I spent the half month after my appointment in Anheim taking preventative measures. With the intel offered to us, I was able to have Sir Holzdeppe take out more groups of bandits and rescue more of their victims. All were women and children, so I ordered that they quickly be returned to their families. Those without homes to return to, I hired to clean the warehouse Goecke’s mercenaries were now using or to handle various other types of labor. Afterwards, I decided to prioritize the maintenance of trade routes to other provinces.
Throughout all that, the Anheim volunteer force had gradually begun to take shape, and we had managed to secure stockpiles in the villages. With this and my map, we had the beginnings of a network we could use to mobilize and sustain our soldiers.
“How’s progress with the volunteer force, Sir Kesten?”
“They have grown quite accustomed to group maneuvers, yet they are still not ready for a real battle.”
“And are they getting on with the garrison?”
“It appears that there are some disputes over turf, but I’ll sort it out.”
“Great. For now, focus their training on crossbows and slingshots.”
“Yessir.”
Some of the volunteers were people without any martial training whatsoever. Some had joined just to put food on the table, while others were out to avenge their slain kin. This meant some of them were raring for combat, while some of their comrades would have much rather been doing any other job. I wouldn’t ask them to do the impossible. For now, if they could hold a crossbow steady and shoot monsters from atop the walls, that’d be good enough.
“And how are the documents, Sir Behnke?”
“The civil officials are glad that they have become easier to review.”
“I bet they are.”
As with the capital, provincial policies were rife with idiosyncrasies. To give an example, appeals submitted to the deputy by Guild A needed to be written in the following order: name of person who submitted the appeal, body of text, name of verifier, name of guildmaster.
The “verifier” was a witness who verified the person submitting the appeal had written under his or her own name, and the signature of the guildmaster was required to prove that he had given permission that the appeal be submitted under the guild’s name. If the person who made the appeal was illiterate, the name of an amanuensis also had to be included.
However, Guild B’s documents were written in the order of: name of guildmaster, body of text, name of person who submitted the appeal, name of verifier; and Guild C’s documents would be written as: body of text, name of guildmaster, name of person who submitted the appeal, name of verifier. The order was all over the place. In other words, the writing style of each guild was prioritized over consistency.
I had thus ordered that all paperwork in Anheim be standardized going forward. Documents that didn’t follow the prescribed format were returned without consideration. There was quite a bit of grumbling at this, but I ignored it. Once they got used to it, things would calm down.
“Have we heard anything from Sir Goecke?”
“I’ve summarized it here.” Frenssen took out a paper outlining the rumors going around town. Goecke’s mercenaries hadn’t only been entrusted with hunting monsters around the perimeter; I also gave the mercenaries some alcohol money so they could eat and drink around town and suss out the people’s opinion of me.
I sifted through the documents. While they were quite critical of me at first, my efforts to maintain public order had garnered me some respect. Still, there were some unfavorable rumors being spread, seemingly with deliberate malice. There was definitely a group out there that viewed me as a nuisance.
“Still, why have you left investigating the matter to Sir Goecke’s men?” asked Sir Holzdeppe.
“One reason is that I want them to have a strong grasp of the terrain and layout in and around town,” I answered. This pertained to future strategic planning. “Another reason is that I want them to spread rumors about me in the capital.”
“Huh?” It wasn’t just Holzdeppe who was confused; Neurath, Schünzel, and even Frenssen seemed to think this quite dubious. I realized the reason was because none of them had been around me when that happened.
“Oh, this has to do with the Demon Stampede, but…”
I was a bit of a dunce to not have realized this until now. I convinced myself that it was better than never having noticed at all and gave a brief explanation of what had happened near the royal capital during the Demon Stampede.
“But thinking back on it, it’s strange. Why had a seasoned group like Sir Goecke’s mercenaries joined the battle with the Demon Stampede that so many people had dismissed the gravity of?”
“Wasn’t it just for easy coin?” asked Neurath. Sure, just like in the Warring States era of Japan, freelance mercenaries would join battles willingly in order to make a name for themselves and receive rewards. I wouldn’t deny that was how I originally saw things as well.
“It’s certainly possible, but having mercenaries join His Highness the Crown Prince’s first battle doesn’t seem right. In most cases, the kingdom would have regarded them as hangers-on.”
“Yes…you’re right.”
“Then you think they were wary of the Demon Stampede?”
“If that was the case, I suppose there was no need for me to join the battle.”
Yeah, that might have been for the best… Schünzel’s question had me imagining what could have been. I accidentally included “for me” in that statement in front of Sir Behnke and the others, but I hoped they would just ignore that.
“Rather, it’s probably safe to assume that they had been employed as reserves by a noble who’d wanted to be ready for anything.”
Sir Kesten seemed to be quite interested in my words, but he remained silent. Instead, it was Frenssen who spoke. “Ready for anything, you say?”
“Yeah. Just in case, he employed some famous mercenaries, and when the battle took a turn for the worse, he sent them to me, who had been specifically chosen for the battle. There are only a few nobles who could have that military knowledge and money to spare.”
“Oh!” Neurath and Sir Holzdeppe gasped. Sir Kesten and Sir Behnke remained quiet, but I saw realization dawn on them as well. I continued, “Marquess Norpoth, the man leading the left flank. He’s Sir Goecke’s employer.”
I won’t deny that as a former Japanese person and someone bearing the skill of Spearmanship, my senses had been focused on the wrong place. Japanese rarely fought with a shield in hand, meaning there was little difference between the right and left flanks. But that didn’t hold for knights. Most held their shields in their left hands, which meant that when fighting enemies from head on and to the left, they could defend from side attacks with their shields and keep fighting.
But if enemies were coming from the front and to the right, your options were to turn your body so your shield was oriented toward the front or use the sword in your right hand to fight those coming from both your front and your right side. In other words, the right flank had a harder time defending themselves.
That was why during the medieval ages of the West, veterans and elite soldiers were put in the right flank to protect the formation, and energetic and brave younger soldiers were put in the left flank so they could attack the enemy’s right flank from the side. It was common sense.