Chapter 372: One Enemy Is Cheaper Than Many
The moment I arrived in Breisburg, Viscount Loewenbert, who had come out to meet me, greeted me with a litany of complaints. Strictly speaking, the capital lockdown had been a failed operation, but fortunately we had succeeded in arresting the ringleader.
For Viscount Loewenbert, it must have been a truly hair-raising moment.
He even said he had considered resigning as Capital Sentinel Commander.
"The blame is mine for failing to keep my subordinates in line, Baron. I’m truly ashamed. The investigation turned up no fewer than fifteen commanders bought off by the Neunil family. I knew those bastards were taking bribes on the side, but I never imagined they’d be this stupid."
Even bribery should come with some sense of timing, but they pulled that stunt during a critical operation of all times, so naturally they’ll have to pay the price. The problem is that the blame could reach all the way up to Viscount Loewenbert himself.
I couldn’t care less what happens to those commanders, but if the viscount stepped down as Capital Sentinel Commander and some troublesome character took his place, things could get very messy.
With the Military Department’s power already grown so great, the argument that someone from another faction ought to hold the Capital Sentinel command had been raised again and again. There was a good chance the grand duke would accept it, too.
"Viscount, in the end we arrested Inspector General Mort and all the remnants of Viscount Neunil’s faction, so the operation was not a failure. But it’s true that problems arose along the way, so why not settle the matter by reprimanding those commanders and shipping them off to dead-end posts?"
Viscount Loewenbert’s gaze lingered for a moment on Mort, who was being escorted to the Judicial Department. Mort hadn’t opened his mouth once since the interrogation. Under heavy guard, he was led away to prison.
The Neunil remnants, who had reeled off every crime imaginable to save their own skins, made such a scene refusing to be dragged to the Judicial Department’s infamous prison that the guards had to drag them anyway; bound as they were, all they could do was thrash.
The Judicial Department’s prison is infamous for one reason: torture. The place is a den of madmen who delight in it. Since the Judicial Minister himself is a man who enjoys the practice, the reputation is only natural.
"If it were up to me, I’d hand the ones who took bribes over to the Judicial Department as well. Are you satisfied with that level of punishment, Baron? They nearly ruined your operation. There’s no need to show them generosity."
"What matters more than those bastards is that no harm comes to you, Viscount."
Viscount Loewenbert sighed and nodded. He too must have understood why I wasn’t blowing this up. He said that political decisions like these sometimes weighed on him like a stone.
Which is exactly why he suits the post of Capital Sentinel Commander so perfectly.
He never forgets his duty for the sake of personal greed.
"...You say Viscount Neunil is dead?"
The Judicial Minister looked as though he couldn’t believe it, clearly shaken. Viscount Neunil’s title may have been low, but his influence in court politics was formidable. The Judicial Minister let out a long sigh.
"Viscount Neunil’s death will bring many changes to court politics."
"Your greatest rival for a minister’s seat is gone. Surely that’s a weight off your shoulders."
"Quite the opposite, Baron. It’s not so simple a matter."
Fatigue filled the Judicial Minister’s face as he wet his throat with wine. What did he mean, the opposite? As far as I knew, Viscount Neunil had led a faction gunning for the ministers’ seats.
"Viscount Neunil was able to grow his faction thanks to the tacit consent of the minister families. I too recognized the Neunil family’s usefulness and let matters slide as long as they caused no serious trouble."
"You’re telling me that a man who upholds law and justice looked the other way even when they broke the law?"
"...I won’t deny it. Before we speak of law and justice, Baron, you have no idea how fierce the pressure is from the noble factions eyeing the minister families’ seats."
Before law and justice, the first things to be weighed were a family’s standing and its power. In truth, to speak of law and order at all in noble society, you must hold power to match.
"Viscount Neunil was a deeply cunning man. He nipped in the bud any family that looked likely to become his rival. That is how he rose to a position where he could speak of being next in line for a minister’s seat."
"So you deliberately narrowed the field of rivals down to the Neunil family?"
"Isn’t it better to keep watch on a single family than to worry about several?"
In other words, they had funneled everything through a single channel. With Viscount Neunil handling the elimination of rivals on his own, the minister families enjoyed a very comfortable arrangement. No doubt they granted him favors to match, both openly and behind closed doors.
The Neunil family must have known they were being used. But if one of those families suddenly collapsed, as the Reinfeldt family had, the only house positioned to claim the empty seat was Neunil.
So it was hardly a losing trade for them either.
But the chain of events that began with Mort’s scheming ended with Viscount Neunil paying with his life. With the family head dead, the Neunil family will likely escape responsibility for the plot itself.
The problem is that responsibility for Breisach being reduced to ashes still remains. The situation is chaotic enough to leave the Administrative Minister at his wits’ end, so it will absolutely not be brushed aside.
It will cost them an enormous fortune, and I too will shove my bill in their faces and keep up the pressure, so the shrinking of the Neunil family’s influence is only a matter of time. And I intend to build up their cadet branches so that the branches and the main house keep each other in check.
"You’re saying the situation changes with Viscount Neunil dead? True, facing a single enemy is far easier than facing many. That’s a basic principle of military strategy as well."
"Politics is the same. Which is why I worry so."
What the Judicial Minister feared was court politics splintering into a chaotic scramble of factions, like something out of a history book no one here has read. The thought of his strongest rival falling only for him to be harried by a swarm of lesser powers seemed to draw nothing but sighs from him.
"This concerns you too, Baron. The hardliners could trip up the Military Department at any time."
"Hardliners? Our duchy has hardliners?"
My father-in-law is a man whose fists tend to move faster than his words, but he operates within reason, so calling him a hardliner would be a stretch in more ways than one.
Then again, I’ve seen him and the provincial lords at each other’s throats often enough that he can’t be called a moderate either. The hardliners the Judicial Minister spoke of, to put it bluntly, are lunatics.
"The hardliners I speak of are the sort who argue that we should strike first and invade Burgundy, the very power that threatens the Duchy of Beren."
Invade whom? Us, invade Burgundy? Striking first at a power that could fairly be called the strongest in Western Europe—is that sane? A minor duchy going after a man who has been trading blows with the King of France for years?
"...They’re completely out of their minds. Men like that actually exist?"
"You may not believe it, but there are more of them than you’d think. They’re merely lying low for now. Viscount Neunil weeded out such sprouts early, so they never stood out, but now that he’s gone, won’t they begin running wild in earnest? Of course, the Military Department’s power remains formidable, so it won’t be shaken, but the Judicial Department sits in an awkward position in many respects, so I can’t help but worry."
If what the Judicial Minister said was true, then that senile old man had been serving a useful purpose no one ever imagined. It also explained why the Administrative Minister had reacted so strangely to Viscount Neunil’s death.
He must have sensed that court politics would descend into pandemonium. I had thought so myself, but it seems the problem was far bigger than I expected. Still, the die has already been cast.
The Neunil family’s downfall was, in the end, inevitable. And it will serve as another reminder to the nobles of what it means to cross me. It’s not an entirely bad situation.
Only the emergence of those maddening hardliners calls for vigilance.
Men like that are usually the sort who get drunk on honor and fantasy and lose sight of reality. The reality of the Duchy of Beren is that we live on edge, wondering when Burgundy will invade.
"Since the port burned down because of the Neunil family’s internal strife, they will have to pay an enormous cost. That is their rightful responsibility, but I do not wish to see Neunil fall completely. The family head is dead, so the price for the crime has been paid, in a sense. I would prefer there be no damage beyond this."
The Judicial Minister was trying to persuade me to stop attacking the Neunil family. After much deliberation, I accepted only part of his request. Whatever his reasons, I had been planning to build up the Neunil cadet branches anyway.