Chapter 142
“Now, everyone, pay attention! I have a truly astonishing story prepared for you all today!”
At a city street corner, a man was shouting at the top of his lungs. As a woman in a robe tried to move past the murmuring crowd gathered around him,
“Today, I stand here having witnessed firsthand the magnificent exploits of the empire’s greatest genius! None other than the ‘Black Prince’ himself, in the War of the Roses!”
At that name, the woman’s steps halted abruptly. She turned her head immediately. The man there was a street storyteller. A wanderer whose trade was to eavesdrop on rumors heard while roaming the world, then embellish those tales with his own fanciful additions and shout them from the rooftops.
You’d better look forward to the story I’m about to tell you. After all, there can’t be many lucky souls on this street who witnessed the fierce bloodbath between the Sacred Sword and the ‘Black Prince’ up close!
“You say you truly saw the two of them fight?”
“You bet! It happened just as I was following the constellations and set foot on the lands of the Duchy of Lancaster! Hmm, hmm hmm.”
After pausing there, the storyteller let the moment linger, and several people pulled coins from their pockets and dropped them into the basket before him. Only then did the storyteller clear his throat again and raise his voice like an actor.
“Ahem, ahem. So, speaking of the bloody battle there, it happened while thousands of knights from both sides—York and Lancaster—were facing off! Right then! Two men stepped forward onto the open plain as representatives of their respective forces to settle it fairly in a one-on-one duel…”
