Chapter 390: To Them, I Am Nothing but a Servant

While Andreas and Nikolaus were digging through the trial records, I quietly summoned Norman. Norman answered the call as though he had been waiting for it. It seems he had known from the start that I would send for him.

"Allow me to greet you once more, my lord. I am Norman Hennings."

"You look remarkably calm for the man who set a special trial in motion."

"I am sorry for causing such great trouble. I will gladly accept my punishment."

"Enough. I didn’t call you here to punish you."

I slowly studied this man called Norman. Unlike an ordinary commoner, he carried a certain refined dignity, and even under a prince’s gaze he showed no trace of fear.

"You’re no ordinary commoner, are you."

"I was a student at the Breisburg seminary."

"A commoner, at a university? You must have had considerable talent."

The seminary admits commoners as well as nobles, but only by one of two paths: as an apprentice clergyman of a local parish, or as a commoner bearing a noble’s recommendation. Anyone else has no way in.

Norman, naturally, was the latter.

Only one noble in Rosenheim came to mind as the sort who would recommend a commoner to the university.

"Baron Constance recommended me, which is how I was able to enroll."

"I see. I don’t know the man personally, but that sounds entirely like him. So why did you, a university student, come back to Feuzen?"

"...My father passed away."

Norman stood to inherit his father’s property, but he gave up the inheritance, wanting his younger brother to take over the family trade. His brother refused, however, and so Norman had no choice but to return to Feuzen.

"In truth, the biggest reason was that I could no longer afford the tuition and had to give up."

University tuition is a sum no commoner can shoulder unless he is quite wealthy. That is why students make their living hiring themselves out to noble families as private tutors.

"With a university background, I’d have expected Wentner or August to give you an important post."

"In fact, no one knows I ever attended."

The villagers believe Norman went off to Breisburg to earn money and then came home. He had probably kept the truth hidden to avoid envy. Having endured the envy of nobles myself, I knew all too well what it was like to be its target.

"You’ve had a hard road too, then."

"Thank you for understanding."

Norman Hennings worked as a warehouse keeper. Because he had a precise head for numbers, he had been hired by Wiegen, the middling farmer who was another of the representatives, and, by his own account, treated reasonably well.

"After the migrants from Boeven settled on the outskirts of Feuzen, Wiegen and Boden the tavern keeper sold them aged liquor and cheese, slowly making them dependent."

Hilda would have supplied the basic necessities, but beyond that the migrants had no choice but to fend for themselves. Wiegen and Boden were simply doing clever business. Up to that point, there was no real problem with any of it.

"The problem is that Dressel, resenting the migrants, dragged in the crowd he ran with and began picking fights. At first it was simple harassment, but..."

"The young fools of Boeven handed them a justification."

The boys had probably meant nothing more than a prank, but in the end the barn collapsed, and Dressel seized on it as a justification to lash out with unchecked violence. The migrants, who had paid full restitution, naturally had no choice but to resist.

Hans and Chief Wentner tried to mediate, but the rift only deepened.

"Dressel and Wiegen are related by marriage, so every time Dressel got tangled up in an assault, Wiegen had his hands full covering for him. That put Chief Wentner in an awkward position, but at least it kept heads from rolling. The lord’s lady did not want blood spilled either."

"Hmm. With the place being called a holy site for heirs, Hilda would have found that distasteful as well."

So the punishments were kept relatively light: locking offenders in the pillory for a full day’s display in the plaza, or throwing them in jail for a few days without food. But kin or not, Wiegen had a separate reason for going to such lengths to shield Dressel.

"Wiegen wanted to wield influence over the Boeven migrants, and he succeeded in winning a few of them over. When persuasion failed, he sent Dressel to bring them to heel with violence."

"The classic carrot and stick. A scheme to split the migrants apart, then."

"His calculation was that once you had become a prince, my lord, you would no longer spare Feuzen a thought. I watched all of it from up close."

Norman presented me with a scroll of linen paper. Written on it was a list of the Boeven migrants Wiegen had won over, along with a list of the victims. Fortunately, none of the Boeven representatives were among those who had been bought.

"Münegger the bricklayer kept the migrants from scattering and tried to stand up to Wiegen, which made the bricklayer a serious thorn in his side. Wiegen sent Dressel to threaten him, but the man wouldn’t budge an inch."

"If he was being threatened, he should have reported it to the guards. Why did he simply endure it?"

"The Boeven migrants feared being driven out over clashes with the Feuzen villagers."

"...They assumed I would side with the Feuzen villagers."

The old saying came to mind: blood is thicker than water. From the migrants’ standpoint, it was a perfectly reasonable assumption. Being driven out of Feuzen would have been no different from death.

So they could not even report it, and simply endured, until something unexpected happened. Norman’s younger brother fell in love with Erika, the widowed seamstress. It had started, apparently, with seeing her often while on patrol.

"I gave my blessing for them to marry, provided they had your sanction, my lord. But I never imagined Dressel, that son of a bitch, would go after Erika. My brother told me. He said Dressel seemed to bear a grudge over having been rejected by her. And the bastard is a married man, no less."

"So the worst sort of man has been walking openly about Feuzen."

Hmm. He’s in jail right now, so shall I have him tortured?

Torturing a criminal already locked up for his crimes falls squarely within the law.

"And the result of all this is the witchcraft charge?"

"Yes. If he branded her a witch, the people of Feuzen would fall in line, and the Boeven migrants would no longer be able to shield her. Where could he find a more perfect revenge? But the plan had to be halted before it ever began."

"Because I arrived in Feuzen, I take it?"

"Yes. And now they are waiting for you to return to Rosenheim, my lord."

A rather meticulous plan, in its way.

It is so absurd I cannot even laugh. What angered me was that these damned rats meant to lie low and make their move the moment I was gone. How thoroughly must they hold their prince in contempt to go this far?

And it was strange, too, that Norman knew the whole plan.

"If you know their scheme in this much detail, you must have been fairly deep in their trust. But then why would Dressel go out of his way to touch a woman who might become your brother’s wife?"

"To them, I am nothing but a servant, my lord."

"Hmm, I see. You eavesdropped."

"Playing the errand boy earned me my share of abuse, but it paid off."

"Coming to know a man like you has made this meeting fruitful for me as well. But what I still don’t understand is this: was it really necessary to escalate matters this far, even forcing a special trial?"

Wouldn’t it be faster for me to simply round up the whole lot and execute them? I doubt there was any need to handle this in such a roundabout way. Still, what is done is done, and there is no undoing it now.