In the end, the awkward mood between us persisted until Vera-Sylvie headed for the nearby town. Unlike the rest of us, she wouldn’t be spending the night at camp.
When an army was on the march, it was common for its nobility, or the emperor, to stay in nearby villages, cities, or churches. As a general rule, large settlements were often governed by viscounts or barons, and this was no exception for the Duchy of Aphoroa. Naturally, this meant that they could offer up their residences for a night.
Both Vera-Sylvie and Nadine would be staying in the nearby town, where they would have access to luxuries such as toilets, water, kitchens, and most importantly of all, beds. Since they weren’t accustomed to sleeping in the embrace of mother nature, it was best to avoid causing them any unnecessary stress.
Oh, me? I had refused the option, choosing instead to stay in a tent. Despite appearances, I had a lot of experience with camping, owing to my tours of the Empire. In fairness, my retinue had brought a simple bed along for me for those, as well as enough cooking equipment to basically serve as a mobile kitchen. That was what you got when your tours were noble-led and noble-funded. Nature’s lack of conveniences could only be compensated for so much, though, which was why I’d been impressed that Rosaria had come along and used a tent.
Incidentally, we hadn’t brought any such luxuries along for this march. They’d only get in the way, and if I had been inclined to have them, it would’ve been more efficient to stay with the local nobles anyway.
Long story short, I’d be roughing it just as much as our soldiers: simple food, whatever cloth that could be scrounged up to use as a bedroll, and water from nearby rivers that had been filtered—to an extent—and boiled. The latter in particular took time and effort, which meant there was only a fixed amount to go around. And finally, a hole dug in the ground in lieu of a toilet.
Why had I chosen to stay at the camp, you ask? Well, because I trusted the nobility about as far as I could throw them. I mean, staying the night at the home of someone who’d been a lapdog of the Chancellor until two months ago? Are you joking? Even Vera-Sylvie and Nadine weren’t staying with the nobility, but at one of the town’s inns.
On the surface, the nobles I was talking about had returned to my service—which was a paradoxical statement if you thought about it, because being the governors of the territories directly under my control, they never should have been out of my service. Nevertheless, that meant I was forced to play along with their token attempts to curry favor with me.
“Surely there is no need for Your Majesty to subject yourself to such austerity? Please, grace my mansion with your presence. The quality of my table may be a far cry from the fine cuisine of the imperial demesne’s kitchens, but my family and I would spare no effort to ensure your comfort.”
“And should Your Majesty feel disinclined toward the good viscount’s mansion, what of my church? I will have the nuns see to your every need—meals and otherwise.”
The stooges I was currently dealing with were a local petty official—a viscount who had belonged to the Chancellor’s faction, despite ostensibly being in charge of one of the throne’s territories—and a far too materialistic sacerdos—a priest—who had climbed the ranks by kissing the boots of Georg V, the former Archprelate of the Western Orthodoxy who’d been sentenced to death.
Oh, the stooges’ names? Why would I ever need to remember those? I was more concerned with why the sacerdos was talking like the church was his private property. Not to mention how his comment about my “other needs” had to be a low-key way of offering me women. I made a mental note to report the guy to Daniel de Piers later.
“As you can see, our army has many soldiers armed with guns,” I said, reiterating the initial reason I’d refused them in the first place. “As such, we would prefer to ensure they all may stay the night under a roof. However, neither your town nor your church has the capacity to house seven thousand soldiers.”
Since matchlock firearms required you to light a fuse to fire them, moisture could affect their performance. They wouldn’t become unusable, of course, but I wanted to optimize our chances wherever possible. Providing roofs and beds for our soldiers also had the added benefit of letting us dangle a carrot in front of our new conscripts, which was why for this march, we’d be putting up the best-performing platoons in the towns we’d be staying near. Hopefully that would cut back on today’s sloppy marching formations as time went on.
More specifically, we’d be lodging the soldiers in inns or civilian homes. The nobles had refused to lend their residences; likewise with the clergy and their churches. In fact, the latter’s doors were basically closed to everyone short of me. It was evident that they still didn’t understand the position they were in.
Maybe that was inevitable, though. The survivors of Georg’s faction had adopted a policy of waiting in an opportunistic limbo, since the top seat of the Western Orthodoxy was still being fought over—and rather intensely, at that.
After the Archprelate, the highest three authorities in the denomination were the prelate liturgia, the prelate scriba, and the prelate officium. The last role was currently occupied by Daniel de Piers, one of Ein’s Storytellers, which said a lot about the Western Orthodoxy’s modern vetting practices, since the Storytellers didn’t buy into the denomination’s beliefs to begin with.
For all that, the Western Orthodoxy’s clergy had a dogged obsession with power and influence. And since Georg V had been reduced to ash on a pyre, the top spot was open. At the moment, the prelate liturgia and prelate scriba were fighting tooth and nail over who would get to fill it, while Daniel stood in between as a neutral party and fanned the flames...on my orders.
When it came to politics, there were few things more troublesome than religious authorities with secular influence—especially if their particular vice was greed. Sure, the Western Orthodoxy had been quick to declare their support for me after my coronation, but I knew they were nothing more than self-serving hyenas. The more I could curtail their power, the better, so as far as I was concerned, the prelates could fight each other all they liked. After they’d worn themselves out, I’d crush them both.
After somehow talking the viscount and sacerdos into going away, I joined the platoon commanders for their meal. Timona still poison tested it for me, of course. Honestly, I would’ve preferred to join the rank and file, but that probably would’ve just set them on edge.
I couldn’t read minds, so I couldn’t say for sure how the platoon commanders felt about it, but I was pretty sure I’d left a good impression. And given how I’d probably be giving them orders at some point, they’d probably be easier to swallow if they came from someone they were familiar with.
It seemed that a certain someone, however, had taken issue with how I’d spent my mealtime.
“That sacerdos came to me,” Nadine grumbled as soon as she stepped into the command tent. “He was blathering some complaint about transgressions against God’s teachings, or something or other. Frankly, he was quite the nuisance.”
The command tent was the largest tent in our encampment, and being the place where my lords convened to discuss military matters, had been furnished with several plain desks and chairs.
“He also came as far as the tent’s entrance to protest,” Salomon said. Evidently, he’d seen the disgruntled sacerdos as well. “With such energy available to him, one would think he had better matters to spend it on.”
It seemed that the materialistic clergyman was the persnickety type, with how much running around he’d been doing. Incidentally, he had been escorted away by the imperial guards. If they kept doing good work like that, I’d consider giving them an employee of the month award.
As for why a clergyman who looked like he cared about nothing except power had come to protest, that had to do with First Faith doctrine.