“Don’t be so quick with your judgment, first you have to examine his hands,” then he said to Maser, “Stretch out your hands.”
The moment Maser heard this command he felt startled, but he then spread out his hands with a look full of confusion on his face — the skin on his palms was very rough, fissured and had many traces of earth particles, furthermore below every finger were thick calluses, all in all, they looked very weather-beaten.
“If he was a carpenter, then his palms should not be so rough, especially those two pads beneath the palm, due to constantly rubbing over the wood, they should be smooth and hard. Furthermore, carpenters often need to use black paint to draw contour lines, therefore their palms will often be stained with a black ink that is hard to wash off, turning their palms black instead of yellow.” Barov calmly explained. “Another point, before he gave you an answer he would always break eye contact — many people who were trying to recall something that they didn’t usually do in the past, would show a similar kind of expression to this. However, if was a real carpenter, he would have given his answers in a very natural manner.”
“Understood… then,” Sirius’ eyes became large.
Barov looked at the astonished Maser, then said with a heavy voice, “You should have heard the warnings of the First Army when they called you over, any act of impersonation, deception or refusal of register will be severely punished. Either by being sentenced to work in the mines, or being expelled from the Western Territory, so if you understand this, do you still think you are a carpenter?”
“No, Sir, I was wrong!” Maser said, falling to his knees. “My neighbor was a carpenter, I would just often watch him work!”
“Then go over there and line up.”
Seeing the other flee, Sirius asked full of wonder, “Sir, how do you know all these things?”
“During the Months of Demons, I have done a census for His Highness. I had to deal with every carpenter in the town, and at that time I conveniently recorded such information,” Barov answered while pretending to be unconcerned. But when he saw the admiration and shock in the knight’s face, a feeling of pride arose within his heart.
Although the devil’s methods appeared to be clever, in the end, some people will eventually deceive it, and only people like himself, have the talent needed to make up for His Highness deficiency.
But under the influence of His Highness, their recent approach to deal with such problems was no longer the same as it was in the past… Barov couldn’t help but secretly sigh. For example, commoners of the previous kind, in the past it had been important to punish them with in a thunderous manner, in order intimidate those who would otherwise begin to stir. But nowadays he had to let all of them go, this was most likely because the Prince wanted to save gold royals — after all, every refugee here was worth a lot of money. In case they didn’t live and work in Border Town for several years, they would simply not have been worth the expenses of transporting them over such a long distance by ship.
When the next refugee passed the specialized inquiry, instead of immediately writing him into the register, Sirius first looked to Barov for his approval.
Who in return seized the man up, and then nodded, “Write his details into the register, I will take him to see His Highness.”
After going through a passage in the city wall, they came to a stop in front of a shed set up for His Highness, which was also the last checkpoint.
Here, they would receive His Highness’s personal inquiry. If it is confirmed that there is no problems, they would be given a “Resident Identity Card (ID)”, and from then would become a formal resident of Border Town. With the current lack of houses in the inner town, they had no other choice than to give priority and provide the first living places to the artisans. While the refugees with no particular skill, had no other option than to wait outside of the wall for two to three months.
Barov also possessed a ID card — it was a sheet of hard paper painted with color. It was almost palm sized and on the left upper corner was a painting of his head, which looked the same as a real person. While his name, address and number was written in the middle. The back of the card in turn was covered with the Graycastle’s crest and His Highness personal seal. No matter if it was the paper itself or the film it was wrapped into, they were both very strange. Whether it was by soaking it in water or trying to burn it in a fire, nothing could damage the ID card.
There was no doubt that this thing was certainly made by the witch named Soraya. It seemed that His Highness intended to spread the ID card to the whole town, so that in the future whether it was to buy food or pay, they would have to show their certificate.
