"Um, Baron. There’s something I’ve been wondering about."
On the road to Schafen, Beort spoke up cautiously.
Ever since he and Drek got chewed out the day before, he’d been treating me with extra care. It was probably like the awkward, sheepish feeling you get after being scolded by a boss you’re close to at work. I gave him permission to ask.
"What was that count palatine really after, in the end?"
"What do you think the count was aiming for?"
"At first, I assumed a greedy man like him was simply after wealth. But after seeing how many factions were tangled together like a spider’s web, it seems he was aiming for something much bigger."
Digging into Count Palatine Heinlein firsthand seemed to have left him with some fundamental questions. With only scattered fragments to work with, it would be hard for Beort to grasp the full story.
Everything had begun when Louis sent Viola, pregnant with his child, to me. The count’s goal was to use that child to collude with the various factions and seize power.
The grand duke had caught wind of the Finance Minister’s suspicious movements and ordered me to root out Heinlein’s faction along with the minister himself. But that wasn’t something I could tell Beort, a mere ducal knight.
No one had ever declared the matter classified.
I was the one who had decided it should be.
That was why I couldn’t tell Beort the truth. As Louis wished, I intended to give that child a peaceful life. And there was nothing to worry about where Heinlein was concerned, either.
Strictly speaking, it was outright treason, and the moment the count admitted it aloud, he would be finished. So while there might be people who harbored suspicions, Louis’s illegitimate child would never surface.
"Sir Beort, greed always invites disaster. It’s natural for people to want things, but greed beyond your means will inevitably lead to ruin."
"But if it were someone who could handle that greed..."
"He wasn’t that caliber of man, but if he had been, he’d have stolen a country."
A crown taken by force is still a crown once the wearer’s grandson sits under it. Every dynasty worth the name began as someone’s theft.
Drek, who had been listening quietly beside us, spoke up.
"The nobles call you a greedy man behind your back, Baron."
"Talking behind people’s backs is about all they ever do. From where you stand, do I look greedy?"
"Not at all! You are a man of honor, Baron!"
"And that’s exactly why the Altringen royal family trusts me."
"Does honor really come from quietly fulfilling your duty and nothing more?"
"Becoming someone like me is difficult, but the two of you will at least come to be known as nobles who can be trusted."
For a noble, honor and trust are precious assets, and at the same time they can be the finest of weapons. Empty titles like the Gale Knight or the Rose Knight are child’s play by comparison. That is what trust is really worth.
That was how I went from ducal knight to lord, and now to prince. It wasn’t blind loyalty to the Altringen royal family. It was the result of fulfilling my duty in every responsibility I was given.
The bloodbaths I had waded through to get here were brutal, but if my experience could serve as a proper signpost for these young nobles, I would gladly spare no advice.
"Kill your greed and fulfill your duty. That’s the advice I can give you."
"We’ll engrave it on our hearts. Especially coming from you, Baron!"
"Hm, I’m not telling you to be blindly loyal."
"But doesn’t fulfilling your duty require loyalty as well?"
Beort seemed to have slightly misunderstood my advice.
If there’s one thing that truly doesn’t suit nobles, it’s loyalty. They dress themselves up with fine words, calling themselves loyal servants of the crown, but no one disregards the crown quite like the nobility.
They acknowledge the king as first among them, nothing more. If the king ever demanded by force that they hand something over, the nobles would never sit still for it. They’d rise up instead, crying tyranny.
Right now the grand duke’s power is at its height, but that is simply the nature of nobles.
That’s why, thanks to those high and mighty nobles, the fighting never ends.
The Hungarian king Mátyás came to be called a tyrant because he seized the nobles’ lands by sheer force and won civil war after civil war on top of it. That was the very reason Barosi and Herto were here.
Fulfilling your duty is nothing grandiose.
It’s a lighter burden than confessing your sins to the Lord.
The sacred duties of a noble boil down to three things: serve your 45 days of military service, pay your taxes, and uphold your legitimacy. I have kept all of them, and I strive to keep them still.
From the outside, I might look blindly loyal to the royal family, but behind that loyalty there has always been fair compensation. Loyalty must always be rewarded, and I never coveted more than my due.
That was why the grand duke judged me an ideal noble who honors his duty. And that judgment became trust and faith, the driving force behind the high standing I enjoy today.
As for the foolish nobles who insist I gorged myself on unearned merit—the kind who forget a noble’s duty and hear only what they want to hear—ruin is all that awaits them.
Having pulled these two out from among that lot, where they’d been living like maggots, I had an obligation to guide them down the right path. A few of the Gale Knights’ noble recruits were listening closely to my words as well.
"I don’t ask for blind loyalty from you. Simply fulfill your duty. Loyalty is for retainers. For nobles, the sacred duties matter more. And as your liege, it is my duty to grant you fair reward."
"Duty and reward..."
Beort and Drek sank deep into thought. We still had a long way to go, so I hoped the road to Schafen would give them plenty of time to reflect on a noble’s duty.
I wished Ferke could have been there too, but if he took after Beort and Drek, the positive synergy would come naturally. The same went for the recruits who still found me too intimidating to approach.
Circumstances being what they were, I hadn’t been able to give them much attention, so I could only hope the veterans were looking after them well. The veterans were all commoners, but thanks to the renown of the Gale Knights, the noble recruits never acted superior.
We had never recruited the arrogant types in the first place, and even so, a few had walked out.
So now I was keeping a close eye on the 12 noble recruits who showed real promise.
In any case, I planned to raise these noble recruits into commander-level officers. Because of the inherent gap in social station, I couldn’t keep even the best of them under commoners forever.
"Schafen is in sight!"
After a long march, we finally arrived at Schafen.
Along the way we encountered only a few small bands of bandits, and no enemy forces blocked our path. They were hard to simply ride past, so I gave Beort and Drek troops and had them wipe the raiders out.
There was nothing resembling a grand battle.
They were just lowlifes who had come out to plunder amid the unstable public order and chaos.
Their equipment was predictably pathetic, so we simply trampled them to death under our horses’ hooves, and that was that. They were only petty bandits, but Beort and Drek seemed delighted to chalk up even a small merit.
The duchy army was encamped outside the city. Schafen was a wealthy city, no doubt about it, and its walls were impressive. Even to the naked eye, however, the number of defenders was laughably inadequate for walls of that size.
The duchy army hadn’t attacked because Michael was waiting for me, and since this was a small territory (though considerably bigger than Feuzen) with fewer than 100 defenders, no one seemed to feel any tension at all.
With the civil war and its clashes of thousands having ended so recently, I supposed this seemed like small potatoes to them. After giving the knights a short rest, I headed for the command tent where Michael was.
Michael welcomed me.
"You made it. We surrounded the place and waited, just as instructed."
Except my dear brother-in-law had been passing the time playing card games with the duchy army commanders. Honestly, no matter how small the enemy, wasn’t this a little too relaxed with a battle right around the corner?
"Brother, I don’t think my father-in-law would enjoy this sight very much."
"So what? Schafen has fewer than 100 men, we have 500, and the Royal Artillery Corps boys will be here any minute. Counting your troops, we’ll be over 700, don’t you think?"
I stared silently at Michael, who spoke as if the battle were already won.
This is why your father treats you like an immature heir, you know.