The Headman's Arithmetic
"Well, that's..."
Not even the miller could bring himself to say it. Even to his own ears, the answer was too absurd to voice out loud here.
So he changed the subject instead.
"Then how about we keep the knight from leaving? Just pin him down here. Hell, we could kill him outright, couldn't we?"
A collective gasp rippled through the villagers. Killing a noble was shocking enough in itself, but the greater shock was the question of who, exactly, was supposed to kill a knight, and how.
"If it ever comes to that, I'll be sure to return the honor to you in full."
Atanka laughed in his face without a shred of mercy. This was a man he'd been friendly with for years, but in a situation like this, there was no enemy quite like him.
"And if the knight dies here? What about the merchants and the mercenaries?"
"Th-then we take care of them too—"
"Oh. So we butcher every merchant under the Kettana Merchant Guild and the knight. And then what happens when someone from the knight's family comes asking, or when the Kettana Guild sends investigators?"
"...I'm sure everyone will keep the secret."
"And when the knight's family drags a few villagers off for questioning? Will the secret hold then too, hmm? Answer me, you mad bastard!"
Now it was the miller's face turning red. But Atanka didn't let up. This was the moment to grind the man underfoot, and then grind him again.
"Look around you! Look at the situation, you witless bastards! What was that? Intimidate him? Does that even sound like a plan to you? We're dealing with a noble here! Wake up! If we fumble this, every last one of us dies for real!"
Silence and dread spread through the crowd. Atanka's fury had made the villagers understand, at last, just how deep a hole they were standing in.
"What we should be thinking about right now is not how to threaten them with those idiots in the self-defense watch, but how to placate them. Anyone who wants to try settling this by force, go right ahead! I won't take an ounce of responsibility. You there! Weren't you saying we needed to teach someone a lesson earlier? I'll call the watch over right now. Still want to try?"
"N-no, I was just saying. Why are you making such a fuss, Atanka?"
"And you! Didn't you say the mercenaries 'wouldn't dare'? Would you like to have a go at it yourself?"
"Aiish, Headman, I was just talking! Why are you getting so worked up, really!"
The villagers all had their tails between their legs now. Then one of the quiet ones raised a hand and ventured a careful question.
"So... what will you do?"
"Hoo... First we find out what Sir Knight wants. Only then can this conversation go anywhere."
"What would a knight want?"
"Money, wouldn't it be?"
"Money? The village barely has any coin to speak of..."
"Come to think of it, Prah and Bulleun have already been caught, haven't they? Can't we call it even with that? The two of them caused the trouble, so we take it out of the two of them."
"I knew those bastards were trouble long before this happened."
The villagers with long-standing grievances tore into the three young men without restraint. The families of the three had their faces crumple, but they could do nothing but clamp their mouths shut.
"The mercenaries didn't behave well either. I heard one of them egged the boy on and ran off with him."
"That's right. If we put it nicely like that, surely they'll have nothing to say back? If we close the matter with Prah and Bulleun's punishment, then we can both..."
Atanka let out a hollow laugh. Then he opened his mouth.
"From this moment on."
"...?"
"Anyone who spouts nonsense like that will be dragged along to the negotiation with the knight and made to repeat every word he just said, verbatim, to his face."
"......"
"......"
"Think carefully before you open your mouths, you useless bastards! I'm the one who has to walk over there and negotiate with a knight! Where do you get off spewing garbage that isn't even worth the breath? What's that? Settle it with the lives of men we've already caught? The mercenaries egged him on, so the other side's at fault too? Go on then. Say it to the knight. With your own mouth!"
"N-no, I'm sorry, Headman! I apologize!"
When Atanka shot him a look that was genuinely murderous, the young man who'd spoken clamped his mouth shut at once. He was one of the stronger lads in the self-defense watch, but before the headman, that counted for nothing.
"For now, we give up Prah and Bulleun. Anyone object?"
"......"
"I'm in favor."
"As am I."
"Good. Those two bastards never helped with the farmwork anyway, and all they ever did was stir up filth and trouble. Dying now might honestly be a mercy for them."
The headman flayed the two men with pure malice. It made handing them over that much easier. If talk of 'the headman failed to protect his villagers' cropped up later, it would be a headache. Far better to make it look like everyone had agreed.
Fortunately, the two had always been worthless, so no one argued.
"The silver, though... I've no idea how much we ought to offer... A warhorse good enough for a knight to ride could fetch any price and no one would blink."
"Headman, why not just hand those two over as well?"
"...!"
"!"
The families of Prah, Bulleun, and Pel went rigid. Bulleun's father, the miller, shouted in a voice thick with rage.
"What in the hell is that supposed to mean!"
Ton, one of the village hunters and a member of the self-defense watch, carried on as if he hadn't heard. He had old grudges against the miller, who had long been shortchanging people on the grain he milled.
"It's not as if the knight is going to take just the two of their heads, is he? Naturally he'll demand restitution—and isn't it a better look if we offer it first? We tie the two of them up, hand them over, and draw a clean line: the fault was theirs alone. No need to spend the silver of villagers who did nothing wrong."
Ton's proposal made the others' ears perk up. If the families of Prah, Bulleun, and Pel were handed over, then the restitution could nominally come out of those families' property—a tidy justification took shape on its own.
Granted, most of that property was goods in kind. A knight could hardly haul all of it away, and it would hardly do his dignity much good either, so whatever was left over could be divided up among the villagers. And if a position like the mill somehow opened up...
"...No."
"!"
"Wh-why not?"
Atanka chewed the word out. Honestly, in his heart of hearts, he wanted nothing more than to sell this whole pack of bastards off and be done with it.
"My duty as headman is to protect the people of this village. Their sons caused this disaster and brought grave harm upon us, yes—but that's a debt they can work off in the years to come. I could overlook the two who caused the trouble, but if we hand over their families too, what do you suppose the lord will say to me later!"
If even a few serf households vanished without notice, the steward would demand answers, and having heard the whole story, the steward would hold not the knight but the headman responsible, and then...
'Absolutely not!'
He would not answer for the sake of such worthless bastards.
Besides, the families of all three were among the better-off farmers in the village. Like it or not, they were men who had stood with Atanka and propped him up. If they vanished entirely, his own grip on the village would slacken overnight.
"Th-that's right! I swear we'll repay it! Please, just forgive us this once!"
"My son's losses, we will make good on them, every coin..."
Sensing the mood, the families bowed and scraped and begged. Once they did, the villagers couldn't press further. No matter how you sliced it, standing up in front of everyone and calling for the deaths of people you'd lived beside all your life was no small burden.
In this world, being born and raised in the same village bound people together far more tightly than it looked from the outside.
"So we gather the money, then?"
"Silver coin is precious... truly..."
"Can't we just make those bastards take responsibility for it?"
"Hold on. One way or another, I intend to spare the silver."
Atanka's mind raced. Silver was the lifeblood of the village. He had to settle everything in goods as much as possible—while still coming up with something that would actually satisfy the knight.
'Village of what, a thousand to two thousand people... Even with that so-called self-defense watch swarming in, they won't top fifty...'
Johan ran the numbers in his head, in full battle kit.
'Ten? No, if I kill five of them cleanly, the rest will lose their nerve and scatter. If things go sideways, I cut my way out. Archers would be a nuisance, but if there are any, they go down first.'
Perhaps being born and raised in a knight's household shaped a man's temperament. Even in a situation this dangerous, not a single bead of sweat on Johan—he was calmly preparing his response.
It was the mercenaries who were unnerved by the sight.
"Does that knight not know what fear is?"
"He's a knight, isn't he? There's a reason for it."
"No... this knight is the strange one. Men always tense up before a fight."
Even knights normally tensed before taking the field. Some drank to loosen their nerves; some beat their squires. Kahn, who had fought alongside knights before, knew this better than anyone.
"Gowan."
"Yes, Kahn."
"What's your plan for the aftermath?"
"I want to die from the headache, honestly. I should have listened to you, Kahn. That son of a bitch..."
Gowan ground his teeth. He'd hoped against hope, and the bastard had gone and pulled a catastrophe of this scale anyway. Regret curdled in him—he should have listened to Kahn.
"It's not your fault. Even I didn't think that bastard would pull a stunt this deranged."
The mercenaries who had gathered received the news like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky.
Gamson, in league with a few village youths, had stolen the knight's warhorse and fled!
The knight had caught two of the village youths, dragged them back to the inn, and was waiting. Their employer, Eldans, had put it to them without a trace of softness.
"One of your own caused this mess, so I trust you understand the responsibility falls on you as well?"
The result: facing down the villagers alongside the knight, with no hazard pay. It was work they should have been doing anyway—two village boys had been beaten half to death, and it was never going to slide.
It was only the lost hazard pay that stung.
Standing off against the villagers wasn't so terrifying in itself. They had numbers, sure, but unless the whole village had gone mad, they wouldn't raise a hand against a party that included a knight and merchants of the Guild. And the just cause was on this side.
What worried them was what came after this was settled.
Gamson was, for now, one of theirs. The knight would hardly let that slide.
'What could I possibly say to talk my way past a noble?'
Gowan had plenty of experience in his line of work, but facing down a noble was something he'd never done. What was he supposed to say?
"The rope... please loosen the rope. I can't breathe."
"Shut it, you thieving shit."
When Prah started whimpering, one of the mercenaries kicked him savagely. The hard leather boot caught him and Prah screamed.
He'd already broken bones falling from the horse, and with no proper treatment, the pain came doubled and redoubled.
"Will we... will we really be all right like this? The villagers..."
"The villagers, what? Huh? Say it again. I can't hear you."
"AAAGH! Ghhh—aaagh!"
Prah was learning with his whole body exactly what kind of men mercenaries were.
Watching it, Bulleun shook and soiled himself. Back in the village he'd thrown his weight around on the strength of a big frame and a well-off family, but none of that meant a thing in front of these men now.
"Hoo. This one's got a temper. Hey."
"?"
"What's with the innocent act? Clench your teeth."
Thud!
"Kgh!"
Having more or less finished stomping Prah flat, the mercenaries turned to Bulleun. Bulleun kept his mouth shut and endured it, but in a matter like this, that counted for nothing. The friend of the man who caused the trouble answers for it alongside him. That was simply how it worked.