The Young Master Leaves "Prison"

On August 3, 1305 of the Christian Era, Roger, who had been confined for twenty-four days since awakening from his severe injuries, was finally permitted to "leave prison."

As for letting that demon out of its cage, the old butler, Bitter Melon Face, had initially opposed it with ironclad resolve.

The past month had been the hardest time of his life. To keep Young Master Roger trapped in the attic bedroom, Bitter Melon Face had exhausted every trick up his sleeve.

The demon in the attic would periodically threaten to escape the bedroom, forcing Bitter Melon Face to satisfy demands that were bizarre, hair-raising, or sheer castles in the air.

Bitter Melon Face insisted that Lord Colin had ordered a full month of confinement, and Roger was still short by six whole days.

In the end, Roger forcibly counted the six days before his father had issued the order, making it exactly one month.

The stubborn Bitter Melon Face knelt outside the bedroom door and refused to rise, absolutely unwilling to let Roger out of his cage.

Left with no choice, Roger summoned his bargain-bin mother and defended himself with a string of claims that he had received God's salvation, turned over a new leaf, and would never commit evil again.

In the end, under the pretext of personally going to Brodick Church to confess to God and pray for blessings, he barely managed to help the kneeling Bitter Melon Face to his feet...

Inside the attic bedroom of the lord's residence at Milk House Estate.

Roger lightly tapped one end of several young hazel branches with the handle of a hunting knife. Once the twigs split apart, they became tiny, soft "toothbrushes."

He dipped one in ground coarse salt, put it into his mouth, and scrubbed back and forth.

After arriving in this world, Roger had discovered in astonishment that people here could go without bathing for years, without brushing their teeth for several more, and use the same sponge stick over and over again after dipping it in water to wipe their asses...

At first, Roger had braced himself and tried to adapt, but he soon found that he truly could not stomach it.

He forced Bitter Melon Face to rush-make him a bathtub, while the sponge stick for wiping his ass became comparatively soft, clean, fresh young leaves.

Toothbrushes were harder to come by, but noble households here cleaned their mouths by chewing young hazel branches. So Roger had Little Horseherd Igo gather plenty of hazel twigs and a little coarse salt, then ground the salt and made his own toothbrushes and tooth powder.

Once he had scrubbed enough, Roger took the large cup of water Igo offered with both hands, poured it into his mouth, gargled several times with a gurgle-gurgle sound, then spat the salt out the window.

Little Horseherd Igo watched his young master's spendthrift behavior with a complicated expression.

"Young Master Roger, people around the estate have been whispering lately. They all say that ever since you woke from your severe injuries, you've become like a different person."

"You never used to be so particular."

Roger adjusted his brownish-yellow long hair in the reflection of the water basin. This body was already considered tall for the era. The youthful but unremarkable face held two long, narrow eyes, making him somewhat resemble his former self.

The wound at his temple had completely scabbed over, leaving behind a truly frightening scar.

Because he never lacked food and drink, had ample nutrition, possessed a decent physique, and had been quite idle recently, he trained his body every day. His muscles had grown increasingly taut.

As the weather gradually turned hotter, Roger tossed that flashy tweed coat aside and changed into a light, round-collared, wide-sleeved fitted robe.

The night before, Roger had specifically asked the old tailor on the estate to sew an inverted pocket inside the wide cuff.

The front of the robe bore the red hawk and black ship crest of the Campbell Lineage. A deerskin coin pouch containing several dozen coins hung from the left side of his narrow cowhide belt, while a hunting knife in a leather sheath rested conveniently on the right.

Beneath the robe, he wore only a pair of brown riding breeches. Roger truly had no desire to wear those bizarre long hose, so he simply planted a pair of short black leather riding boots beneath the robe's hem.

It was the pure attire of an ordinary farm lad, but Roger did not care in the slightest.

Once he had finished dressing, Roger touched the not particularly bulging deerskin coin pouch at his belt. Inside were two roughly identical gold coins and fifty-four whole silver pennies.

There were also several broken silver coins with chipped edges.

Roger had specifically asked the little horseherd serving him about those two gold coins.

One was called a Florin, a gold coin from Florence worth roughly three shillings, or thirty-six pennies. It was slightly larger than a silver penny, with John the Baptist on one side and the flower of Florence on the other. These Florin gold coins were popular throughout the northern lands.

The other was a Venetian gold coin, exchangeable for a Florin. Its size, weight, and gold content were identical, and it too was worth three shillings. One side depicted the Doge of Venice kneeling before Saint Mark, while the other showed Virgin Mary surrounded by a cluster of stars.

With the patience one might show an amnesiac patient, the little horseherd explained that the coins were worth more than one hundred and twenty-six pennies in total, equivalent to ten shillings and six pennies.

His bargain-bin mother had instructed him that the ten shillings were an offering for God, given in gratitude for God saving Roger.

The remaining six silver pennies and bits of broken silver were what she had left for Roger to "squander."

Roger had memories of the gold and silver currency of this era, but no intuitive sense of it.

Whether gold coins or silver pennies, they were just tiny, thin little pieces in his hand. He really could not feel much from them.

Yet from the expression on his bargain-bin mother's face when she handed over the pouch, and from her repeated warnings, it was not difficult to guess that wealth worth ten shillings was by no means a small sum even for a minor noble family with some assets.

The monetary system of this era remained extremely chaotic, and currency itself lacked unified standards of value.

This was especially true in Scotland, where the foundations of feudal rule were unstable and domestic politics were turbulent, leaving it without a mature local currency system.

Kings throughout the generations had minted gold and silver coins many times, but their quality varied wildly and their values were difficult to standardize. Combined with the self-sufficient nature of the traditional agricultural economy, people were accustomed to bartering goods, making currency even harder to develop.

But Allen Island had once been a maritime trade hub in Western Scotland. In its heyday, merchants and travelers had streamed across the island without end, and goods had circulated from all four directions. Thus, its currency system was centuries ahead of inland regions.

The most common and complete system among them was the penny, shilling, and pound system introduced by the English.

Not only the currency system, but even weights and measures largely used English standards.

Roger had no choice but to abandon the metric units he had used for decades and force himself to get used to inches, feet, miles, pounds, pints, bushels, acres, gills, and other units.

Shillings and pounds were merely units of account, with no physical coins of their own, so the silver penny was the basic single unit of currency.

In fact, the English had begun minting smaller Halfpenny and farthing coins several years earlier, but with the two countries now at odds, those physical coins had yet to reach Scotland.

Based on the purchasing power of a silver penny at the time, which could exchange for roughly fifteen to twenty eggs, and taking into account productivity and inflation, one silver penny here and now was approximately equal to forty or fifty yuan in Roger's era.

Twelve pennies made one shilling, estimated at around six hundred yuan; twenty shillings made one pound, estimated at roughly twelve thousand yuan.

In truth, because the supply of silver coins on the island had dwindled in recent years, the value of the penny had risen higher and higher.

Even the knight's wife's personal nursemaid and cook earned only one penny a day, while the lowest-ranking laborers earned merely half a penny a day.

Of course, the estate provided them with one meal and lodging, though the food was only black bread and wheat porridge, and the lodgings were merely corridors, passageways, cowsheds, or stables.

Even so, countless people fought until their heads were bloodied for such work. After all, ordinary farmers toiled themselves half to death for an entire year just to barely avoid starving. Where could they get wages?

Thus, in such difficult times, his bargain-bin mother could donate more than six thousand yuan to God for her son's salvation. The power of faith was truly formidable.

But Roger did not know any of this, and besides, he had never intended to donate those glittering gold and silver coins to God.

Stopping before the bedroom door, Roger tugged at his robe once more, then stepped out with one foot.

Little Horseherd Igo hurried after him.

"Why are you following me?" Roger turned and glared fiercely at the tail behind him.