When Simon and his party arrived at the village of Windeng in the west of Frankfurt, the fog had dissipated. The brilliant sunlight drove away the remaining cold air last night, bringing some warmth to the wet guys.

This is a hilly area in the charming central and southern border of the German Kingdom. The gentle caress of late autumn has made the branches of trees on both sides of the road a little bare, and golden leaves are spread on the still green grass.

"Sir Simon, there is the village of Wendeng, who has not yet harvested grapes!" The front of the team, a disheveled hair, full of fatigue, wearing broken leather armor with dried blood, mud on her pants and cloth shoes, shouted loudly in his hoarse voice.

I saw a small village surrounded by pointed wood among the hills as beautiful as oil paintings. An unknown small river flowed quietly next to the village.

Next to the pointed wooden walls of the village, simple half-floor wooden huts were scattered on the spot. The land next to the hut was surrounded by short rattan fences, which seemed to be the private land of the free farmers.

Simon saw two women wearing women's turbans and plain linen dresses chatting happily with their faces, holding the baby still in swaddled.

In the fields not far away, several farmers wearing wide linen robes and strappy waists were chatting and laughing, holding wooden bowls, sitting under the big tree next to the field, eating the oatmeal sent by their own women.

Simon and his group followed the winding dirt road to the entrance of the wooden gate of Wendeng Village under the vigilant gaze of the villagers.

Simon noticed that the two militants with old leather turbans on their heads in front of the small gatehouse, wearing moldy armed clothes and dirty leather gloves, held the oak spear in their hands nervously, and walked quietly to the wooden door, blocking the narrow entrance to the gate.

However, after the fat man explained his purpose, they obviously breathed a sigh of relief, made way, and pointed to the small hill with neatly planted rows of vines not far from the village, indicating that it was the vineyard Simon was looking for.

Simon and his party entered Wenden Village through the narrow wooden door. Several villagers wearing hoods and patched thin linen clothes on the roadside, carrying large bunches of hay, walked slowly with large bunches of hay, raised their originally low heads and looked at the caravans that looked like they had experienced battles not long ago.

After entering the village, there was a tavern on the right. It was still the time for the villagers to work, and the long tables and benches outside the tavern were empty, with no one.

"Let's rest in this village for one night today." Simon turned his head and said to the merchant Aubrey. After such a fierce battle, everyone urgently needed a hot and nutritious meal and a pretty good place to rest.

"Miller, go and arrange the room we stayed for tonight. Fatty and I will go to the vineyard now." Simon gave an order and took the fat man back to the main road together.

There is no big difference between the villages in Wendeng and other places. If you want to say that there are, in addition to the farmers who come and go with farm tools, there are many workers carrying branches and hay on their backs, or carrying wooden barrels filled with lime paste.

Sure enough, Simon rode forward for a short while before he saw a house being built. At this time, the house was just made of wood with skeletons, and two carpenters with wood chips stuck to their clothes were holding hard wooden hammers and nailing the rivets at the connection between the two woods.

"Oh, Kent, you slow slacker, finally come!" The maker wearing a white turban and a yellow loose robe looked at a brown curly worker carrying a basket full of hazel branches with dissatisfaction.

The brown curly worker named Kent poured the branches in the backpack at the feet of the craftsman, and then walked listlessly towards the village gate.

"This damn lazy…" the maker muttered and complained, pulled over a small wooden chair, sat down and picked up the hazel wicker to weave the walls of the house on the already riveted frame.

Next to the weaving worker, a painter carrying a wooden barrel full of lime plaster was brushing lime on the woven willow branches.

"Be careful, you clumsy idiot!" The painter's head was suddenly hit by a large bundle of hay. He threw down the barrel in anger and pointed to a housemaker wearing a gray shirt on his head and was laying on his roof.

"Is this the vineyard?" Simon looked at the large area of ​​vines fenced next to the house under construction. Many of the grapes hanging on the vines were already shriveled, and some white precious rot mushrooms were attached to the grape skins.

Simon knew that the hyphae of the noble rot fungus had penetrated the grape skin at this time and absorbed the moisture and sugar inside the grape. After such dehydration, the sugar content of the grapes that looked shriveled and rotten at this time actually became more concentrated.

So, to others, these grapes are rotten and worthless, but to Simon's view, it's simply a treasure.

Fortunately, many grapes have more fruit grains withered to the point where they have a deeper degree. This means that Simon can use this grape with very little moisture content to make more precious and precious wine.

You should know that in later generations, some estates that specialize in producing wine-making grapes used to make precious rot wine may even have no grains in some years of poor harvest.

"That's right, but they seem to be building a winery for this vineyard." The fat man said with his hands in his arms.

"Is that true," Simon looked at the structure of the house carefully and found that it was indeed similar to most workshops he had seen. "Anyway, let's find someone who knows the situation first."

Just as Simon and the fat man rode around the house and wanted to find someone in charge, a priest in a large black robe with parchment in his hands and another guy who was dressed in a brightly dressed and stonemason came from a church not far away while talking.

"Hey, dear priest," the fat man immediately slid his horse's belly and walked forward quickly. "My young master wants to go into the vineyard to visit. Who is in charge here?"

"What?" The white-bearded priest wearing a black turban and the rosy stonemason beside him raised their heads at the same time, full of confusion.

"Oh, this young sir, the village of Windon is under the jurisdiction of Frederick, the bishop of Frankfurt fiefs. However, he went to Mainz some time ago, so I am the one who decides here for the time being." The wrinkled priest looked at Simon behind the fat man, paused for a moment, and continued.

"I believe you saw the scene in the vineyard through the fence. Since there was no order from the Bishop, even if fresh grapes were moldy and rotten on the trees, we would not dare to let the workers pick them. If you are here to visit or purchase grapes, you may be disappointed."

"In fact, I'm here to buy grapes," Simon pressed his hand at the fat man, signaling him not to speak, "but when I went to Trier, I found that the grapes from all nearby have been harvested and sold to caravans or shipped to the winery."

"You are right, young sir, if it weren't for the strict regulations of the Bishop, you might not even see these rotten grapes." The white-bearded priest nodded, but still looked at Simon in confusion.

"I heard in Trier that the grapes in Wenden Village have not been harvested until now. I wanted to take a chance, but I didn't expect them to rot." Simon sighed at the neat rows of vines.

"Oh, that's really a big time to come here." The white-bearded priest shook his head helplessly, as if he was regretting Simon's "useless efforts".

"But I have always been a devout believer. If I guessed correctly, no merchant would be willing to buy this decayed grape, but I couldn't bear to suffer such great losses from the church I admire most, so I decided that I would buy this decayed grape as a little bit of my insignificant dedication to God."

An incredible expression appeared on the faces of the priest and the stonemason beside him, looking at Simon in extreme surprise. Even the parchment in the priest's hand almost fell to the ground full of feces and mud.

"Jew, this respected jazz, what is your name?" The priest recovered for a while, blinked his dry eyes, and asked Simon's voice even trembled due to excitement.

"Simon von Dorsten." Simon said lightly with expressionless face.

However, in Simon's heart, he was simply ecstatic at this time - he bought the excellent wine-making grapes for making precious rot wine, and also gained a good reputation for himself. It was really a killing of two birds with one stone, and it was amazing.

"Sorry, Mr. Hillier, go and see the progress first. I'm afraid I'll come back later," said the white-bearded priest with a smile, handing the parchment in his hand to the stonemason who had not yet reacted. "Pious Sir Simon, please follow me, I'll take you to visit our church and vineyards."

…………………………………

It turned out that just as the guy said when he was in Koblenz, a few weeks ago, the priest from Wenden village sent a clever monk and two militiamen from the village to Mainz to find the bishop to ask for information about the grape harvest.

According to the priest, the bandits in the forest were just astrays. Unless they were enchanted by the devil, they would generally not be too crazy to rob and kill God's servants.

They had almost never been harassed by bandits every time they traveled, but this time they didn't know what happened. The monks and the two militia who went out to deliver the letter did not get any news for half a month.

Just when they were still discussing whether to send another monk and more militia to find the bishop of Mainz, and to investigate what happened to the monks before, they happened to go to Mainz to come to Wendeng Village.

"All this came so coincidental. I believe it must be God's arrangement," the priest said excitedly, speaking very quickly and spitting everywhere.

So Simon promised that the old priest would hand over a letter to the Bishop of Frankfurt when he arrived at Mainz.
Chapter completed!