I built a manor in the Middle Ages

Chapter 223 Bewitching
"My God, were they really bandits?!"

The dwarf Kohler stood on tiptoe, holding a curved short spear, and flicked a mud ball off his body to the side, looking in surprise at the sparse army outside the city walls.

The army did not launch an attack immediately, but instead set up camp a few hundred meters away, built cooking pots and lit fires. Several flags with different colors and patterns fluttered in the camp. Soldiers carrying various weapons were divided into five or six groups. Some were fetching water, some were resting, and some even unzipped their pants and urinated in the direction of Knightsburg, laughing loudly. Chaos ensued.

"This is an army of knights, no, at least four or five knights."

"There must be at least a hundred people, right?"

No wonder the adults were so nervous.

Kohler swallowed the smear, then suddenly regretted it, muttering to himself, "Damn it, I should have known better than to volunteer."

"There were no more than 100 people, at most 70. The rest were merchants and prostitutes accompanying the army."

Wearing the oldest type of helmet from Knightsburg, his shrewd eyes gleaming beneath the long brim, he said, "Knight Clovis, Knight Charman, all the capable knights under that old man Berry are here. Hey! Looks like he values ​​us quite a bit."

Having followed Baldwin for many years, he was no stranger to the knights of Beryl. After carefully counting, he found that half of the eight fief knights loyal to Beryl had come.

“About fifty peasant soldiers, and the remaining twenty are Berry and his knights, along with their squires and private soldiers. The peasant soldiers are just a swarm of buzzing flies; these men are the deadly beasts. My lord, if we want to win, we must knock out their fangs.”

Gripping the knight's sword at his waist, Luc had two other knight's swords besides his own cross sword, one a gift from Beryl and the other from old Pons, which were now given to Jean and Ryan respectively.

Ryan, holding a second knight's sword, also looked down. After a while, he suddenly raised his arm and shouted, "Master, look!"

"Is that a shield made to protect against our crossbow bolts?"

Upon hearing the sound, Luke looked over and saw several soldiers carrying out a shield wall made of oak logs, as tall as a person, from the camp. They propped it up diagonally on the ground, pointing it at Knightsburg. A gap the size of a human head had been dug out directly above the shield.

Luke gripped his single-edged bow. "This won't be easy to deal with."

……

"This guy is not easy to deal with. His wooden fortress is the kind of thing I've never seen before."

Berry squinted. A while ago, he was far from Knightsburg and could vaguely see a castle. Only now, standing in front of it, did he realize that the wooden walls were actually topped with both crenellations and spikes.

The pointed stakes, in particular, were inexplicably built vertically on the top of the wall, extending upwards at an angle, even exceeding the height of the crenellations.

"That cunning bastard! Now we can't build ladders or towers to attack the city!"

A dark-skinned knight stood behind Berry, also gazing at Knights' Castle, cursing and grumbling as he looked on with a slight headache.

Whether it's a siege ladder or a siege tower, the advantage of being the same height as or slightly higher than the city wall must be used to lower the passageway for attack.

However, the protruding spikes acted like sharp nails, rendering this best siege tactic useless before it could even be used.

"Then let's build siege engines!"

Berry withdrew his gaze. He was a seasoned baron, and ordinary siege equipment was not difficult for him. "Furman, this task is yours. Make sure the siege engine is built by tomorrow morning. Also, take men to cut down trees, but don't go to dismantle the mill."

Berry came to reclaim, not destroy, this land, especially the watermill. He had heard that there was a brand-new watermill in Maconshire that could reduce losses by nearly a third when grinding flour.

"Before that, I need to give my friend Luc a little gift."

……

The loud clanging of logs soon reached Knight's Castle. Luc ordered his men to fill all the buckets with water and carry them to the city wall. There, they saw a dark-skinned knight ride up to within a hundred meters and shout at the top of his lungs:

"Listen up, people in the castle! Your lord Luc is a damned bandit, not a knight at all! He impersonated a nobleman and illegally cleared land, and has already been stripped of his knighthood by Lord Baron Berry! We are here specifically to punish him!"

"If you surrender and bring Luke out bound, this land will still belong to you, and you may even receive a generous reward!"

"Capture Luc, and you'll be rewarded with five pounds!"

"As for you, Luc, the Baron is merciful. If you are willing to surrender, he will still preserve your knighthood and the bridge of Telf. ​​If you refuse to leave the city, when the city falls, that will be the time for you to meet your God!"

Clovis's booming voice echoed through the valley as Ryan drew his knight's sword and roared:
"Bah! Don't believe this damned bastard's nonsense! Lord Luke is a genuine Knight of Lorraine! This valley doesn't belong to Berry at all; he's annexing his own subordinate's territory!"

“That’s right. My lord inherited the title of Knight Baldwin, and Baron Berry has no right to revoke it. The marriage to Miss Duss was agreed upon by both families long ago. As a close attendant of the Baldwin family, is there anyone who knows this better than me?”

Let him turn around and, without blushing or skipping a beat, loudly testify for Luc.

"How could those hypocritical and cunning bastards possibly leave us the land? When our Ward village was attacked by bandits, Berry didn't care about our lives at all! Don't be silly, lads, could you grow this much grain under other lords? Could you harvest one-tenth of the harvest? Could you use the mill for free? Could you eat your fill every day and have winter clothes to wear?"

"Totally impossible!"

"To hell with these damned and stupid lies, let them go to the devil!"

Old Ek and Jill pounded their shields, roaring at the people in the manor as well.

The crowd, who were initially alarmed by the arrival of the Baron and the fact that Luc was not a nobleman, were gradually calmed down, but still looked at each other with skepticism.

Peter climbed onto the stable at some point, ripped off his hood, and revealed half of his disfigured face to the gasps of the crowd.

He stretched out his one arm, grasped the cross on his chest, and said in a fanatical tone: "God, this is a blessed land, the fief of the Holy Knights who protect Saint Lynn, a jewel left behind by the ancient Roman Empire! And outside are the depraved barons who have been blinded by desire! I swear on my soul that if I utter even half a lie, I will be devoured by Satan and my soul destroyed!"

Peter's fanatical image was known to everyone in the manor, and as Miller, Robert and others shouted, Clovis's intoxication gradually dissipated.

Seeing that the people in the manor were gradually calming down, Luc took a deep breath, pressed down on the city wall, and shouted to Clovis:

"Surrender? Ha! Go tell Baron Berry that I will defend this wall until I die of old age!"

(End of this chapter)