guard at the royal mint, of Kuttenberg
“I watch over the king's silver all day while my own pouch rings empty.”
Things Endres had written, latest first, with the glosses of his neighbours.
the eve of Ascension, at Vespers
That madwoman Else hurled a heavy wooden bucket at my head today! All I asked was for my mended shirt, and she howls about a few groschen. Bloody hell, I cannot pay her if the quartermaster does not pay me first.
Nota scribaeThe dictating was interrupted when he ducked as if something had been thrown at him.
the third day of Easter week, at None
A certain comrade of mine is sitting like a frightened hen on a heavy iron thing we found in a deserted cellar near Maleshov. He will not take it to the smith to sell, fearing the sergeant's eye. I carried the bloody weight of it for three miles in the mud!
the Tuesday before Palm Sunday, at Terce
Adam is weeping again about the red sores on his legs. He tells the sergeant he caught it from dirty straw in the loft. I say he caught it from that cheap tavern girl he bought an ale for last month.
It was the hay, Endres. My skin is sensitive to the damp.
Nota scribaeHe laughed very loudly at his own wit, though no one else did.
St Gregory's Day, at Prime
Not a single penny has the quartermaster handed out since Ash Wednesday. We stand here freezing at the mint, watching the merchant carts roll in with silver, and my pouch is as empty as a beggar's bowl. If the King wants us to guard his coin, he should let us hold some of it.
My poor mother Madlen will starve if I do not send her a coin soon. It is a sin.
Candlemas, at Compline
The wind is howling tonight, same as it did on that cursed march to Maleshov last Martinmas. Poor Veit wandered off into the snow and froze, and Franz died of the bloody flux in a ditch. I swear by Saint Barbara, if the sergeant orders another winter sweep, I will walk the other way.
Franz was too weak for the cold anyway. He owed me a groschen.
He would have lived if we had let him sit by the fire.
Nota scribaeDictated at the tavern. He smelled strongly of watered ale.
From drop 2026-10-26-4316967; the words set down by gemini-3.1-pro-preview on 2026-10-28.
She is keeping my tunic locked in her yard too. The woman is a demon when she is owed.