The next day, Becky hurriedly finished her breakfast and headed to the vegetable garden with her brother.
Tilling a patch overgrown with weeds was backbreaking labor, but fortunately, the skilled Rob had succeeded in repairing the plow, making the work much easier.
Having the mule pull the plow was far more efficient than picking out stones and overturning the soil by hand.
Jack the mule pulled the plow silently, just as he had pulled the wagon.
While the siblings worked with Jack to cultivate the garden, Joel spent his time sitting in the rocking chair Rob had fixed, playing with the baby in his belly.
“Little one, when are you going to start moving?”
Joel asked tenderly, stroking his stomach.
His nanny had once told him that when he was in his mother’s womb, he had wiggled around all day long.
He was especially active at night, and by the time his mother reached full term, she had become skin and bones from the lack of sleep.
His mother had suffered from extreme fatigue throughout her pregnancy, yet she was always joyful and grateful that her child was healthy.
He didn’t know what the Crown Prince had been like as a baby, but if the child took after Joel, they would surely move a lot.
Joel was incredibly curious about when he would feel the first flutter and what it would feel like.
He was entering his fourth month now, but aside from a slight protrusion in his lower abdomen, there were almost no physical changes.
It still didn’t quite feel real that there was a baby inside him.
Happily stroking his belly, Joel turned his gaze toward the window.
As he watched Becky and Rob struggling outside, the smile on his lips faded.
Having lived as the adopted son of Count Lucas, Joel was accustomed to being waited on by servants, but he found no joy in ordering Becky and Rob around.
Raised under the unassuming Lord Bennett, Joel originally had a very faint sense of class hierarchy.
Lord Bennett had treated his subjects with generosity and warmth; on various holidays, he would invite the commoners and household servants to banquets, mingling with them without reserve.
While this was partly to help the young Joel feel the absence of his late mother less acutely, it was a remarkably radical approach compared to other lords who treated their peasants like cattle or horses.
To Joel, the butler Wickham was like a grandfather, his nanny was like an aunt, and Robert was no different from an older brother.
Just as he felt the people of the estate were family, Joel felt like Becky and Rob were his younger siblings. He wanted to protect them and be of some help, however small.
Joel decided that in the evening, he would ask Becky for work.
In a situation where both supplies and manpower were scarce, he needed to pull his weight.
He also thought it would be good to teach Becky and Rob grammar, arithmetic, and etiquette when time permitted.
Becky could read and write, but Rob, like most commoners, was illiterate.
To avoid being looked down upon at a Lord’s Manor in the Kingdom of Palain, even a servant needed basic refinement.
After all, he was a talented individual who had received higher education at the Imperial Academy and had even signed a contract as a tutor for a foreign lord with a substantial salary.
He was more than qualified to teach the siblings himself.
Specifically, what he would teach them was…
Well…
“…Wait, what exactly can I teach those kids?”
Joel blinked blankly.
Geometry, philosophy, real estate… he had learned so much while staying in the capital, but looking back, he couldn’t remember a thing.
Even the etiquette that Count Lucas had hired a special tutor to drill into him had vanished from his mind.
Realizing how little was actually inside his head, Joel grew dejected.
He regretted not studying harder, but it was far too late for such thoughts.
“Still, my grammar and composition skills aren’t bad.”
Joel comforted himself and straightened his slumped shoulders.
In his desire to send beautiful love letters to the Crown Prince, Joel had never dozed off during grammar and composition classes at the Academy, even if he slept through everything else.
He had corrected his poor handwriting while having the back of his hand struck by an etiquette teacher, and he had immersed himself in literature to improve his lackluster writing style.
Thinking back, his past self had worked so hard to write those love letters to the Prince with his polished skills.
At the height of his infatuation, he had sent as many as ten letters a day.
Of course, the Crown Prince hadn’t read a single one.
Joel felt a sudden, bittersweet smile tug at his lips as he remembered the days he spent crying over bundles of letters returned with the elaborate wax seals unbroken.
Lost in these melancholy memories, a commotion suddenly broke out outside. Snapping out of it, Joel looked out the window.
Three men on horseback were shouting something at Becky and Rob.
They carried swords at their waists and wore vests embroidered with a crest that looked like a specific family seal.
Sensing something was wrong, Joel hurried up from his chair.
“…So, you’re saying we have to be issued a permit if we want to stay here?”
Joel repeated the man’s words in a bewildered tone.
The men who had intruded into the cottage were scouts.
It turned out that the cottage where Joel and the siblings were staying belonged to the estate of a nobleman named Baron Aster.
“That’s right. When the permit is issued, you must pay a fee of ten silver coins, so don’t forget to bring it. The Baron’s castle is about a half-day’s walk to the east. By the way… where did you people come from? You don’t look like you’re from a neighboring estate.”
The leader of the group eyed Joel suspiciously.
Fearing his identity might be revealed, Joel nervously spun a tale about having worked as a tutor in a distant barony and leaving after the lord’s children had grown up.
Fortunately, it seemed the missing person flyers hadn’t reached this far yet, as the men easily dropped their suspicion.
However, their interest soon shifted elsewhere.
“Is that so? Fine for now. Come to the manor tomorrow and tell the Lord yourself. But I saw earlier that you’ve planted something in the garden.”
“Pardon? Oh, we thought it was an abandoned field, so we planted a few peas and oats.”
It was Becky who stepped forward to answer.
Casting a glance at her, the man spoke to Joel in an overbearing tone.
“You must pay sixty percent of your harvest as land rent. Keep that in mind.”
At the man’s words, Joel and Becky exchanged looks of horror.
It was an unspoken rule that land rent, no matter how expensive, rarely exceeded half of the harvest.
After paying 60% in rent, followed by various other fees and taxes, there would be almost nothing left.
“My Lord, I apologize, but sixty percent seems far too excessive…”
Becky pleaded with the man, but he barked back fiercely, “Silence! This land and the plow originally belong to the Baron. If you want to use them, you must pay the proper price!”
He didn’t stop there, sauntering around the cottage and poking through their belongings.
“Did you fish in the river?”
The man asked, poking through the pot containing the fish stew.
Joel, who had gone to the river this morning to catch fish to save on supplies, spoke up with a sense of dread.
“Ah, yes…”
“Fishing in the river without the Lord’s permission carries a fine. Hand over three silver coins.”
Joel’s jaw dropped at the man’s absurd demand.
In the past, Lord Bennett had never once demanded payment for his people catching fish in the marshes.
It wasn’t as if they had caught a pheasant or a deer in the forest; demanding three silver coins for a few fish from a river was excessively cruel.
“I don’t have that much money.”
“Really? Then I’ll just take this ham.”
The man grinned and snatched the pork ham hanging in the kitchen.
They were already short on food; they couldn’t lose their most precious supply so pointlessly.
Joel tried to stop him, saying, “But that’s…!”, but he was forced to back down when the man’s lackeys threateningly rested their hands on their sword hilt.
The man, carrying the ham on his back, left with a gleeful warning: “If you’re late applying for the permit, you’ll be fined fifteen copper coins a day. Better not be late to the manor.”
“…I thought it was strange that such a decent house was left abandoned.”
Becky murmured quietly as she watched the scouts ride away.
When a lord’s exploitation became too severe, the powerless people had no choice but to abandon their homes and land and flee.
Standing beside her, Joel agreed weakly.
Before the joy of finding a home had even faded, another headache was already beginning.
