Chapter 423: Servant of the Night

Firearms were easier to handle than bows, but because of the expensive powder, the finicky maintenance, and the hopelessly slow loading, medieval people had initially treated them as weapons lacking tactical value.

Cannons had been far more influential than guns.

Decisive weapons for smashing down castle walls.

Guns had been shunned because no suitable tactics had emerged to employ gunners efficiently, but now that paradigm was slowly shifting in the wake of this small battle. And at its center was Vintenheim.

"They say if you handle a gun well, you can kill even the strongest man in one shot."

"Isn’t that true of any weapon? Get cut by a sword and you die just the same."

"Idiot! If you fight a strong man with a sword, it’s weaklings like us who die! The gunners were saying that if you aim and fire, you can kill even a strong man in a single shot!"

"Really? Well, I suppose that’s how they wiped out those terrifying mercenaries."

The defining feature of firearms was simple.

One shot for you, one shot for me.

It was a weapon that let even a peasant kill a mounted knight with a single shot. People didn’t yet realize that an age had arrived in which an untrained peasant could kill a knight who had trained his whole life.

That was largely because the Church and the knights had gone around calling gunpowder weapons wicked tools that belched the devil’s smoke, souring the public’s perception of them. And knights hated guns for punching through their armor so easily.

I had a territory and a wife to protect, not some age of chivalry or romance, so to me it was an excellent weapon. So, as it turned out, the spread of firearms was being led by a knight.

As the gunners who had won an overwhelming victory played the role of propagandists, perceptions of firearms slowly changed. Guns became the talk not only of the people of Vintenheim but of the construction workers and dockworkers too.

"Hey, friend. If they recruit gunners, would you sign up?"

"Only men with no family would apply. Don’t try to talk me into it."

"Not a single gunner died in this battle, and even commoners like us get honor out of it."

"You dolt, you’d leave your family behind and die for honor?"

"The pay is three silver coins a month, plus combat bonuses and a share of the spoils, and they even provide the equipment. There’s a payment for the families of the fallen too. Isn’t that a dream job?"

"Three silver coins a month and equipment provided? Damn, really? I’d better sign up right away!"

So now the poor administrator was being flooded with inquiries about when gunner recruitment would begin.

The trigger was a small battle, but the change would become a great storm.

"I’ll concentrate patrols along Vintenheim’s northern border."

"I’m asking a great deal of you, in the dead of winter."

"That’s my duty. You do your job, my lord."

Viktor grinned and mounted his horse. Drek sulked at being pulled away from the drink and meat. That fellow seemed to have become Viktor’s right-hand man rather than my vassal.

After sending off the main force of the Gale Knights, I considered returning to Rosenheim but decided to keep watch a while longer. Some fools might come looking for a fight. With that in mind, I rode out on patrol in the frost for the first time in a long while.

But as I made my rounds through the streets of Vintenheim, a few women standing in the alleys caught my eye. Their clothes were ordinary, but wasn’t that yellow ribbon a kind of marker?

"Anton, those women aren’t what I think they are, are they?"

"They’re prostitutes, all right. Probably came up from Breisburg."

With construction workers and dockworkers from outside pouring in so rapidly, demand for prostitution was bound to surge as well. But I hadn’t expected women to already be plying the trade without a license.

So I summoned the administrator.

"I saw prostitutes on the streets. Why didn’t you report this to me?"

"Pardon? Well, would a lord of your standing concern himself with prostitutes?"

The administrator asked, looking bewildered. This fellow had judged me by his own yardstick again. When I scowled at him, he realized his mistake and grew flustered.

"I’m sorry, my lord! I thought a report about prostitutes might offend you..."

"I think highly of your work, but I’d rather you not go out of your way to spare my feelings."

"I-I’ll keep that in mind."

In any medieval city, prostitutes were a common sight. The problem was that the pimps who controlled them were very often tied to criminal organizations.

Vintenheim had already had one round of trouble with public order because of the influx of laborers. And I couldn’t keep Anton stationed here forever; I intended to withdraw him eventually.

So there was a very high chance those organizations would cause trouble the moment security weakened. That was the public order problem I was worried about. Should I hire more guards and post them on every street?

If Britz developed into an entertainment district, a brothel district would naturally follow, and I’d have to spend even more to maintain order. The cost was no problem, but it wasn’t a simple matter.

Some kind of systematic management was needed. Come to think of it, the Night Guild controlled the brothel district in Breisburg. I recalled the guildmaster’s name being Münster von Kösfeldt.

Wasn’t he the third son of a fallen knightly family of the duchy?

"Hmm, maybe leaving it entirely to the Night Guild wouldn’t be bad."

"Pardon? The Night Guild? You mean those men who rule the brothel district?"

"If we hand management over to them and focus only on public order, we could actually save money. We can’t stop a brothel district from springing up anyway. But as lord, I can’t stand by and let unvetted men take control of it. Send a letter to the Night Guild in my name immediately."

Even in modern times, legalized prostitution is a hot-button issue.

The controversy was the same in the medieval era. The Church, most notably, despised prostitutes and routinely preached that these sinful, filthy harlots were bound for purgatory.

Ironically, one of the local church’s biggest sources of income was the offerings of those same poor prostitutes. The belief that they could atone through those offerings was their spiritual pillar.

After dismissing the administrator, I spoke to Anton.

"The monks of the Bishopric of Lanseh will be quite pleased."

"Wouldn’t they be upset about a brothel district springing up?"

"Just the opposite. It’s an open secret that thirty percent of the Breisburg brothel district’s income comes from the monks’ purses. If a brothel district opens up nearby, the monks will welcome it."

"Oh, Lord! Good heavens! Such disgraceful behavior!"

Anton, a devout believer, made the sign of the cross. I’d known for ages that the monks condemned prostitution to people’s faces while indulging in it behind closed doors, so I thought nothing of it, but for Anton it was a shock.

That’s why the streets were overflowing with the bastards of nobles and monks. Half the criminals in the slums were bastards by birth. That was why bastards and criminals were seen as one and the same.

Bodo had been one of them, but he was a rare case who showed what a true reversal of fortune looked like. Even while working as a prostitute, Bodo’s mother had somehow raised him well enough to keep him off the path of crime.

His present glory was entirely thanks to his mother’s devotion. Thinking back now, laying Bodo’s mother to rest in the church was absolutely the right thing to do. I’d given a great deal in offerings to the local parish, but I didn’t begrudge a single coin.

Beort, the estate manager of Vintenheim, wasn’t opposed to establishing a pleasure district. He didn’t welcome it either, but he understood it was unavoidable. There was, however, another issue.

"The bigger a city grows, the more inevitable a pleasure district becomes. But the existing residents don’t seem to welcome it at all, so how about concentrating it on the outskirts?"

"Better to build the district around Britz altogether."

Markus looked ready to sell his very soul for his materials, so he wouldn’t object to a brothel district either. Men could enjoy drink and women together, so for them it would be a true city of pleasure.

Hmm, a smelly city of pleasure, but the same went for Breisburg.

I wasn’t keen on it, but this wasn’t something even a lord could prevent, so it was better to control it. That’s how frightening instinct is. It’s the same logic as trying to control plundering after a battle.

A few days later, the guildmaster of the Night Guild came to call in person.

"Thank you for summoning this lowly servant of the night."

"It’s been a while. How have you been since that incident?"

"Nothing special, other than keeping an eye out for crackdowns by the bureaucrats."

Breisburg’s brothel district was still thriving, and demand never let up. It could be called the dark underside of society, but light and dark coexisting was simply the way of the world.

In any case, my relationship with the Night Guild’s master couldn’t be called particularly good. We had become entangled when I dug into the collusion between the slums and the bureaucrats that the Finance Minister had tried to hide.

"I’m planning to authorize a pleasure district in Britz."

"You’ll entrust the district to our guild?"

"Something like this should be left to experts. But all illegal activity is forbidden. I will never permit human trafficking or trapping women in fraudulent debt to force them into prostitution."

"That’s illegal in Breisburg as well, but since everything here is a fresh start, our Night Guild will thoroughly establish the rules of the district according to your wishes, my lord."

Münster seemed to see this as an opportunity.

I could sense firm resolve in his eyes.