Chapter 445: The Victim Deserves to Know

There was some pushback, but since this was, quite literally, a hundred times better than being killed or violated, they had no choice but to fall in line quietly. In any case, Hagenhausen was now desperately short of soldiers to protect it.

If they provoked the Gale Knights into a bloodbath, the people of Hagenhausen would be the ones left paying for it. While Barosi and Herto brought in the levy without a hitch, Ted searched the land around Hagenhausen.

And then the merchant guildmaster of Hagenhausen came to see me.

"Vincent, guildmaster of Hagenhausen, greets the merciful Baron of Rosenheim."

"I hope you haven’t come with some ridiculous request to lower the half because it’s too harsh."

"O-o-o-of course not! W-would I ever make s-such a demand?"

Flustered, the guildmaster took off his hat and wiped the cold sweat from his head. Hmm, a head that shone brighter than the sun. Flattened in the opening exchange before he could even state his business, he let his eyes dart around the room.

"Allow me to offer you a piece of information."

"I don’t need it. Whatever information you give me, I’m taking half regardless. And if I find out after the collection that you’ve hidden anything, you people won’t be able to set foot in Hagenhausen again."

Merchants are predictable.

At least the merchants in Wischelbach were relatively honest.

This one had the nerve to open with a negotiation, which told me his mindset was something else entirely. Thrown by a situation he hadn’t planned for, the guildmaster spoke gravely, as if laying down his trump card.

"Our merchants’ guild is on very close terms with the Swiss Confederation. If you show mercy, Baron, I’ll put you in touch with them. Wouldn’t a line to the Alpine merchants be quite profitable?"

"You dare bring up those bastards to me? I’d chew them up and spit them out."

"Yes? Yes? Yes? U-um, Baron?"

As my mood turned vicious, the guildmaster’s eyes bulged like they might pop out of his skull. Offering me the very people who had conspired with the Count of Basel to stab me in the back, and calling it a bargaining chip. The man must have a death wish.

Naturally, the guildmaster had no idea why I was so angry. If he didn’t know, he could take his beating in ignorance. My men came in when I called and bound him, none too gently.

"S-spare me! I was thoughtless!"

"I won’t kill you. But the gall of trying to cut a deal with me is unforgivable. And connecting me to the Swiss Confederation, of all things? You’ll find out later why I’m this angry. And when you do, you’ll realize you stuck your own head into a wolf’s mouth. For starters, I’ll have you strung up in the square."

He must have figured he could take a light approach with me because he knew I kept my plunder restrained and strictly forbade killing, but today he’d picked the wrong man. The guildmaster had come to rid himself of one problem and ended up with a few hundred more.

"Before that, tell me the information you were trying to sell."

"I-i-if I tell you, will you spare me?"

"Depending on how important it is, I’ll take it into account."

"The lord’s wife has been having an affair with Sir Stein, one of his vassal knights! And the current heir and the second son are both Sir Stein’s bastards! The lord knows nothing about it!"

Huh? Wait, what the...

Looks like I’m getting a front-row seat to a daytime soap opera.

The same absurd, hollow laugh I’d let out when I learned the crown prince was a bastard came bubbling up. My men only blinked, not following a word of it. Yeah, ignorance is bliss.

Sometimes it’s not so bad that the language barrier gets in the way.

For the record, this vassal knight had been ordered to defend Hagenhausen while the lord was away, and he had actively helped me march in. So that was why something about it had felt off.

I confirmed the truth through the scouter.

"Do you understand what you’re saying right now?"

"I do! But every word of it is true! Our informants saw the two of them meeting in secret while the lord was away!"

"Saw them, my foot. That’s snooping. You think I don’t know how your kind operates? You were going to use this to blackmail the lord’s wife for profit, or exploit her one way or another."

Just as he had tried to sell the information to me. In other words, this man was suggesting I squeeze the lord’s wife harder and pocket the difference. What is this, blackmailing a married woman with a hidden camera?

All at once, a deep pity and sympathy for the lord of Hagenhausen welled up in me. The husband was working himself to the bone fending off enemies from outside, while that wife of his was off bearing another man’s children.

Nothing tops the trainwreck that is the Altringen royal family, but at least there the grand duke acknowledged the crown prince, the bastard son of his beloved friend. The lord of Hagenhausen doesn’t even get that much.

"Haah. Bring me the lord of Hagenhausen."

"B-Baron? Wh-why the lord, all of a sudden?"

"Why do you think? The victim deserves to know."

I had no intention of using the information.

The guildmaster’s face went white in an instant.

"Please, take back the order! Didn’t you promise to spare me?!"

"That’s not my problem. Go lick the lord’s boots and beg him for your life."

Brought back into his own study, the lord of Hagenhausen found it strange to see a merchant guildmaster he knew by sight bound and trembling. His expression seemed to ask whether the man had made some kind of mistake.

Oh, he’d caused an enormous mess, all right.

Not for me. For him. Could he ever have imagined?

"What sort of woman is your wife?"

"I’m not sure what you mean by that, but she is far more than I deserve. She’s a daughter of the Grossent family of Landschaft, and she was known throughout that region as a great beauty."

Oh, hell. A devoted husband, rare as that is. Just like me. A man who can smile like a fool talking about his wife is the real article. My sympathy for Sir Helixen of Hagenhausen grew even deeper.

"Sir Helixen. Listen to me calmly. This merchant guildmaster handed me a piece of information. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but it concerns you deeply."

"What are you talking about? He handed over information?"

The lord of Hagenhausen, Helixen, looked at me, then at the guildmaster, with suspicion. The man’s ashen face and trembling must have looked especially suspect.

"He says one of your vassal knights, a man named Stein, has been having an affair with your wife."

At words he had never expected to hear, Helixen was struck dumb. He couldn’t take in what I’d said and asked me to repeat it several times, so I said it again, kindly and clearly.

"What kind of nonsense is this?! My wife, having an affair with Sir Stein?!"

"And your heir and your second son are supposedly Stein’s bastards."

"Baron of Rosenheim! I respected you for treating our people with mercy! And now you insult me like this! Is this any way to behave?!"

"Calm down, Sir Helixen. This is the information that man was trying to hand me."

Helixen’s fury turned on the guildmaster instead. Unable to contain himself, he snatched the sword from a soldier beside him and raised it as though he would take the guildmaster’s head off.

"Eep! S-spare me, my lord!"

"You! Where do you get off spouting this nonsense?!"

"Th-that, that isn’t tr..."

"Oh? Then you dared to bring me a lie?"

The guildmaster was checkmated. He could go neither forward nor back, and stood there hemming and hawing. Helixen glared at him, then let the sword drop. The truth was, he must have sensed something was wrong.

He may well have been turning a blind eye all this time, knowing full well.

Leaning weakly against the wall, Helixen spoke to me.

"Stein was from a collateral branch of the Grossent family."

"A collateral branch? You took a man from your wife’s family in as a knight?"

"Yes. He and my wife are second cousins. She wanted him kept at her side as a condition of the marriage. I generously allowed it, and the match went through. And to think she was a woman who would forget her duty as a lord’s wife so completely."

Talk about letting the fox guard the henhouse.

Affairs were common enough, but a corrupted bloodline was a dereliction of duty. A political marriage is a contract between houses, and this amounted to a breach of that contract.

In the world of nobles, it could even be grounds for war. The Grossent family of Landschaft would have to compensate Helixen or clean up the mess themselves. Provided the evidence and testimony were solid, of course.

"Sir Helixen, you’re a free man now."

"...Are you releasing me out of pity?"

"Your house is a disaster. Wouldn’t life as a prisoner on top of that be a little too much to bear?"

"I am still your prisoner, Baron. Do not humiliate me any further."

Refusing even to be released was the last of his pride. Out of respect for him, I didn’t press the matter. What Helixen wanted was revenge.

"I would be grateful if you’d allow me to settle this with my own hands before I leave for Hissen."

"I’ll lend you my men. I’m truly sorry you had to go through this."

It looks like a bloodbath is coming to Hagenhausen.

And what kind of fire will that spark light?