A Visit to Hradec: Gold, Boars, and Horse Deals

Noren, having slept for a full day, rushed to the smithy the moment she awoke.

“Father, is it all melted down?”

Svein, reaching into the pouch of his leather apron, pulled out four small gold bars and handed them to her.

“Roughly two pounds,” he stated.

The young woman weighed the gold bars in her hand.

“You didn’t charge a smelting fee, did you?” she teased.

“I feel like all those gold cups and ornaments shouldn’t amount to so little.”

“This is all there is,” Svein retorted, returning to his work.

“Say one more word, and I’ll confiscate all your ill-gotten gains.”

He had a batch of arrowheads to forge that day, as Hradec had ordered dozens of heavy, four-sided pyramidal arrowheads from him.

Noren was merely jesting; she knew full well Svein would never shortchange her gold.

“Father, I intend to visit Hradec today.”

Svein pulled the bellows several times, then used iron tongs to grip a metal bar and place it into the charcoal fire to heat.

He remained silent, awaiting his daughter’s further explanation.

“I plan to buy two riding horses,” Noren revealed her purpose.

“Our draft horse at home is only good for pulling cargo; it’s far too slow for riding.”

“Remember to bring the ‘ointment’,” the blacksmith instructed, not inquiring about her reasons for buying horses.

“Yes, I’ll bring it along.”

****

“Noren, is this enough?” Tolke asked, a ten-inch long, six-inch wide and high iron-bound wooden box resting on his lap.

The box was filled to the brim with gleaming silver coins; he scooped up a handful, then released them, letting the coins cascade with a pleasant clatter.

Noren pondered.

“It should… be enough, right?” she mused.

“At the small village markets nearby, a grey donkey costs sixty silver coins, and a sturdy plough horse is less than one hundred and twenty denier silver coins. Five pounds of silver coins should certainly be enough for two riding horses.”

The boy closed the wooden box, preparing to lock it, when Noren spoke again.

“Let’s count another hundred coins in, and I’ll also take two small silver bars from the chest.”

Once the counting was complete, Tolke secured the wooden box with its lock.

Noren shed her outermost green coarse linen dress, slipping into a white, long-skirted, stand-collared linen gambeson.

This soft armor featured eight rows of leather buckles, with two specially crafted pockets on either side, sealed with leather toggles.

She tucked a silver bar into each pocket, then tightened a cowhide belt around her waist, hanging her sword on her left hip and securing an embroidered money pouch, adorned with a large-headed owl, on her right, placing ten silver coins inside for small change.

“Tolke, that leather lamellar armor is yours,” Noren declared, gesturing towards the armor casually discarded in the corner of the room.

“That thing stinks too much; even after Father soaked it in herbs several times, the smell wouldn’t go away.”

She motioned for the boy to put it on.

The moment Tolke entered the room, he had caught the stench of the leather lamellar armor.

Though his sense of smell was keen, no place in the Middle Ages was without its odors; his father Tolruk’s body odor alone was exceptionally potent, not to mention the leather itself was tanned by their own family.

Even his sister Freya carried a faint scent of sweat, a smell he had long grown accustomed to.

However, Noren had been somewhat peculiar lately; her usual ‘meaty fragrance’ was gone, replaced by a… well, how to describe it?

‘It was like the scent of blood mixed with honey.’

“Tolke, what are you spacing out about?” the young woman asked, touching her face, unsure what the boy was staring at.

“Ah? Uh… nothing,” he stammered, snapping back to attention.

He ran to pick up the lamellar armor and put it on, fastening the leather buckles with Noren’s help.

“Good, excellent, let’s go!” Noren exclaimed, pressing down on his shoulders, assessing him from head to toe.

She then tucked the wooden box under her arm, and before leaving, she instinctively grabbed two conical nasal helms from the table.

****

As night fell, a two-wheeled carriage stood parked on a flat grassy patch in the forest.

Their dark-brown draft horse rested, kneeling on the ground, while Tolke tossed logs onto the crackling bonfire.

Their luggage was piled beside the carriage.

“Tolke, look! We have dinner!” Noren suddenly emerged from behind a bush, dragging a wild boar weighing around a hundred pounds.

She had initially intended to catch a rabbit for a small meal, but unexpectedly, a wild boar had charged straight at her.

Seizing its hind legs, she executed a full-force ‘windmill’ spin, twirling it dozens of times before slamming it against a tree, knocking it unconscious.

It was fortunate that this boar was not particularly large, allowing her to swing it.

Had it been a three-hundred-pound behemoth, she would have been forced to cleave it with her sword, which would have meant wasting its hide.

Before returning, she had already drained the boar’s blood, and now she used a short dagger to extract its tusks.

Noren cast aside the dagger, extending her hand to Tolke.

“Axe.”

The boy handed her a short axe, and Noren swiftly chopped off the boar’s head and detached its four hocks.

She tossed the head and hocks aside.

“Knife.”

The boy rummaged through their luggage pile, found a rolled-up chef’s knife kit, unfurled it, and presented Noren with a six-inch long, one-inch wide single-edged knife.

With practiced ease, she stripped the boar’s hide, then carved out the loin, removed the spine, and discarded the remaining ribs, along with the internal organs, back into the forest, lest they attract unwelcome visitors.

“A butcher’s skill,” Tolke praised, admiring her proficient technique.

Noren tossed the blood-stained pigskin directly into his arms.

“Stop chattering,” she commanded.

“Scrape off all the fat and sell it in Hradec tomorrow. And make sure to char the pork hocks before you eat them; I don’t want to hear you complaining of a stomachache someday.”

****

The following afternoon, they arrived in Hradec, having spent nearly an entire day traveling without rest.

They were well-acquainted with the place, having visited it numerous times.

As a city, Hradec boasted thriving commerce and countless shops, attracting a multitude of artisans: blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors, weavers, brewers, stonemasons, saddlers, and many more could be found here.

Other professions, such as charcoal burners and tile makers, operated their kilns further downstream along the river.

Moreover, its fortifications surpassed those of the Opava Barony.

Over the past decade, the wooden palisades encircling the city’s outer district had been gradually replaced by formidable earth-filled box walls, thirty feet high, seven feet thick, and a total of three thousand three hundred feet long.

It featured two city gates, north and south, each equipped with a gatehouse and a portcullis, crafted from the finest oak.

Square towers rose prominently at the four corners of the city wall, projecting outwards and bristling with arrow slits, ensuring that archers could strike enemies even those close to the wall.

Beyond the city walls lay a wide moat, directly connected to the Oder River.

In recent years, Hradec had embarked on further strengthening its walls; the original wooden battlements atop the walls were progressively being replaced with brick and stone, and a new outer district was being constructed outside the south gate to accommodate the burgeoning demand for housing.

With a population of five hundred households, the city could not compare to major metropolises like Prague or Milan.

Yet, like a sparrow, though small, it possessed all the vital organs: a square for public beheadings, a monastery resistant to reform, a church frequently visited by thieves, and a perpetually chaotic market—all segmented by a network of roads.

However, these sights were only visible once inside; they were stopped by the city gate guards before even entering.

“Noren, where’s Svein? Why didn’t he come?” the old guard asked, his words whistling through his gapped teeth.

Noren tugged on the reins, bringing her horse to a halt, and spoke with a hint of displeasure.

“What is it, Krull? Just because Father isn’t here, you think you can charge me an entry tax?”

She cast a sidelong glance at the city tax collector, who promptly turned his head, feigning ignorance.

The old soldier stretched his right foot, twisting his ankle.

“No, no, I just wanted to ask when Svein will come next. You know, us old soldiers are alive today thanks to Svein’s healing skills, and my right foot has started aching again recently.”

The young woman pursed her lips.

“I can answer that for you. If you don’t want to die from gout eventually, drink less alcohol. I see you’ve lost quite a few more teeth; don’t spend all your meager pay at taverns and brothels.”

The old soldier chuckled awkwardly, stepping aside and greeting Tolke, who was following behind the carriage.

Ignoring the beggars by the roadside and the shouting street vendors, Noren proceeded directly along the cobblestone avenue to a tall timber and stone building.

This edifice was constructed with brick and stone, framed by wood, comprising several three-story structures joined by bridge corridors.

Each small building, fifty feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty-five feet high, formed a multi-purpose complex containing living quarters, bedrooms, kitchens, banquet halls, offices, and cellars—serving as the mayor’s place of work, residence, and dining.

Noren, carrying the iron-bound wooden box filled with over a thousand silver coins, ascended the corridor stairs to the second floor.

The guards on duty, accustomed to her presence, did not stop her, merely opening the door for her to enter.

“Noren?” a buxom woman exclaimed, rising from her chair, setting down the blond boy she held, and rushing forward to embrace her.

“Aunt Anna…” the young woman muttered, overwhelmed by the mayor’s wife’s effusive warmth.

Every embrace felt like Ultraman and Godzilla clashing beams—the one with the bigger ‘beam’ won.

Anna, though four inches shorter than Noren, possessed a voluptuous figure with wide hips and a round waist, resembling a seasoned cosplayer from Azur Lane (TL Note: A popular mobile game known for its anthropomorphic warships, often depicted with voluptuous female characters).

Beside her, the mayor, who also served as her photographer, had a pale face and dark eye bags, clearly an honest farmer who had paid his ‘imperial grain’ (TL Note: A humorous reference to the ‘taxes’ or ‘sacrifices’ made by a husband to satisfy his wife, often implying sexual activity).

“A month without seeing you, and why are you alone? Where’s Svein?” Anna asked, looking her over from left to right, then rushing out of the room to peer over the railing, only spotting Tolke by the carriage.

“Uh… I wanted to come buy two riding horses myself,” Noren explained.

“Father is still in the village completing orders and likely won’t be coming to Hradec anytime soon.”

The mayor’s wife’s eyes widened with confusion.

“Buy horses? Why buy horses? While Svein has some horsemanship, we Norsemen are formidable enough with our axes and spears. We have ways to deal with heavy cavalry, light cavalry, or horse archers, so why buy horses?”

‘It’s not like I can tell her I’m going to run off to Prague to become a master thief, is it?’

She could only prevaricate.

“The round trip between Hradec and the village takes too long, Auntie. If I had a fast riding horse, I could come visit you even when I’m not procuring raw materials. I could arrive in the morning, return in the evening, and still have plenty of time in between to keep you company, so you won’t feel lonely here in Hradec.”

Anna, being easily moved, was instantly touched, embracing the young woman and sobbing with shaking shoulders.

“Your mother died in childbirth when she was only forty, giving birth to Frey, leaving you two siblings behind,” Anna lamented.

“She was such a strong person, capable of killing a bear with a single punch, yet… yet I never imagined that a single childbirth would… would… Boohoo!”

Noren felt utterly helpless.

While she knew women could be sentimental, she hadn’t anticipated even a Norse shieldmaiden to be this way.

Perhaps her mother’s sudden death had dealt Anna such a blow that she had been unable to accept the reality for over a decade.

Gently stroking the woman’s back, Noren’s own thoughts began to drift.

“Cough,” Mayor Sithi interjected with a symbolic cough, seemingly urging Anna to compose herself, especially with their young son watching nearby.

Anna released Noren, wiped away the tears from her eyes, but still reflexively choked back two more sobs.

Suddenly remembering something, Noren unfastened a cloth pouch from her waist, loosened its drawstring, and handed her aunt a silver medicine box tied with a knot.

The silver box, two inches in diameter and two inches high, was engraved with acanthus patterns on its exterior walls.

From the seams between the lid and the body, a refreshing herbal fragrance wafted out in gentle wisps.

“Oh! The last box was almost used up; I was just about to ask if you brought the medicine!” Aunt Anna exclaimed, taking the box.

She then scurried away with a light “thump-thump-thump” across the wooden floor, off to apply her medicine.

Though called medicine, it was, in fact, Svein’s exclusive brand of facial mask, supplied only to the mayor’s wife.

Mayor Sithi tapped his fingertips on the desk, drawing the young woman’s gaze, then asked, “You wish to buy horses?”

“Yes, Uncle Sithi, do you have any spare horses?”

“I apologize, Noren,” he said with an apologetic smile.

“Every fine steed in the stables has its owner; those without owners are either transport horses or foals.”

“Do you know where I can purchase healthy riding horses?”

“Hmm…” the mayor pondered for a moment before replying.

“You might try asking a stout, black-haired man named Ogmund at ‘The Beauty’ tavern. He always seems to stay there. He’s a horse merchant from Prague who arrived in Hradec a week ago. He’s quite experienced in trading horses, so he might have the riding horses you seek. However, regarding the price… you should prepare yourself.”

“Thank you for the information, Uncle Sithi. Please accept this,” Noren said, producing another wooden box from the same cloth pouch that had held the medicine earlier.

The box, made of pale birch wood, had a slightly whitish hue.

Sithi picked up the birch box and shook it, hearing a rattling sound within.

He attempted to open the lid, but the box was fitted together quite tightly.

“What is this?” he inquired.

Noren took the birch box, gripped the small knob on the lid, and gently twisted it.

The lid separated from the body, revealing several round pills rolling inside.

“Father’s new concoction,” she explained, detailing its effects.

“It strengthens a man’s physique, nourishes the body, and most importantly, it can satisfy ‘that’ particular need. One pill at a time, limited to one pill per day, with at least a week between each dose.”

Of course, this wasn’t Svein’s medicine; it was a pill she had formulated based on the herbalism Svein taught her.

She had tested it on the pig farmer’s large boars: the effect was mild, making healthy boars go into heat and sick boars experience a temporary resurgence of vitality.

Sithi poured out a pill, spread it on his palm, and brought it closer to his nose, inhaling a fresh, elegant scent of wood and herbs.

He accepted Noren’s medicine; after all, Anna the shieldmaiden’s robust physique had long since become too much for him to handle, leaving his hips aching and his loins sore every night.

After Noren moved their luggage to the mayor’s guest room, she and Tolke, guided by a spear-wielding Slavic guard, walked through two crossroads before finding “The Beauty” tavern, as described by the mayor.