The administrator of Schafen came from a cadet branch of the Viscount Neunil family.
How was I supposed to read that connection?
The Neunils were a court viscount house, once prestigious enough to enjoy the royal family’s undivided favor. And the reason they were on such terrible terms with the Administrative Minister was that they had coveted his position.
Everyone is sensitive about their own seat. And in the coldhearted world of the nobility, a rival who tries to snatch away your livelihood is eliminated by any means necessary. Neunil lost, and their influence shrank dramatically.
Still, true to their reputation as the most trusted of families, they had produced Grand Duke’s Guard commanders for generations. Many believed the Streit family had taken that position from them, but there was no question the Neunils remained a court power that couldn’t be ignored.
In other words, they were arguably the court faction most hostile to me. And yet the family’s base was almost entirely in Breisburg. So why had the dead administrator been all the way out in Schafen?
"Has the Lord of Schafen settled down?"
"Yes. Fortunately, the wounds weren’t serious, so his life isn’t in danger."
Beneath a lord’s castle you’ll usually find a wine cellar or a dungeon. Every castle keeps a prison and a torture chamber somewhere in its basement or its towers, but it’s rare for a lord to end up locked in his own.
Life is a tragedy in close-up and a comedy in long shot, as they say. The Lord of Schafen, Henry, apparently couldn’t believe the state he was in, shut inside a cell. He demanded wine from the jailer and was ignored.
The jailer happened to be a soldier of the duchy army.
Henry lost his mind and eventually began hurting himself, and we only managed to calm him down by confining him in a separate room. We kept him alive because he had to be brought before the grand duke; otherwise, no one would have cared whether he lived or died.
Anyway, it was a relief that his life wasn’t in danger.
So I asked Henry about the administrator.
"Regrettably, I know nothing about that man."
"You do realize how absurd it sounds to claim you know nothing about an administrator who served under you?"
"Heinlein was the one who brought him in."
Astonishingly, the Lord of Schafen’s mindset read as truthful. It seemed Count Heinlein had been lording it over him, keeping him in the palm of his hand, and the Lord of Schafen had resented it deeply.
"But being a puppet was still better than my current situation."
"Why didn’t you stand up to your uncle? You might have earned yourself a better ending."
"Most of the soldiers were on his side. What could I possibly have done?"
"Save those excuses for His Highness the grand duke."
A textbook case of a man who dodged responsibility. In his position, I would have removed my uncle no matter what it took. As the rightful master of Schafen, I would have defended my domain with my life.
That’s the difference between him and me. And it’s also the difference in where the two of us stand now.
"Baron, is there any way for me to survive?"
"That isn’t something I can help with. It’s a matter for His Highness to decide."
"..."
"Oh, and you wanted wine, didn’t you?"
Michael and the commanders had raided the wine cellar and were busy drinking themselves stupid, and I had set a few bottles aside from it. The Boden wine in the lord’s castle was mostly top-shelf stuff. I hadn’t touched a drop myself, of course.
But the Lord of Schafen seemed to take it as mockery. I’d remembered the scene he’d made in his cell over wanting wine and brought some specially, so what was with that reaction?
He spoke as if all the strength had drained out of him.
"The one joy left in my life has come back to me as cruel poison."
"I didn’t bring it to mock you. It’s a small kindness, nothing more."
"Thank you, Baron. May the Lord’s grace be with you in the days ahead."
After I finished with Schafen, I went straight to see Count Heinlein. He looked far older than before. He had realized it was all over and fallen into despair; his mindset made that plain.
"I would think we have no more business with each other. What brings you here?"
"I heard you were the one who brought in Schafen’s administrator, and that he came from a cadet branch of the Viscount Neunil family. Tell me everything you know about him."
"Hmph. Now you show me courtesy, after everything?"
We’d clashed plenty, true, but he was still a count, and it was only proper for me, a mere baron, to show him courtesy. I wasn’t showing respect to the man. I was showing respect to his rank.
"What would I gain from tormenting an old man who has nothing left?"
"Cruel to the very end, Baron. Fine. The administrator was introduced to me by Viscount Neunil."
He wouldn’t have appointed the man administrator on the strength of an introduction alone. To maintain ties with the court faction in Breisburg, perhaps? The count wasn’t lying, but Neunil still nagged at me.
"Didn’t you run even a basic background check before taking him on as administrator?"
"All I know is that he studied theology at a monastery and, after coming to Breisburg, worked in the Finance Department. Hmm, I heard he caused some kind of incident and was thrown out."
"Could I hear more about that incident?"
"I don’t know the details myself. Only that he incurred the Finance Minister’s wrath over something involving a tax collector’s family. Perhaps he laid hands on the sisters of that house. He was a womanizer."
"When did he start working in Schafen?"
"This past spring. Not long ago at all, come to think of it."
The deeper I dug, the deeper into the maze I seemed to go.
Let me sort out what I had so far. Neunil planted a cadet-branch relative in the Finance Department. I didn’t know to what end, but the man caused some incident and ended up expelled.
Whether he had meddled with the sisters or done something else, the reason didn’t matter. Count Heinlein took the man in at Neunil’s request, and now he had died an absurd death, crushed inside his own home.
"But why are you so curious about him?"
"Because I suspect he held some kind of important key."
"An important key? What is that supposed to mean?"
The count probably thought I was wasting my energy chasing connections that weren’t there, but it was exactly this kind of relentless brooding and curiosity that had exposed his scheme in the first place.
To put it less charitably, I was working myself to death. In any case, I’d confirmed there was something between the administrator and the Viscount Elsheimer family. Come to think of it, that name kept surfacing.
The investigator dispatched from Breisburg seven years ago had been an Elsheimer as well. I had a history with the family, and yet I’d never once met any of them. I didn’t even know what those sisters looked like, and here I was talking as if I knew them well.
"I wouldn’t call it a lead, but if you ask me, the answer lies with the Elsheimer family."
"I think so too. It’ll be the first thing I look into when I return to Breisburg."
"Is that all, then? This old man would like to be left in peace."
"Since you cooperated, consider this wine a gift."
"...Boden wine."
The count seemed to take it as mockery too. Angry or not, I left the wine and walked out of the cell. I’d gotten something out of the visit, and the wine was nothing more than payment for it.