Chapter 168: Through the Back Door

France’s salon culture began with nobles gathering for social occasions. Different in nature from formal banquets, these intimate noble meetings caught on like wildfire, spreading across every age and sex.

The ladies’ gatherings, where they discussed sweet love stories and jewelry, were easy to imagine as more graceful and refined than the men’s, but Hilda detested them, insisting there was just as much vicious politics inside.

Any noblewoman who stood out at all could expect to become the subject of gossip. That was exactly why Hilda hated attending those gatherings—because she herself had been a target of it.

So when she came to Feuzen, she looked happier than anyone else in the world.

The noblemen’s gatherings, on the other hand, were largely devoted to bragging about war exploits and indulging in lewd behavior. Nobles routinely called for prostitutes at these meetings and shared a fondness for liquor and gambling, giving in to some rather degenerate tastes.

I, too, had received plenty of invitations to such salons, but I’d declined every one because not a single gathering was wholesome. I even turned down Michael’s invitations. That had left him sulking for quite a while.

Why would I, in my right mind, attend a gathering practically built to spread venereal disease?

Not when I had a lovely young wife at home waiting for me to return.

The nobles who treated gossip as the exclusive domain of women did exactly the same thing in their own circles, evaluating others while showing off their superiority and airing personal opinions. People who love to judge others exist everywhere.

In its earliest days, the salon was a venue with nothing to do with Enlightenment thinking. The fact that this kind of half-baked salon culture would later evolve into literary discussion circles, merging philosophy and art, was simply astonishing.

"To track them down this fast—better than I expected."

"They can hide in the shadows all they want, but they can’t escape the eyes of beggars."

Beggars were everywhere. You could find them around the coffins of women in the brothel district, even in the sewers built back in the days of Rome. Bodo didn’t call them his friends at the bottom for nothing.

Beggars didn’t just receive alms; they also sold rumors and firsthand accounts as information. I was the first to recognize how useful they could be, which was why I’d had Bodo build a network at the bottom of society.

And now those efforts had finally borne fruit.

Bodo had clearly proven his worth.

"Didn’t you ask my friend to start looking into this first, Master?"

"I did. He was the one who first brought the rumor to me. What happened to him?"

"He’s dead."

Bodo informed me of the beggar boy’s death.

Could the words "he’s dead" really sound so flat and matter-of-fact?

"Dead? How?"

"He got greedy and got himself killed. That’s why you can’t just hand large sums to friends like that."

"Damn. So the money I gave him ended up being poison."

"You’re a noble, Master. How could you really understand how things work down there?"

That, he said with a proud little roll of his shoulders, was exactly why he was at my side.

Truly, you never stop learning. I never thought I’d be learning from Bodo.

He had a point. The world they lived in was fundamentally different from mine.

I thought I understood life at the bottom to some degree, but it turned out I’d only ever brushed against the edges of it.

I’d sent a scout ahead before deploying Bodo, but I never imagined it would turn out like this.

"Turns out it’s Lady Mühe’s salon."

"Lady Mühe? That name sounds familiar."

"The widow spider—the one who eats her husbands."

Now I remembered. She had to be the widow that Cavalry Commander Pensler had brought to the tournament. She’d remarried repeatedly, but all her husbands had died, so she was called the widow spider and treated as a disreputable noblewoman.

The character of noble salons and ladies’ salons differed quite distinctly, and I hadn’t expected the rumor to be leaking out of a ladies’ salon. But the more Bodo explained, the clearer it became that this was no ordinary salon.

The noble who had been holding frequent meetings under the cover of Mühe’s salon was Court Viscount Dumarck. Court Viscount Dumarck? It didn’t take much thought. He was a core member of Prince Louis’s faction.

I marveled all over again at Bodo’s information gathering.

"How on earth did you dig up something like that?"

"Borrowed the eyes and ears of beggars for twenty silver coins. One of the salon’s servants was buried in gambling debt, so I went after him, lent him money on purpose, and then snapped the trap shut."

The trick of approaching someone drowning in debt and ensnaring them with even more was a classic move straight out of the loan shark playbook. Bodo, who had seen and heard plenty in his short life, was a natural at this sort of thing.

"Brother Anton threatened him so brutally that the servant caved completely."

"I was just doing what Bodo told me to. It wasn’t my idea."

"Wow, you were the one enjoying it the most, and now you’re playing innocent!"

It wasn’t a tactic I could exactly call clean, but this wasn’t the time to be picky. More important than some servant’s debts was the question of how to slip into that salon. Cleverly enough, Bodo had already arranged it.

"He’s going to let us in through the back door."

"There’s no chance the servant could be setting a trap for us?"

"If he had the brains for that, he wouldn’t have gotten caught by us in the first place."

Bodo had told the servant, as part of the repayment terms, that he was extremely interested in any information leaking from the nobles’ mouths at the salon. Noble information was often valuable, which made it an entirely suitable cover story.

The salon met twice a week, and as it happened, today was one of those days.

The gathering would convene at Mühe’s salon after the church’s evening Mass.

The salon was located near Beien Boulevard, in the southeastern district where many wealthy commoners lived.

After waiting long enough, I had the Vice Commander and the knights hide nearby, while only Bodo, Anton, and I approached the salon’s back door separately. We were dressed in plain tunics, so we didn’t draw much attention.

Unlike the front entrance with its tight security, the back door was unguarded. Bodo approached easily and gave a small knock. The servant who had been waiting opened the door quietly and stepped out.

"There are just the three of you?"

"That’s right. Now hurry and let us in."

"Whew. Please, don’t draw any attention. I’m going to pass you off as hired help for the salon. Above all, you must not catch Lady Mühe’s eye."

He added that Lady Mühe had a sharp memory and knew the face of every servant and laborer. If we got caught, he made sure to emphasize, he would take no responsibility. Hmph. As if he’d actually get to dodge the blame.

Just as Bodo had said, this kid wasn’t terribly bright.

Bodo snapped at the servant impatiently.

"I got it. Quit yapping and lead the way."

"Maybe leave the swords behind..."

"Before my men’s blades take your head off, you’ll open that door. Got it?"

"Eek! Y-yes, of course."

I’d suddenly become one of Bodo’s underlings. Since Bodo was the one in charge here, I went along with it quietly. The servant still looked uneasy, hesitating several times before finally letting us inside.

The back door connected directly to the storeroom.

After passing through a narrow corridor, we emerged into a wide hall, where we hid in a corner. The servant said he’d make sure no one came our way. We slipped deep into the storeroom and peeked through a small hole to spy on the hall.

In the hall, nobles sat at a round table making polite conversation.

Calling it polite conversation was a stretch. Most of it was filthy talk.

It was so blatantly crude that I couldn’t help wincing.

Nobles couldn’t be caught making such remarks in public because of decorum and the watchful eye of the Church, so cutting loose with raunchy jokes in gatherings like this was something of a hobby among them.

But not a single piece of important information came out. The only thing I learned was that there was a famously skilled woman at the third house in the brothel district. Utterly useless. Anton, don’t you dare commit that to memory.

"So this is where the men who spread venereal disease all gather."

"You mean the one prostitutes catch all the time? Yeah, makes sense."

Bodo’s mother had suffered terribly from venereal disease. It was so common that people barely treated it as an illness anymore. That was why nobles particularly favored prostitutes who had entered the trade as virgins and tried to monopolize them.

If they took a liking to one, they would pay an enormous sum to the brothel to buy out her contract, then keep her as a mistress—a practice that was quite the trend among the nobility.

The Church denounced this as deeply impious, yet the clergy were doing the very same thing. Let’s not forget that thirty percent of the brothel district’s revenue came straight from the pockets of priests.