Having turned away the master of the Salters’ Guild, I once again returned to inspecting the building. I confiscated their documents and had them delivered to the lord’s manor while we examined the building’s interior. It was too small to hold all of Goecke’s mercenaries at once, but it was more than big enough to house them on rotation.
Perhaps this was obvious, but there weren’t enough rooms in Anheim’s inns to lodge all of our mercenary brigade. Being a town on the border, housing had been built for the soldiers there to protect it, but they were meant for attached generals and the cavalrymen and infantrymen that came with them. I couldn’t use it for the mercenaries. Thus, I had thought long and hard about what to do with them, but the situation had changed. If we had control of this building, we might as well use it.
Having concluded our investigations, I told Goecke to set some men to cleaning the place and then left the rest to him. Then, I ordered my men under Sir Holzdeppe to return to the local lord’s residence. The people watched us, and it was clear what they were thinking: “Getting on this young deputy’s bad side can’t be a good thing.” I sighed internally, making sure to keep my face impassive. I didn’t want to have to do this either.
The next morning, after I had returned to the lord’s residence, the father of the girl who’d trespassed was waiting for me, ready to pay her fine. I checked the contents of the purse he handed over, rejecting the extra gold he had slipped inside. Sir Behnke had stayed behind during the whole ordeal, and according to him, the man had “come carrying the money with his face as white as a ghost’s.” He was probably afraid I’d decide to cut his daughter’s throat on the spur of the moment.
I arranged that the whole sum of the money be spent on liquor and distributed to the townsfolk as a gift from the deputy count. It was a carrot-and-stick approach, with booze for a carrot.
Afterward, it was decided that the surviving criminals of the Salters’ Guild would be exiled to Triot. On the day of, many of the councilmen came to request that I show lenience. I was sure some of them had been asked to do so by family members, but that didn’t change what these criminals had done. I wasn’t about to go easy on them.
On the other hand, I returned the captive women and children to their families and ordered that a search be undertaken to find those still missing. I offered bereavement money to the families of victims, notified all that I would be providing a monetary award for those who could offer any information, and had the Adventurers’ Guild put out a request for intel on the bandits. I also announced that if any who had abetted these crimes confessed, I would lighten their sentences, commensurate to the depths of their crimes. I doubted I would get to all the victims in time, but I took every measure I could.
After that, I spent a few days strengthening my hold on the town. While I had delegated the bulk of civil administration onto Sir Behnke, I prioritized maintaining public order and procuring provisions. Once the Demon army attacked, not only provisions, but all daily necessities would be hard to come by. I had to create a stockpile while I still could.
All the while, I also worked to improve sanitation. I paid refugees a daily allowance and had the garrison work alongside them to clean the streets and handle other tasks to promote public health. Europe’s medieval towns were famous for being filthy, and the same went for rural towns in this world.
One of the reasons for this was livestock. Pigs and cows were raised in towns, and once their owners had branded them, they were let out into the streets to roam. This world had no refrigerators, and salt wasn’t cheap. That meant the best way to keep meat fresh was to keep it alive.
That was all fine and dandy—I mean, what else could be done—but their owners needed to do a better job keeping them in line. Just like dog shit littered the streets in my past life, pig and cow shit artlessly dotted the streets here. I couldn’t stand it. No way was I gonna let a plague spread by animal dung make its rounds during a siege.
Ultimately, I had the entirety of the town cleaned and instituted a fine for families who were negligent in managing their livestock. The importance of public health wasn’t common knowledge in this world, so I guessed I’d have to make it so.
I employed refugees and citizens of the town in equal shifts at the local lord’s residence, but since servants were prone to starting drama, I limited them to older men and women. The younger people could do labor out in town, but more than anything, I didn’t want any of the young women trying to make a move on me.
For some reason, that led to the rumor that “the count deputy has a fiancée back in the royal capital, so he has no interest in women.” That wasn’t true, but correcting the rumor would be a pain, so I let it be. I was just glad it kept any weirdos from approaching me, even if it was based on false pretenses.
Incidentally, nobles of Europe’s medieval ages were always envisioned to be engaged quite early, but that wasn’t the case in this world, and many found partners during their student days. Young betrothals were usually made by parents or families to benefit themselves. Well, I guessed that was true in my past life too, but they tended to have more serious reasons for it.
For one, the mortality rate during the Middle Ages was high. The “Middle Ages” covered quite a wide time period, but to use a statistic from the middle period as an example, twenty percent of noble patriarchs died without an heir to succeed them. And that was just male heirs; another twenty percent had only female children. Plus, these numbers only applied to viable heirs; there were times both the head of the family and his wife would perish from illness, leaving only a three-month-old behind.
The results of this were as follows: In the year 1300, England had seventeen count families, but by 1400, only three count families had managed to maintain their lineage. It was much more common for a house’s domain to end up under another count’s rule, if not subsumed into their territory, after their family line perished.
Thus, the family was prioritized over the individual, and from the patriarch’s perspective, the more grandchildren, the better. With that in mind, nobles were engaged when both partners were young. What’s more, in some cases, as soon as a girl was of childbearing age, she’d be forced into bed under the watch of a guard. I felt like such a practice would only hurt the mother, but I guessed medicine back then was just so underdeveloped they failed to consider that.
But in this world, there were potions and magic that would have mystified the people of Earth. Sudden deaths were a different matter, but something like a fever caused by what was known as influenza in my old world wouldn’t kill someone here. Magic was GOATed. The infant mortality rate for nobles who could afford hefty medical fees was much lower than it had been in my previous world.
Thus, there was no need to marry people off young in order to have grandchildren early. As long as there were no problems with your family’s status, you could find a partner as a student. That was the prevailing school of thought here. My older brother did have a fiancée, but that was due to the circumstances of Count Fürst.
Rather, the young romances of noble families could be used as bargaining chips. To put it plainly, it was something like “I hear your son is in love with my daughter and offered her his hand in marriage. Of course they can get married! But what is there in it for me?” Talk about twisted.
Because of that, I had no need to rush into any engagement, but while I didn’t have a fiancée, would I ever actually get to return to school? I felt like that was near impossible. Guess I can’t do anything about it, anyway. And no, this isn’t me just trying to escape reality.