"Here you are, sir. Your loyalty card."
Armand accepted from the restaurant owner what he would later call "the greatest trap in the world."
The restaurant's loyalty card was a wooden plaque. The front displayed the name and address of the establishment, while the back had a grid of ten columns and five rows. Four of the ten squares in the first row had been stamped with a heated seal.
Presenting the card at the restaurant earned a ten percent discount. Every time he spent one silver Kreuzer, another square was marked. Once he filled a row, he earned an additional ten percent discount on top of the original ten percent.
That wasn't the problem. The problem was that when the prices of various dishes, desserts, and drinks on the menu were added together, spending just two or three Kreuzers always left him with change exceeding fifty copper coins. He couldn't help adding a few dozen more copper coins to make it up to one Kreuzer and earn another point.
At first, Armand hadn't given it much thought. He had always spent money whenever he felt like it and never worried about things like this.
He hadn't noticed, either, that an invisible, intangible devil was whispering in his ear, "Just one more point will bring you closer to a discount," until he found himself unconsciously adjusting the price of his dinner to four Kreuzers and twenty copper coins.
Before he left, the restaurant owner even gave him a loyalty card for a nearby jewelry shop.
The owner's years of experience told him that this young man was surely from a wealthy, influential family. That shop, which specialized in jewelry for young ladies, would be perfect for him.
By the time Armand left the restaurant, night had fallen.
Armand and his two attendants were staying at the inn across the street from the restaurant, but he didn't feel like going back to bed yet.
He spotted a tavern nearby and decided to go in and sit for a while. Taverns were good places to pick up news, so he told his attendants to go and do as they pleased.
There were quite a few people inside. He found a seat, looked over the drinks menu, and ordered the most expensive set.
Not long afterward, he stared in bewilderment at the plates of snacks before him. The few little bow-shaped rolls, each about half a palm wide, were understandable, and there weren't many of them, but the smoked meat, sliced sausages, and pork aspic made him think this was supposed to be dinner.
The beer here was good. After two sips, he was already fond of it.
Armand leaned back in his chair, putting on a bored expression as he listened carefully to the conversations at the nearby tables.
Two bits of news caught his attention. The first was that sales of steel in Wessen Territory would be restricted starting tomorrow. He had already heard about that in the afternoon. The second was that Baron Weissen was gathering carriages and recruiting people. No one had said why, but the pay was good, and it sounded as though they were going on a long journey.
Before he could hear anything more, a sudden cheer went up in the tavern. A traveling singer carrying a six-string guitar walked to a corner and sat on a tall stool set aside for performers.
The singer seemed quite famous. All the men in the tavern fell silent.
The guitar rang out, and Armand gave a slight nod before taking a sip of his beer.
He knew his music, and the man was certainly skilled.
First came several traditional local folk songs about warriors in battle. The music and singing vividly conveyed the ferocity of the fighting, reminding Armand of the first time he had charged on horseback toward the Risenburg Army.
The audience was all men, and the mood quickly grew lively.
Then the tune suddenly changed, its style entirely unlike the traditional songs. Armand found it hard to adjust to, but the tavern's atmosphere instantly grew feverish.
"Rise up and sing!
We will surely triumph!
Our banners are marching forward,
Come, march forward with them!
You will see voices ringing out and banners flying,
The dawn of victory,
Announcing the arrival of a new age."
All the tavern-goers stood up, raised their mugs, and stamped their feet as they sang together: "The Rhine People will never be crushed."
Armand froze for a moment. He didn't stand up right away, and several people gave him cold looks.
Not long after he had no choice but to stand, he found himself swept up in the atmosphere. By the end of the next chorus, he was raising his mug, stamping his feet, and singing along with the Rhine People.
Those same cold looks had warmed. A few bearded men didn't hold his Gaulish accent against him. They came over, clinked mugs with him, and drained them in one go.
Armand finished his beer, feeling a little strange. The song praised Count Henry von Weissen, eleven knights, and more than two hundred soldiers who had died together on the battlefield, while he himself came from an enemy country.
But there was another, stranger feeling within him. Perhaps it was because he admired Count Henry von Weissen's bravery, fearlessness, and loyalty. In that moment, he felt a sense of kinship with these Rhine People he had never met before.
"Rise up singing battle songs! Let the waves swell higher and higher!
Without a new battle, where will the future come from?
But only united can we defeat our enemies,
Fight side by side, and tomorrow we'll be the victors."
The tavern next rang with the song "United Rhine People Will Never Be Crushed."
At first, Armand hadn't been used to the new musical style, but young people adapted quickly. He was gradually getting used to it now, and before long he thought it was pretty good and joined in.
He began to understand what the song meant. They had lost the last war, and the Rhine People needed a new war and a victory to restore their strength.
However, after that war, the Rhine Alliance and the Kingdom of Gaul had signed a twenty-year peace treaty. The next war would probably be fought somewhere else.
"Just because he is human,
He also needs something to eat,
But he was driven from his home,
Wessen Territory welcomes him,
Brothers, come here quickly,
Join the great family of Wessen Territory,
Because you are human, too.
Just because you are human, too,
You also need shoes and clothes,
But you encountered William,
Wessen Territory welcomes you,
Sisters, come here quickly,
Join the great family of Wessen Territory!"
The singing in the tavern suddenly grew solemn. Armand felt as if he were in a church, listening to the finest choir in all of Gaul—or even the whole world.
That feeling had nothing to do with singing technique. It came from the singers' hearts.
At that moment, Armand was deeply shaken.
He understood very well that the song was about the tens of thousands of refugees who were about to be driven into Wessen Territory, and that this was why he had come, too.
In his view, as in the view of many others, Wessen Territory would surely be on high alert, seal all its borders, and refuse entry to the refugees or drive them away as much as possible.
Yet he realized that every outsider had been wrong. From Baron Weissen down to the common people, no one in Wessen Territory saw the refugees as a flood of ferocious beasts. Instead, they reached out to them as brothers and sisters who had suffered.
What kind of spirit was this?
What kind of generosity was this?
What sort of land was Wessen Territory, that it could bring forth such beautiful flowers of kindness?
Armand couldn't understand.