Knights, Monks, and Mercenaries
"Come with me."
"Are you certain that's wise, my lord?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"You'll be sent out on a punitive expedition. I simply wondered if you were all right with it."
Johan was no fool either. The fact that they were calling on him after a punitive campaign had failed—right after he'd struck a mutual aid pact with the guild—meant they had some use for a knight after all.
No doubt he would be contributing to the expedition under the guild's name.
"Do I look like it's my first time joining a punitive force? I can hold my own. And I made the prophecy, so I ought to take responsibility for it."
In the courtyard, Swetlug's slaves had already finished readying his mount. Goidun, just as quick, had saddled Johan's horse in no time at all. The sight of the slaves Swetlug kept had evidently stirred up a healthy sense of urgency in him.
The city of Marcel was governed by an elected consul and a council. And the council was not composed of ordinary townsfolk—it naturally consisted of the powerful: the city's guilds and its nobles.
Iaon, branch manager of the Kettana Merchant Guild, was of course a member of that council.
Which meant she was obligated to take part in the response to the failed expedition.
Yet Iaon was entirely at ease. She had prepared the moment she heard Swetlug's prophecy. Goods whose prices would climb once the roads were cut off had been stockpiled in advance, and every mercenary company she could call upon was on standby. Better still, it hadn't been her who had recommended the failed mercenary company in the first place.
There was nothing to lose in this affair and only profit left to reap. For a merchant, these were the happiest of hours.
It was you who recommended the Oakheart Mercenary Company! How in God's name does a force of five hundred fail to put down a single band of brigands?
What's worse, word has reached us that those men have been eating at the same table as the very bandits they were hired to destroy. Unless the company commander has gone mad, what kind of man sups with robbers?
Calm yourselves, all of you. Commander Bradil had a decent reputation. Every one of us approved the appointment.
We must devise a plan, and quickly! The toll road is blocked as we speak—no salt is coming through at all!
There's a river, isn't there? The northern and western routes remain open.
Is this a joke to you? Will you be covering the difference in price, then?
Enough! As consul, I hereby order a punitive campaign with all haste. If that commander has indeed conspired with the brigands, it is not a matter we can overlook. Council members will each muster the troops allotted to them. I will not permit anyone to buy their way out with shield money.
At the consul's words, the council members nodded. Willingly or not, they all agreed with him. This matter had to be settled fast.
The members who had been planning to pay their scutage and slip away found themselves sourly licking their lips. They'd intended to buy their way out, but the consul had driven the nail in first.
Hiring ragtag rabble was easy enough, but in a matter like this, that was no longer an option. For the consul's dignity's sake, they would need to hire proper mercenaries.
And in that opening, Iaon moved in to make her sale.
The Kettana Merchant Guild has already finished its preparations. Shall we put your names on our banner as well?
Oh—might we, truly?
Of course.
Paying the shield money to opt out was forbidden, but pooling funds with fellow council members to hire mercenaries was another matter entirely. Iaon collected a handsome sum from several of them and graciously added their names to her guild's banner.
By the way—which mercenaries are we speaking of, hired under the Kettana Guild?
The dwarves.
"Everything has been handled as you instructed, Sir Johan. The three of them were sold off as field hands. As for the one called Gamson—he was executed."
Johan nodded. The three men they'd caught in the village were of little consequence, but Gamson was the one who had personally led the scheme. He needed to be punished beyond any doubt.
Beaten bloody by the mercenaries, Gamson had been dragged off before he even came back to his senses and put to death in the guild's name.
Johan took the pouch Iaon held out and tucked it away.
"There was no need to issue a reward to mercenaries like those... but as you suggested, Sir Johan, I did share out a little silver among them."
"Show mercy, and surely the gods will repay you for it."
"......"
While Iaon made a peculiar face at what Johan had meant as a joke, Swetlug stood nearby looking utterly dumbfounded. What good were words like that in front of a merchant?
"Mercy? Does he not realize that woman's blood runs gold?"
"It was said in jest, my lord."
"Then don't joke. She's the sort who wouldn't know how to take one."
While the two of them bickered, Iaon cleared her throat to reclaim their attention.
"Sir Johan. You once said you would not refuse to fight beneath our guild's banner. Does that resolve still hold?"
"It does."
"The city is assembling a punitive force to destroy the bandits I spoke of before. We intend to hire mercenaries and join it as well. I would ask you to take part."
Johan nodded. He had braced himself for this from the start.
Iaon swallowed nervously before continuing. What came next required some courage even from her.
"And... we would ask you to follow the command of our mercenary captain."
"Very well."
"...?"
Iaon flinched before recovering her composure. Johan had accepted so easily that it caught her off guard.
Even the most hard-pressed knight of noble birth would never so readily submit to a mercenary's command. There was such a thing as a knight's pride.
Yet Johan had accepted without a flicker of hesitation. Iaon was beginning to feel that his placid expression was a mask worn by some incomprehensible monster.
"Are you certain? A knight who follows a mercenary's orders is a rare thing indeed."
"If you take something, you owe something. I decided a while ago that pride could wait."
...No matter how I look at him, that's a man who should have become a scribe or a herald, not a knight.
Swetlug thought the people of Johan's former household had been utter fools. Training this man as a knight—well, granted, his build had probably left them little choice...
The dwarves of the Dwarf Mountains, blessed with sturdy, hardy frames and their race's legendary stubbornness, were a species beloved as mercenaries.
The Red Iron Mercenary Company, under the Kettana Guild's banner, was one such band. For this campaign, five dwarven squads of ten and a single centurion had already arrived in Marcel.
Johan watched the dwarves with a strange fascination. Half-shielded behind pavises as tall as their torsos, great axes slung across their backs, they looked like a row of small, solid walls come to life and on the march.
"Centurion Qumal, at your service. I look forward to fighting alongside you, Sir Johan."
A stocky dwarf with a long braided red beard offered a crisp, formal salute. He had already been briefed before his arrival.
A knight will be joining us to fight alongside the company.
Branch Manager... if he is a knight of noble birth, I am in no position to give him orders.
He has already agreed to follow them.
...?
It hardly sounded like something the branch manager would invent, so he'd accepted it—but as centurion, he could not help worrying.
"The honor is mine."
"Sir Johan! Speak freely, I beg you."
"Wouldn't that cost you face in front of your men?"
"Any dwarf who doubts my authority because you speak plainly is no dwarf of mine. Speaking formally would trouble me more."
"Then plainly it shall be."
At Johan's words, the dwarf nodded with a bewildered look. He had braced himself for stonewalling or a contest of pride, and this was nothing like what he'd expected. He truly hadn't imagined it would be this easy.
"Lady Swetlug. I look forward to working with you as well."
"Likewise."
Johan and Swetlug took their places among the dwarves. As they did, mercenaries began streaming toward the campsite outside the city walls.
The city watch and the newly hired mercenaries would form the backbone of the expedition. Eight hundred men in all, give or take—but in quality, far superior to the Oakheart company of before.
And the cards the council had prepared did not end there.
"The Knight Monastery of Saint Iena—and the Knight Monastery of Saint Galanto...!"
Goidun cried out in astonishment at the sight of the holy knights' banners appearing in the distance.
They were warrior-monasteries: orders of clerics who had forsworn seclusion, sworn an oath to take up arms and carry out the god's will, and gathered together under that oath.
Strictly speaking, they held the rank of monks rather than noble-born knights, yet no one dared look down on them. Holy knights who honed their craft against one another within monastery walls were every bit as formidable as any rigorously trained knight.
"Are they famous, then?"
"Yes, master. Both are renowned orders in this region. The Knight Monastery of Saint Iena is famed for having slain a troll, no less."
Some twenty female clerics arrived first, followed by roughly thirty male clerics behind them. The Knight Monastery of Saint Iena accepted only women; the Knight Monastery of Saint Galanto only men.
They exchanged a few brisk nods of greeting and then settled into orderly positions on opposite sides of the camp. Even the rowdy mercenaries, so loud a moment before, grew hesitant and quiet in the presence of the knight monasteries.
"Their arms and bearing look promising."
"They don't even ride horses, master. Compared to you, they're nothing at all. Heh heh."
Goidun was flattering for his very life. Anxiety drove him.
Of all times to be stuck staying at Swetlug's manor, just when he badly needed to prove his usefulness—and thanks to the servants already serving there, every task he reached for had been snatched away before he could lift a finger.
"A man's worth isn't decided by whether he sits in a saddle."
"Ah—yes, of course."
Goidun despaired at the feeling of having fumbled yet again.
At this rate I really will be sold off as a field hand... O, gods...
Oblivious to Goidun's silent anguish, Johan surveyed the holy knights. They rode no horses, but their equipment was superb. From the very air about them, they stood apart from the mercenaries trussed in quilting and a few loops of chain.
"Well, well. More knights incoming."
"Have the monasteries sent more men?"
"No. Knights like yourself."
Swetlug pointed to the far side. A party of some thirty was approaching beneath a family banner. Telling who the actual knights were was easy: only the three at the front rode mounted in full plate, while the rest came on foot in light arms, hauling luggage and leading their horses along.
All three of them are elves.
"Looks like Count Bartok sent them."
"The Count? Marcel isn't even his city. What business brings them here?"
"What business do you think?"
Swetlug drew a lazy circle in the air with an expression of utter indifference. Sending one's own knights cost the Count money—and the fact that he'd sent them anyway meant the city had bled him for a very handsome cut.
Unlike the monasteries, the knights ambled toward the camp slowly, leisurely, preening as they came. It was deeply irritating to watch. And watching them, Johan was struck by a thought.
Hold on... who exactly is in command here?
A centurion of the city watch, mercenary captains, two knight monasteries, and genuine knights...
It was a chain of command liable to induce vertigo before the first arrow flew.
"Something on your mind?"
"I was wondering who's supposed to command all these people gathered here."
"You fret over everything, don't you? The mercenaries will follow the captain of the watch, the monasteries will mind their own, and the knights will do as knights do."
"Wouldn't it be far more convenient to bind it all under a single command?"
"Flying would be convenient too. Why don't you fly, then?"
"......"
"The enemy will be just as scattered, so don't trouble yourself."
Swetlug felt nothing at all amiss about the factions here operating independently. That was simply how things were done.
For Johan, though, there was no chaos quite like it. An army was supposed to be an organism with an orderly chain of command running through it...
Ah, forget it. I'll just do my own job well.
Kill whatever showed itself, chase whatever ran, halt when told to halt.
Johan had resolved to work exactly as hard as his cut of this campaign required. Four imperial silver a day—no more, no less.