While Werner was leading his crusade against the bandits, ten men had gathered for a clandestine meeting in a room deep inside Anheim’s church-run hospice.
The hospice was operated by the church as a first-aid station for the poor. Usually, travelers who had fallen sick during their journeys, destitute townsfolk, the elderly, or others who had no one to care for them gathered here to receive treatment, rest their bodies, and live their lives together. Such places were altruistic facilities funded by philanthropists from across the land. Thus, it wasn’t rare for the town’s most influential personages or their subordinates to pay the occasional visit.
However, those gathered here today had a completely different agenda.
“He’s completely ignoring us!”
“Letting that youngster roam free has gone to his head!”
One after another, the men voiced their complaints. Those who had gathered had mostly received the cold shoulder from Werner, the new deputy. There were councilmen, others who had influence in the town, and even some minor government functionaries who had received the short end of the stick. Amongst them were a man whose daughter was treated like a criminal by Werner, and even the leader of the Salters’ Guild. More precisely, the latter of those two was the one who had gathered everyone for this meeting.
The vice-captain of the garrison was also there. The garrison’s captain had completely yielded to Kesten—a man that the new deputy had brought to town—but the same couldn’t be said about the vice-captain. The fact that Werner had clamped down on them harshly was the source of his dissatisfaction. More than anything, when he had underestimated Kesten and challenged him to a duel thinking that his large build couldn’t amount to much given his advanced age, he was met with utter defeat. After that humiliation, he could only voice his complaints in the shadows.
“I just can’t stomach the fact that he dispenses judgments all by himself!”
It was only natural someone in attendance would bring that up. Most crimes in this world were punished with fines. One reason was that there were no prisons meant to hold inmates for long stretches of time, but even more importantly, there was a lot for the deputy to gain from carrying out trials.
For example, if a wrongdoer was fined for a hundred pieces of silver, the victim would receive ten to twenty percent of that, those who carried out the trial would receive a piece or two for their efforts, and the rest would go right into the pockets of the deputy. It wasn’t rare for him to take more than seventy percent for himself.
Naturally, the deputy was passionate about charging aggressors for crimes, and the councilmen who ran the trial would receive a bonus every time they tried someone in court as well. Not only did those criminals have to pay a fine, but they were also put to work, meaning they became cheap labor for the bigwigs to exploit. It was a sweet deal for the councilmen.
There was also another unique reason for this. When the domain had been Marquess Kneipp’s fiefdom, a law offered an allowance to those who participated in trials.
As the city was situated on the border with Triot, there were many cases regarding the smuggling of goods. It took time from the councilmen, and even after Triot had fallen and Marquess Kneipp perished in battle, that law remained. The deputy appointed by the marquess wasn’t an irreputable one, but he allowed the right to a bonus for participating in a trial to apply to all crimes, not just the ones related to illegal goods. As a result, Anheim carried out more trials than was typical across the kingdom.
But now, Werner had gotten rid of this allowance on the pretext that Anheim was no longer the marquess’s domain and instead carried out trials swiftly using his own judgments. For more minor crimes, he dispensed with the trial altogether, and instead sentenced offenders to forced labor. Since verdicts handed down by the deputy alone rarely went to trial, those appointed to the judicial committee were missing out on money they once earned.
Of course, the deputy had the privilege to carry out trials this way, but it was rare that one of them exercised it. It was hard to argue against the fact that Werner was ignoring the influential men of this town. Of course, though, that hadn’t been his goal.
“Let’s give him some trouble.”
“It’ll hurt us as well if he fails to eradicate the bandits, but he does need to taste a little hardship.”
“Supplies arrive late all the time, anyways.”
“Is it really all right to do this?” came a worried voice, but a middle-aged man dismissed him with a laugh.
“There’s nothing to worry about. He’s not here, but the head priest is letting us use this facility because he’s on our side. The deputy can’t interfere with the church.”
“No, that’s not quite right.” All in attendance turned their gazes toward the sudden voice. There, they found a relaxed man with the look of a merchant. Arrayed behind him were countless armed men.
“Wh-who the hell are you?”
“Sorry for being late to the introductions. I work for the deputy, Viscount Zehrfeld. The name’s Rafed.” He bowed before them, but he was polite in attitude only. He lifted his face to reveal a sarcastic grin. “I heard all you had to say. Of course, the head priest gave me permission to be here.”
Silence filled the room. Some faces remained unchanged while others turned red or white. Amongst them, one barely managed to reply. “W-wait. We haven’t done anything. It might’ve sounded like we had some complaints about the deputy, but…”
“That’s not what I’m here for,” said Rafed with a shrug. “In the papers the viscount was reading in the capital before he got appointed here, he found something about donations to Mangold. I hear there were quite a few names on that list.”
The guildmasters on the council went pale. What Rafed said was true. One among them raised his voice conspicuously. “And what would be the problem with that?! Back then, Lord Mangold was just the son of Marquess Kneipp!”
“That’s true, but it’s also true that he ignored the king’s orders and gathered forces for a planned assault on Fort Werisa. It’s quite the serious crime, so we’ve got to figure out the source of his budget.”
Information was different between here and the capital. Anheim was a town on the border, and if a patriarch died in battle, it was only natural for his son to succeed him. Of course some would want to make a good impression on Mangold, the “next Marquess Kneipp.” While Mangold was rough-spoken and rude, that wasn’t all that rare among the nobility.
Still, it was true that the money coming from donations and offerings of the powerful men in town had different implications than simple taxes, even if it would be a stretch to charge them for crimes on that alone. Still enough to possibly detain them for a few days to determine if they knew that Mangold was using that money to gather troops without permission. During that time, they wouldn’t be able to mess with anything else.
Basically, the goal was to keep them quiet for a few days, and since it had been the goal from the start, any reason could have been used as a pretext. It didn’t take much time for the councilmen to realize that they had been beaten to the punch.
Rafed once again bowed—not an empty gesture but the flourish of an actor who’d played his part. Though unfortunately, he didn’t have the looks for the profession. “Oh, and we’ll be investigating a few of you for another matter. I hear that under the confusion that followed after the marquess passed away, some of you might have falsified guild profits to commit tax fraud.”