Medieval: Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Chapter 141 Rooster Arbitration

Soon, a small team set off from Lion Village.

Peter rode his warhorse, which he had captured from the young master of Borgo, and wore the young master of Borgo's bright silver armor—this young master of Borgo is really a good man!

Behind him on horseback was the recorder Gabble—a middle-aged man dressed in a tasteless yellow suit and carrying a pile of parchment—riding a docile packhorse.

Marika rode a chestnut mare, looking dashing and spirited.

Pavlina opted for a more docile white mare, which moved with elegance.

They also carried a scroll of parchment representing the authority of the law on their horseback.

Their first stop was the village of Dravico. The village was small, and its inhabitants mainly relied on charcoal burning and fishing. Upon arrival, they summoned the two aggrieved parties according to the written records.

"My lord! You must do us justice!" cried a bald farmer.

"Yes, sir! Bick's rooster crows at my window every morning at dawn, keeping my child awake!" Another short, plump woman waved her hands.

Gable immediately spread out his parchment, ready to take notes. Peter dismounted and listened patiently to both sides' accounts.

It turned out that the Bick family's rooster, for some reason, always liked to crow under old Jacob's window, with a timing as precise as an hourglass. As a result, old Jacob's grandson cried incessantly at night.

Bick argued, "Sir, crowing is a rooster's nature! Do you expect me to gag it?"

Old Jacob's wife cried, "My lord, the child has lost weight! Bick must have done it on purpose, because his hen ran into my vegetable garden and I chased it away!"

After hearing the story, Peter did not deliver a direct verdict, but instead had Bick bring over his "culprit" rooster.

It was a large, brightly colored, proud rooster. Peter stared at the rooster for a long time, then looked at the location of the two houses and the direction of the rooster's coop.

Then he made his ruling: "Bick, move your chicken coop ten paces southeast, away from Jacob's bedroom window. As compensation, Jacob, give half of the cabbage from the easternmost row of your vegetable garden to Bick after the harvest. For according to the newly enacted Troski Territory Customary Law, the owner is partially responsible for unintentional damage caused by livestock, but neighbors must also help each other."

He then said to the rooster, "As for you—if you again desert your post and crow in places you shouldn't, I'll send you to the griffin camp's mess hall to be an extra meal for the soldiers."

This ruling was both based on custom and full of humane flexibility. Moving the chicken coop solved the noise problem, the vegetable compensation appeased Bick, and the final "threat" was tinged with humor, making the villagers watching laugh.

Bick and old Jacob exchanged glances, and finally, under Peter's gaze, reluctantly but also feeling it was reasonable, they nodded. A farcical dispute was thus resolved. The villagers praised the lord for his keen insight, even managing the rooster's affairs so fairly.

The second stop was Semi Village.

Although each village has undergone collective restructuring following the Lion Village model, conflicts between neighbors are still difficult to avoid.

To save time, the pig farmers in Semi Village would pile the manure they dug out of the pigsty in the flowerbeds under the windows of the flower growers' houses. In the summer, the pungent stench was unbearable.

The flower grower said the pig farmer was a bastard, because the stench was everywhere.

The pig farmer said that the flower grower was being hypocritical, as he was letting the flower nursery use his pig manure for free and was still dissatisfied.

The flower grower said that his flowerbeds were burned to death after being contaminated with unfermented manure.

The pig farmer said it had nothing to do with him; it was the flower grower's fault for not taking good care of the plants.

Both sides stuck to their own versions of events, leading to a heated argument.

Peter was also speechless. The village chief couldn't even handle such a small matter, so why did he have to report it to the court?

Finally, Peter directly ordered the village chief to arrange for a new fermentation pit to be dug, and that the new manure must be fermented in it before it could be used. The pig farmer was punished by being ordered to immediately clean up the manure under the gardener's window; if he didn't do so by nightfall, he would be punished by having to clean the communal outhouse for a month.

Then, Father Nicholas of the Moral College was notified to come and explain the difference between "public morality" and "private morality" to the villagers of Semih, in order to reduce such selfish and immoral behavior.

The third stop was the town that had been upgraded from the village of Troski.

Here, they encountered a more complicated case: an old craftsman who had just passed away, whose apprentice and distant nephew both claimed inheritance rights. The apprentice produced a written promise made by the old craftsman before his death, but only he could testify to it; the nephew, on the other hand, emphasized blood ties.

Peter inquired carefully with the other craftsmen and neighbors in town and learned that the apprentice had been diligently serving the old man, while his nephew had not visited him for many years. Peter invoked the principle in his own Trostich customary law that wills take precedence, and in the absence of a will, actual support should be considered.

He ruled: "The apprentice shall inherit the old craftsman's tools and shop and continue to run them. The nephew, as a blood relative, shall inherit one of the old craftsman's small houses. The craftsman's skills need to be passed down, and the value of the shop lies in its operation. Giving it to the apprentice is more in line with the old craftsman's wishes and the interests of the community."

The verdict balanced reason, emotion, and law, moving the apprentice to tears of gratitude. The nephew, though unwilling, had no choice but to accept it under Peter's stern gaze and the murmurs of the onlookers. Pavlina skillfully calculated the possible taxes, while Marika cast an admiring glance at Peter's meticulous analytical abilities.

The fourth stop was the village of Apolonia.

The village of Apollonia was originally known for its marble quarries. Today, however, it is shrouded in a climate of ignorant fear.

An elderly widow was accused of using witchcraft because the hooting of her owl was believed to have caused a child in the village to have a persistent low-grade fever.

The villagers surrounded the old woman's dilapidated wooden house, their eyes filled with suspicion and rejection. The old woman trembled, unable to defend herself.

Peter arrived and dispersed the crowd. Instead of rebuking the villagers for their superstition, he carefully examined the child's symptoms and living environment. He discovered that the child's bed was near a damp corner, with faint mold growing on the wall.

Peter told the villagers, "It's not the hooting of the owls that's making the children sick, but the devil's dust (mold) on this wall."

He instructed the villagers to clean the walls and keep them ventilated and dry, and also had Marika, who was with him and had some knowledge of herbal medicine, find some common herbs with calming effects for the children to take.

Then, he said seriously, "According to the Trostich customary law, it is forbidden to make unfounded accusations of witchcraft. The real devil is the filthy environment and the ignorant suspicion, not a lonely old woman and her owl."

He told the villagers that owls are beneficial birds that catch mice. Soon, the child's condition improved. The villagers' fear dissipated, and they felt ashamed of their previous behavior. The old woman survived and was extremely grateful to Peter.

Peter took this opportunity to preach basic hygiene knowledge.

The fifth stop is a village that was expanded after the original Stone Deer Western Farm immigrants. It is a collective village with collective labor, but villagers are still allowed to keep a small plot of land to grow vegetables.

A villager claimed that his neighbor stole cabbages from his private plot, arguing that he saw cabbage leaves coming out of his neighbor's window. The neighbor, however, claimed that the cabbages were from his own storage from the previous year.

As is well known, cabbage cannot be stored for a year.

Peter asked the accuser to pinpoint the exact location of the stolen cabbage, then carefully examined the land. He noticed the cabbage had been pulled up very recently, and there were specific shoe prints in the surrounding soil. He had the accused villager take off his shoes for comparison, and the sole patterns matched perfectly.

Faced with the evidence, the vegetable thief blushed and admitted his mistake.

Peter sentenced him to pay double the price of cabbages and to repair a section of the broken fence on the victim's family's private plot as punishment.

The vegetable thief accepted the offer dejectedly, while the surrounding villagers let out a good-natured chuckle.

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