Weighing the moneybag, although most of the time Lucien was able to stay quite calm, now he was a bit thrilled.
"Well… I can be quite a moneygrubber sometimes." Lucien mocked himself a bit in mind. Lucien was aware that there was supposed to be thirty-four gold coins in the bag, but he did not say anything about it, and of course Hank would not mention anything as well. It was an unspoken rule, Lucien knew that.
After leaving Hank's office, Lucien decided to visit Pierre in the library. After all, they worked together for more than two months. Lucien should a least say goodbye to him as friends.
Staring blankly, Pierre was sitting behind the counter, which was blanketed by two outspread newspapers.
"Good morning, Pierre." Lucien greeted.
As if he was suddenly awakened from a dream, Pierre gazed at the person standing in front of him for a moment in puzzlement, then he slowly answered, "Lucien…" As soon as he called the name, his face darkened, "My fault… I shall call you Mr. Evans now."
Pierre's attitude surprised Lucien quite a bit. Lucien thought he knew Pierre's personality relatively well from working together with him in the past two months. In his mind, Pierre was never a silly or an arrogant jerk.
"Pierre… Why…?" Lucien was confused.
"You guys ruined harpsichord! You guys know nothing about harpsichord!" Pierre's dark brown eyes were filled with anger.
Lowering his head, Lucien saw the newspapers on the counter, of which the two articles on the current pages were both about Victor's piano concerto.
Lucien remembered the details of the two articles, since the content was already stored in his spirit library just now when he was flipping through the newspapers.
One of the article praised the improvement that Victor made with traditional harpsichord and applauded for the impressive features of the new music instrument―the piano, while the other criticized the playing skills Victor used during his playing, accusing Victor's new fingering with piano a betrayal of classical fingerings and the great tradition of music.
"You may hold different opinions, and I understand, Pierre." Lucien tried to mediate, "But we don't have to argue over this. Just leave the discussion to the musicians and critics."
"Answer me. Do you think you really understand harpsichord?" Pierre directly ignored Lucien's words and questioned him again.
Lucien came up with the book that Pierre once recommended him to read, which was titled The Art of Harpsichord Performance. Locating it in his spirit library, Lucien noticed the name of the author was Antonio Sandor.
"Your father is… Antonio Sandor, the author of The Art of Harpsichord Performance?" asked Lucien.
Pierre paused a moment. Then he squared his shoulders and answered proudly, "Yes, I am the son of Antonio Sandor, a great harpsichord musician."
"That's why you're so angry?" Lucien stared up at Pierre and asked calmly.
"The great achievement made by my father can never been ruined by you guys!" answered Pierre with excitement.
"What is talking to me now is your prejudice, Pierre, not you." Lucien did not want to argue with him, "Anyway, I just wanted to say goodbye to you. From today on I won't be working in this library anymore."
"I was wrong about you, Lucien," said Pierre with strong dislike, "I thought you honored music a lot, but in fact you're too arrogant to show your respect. You'll definitely regret in the future if you don't stick to traditional fingerings. Watch out, you genius!"
Lucien opened his mouth and tried to say something, but finally gave up. He directly turned around and left the library.
He thought Pierre and he would become friends. Lucien sighed in his mind. After all, a friend was easier lost than found.
Since the concert was a great success, everyone was taking a weekend off for the first time in a long while. Lucien did not find Felicia in their practicing room on the fourth floor.
"Maybe Felicia'll be at home in the afternoon," wondered Lucien. He still had no idea how to persuade Felicia to help him.
Thinking about this, Lucien went back to the lobby and asked Elena if she knew about any house for rent in Gesu area. Since most of the musicians and players in Aalto lived in Gesu, the Musicians' Association was also responsible for providing house information and helping its musicians to find ideal places to live close to each other.
Among the many choices, Lucien liked the two-storey house located at no. 116 in Gesu the most. The house was owned by a not very famous musician, who was now far away in the Kingdom of Syracuse serving a viscount as his music consultant. The location of the house was a bit remote in the area, but the rent was also cheaper—one Thale per year.
It was almost ten in the morning. Lucien planned to take a look at the house this afternoon, after visiting Felicia. He wanted to move out as soon as possible. Now Lucien had to go back home and clean some of his stuff.
"Take care, Mr. Evans." Elena smiled to Lucien, and Cathy slightly bowed to him respectfully.
When Lucien came back to Aderon, he saw many of the neighbors were standing in front of auntie Alisa's place like the last time when John became a knight squire.
Every week, these poor people in Aderon could luckily take a short break on Sunday, since they also went to the church in the morning.
With the improvement of his spiritual power, Lucien's hearing was also now better than that of common people. He captured some of the words from the neighbors' conversation and an ominous feeling came over him.
"Hi, Roy. Why there're so many people gathering here?" asked Lucien.
"Hey, Lucien! It's been a while since the last time I saw you!" With too much labor work, Roy, in his early thirties, looked much older than his age, and he did not know that Lucien had become the princess's music consultant yet, "You know what? Every dog has its day! And Joel's lucky day finally comes! A noble lord invited Joel to be his family musician this morning."
"What? Where is uncle Joel now?" Lucien was surprised.
"Joel left in a hurry, and he took Alisa and his son together as well. I bet the pay must be very good." Roy grinned.
"Lucien, you did not know about it?" asked a middle-aged woman named Lizz with curiosity, "People say you're a famous musician now and it is because of your reputation that Joel has been invited. Is it true, Lucien? Are you famous now?"
"Something's wrong…" Lucien murmured, and he hurriedly asked them, "Who invited Joel?"
Uncle Joel would never leave in such a hurry without even telling him first. Besides, even if there was a noble who admired Lucien's music and thus wanted uncle Joel to be his musician, Lucien should be informed first.
"How dare we ask a lord's name!" Lizz and some other neighbors shook their heads, "We saw the lord dressed very decently. And he had many squires and servants."
It was not right… Lucien's heart was torn with anxiety, but Lucien knew that he must stay calm.
"Auntie Lizz, do you remember what the lord looked like?" Lucien frowned his brows, "Did uncle Joel leave me any message?"
"How dare we look at a lord's face!" answered Roy, "I only remember the lord was a very decent gentleman. His hair was all white. Black suit… and a walking stick. The squires were so strong… all in their early twenties…"
Although Roy tried his best to recall it, the information he provided was not really helpful.
"Joel did leave a message to you," said Lizz, "but nothing really special… He asked me to tell you that do not worry about him, and he will ask someone to send you a message when he reaches there."
"That's it?" asked Lucien, putting up with the great anxiety in his mind.
"That's it." The neighbors knew nothing else.
"Anything wrong, Lucien?" some of the neighbors asked.
Taking a deep breath, Lucien calmed himself a bit.
"Not really," Lucien answered. He decided to look for clues first and then inform John. There must be a purpose that they took uncle Joel's family.
Lucien had a spare key for the door. As soon as he entered the place, Lucien's spiritual power and his soul told him something was indeed not right. Lucien sensed a smell of stranger in the room, but fortunately, this person did not erase the invisible smell and trail he or she left.
And there was a white letter on the table.