Chapter 329
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The filthy things began shoving and punching one another to get closer to Duchess Bayern.
‘…Was this what Grandfather prepared?’
Rebecca trembled as she covered her lips to hold back laughter.
“Rebecca, nothing else is necessary. You only need to pretend to be kind, just as Duchess Bayern did at the last event.”
She felt as though she understood why he had said that.
There was such a thing as the crime of insulting a noble.
This crime included both ‘words’ and ‘actions’.
Say one wrong word to a noble, or even brush against the hem of their clothes by mistake?
You would be put on trial.
To be precise, you would be put on a ‘trial where the outcome had already been decided’.
No matter how fair and impartial the judge holding the gavel was, Nesman followed the principle of legal evidence.
It meant that before evidence and testimony fabricated by those in power, the substantive truth could be rendered powerless as much as they pleased.
And there was no one who didn’t know this.
Merely making eye contact, coughing, or perhaps because something unpleasant had happened that day.
How many commoners had been sentenced to hard labor by nobles for trivial reasons, or vanished as dew on the execution grounds?
“Stand back! How dare you approach recklessly, before whom do you think you stand!”
“Do you want to be punished for insulting a noble?”
Look.
At the contempt and rage rising in the eyes of House Bayern’s guard knights.
The poor, who had shrunk back in fear for a moment, stupidly shouted in voices soaked with resentment.
“Didn’t the Duchess say she would give people like us houses!”
“She said she would give us fields and cows too!”
“She said she would give us money just for coming, so we came. How is that insulting a noble!”
Rebecca’s sneer deepened.
The more foolish people were, the easier they were to incite.
If they had any sense, they would know it was a ridiculous rumor, but look at them gathering in a pack and screaming.
‘Yes, keep causing a commotion.’
She was delighted by the situation descending into chaos.
As long as those filthy, diseased people rushed in like that, the guard knights would have no choice but to draw their swords.
‘If that happens, there will be no turning back.’
Pointing swords at the poor and punishing them for insulting a noble at a charity event, of all days?
No matter what the situation was, the reputation she had barely built would collapse in an instant.
Even if not, she would still have to take responsibility for a commotion breaking out at an Imperial event.
‘I did well to stay still, just as Grandfather told me.’
Just as her gleaming eyes shone bewitchingly while watching the poor swarm toward Nina like a pack of dogs.
“…Stop! Stop! Everyone, stop!”
A loud shout from someone within the filthy crowd changed the flow.
The guard knights of House Bayern and House Barrington blocked the path of those rushing in after losing their reason.
Shiiing.
With their swords half-drawn, they warned them by bringing up the crime of insulting a noble, but those who had gathered after believing only one rumor merely flinched for a moment.
They did not stop crying out in grievance.
Catherine embraced Nina to protect her and whispered.
“…I’m truly angry. No matter how merciful you are, Madam, how can they be so outrageous?”
“It isn’t as though we didn’t expect this.”
A person with common sense wouldn’t believe an absurd rumor floating around the slums.
That she would recklessly bestow houses, fields, cows, and money, such wealth, simply if they asked?
One might wonder who would believe that, but among the poor, there were many who were under-educated beyond imagination.
To the point that even a basic level of education would be enough to let them work for a high wage at a place like a trading company.
‘Or perhaps they’re people who want to believe it.’
People who found it difficult just to survive another day, or people who had no tomorrow.
“Still, if the person here weren’t you, Madam, they wouldn’t be acting this recklessly.”
Catherine was right.
If the other party had been someone else, the moment the knights blocked them, they would have scattered in all directions like a school of minnows.
No, they wouldn’t have been able to cry out in resentment like that in the first place.
Just as people only stretch out their legs after seeing where they can lie down, they were doing this because they believed in Nina’s reputation and actions.
Her merciful deeds of providing costly legal services free of charge, saving orphaned siblings, and not ignoring the death of a poor person, but calling a priest for them.
