The Murderous Duke's Domestic Affairs - Chapter 9

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 9
I glanced at Aster across from me. In gratitude for recovering her jewels, she had asked to learn from me, and so each evening the two of us had taken to something resembling lessons. Though calling it a lesson was generous—we were merely revisiting topics that had once dominated political and economic discourse.
He had been a renowned military commander, and his reputation as a soldier was no mere fabrication; his mind was sharp and quick to comprehend. Yet converting the rigid mindset of a lifelong soldier into that of a lord proved far more challenging than anticipated.
“That’s precisely why you needn’t be so severe about it.”
A sigh threaded through my words. Aster, his expression stern, lowered the newspaper clipping he had been reading moments before. It contained an old article about several peasants who had embezzled funds and goods meant for their lord. I had asked Aster how he would punish them, and he had answered that their assets should be confiscated and they imprisoned.
And that remark was his response to my suggestion. No need to be so harsh. By military law, his answer was correct. But what else was he supposed to do? He knew no standard beyond military law.
“Did you read this part?”
My slender finger pressed upon a section of the paper. Aster’s eyes followed the tip of my finger. After confirming the content, he nodded. His golden hair swayed with the motion. His green eyes rolled toward me.
“In summary?”
“The tax rate was so high that survival was difficult, and with a seriously ill family member, they resorted to crime.”
I nodded. Though the article was lengthy with testimony from neighbors, that was its essence.
“I’m no soldier and don’t claim expertise, but I suspect you’re correct by military law. However, that peasant isn’t a soldier, is he? You must consider why such things happen. A lord must ensure such circumstances never arise in the first place.”
Aster read the article once more. A small sound escaped him. His eyes, fixed upon me, glimmered briefly.
“Lower the tax rate and provide care for the ill. That should suffice.”
“Exactly. That is what a lord must do.”
I smiled softly. The gentle curve of my eyes narrowing was pleasant to behold. Somehow, I managed him well. I was a good teacher—one who knew how to wait until he found the answer himself, generous with praise.
“But something troubles me.”
“What is it?”
“The tax rate set by imperial law isn’t particularly high, yet why do people resort to embezzlement when the rate is supposedly excessive?”
Aster crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. His brow furrowed as he tilted his head. A good question. I had thought him versed only in military law, yet he demonstrated understanding of basic imperial law as well. He must have been studying diligently, poring over documents all this while. I nodded.
“There exists something called territorial law. A lord may adjust the tax rate at his discretion.”
I presented him with the second page of the newspaper article. The lord of that region had, as Aster suggested, confiscated the peasant’s assets and imprisoned him. Yet the people, worn down by oppressive taxation, would endure no longer. The village representative walked for days to reach the Imperial Palace. The Emperor, who championed generosity toward his subjects, received them personally and heard their pleas. And the Emperor’s judgment fell upon the lord—Iron Hammer would be dispatched.
Iron Hammer, the Emperor’s own knight order, rode swiftly to surround the lord’s manor. The imprisoned peasants were released, and the lord was forced to his knees before the people. The commander of Iron Hammer gathered the masses and proclaimed the Emperor’s decree: the lord, guilty of raising taxes arbitrarily and oppressing his subjects, would be stripped of his title and his territory confiscated.
The Emperor appointed the commander of Iron Hammer as temporary lord to oversee the territory. He also granted the people several years of tax exemption. The peasants wept with joy. Throughout the empire, the Emperor’s virtue and wisdom were lauded.
The second article detailed these events in full. Aster read through it, his eyes narrowed.
“This happened when I was at the Military Academy. I remember it because Iron Hammer rarely mobilizes.”
He murmured in a low voice, and something seemed to displease him. His brow furrowed darkly. There was no reason for it. When Aster’s eyes met mine as I tilted my head, his lips twisted.
I suddenly recalled our first meeting in this manor. His usual crooked smile had always been present, yet compared to then, his gaze seemed somewhat softer now. Surely not. It must be my imagination. Fearing he might notice my thoughts, I hastened to speak.
“Rarely mobilizes? But they’re directly under the Emperor, aren’t they? I’ve heard they achieved great deeds in the war.”
“Achievements are merely a matter of presentation.”
At his melancholic words, I found myself unable to respond. Aster and the forces he commanded had fought at the forefront of every battle. Yet because he had inherited his dukedom before coming of age and lacked political backing, and because most of his army consisted of commoners, they had nearly been robbed of their rightful credit without a word of protest. It was the Previous Marquis Siaz—my father—who prevented that.
“I may have my dukedom and territory, but my subordinates’ lives are determined by their achievements. It was unbearable that I couldn’t provide proper compensation to those who fought alongside me.”
So he had even begun planning to use his personal wealth to compensate them, Aster murmured with narrowed eyes. I found myself staring at him blankly. He was smiling at me. The bitter undertone was no different than usual, yet this smile was one I had never seen before.
“Had the Marquis not existed, I could never have properly compensated those who risked their lives fighting at my side. I owe your father a debt I can never repay.”
I bowed my head. It was not I who should receive such gratitude. But my father is no longer here. I cannot even convey his thanks. The absence of my parents, which I had deliberately avoided thinking about, crashed over me like a tide at the sound of Aster’s low voice.
There was no time to be consumed by belated sorrow. I steadied my heart with a silent breath. I needed to change the subject. Now that I thought about it, something in his story troubled me.
“…What about that Iron Hammer incident you mentioned? Did they also steal someone else’s achievements?”
Aster laughed and shrugged. The gesture itself was his answer. My face darkened.
“Truly?”
“I have no reason to lie.”

Lauren knew well enough that he wasn’t the type to lie. Her reflexive question had simply been a reaction to a story too difficult to believe. The Iron Hammer was the Emperor’s personal guard knight order. Having achieved great military honors in war, the commander and vice-commander of the order had been granted vast territories, and the sons of noble houses had seen their ranks elevated or received new titles altogether. But if those rewards were the result of seizing what others deserved, what had those who risked their lives and charged ahead of everyone else on the battlefield been fighting for?
Aster rose from his seat. He retrieved a bottle of liquor from the cabinet, poured it into a glass, and drained it in one gulp. Lauren said nothing, simply watching him. He refilled his glass and leaned against the window. Looking up at the sky where stars were beginning to fall, Aster drew a slow breath. His shoulders rose and fell heavily.
“It’s pathetic. I should have stood and fought, but I didn’t know how to do anything.”
His low voice, murmured toward the window, seeped into her ears.
“I wanted to use my personal fortune to support my people. I couldn’t give them honor, but I wanted to make their lives at least a little more comfortable.”
There was only one reason commoners without military records went to war: to survive. Honor meant nothing to them.
Lauren gazed quietly at Aster’s back. Perhaps he simply didn’t know the method, but he might have been thinking similarly to her father and herself. He wanted his people to live well, didn’t want to see them suffer. That’s why he’d considered exhausting his personal wealth. Unlike other nobles.
House of Siaz was a lower nobility with a small territory. Perhaps because of this, Lauren’s life had been close to the territory’s people. As a child, she’d played in the playground with the children of the territory, and naturally attended school with them too. In Siaz Territory under the Marquis’s rule, anyone with the will to learn could study, commoner or not. Even the previous Marquis’s aide who worked in the Imperial City had been a commoner.
Lauren learned much later that other territories didn’t operate this way. The lives of commoners she’d encountered in her relatives’ territories had been harsh. Those who couldn’t read a single character, talented individuals unable to flourish. Seeing lords praised simply for keeping their people from starving, Lauren felt as though the world she knew had collapsed.
It was this realization that had made young Lauren decide to learn her father’s work. Friends she’d grown up playing with from childhood. Teachers who always greeted her with smiling faces at school. Market merchants welcomed her as the lord’s daughter and pressed sweets into her hands, while farmers thrust armfuls of fruits and crops at her, more than she could carry, urging her to take them home and eat. Despite the territory’s poverty, she’d never felt lacking—it was all thanks to them. Those called ‘commoners,’ with whom she lived side by side.
Her father always said that House of Siaz had become lords through luck rather than merit. Though divided by the names ‘noble’ and ‘commoner,’ they were all the same people. Therefore, protecting their smiling faces was what a lord should do.
Aster’s heart, which sought to compensate ‘his people’ even by exhausting his personal wealth, was no different from hers and her father’s desire to protect those ‘smiling faces.’
Lauren’s expression darkened as she lost herself in thought. In the future she’d imagined, she was always the lord of Siaz Territory. Marriage or no marriage mattered little. She couldn’t imagine herself as anything other than a lord. But now, Lauren had left the territory and stood at Aster’s side.
After her parents passed away suddenly, her Uncle had stripped her of her title—a man who had never once performed the duties of a lord. Even during their brief time together, he and his faction had been obsessed with erasing the memory of the previous Marquis, never once thinking to properly govern the territory.
How were the territory and its people faring now?
Lauren found herself thinking of this only now. She realized, anew, that it was far too late.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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