Eric (СИ)

The next few days he kept the chosen mode of visiting noble encounters and remained absolutely calm, at least outwardly. Meanwhile, the agent network began to eat denarii and give its results. By the end of the week, by joint efforts, about three hundred people gathered information for him, most of them, however, were children. The tasks that were put before the agent network were somewhat vague and rather complicated - it was necessary to take control of all key players in the political arena of Venice and keep them under round the clock surveillance. In addition, the hand on the pulse in the criminal world was kept, and all more or less suspicious visitors were noted. As soon as the network began to operate the information went a very solid stream, from which, frankly, he had already lost the habit. I hastily started a kind of diary. For the first time he bought himself two clean scrolls of parchment, well, not quite clean, but cleaned. But it was not an option. It was very inconvenient to mess with this resource. It was necessary to urgently seek a way out. It was dangerous to make paper, as this would add suspicion. After suffering a little, he stopped on a thin fabric of bleached flax, which he cut into neat rectangles, and, at the time of writing, he inserted into simple homemade embroidery hoops made of wood. The size of the sheets was about 20 by 30 centimeters. I cut it myself, by measure, so that the sheets were almost identical. The edges of these improvised sheets were neatly sutured, in order to prevent their dissolution. He entrusted this fascinating business to the Drevlyanin, so as not to distract the others, loaded with agency work, subordinates. The organization of the disparate sheets of cloth he decided quite simply - numbering them and sewing twenty sheets in one notebook. For page numbering (and generally recording of digital information), he used a visually undeformed form of recording in the form of simple geometric figures expressing the decimal system, and the records themselves were in modern Russian. By these means he quite reliably saved from reading these texts his current contemporaries in case of theft or forcible seizure during a search. By the end of the second month he already had about one hundred and fifty carefully printed sheets with information and a fairly clear understanding of the situation. It all began with that strange precedent in Vienna, when he shot French knights. Before their suzerain, this information came through the Duke of Austria in the process of dismantling. Of course - this is the king interested, because the situation was quite unusual. In general, he sent his spies to Eric to find out what was what, and then decided to see what kind of person he was, the painfully ambiguous data was coming. I needed a provocation, but one that would be difficult to ignore. That's why on the scene appeared Baudouin, who was previously a very literate and completely uninformative performer. He was processed, inspired by some greatness, and then allocated Gaspar, who, incidentally, was the perfect pawn in that game. In general, Jean is dying. Duke, realizing that an interesting game had begun, puts his best spies on watch for von Lenzburg, who almost held him in an embrace with the people of Philip kept him under the hood. These crooked European rulers were expecting different surprises, but he was able to exceed all their expectations and made a furor. You just imagine - he sits at home, does nothing, sometimes pushes at the forge of the pear, sometimes he walks the market. And then suddenly Gaspard disappears in the evening, and next morning they find the corpse of Morel with a very beautiful dramatization. At the same time - none, absolutely no trace or thread to Eric was found, but to all interested persons it was clear that it was he who did it. And now, behind the baron, three curious glances are closely watched: the King of France Philip II Augustus, the Duke of Austria Frederick I Banberg and the Grand Master of the Knights Templar Order - Gilbert Eral. Not the most pleasant news. Although they were compensated for by the complete failure of their agents, since our cunning man had already figured out all the hunters, tracked them down and kept them under control, that is, all the information that came from them to the employers was known to him, too. A good trump card in the game. Yes, the picture of the personalities cleared up, it became clear who he was interested in. It is much more difficult to find out what. For these tasks, there must be someone from the house, for example Philippe, someone who is trusted, as with conventional agents this task could not be solved. Of the existing personalities of great interest was the same Thibaut III Champagne and his son-in-law Baldwin I of Flanders, since they had a direct relationship to the now reigning house in France. This caused a change in instructions for intelligence activities, and therefore, after two weeks, Eric paced next to the desk and pondered a further plan of action.

Yes - these guys, of course, owned the information. And the interest of all three stakeholders is the same, well, or about the same. And even if it is not so, then having received information about the interests of at least one of the parties, will rely on that for further investigation. The only point of entry into this isolated couple of informers was the wife of Baldwin and the daughter of Thibaut - Maria Champagne, a very colorful and sweet nature for 25 years. After some thought, he, nevertheless, decided to bet on her, and therefore the next two weeks, all the forces of the agency were directed to clarify all the details about Masha, absolutely everyone, even very piquant. The task was not difficult, because the lady was well known and kept in sight. Little of this, our girl turned out to be a man with a subtle spiritual organization - a poetess. Conversations about beauty, literature and poetry were for her like air, but, alas, the husband could not give them to her. Equal and father - they were both representatives of their time - strong, strong, showy and not very clever butchers. Married when she was 12, Maria was not happy. And after she gave birth to two girls, and her husband cooled to her, disbelieving that she was capable of giving birth to his son, completely lost heart. And it was a kind of parody of a decadence character. As for the direct predilections of the physiological plan, the spouses were never delighted with the choice of their parents and tolerated each other out of necessity. Therefore, for the last 5 years she had no affinity with a man, from which she was terribly racked and forced to direct all unclaimed sexual energy into the channel of sublimation. In this case it was poetry, and indeed any fine art. Purely visually the lady was pretty compact, with a sweet, spiritualized face and in a neat figure that almost did not deteriorate after giving birth. So - the information is collected, the goal is set, the tasks are defined, the resources are clear and accessible. Therefore, on December 7, 1198, when he was at the next reception in the house, which Thibaut rented, he decided to catch her on bait. It took quite a while to search for the cause, as the conversations were all about a major military campaign, which was being prepared in the next few years. The case turned out completely unexpectedly. Pierre noticed a small scroll of parchment in her belt and decided to joke about a businesslike wife who responsibly treated the duties of her husband's secretary. But that scroll was a record of several of her poems, and therefore de Chamon had, out of politeness, to ask them to read. Then a small discussion ensued on the complete uselessness of poetry, where it was called an empty and muddled business. But at the very end, when smug muzhiks and a sad lady, were already ready to move on to another topic, Erik got in. And very original - he began to recite from memory Odysseus, who, in his time, learned the first song. Of course - recited in ancient Greek, which no one knew, but because they listened to the melody of the text. Fragments of phrases were understood only by Pierre, who tolerantly spoke in Byzantine. He recited beautifully, for chanting, with the correct longitude of sounds and intonation, and therefore already on the second verse all cute shut up and began to listen. When he had finished, there was a pause and only a minute later Maria asked, slightly agitated: "What was that? " In general - the rest of the evening they talked about this poem, about heroes, mythical creatures and so on. Eric managed to convince all those present that poetry is not simple chatter, it allows people to remember heroic deeds and carry them through many centuries. In general, another stupid meeting about "who they are where and how" our baron turned into a small discussion club and achieved his goal - he drew attention to and expressed interest in further communication with the one whose attention he was looking for. Bingo! The goal is struck from the first call.