Temple Sword

Chapter 198 Contract
Tiborg just pursed his lips, unable to bear the sharp gaze of the man squatting in front of him, and looked down at the ground.

"It seems not," Zalan sighed, "Then let me tell you what we want to do now."

"Give me at least a sip of water before you kill me!" whimpered the landowner. "You want to kill me, don't you?"

"Give him a glass of water, Sapoli!" the brewer said to one of the men, and watched thoughtfully as Tiberg greedily sipped the water that was offered him. "If we wanted to kill you, you would have been buried underground."

"Then what do you want?" Tilberg asked, "You must have a purpose for keeping me here, otherwise you could tie me to a horse and take me..."

"Look, you think so too, right!" Zalan patted his face, as if he was talking to an ignorant child. "We just want you to understand how lucky you are and warn you not to do anything stupid."

Zaran's hand slid down the man's face and squeezed his chin with unexpected force, causing Tiborg's heart to start beating wildly in his chest.

"Listen to me, you self-righteous rat!" The brewer moved closer, pinning the man's head against the wall of the hut. "You're probably thinking about how to get back at us by now, but that would be a bad decision.

If you want to use iron on us we will put your limbs on spears, if you want to use fire on us we will burn your home and everything you hold dear, if you want to use the church Come and hurt us, and we will turn the wrath of God on you and make you suffer worse than purgatory.

Don't try to get revenge on us, do you understand? "

Tiborg listened to the frenzied threat with wide eyes, and finally nodded without thinking.

"Very good!" Zalan let go of the man's jaw, then stood up with a calm smile on his face, as if nothing had happened just now. "Now we can discuss something more pleasant..."

This man is a madman, Tilberger thought horrifiedly, what pleasant subject could he think of?

"Now that we've sorted out this little disagreement," the winemaker continued unhurriedly, "it's time for us to talk about the terms of our partnership."

Tilberg could hardly believe his ears.

"Cooperation... what?" He blinked in confusion.

The shrewd Zaran opened his arms and looked down at him in surprise, "Do you want us to be enemies for life?" He asked happily, "We are all wine producers in Eger, aren't we?

Now is the time to make peace and think for the benefit of both parties, do you prefer endless hatred to harmonious coexistence?My intuition tells me that you value your life. "

Tiborg climbed up from the ground with the pain of splitting his head, patted the dust off his body, and looked at the man who was a barefoot beggar the day before with interest for the first time so far.

"I'm listening." He nodded.

Tilberg is more interested in business and money than anything else, for which he is willing to put aside his personal revenge plans.

"Well, as you can see, we still have a lot of work to do here," Zaran pointed to the surrounding fields without grapes, "If you agree to help us cultivate this land, we will reward you a lot in the future .

True, you can't get back the money and land you gambled in the tavern, but you can still make money in other ways. "

"What kind of help are you talking about?" Tilberg stroked his chin and asked, as if he came here to attend the meeting, not to mess up. "You don't want to squeeze more silver coins from me, do you? If so, I advise you to give up early."

"On the contrary," Zalan held up his index finger. "If we make a deal, we'll give you a lot of money."

"Okay, okay," the landlord's eyes lit up, "This is really getting more and more interesting, what do you hope to get from me?"

"As you can see, we are not short of manpower," the winemaker explained, "but we need more tools. We will write a list of farming tools and winemaking tools, which will detail the items and quantity requirements.

We don't mind if you bring us old tools you used yourself, but you have to make sure they are in perfect condition, we won't accept tools with worn, cracked, rusted or aged edges.

And then we'll need some lumber for construction as we're going to be building a lot here, don't try to make excuses, I know you have a lumber camp in the area! "

"Of course," Tilberg said with a smile, "if you can offer a fair price, I won't refuse."

"Well," Zaran nodded, "we will pay half of the total value of these things."

The landlord laughed, "Half? Is this what you call a mutually beneficial condition?"

"I haven't finished yet," Zalan said, "You still have to give us some vines, and I will choose them myself. This is the same as tools and wood, and they are all given to us as gifts."

"I think I'm going to give you one of my mom's cheese pies too, damn you!" Tibberg stopped laughing, his face flushed with embarrassment. "Do I look like a fool?

Do you think I'm so easily fooled?My ancestors have been here since before Andrei II went to the East! "

"In return for all this," Zalan interjected, continuing to detail the agreement he had in mind, "for five years beginning after the first harvest, you will receive fifteen cents of all the wine we produce and sell One, in addition, every year we will give you a barrel of wine, whether to sell or drink is your business."

The bright red flowers of anger blooming on Tyberg's face disappeared one by one, and his eyes began to shine with hunger, thirst and greed.

"I'll take half the price or give you the vines you want for free," he said, "but in return I'll give you a tenth of your income for ten years and three barrels of wine a year. "

Now it's the brewer's turn to laugh. He knows that the person in front of him is trying to drive up the price as much as possible, but he also knows how to negotiate, so he starts haggling too.

"According to your asking price, we might as well hand over your land directly to you," Zalan suggested. "A thirteen-third of the annual income and one and a half barrels of wine for a period of seven years."

Tiborg thought about it for a moment, but finally shook his head.

"Seven years is seven years, but you need two barrels of wine and one-twelfth of your income every year!"

"Look who you're dealing with!" Zalan said the price he had thought of from the beginning, "One-tenth of the income and two barrels of wine per year, but only for five years!"

The winemaker knows that if he quotes this price from the beginning, he must be the loser.But now that he had convinced Tilberg that he had bargaining power in the matter, the landowner was completely hooked.

"Oh, that's fine," Tilberg muttered, with a satisfied smile on the corner of his mouth, "That's it, I agree! Let's sign now!"

"No, we will not sign the agreement here," Zalan said without objection, "we will sign it in front of the bishop."

"What?" Tilberg's face stiffened immediately, and he thought that there would be no more surprises this day, "I thought we were going to solve this problem by ourselves like real men."

"We've done this before, we and your men have settled disputes like men, now is the time for civilized negotiations," Zaran said with a cheeky wink, "now we need to make sure you don't want to use force again Come take what is ours.

Moreover, the bishop must know that we have settled here, and without his permission, we can't make much wine, let alone do wine business.

Come on, Mr. Tilberg, don't look at me like that!You also know we have to.You don't have that tithe for five years without the consent of the bishop.

You will get one signed and sealed document, we have three copies, and for safety reasons, the bishop has to keep one, so that no one can doubt the fairness of our agreement.

And when these five years are over, we can sign a new mutually beneficial agreement, by then you must have fallen in love with my wine, so that you don't want to drink any wine other than my wine..."

"Oh? Will your wine be that good?" Tiberg looked at him disapprovingly.

Zaran said confidently: "My wine can cool you in hot weather, warm you in cold weather, dry up your tears, make gloomy people hopeful, and sometimes even make a sterile Women can conceive.

It can also make me, a poor man, rich. I am still studying the mystery of it and want to improve it further. You know, people say that a good priest can learn to die. "

(End of this chapter)