The Weight of Reputation

It was a considerable time after Noren had departed from the main hall that Sir Kovan slowly roused himself from the Count’s throne, his eyes still half-lidded.

During the time he had feigned unconsciousness, he had carefully considered how best to manage the situation. The primary concern was no longer Claude’s death.

Instead, it was about salvaging the honor of the Count’s household knights and thereby preventing any damage to the Count’s reputation.

Triss, the maid’s illegitimate daughter, stepped forward to assist Sir Kovan. Having witnessed six knights felled by the golden-haired princess, she felt a complex mix of fear and admiration.

With a face etched with worry, Triss asked earnestly, “Father, are you alright?”

While Sir Kovan had merely been feigning unconsciousness, he was indeed unwell. He felt a tightness in his chest, and his blood pressure had certainly soared, infuriated by his own household knights.

Pushing away his daughter’s supportive hand and shedding his earlier guise of weakness, Sir Kovan strode with powerful, resolute steps to the center of the hall and declared loudly, “Before God, this duel is valid! I declare the maid Yasha innocent!”

No sooner had he finished speaking than a murmur of whispers spread through the crowd. The loudest dissent came from one of the household knights who had not participated in the fight.

“Kovan! This was clearly a massacre!” This particular household knight was the youngest among them, having only recently been a sergeant under the Count’s command. His valor in a recent witch hunt, where he had slain five enemies, had earned him a place among the Count’s noble knights.

Having just ascended to nobility, he was inclined to observe and deliberate before acting.

Thus, when the four knights had ganged up on Noren earlier, he had paused for a moment to think, only for the battle to conclude abruptly. This hesitation, inadvertently, had saved his life.

Sir Kovan frowned, offended that someone dared contradict him publicly. However, upon recognizing the new household knight, his expression softened. It was, after all, quite normal for a newcomer to be unfamiliar with the law.

Sir Kovan approached the newly appointed knight and whispered in his ear, “According to the Duchy’s laws, when two nobles hold opposing views on a judgment, the dispute can be resolved through a duel…”

“But this was clearly a massacre!”

“A massacre?! A group of knights massacred by a woman? Use your foolish mind! This was clearly a duel before God, one-on-one. If word gets out that ‘the Count’s knights ambushed an unsuspecting noblewoman and were then killed in retaliation,’ it would be a devastating blow to the Count’s prestige! Only by insisting that the knights were injured and died in a glorious duel can we avoid any adverse impact on the Count’s reputation!”

“But to be killed by a woman in a duel…”

“The outcome of a duel is always God’s will. To die in a duel merely indicates their lack of skill and does not implicate His Lordship the Count. However, if they were to abandon knightly honor and openly ambush a noblewoman, that would absolutely ruin the Count’s reputation. Do you understand what I’m saying, hmm?”

The new knight clicked his tongue, greatly astonished. He had never imagined such intricate layers to the affair.

It simply proved that Sir Kovan was truly worthy of being the “Handsome Lord’s” military steward, his mind always contemplating more than others.

The new knight’s tense expression eased, and he spoke, “I… understand… now.”

Sir Kovan nodded with satisfaction. At last, there was one knight with a modicum of sense.

Sir Kovan announced once more, “This duel, witnessed by God, began with Claude initiating the challenge. After Claude’s defeat, four other knights, dissatisfied with the outcome, successively issued their own challenges. The final result is… Yasha is innocent!”

“For or against?” Sir Kovan’s gaze, sharper than a hawk’s, swept across the assembly, and those it touched quickly averted their eyes, unwilling to meet his stare.

Now, the unruly knights either lay prostrate on the ground or had accepted his counsel, and not a single remaining guard or servant dared to challenge his authority.

“Ah! So that’s it! I was wondering why those four knights didn’t surround Miss Noren earlier, but instead charged at her one after another. It turns out they were dueling in sequence!”

Sir Kovan heard the thinly veiled sarcasm and turned back with a disgruntled expression, only to find Igor was the speaker.

Just as he was about to concoct a rebuttal, he heard a chorus of exclamations erupting from the surrounding crowd.

“I knew it! Why didn’t the old sirs surround her? So it really was a duel!”

“But that golden-haired lady is truly formidable, to be able to duel five knightly sirs consecutively!”

“So… Yasha isn’t a witch anymore? Ugh, how disappointing! One less bit of entertainment!”

“This…” Sir Kovan knew that brute force could not truly twist people’s perceptions. He had planned to dispatch several trusted confidantes after the assembly dispersed, to spread the narrative that this was a glorious duel, not a cowardly ambush.

Now, it seemed, such measures were unnecessary.

Sir Kovan gazed at Igor’s smiling face and suddenly felt that an alliance through marriage with Igor was an undeniably wise choice.

A crisis that could have severely damaged the Count’s reputation had been entirely defused by Igor’s few well-chosen words!

Just as Sir Kovan was about to dismiss the people in the hall, he heard Igor speak again.

“Sir Kovan, the murderer of my brother…?”

“Oh, right!” Sir Kovan slapped his forehead. He pointed to the servants who had seen Claude, excluding Yasha—and, of course, not his daughter, Triss.

“Throw them into the dungeon and interrogate them thoroughly!” Sir Kovan felt that, with matters having escalated to this point, there was no longer a need to publicly identify Claude’s killer. He was confident that under severe questioning, someone would confess.

Though Sir Kovan suspected Claude had likely died by his own brother’s hand, a marriage alliance was paramount. Igor was about to become his son-in-law, and how could he possibly expose his own future son-in-law?

Sir Kovan and Igor exchanged a knowing smile, and both nodded in silent understanding.

“Now that the misunderstanding has been cleared, Maid Ya… Head Maid!” Sir Kovan was about to instruct Maid Yasha to fetch Noren from the third-floor sitting room, but discovered the young maid had long since fainted.

“Go to the room on the third floor and invite Miss Noren here!”

No sooner had Sir Kovan finished giving his orders than Igor called out to him again.

Igor said, “Sir Kovan, Miss Noren has already left the castle!”

“Left?” Sir Kovan’s expression was one of astonishment. “Left for where? The North?”

Igor looked puzzled, stating in bewilderment, “What North? She’s obviously heading south, then east. Isn’t Opava to the east of Olomouc?”

“Opava?”

“Yes, that’s right! Opava!”

Sir Kovan froze, dumbfounded, his mouth slightly agape, his expression blank.

“Sir?” Igor waved a hand before Sir Kovan’s eyes.

“Damn it!!” Sir Kovan let out a guttural howl, pounding his chest and stamping his foot. “My Provence wine!”

Svein! It was that Svein after all!

That golden-haired woman wasn’t a princess at all; she was a Northman from Opava!

No wonder the golden hair, no wonder the cold allure, no wonder the formidable strength!

A Northman, of all things!

Sir Kovan was filled with bitter regret. He had paid a hefty sum for that bottle of Provence wine, only for it to be consumed by a Northman.

He quickly regained his composure. However… this incident still had to be officially declared a “duel.”

Firstly, to his knowledge, even the Northmen of Denmark had long since converted to Christianity. A duel before God was a method for Christians to resolve noble disputes internally. Since Noren was a Christian and a noble, he was compelled to acknowledge it as a “duel.”

Had she been a pagan, things would have been simpler. The knights’ group attack would have been a righteous assault, and even if Noren fled, he would have ample justification to lead an army to apprehend her.

Unfortunately, the Northmen had long converted to Christianity.

Secondly, the Northmen of Opava posed a far greater threat than a distant kingdom in the Empire’s north. Even if a princess died in the castle, those distant northern dukes would be beyond reach, making an attack on Olomouc Castle impossible.

But the Northmen of Opava were different; they were close at hand. A group could stealthily arrive outside the castle in merely ten days to half a month. The “Handsome Lord’s” household knights numbered less than twenty, and the castle guards less than thirty. How could they possibly defend against a band of well-equipped, bloodthirsty, and valiant Northmen?

To conscript knights and soldiers for defense… if the Northmen launched a surprise attack, by the time the conscripted forces arrived, the castle would have long been ransacked and its inhabitants slaughtered!

It was well known that a mere decade or so ago, those Northmen had effortlessly slain Magyar Tatars ten times their number. A century earlier, even Paris Castle, far more resilient, taller, with more soldiers, and better equipped than Olomouc, had nearly fallen into the hands of the Northmen!

“Phew—thank God!” Sir Kovan exclaimed, lamenting how God loved to toy with fate. He waved his hand at the people in the hall, “You may all disperse!”

The crowd gradually exited.

Sir Kovan called out to Igor, who was about to leave through the main doors, and smiled amiably, “Perhaps we should…”

With that, Sir Kovan gestured with his finger in a certain direction.

Igor followed the direction of his gaze, where a beautiful young woman stood, lips pursed and brows lowered, her face flushed with a subtle blush, occasionally stealing glances at him.

Igor smiled, “Agreed!”