The next morning, ten kilometers away from Savona in Valaz, this seaside town was still asleep.
The day before, Lasalle's cavalry had charged in and bound all the noble officers in town, locking them in the cellar of the town's main grain merchant.
The command of the entire unit had fallen into the hands of a few surviving commoner sergeants.
Among these sergeants, one was of Italian descent, and he spoke fluent Italian. He was now greeting fishermen who were preparing to go out to sea early in the morning.
Having been a waiter on merchant ships and occasionally moonlighting as a sailor, he was quite familiar with life on the Mediterranean and could find common ground with the fishermen.
"So," after chatting for a while, a fisherman suddenly asked, "I heard you became the leader of this regiment here yesterday?"
