A/N: We've finally reached the last chapter I had written in advance. Let's see how long this update speed lasts now lol

Warning for this chapter: someone gets their eye poked out (but not in too much gruesome detail). It is not a main character or even a named character either.

Chapter 10

The Sanc Kingdom's religion had not been well-defined in the book. There had been references to a church where Relena married Heero in the final chapter, but aside from characters using the epithet for a deity in exclamation, there had been little description of it.

Threaded throughout the social norms, however, I could see bits and pieces of it. There was the "no divorce" mandate and cheating was frowned upon. (Although that had not stopped other-me.) Churches were in every major city, and smaller towns and villages offered at least a chapel as a place of worship; they collected donations from their patrons in order to maintain their buildings, although it was common for nobles and wealthy merchants to sponsor their local branches.

It was a little harder for me to pinpoint the actual religious ideology though. There was no physical representation of their deity; the chapel within the Yuy estate painted it as some unseen force, benevolent in nature, both omniscient and omnipresent. Much like their peerage titles, their deity used the name "God" but could be described as either male or female; it wasn't unusual for the pronoun to switch from one to the other in religious texts.

The kingdom's relationship to the church was also interesting. From what I'd learned about the middle ages in school, religion and the church were one of the driving forces at that time and were often intertwined, rulers deriving their authority from the church, and the church propped up by the state of the ruler.

Sanc's religion was a lot more amorphous.

It was there, obviously, and church services were held during all the holidays as well. People could go in and out of the churches in town without hassle, offer up their prayers to the deity, but there was no set day to do so; you could go out to grab some groceries, make a quick stop to pray, then continue on home.

One thing this place's religion did have in common with some of Earth's religions was that churches helped to run orphanages.

Medieval orphanages were…something else. They were subsidized in the Yuy province so a small portion of the fief's budget went to the churches that ran them, but as inspections were still not common – it was hard to tell if the church actually used that money for their orphans. Children were kept until they were 14 years of age – this varied by duchy – and then they were sent off to work under apprenticeships.

For the Yuy duchy, they could work for the shops around town, such as blacksmiths or bakers, but it was common for them to join the militia. Soldiers could be male or female, although just to remind me that sexism still existed, it was a bit rare for the latter.

I'd learned that Lyle, one of my knights, was one such case of an orphan aged into the militia.

"I'm from the Blackwell orphanage, Your Grace," he reported to me excitedly. Since I could no longer be trusted not to somehow injure myself just by existing, he was my guard during my afternoon garden stroll. Hilde was walking a few paces behind us because she had little trust in either of us, but as long as I didn't look back, I didn't have to acknowledge her murder-eyes.

"When did you become a knight?" I asked.

"Oh, not until three years ago!" Lyle said. "I was a squire for 8 years before that, and a page for two years before then."

I did the math instantly but still wanted it confirmed aloud. "How old were you when you became a page?"

"Twelve!"

Heero what the fuck.

I had to remind myself child labor laws didn't exist.

…Yet.

I paused, then turned around to look at Hilde. "Hilde, how old am I?"

"22 years old, Your Grace." She didn't have to say it in that tone, but I guess she was miffed about me not just sitting quietly in my room.

Also, holy shit, I became four years younger?

"I think my soul is older," I told her.

Hilde looked at the autumn leaves boredly. "Is it?"

"Are you mad because I'm older than you, Your Grace?" Lyle asked sadly.

Yes, you baby-faced bastard.

"No," I lied, smiling at him. He perked up in relief. "I guess I was just surprised. What was the orphanage like?" Best change the subject before Hilde read my mind or something.

Lyle tilted his head in thought. "Fine, I guess? Back then, we'd just ended another war with Romefeller, so there had been an influx of orphans. The more rural towns can't afford to keep that many so they send us up to the bigger cities, which is how I ended up at Blackwell," he explained. "There was a roof over my head and food in my stomach, so I can't complain. The sisters were strict but not cruel; they had their hands full with so many of us but they never gave someone a beating like you hear about sometimes. And my friends and I were complete hooligans back then, one time we…"

I smiled at him reminiscing, this one feeling a lot more sincere than my last. The Maxwell Church orphanage had been one of the few orphanages still operating within the U.S., the system having mostly moved over to foster care. Father Maxwell and Sister Helen still remained one of the best examples of family I'd ever had, even after I was moved into foster care after the fire.

I wonder if other-me would have ended up the way he did, if fire had taken his family long ago as well. Would the loss had taught him some form of empathy, would it have taught him to appreciate what he had in his husband and the people of the Yuy duchy? Or would nothing have changed at all?

I wonder if I would have ended up like him, if Father Maxwell and Sister Helen had survived.

"—and it's actually pretty close too! I sometimes visit when I'm off," Lyle was saying.

I resurfaced from my thoughts, pushed by a pique of curiosity. "Oh, I wonder if I can visit too…"

"Y-Your Grace wants to visit the orphanage?!" Lyle exclaimed in wonder.

I nodded, grinning. "Yeah! It sounds like some of our finest knights come from them as well, so—"

"Where is the orphanage?"

Holy shit-! I whipped around to stare at Hilde, who had seemingly materialized beside me. "How are you that fast?!" I cried.

She ignored me. "The orphanage – where is it? If it's out of town, Your Grace…" she trailed off, somehow sounding threatening despite her tone being rather bland. Amazing as usual, Hilde.

"It's in town, it's in town!" Lyle jumped in. "It's where I'm from, Miss Hilde! It's close to the town square!"

I smiled at Hilde brilliantly. "See, Hilde? It's close and Lyle goes there often—"

"I wouldn't say often—"

"He goes there often, so it's perfectly safe," I steamrolled over him. "I'll just pop over there with Lyle, drop off some presents for the kids – nothing big."

Hilde eyed me suspiciously. Well, she's been eyeballing me suspiciously since I first got here, but now it was more with a 'how can you endanger yourself now' vibe rather than the 'what kind of sick, twisted game are you playing' vibe it had been.

"Mikhail will escort you," she said.

Well… that's better than Commander Broden, I guess…

"Why toys?" Meilan asked.

I took a different approach. "Why are you coming along too?"

"Because something exciting always happens when you leave the estate," she admitted shamelessly. "So why toys and not money?"

"We've already donated to Blackwell, outside of the usual subsidy they receive from the fief," I answered. Heero had made donations to all the orphanages in the provincial capital and ensured Howard would continue to do so in his absence, so I happily added some more money on top of it from my personal allowance.

"And since I'm visiting it, I can't give them another donation without doing so for the other orphanages, or it could be see as preferential treatment," I explained. This may be an innocuous visit on the surface, but it was also a little inspection so that I could see the quality of life granted to the children. That's why I also had Lyle swear not to let the orphanage know ahead of time that I would be visiting. "The toys are just gifts for the kids. No one will pay them any mind."

Meilan looked satisfied with this explanation, leaning back in her seat. It had been agreed ahead of time that my true identity of the duchess would be kept hidden, as there was always the chance one of the kids would see me in the town market and I didn't want it getting back to my merchant connections. I would instead be visiting the orphanage under a pseudonym as a friend of Lyle's, Lyle and Mikhail were off-duty knights making a social call, and Meilan was just…here. Taking up space in the carriage because she thirsted for adventure and also liked harassing me.

She'd even moved back into the Yuy estate to ensure I was never left to my own devices.

Our arrival at the orphanage was heralded by the excited cries of children calling out to Lyle, voices adorable and piping. Lyle, who had been riding shotgun on the carriage, hopped down to greet the kids as Mikhail helped both myself and Meilan out.

A nun – a woman who served under the banner of the church, signified by the wearing of a dark grey smock and matching headdress – looked at us in confusion, likely wondering why Lyle now came with his own entourage. We'd used the "commoner" carriage for this trip so she wouldn't know who we were straight away.

"Sister Yvette, a good afternoon to you!" Lyle greeted her happily, small children hanging off him like limpets. "I've come with some friends today – they brought toys for the kids."

The kids whooped and hollered, rushing towards the carriage in a miniature stampede. Meilan flinched back but I moved forward to intercept, grinning widely. "Alright, alright, no shoving! Line up now, youngest at the front, oldest at the back! If there are any more kids inside, go get 'em and bring 'em here!"

The older kids rushed to comply, realizing no one was getting anything until I was sure everyone was present. Lyle stepped away to speak with Sister Yvette, so I let him handle that as Mikhail helped the kids line up and Meilan pretended to not be hiding behind me, shuffling through the toys.

Lyle had made recommendations, and pulling from my own time at the orphanage, we gathered various things for the kids to play with: colored blocks and balls for the youngest kids, dolls and tin knights for the older ones, as well as stick-horses and model boats and wooden tops. I corralled Meilan into helping me pass them out, Lyle and Sister Yvette keeping the kids orderly as Mikhail disappeared around the building.

Sister Yvette was one of three nuns who helped run the orphanage; the head sister was Sister Yukihana, who was busy working on dinner inside, and the other caretaker, Sister Grace, was currently visiting the church that Blackwell was affiliated with to pick up their stipend.

Blackwell Orphanage would be considered shabby by modern standards, but by medieval standards it was decent. The building itself was plain and two-story, the ground floor holding the kitchen, communal eating area, the study area (where the children were taught reading and writing by the hardworking nuns), and a small chapel. The upstairs was dedicated entirely to their sleeping areas, the children split into groups and assigned to a room. The nuns also shared one bedroom, and they had an outhouse in the back hidden from the view of the street.

Bathing in the Sanc Kingdom was different from how it had been in the medieval age back on Earth. As the Duchess, I had my own private bath and could wash daily; for commoners like these kids and their caretakers, they would use a pail or wash basin to essentially sponge bath themselves into cleanness, or go to a neighborhood bathhouse once a month to fully submerge themselves in water.

I was secretly very glad for this. If everyone smelled as bad as my high school history books described them to have, I'm not sure I'd ever leave my room.

Sister Grace returned from her errands, a handful of the older orphan kids in tow, and she helped to wrangle everyone together to get the dinner passed out. I felt bad about giving them extra mouths to feed, and then felt worse when I tasted what they actually ate on a daily basis (extremely hard to chew bread, although the potato soup wasn't that bad, if a bit bland), even though Lyle assured me this was the good stuff.

I don't know what I needed to commercialize to improve this, but I needed to commercialize something. The state of my citizens' taste buds depended on it.

Leaving Lyle and the others to finish eating, I took my bowl into the kitchen where a couple of the older kids were washing the dishes. These were the same ones who had been with Sister Grace on her errand run, so I assumed that much like how the Maxwell Church had operated back home, Blackwell also had older kids help out with the chores and day-to-day living.

"I'll help too," I offered.

The girl, a freckled redhead with close-cropped hair, shook her head. "Sister Yuki says guests don't do the washin'," she told me. "'S bad manners, ya see."

I obediently handed over my bowl. "Alright, that's fair," I laughed. "I suppose I'll have to do the washin' when you all eat dinner at my place then."

"That at the knight's barracks?" she asked me inquisitively. "Big brother Lyle's a knight, ya see."

"You'se ain't a knight though, are ya?" the boy, who had been very quiet, suddenly piped up.

The girl frowned. "What ya mean, Connor?"

"Look at 'im," Connor said, motioning to just all of me. Wow. "He probably couldn't even lift a sack o' dinner 'tatoes!" Wow.

"That lady could," Freckles conceded, obviously referring to Meilan. "I saw her muscles when she was carryin' Jax around. She's gotta be a knight, ya see."

Connor nodded in agreement with her, but then motioned to me again. "But he's not, right?" He looked back to me, and I valiantly smothered my insulted expression before he could see it. "You'se a knight's dandy?"

"I thought a dandy was only for nobles," I said. That's what Hilde and Lady Aurora had said, anyway.

Connor shrugged. "That's those proper dandies," he told me haughtily, seemingly proud he was teaching me something. Also, did he just imply I was an improper dandy then? "Commonfolks got dandies too, right? Big bro Hugh married a dandy."

"Mister Roman's not a dandy-dandy," Freckles corrected him. "He's just pretty, dummy!"

"Well, what about Rouge?"

"The butcher's son? He's seeing one of the soldiers still at the Duke's house, innit he?"

Oh my god, why am I suddenly here for a gossip session. "Which soldier?" I asked, living my best life.

Freckles frowned. "Think his name's Geralt? Big guy, he looks like he could carry five sacks o' dinner 'tatoes, ya see." Why was that the unit of measurement here?!

"Wait, so are you'se a dandy, mister?" Connor asked me, then with wider eyes and a quieter voice, continued with, "Are you'se Big bro Lyle's dandy?"

Horror flashed over my face. "No!"

Connor looked relieved. "Okay, good," he sighed. WOW.

"Connor's got a crush on Big bro Lyle," Freckles whispered to me conspiratorially. "That's why he keeps going on about dandies, ya see."

Connor blushed hotly. "Well you'se got a crush on Daigo!"

This was too much information at once! "Whose Daigo?"

"Daigo's from the Bluefield orphanage," Connor rushed out, clearly just not wanting me to dwell on his crush on Lyle and more than happy to throw Freckles under the bus. "Lianna thinks the sun shines outta his ass."

"I do not!" Freckles – Lianna – screeched.

"You'se were all over him earlier," Connor said, then turned to me. "You'se shoulda seen her when we were with Sister Grace earlier. Daigo was there with the nun from Bluefield too, and Lianna went all gooey-eyed—"

"I wasn't gooey-eyed!" Lianna retorted. "Didn't ya see the shiner on his face? I felt bad for him!"

I blinked in surprise. "Where'd he get the shiner from? Is he an apprentice?" Lianna looked like she was maybe 13, so if Daigo was there with a nun, he couldn't be much older.

"Nah, it's from the sisters who run Bluefield," Connor replied.

"Daigo didn't deserve it!" Lianna said vehemently. "They're always hitting the kids there, ya see! Daigo stopped 'em from hurting one of the smaller kids – they can't take it, they weigh less than a sack o' dinner 'tatoes! So they hurt Daigo too!"

A lump of dry ice settled in the pit of my stomach. "That's not right," I agreed, and Lianna nodded emphatically. "Do you hear about things like that happening at any of the other orphanages?"

Connor shrugged again. "We're lucky here, 'cause the Sisters are really nice, even if they don't let us play swordfight," he told me. "And Hollingshead sounds 'bout the same as us. Oh, I heard the kids at Summerborn don't get reading lessons like we's do, but Bluefield's the worst o' the worst for us kids."

Considering basic literacy was required in the Yuy duchy, Summerborn should have been teaching their kids as well, but it would have to be checked to see if this was the result of not having enough resources. I was frankly amazed the sisters at Blackwell could teach their kids, because it looked like they had more than enough to do in just keeping them from killing each other.

Bluefield, on the other hand, seemed like an urgent issue.

"Well, miraculously, it looks like you managed to somehow not endanger yourself while outside the estate walls," Meilan smirked at me from her seat opposite in the carriage. We were now on our way back to the estate after bidding the kids and their caretakers farewell, although I had snuck Lyle some coin to pass on to the sisters, as payment for the dinner they let us have there. They refused it, so I made Lyle promise to buy some spices from the next town market and bring it to them.

"I do go to the town market regularly, you know," I felt compelled to defend myself. "I never nearly died there either."

Meilan knocked twice on the wooden frame of the carriage. Mikhail, seated in the driver's seat directly behind me and having heard everything through the small window, knocked twice against his wooden seat as well. Lyle knocked twice on the roof.

These assholes.

"You were in the kitchen for awhile too," Meilan added. "Were you actually washing dishes?"

"I tried, but they wouldn't let me." I ignored Lyle's sigh of relief in the back. "I was just talking with the kids there. They were teaching me a lot. I didn't know there were non-noble dandies."

Meilan rose an eyebrow. "That's because there aren't. Dandies can only be nobles, meant exclusively for other nobles," she said.

"But they said the son of the butcher was dating one of our soldiers, a guy named Geralt?"

"Neither of them is a dandy, Your Grace," Meilan said. "They're just gay."

So what am I, Platinum Gay?!

"Were you just listening to the kids' gossip?" Meilan asked, smirk widening.

I crossed my arms, faux-indignant. "I'll have you know I learned a lot of good things! The first of which is that Geralt looks like he can carry at least 5 bags of dinner potatoes," I said with as much authority as I could muster.

Outside, Mikhail burst out laughing.

"And Connor – the kid washing dishes – has a big crush on our Lyle here."

Mikhail's laughter got louder, punctuated by Lyle futilely batting at his side. I hoped Mikhail had a good grip on the reigns because I didn't fancy dying in a carriage accident after all this.

"Hard at work as the duchess, I see," Meilan yawned.

I dropped the act, replacing the faux-intimidating expression with a more somber one. "There was something else, but I want to get back to the estate and check the financial statements first to be sure," I admitted.

My tone change caused Meilan to straighten, her eyes narrowing. "What is it? Something about Blackwell?"

"No, not Blackwell. It was about some of the other orphanages," I said.

Nothing wrong with another little undercover inspection, is there?

Alright, so I admit it – this wasn't going well.

It hadn't taken long to research Bluefield and organize an inspection team for it. It took a bit longer to convince them that I should be part of the inspection team, but I think they acquiesced because the danger was limited – after all, they were just nuns who beat up those smaller and weaker than them, how much danger could they pose to a guy flanked by two knights, a martial artist, and whatever the hell Hilde was?

The answer was that they could pose a lot of danger and that I probably did have some kind of animal magnetism, except instead of attracting potential mates I attracted dangerous situations.

It hadn't started bad, but in that case, I suppose I should have seen it coming. There was no way novel-logic would let me get away unscathed.

We had reached the orphanage without much issue, Mikhail announcing our purpose; it was considered semi-incognito, only my identity being kept hidden. It hadn't taken long to assess the situation with the kids, they had all the markers of child abuse, plain as day on their bruised and battered bodies.

There was the already the rampant child abuse going around the place, and with just a glimpse of the interior and state of their toys and study materials, I could add embezzlement and criminal mismanagement. I imagine the food situation wouldn't be too good either, but I hadn't gotten that far before the other two nuns running the place kicked up a fuss and both Mikhail and Berion had gone to handle them, while Meilan inspected the upstairs to track down the head nun.

Hilde and I had been left to corral the children outside. That's when I noticed Daigo, little Lianna's crush, whose eyes were sweeping over the group of children as if mentally tallying them up, his dark eyes widening when the numbers came up short. He took off to go around to the back of the house and I went after him because I didn't know what he was up to at the time. I think Hilde had been too distracted with keeping the younger kids calm to notice us slipping away, otherwise I'd have her murder-eyes on me right now.

Daigo and I slipped around the back, following a well-worn dirt trail further into the forested area, as Bluefield sat near the edge of town. "The twins and Maria are missing," Daigo had informed me when I'd finally reached out to him. I could understand why he decided to go find them himself instead of asking the knights to do it – he probably didn't have a lot of trust in adults, authority figures in particular. I understood that grudge well. He refused to come back with me to get extra help either, and I wasn't just going to leave him and go back by myself, so we ended up searching together.

Daigo hadn't been off the mark, because we did find Maria – a little 4-year-old girl – and her twin brothers, who I imagined hadn't taken kindly to their sister being kidnapped by the head nun holding her. The twins had been tied up and tugged along by a broad-shouldered man, the head nun pulling Mary behind them by one arm. I guess they intended to keep the kids as hostages in case they were found out, or keep them until they ran into smugglers so they could sell them off for more coin.

"Sister Bethel!" Daigo cried out in horror, ruining the only thing we had going for us – the element of surprise. Kids these days, honestly…

I wish I could say I quickly overpowered them. They were a medieval middle-aged couple, I could have easily taken them down if it had been my body. Unfortunately, my body was likely buried 6 feet underground after a truck made me roadkill - I had to make do with this body.

So I tackled the man holding on to the twins. He didn't go down because he was a piece of shit weighing maybe twice my body weight, but he did let go of the rope with a loud groan as my shoulder met his solar plexus. This managed to stun him only momentarily, as he then pushed me back and I barely caught myself from falling to the ground.

Daigo took a page from my book and tackled the corrupt head nun, except he was far more successful in knocking her down and the little girl yanked herself free.

"Go back, go back!" Daigo yelled at the three kids. "Get the knights!"

I guess Daigo was the authority figure to these munchkins, as the twins grabbed their sister and bolted back. That was great, but I really wished Daigo had gone with them because I hated to admit it, but I didn't think I could hold off the man for long.

The man then pulled out a hatchet from behind his back.

Alright, looks like my chances of survival were plummeting. "Daigo, run!" I yelled at him, rushing towards the man again. Look, it wasn't a good plan – it was hardly a 'plan' at all – but I was just really focused on Daigo not being killed. Come on, book, you can't just kill a kid!

Burning pain lanced up my arm as the man swiped my shoulder, a deadly strike I had barely managed to dodge. He had probably expected me to recoil from the injury, but my head was in the right space now for a fight and I only had one burning focus: make sure Daigo lives.

"Mr. Doe, look out-!"

Something hard knocked into my side; Sister Bethel had struck out at me with - I glanced down – a wooden pole?

Two-on-one and they were both armed? This book really wanted me dead, huh?

Unfortunately for the book, I am one very stubborn asshole. I may not have had strength but at least I had speed: I ran forward again, dodging the man's broad swipe at me and aiming a kick at his kneecap. He let out a pained yelp and keeled over, so I took the opportunity to jam a finger into his eye.

It was the grossest thing I'd ever felt. I recoiled pretty quickly after that, flinching at the wet pop! sound it made when I pulled it out. The man screamed in pain, waving his machete wildly, but Daigo came in clutch, brandishing his own weapon: a thick tree branch. With narrow-eyed determination, the kid swung at the man's head and knocked him to the ground.

Sister Bethel screeched in outrage, turning her wooden pole on Daigo, but I just tackled her down, adrenaline pumping hard enough that it muffled the mind-numbing pain that shot up from my arm. We rolled across the ground, Bethel having given up on her wooden pole in order to scratch at any available patch of my skin, but I managed to pin her down and plant my left fist straight into her face.

Ugh. I can't believe I just punched a nun…

At least she was unconscious now. Either my (secret) weight training was paying off, or she was just considerably weaker than the former governor of Ishigaki. I looked up to check on Daigo but he was handily tying up the man with the leftover ropes; I assumed he must have kept hitting the man in the head with his weapon of choice because the head definitely looked more battered than it had when Daigo first struck him.

"If there's any rope left, tie up the Sister here as well," I heaved out.

Daigo nodded in compliance, tying up the head nun before finally glancing over at me and freezing. I probably looked as bad as I felt, and as the adrenaline was wearing off, I was starting to feel a lot. Oww….

"So," I started, faltering a bit as another white-hot bolt of pain hit me. "So, I think I'll probably be considered grounded for the foreseeable future."

Daigo frowned, helping me up so I could limp over to a nearby tree to rest against. He was a very good kid, I think around 12 years in age, so I felt really bad about this no doubt traumatizing experience I was putting him through.

"That's not so bad, I guess. I could work on my embroidery," I mused. I experimentally flexed my foot – ow, ow, nope, it still hurt. Was pain tolerance physical or psychological? I don't think a sprained ankle would keep me down like this, at least not back in NYC, so I felt totally justified blaming it on the body of other-me.

"Are you gonna die?" Daigo asked me, looking up at me with pitifully wide eyes.

I stared back at him, trying to look very strong. I don't know how well I managed since I was slouched against a tree trunk and definitely looked the worse for wear, but we do what we must. "No, Daigo, I'm not gonna die from these scratches," I told him bravely.

"You're bleeding," he pointed to the sluggishly oozing slash on my arm, lower lip wobbling.

I turned my gaze to look past his shoulder; there was a small trail of blood from where I'd originally lain to where I now sat. "Just a scratch," I choked out.

"Your ankle is swellin' up."

Damn, maybe this kid should grow up to be a doctor or something. He sure seemed all too happy to list out everything wrong with me. Any other kid in this situation should just be going with my flow, not thinking about how to hospitalize me.

I don't know if I was relieved or terrified by the sight of Mikhail and the others heading towards us from the direction of the orphanage. The sight of Hilde's face, just visible past Mikhail's shoulders, was inching me more to the latter.

"Your Grace-!"

Daigo glanced back at me, eyes impossibly wider. "'Your Grace'?" he echoed, with a tone full of…something. Maybe fear, but that could just be my emotions coloring it.

They finally reached our messy portion of the forest trail, Berion grabbing the two tied-up adults and throwing them to the side like they were garbage bags that had gotten in the way. Both Mikhail and Hilde had knelt beside me, Meilan hovering just behind them.

"It just looks bad," I tried to reassure them.

This got me gritted teeth and murder-eyes. Mikhail was making quick work of my sleeve in order to better evaluate the wound on my arm, Hilde was tearing at her dress to make an impromptu bandage in a motion that was starting to look very practiced, and Meilan was glaring at me as if my injuries personally offended her.

"You're bleeding," Meilan bit out.

"That could be anyone's blood trail."

"The blood is yours," Daigo piped up, the turncoat.

Hilde bandaged up my arm as Mikhail tentatively evaluated my swollen ankle, deeming it to be sprained as well. Meilan had pulled Daigo away so that we had some room, lightly patting him on the head in an awkwardly soothing way. I should probably tell her that treating kids like particularly intelligent pets was not the way to go.

"Mr. Doe is the Duchess, isn't he?" Daigo said, lower lip wobbling dangerously. "It's my fault he got injured – I should have told the knights instead of goin' after Maria and the twins myself!"

Gah, what an unexpected blow to my conscience!

Meilan continued patting him on the head. "No, it's not your fault," she told him, in that even and intense way of her's that could make anyone believe anything. That's my girl! "The Duchess was the one who foolishly put himself in danger. Again." This bitch!

"Yes. It's almost like the Duchess enjoys being nearly killed every other day," Hilde spoke up, with the same even tone, icicles hanging on every word.

Daigo turned puppy eyes on me. "Does the Duchess do things like this all the time?"

"No—"

"YES," Meilan, Hilde, Mikhail, and even fucking Berion chorused.

Four-on-one? And they got a puppy-eyed kid to boot? I had no chance of winning so I just shut up.

Being put on mandatory bedrest gave me a lot of time to do paperwork. I wasn't necessarily excited about this, but so far no one was forgiving me for adding another scar to my collection so I decided to be a good little dandy and stay put where they could easily see me.

This also gave me the time to look more into how church donations and sponsorships worked, because I didn't think a church-sponsored orphanage that beat its kids would have gone unnoticed, especially if a bunch of other kids noticed it was going down. Some adults and people in power had to have seen what was happening in Bluefield, and I wanted to know why no one had done anything about it.

I think in the actual middle ages, when 'childhood' wasn't really a thing and neither were 'children's rights', the notion of child abuse probably wasn't even considered. However, this was the idealized form of medieval times in a romance novel, and child abuse was most definitely frowned upon, and in the case of the Sanc Kingdom, illegal.

So now I had to figure out who knew what, weed out the ones who turned the other way when Daigo and his friends were getting beat, and clean up the mess the ones in power had made. I thought this would have required some personal legwork, but the moment I stepped outside of the walls of the estate, I had five knights falling in step with me.

I was forced to give it up when Commander Broden approached, already making notes on how to improve the knights' training regimen and wanting to show me.

I had never wanted to apologize to my guards so badly.

"Have you ever heard of delegation?" Meilan had asked me scornfully from across the dessert-laden table. It'd been a week since my little adventure and subsequent house arrest, so I'd forced her to have a tea party with me out of spite. She was stabbing her slice of mont blanc with vicious force. Come to think of it, I think we both disliked sweets…

"Delegate what to who?" I asked blankly.

"You want to investigate the orphanages and how they're managed, right?" she said. This was a bit creepy, because I don't remember actually telling her that. She better not be taking one of those Duchess-stalking courses Commander Broden had developed in his latest training zeal. "You have an entire estate full of fully-trained knights and soldiers, whose skills range from assault to spying. Why don't you try using them?"

I frowned. "But only Heero can give commands to the army," I pointed out.

"The Duke is out on an expedition," Meilan dismissed. "Command falls to Commander Broden. The army serves the people of the Sanc Kingdom, and last I checked, the provincial capital's orphans are citizens of Sanc."

I stared at her in awe. Was she telling me to exploit a fucking loophole so I could order around the Yuy militia?

"Also, if you don't distract them with something soon, I fear they'll start a new training regimen that requires they fight bears with their bare hands."

Commander Broden, what are you doing!

By the time the slash on my arm had healed closed and was nothing more than a brush of dark red on pinched skin, Mikhail was reporting to me what the soldiers had found about the state of the church-run orphanages. It wasn't as bad as I had feared; there had been negligence that resulted in the ongoing abuse of the Bluefield orphans on part of some of the clergy, but this seemed to be the result of ignorance and mismanagement on behalf of the overseers, rather than intentional malice.

This saved me from having to execute clergy members because I could only imagine how bad that would have looked to the townsfolk. What I did end up doing was strong-arming the churches into dismissing the most egregious cases: the overseers of Bluefield orphanage were demoted, assigned to more rural locations and no longer allowed to manage orphanages; the nuns that had run Bluefield were dismissed and excommunicated, and banished from the provincial capital; the head nun and her lover (who was now one-eyed) were excommunicated as well, but they were locked away within the provincial jail on account of having assaulted and attempting to murder the Duchess.

There was also the smaller matter of the Summerborn orphanage, which had been reported to not be teaching their kids to read and write. This was not the result of negligence, but rather a lack of resources; the three nuns taking care of the orphanage simply did not have the same skill level as the nuns of Blackwell, and thus didn't have the time or energy to teach their kids.

This boiled down to a lack of funding and resources, which meant it became an issue of the duchy as well.

The problem was that even though we were considered sponsors of the churches within the provincial capital, that didn't give us right to see where that sponsorship money went. We assumed it went to maintaining the church and their affiliated orphanages, but exact amounts and what it was spent on was left largely unknown. A church could receive a large amount of money and only spend 0.01% on their orphans, and no one could say anything about it. The only known financials were the donations paid specifically to the orphanage itself, but those were given at the discretion of the donor and usually not a recurring subsidy.

I think I had a solution for this, but it wasn't an easy or quick fix.

"Howard… You mentioned before that, since the Duke is away, I am the acting lord of the province," I began, chin resting on steepled fingers. "And that I can manage things up to a certain point."

"Yes, Your Grace."

"One point being large expenditures."

Howard's gaze was very steady. "That is correct, Your Grace."

"…what is considered a large expenditure?"

"May I ask what your plan is?" Howard asked politely. He was surprisingly understanding in tone, rather than replying with the wariness I had expected. "If you could let me know the general idea, I would be able to figure out the estimated expenditure."

That wouldn't be necessary because I'd already calculated the estimated cost; well, me and my small army of accountants did. (Heero, give me back Master Winner!) Instead of explaining that, I pushed a thick folder across the desk at him, which he dutifully took. I watched silently as he flipped it open and regarded the first page with wide eyes.

"…You want to put the orphanages under the control of the duchy?"

I nodded grimly. The reason we couldn't find out how much of the money we sent to the churches was going to the orphanages was because it was mired in bureaucratic red tape and, even more stifling, religious traditions. Even if the regular layperson wasn't considered devoutly religious, questioning the church was still considered a bad idea.

If I didn't want to question the church's handling of the orphanage situation, then I had to take the church out of it. The only way to do that was to put the management and funding of orphanages in the hands of the duchy – namely, well, us.

Essentially, I was gonna state-run the shit out of it.

It wasn't as simple as it sounded though. It was more than just maintaining the properties and keeping the children warm and fed; we had to educate them, we had to ensure there was enough staff to take care of them, we had to work out when and how they aged out. Churches used their connections with the local populace to find the kids jobs as apprentices when they aged out, and if those connections somehow fell through, sent them off – either to the military or to the slums. Just letting the kids age out without some kind of pathway program was only guaranteed to increase our slum population.

"It's a significant undertaking," Howard allowed. "And one that I fear neither you nor I have the power to take. We may have to wait for the Duke's return to get approval for it."

I expected as much, to be honest.

"But," he continued. "Please give me a day to read through this thoroughly. I'd like to see if any adjustments could be made, as well as if I have any recommendations. If there are any smaller changes we could enact right away, we could start with those and approach the Duke with the bulk of it once he has returned."

Howard closed the folder with a snap. "I do not mean to put this off, Your Grace, but this is a vast change that I do not feel comfortable addressing through only letters. And I would like to have every little part planned out, researched to the very finest detail so he understands just how serious we are about this."

"…'We'? So you approve?" I grinned.

Howard grinned back. "It's a good idea," he said. "Very ambitious and overwhelming…but good."

…Why did I get the feeling that I just now got Howard's stamp of approval?

A/N: Oh Duo's got the Butler's stamp of approval now… He's really working his way up :')

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