"This is the holy city." Simon looked at the vague wall in the distance and recited silently.

The walls of Cologne are built with a mixture of solid stone bases and wooden battlements. Among the not-so-wide and long front walls, there are two square arrow towers on the left and right, and soldiers can be seen passing through them.

In front of the city of Cologne, there is a man-excavated moat that brings the Rhine river water into it to sanitate the town.

There is a mottled iron cable suspension bridge at the main entrance of Cologne, and people are constantly coming and going on the suspension bridge.

"Young Master, stay away from those people." The fat man suddenly shouted to Simon, who was observing Cologne in front of him.

Simon, who came back to his senses, noticed that there were a group of people dancing and looking very excited on the grass not far to his right. However, unlike normal people, many of them were missing arms and legs, and there were even some guys who wrapped themselves in a wide pilgrimage suit and looked like lepers.

"They are all sick guys. God knows who is infected with pneumonia, who is infected with dysentery, and who is infected with leprosy. They believe that when they arrive near the Holy City, their illness will be relieved and cured," Gabriel curled his lips, pulled out a linen towel from the neckline, and covered it on his nose. "Even the poor people who have broken hands and feet wishfully thought that their hands and feet will grow back on their own after staying here for a while. It's ridiculous."

Simon just frowned and looked at these ignorant patients, and couldn't help but squeeze the horse's belly with a little force, speeding up through this small area of ​​diseased epidemic.

At the gate of Cologne were several soldiers wearing cloth turbans and woven headcloths, wearing old multi-layered clothes and slightly cracked sleeveless leather vests. Two soldiers lazily leaned against the city walls in a relatively comfortable position, watching the people and goods entering and leaving the city gates bored.

The other man wearing a dyed cotton coat, who seemed to be a tax collector, and the other two soldiers wearing semi-covered fillets were busy, urging the trembling and submissive businessmen and farmers to move faster and not waste time.

"Next, come here quickly." The tax collector said coldly without raising his head. At the same time, his hand was still holding a quill quickly on a piece of parchment to record the name of the merchant who had just entered and the types and quantity of goods he brought.

"Hey, hey, Clotta, that seems to be a noble master." A soldier with a slightly wink hunched the tax collector who was still recording with his hand, and whispered in his ear.

"Hmm?" The tax collector Clotta raised his tired face, looked at Simon who was slowly walking towards him with his red and unsightly eyes, and the family heraldry patterns on his burqa, and then immediately squeezed out an ugly smile and stood up from the simple little chair. "This respected lord, welcome to Cologne. Although I also want you and your subordinates to enter the city directly, according to the regulations set by the bishop, you have to make a small registration record before you can get in."

"Then stop talking nonsense, hurry up and do things." The fat man was a little angry with his cold shout just now, and waved his hand at him with a frown.

"No problem, Lord," the tired tax collector smiled, sat back on his small broken wooden stool, twisted the quill that had been touched into gray black, and dipped it ink on the corner of the small wooden table used for tax collection, "Sir, you are..."

"The crusher of the Norman Pirates, Simon of Dorsten." The fat man interrupted the evil tax collector's words.

"Okay, hey," the tax collector seemed to have suddenly come to his mind, looking as if he was trying to recall something, "You, you are, you are the one who is discussing everywhere in the city recently, and has wiped out all the three ships of Norman Pirates!"

"It's me." Simon didn't know that his deeds had spread to Cologne so quickly. Perhaps Ludwig had come to Cologne one step ahead.

"Anyway, sir, I just want to say that I did a pretty job. Those damn savages killed my relatives in Bruges. It was really..." The tax collector changed his listless look and said excitedly, gesturing. The ink stuck on the tip of the geese in his hand also splashed around with his hands.

"Do your business quickly, we are still waiting to enter the city!" The fat man interrupted the tax collector who was talking unhappy again, who scratched his head in disappointment and recorded on the paper.

"Okay, Sir, everything is done." The tax collector waved to the soldiers next to him, who immediately stood by the wall of the city gate and made a road open.

After passing through the dark inner hole of the city gate, there was a small semicircular square in front of me, and my vision suddenly became clear. And what accompanied it was a mixed smell that was already difficult to describe in words.

The first thing Simon saw was a large wooden table next to the arch hole of the tower next to the city gate. Several soldiers wearing chain armored wide-eaves pot helmets, filled short robes and striped leather armored jackets were squatting at the table drinking beer in wooden cups and chatting, while an older soldier next to them simply fell asleep.

The soldiers' spears and shields were resting on the mossy wall beside the arch, and Simon even suspected that any thief with a more flexible hand could steal their weapons under the noses of these drunkards and lazy people.

Under the double-storey wooden and stone houses surrounding the square, various vendors placed their pavers—some were inside the first floor of the house, and some simply built a wooden shed outside the house, and some were laying some wooden boards and hay on the roof.

In the small square, there are vendors selling everything. At least now, Simon can see the horse vendors next to the horse shed with several batches of horses not far away, the pavilion filled with large sacks of dry food and various dry food, the weapon merchants with long poles and swords and axes and shields in the pawn shop, and the butcher who had two large tables of fresh meat in the shed, holding meat choppers and cutting meat, etc.

There were endless pedestrians, including mercenaries wearing cotton armored armed clothes and filled headscarves and sectioned helmets, children walking through the crowd with baskets to help their parents work; farmers holding farm tools and produce; female townsmen wearing simple tunic dresses; pagans wearing exotic clothes, and pilgrims dressed in tattered and sludge...

In fact, in this dark era of slow economic recovery, most of the residents of towns were not engaged in handicrafts and commerce, but had to work in the farmland of the fief bishop outside the city wall like the farmers in nearby villages. Therefore, Simon saw many townsmen covered in soil and dressed in a peasant manner.

"Master Simon, the Bishop has a rule that all goods passing through Cologne, in addition to paying a tax of one-tenth of the goods, must be sold in the city for three days before they can leave the city," Gabriel said, looking at some small stalls that are so simple that you can see many such small vendors selling all kinds of strange things. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can meet slave traders, and then you can buy some men and women who cannot afford the ransom as serfs and maids."

"So that's it. No wonder there are special records of people entering and leaving the city." Simon nodded suddenly. He just saw that the small vendor who had entered the city a while ago had found a small open space and unloaded the carriage with his assistant. It seemed that he wanted to set up a simple shop like many other colleagues.

"By the way, Mr. Simon, should we find a place to live first, or go directly to the church to find the Bishop?" Gabriel turned his head and asked Simon who was looking around curiously.

"Let's find a place to stay in the tavern first." The long journey made Simon feel that he was about to get tired and parted.

"No problem, lord, I know a good tavern. A comrade in my past works there. I heard that he is doing well now, and maybe he can give us some discounts." Gabriel twisted his beard and looked deeper into the inner city.

"Then let's go, you'll get the way." Simon nodded and said to Gabriel.

What Simon and his party didn't notice was that in a dark and wet alley next to the small square entering the city gate, several pairs of greedy and shining eyes were staring at them again.

"Masi, are they?" A guy wearing a tattered pilgrim hood licked his lips maliciously, and glanced at the man next to him holding a rusty military combat pickaxe.

"Look, look, Komet, I'm right," the man named Masi weighed the military pickaxe in his hand and smiled proudly, "I thought they would definitely come to Cologne. Let's go to the Vulture Domini now, the code is Fat Sheep Entering the Crop..."

………

"A few noble masters, do you need money?" In front of the tavern, there was a small wooden table with a black hair, a black-eyed eagle-haired, hooked nose, and a man wearing a red linen dress, saw Simon and his group of people riding a horse, and immediately shouted enthusiastically, "Come on, I can satisfy all your desire for money!"

"That damn cunning Jewish money lender is fooling others again." The head of a middle-aged man with big beard poked out from the window of the wooden house next to him, and looked indifferently at the guy downstairs downstairs who shouted loudly every day to make him extremely disgusted.

"Let's say less, be careful of being made into small wax figures by those madmen, stab you with their nails, and curse you with black magic. There are so many such things." The middle-aged man's wife patted the shoulders of the middle-aged man with big curly beard, and the latter just sighed and left the window.

"I just got the Vikings trophy and I am far from needing to borrow money to maintain my territory and daily expenses." So Simon and his group pretended to be like Simon that they didn't see this and knelt down to compliment their money lenders, and rode the horses to the stables of the tavern.
Chapter completed!