IV. Chivalric Romance and the Bastards (8)
IV. Chivalric Romance and the Bastards (8)
There were many ways for a city's peddlers to earn coin, but most made their living honestly, traveling from place to place.
However, commerce was inevitably at the heart of the flow of money, and to nobles—who loved coin no less than merchants did—it was a thorn in their side.
So the merchants banded together and grew their numbers, and that was how the trading companies came to be.
This didn't suddenly make the lives of ordinary peddlers prosperous.
They still had to travel the trade routes, drenched in sweat.
But in return, the trading company guaranteed their lives to some extent.
The guild master of a trading company usually had connections to influential nobles within the domain.
Thanks to that, merchants belonging to the company had a noble who guaranteed their safety.
Bandits whose lives had hit rock bottom and who lived only for today would sneer at such protection, but it was still better than nothing.
"The Mormont Trading Company peddled their wares under my father's name."
And the man who backed the Mormont Trading Company was Sir Gebhard of House Kassel.
In other words, Sir Herman's father.
One might wonder what sort of name value a mere knightly house could command, but House Kassel was the family that governed Bellam by proxy.
They couldn't collect taxes for themselves, but to hold sway over an entire city was a great honor nonetheless.
In some respects, their standing could be considered higher than that of a knightly house with its own fief.
With a serious expression, Keldric filed away every word Sir Herman spoke into his mind.
He couldn't be sure, but the private affairs of a house that a city's powerful figure chose to reveal couldn't possibly be useless information.
"When my father was head of the house, our relations with the Mormont Trading Company were not bad."
Baron Yaven wanted vigorous trade, and Sir Gebhard wanted the formation of a massive trade route, so the two were well matched.
Because of this, it was more accurate to say that the backing of Sir Gebhard carried not only the name of House Kassel but also that of House Mikesh, Baron Yaven's family.
Even if a peddler setting out from Bellam were attacked by a robber knight, that robber knight would have to choose to make enemies of both House Kassel and House Mikesh at the same time.
The names of those two noble houses carried powerful weight, at least in this region.
Thanks to that, peddling in Bellam became far more active than before.
As the number of peddlers grew, it was only natural that they would band together and form more trading companies.
Sir Gebhard, who was actively promoting trade, had his eye especially on the Mormont Trading Company, which was persistently and steadily growing in size.
"Anselm was a man who had built a respectable trading company at a young age. It wasn't as large as it is now, but even then, the Mormont Trading Company was growing fast."
The peddlers followed the young Anselm well, and Anselm in turn mapped out trade routes with high margins and shared them with the company's peddlers, so the Mormont Trading Company's future looked bright.
Many trade routes meant a great deal of goods coming and going.
And the more often goods were bought and sold, the more taxes were paid to the city.
In that sense, the thriving Mormont Trading Company was truly a model contributor.
The peddlers belonging to it paid no small amount in taxes.
Sir Gebhard threw his full support behind that Mormont Trading Company.
He granted them more favors than other trading companies, and periodically led bandit-suppression efforts—among other things.
Carts and wagons traveled the now-secure trade routes without cease. Naturally, the flow of money swelled enormously.
Anselm repaid the favor with more peddling and more taxes, and their relationship seemed as though it would remain amicable.
But when the goods and money passing through grew too large, someone was bound to emerge and play dirty tricks.
"Anselm... I had no idea that bastard was bowing and scraping to my face while secretly straining every nerve to avoid paying his taxes behind my back!"
As it happened, the bastard who played those dirty tricks was none other than Anselm himself.
Having gotten his hands on so much money, greed took hold, and he began attempting tax evasion through all manner of methods.
"So, what happened?"
"What do you think happened! He may have pulled the wool over my father's eyes, but he couldn't fool mine!"
Sir Gebhard hadn't known about Anselm's tax evasion.
But Sir Herman was different.
After Sir Gebhard's death, Sir Herman—who had become the head of House Kassel—was checking the city's tax ledgers when he discovered Anselm's tax evasion.
Anselm made all sorts of excuses and denied the tax evasion, but in the end, faced with Sir Herman's towering rage, he had no choice but to tuck his tail between his legs and confess.
"Anselm is that kind of character. A thoroughly vile and cunning bastard. If you knew how much coin he had skimmed behind the scenes, you'd faint dead away, Sir Keldric."
Meanwhile, having heard Sir Herman's tale, Keldric fell into deep thought.
'...This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Artisans' Guild Master.'
Keldric hadn't listened to the story about Anselm for no reason.
He'd done so because he found it suspicious that the Artisans' Guild Master had been caught so easily—yet the conflict between Anselm and House Kassel seemed to have no real connection to the matter at hand.
"Do you truly intend to hang the Artisans' Guild Master?"
"The hanging must be carried out within a few days. In full public view, of course."
Keldric felt it was all wrong, but when it came to stopping it, he had no real reason to offer.
By common sense, accepting the Artisans' Guild Master as a traitor to the city was the correct thing to do.
"I'd like you to be there as well, Sir Keldric. We must restore your honor!"
He wasn't sure how an event where people blossomed from trees was supposed to restore anyone's honor, but Keldric nodded with a sour expression.
The uneasy feeling refused to leave him.
But for now, this was the best he could do.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
Time slipped by, and before he knew it, a week had passed since Keldric had arrived in Bellam.
In all that time, Keldric had gained nothing.
In material terms, there was the money he had wrung from Anselm, the new shield he had acquired, and the gauntlets.
But that wasn't what Keldric was after.
Ever since learning that the Artisans' Guild Master was supposedly a traitor to the city, something that felt off had remained unresolved.
Keldric had to spend several days with the feeling of an unfinished shit.
But he wasn't the type to neglect what needed doing, so every morning Keldric exercised in Sir Herman's training yard or toured the city with Alisa, chatting as they went.
Exercise was the sort of thing he never tired of, no matter how many days he did it.
It had been a while since he'd trained properly, so that was even more true.
But touring the city with Alisa had its limits.
No matter how large Bellam was, it took less than three days to see everything—except for the brothel district outside the outer wall.
In the end, once he finished his morning exercise, Keldric's schedule was left wide open.
"Don't you have anything in particular to do?"
Keldric asked Alisa, who had come to his room like a puppy that shows up right at mealtime.
Hearing that, Alisa spoke with a slightly displeased expression.
"There isn't really anything to do in Bellam. I've completed my commission, and I've even received an unexpected reward."
Alisa had also taken part in the rock troll hunt, so she too had received a generous sum of silver coins from Baron Yaven.
Thanks to that, she was financially comfortable and her expression was bright.
There may be people who don't urgently need money, but there's no one who dislikes it.
"How long do you plan to stay here, then?"
"Hmm... I don't plan to stay long. I expect I'll be leaving within a few days."
Keldric agreed with that sentiment. There was a limit to how little one could have to do.
When he'd been cooped up in a corner of Carlton Village, the city was the place he'd wanted to visit so badly—but now that he'd spent about a week in Bellam, he found the lack of things to do was exactly the same.
"Will you be leaving as well, Sir Keldric?"
"I'm itching to move. I can't stay more than a few more days. I've gotten everything I can out of this place, so I'll have to leave soon too."
The life of a wandering knight without a fief was a hard one.
Having left his family, there was no way he had much money, and what was more, extravagance was a virtue for a knight.
A wandering life spent showing off one's strength and honor while searching for a lord who would grant a fief.
Compared to that, Keldric, who was being generously hosted by Sir Herman in Bellam, was practically nobility.
Keldric knew that as well. But living off someone else's hospitality in their castle simply didn't sit right with him.
"The matter Sir Herman asked of you—has it been resolved?"
Alisa, who had been eating bread with cheese tucked into it, asked the question. A rather cautious attitude was evident in her inquiry.
And with good reason—prying into affairs between nobles was an extremely sensitive matter.
It was fortunate that Alisa had concluded, based on her observations of Keldric over time, that 'he wasn't the sort of knight who threw a fit over trifles.' Had it been otherwise, she wouldn't have so much as opened her mouth.
Keldric hesitated for a moment.
It wasn't that he was deliberating over whether to answer or not—it was that Keldric himself couldn't come to a firm conclusion.
"To some extent. Though I'm not sure it's been properly resolved."
"Ah... Is that so?"
"Whatever the case, it's for Sir Herman to judge from here on. There's no room for me to interfere."
Keldric had made up his mind to wash his hands of this affair.
It was true that the Artisans' Guild Master had deliberately prevented goods from being sold to Keldric, so at the very least, if they cited Keldric's honor and hanged the man, the guild master would have no grounds to protest.
The fact that the Artisans' Guild Master's betrayal had been exposed so sloppily was deeply unsettling, but when he tried to dig deeper, there were no other suspects.
There were several other guild masters—from both trading companies and artisan guilds—who sat on the City Council.
But he couldn't arbitrarily label them all as provisional culprits and interrogate them. That would be overstepping.
'If it were Anselm, that would be one thing.'
Anselm would harbor some degree of grudge against House Kassel, so it would make sense.
Of course, there wasn't a shred of evidence. And besides, if that were the case, the Artisans' Guild Master's sudden confession would be inexplicable.
Having thought that far, Keldric emptied his mind. It felt like he was only giving himself a headache for nothing.
"Alisa. Do you know anything about the guild master of the Mormont Trading Company?"
Keldric had asked the question almost in passing.
It wasn't a move made with any expectation of a worthwhile answer—it was closer to a question asked in the tone of everyday small talk.
At Keldric's question, Alisa, who had been chewing her bread, furrowed her brow slightly.
That, too, was an action she could take only because she had grasped Keldric's character to some degree.
"If you're referring to Guild Master Anselm, I do know a few things. Though they're all just 'I heard this-and-that' sorts of rumors."
"Even that's fine. Could you tell me?"
"Hmm... I happened to hear a rumor that he recently expanded his spice trade by a large margin. Even though spice prices aren't particularly good at the moment."
It was strange, but a merchant's mind was always subject to change.
Spice prices were still high, but perhaps he was stockpiling spices in advance for when they would be worth their weight in gold.
"Anything else?"
"And... I think I've also heard talk of Guild Master Anselm's daughter."
He had a daughter?
Come to think of it, there had been no reason for talk of family to come up when speaking with Anselm. It was only natural he didn't know.
"Anselm's daughter?"
"Yes. Though she lost her life a few years ago."
"What, did she run into a bandit gang?"
"It's not exact, but talk went around that she was burned at the stake. It seemed half true, not just a rumor."
"...Burned at the stake?"
Keldric tilted his head at the unexpected word.
Burning was not a common punishment for criminals.
If you committed robbery or murder, you'd be hanged, or in severe cases, have your limbs crushed on the wheel—but burning was not something carried out lightly.
That said, it wasn't as though burning was never carried out.
There was exactly one serious crime for which burning was officially—and most commonly—carried out.
"Was she a heretic?"
It was common for someone accused of heresy to face an ecclesiastical trial, and once officially confirmed as a heretic, to be burned at the stake—supposedly to purify the soul. In fact, burning was the outcome in most cases.
At Keldric's question, Alisa shook her head. She didn't know everything, after all.
"I don't really know the details on that. It was such a long time ago..."
"Around when was that?"
"I'm not sure how many years ago it was, but people say it was just before Sir Herman became governor."
Having heard that much, Keldric had a powerful intuition.
This was not information he could simply let pass.