Ennoblement

"Gawain, now it was my turn."

The Green Chapel was surrounded by lush vegetation. Even the crucifix of the suffering Son was hidden deep within it. The Green Knight looked at the young man kneeling before him with his head extended, then raised his axe without hesitation and brought it down.

The scene ended. Arthur's nephew, Sir Gawain, fell into a pool of blood.

"No, no!"

Gawain jolted awake in bed, his forehead drenched in sweat. He frantically felt his neck, and the moment he found his head still attached, he was instantly relieved.

It had been two or three days since Gawain had cut off the Green Knight's head at Arthur's court banquet. These past few days, he had often had nightmares: dreams in which he kept his promise, arrived at the Green Knight's Green Chapel, and stretched out his head for the Green Knight to strike.

And then there was nothing after that.

He had had this nightmare for several days in a row. What had happened that night at Arthur's court felt almost like a dream to him.

Except it was not a dream. He could vaguely hear people throughout Camelot's streets and alleys telling tales of his legend, giving him an intense sense of unreality.

Puppet shows reenacting his duel with the Green Knight were being staged one after another across the land. In an instant, he had become a hero in the eyes of children.

Compared with the long-famous Knights of the Round Table, Gawain was more like a child himself, so he was naturally more popular with children.

By now, Gawain had received more than a hundred love letters from noble ladies. More people were courting him than there were Knights of the Round Table.

By all rights, he should have overcome the fear in his heart and begun a brand-new life.

At this point, he possessed fame, glory, achievements, and status. He had reached the pinnacle of life and was fully qualified to become a political figure of considerable importance in Arthur's dynasty.

Yes, it was that easy.

Soon, he would receive a notice from Camelot's court and report there for duty. He just did not know where he would be assigned.

Although Camelot was a powerful kingdom, it was still only a medieval state.

What characterized an early medieval kingdom? It was ruled by tribal chieftains. Aside from the Kingdom of Camelot's unique Knights of the Round Table, its political structure was fundamentally no different from that of Gawain's father, King Lot.

Arthur was the king of Camelot, and Camelot was the capital of the Kingdom of Camelot. Naming the entire nation after its capital had a precedent in the once-glorious Roman Empire.

In later generations, there would be a country called Mexico, which also named itself after its capital, Mexico, in order to proclaim itself the Roman Empire of the Americas.

Arthur's lofty ambitions had been apparent from the time Camelot was founded, but that still could not change the court's rudimentary institutions.

In a medieval feudal state, the king and nobles naturally governed together. This was no exception in any country in Europe.

How to deal with those nobles who had once been kings but were now granted titles such as "duke" and "baron" became a longstanding problem.

At first, Arthur had stayed far away from those nobles and quietly cultivated his lands to build strength. Once he had become strong enough, he began controlling them. After conquering north and south and unifying Britain, he established a rather fragile feudal relationship with them as lord and vassals.

Faced with dukes who already possessed semi-independent power in Britain and powerful barons, Arthur elevated large numbers of knights and Knights of the Round Table after ascending the throne. He scattered their fiefs throughout the land to monitor the nobles' movements.

If Scotland had a powerful territorial noble, placing only one Knight of the Round Table's fief there might be somewhat insufficient. In that case, Arthur would arrange for a second Knight of the Round Table nearby.

Although the fiefs of the Knights of the Round Table were small, they monitored the nobles in the king's name and represented Camelot's legitimacy. At the same time, relying on the knights' martial strength allowed Arthur's authority to reach those regions.

Unless the great noble himself was a warrior as powerful as King Lot, possessing valor not inferior to that of a Knight of the Round Table.

In that case, if the great noble came from Scotland, his lands would be exchanged for lands in Cornwall. The great noble of Cornwall would be moved to Wales, and the great noble of Wales would be moved to Scotland.

No matter how great the warrior or how powerful the noble, once they left their homeland, they became trees without roots and water without a source—utterly vulnerable.

It was through this tactic of exchanging fiefs that Arthur became the true king of all Britain.

Camelot's control over the entire country stemmed from Arthur's prestige and the military strength of the Knights of the Round Table. Meanwhile, the various departments of Camelot's palace government were basically all staffed by Knights of the Round Table.

If Camelot were compared to later England, then the court was akin to the cabinet, while the Knights of the Round Table were akin to Parliament. It was rather like how one could not become a cabinet minister without being a member of Parliament.

In Arthur's court, Sir Kay served as chief minister, Lord Keeper of the Seal, and chancellor. Sir Bedivere was the king's steward, his official post being cupbearer. Sir Lancelot was commander of the military. These were the three giants of Camelot's court. As for the finance minister, the position was generally held by Camelot's bishop, the only office that did not require one to be a Knight of the Round Table.

This was not because Arthur needed to rely on the Church's power to govern, nor was it an attempt to win over the Church.

In truth, it was entirely out of necessity. Most Knights of the Round Table were rough brutes. Of the seven knightly arts, only poetry was barely related to literature, but managing finances did not require humanities students—especially not humanities students that poor.

Training a monk had to begin from childhood. Whether it was education in the Bible or Latin, such as grammar, rhetoric, dialectics—logic—arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, these seven arts were subjects a monk needed to study throughout his life.

A finance minister at the very least needed to know mathematics. Compared with knights who could not even count to one hundred, the Church's monks were immensely learned.

Yet Gawain, who came from later generations, possessed a university-level education and held an accounting certificate. He would show these medieval people what bookkeeping truly meant.

Let them tremble under the rule of Arabic numerals, double-entry bookkeeping, and the abacus.

That was right. From the very beginning, Gawain had set his sights on becoming the finance minister's assistant. Once the time was right, he could replace him.

In the sixth century, during the early Middle Ages, aside from the contemporary Central Plains dynasties of the East, which could establish centralized civil service systems spanning the entire country, only Constantinople in Byzantium could build an equally efficient system.

That required sufficient financial resources, systematic schooling, and a majority of territories that could be centrally administered under a centralized regime. Yet the only land a medieval king could directly manage was his royal domain, and the conditions for establishing a centralized bureaucratic system did not exist in that early era.

Arthur's court administration was extremely rudimentary. Precisely because it was so rudimentary, court offices were all held by important personal retainers.

For instance, the king's childhood friends, attendants, and relatives. Gawain belonged to the last category.

"Gawain, someone from the court has arrived. Go receive them. I heard the king is going to ennoble you! He's even going to grant you a fief."

Gawain lay in bed, still groggy from waking up and dreaming of a bright future, when he heard his mother's voice.

They were going to ennoble me and grant me land.

Well, that certainly woke me up. I need to get out of bed at once.