Guilty

Count was truly angry at the rebel leader whose name he doesn't remember. No matter what, he had still saved him from the pursuit of Count Firewoods; is this how they repay his help?

"Count Highlands!" someone called.

Turning around, he saw a beautiful woman. He thought momentarily about a painting of the current king, then trembled and called, in a high tone, "Your Majesty!" as he fell to his knees.

Elizabeth came here after finding Count wasn't in the city of height.

The count came to himself and thought, "But how is it possible? Why is Her Majesty here?" He was confused.

"Count, you have a few minutes to explain yourself!" Elizabeth said coldly.

She won't kill him personally, as in her current state, she may be tempted to drink his blood. But she would arrest him and punish him according to the laws.

One word: selective enforcement!

In lawful countries, selective enforcement is frowned upon. It basically means, "Why are you only prosecuting me when everyone is doing the same thing?"

If Elizabeth goes around looking for nobles who in some way colluded with rebels, maybe at least a fourth of all nobles have to be arrested.

It is clearly written in the laws that any involvement with rebels is a crime punishable by imprisonment or forced labor.

However, the royal court basically ignored all of these and let nobles do as they wanted. In any event, nobles won't be sent to prison personally, as they are titleholders; they usually send proxies to endure prison in their place. This is called prison by proxy and would be made fun of in any fair country.

Basically, nobles can pay money to another family member to get jailed in their place. According to current laws, noble titleholders can never be imprisoned except by a House of Blue Bloods majority vote.

The House of Blue Bloods nearly never agrees to imprison titleholders, which means no noble can ever be imprisoned.

But Elizabeth plans to use this incident as an excuse to change it.

Still, she tried to keep an open mind; if Count Highlands provided a good explanation, she would not punish him.

The count began to sweat; he didn't have a good explanation. In any event, everything will be discovered sooner or later, so it's best if he talks honestly now that Her Majesty is here.

Still, he shouldn't incriminate himself, as nobles who normally defend him can only shut their mouths if he admits guilt. So, he began telling his story with some modifications.

"I did wrong, Your Majesty! I allowed the rebel forces into my territory out of pity for them! Everyone knows that Count Firewoods and I were on bad terms because I saw how cruel he was! Those poor people were coerced into becoming rebels for two reasons! One is Count Firewoods, the second is their leader, Hank!"

"Everyone knows my tax rates are far lower than Count Firewoods; people in my territory have much better lives. I love our great people! So when I saw Count Firewoods wanting to kill so many people who rose up because they were hungry, I could only allow them in."

"I would have never imagined they would later, by persuasion of their leader, turn around and attack our great royal envoys! As soon as I found out, I marched to stop them by any means possible! Please forgive me for my grave mistake!" Count Firewoods said.

He was careful to twist the story only when he knew proving its opposite was impossible. For example, he never twisted an objective fact; he only changed his intentions.

For example, it's absolutely true that taxes are far lower in his territory. He has been quite generous, with taxes only being 50%.

Count Firewoods has raised taxes to 75%, which for commoners means hunger. Worse, Count Firewoods has exempted richer commoners from taxes at the expense of poorer ones.

Count Highlands is fair in this regard, with taxes being the same for all.

In practice, both bring in the same money, but Count Firewoods takes more from the bottom and less from the rich. He did this to attract merchants to his territory.

Some talented and rich merchants have left Count Highlands' territory and migrated to Count Firewoods, which is one reason for Count Highlands' hatred for Count Firewoods.

Changing a noble master is possible for commoners; it's just that only rich commoners have the money to hire lawyers to request it with the capital, which is far away.

For ordinary poor commoners, if they were caught illegally moving to another noble's territory, they would be fined, and if they couldn't pay, in some cases, they would be sold into slavery. There have been cases of commoners receiving the death penalty because of daring to move to another noble's land.

Listening to this explanation, Elizabeth sighed.

The count perfectly avoided saying anything that made him look bad; even his heartbeat was steady, indicating that he was telling the truth or a perfect liar. She could only clap for him if it was the latter, as she failed to find any clue.

She won't do anything for now, as she isn't sure he is guilty.

"Royal forces are coming here at this moment! Cooperate with their investigations if you want to be proven innocent," she said.

In lawful and just countries, the rule of thumb is that people are innocent until proven guilty, and it is the government's job to prove their guilt.

Blue Blood Kingdom, however, was no such thing, so usually, everyone would be presumed guilty and required to find a way to prove themselves innocent.

If they fail to find any exonerating evidence, they usually have no choice but to cut a deal with the government for a punishment.

There are laws for specific sentences for each crime, but those laws are too harsh to be practical.

For example, death is punishment for stealing more than one gold coin! If they were to apply that law, half the kingdom must die.

So, prosecutors usually just sentence them to a few months of forced labor.

However, they would usually enforce the death sentence if someone steals thousands of gold coins, unless the person is rich and can pay fines.

In Blue Bloods Kingdom, most low-level crimes can be solved by money. Commoners must die if they steal too many gold coins, but rich merchants can pay fines and be let off.

Of course, it won't be cheap. The rate is usually x100, so if one steals 1,000 coins and wants to be let off, they must pay 100,000. There are other options that pay less, like reducing the death sentence to months of hard labor, which would cost only x5. Even x2 may work if the prosecutor needs money, but they won't usually cut a deal for less than x5.

Prosecuting attorneys are a very popular profession. They can get a lot of 'extra' in addition to their formal salary. Those aren't considered bribes and are not crimes because it is written into law that prosecuting attorneys must accept money instead of punishment.

The money is taxed, with 25% going to nobles and 25% to the royal treasuries; it does not go to the king's private treasury.

Count Highlands nodded, "Of course, I will cooperate." He has no choice; not cooperating would insinuate guilt.

Elizabeth nodded and left.

…

The royal army soon reached the city of heights.

By this point, everyone has stopped fighting.

Ten thousand royal cavalry entered the city and took over government buildings. The count, of course, didn't want to let them, but now, his livelihood was in line, so he didn't stop them.

He knows that the noble faction will come to his defense; he just has to hold on until then and make it look like he is a victim of a power-hungry king who is using the situation to expand her powers.

The royal forces began summoning many people in his corner for interrogation. Count knew this is the biggest threat to him.

One can discover a lot when interrogating many people separately by examining disparities between each story. The count didn't have time to harmonize, make up a story, and let everyone be on the same page.

They interrogated hundreds of people in a few days; their methods were brutal.

In the modern world, interrogations cannot be done with torture, as it can cause people to confess to something they didn't commit just to end the torture. But here, torture is allowed during interrogation.

They didn't care about gender at all; they did the same process for everyone. First, ask them to tell their story, then torture them to see if the response changes. If they felt the person did not know anything, they let them go, and if they thought they were hiding something, they continued torturing them until they talked.

They managed to discover a lot.

First, Count Highlands' hatred for Count Firewoods was not solely for the reasons he stated; the main reason was the incident a few years ago when Count Firewoods canceled the marriage contract of his first son to Count Highlands' first daughter.

Evidence shows that before that, the two had a good relationship.

According to many middle managers of the count's army, the rebel army was not taken in to help them, who said it was supposed to operate in Count Firewoods' territory later.

It was damning for Count Highlands. In any event, he has to produce evidence of innocence.

He brought his own witnesses that approved what he said to Elizabeth.

Allowing rebels into his territory was a crime, but the punishment would be much lighter if he allowed them out of pity.

After six days of investigation, Elizabeth rendered a verdict.

Guilty!

On the same day, she sentenced Count Highlands to five years of hard labor in a copper mine.

The count protested fiercely, arguing that not even the king had the authority to arrest noble titleholders. He was right.

But that was before; now, Elizabeth had decreed that the king could do so if the noble in question was suspected of colluding with rebels.

She also sentenced all the rebel army to 3 years of work in mines and the count's standing army to 3 months of forced labor.

This case would be extremely controversial, and many nobles would contest it. Elizabeth plans on using the fight against rebels to defend it.

As always, everything is precedent; now it's about rebels, but in the future, she would extend the king's authority to arrest nobles for other crimes, and one day, nobles would be on equal ground with commoners when it comes to punishment for crimes.