Rain and snow have always been the traveling merchant's worst enemy.
Roads can become dirty, and rain and snow falling on shelves can damage the goods being transported.
If it is spring time, then melting snow can lead to flooding of rivers and destruction of dams and bridges.
Therefore, when it rains heavily, almost all traveling merchants go to the nearest inns or monasteries.
Now Rhea and Gloria are halfway to Karafrog, after three days of their journey, there are only one hundred kilometers left of the 400-kilometer journey to get to Karafrog in a day and get ripe apples.
It was at this most delicate moment that it suddenly began to rain.
There was no tax levied for driving through the lord's territory on an official road with border signs, but there was clearly no monastery or tavern where one could hide from the rain.
The entry tax is usually 2 silver coins per person for entering the territory, and the exit tax from the territory ranges between 2 and 4 silver coins depending on the laws established by individual lords.
That is why traveling merchants usually travel alone - paying an additional 6 silver coins for entering and leaving the territory with the same goods is certainly unprofitable in the long run.
Now that the most moisture-prone furs were treated like leather, and apples were not a commodity that would rot if wet, was it necessary to spend 12 silver coins to find a tavern or monastery in the neighboring territory to shelter from the rain?
Gloria, whose face was pale and her lips bruised, was clearly hypothermic due to the rain, but she only bit her lip and didn't say a word, leaning against Leia, not crying from her efforts.
Rhea herself was no better: the clothes of both were wet from the rain, sticky and stuck to the body.
If she was a Fante right now, she probably could roll a fireball to keep warm and carry it through the pouring rain, but Rhea wasn't very good at rolling fireballs.
Life was at stake, and it would be a great loss to dare to rain for a moment of anger, and eventually get sick and pay a high price for a visit to the doctor.
When the border sign developed again, Rhea turned the cart around and headed for Peli.
After entering the barrier, she paid the entry tax for two people, and for 4 silver coins, Rhea paid 14 silver coins of Trent, and then received a copper ticket from the guards in return.
These low-silver coins were not very good in color, had old cracks or inclusions, and cost only 6 copper coins, whereas 4 silver meant 4 standard silver coins, or the total cost was 80 copper coins.
When signing a contract with someone, make sure that the contract states that payment is made for "standard gold/silver coins", otherwise you can get 300 silver coins worth 6 or 8 copper coins when the payment is clearly 300 silver coins for 6,000 copper coins.
Taking the change coins and asking at the nearest church, Rhea drove away from the post.
Of course, it was impossible to send two drenched women to a tavern where they would be subjected to such insults and harassment as one can imagine.
After passing through a large vineyard, they finally found an old church in a secluded corner.
The church differed from the monastery in that it offered overnight accommodation to itinerant merchants, travelers or cruisers like Rhea, or prayed for peace for travelers, and these unproductive clergy relied on donations from travelers for their activities.
Therefore, instead of rejecting the unexpected visit of Rhea and Gloria, the people in the church gladly accepted them.
On the other hand, monasteries were a place of asceticism for the clergy, and in order to maintain cleanliness, female travelers were usually not allowed into monasteries, as well as male travelers to monasteries.
Such restrictions were not mandatory for Fente/Rey, who could determine their own gender by asking in advance whether monks or nuns in a nearby monastery were monks or nuns.
But now with Gloria in tow.
This should be the second best option - the Church.
The church, which operates on a commercial basis and feeds on the blood of travelers, took eight silver coins from the two of them to pay for their wagon in the warehouse, and then took them to their guest house.
The room was so cramped that there was barely enough room for one bed, the wooden floor was full of potholes and oil stains, the mattress was the cheapest of straw mattresses, and the pillows were a disgusting yellowish color from most people's use and smelled terrible.
At least it was a single room, so you didn't have to squeeze into a bunk like in a hotel.
"Then I'll go unpack my things and bring in the ones I'm going to use."
The monastery could still eat with the nun-nuns, the church did not provide a meal, so Rhea had to go and bring the ingredients that were packed in a cart bucket for dinner.
The ingredients were nothing more than potatoes, a little pepper, salt and dried meat.
After taking out the ingredients for two, grabbing two sets of Fente's clothes and covering the bucket with a cloth again, Rhea returned to the room to find Gloria naked and twisting her hair, drops of water dripping from her long, beautiful blonde curls.
Rather thin than slender, perhaps due to malnutrition in the years of her development, Gloria looked quite small in all respects, although she seemed half a head taller than Rhea.
Moreover, on Gloria's back, arms and thighs, standing with her back to Rhea, twisting her hair, there were many scars from the abuse she had committed.
"Does it hurt?"
"Do you want to touch it?"
"No, you don't have to. I saw a few people gathered in the hall when I just returned from the side of the car, and the heater was turned on there, so we can go and dry our clothes later."
Not knowing how to continue the conversation, Rhea could only hand over the clothes and trousers to Fente, and then they both changed into them together.
Gloria, who was half a head shorter than Fante, fit in perfectly, but Rhea looked quite comical in Fante's clothes. Loose clothes made Leia look sloppy and not at all like a witch.
There were indeed clothes for Leia in the cart, but that didn't explain why Rhea was able to pull women's clothes of the right size out of the cart of a traveling male merchant and she had no other choice.
Dressed in ill-fitting clothes, the couple wrung out their wet shifts and headed into the hall, carrying their clothes and dinner ingredients.
In the church, where Rhea and Gloria went to escape from the rain, twelve guests came before and after them. Some of them looked like businessmen, others - like people of different professions.
Four mercenaries in their late twenties were smoking bad cigarettes, rolled straight from tobacco, and polishing their bloody weapons and armor with a coarse rag, despite the disgusting looks of others; a man who looked like a wizard and a middle-aged man dressed in fine clothes were sitting at the table closest to the stove and talking animatedly; A knight in high rank with a triple cloak was instructing two trainee knights that a landslide was possible in a nearby mountain village and that if they were ordered to do so, there were also itinerant merchants sitting in the corner, knocking dried fruits and having business conversations over bad wine.
For merchants, churches or inns located at great distances between cities are important information points, especially since you can meet a variety of people in them.
In inns you can usually see only sophisticated merchants or poor travelers, but not so in churches.
Knights, elf rangers, ale masters - a variety of guests live in the church.
Who should I go and talk to?