Heirs of Thea

Lion II the Merchant of Castela

Meanwhile, in a small town, lived an 11-year-old boy. With short brown hair and honey-colored eyes. His name was Lion. Yes, he is also not the protagonist, but surely, he is the one who even unwittingly unleashed an unimaginable sequence of disasters that will spice up our history.

We will find him in a landscape quite different from that of the last chapters.

This place has dry and infertile land. There is no castle here or even a large building.

I am talking about the border between the kingdoms of Castella and Kreg, the neutral zone.

Calm down, he doesn't go hungry and has a comfortable home, but he's one of the few to savor this privilege in this place.

Inside this thin-walled wooden hut, we will find only two people sitting around the fire enjoying the evening, Lion and his old father.

The horses outside show us that his father is a trader. Usually, in these lands, merchants are called vultures, but not this merchant.

He was known as a fair and honest salesman, but that wasn't exactly good for his business.

Looking at the fire, Lion recalls memories of when his family was still happy. From when his mother was alive and he and his dad didn't work all day.

He remembers the first time that everyone together struggled to distribute and exchange food among neighboring villages. All out of pure goodness. They only had 3 carts and 6 horses, but his mother was sure they could make a difference.

Now they only have money to buy food and save for unforeseen events, such as repairing clothes or maintaining the cart. But this week his belly was snoring, and it hurts. A few weeks ago, one of the horses became ill, so they were fasting only with water to be able to buy medicine.

But the real reason for the silence between Lion and his father had a different cause. In the morning, his father had gone to the poorest regions and fed the villagers with the bread that they had earned by working at night at a nearby construction site.

Lion never liked that part of his father. He worked for days on end, to never achieve a better life. All because of the illogical ideals of someone who was already dead.

Lion remembers well the faces of some of those who lived in poor areas. Most had never worked in their lives. Just thinking that they lived like parasites depending on their money, made Lion angry.

They usually discussed the matter, but the conversations always ended with the two making peace in the end in memory of Lion's mother.

But this time when his father said, "So go to work alone and earn your own profit. One you can't share with me, so you can do what you want with the money." Lion boldly replied: "You are so old, that if I left you, you would die." And now none of them dared to break the silence.

Lion started working with his father at the age of nine.

The people around him liked his services, he was treated as a man who was trusted more to transport valuable goods than a Royal servant.

The nobles in the neighborhood liked his fair prices and lack of greed, so they started to finance him. He was the best-known merchant in the region.

Now it had been exactly three years since Lion worked with his father. In a few minutes, he would become twelve years old.

A postman knocks on the door.

None says anything.

Lion goes to the door and retrieves his letter from the floor.