "Odin is above! Niod's bloodline has awakened! Our whaler ... he has returned!"
...
In Stavanger, having Sir Garman's approval is like having the approval of the entire Black Harbor.
This was something that Lorraine had come to realize deeply from the first moment she stepped back onto the land of Black Harbor.
He became his own man.
In just half a day the ship sold out of whisky at an average price of four pounds per barrel.
All of the customers were Viking taverns in the harbor and all of them actively sought out the docks and offered Lorraine a deal.
After removing the twelve-hundredths of a percent resident-level transaction tax, Lorraine netted nearly two hundred and thirty pounds on this order alone.
With the cargo hold vacated, Lorraine began scouting the local market and chose glass as the next stop on her bandwagon out of three specialties: felt, smoked fish, and glassware.
The last stop of the Chamber's triangular trade will be Spain, where the crystal-clear glass of Northern Europe, especially the various types of vessels with Catholic motifs, has always had a good reputation and a huge market.
He soon connected with a whole cargo of glass, amounting to one hundred and thirty-five cases, at a price of two hundred and seventy pounds, and the delivery was fixed for to-morrow.
Lorraine politely sends the contact away, just in time to see Hina practicing her flying dagger on the upper deck.
On a whim, he opened his mouth and asked, "Hina, want to go shopping?"
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone