Dead Before the Trial
But Johan remained cold. Unshaken. The prize was close enough to grasp in his hand, yet he held back — just once.
“No. I will take Marquis Crucho captive and hold a trial. Whether or not he conspired with the heathens must be confirmed before God himself.”
“My lord!”
“His crimes are already plain, and there are this many witnesses to attest to them — there is no need to show such mercy. Did his own valet not come forward to testify against him?”
Had Marquis Crucho witnessed it, he would have wept tears of blood in his fury. This was the work of men who had been his own vassals, colluding to fabricate false charges against their liege.
The vassals inflated every fact and half-fact alike, painting the Marquis as a corrupted man who had trafficked with the heathens. And no blade pierces a back more deftly than the one held by a former ally.
Johan, however, had no intention of declaring his title hastily.
If I declare it and the Marquis slips through my fingers, things become tedious.
The south, by now, was as good as in Johan's grasp. That an outsider could bind the vassals to his hand and shake the region so thoroughly in such a short span of time was owed, in no small part, to fortune smiling on him.
But the Emperor's domain still lingered at the edges of his vision like a thorn, and there was no telling which of the vassals might harbor disloyal hearts. Johan did not place great stock in human loyalty.
Right now they were blinded by his valor and his miracles. But would that hold forever?
If the Marquis fled to the Empire, spent his remaining coin buying back vassals one by one, and kept attempting a return, a grinding war of attrition would follow.
And in any case, the true power in this territory already rested with Johan. There was no need to rush.
I can decide after I catch the Marquis and deal with him.
“Marco of the house of Algato, standing before you, carries the blood of Marquis Crucho. He shall serve as regent and steward of the household, ruling this marquisate in the Marquis's stead until he returns.”
“...I beg your pardon?”
Marco, seated on the far end of the bench, jerked his head up in shock. He had been sitting there without a care in the world, and a bolt of lightning had just fallen on it.
“Ah — no, my lord. I must decline. Such a position is far above my station.”
He was indeed the Marquis's blood — but a bastard's blood. If he became lord's deputy, he would be the laughingstock of every neighboring hall, and the vassals would trample him underfoot without a second thought.
But that was precisely what Johan wanted. A man with just enough legitimacy to govern, yet too weak and friendless to ever betray him. Marco fit the bill perfectly.
What in the world—!
Baron Ginovansi was stunned. And not only him — several of the sharper vassals had reacted to the name Marco.
The knight who had followed Johan all this time was the Marquis's bastard?
Which meant Johan had been preparing to swallow the marquisate from the very beginning.
No one could tell how long that preparation had lasted. Cold sweat began sliding down the vassals' spines.
“Today is a day of joy. Raise your cups and give thanks to God!”
At Johan's words, the vassals roared their agreement with feverish zeal. Frightened or not, this was the moment to catch Johan's eye.
Everyone strained to outdo one another with flattery. It went so far that even Marco — a bastard who had simply fallen into their laps — was showered with warm words.
Even with the castle taken, the vassals did not rest.
To purge the remnants of the corsair bands that had plundered this countryside in the name of the faith... or so it was not.
“Search! Find the Marquis!”
“Tell the soldiers! Gold to whoever finds the Marquis!”
“Why haven't the orders gone out to the serfs in the surrounding villages yet?”
The Marquis's former vassals shouted themselves hoarse, eyes bloodshot with desperation. The vassals of Culia County could afford composure; the Marquis's vassals could not.
Johan could simply leave Marco behind and return to his own county. The vassals were the ones who would have to answer for what came after. If imperial mercenaries landed on these shores to hunt them down, they would not enjoy it.
“Ha-ha. Everyone is so diligently loyal.”
“You should not smile like that.”
When Johan grinned wickedly, Izelia spoke in a low voice, glancing around. She wanted Johan to be revered by those around him — not feared.
“And how did I smile, exactly?”
“Like a man with some sinister scheme in motion. Like...”
Izelia flushed mid-sentence. Johan tilted his head.
“Don't tell me you were about to say I smiled the way I did before I embraced you.”
“Wh-what nonsense you— that is not—”
Looks like I hit the mark.
When Izelia trembled from embarrassment, Johan graciously changed the subject. He held up a beautiful bracelet found in the Marquis's castle.
“I was thinking of giving this to Amien. What do you think?”
“You shouldn't. If Amien learns luxury this early...”
“That would be true for a knight, but Amien won't live as a knight. And a noble, surely, ought to know the worth of treasure and how to enjoy it.”
In a war of words, Izelia was no match for Johan. She faltered and gave in with a nod.
“Besides — if I returned from a triumphant campaign without bringing anything home, that would be its own quiet disappointment, wouldn't it?”
“......”
Izelia, who had not thought of gifts even once, fidgeted with her fingers in embarrassment.
Affection between kin in this world was wretched by modern standards. Far drier and colder. What Ulrike had done — trying to kill Stephan — did not even rank as remarkable.
There were, of course, parents who cherished their children out of genuine love, but they were the exception. The ordinary relationship between noble parent and child was closer to a rivalry between the current holder of power and his successor.
Come to think of it, that was only natural.
As a child, one was raised by hired tutors, or sent elsewhere for training. Once grown, the heir received his own title and took his first steps as a ruler — and from then on, he did nothing but wait, coveting the title his parent still held.
Expecting bonds of thick blood and warmth to form through such a process was an absurd hope.
In truth, Johan's manner toward Amien was astonishingly warm — far gentler than his usual conduct as Count.
“What's this? Are you worried Amien might come to hate you?”
“H-how do you keep reading my thoughts?”
“Didn't expect to be right, actually. It's more that your thoughts are just too easy to read.”
“?”
Izelia was flustered. It was something she had never once heard in her life.
“Amien respects you more than you realize, so spare yourself the pointless worry.”
“Is... is that truly so?”
“I heard it myself, so it must be.”
“You — you heard her say that? To you?”
“I did. So take this, at least.”
Izelia accepted the sword Johan offered and tilted her head. A sword kept in the Marquis's castle would hardly be an ordinary blade — it looked to be one that had crossed over from the East.
“If it's for Amien, wouldn't it be better to hand it to her yourself?”
“It's not for Amien. It's a gift for you, Izelia. You didn't take a single thing from that castle.”
“...!”
Johan smiled and brushed his hand along Izelia's cheek. Then, as if nothing had happened, he pressed his heels in and galloped ahead. When the other knights saw Johan riding at their head in person, they erupted into cheers.
“My lord.”
“?”
“There may be watching eyes inside, so I came to find you out here.”
“Speak. I'm listening.”
When a priest of the Order rode up alongside him, Johan raised an eyebrow.
The whole countryside was in an uproar over the hunt for the Marquis. Was Johan himself not riding the perimeter even now, sweeping up corsair remnants and searching?
“The people of the Republic are behaving rather strangely, it seems. We judged it something you ought to hear...”
“The Republic?”
The Republic's fleet was currently rounding the coastline, cutting off the corsairs' line of retreat and ferrying supplies.
To hear that men who had been stalwart allies mere days ago were acting strangely left Johan baffled.
“There is a report that they received an envoy of the Viscount.”
Viscount Ginolene — the regent who now governed the last imperial domain remaining in the south. If the Republic had made contact with a noble of that standing, it was certainly not something to brush aside.
What are they planning?
“His momentum is truly fearsome.”
“Mmm...”
“I understand now why they say the man has been blessed...”
The captains of the Republic sat deep in deliberation. It was a worry none of them had ever imagined having.
Johan's ascent had simply been too much like a storm.
When they had forged their secret alliance with him and pledged support, not a soul had pictured anything like this. At best, they had assumed he would take Culia County and then hover there, going nowhere fast.
Swallowing an entire county whole was no easy feat, even with the Order's help. The Republic had expected Johan to spend years merely rooting out defiant vassals.
Instead, he had married, summoned the vassals, culled them in short order, and stabilized the entire territory in an instant. Not a trace of the chaos that ordinarily attends an occupation. Anyone watching might have mistaken him for a lord who had ruled those lands for decades.
It was staggering — but tolerable, at least up to that point. Bewildering, yes, yet comprehensible. Even then, Johan was still the weaker party, still unable to refuse the Republic's requests.
But then the corsairs had gone berserk, the Marquis had been shattered, and the western vassals had called Johan in. With the Order whipped into a holy fervor under the banner of punishing the heathens, the Republic's fleet had had no choice but to tag along in support.
The result: Johan had charged west like lightning and begun gobbling up the western vassals wholesale. A result no one had foreseen.
It was a terrifying pace — and yet the Republic had clung to a sliver of hope. The Marquis's home castle still stood, and the corsair host remained intact.
Once Johan ground through all of that, his main force would be a wreck, and he would have to devote everything to recovery. Or so they thought.
...And then the report arrived that these mad corsairs, whether from eating something foul or what, had led their entire host to a crushing defeat. Johan's army had taken not so much as a scratch and seized the Marquis's home castle besides.
At this point, Johan was effectively the hegemon of the south. There was, in truth, no one left in the region who could stand against him. The Viscount remained — but the Viscount was hard pressed just holding his own domain together...
It is the nature of men to grow anxious when a convenient opponent suddenly balloons in size.
The people of the Republic clutched their heads. To check him openly would cost them the rich terms they had just been granted, yet to leave him alone was to dread what he would become.
Unless he was a fool, what would a man do after seizing the whole south in his fist? He would dominate the nearby sea lanes and expand his trade. From the Republic's standpoint, that was an unpleasant future indeed.
In the midst of all this, the Viscount's envoy had come calling. The envoy, for his part, was pale-faced from the recent upheavals.
“I ask for nothing grand. Simply spirit away the people of House Crucho and carry them to the Empire. Surely the illustrious fleet of the Republic has strength enough for that!”
“What absurdity is this... You know full well the state of our relations with the Emperor, and still you ask?”
“I do know! But is the new Count's reckless advance not equally distasteful to the Republic? I beg you. I have even brought payment for the voyage...”
The envoy, too, was desperate.
He had expected the Marquis to hold out no matter what — and the man had simply collapsed. The Viscount's own domain was in a state of panic.
The Emperor may have cast the Marquis aside, but surely even he had not anticipated this outcome.
“If we smuggle out the Marquis...”
“It would serve as a check on him, would it not? He'll rebuild his strength with imperial backing and come looking south again.”
“Hm.”
The bribe the Viscount's envoy offered was one thing, but what truly tempted them was how cheap and effective the move would be — slipping the Marquis out, and with him a ready-made counterweight.
“Let us decide, then. It seems the will of all here is one.”
“...Very well. If the Marquis's people can make it out, we will send a ship east to the Empire, quietly.”
“Thank you! Thank you!”
The envoy cried out with a sigh of relief. All that remained was for the Marquis's kin to make their way here. The search parties had combed every inch of the countryside, but the Marquis's house was one of the oldest and deepest-rooted in the region.
They knew every hidden path, and there were plenty of people willing to shelter them. Surely they would slip away.
“The Marquis has been captured!”
“What?!”
Johan looked down at the Marquis with an expression of regret. The Marquis was already a cold corpse. The vassals who had found him had killed him on the spot, along with every member of his household.
From their standpoint, it was simple arithmetic: if the Marquis were ever proven innocent at trial, they were finished. So they made certain he never stood trial at all.
“The headman of the village where he was hiding sent one of his serfs to give up the location.”
“Good work. See that a reward is issued.”
The Marquis had trusted in his rank and his authority. True, he was fleeing with his soldiers lost — but he had been certain that the serfs and village headmen who had lived under his house for generations would never betray him.
He was mistaken. Had he known, while he lay in hiding, how thoroughly Johan had come to dominate the surrounding lands, he would never have made that wager.