Chapter 314 - 234: The Powerful Uncle Odo

"What about the Earl of Hereford?" Eric asked.

Besides himself, there was no better person to lead the charge against Odo than the Earl of Hereford.

"He’s busy with matters in Wales. His ally, Kaldog, the Lord of Glamorgan, invited him to further their conquest of South Wales. They’re attacking the Kingdom of Deheubarth, and the King of Deheubarth has allied with the Kingdom of Gwynedd to try and drive the Normans out of South Wales."

"On a related note, I sent my old man there too. After I took his earldom, I let him keep the Welsh lands he conquered. I’m his Lord now," Belem said to Eric with cheerful relish, clearly pleased with himself.

"Er... alright. By the way, have you heard the recent rumors?"

"Rumors? You mean the ones calling you the ’Kingmaker’? That’s a pretty cool nickname."

"It’s not a good thing. Robert might feel his authority is being undermined." Eric had a headache just thinking about it.

It meant he had been forced into a passive position, losing the initiative.

Odo would be all too interested in using any means necessary to take down an embattled Eric.

"It is indeed a bit untimely. But I don’t think Robert would take it that seriously."

"He’s the King now."

Eric shook his head. He then told Belem about how the lands in Cornwall originally promised to him had been donated to the Church by the King’s uncle, Robert.

’He’d better not get into conflicts with too many people.’

"Hah! I’ll bet this was Odo’s doing. He gets all the credit for the ’good deeds’ and makes others take the blame for the bad."

"When will the fools in this Kingdom wake up? You don’t even need a brain to figure out who the richest noble in the Kingdom is! The amount of Money he’s gotten this year alone could fill several palaces, but they’re all blind to it."

"Greed, lechery, arrogance, cruelty—you can find almost every vile quality imaginable in that man. And God, he’s an Earl and a Bishop at the same time!"

"You couldn’t find a more blasphemous existence in the entire Catholic World. He—that bastard—rebelled against his own half-brother! What right does he have to slander someone else as a ’Kingmaker’?"

"Give me a break. My brother here only took what he rightfully earned. The Outvilles deserve this honor. What’s wrong with that?"

Belem ranted on and on, defending Eric and venting all the frustration he’d built up under Odo over the past few months.

Several of his relatives had their lands seized by Odo. He had gone to Odo to ask him for some consideration, but Odo completely dismissed him, threw him out of the castle like a three-year-old, and told him to go back to his wet nurse.

Enraged, he had drawn his sword and struck a Guard who was mocking him. He didn’t even get to finish the job before Odo had him seized, locked up for a week, and fined fifty pounds.

"Robert is really something else, giving his uncle that much trust and power. If... and I’m just saying if... I’m afraid we’d have a hard time stopping him right now."

Odo’s power, both political and economic, was at its peak.

Even the Earldom of Gloucester and the Earldom of Shrewsbury combined couldn’t compare to Odo’s domains.

The Earl of Gloucester’s domain currently had 128 Feudal Knights, who were lords directly under Eric.

These direct vassals had their own vassals in turn, and based on the size of their lands, they provided Eric with a varying number of Vassal Knights.

However, these Vassal Knights were in a poorer economic state, with smaller plots of land—some holding less than Five Hides—and while some held official knightly titles, others did not.

(A standard knight’s fee should be around 5 Hides, so for every Five Hides of land, one Knight must be provided. For example, since Leif has twenty Hides of land, he must provide four Knights.)

Some of them couldn’t even fulfill the full forty days of annual military service required of a Knight, and their equipment was often subpar.

Therefore, unless it was an emergency, an Earl wouldn’t call up all his Knights. Instead, he would summon only a portion, and the unsummoned Knights would provide financial support to those who were called to serve.

Including these Vassal Knights, the Earldom of Gloucester could, at its absolute limit, mobilize over 250 Knights.

This was the limit for the Earldom of Gloucester. Belem’s Earldom of Shrewsbury was slightly stronger, able to mobilize over 300 Knights at its limit. The Earldom of Hereford was in a similar situation to Shrewsbury.

But Odo, the Earl of Kent, had borne the cost for nearly half or even more of Robert’s Knights during the war for the throne. In addition to the Knights from the Earldom of Kent, he had also hired a large number of Free Knights, even mortgaging most of his lands to merchants to do so.

He had bet everything he had on Robert, and so Robert had rewarded him generously.

The Earldom of Kent was already one of the wealthiest shires in the Kingdom, with an annual income from its lands of around 1,900 pounds. Odo was second only to his younger brother, Robert, the Count of Mortain and Earl of Cornwall.

After Robert’s coronation, he also granted Odo the Earldom of Essex, bringing his annual income to a staggering 3,100 pounds. If you included his title as the Bishop of Bayeux and the income from the diocese of Bayeux, his annual land revenue would reach 3,500 pounds, while the Royal Domain’s land income was merely 9,800 pounds.

The Earl of Hereford was now the second most powerful earl in the Kingdom after Odo, but his domains were only half the size of Odo’s.