Chapter 369: Used and Discarded
I gathered all my officers.
The cleanup is always harder than the battle.
I summoned the administrator of Breisach as well.
"My name is Scharft, Baron."
"Administrator Scharft, are the warehouses on the outskirts intact?"
"Yes. Fortunately, only the port district suffered serious damage. All the warehouses built on the outskirts are unharmed. If those had been damaged too, it would have been a true disaster."
"I’ll be requisitioning the supplies in those warehouses."
The administrator’s eyes went wide. The stores in those warehouses ranged from goods belonging to the merchant guild and the nobles to the taxes destined for the royal family. He asked his question calmly.
"May I ask the reason for this requisition?"
"To see that the refugees make it safely through the night. If they fall asleep shivering in this kind of cold, they’ll freeze to death. The old and the frail especially will die in droves."
"You’re requisitioning for the refugees? Baron! That is an absurd justification!"
By the common sense of this era, a noble almost never spent supplies on refugees from another territory unless they were his own subjects, let alone supplies seized by force from someone else.
Nobody cared whether refugees lived or died. If anything, I was the one being treated as the oddity for coming to their aid. It was the sort of thing the Church should have applauded, but regrettably, the Church was no different.
Outwardly they preached salvation for the wretched, but in reality, the moment any responsibility looked likely to fall on them, they dodged it. When I made a request to the Breisach diocese, they refused to help, claiming they were short on monks.
It was a small mercy that three monks joined out of a sense of calling.
They were among the few pure believers, the kind who called for reform.
"Of course, I don’t intend to take anything by force. Ivan, record every item we requisition. I mean to pay for everything we take."
Timid Ivan went pale at the mountain of work suddenly dropped in his lap, and only when I said I would pay did the administrator finally breathe easy. Did he honestly think I was going to seize everything for free?
"If payment is made, there won’t be any major problems, but the supplies held as royal taxes are not a matter money can settle. Please do not touch those under any circumstances. Promise me!"
Whatever else happened, touching the royal taxes could complicate matters, so I decided to hold off on them. But if it became necessary, I would requisition them anyway. People mattered more than supplies.
And that would give me a powerful justification. His Highness the grand duke would approve as well. Still, the administrator remained suspicious of my intent to help the refugees. A reasonable suspicion, but an unpleasant one.
"Why on earth are you going this far to help the refugees? I may be the administrator of Breisach, but you, Baron, are the ruler of Rosenheim. You have no connection to Breisburg at all."
"Because the responsibility for the fire lies with us as well."
"That happened in the course of official duties, and I heard it was a man of the Neunil household who set the fire. If anyone should bear responsibility, wouldn’t it be the Neunil family?"
"It doesn’t matter. I’ll collect every coin I spend from those bastards."
Only then did the administrator seem to realize what I was after. For now I would help the refugees by paying out of my own pocket, but I had no intention of throwing money away either.
Every coin spent here would serve as yet another justification for attacking the Neunil family. Viscount Neunil’s house might reach a political compromise with the grand duke, but I had no intention of settling so easily.
For the price of a few gold coins, I planned to torment them for a long, long time.
And I would gain the people’s goodwill at the same time. Two birds with one stone.
The administrator withdrew with a somewhat lighter step.
Beort seemed genuinely impressed.
So did Ferke and Drek.
"I see. So that’s how you intend to tie the Neunil family down."
"Sir Beort, weren’t you also worried I was wasting money for nothing?"
"To my shame, I didn’t understand why you wanted to help the refugees. I can only despair at my own inability to recognize such a brilliant stratagem."
"Ted, what do you think?"
Ted was flustered to find all eyes suddenly on him, but he answered calmly.
"Knowing you, Master, helping the refugees would matter more to you than any of those reasons."
"I think so too. Our master is a man who helps people in need."
Ted and Anton, who had served under me for a long time, understood my intentions exactly. The stratagem of tying down the Neunil family was real, but the intent to help the refugees was greater.
"The lord you serve is that kind of noble. Showering my men with rewards so they never live in poverty comes from the same place. So does making sure that if they fall, everything owed to them reaches their families safely."
"...That doesn’t seem like the typical attitude of a noble."
"Right. It’s precisely because I’m not typical that I am where I am today."
It’s true that I grew strong thanks to the system’s abilities, but without this compassion of mine, it would have been difficult to reach my current position. An unprecedented rise earns nothing but the wariness of those around you.
The grand duke trusts me for exactly this reason. I’m not blindly loyal to the royal family, but because I know how to honor what’s right, he judged that I wasn’t the sort to betray him.
That is how I reached the position I hold now.
"If we model ourselves after you, my lord, could we become the same?"
"No, you couldn’t. Every person’s temperament and disposition are different. Sir Drek, if I suddenly told you to give up drinking and live like a monk, could you do it?"
"I... I could never live like that. I think I’d rather die."
Drek’s playful answer lightened the mood, and all the men laughed.
Ted nodded along, saying he agreed wholeheartedly.
"Sir Beort, didn’t you also fail to understand my desire to help the refugees? Everyone thinks differently. That’s why I gave you all a single rule."
"...So that’s what you meant when you told us to fulfill our duty."
"That’s right. That is the bond that ties us together."
Everyone’s thoughts and values are completely different.
Trying to force them into alignment is impossible. Since persuasion and genuine acceptance are entirely different things, all I did was present a single path that could bind many people together.
Fulfill your duty. Simple words, but they carry a great deal of meaning. And to get people to fulfill their duty, you have to grant them merit and rewards without stinting. That is only fair compensation.
"I will report the merit you’ve earned this time to His Highness the grand duke in detail. You may even receive knighthoods of the duchy."
"That would be... a truly great honor."
A duchy knighthood might be a modest start, but for men who were mere court nobles, it was their first real honor. Beort and Ferke were nobles with nothing left but their bloodline, and Drek was merely from a cadet branch of Offenburg.
In other words, the bottom rung of the nobility.
I was lucky to receive a duchy knighthood from the very beginning. And I was the very first knight ever dubbed by the crown prince himself. Plenty of nobles envied me bitterly for it.
At any rate, thanks to the administrator’s cooperation, we were able to distribute the supplies quickly, and most of the refugees were spared from freezing to death. They praised the Gale Knights and prayed for them.
Receiving thanks from people who were sincerely grateful, the knights must have felt their efforts were worthwhile. Some men, though, had hidden among the refugees, waiting for a chance to commit crimes.
Those men were vicious criminals, and I had them executed as an example.
While I was inspecting the encampment, Adolf returned.
From interrogating the remnants, Adolf had learned that Karsten had killed Viscount Neunil and fled. I assumed he would feel hollow at not being able to finish it with his own hands, but surprisingly, he seemed thoroughly relieved.
"What death could be more wretched than dying at the hands of the adopted son you used and threw away?"
After Karsten was implicated in the rebellion and stepped down as commander of the Grand Duke’s Guard, the Neunil family discarded him. To them, their adopted Karsten had been nothing more than a tool taken from a cadet branch.
"Karsten was abandoned by Viscount Neunil, but not everyone turned their backs on that poor young man. Queen Gwendirente never cast Karsten out. She kept him at her side as her lover, just as she always had."
"...The queen must have been quite fond of Karsten."
Just as Mort testified, I had confirmed that the queen dispatched Karsten when Neunil was in danger, but whether she had truly sent him to help was another question. I wouldn’t know until I heard it from the queen herself.
"I’ll hand the Neunil remnants over to the Judicial Department myself."
"Would you? As you can see, I’m tied down here."
"Hmm, can’t you leave the cleanup to your subordinates?"
"Someone important is on his way here. So I can’t leave my post."
"Someone important? Who could possibly stand higher than you, Baron?"
The man in question had sent a messenger ahead to say he would arrive before noon. He was none other than the Administrative Minister, Count Dickmeyer. A paralyzed port was no small matter.
Word is he’s racing here at breakneck speed.