Chapter 58: Norris’s Story

Gawain’s sudden question left Norris momentarily stunned. He had braced himself for a scolding, but instead, he was faced with a question like this—how was he supposed to answer? Should he say yes or no? Was either answer against the law?

After a long moment of thought, the old farmer decided to be honest. He knew there was more than one person in the village who could read and write, and if the lord went asking around and the truth came out, then he really would be breaking the law.

“Yes… my lord,” Norris said nervously, clutching the buttons on his chest, “I have learned… to read and write.”

Gawain raised an eyebrow, thinking to himself that his suspicion had been right.

Though Norris hadn’t written a single word earlier—only sketched a rough outline—just the way he held the pen revealed a lot. People who can read and write hold a pen very differently. In this nearly illiterate world, Gawain had seen how those who couldn’t read clumsily gripped a pen and awkwardly made marks on paper. But this farmer’s grip was clearly proper.

Even Hetty looked at Norris with surprise; it seemed she had just realized this fact as well.

“Don’t worry, knowing how to write isn’t illegal, and teaching others to read and write isn’t against the law either,” Gawain said gently, realizing his sudden question might have startled the honest farmer. “Who taught you to read and write?”

Only after receiving the lord’s reassurance did Norris relax a little. He rubbed his hands together and gave a somewhat embarrassed smile. “My lord, please don’t laugh… I almost joined the church back then, almost became a priest serving the Harvest Goddess. I learned to read and write from a teacher during that time…”

The son of a farmer, almost becoming a church priest?

Such a strange story immediately piqued Gawain’s interest. With his prompting, Norris’s story finally came to light.

Norris was indeed born into a farming family, free commoners who had lived in the Cecil domain for generations. Though they owned a few acres of poor land, like most peasants of the era, they barely scraped by. His life was supposed to be like most peasants’: bound to the land, busy with seedlings and irrigation ditches, with the only contact with the high priests and the church being occasional visits to the town chapel for prayers or receiving sermons when priests came to the fields. But when he was eight, an opportunity came to Norris and his parents.

A traveling priest of the Harvest Goddess from the Holy Spirit Plains came to the Cecil domain and stayed temporarily in Norris’s village. For farmers, it was rare and fortunate to have a priest of the Fertility Triad pass through. So the villagers pooled their money and, following the customs of the Fertility Triad, the village elders took some children to present gifts to the priest so he could bless the village’s fields.

Then the priest looked at eight-year-old Norris and said, “This child is blessed to be one with the land; he carries the grace of the Harvest Goddess.”

Because of that one sentence, after the priest left, Norris’s parents nearly sold all their valuables. The village elders scraped together some money, and they petitioned the knight lord of the manor for a pass. Finally, they sent Norris to the Great Mother’s church in the town of Tansan to become a “servant apprentice.” Although the Fertility Triad consists of three distinct cults, they are closely linked. The Great Mother, as the chief deity of the triad, has a temple that also venerates the Harvest Goddess and the Spring Maiden. Candidates for priesthood usually receive the same education before choosing which deity to serve based on their spiritual affinity. Since there was no Harvest Goddess church nearby, sending Norris to the Great Mother’s temple was his parents’ only option.

Norris studied at the temple for five years, after which the higher church authorities issued their verdict:

“This apprentice does not possess the spiritual affinity for the Fertility Triad.”

Norris still remembered the letter with those words arriving in the village. At first, the villagers were jubilant—they couldn’t read, and the drunken messenger never told them what the letter said.

Only when Norris returned home with his belongings did everyone realize the letter was not good news.

Norris told his story quietly. His weathered face showed no joy or sorrow, only calm, as if those events were long gone and no longer his concern. “The years after were hard. We still owed debts, and the house was empty. My father didn’t survive that winter, but life had to go on, and the debts had to be paid.

“My mother took me and my siblings to the viscount’s castle—back then, the Viscount of Cecil was Miss Rebecca’s father. We bowed before the viscount and begged for mercy. The viscount was kind and waived our land taxes, lent us seeds and half a sack of grain. With those seeds and grain, plus the wild vegetables that grew especially well that year, we managed to survive.

“After that, I worked steadily on the land and did odd jobs. I worked as hard as two or three men. And since I could read, when traveling merchants came to the village, I helped calculate weights and measures, which earned us a few loaves of bread. A few years later, we paid off our debts, including the viscount’s loan of seeds and grain…”

Norris slowly lifted his head, pride shining on his face. “The year my mother died, our whole family ate meat.”

Norris’s story ended. Gawain frowned deeply, while Hetty pressed a hand to her chest. “I… I never knew such things happened in the domain… We’ve always tried to give alms…”

“Alms don’t save anyone because they don’t solve the root problem. And these things happen every day; you just don’t see them inside the castle,” Gawain shook his head, then looked curiously at Norris. “I noticed your gesture earlier… Do you still worship the Harvest Goddess?”

“Yes, how could I not?” Norris’s wrinkles deepened. “The Harvest Goddess protects every field in the world. Whether the harvest is good or bad means life or death for a family. Who among us farmers doesn’t believe in her?”

Gawain looked at him quietly. “Even though your faith has brought you so much suffering?”

Norris was silent for a moment, then lowered his head. “My lord, that’s just bad luck. How can I blame the gods? Besides, compared to others, I at least learned something—I can read. Though for people like us, knowing how to read isn’t much use.”

“Knowing how to read is never useless,” Gawain said seriously. “Norris, you must be good at farming, right?”

At that, Norris’s pride grew. “My lord, I can’t say much about other things, but when it comes to farming, I’m excellent. Otherwise, how could we have survived those hard years?”

Gawain asked again, “You can read and do math, and you’ve had church education. So when Hetty reads out the new rules and the forms I designed to record work, you should understand them easily. If I asked you to fill out forms and calculate land and yields, could you do it?”

This time, Norris nodded, then hesitated before asking, “My lord, do you want me to become… an overseer?”

Recently, because Gawain had introduced a labor system requiring counting and evaluation, the old overseers who could only wave whips but couldn’t read or write were no longer useful. Overseers in the domain were now chosen from family warriors or even appointed by Hetty herself (some family warriors were knight’s squires who could at least recognize numbers and write simple words). So when Norris heard Gawain’s question, he naturally thought of this.

“No, not just an overseer. If you can do it, I plan to have you manage the entire reclamation project and later the grain production,” Gawain said. “Of course, I won’t give you such great power all at once, nor let you act freely. Hetty will ‘assess’ you and will always tell you what to do.”

Norris’s expression changed instantly. “My… my lord! I don’t quite understand… Are you asking me to be your steward? But a steward doesn’t just manage grain…”

“It’s a position, but not a steward,” Gawain laughed. “If you want a name, call it… Agricultural Supervisor. And I must tell you, this position is unlike any noble domain office before. You can’t treat it as a hereditary title passed down through generations unless your children are capable. It’s not a lifetime appointment either. If you don’t do well, or if you use the position to break Cecil’s laws, you will be removed and punished. From now on, many positions I establish on this land will be like this. Do you understand?”

If Gawain hadn’t warned him of all these conditions, Norris might have been too frightened to accept this “sudden good fortune”—because it felt just like when the priest came to the village and said he was “blessed by the gods.” But with Gawain’s warnings, Norris thought seriously and believed it was real.

An ordinary peasant wouldn’t think this way, but Norris did because he had been educated. Even though that education nearly cost him his life, it taught him “logic.”

After some thought, the weathered farmer nodded firmly. “My lord, if you trust me… Norris will take good care of every field and every grain of food you entrust to me!”

(Today I have to go out and probably won’t have time to touch the computer until late at night, so I’m posting one chapter early with automatic updates. Only one chapter today.)

(The End of This Chapter)