The Moorish village was filled with the scent of deathly stillness. Judging from the burned orchards outside the village and the ruined irrigation channel at the entrance, this should once have been a rather prosperous countryside settlement. At the very least, within the lands of the Kingdom of Castile, there were not many villages capable of building irrigation channels.
"Praise the Lord! The Moors of the southern peninsula truly are a people skilled at toil!"
The old knight Lorenzo rode his horse through the plundered village, making a circuit without seeing a single living thing. With great interest, he sized up the neat row of stone houses in the village, the chicken coops enclosed by wooden fences beside them, and the faintly visible, massive granary. As an old Venetian knight who owned an estate and had personally managed it, he knew very well just how much wealth a village like this could create each year!
"Tsk, tsk! Letting fanatical, crude Castilians conquer such a fertile land and slaughter these Moorish farmers so skilled at managing it truly is a waste! They'll only turn orchards and farms that create wealth into poor pasturelands, then go play with their 'beautiful' goats."
The old knight Lorenzo curled the corners of his mouth and looked at the whole dead village, mocking it to his heart's content.
"Of course, Castile is, after all, a devout and warlike crusader Kingdom. Though they're dirt-poor, with annual revenues that don't even compare to tiny Granada, they're all experts when it comes to burning, killing, looting, and pillaging. Before they raise sheep and horses on the farms, they'll definitely have to thoroughly cleanse this land first, turning the obedient Moorish farmers into slaves for sale, or nailing them to crosses and burning them!"
"Ha ha! Dirt-poor Castilian paupers, hugging