Meanwhile, three men with a difficult face pa.s.s through the small western gate of the town of Griven.The two Treviss brothers and their good friend Bébert, are small bandits who go where the money calls them.
Always attracted by the lure of gain, the three men as stupid as they are wicked, do not hesitate to steal old women as well as kidnapping cat and dog.
Kidnapping. It is precisely for this reason that they come to this small, remote town in the far north of the Kingdom.
Three days ago, the three friends were trying to steal a teenager"s backpack when, in order to save his skin, the young boy began to tell them a most interesting story.
The boy hitting as hard as a bear, the three men with painful faces, more accustomed to attacking defenceless people than to getting beaten up, agreed to listen to him and the four of them went to a tavern to chat around a nice cold beer.
The boy told them that in a small town in the far North of the Kingdom, a beautiful little girl with red eyes was walking around peacefully.
The beautiful child, wearing horns on her head like those of the devastating one, is not yet ten years old.
That it would be very simple for three strong men such as themselves to kidnap her and that selling her back to the Capital would certainly bring them hundreds of gold coins.
After receiving various flattery from the boy and emptying fifteen pitchers of beer each, the three men with the ungrateful faces tapped their new best friend on the shoulder.
They also offered him the opportunity to join their elite group, but to their disappointment, the young boy refused on the pretext that he was expected in a most secret place.
Being wary of people who might have a secret hiding place, the three idiots offered a very generous amount of money to the young man who, too polite, was not able to refuse this act of great generosity.
In the evening, they separated from the mysterious young man and set out to reach the town of Griven as quickly as possible.
The three men had to make the journey on foot. Not that they wouldn"t have liked to rent horses, but having given all their money to their new friend, they found themselves unable to go to the stable.
...
"To begin with, let"s put on our hoods. I"ll go with my brother to steal some grandmother"s wallets to make our purses heavier, and you Bébert, try to find out where our target lives."
The little bald man with the big mustache nods his head several times at his big brother"s wise words.
"As always, Pietro knows what to do."
The tall man with the big nose and thick eyebrows may shake his head slowly, but his small, self-satisfied smile lets his true thoughts show.
"This is not the case, Mario. I humbly confess that my idea is really very good, but I simply felt that since we"re poorer than beggars, we have to work a little."
After a simple nod, the one-armed old man whose the one and only hand ise already skillfully searching the baskets of the elders, leaves the two brothers.
…
An hour later, the many soldiers who roam the city looking for the purse s.n.a.t.c.hers pay no attention to the two men, whose ungainly appearance and thefaces of dumba.s.ses brings them closer to the mountain men who are coming down from the heights for the first time than to dangerous bandits.
In front of all those soldiers who couldn"t detect them, the two brothers are also very proud of their subtle art of blending into the landscape.
Sitting quietly on the terrace of a cheap tavern, they raise their elbows simultaneously to empty their twenty-third mug of beer.
"Waiter, bring us its little sister."
Pietro nods to his brother"s words, but suddenly a genius idea crosses his mind.
"Waiter, you don"t have to bother dirtying mugs anymore... From now on, just bring us pitchers two by two."
Mario looks with wonder at his clever older brother. If Pietro wasn"t here, he"d probably still be ripping off tourists visiting the capital.
Less than a minute later, a deep voice comes from behind the two brothers happily beating their pitchers.
"I discreetly inquired among various soldiers walking around the city. The little girl is said to live in the adventurers" guild. This place is very difficult to get to, but these helpful soldiers also informed me that the little girl often wandered alone in and out of town. Now all we have to do is find a way to kidnap her."
Sitting down to Pietro"s left, Bébert raises his one and only arm to call the waiter.
"Hum, guild of Adventurers... Actually kidnapping a child in this place certainly won"t be that easy."
As if to confirm his younger brother"s words, Pietro takes a sip from his pitcher of beer. The more he thinks about it, the less he finds a solution to this problem, which certainly, is insoluble.
One hand under his chin, immersed in a long in deep reflection, when the eyes of the man with the big nose light up about 20 minutes later, those of the other two are full of expectation.
"It"s so simple! Who can enter the adventurers" guild if not the adventurers themselves?"
It"s so logical and yet so profound that the one and only Bébert" arm frantically strikes against the table to applaud this brilliant idea. Yet, although he encourages his friend out of habit, Bébert understands nothing of what he"s saying.
"So what"s up?"
Pietro is doing his best to turn his small elite team into a big bandit team outfit known throughout the Kingdom, but he has to admit: With those two atrophied brains, he"s not helped.
"And so, Bébert, we"re going to sign up as an adventurer first thing in the morning. Once there, all we have to do is grab the package and we"ll disappear as quickly as we arrived."
"Yeah, but maybe it wouldn"t be such a bad idea to save up some money for horse rent this time."
Sometimes a little annoyed by Bébert" stupid remarks, Pietro opens his leather purse.
"Yes, Bébert, that"s just it... s.h.i.t, I can feel the dishes coming. Mario, how do you have left of the money we stole from the old women?"
"Eh? It"s been over thirty minutes since my money was transformed into beer."