What could possibly go wrong? For the Duchess of Brittany's page.
"It's not good, not good madam! This is sorrow, yes sorrow it is," Nicolas tried to explain, but nothing worked out how this works with bureaucracy.
The bureaucrat was a woman who was responsible for calculating those tears called wages.
"But I don't see you on the list, young man! Get lost! Get lost, you idiot!"
The nervous lady stamped her feet and waved her arms at him. Nicolas had no choice but to climb out of the treasure's secretary carriage. In a fit of rage, he kicked the carriage wheel.
"You! A little shit!" the lady treasurer jumped out of the carriage, "Out! Out! I don't want to see you at the Duchess's court anymore!"
"What's going on? Why haven't we moved for three hours? How many years are we planning on getting to Paris?" the lady treasurer started shouting towards the head of the column.
"It's absolutely impossible! The road is in pieces, everything is covered in shit!" shouted back.
The column of wagons of the Breton court is firmly stuck.
A small French village was visible not far from the road. Dozen modest houses centered around a church and surrounded by vineyards. Nicolas in deploration wandered in that direction.
He was not greeted kindly by the dogs, huge wolfhounds who rushed towards him, making it clear that they would now bite his throat.
"What the hell! Breton beggars again! Get out of here!" The owner of the last house, with a torch in his hands, because it was getting dark, he was no friendlier than his vicious dogs.
"I have fallen behind the royal convoy, I serve the Duchess of Brittany, your future queen!"
Looks like the peasant wanted to say something about what he thought about duchesses and queens, but he shut his mouth in time.
"But there your carts are standing!" The man pointed the torch towards the road and whistled to call his wolfhounds back.
Nicolas came closer. "That's right, I'm on a short vacation due to the duchess treasury impoverishment."
The peasant grinned. "And why am I not surprised? What do you want? I don't serve bread, there are no pittance for all sorts of slackers here!"
"I don't ask for alms, I can work if you have it, in my stepfather's village I supervised the harvest."
One word led to another, Nicolas and the peasant agreed on work - picking grapes in exchange for a bowl of soup and a night's lodging in the hayloft.
***
There was a ton of work to do; the 1491 grape harvest was simply, simply magnificent. Large grapes, oh well, sometimes it rained, but the work couldn't stop.
In the mornings it's had to put on wet, not dry pants and shirts.
September, they were working together with the owner and his two daughters, aged 14-16. The eldest, the giggly one, was called Genevieve. But Nicolas didn't remember the name of the silent and sad younger one.
Genevieve worked with them for about half a day, then went off to cook. First she fed the insatiable wolfhounds, damn! They ate more than people! Then they ate what was left of those damn dogs, and Nicolas would fall dead in the hayloft, to sleep before tomorrow morning, before tomorrow's work.
***
One day, Nicolas drew attention a little castle in the center of the village; it was a little damaged by time, but in principle it looked pretty good.
"I've never seen your landlord, who is he?" He asked the owner.
"Oh! They don't live here permanently. What the Jacquerie our ancestors created here! Now the seignior only comes here occasionally," the owner perked up, opened a barrel of young wine, and spent the entire evening telling Nicolas stories told to him by his great-grandfather, who apparently heard them from his great-grandfather.
"Tell us, Papa, what Grandpa told us about Saint Jeanne," Genevieve asked.
The owner frowned for a long time and remained silent, "The witch, she was the witch! There!" then he sighed, "life was better under the British."
***
One drizzly October Sunday (damn these French rains, it's not autumn, it's just rain), the owner had a little drink after church and went to bed, Nicolas went for a walk to that castle in the center of the village. The surrounding wall was small (as a military unit this castle was apparently of little value), and Nicolas climbed over it intending to inspect the entire castle.
In front of the building itself there was a fairly well-kept front garden; strangely, it wouldn't be said that everything here was completely abandoned.
"Hey! Who are you?" The young boy's sudden, piercing scream made Nicolas flinch. In addition, a man of about 50 years old with his pants down and a sword jumped out of the building.
"What do you want, ragamuffin! You're not my peasant! What do you want?"
"Apparently a local landlord," thought Nicolas.
"I haven't done anything wrong, I'm just looking around."
"And why the hell did you break into my castle? Are you Breton?"
"My name is Nicolas, my stepfather is baron Malestroit!" Nicolas answered proudly, putting his hands on his hips.
"Apparently the baron was smart enough not to give you his name," the landlord replied contemptuously.
It was like a knife to the heart for Nicolas, and it was a bitter truth.
"Well, come in, since you've come, young Breton nobleman," The landlord softened and waved his hand towards the door, "Tell me what brought you here, our valiant army fleeing towards Paris? I've been saying for a long time that our general Trimouille is a great fool."
The host, Seignior Laval, his son Rohan and Nicolas sat at the modest but elegant table. Nicolas briefly summarizes the latest war news.
"So that's how it turns out," Seignior Laval scratched his beard after this news, "the young Breton nobleman, page-boy of our future queen, is picking grapes for my peasant Kind Jacques, ah-haha."
"No, we won't sit here! We're leaving for Paris tomorrow! We must attend our king's wedding without fail! We'll ask to restore Anjou's ancestral rights!"