As the weather grew colder, life slowed down as well.
By November, the people of Wessen Territory only had one more task to finish before settling in for the winter: paying rent and taxes.
Like elsewhere, Wessen Territory collected rent twice a year, after the summer and autumn harvests. In summer, they collected only grain. In autumn, they also collected various miscellaneous taxes, goods such as cloth, and, on a rotating basis, vegetables, meat and eggs, dairy products, firewood, and more.
Starting on November 1, after arranging all the necessary work, Frederick toured the territory with tax official Neuer to inspect tax collection.
Frederick's father had never been good with numbers, so he had folded all the farmers' taxes except the head tax into a single thirty-percent rent, greatly simplifying the tax officials' work.
That day, the Young Master and the tax official arrived in Pea Village to inspect the work.
When the autumn harvest began, the tax officials had already selected several fields in the village to measure the average yields of oats, barley, and various beans. Then they calculated the rent owed based on the amount of land listed in each tenancy agreement.
Frederick called over an older tax official who had been responsible for the surrounding villages for many years and asked how this year's harvest had gone.
"This year's autumn harvest was a little worse than last year's," the tax official replied. "There was little rain in spring and summer, so the oats didn't grow as tall as last year, and the beans didn't yield as much."
Frederick asked for the figures and did a quick calculation. The yield was down about six percent, which was just about acceptable.
Tax collection in the village had gone on unchanged for decades, and was now proceeding smoothly. There