The drizzle of light rain fell on Otto and his group, cleaning their armors again and washing away the contaminated dust.
In two days, Otto visited all the nobles of all sizes in Argau, but the results obtained were not ideal.
Yes, it is true that Otto is the heir to the Count of Allgäu. However, because the count himself was in his prime, he did not deliberately cultivate power for him. In addition, Otto has always lived in seclusion. As a result, the nobles of the territory have no intention of cultivating power for him. Otto was not too impressed.
Whether the future of the territory is handed over to a young boy with no management experience or to a countess who has proven her ability and is quite prestigious is not a difficult decision for most nobles in the territory.
Without knowing about the conflict between Otto and Mrs. Kaylin, everyone felt that it was undoubtedly the right thing for Young Master Otto, who was still underage, to learn how to become a qualified lord with Mrs. Kaylin.
As for Master Otto, he is a little too impatient if he wants to manage the territory now. Inexperience means not knowing how to deal with complicated territorial matters, and it also means being unable to balance the interests of the nobles.
For their own benefit, Mrs. Kelly manages the territory, which undoubtedly makes them feel more at ease.
Except for Baron Hill, whose two sons became Otto's attendants, and Knight Monton, who also gave away his eldest son, expressing support for Otto, the other nobles, although their tone was ambiguous, were all clear in their words. Full of distrust of Otto.
Even Baron Hill expressed his support euphemistically. After Otto obtained the power of the territory, he could invite him to the earl's court to assist Otto in handling various matters.
It can be seen that even though Baron Hill can only side with Otto because of his son, he still does not trust Otto enough.
Otto's heart was filled with helplessness. He had no doubt that if he had recruited his attendants a few days later, none of the nobles' nephews would be sent to him.
In fact, most of Otto's new batch of attendants are from noble and large families in the territory. After all, they can receive military training and know the news of Otto's recruitment of attendants at the first time. Apart from the nobles, there are no other People.
However, the status of other attendants is not as good as that of the Ghent brothers and Gore. They are marginalized children in the family and cannot affect the decision-making of the nobles.
Now Otto is facing a problem that is not deeply entangled with the interests of the nobles below. To a large extent, this blame must be placed on the head of Otto's cheap father, Count Argau.
In fact, as the heir of a high-level noble, generally speaking, the guards and attendants around him are almost always selected from among the nobles under his command, preferably their heirs.
In this way, the heirs of both parties grow up together and become familiar with each other. Even if they cannot form friendship, there will still be some affection. After each inherits the noble status of their father's generation, the possibility of unity is high.
A similar scene was described in detail in the world-wide best-selling novel "A Song of Ice and Fire" written by Otto in his previous life. For example, Eddard Stark grew up with Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar, the heir to the throne of the Dragon family, and Theon grew up with the children of the Stark family, etc.
As Count Aargau, although he does not rule a large area of land, he still has the title of earl and must follow the rules of the nobility.
However, I don’t know if his father wanted to train some of his own team for Otto, or if he wanted to suppress the local nobles because his foundation in Argauland was unstable.
In short, when Otto was selecting his attendants when he was a few years old, he hardly chose from nobles, but instead chose commoners.
This has the advantage of preventing Otto from being affected by the local area, and the loyalty of the attendants and guards is also very high, such as Bard, who was crying because Otto was unhappy.
But the downside is that Otto, as the heir to the earl, has no emotional ties with the nobles below. To the nobles below, he is completely someone else.
Fortunately, Otto is not too young, already fifteen years old, and the overall situation in the Principality of Swabia is relatively stable. Otherwise, after the Earl of Argau loses his dominance, the Argau Territory may be lost from the Alaholf family.
But the current situation is not that good for Otto. It seems that the territory can continue to be in the hands of the Alaholf family, but whether it can fall into Otto's hands is another matter.
The rain was getting heavier and heavier, and Otto's vision was somewhat blurred by the rain. Seeing his castle standing not far away, Otto suddenly reined in his horse.
"Stop! We're not going back to the old castle, we're going to Emma Abbey!"
Old Castle is what some villagers call the castle where the Earl's family lives. Because the castle has not been repaired for many years and looks extremely old and dilapidated, it is named Old Castle.
In addition, as the Count of Allgäu, the Alaholf family has more than a dozen castles of various sizes in the territory. In terms of size and level of maintenance, this is the only place suitable for the residence of the Count.
This is also the reason why Otto later wanted to overhaul Eagle Castle. Judging from the current financial situation of the territory, it is almost impossible to renovate the old castle in the short term. Thinking that even if he became an earl, he would still have to live in such a dilapidated castle. , Otto naturally couldn't bear it.
The Eagle Fort needs to be repaired anyway to meet the requirements of the system, so why not repair it a little better and achieve more with one stone?
When they went to Emma Monastery, the group was very confused.
It’s raining so heavily. If you don’t go back to the castle to take shelter from the rain, why go to the monastery and go to the gods to pray for the rain to stop?
Even though they had doubts in their hearts, the attendants were still very obedient and faithfully carried out Otto's orders.
Otto chose to go to Emma Monastery with the intention of giving it a try. When communicating with Priest Matthew before, he mentioned that if you feel that the castle is not safe, you can go to Emma Monastery.
At that time, Otto did not understand the meaning and thought it was priest Matthew who asked him to seek asylum from the church. After all, no matter how brave Mrs. Kelly was, she would not dare to attack him in the monastery. This would be a provocation to the church.
But after Otto thought about it carefully, he felt that this was not what Pastor Matthew meant, but that he wanted him to go to the regional bishop Lawrence.
After savoring it carefully, Otto put it behind him. It is one thing to seek the support of Matthew priests who have a certain prestige in the territory, and it is another thing to seek the support of the regional bishop.
The former only represents individuals, while the latter represents the church.
The entangled interests and love and hatred between secular nobles and the church cannot be explained clearly in a few sentences. Without knowing the history that Otto knew beforehand, just because of his status as a noble, he was naturally wary of churches that wanted to interfere with secular power.
Unless absolutely necessary, he didn't want to deal with the church at all, let alone seek the church's support. He even planned to suppress the nobles in the country after becoming an earl.
But now that the situation is forcing him, the only one who can help him may be the church.
I just hope that I am not wrong about what Pastor Matthew said.
