The Duchy of Beren had two marquises. One was Marquis Bertheim, the former head of Hoenir, who knew more hidden histories than anyone and was still energetically getting around as if reliving his active days.

The other was Marquis Offenburg, owner of three estates, called the Lion of the North, and boasting the largest single power base in the Duchy of Beren. The gap between the two was stark, and that wasn’t just a feeling.

Grand Duke Karlus sending a personal letter to Offenburg was clearly a move to draw the north into checking Duke Radensdorf’s east. By any reasonable measure, it was a sound decision.

But our Grand Duke, with his Conspiracy disposition, had a born talent for screwing his opponents over in ways no ordinary person would dream of. That letter was definitely not going to be an ordinary letter.

"All I need to do is deliver the letter?"

"You will receive what Marquis Offenburg gives you in return and bring it back safely."

Bring it back safely? Was this some kind of exchange?

There had to be some prior secret arrangement.

"A week should be enough to clean up the remnants of Prince Louis’s faction. Keep this confidential, then lead the Gale Knights to Offenburg."

"Won’t there be problems if an armed force crosses into another estate’s borders?"

Nothing caused more headaches than bringing armed troops into someone else’s territory. No matter how friendly, armies of this era had little compunction about plundering other estates.

"The marquis has been expecting you. You needn’t worry."

"...Understood."

The Grand Duke’s certainty only made me more anxious.

A messenger could have carried the letter, but the fact that he was insisting on sending it through me was proof of how important the matter was. Having me deliver it personally, rather than some random courier, carried weight.

"You’ve always met my expectations. I’ll be expecting much of you this time as well."

"I will do my best to live up to them."

"When all of this is over, I’ll have a reward prepared that suits you."

I hoped that reward would actually meet my expectations.

The week passed in a blur. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

In my study at Rosengarden, writing one letter a day had become a habit. Instead of expensive paper, I used plenty of linen paper, and the key was sprinkling a little rose perfume on it.

Hilda loved that sort of thing.

She said the way I paid attention to little things made me an unbearably lovable man.

Back when I was single for life, I had never known the ache of an empty side. Now it was so cold it was practically a withdrawal symptom. Was this what it meant to miss someone you already missed? I really had it bad.

While I sent letters about everything that had been happening to Hilda back in Feuzen, I was also keeping plenty busy myself. With the decision to root out Prince Louis’s faction, Breisburg had grown very loud.

Louis was placed under house arrest on charges of framing the crown prince, but since he was sickly and rarely went out anyway, it could hardly be called a punishment. On top of that, he was vehemently denying the charges.

He was simply cut off from outside contact under the surveillance of the Imperial Knights.

The one who took the biggest blow from all of this was the crown prince.

Word came that he had shut himself away.

He had apparently begged the Grand Duke to release Louis and been thrown out for it.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of court nobles belonging to Prince Louis’s faction, with Viscount Dumarck at their head, couldn’t escape a large-scale purge. The arrested nobles alone numbered over fifty.

Adelbert had a list of them, and most were nobles who had borrowed money from the Finance Department or taken on odd jobs from it. Far from wielding influence, most were worrying about their next meal. That was the reality of poor nobles.

Not every noble was rich.

The court nobles in particular, given the limited number of positions available, lived in even more miserable conditions.

These men, who had nothing but their bloodline to their name, had developed inferiority complexes and bitter envy from their poverty, and they’d latched onto the rumors about me with enthusiasm. When the claim that the crown prince was a bastard reached its peak, they began to hope.

If the crown prince fell and the Prince Louis they backed rose to take his place, then maybe they too could land court positions and live in style. That hope had swelled in their chests. Then it was crushed without mercy.

The Grand Duke had told me, after all, that I could cut them down.

It turned out to be a more effective threat than I’d expected. Life was apparently precious enough that they gave up resistance when the Gale Knights showed up looking ready to actually kill them. Thanks to that, we’d arrested most of them within a week.

The Chief Justice, conducting the formal trials, marveled that this was the first time he’d ever judged so many nobles at once. Right now I was at the Judicial Department, hearing the progress on a favor I’d asked of the Chief Justice.

"You’re executing the Schwarz Wolves right now?"

"With all the uproar from arresting Prince Louis’s faction, the citizens are on edge."

The Gale Knights, along with the Inspector General’s direct unit that Adelbert had loaned us, had been rolling through the capital in heavy gear, sweeping up Louis’s nobles indiscriminately. Of course the citizens were rattled.

We’d prioritized speed over public sentiment.

The Grand Duke had authorized it, but at first the citizens had been terrified, thinking a coup was underway. As a result, consumer spending had shrunk and economic activity had slowed.

On top of that, we’d locked down the city gates even harder to keep the ringleaders from escaping.

Checkpoints naturally went up, and with the intensified inspections we caught another fifteen people right there. They were the ones who’d realized things were going south and tried to run.

The citizens were now under enormous stress. Through long experience, the Chief Justice knew exactly how to redirect their attention in moments like this.

"The best way to turn the citizens’ attention elsewhere is to lay out the crimes of vicious criminals in full detail and rouse public fury. When those criminals are executed, the citizens will be drunk on the catharsis."

Distracting people to relieve their discontent was a textbook political maneuver. Those in power treated it as a strategy, whether to boost approval ratings or muddy the waters during a crisis.

"And what does that have to do with the identity laundering?"

"You happen to want identity laundering for an executioner. Wouldn’t it be easiest to handle both at once?"

He seemed to be going for two birds with one stone, but I still couldn’t picture how. Then again, that was why identity laundering brokers existed. I’d heard they used methods ordinary people couldn’t even imagine.

"I still don’t understand why a man of your standing covets such lowborn people. If you weren’t an important figure, I never would have agreed to this."

"I’ll take that as the Judicial Department’s goodwill."

It would be a waste of time to argue that the executioner couple had excellent medical skills. This discrimination, rooted in deep faith, was despised by people of every disposition.

"Is this all you got out of the Schwarz Wolf interrogation?"

"We couldn’t extract much. I took over for the Judicial Minister, but the best I managed was a description of his features. What’s clear is that he doesn’t appear to be German."

"His appearance does seem closer to the Islamic regions."

Obviously, even in this era, Islamic and Christian powers were locked in bloody conflict. The fall of the legitimate Roman Empire, Byzantium, to the Ottomans had only sharpened the tension.

"My guess is that he’s a Jew from the east."

"A Jew? Are Jews divided by specific ethnicity?"

If someone who practiced Judaism was a Jew, wasn’t it strange to bring ethnicity into it on top of that? The Chief Justice estimated the man was probably a mixed-blood from the Balkans rather than from Arab lands.

The Chief Justice, like the executioners, didn’t hide his contempt for Jews. Every filthy, vile descendant of Judas deserved to die, in his view. That was the standard German perception of Jews in this era.

Because of social attitudes, I couldn’t get close to Jews, but I had no intention of shunning them either. Modern Israel had squandered the world’s sympathy for Jews, but that didn’t make their historical persecution justified.

Anyway, a wanted notice had gone out based on the sketch. I had no idea what kind of trouble the Jewish residents of Breisburg’s ghetto might suffer just for vaguely resembling the suspect.

"By any chance, could you find me someone qualified to serve as a magistrate in a rural village?"

"A rural village? You mean your estate?"

"I’m going to be away from my estate often, so I’m searching for talent for each department."

"You seem to be trying to replicate the four departments of the ducal government."

The Chief Justice had hit the nail on the head. I was planning to introduce a four-department system to dramatically reduce my workload. A lord who traveled as much as I did needed bureaucrats who could manage the estate in his absence.

As for disposition, all that mattered was finding someone competent with positive traits.

August, who was struggling with estate management, I planned to reassign to a military post overseeing the estate’s defense and standing army, where his specialty would shine. So the talent I was looking for now was for the administrative, judicial, and financial branches.

So much had been happening that I hadn’t had a moment to think about it, but I finally had some breathing room. Once the internal cleanup was done, I’d have to carry the Grand Duke’s letter to Marquis Offenburg, so this was my only window.