IV. Chivalric Romance and the Bastards (3)
IV. Chivalric Romance and the Bastards (3)
Keldric didn't particularly need to hear Sir Herman's story.
The way Sir Herman had subtly steered the conversation toward the topic—it was something Keldric could have brushed off as casual talk and moved on from without a second thought.
There were two main reasons he didn't do that.
First, now that he'd arrived in Bellam, there was no urgent need to rush off somewhere else.
Keldric had come out to see the world beyond Carlton Village.
He wouldn't turn down a financial gain or a fief if one came his way, but that was something to assess as the situation unfolded.
Since he could now leisurely stay in Bellam and explore an unfamiliar city, Keldric had enough leeway to at least hear out a request.
The second reason was to build connections—not just with Baron Yaven and Sir Werner, but with other nobles as well.
Keldric, having just burst out of some backwater village, had no connections to speak of.
He'd earned a degree of indebtedness from Baron Yaven by taking down the Rock Troll, but even that was awkward to bring up later since he'd already received a generous sum of silver coins for it.
He wasn't busy.
He had a decent amount of money, but still, more money was always better.
Building ties with House Kassel and leaving Baron Yaven, a prominent northern noble, in his debt—that was even better.
Sir Herman didn't need to draw out the suspense to make Keldric more eager. He already looked extremely anxious himself.
In this situation, Keldric decisively discarded the option that left him with nothing.
'Was there any reason to refuse?'
There was no particular reason he had to grant the request, but no compelling reason to refuse it either.
Besides, if after hearing him out it really didn't sit right, he could always make an excuse about it being 'far from honorable' and slip away. That would be the end of it.
For a knight, honor was as precious as his life.
Sir Herman, being a knight himself, was unlikely to keep pestering him after hearing that.
In that case, Sir Herman would be very displeased, but since he had his own guilty conscience, he probably hadn't even reported it to Baron Yaven.
In the end, Keldric stood to lose nothing.
"It looks like there are bastards inside Bellam who betrayed His Lordship."
The fact that someone in the city had betrayed Baron Yaven was a rather sensitive matter, but it was still something worth hearing for now.
Keldric looked steadily into Sir Herman's eyes.
"This sounds like something I'll need to hear to the end before I decide."
"Sir Keldric... I understand your caution. But, now that you've heard this much..."
"Are you suggesting I don't seem honorable enough to side with traitors?"
He wasn't particularly offended, but Keldric deliberately furrowed his brow into something a little menacing.
Seeing Keldric's face, Sir Herman flinched and waved his hands in alarm.
"N-no! That's not what I meant! A small misunderstanding seems to have arisen!"
"Sir Herman. I vanquished a Rock Troll to aid Lord Yaven."
It wasn't that Keldric wanted to swagger about having slain the Rock Troll.
But his words carried an implied meaning: I helped Baron Yaven—if you doubt me, are you saying Baron Yaven has no eye for people?
"Hrrrn... I was discourteous. I apologize."
Sir Herman, having caught that implication with some difficulty, backed down.
Toward the suddenly crestfallen man, Keldric gave a silent nod.
It meant, at the very least, that he was willing to hear the story.
"Are you wondering why I haven't spoken to His Lordship about this?"
"I'm curious about that too, but it'd be best to hear the overall situation first."
Keldric listened to Sir Herman's tale, sipping his wine.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
To properly understand Sir Herman's story, one had to go back three months.
Three months ago, Sir Herman—who, as usual, managed the security of the city and its environs—had just heard news of the Battle of Robernst.
Neither were men who could throw their weight around like Baron Yaven, but the two northern barons—still not the sort to be scorned just anywhere—fought fiercely with enough fury to threaten the extermination of each other's houses.
Several knights salivated at the brutal fighting and joined in, and Sir Herman's maternal uncle also headed for Robernst.
And a month later, Sir Herman had to receive the cold corpse of his uncle.
In the midst of grieving his uncle's death, Sir Herman came to know something that was not merely grating to the ears but impossible to let pass.
"My maternal uncle, Sir Ulrich of House Hohentüringen, did not die an honorable death."
He had died not in a proper fight between knights or in an honorable cavalry charge but through someone's treachery—poisoned on the battlefield.
Sir Herman's uncle, Sir Ulrich, was an average knight, and like most knights, he was exactly the same in his excessive fondness for drink.
Though there had been some bloodshed, the territorial battle's victory was, by all indications, leaning toward Baron Robernst.
Overcome with excitement, the battlefield feast went on late into the night; after it ended, Sir Ulrich was found a cold corpse the next morning.
After receiving the news from Sir Ulrich's fellow knights, Sir Herman was said to have grieved greatly for a time.
But even in his grief, something struck him as odd.
"Isn't that strange? It's a bit awkward to say this, but Sir Ulrich was not a man of great prowess."
Sir Ulrich was average in every respect as a knight.
His martial ability—average enough to cut down a few mercenaries. His fondness for drink—average. His moderately rough temperament—average.
Wherever you went and met a knight, a hundred times out of a hundred, you'd meet a knight exactly like Sir Ulrich.
And yet, it was precisely that Sir Ulrich, singled out and poisoned in the dead of night, that seemed somehow off—this was Sir Herman's explanation.
"Poisoning is a dishonorable scheme, but it's a sure method if it works."
"But, Sir Herman. As you say, there seems to be no reason to poison Sir Ulrich."
"That's exactly what I'm saying!"
Sir Ulrich was poisoned because his ability was outstanding?
He did not possess exceptional martial prowess. At least, that was how Sir Herman told it.
Someone had a grudge against Sir Ulrich?
The explanation that followed was that Sir Ulrich was, like other knights, a reasonable asshole, but he didn't have the kind of personality that made enemies anywhere.
"There's no reason for Sir Ulrich to have been poisoned."
"It is strange. But what does this have to do with the traitor in Bellam?"
"Keep listening."
In any case, Sir Herman, who harbored doubts about Sir Ulrich's death, cautiously began to investigate the rumors circulating behind his back.
They mostly consisted of shady whispers about the Battle of Robernst.
"All sorts of bizarre rumors were circulating among the mercenaries."
That Baron Raibach had launched plague-ridden corpses with a mangonel, that the Emperor had incited the fight to test the loyalty of frontier nobles.
All manner of false rumors abounded, and among them, Sir Herman heard one that particularly nagged at him.
"Do you know Baron Gofrit?"
"...Baron Gofrit? Why him?"
"They say a suspicious man was caught in Baron Robernst's tent near the end of the territorial battle."
Baron Robernst, sensing a suspicious presence in his half-sleep, had seized a shifty man and, upon interrogation, had been told he was sent by Baron Gofrit.
Keldric felt a moment of confusion.
'Why was Baron Gofrit coming up here?'
Having gotten entangled with Baron Yaven to some degree, Keldric knew what a petty yet cunning schemer Baron Gofrit was.
The light cavalry he'd sent to Carlton Village and the rest—somehow it all seemed to fail, only exposing the culprit behind it, but that was entirely due to unforeseen variables.
In Carlton Village, the variable had been Keldric; in the Battle of Robernst, the variable had been Baron Robernst's light sleeping ears.
Though he'd been caught twice, the prevailing view was that Baron Gofrit had no reason to meddle in the Battle of Robernst anyway.
"Do you have any guess as to the reason?"
"Baron Robernst is particularly close with Count Bogenberg."
But Keldric quickly changed his mind.
If Count Bogenberg was involved, it made sense.
"So, did Baron Gofrit want Baron Robernst to lose?"
"That wouldn't be it. The balance of power was tilted in Baron Robernst's favor from the start."
Moreover, Baron Gofrit was not influential enough to dictate the outcome of a territorial war fought on another man's land.
And as an added point, even if he poisoned Sir Ulrich, it wouldn't greatly alter the course of the territorial war.
"He humiliated Baron Robernst."
"Humiliated?"
"Think about it. A knight was poisoned in the camp tent. How would Baron Robernst's face look?"
"...Ah."
Baron Robernst had called knights together by dangling money and carried on the territorial war.
And yet, a knight had been poisoned not while isolated and fighting in enemy lines, but in the allied camp—supposedly the safest place of all. It was absurd.
What's more, he'd been poisoned by eating the feast, and the feast had been food procured by Baron Robernst.
One knight ate that food and the next day died from the poison rising in his body?
There could be no greater disgrace than this. Baron Robernst's face was assuredly unsalvageable.
To make matters worse, Baron Robernst had just spent a jaw-dropping sum of money on the territorial war.
His reputation trampled, his money spent to the last coin.
Baron Robernst had been utterly ruined.
"Baron Gofrit poisoned my uncle."
"My condolences. Sir Ulrich was surely honorable; he would have gone to heaven as is meet."
"Thank you. At any rate, that's not the end of it."
Before Sir Herman had a moment to seethe in indignation, misfortunes began to hit Bellam one after another.
From a peddler bringing a plague-stricken child into the city, to gate soldiers who beat a knight bloody—however naked he might have been.
As if that weren't enough, recently even the iron supply had been completely blocked, leaving the city sound only on the surface.
"It's festered deep inside. For so many misfortunes to happen in succession was suspicious."
Sir Herman responded quite rationally.
He quelled the chaos by whatever makeshift means he could and set out to investigate the cause of these adversities as quickly as possible.
And a month ago, Sir Herman finally caught a lead.
"The Bellam church beginning to admit the sick, the orders to tighten the gate's security even after it was shut... All of them were matters decided by the City Council."
"The City Council?"
"Yes. And not long ago, I was the one who stopped them from forcibly sending a cart, claiming the iron supply must not be blocked. Isn't that strange?"
The decisions made by the City Council were, without exception, things that threatened the city.
They started admitting the sick into the church, nearly spreading the plague. Tightening the gate's security was fine, but by sheer coincidence, a knight was beaten up.
"The man assaulted by the soldiers was a knight who had been a retainer in Count Bogenberg's castle."
"That..."
"Isn't it terribly coincidental? Not only was my uncle murdered, but soldiers even beat a knight who had been a retainer of Count Bogenberg."
Indeed. Keldric nodded.
It wasn't unreasonable for Sir Herman to connect it all to the matter of his uncle.
And then there was the attempt to forcibly send people down the iron supply route that Rock Trolls had solidly blocked.
"Sir Keldric. I have no clear proof, but this is somewhat odd."
"It certainly is..."
The way events were unfolding was clearly suspicious.
It wasn't unreasonable for Sir Herman to think there was a traitor inside the city.
The possibility that everything was coincidentally flowing in that direction existed, but if one ruled things out that way, there was no end to it.
"This is also why I haven't spoken to His Lordship. I haven't even properly dealt with all these problems; if the existence of a traitor inside Bellam gets added to that, my face will be beyond saving."
It wouldn't stop at losing face—his honor would likely be whittled down in real time.
Honor wasn't only about protecting the weak and womenfolk.
Faithfully fulfilling one's duty according to one's liege's commands was also an act that valued honor.
Moreover, there was no way Baron Yaven would stand idly by while Sir Herman's string of errors piled up, so a severe censure was sure to follow.
"Even if I wanted to tell him everything, the problem is that nothing has been clearly uncovered yet. His Lordship is already busy enough with the business involving Baron Gofrit..."
Keldric, who had been silently listening to Sir Herman's story, eventually nodded.
He understood why he hadn't reported it to Baron Yaven, and he also understood that the man was in a deeply vexing predicament.
"But it doesn't seem like something I can solve, honestly."
What Keldric was good at was work that required strength.
If it had been about hunting down and killing a monster like the Rock Troll again, Keldric would have readily accepted.
But a complex, tightly tangled mess like this—he had no enthusiasm for it at all.
"Regarding that, I have a separate request."
"What is it?"
"You vanquished the Rock Troll and the mounted bandit gang for Bellam. It would only be right for me to step forward and commend your exploits."
Sir Herman's scheme was this.
Since Keldric had achieved the feat of vanquishing the Rock Troll and a mounted bandit gang for Bellam, he would, in order to honor that, bring up Keldric's achievements before the City Council and the city's influential figures.
In that staged play, he would identify anyone displeased by Keldric's accomplishments.
If there were a traitor to the city, he wouldn't look kindly on Keldric, who had vanquished the Rock Troll and mounted bandit gang, and would try to suppress it in some fashion.
"For instance, spreading false rumors about you to sully your honor, or else..."
"Using force, or something like it. They'll try something, one way or another."
Keldric nodded.
Sir Herman's idea had some plausibility, and at this point, it brushed just barely against the use of force.
Keldric, blessed with keen eyes and intuition to boot.
Rooting out a traitor didn't seem too difficult.
"I'll see that the reward isn't disappointing. Rooting out Bellam's traitor is a service to the city, so a great reward will follow from the city as well."
"What if I fail?"
"Even if that happens, I won't hold you to account."
And on top of that, he promised a generous reward, so Keldric felt no reason to refuse.
"I hope I can be of some modest help to Lord Yaven and to you, Sir Herman."
"That means?"
"I'll help. How could I turn my back on your difficult predicament?"
"Ah! I knew it! You are a paragon among knights!"
Watching Sir Herman make an exaggerated fuss, Keldric quickly organized his thoughts.
'If things started looking dicey, I'd just bolt.'
Since he'd said he wouldn't hold him to account even if he failed, Keldric had no intention of overburdening himself with this.