A Crusader with System in the Middle Ages

The citizens recalled the days of the Marquis’s rule, a memory both strange and familiar.

They wisely avoided mentioning the Knights’ looting, for by the conventions of war, everything within a captured city that had refused to surrender belonged to the Knights.

They directed their accusations primarily at the Patulin Sect. They claimed the Sect had bewitched them and seized their property in God’s name. They insisted that, under the Patulin Sect’s intimidating influence and out of fear, they had been forced to kill innocent citizens who opposed them.

They pleaded with Eric, the God-guided Norman Knight and Earl of England, to grant them justice out of God’s mercy. They begged him to pardon those who had erred out of helplessness and requested that, through the Power of the just and magnanimous Normans, the property seized from them by the Patulin Sect be returned.

They also thoughtfully and humbly added that they were willing to offer half of that property as payment for the Normans’ services.

Belem was about to haggle. As far as he was concerned, he wasn’t willing to give back a single Farthing.

According to feudal obligation, of all spoils plundered by Knights and soldiers, one-third belonged to the King, one-third to their liege Count, and the remaining third was for the individual.

However, Eric stopped him. Some matters didn’t need to be so clear-cut.

After all, there were no specific records for either returning property or providing compensation, and many citizens would be unable to prove what they owned.

This left a great deal of room for maneuver. Besides, the citizens probably didn’t expect to get everything back; they just wanted enough to sustain their lives and their former businesses.

Eric didn’t mind showing a degree of mercy. It would demonstrate that he was here to rule the city, not merely to plunder it.

Moreover, there weren’t many citizens left in Piacenza—fewer than two thousand, which was barely more than the number of soldiers in Eric’s army. In normal times, the city’s population was usually over five thousand.

Once the resolution on returning property was settled, Eric concluded the day’s hearings, as night had already fallen.

Eric decided to patrol Piacenza on horseback, making a symbolic show of maintaining order. He intended to take this city for himself; its proximity to the border of the Tuscan Duchy would make it convenient to control.

He also invited Jesuade. The Cultivator seemed to be very knowledgeable, and the feeling was mutual. Jesuade also felt that Eric knew a great deal, though their expertise lay in different realms: one in secular matters, and the other in theology.

Belem eagerly tagged along, his mind racing. ’He must have found something... another hoard of Gold and Silver Coins, perhaps?’

They came across an English soldier looting the home of a tanner—a smelly fellow with an ugly wife and three small children.

At first, the soldier had intended to force himself on the woman, but after he’d dropped his trousers, he took one look at her face and recoiled in shock.

The Knights had priority when it came to plunder, so the common soldiers could only pick over what the Knights left behind or hadn’t found yet. But Piacenza was practically empty, so they were doing their best to find some "fun" to soothe their wounded spirits.

For the citizens, it was torment. Yet even in such dreadful circumstances, some people always found a way to live well.

Eric and his companions found a tavern with its lights still on. Inside, there was food, drink, and warmth. A shrewd, middle-aged widow had cleverly protected her property and her daughters by welcoming the first soldiers with free food and beer. Then, she had unabashedly scolded them for tracking dirt on her floor.

She was currently shouting at the soldiers, though few of them could understand what she was saying.

When Eric and Belem walked in, a drunken soldier bellowed at them that the woman and her daughters were not to be disturbed.

For his insolence, Belem rewarded him with a slap. The man was so drunk he barely felt it. The soldier collapsed to the floor and let out a lingering, boozy belch.

Eric waved his hand, signaling for everyone in the tavern to relax. He then helped himself to a plate of bread, eggs, and cheese, placing a few Silver Coins on the counter.

"’He’s quite a handsome young man,’ the widow said to her daughters, who giggled in response."

Eric turned and pretended to size up the widow’s daughters. "Believe me, they are the most beautiful girls in Milan," he said to the widow, deliberately speaking in French, "because they take after you, my beautiful lady."

The patently false compliment sparked a wave of laughter, easing the tension in the tavern.

The men in the tavern took a liking to Eric, the Earl. He put them at ease, and the presence of the Cultivator in his robes made their group seem more approachable.

Outside the tavern, there was only sorrow and weeping, but inside, it was warm and friendly.

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