In Rosewood everyone pays rent to their lord save the king himself. Even future princes would pay to the king if they move out of the castle. The nobles pay rent to the king, the merchants pay rent to their nobles, and the peasants pay rent to their merchants.
Each person pays for their home upon moving in, owning it as well as one who serves the king can own land. The king will often give a one time allowance according to class when one moves out on their own for the first time. After that if one cannot pay, one sells their place and finds a smaller one. For those who cannot pay even this amount, there is double rent housing.
In double rent housing one does not pay a one time fee when moving in. Instead they pay a much smaller fee, but it is a rent that is collected. This does not wave the fee to ones lord, thus it is double rent.
The peasant man Kenneth Woods lives in such housing, being a peasant who fell into hard times. Reeve Frell and his family live there too "for as Reeve it is best to live among the peasants" or so the Reeve claimed when he moved in. There is one noble who recently moved into this housing as well. He has no such excuses, he is neither peasant nor Reeve. He quietly studies his Bible while his sons are at school.
He gazes across his book at the cross upon his wall. In frustration he sets the Bible aside.
Richard studies the cross a moment, the Lord Christ upon it.
"Dear God," he prays, "you set your own beloved son upon the cross that we may be forgiven. Have you forgiven me o God? We have been delivered from our hovel only to this place of most lowly birth, we the Lionhearts, of noble blood! This we noble men can endure. But my wife, my Yarrow, my flower..."
"Suffer her not for the sins of her son and of her husband."
"My son he does not drink as much as he did. He did not know what he did, he was most horrified. And I...I did not even see it was my son when I struck my wife. I thought her an adulteress with another man. I know my wife. I in no way believe she was having an affair with our beloved son. I should not have struck her, I see that now. It matters not that it is a husband's right. I pay every day for that one foul mistake. But why must she pay as well?"
"She is a lady, an innocent! Desist with her infirmity! Your quarrel is with me!" Lord Richard's voice thundered against the stone walls.
As he fell to his knees, it occurred to him that no natural lightning strikes indoors.
God himself has struck me down.
The humbled nobleman lay helpless, at last accepting the will of his God, that he may do with him as he will.
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