The Negotiation
“You lunatic! A coward like you dares block my path?! That bastard Jerome is just the same! I should have run him through with my sword on the spot. How dare he defy my orders? It’s a death sentence! I’ll kill both of those dogs right now!”
Edwin’s face twisted with rage and humiliation, flushed so red it looked ready to burst.
Before the eyes of commoners and nobles alike, his own knight, Jerome, had defied him and then lost to the First Prince. It was the first true humiliation Edwin had ever tasted in his life.
“I’ll kill them all! Uwaaaaaah!!!”
Crash!
Shatter!
Under Edwin’s tantrum, the audience chamber of the Rose Palace turned into a wreck.
“Compose yourself, Edwin!”
Queen Margaret snapped at him, her usual elegance nowhere to be found. Her own eyes burned with fury as well.
Avoiding the rampaging prince, she fixed a sharp glare on Count Carlisle, the envoy of the Holy Empire who sat tucked in a corner.
“Count Carlisle! What exactly is going on here? Did you not personally guarantee that His Excellency the Bishop of the Empire would throw his full support behind my son Edwin?!”
Until now, Queen Margaret had treated Count Carlisle with the utmost deference as an imperial envoy. To secure the Empire’s vast backing she had freely handed over royal treasures and vested interests, bowing her head to a degree that bordered on groveling.
No longer.
And with good reason: Bishop Augustus, who had come supposedly to support them, had nestled himself not in the Rose Palace—the residence of the Third Prince—but in the Guest Palace reserved for outside visitors.
After pouring such enormous investment into him, they had received nothing in return. The queen’s attitude had shifted, and the count had no grounds to complain.
“His Excellency the Bishop refused every invitation from the Rose Palace with one excuse after another. Yet I hear he received visits from the Second Prince Leopold and Duke Barsha at the Guest Palace. What in the world is the meaning of this?!”
Under the furious queen’s interrogation, Count Carlisle swallowed dryly.
“…Your Majesty, please calm yourself. How could a mere count like myself possibly fathom the deep intentions of His Excellency the Bishop?”
“Is that all you have to say?! If the Bishop joins hands with those two, it is only a matter of time before my head and Edwin’s roll!”
The count’s insides were burning just as badly. Bishop Augustus, dispatched from the homeland, was notorious even within the Empire for his greed and sharp calculation. He was the sort of snake who would swallow the feast the Third Prince had prepared in a single bite and switch to the Second Prince the moment a greater profit was offered.
Yet as someone who also had to watch the Bishop’s mood, the count could offer the queen no real answer and merely broke out in cold sweat.
Just then—
Knock, knock.
“Your Majesty. An urgent message.”
At the attendant’s voice, Queen Margaret opened the door.
“What is it?!”
“Well… the First Prince, who has lain at death’s door for three days, has just awakened.”
“Hmph. So that wretch woke up—what’s the big fuss about?”
Having finally calmed down after smashing everything in the chamber, Edwin snorted.
But the attendant’s next words froze the atmosphere solid.
“The First Prince, upon rising, went straight to the Guest Palace and held a private audience with His Excellency Bishop Augustus.”
“What?!”
Queen Margaret’s expression twisted into something demonic. Edwin gaped like an idiot, and Count Carlisle shot up from his seat.
Three days earlier, Evan had risked his life defending the southern wall and become a hero among the people. And the moment he woke, he went not to anyone else, but to the Empire’s bishop?
Sensing something ominous in every move Evan had made so far, Queen Margaret felt an inexplicable chill at the thought of him meeting the Bishop.
“…Count Carlisle.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Go to the Guest Palace at once. By any means necessary, find out exactly what that damned First Prince and His Excellency the Bishop discussed!”
The queen’s rage-filled cry carried beyond the closed doors of the Rose Palace and stretched long down the dark corridors of the royal palace.
The meeting with the Bishop was arranged with almost laughable ease—as if a giant spider had been sitting at the center of its web, simply waiting for its prey to walk in of its own accord.
Guest Palace, Royal Palace of Phanelia.
Bishop Augustus, sunk deep into a sofa embroidered with lavish gold thread, took one look at Evan and twitched the flabby flesh of his face in a scolding that was not quite a scolding.
“Sleeping for three full days… It seems your body is far weaker than the spirit you showed on the main thoroughfare. I nearly collapsed myself waiting for you.”
Evan bowed his head lightly in apology.
“I kept an honored guest waiting far too long. I hope Your Excellency’s broad mercy will forgive me…”
“Heh heh. From the look of it, neither of us is the type for empty flattery. Why don’t we get straight to the point?”
The Bishop fixed Evan with eyes as narrow as a snake’s.
“You must have had a reason for that reckless display in front of me. Tell me what you want, First Prince.”
So he didn’t sit in the bishop’s seat for free after all.
Beneath that greedy exterior, dozens of serpents were clearly coiled in his mind. But that was fine. The greedier and sharper a man was, the wider the room for negotiation became.
Evan brought up the events on the main thoroughfare and spoke of his own value compared to the Third Prince Edwin’s.
“As you saw, the Third Prince may be an easy child to handle, but even if you seat him on the throne, the profit that returns to Your Excellency is limited and obvious. I am different. Your Excellency—rather than boarding the Third Prince’s ship, why not switch to mine?”
Interest flickered in the Bishop’s eyes.
“Hmm. I will grant you that. The Third Prince is, by anyone’s measure, an immature brat. In contrast, the figure Your Highness displayed was already that of a prepared hunter. Yet the Third Prince has the Queen, the nobles who follow her, and even the count our Empire dispatched. By any standard that is the more stable ship. Why should I take the dangerous gamble of boarding yours?”
“Then give me time.”
Evan spoke in an unwavering voice.
“The Third Prince’s faction will not make any real move until after his coming-of-age ceremony. So postpone your decision until then. I may be lacking now, but by that time I will have built a force that surpasses theirs and will show you just how magnificent my ship truly is.”
“Interesting. But mere possibility is not enough to move me. There is still no decisive reason that I must choose Your Highness.”
Evan met the Bishop’s greedy eyes without flinching. Then he played the card he had prepared before ever coming here—the one that would shake even the man’s soul.
“Is it not about time Your Excellency the Bishop entered the very heart of the Church?”
“…The heart?”
“Yes. I will make Your Excellency a Cardinal.”
“What?!”
The air around them turned frigid. The Bishop’s expression and tone both changed. Killing intent thick enough to snap a neck on the spot clamped down on Evan’s entire body.
“Do you take me for some power-hungry swine? You dare insult a man who conveys the will of God? Do you wish to die?”
It was the overwhelming pressure befitting a giant of the Empire. Yet against Evan, who possessed the trait Steel Mind, it meant nothing at all.
Evan already saw through the greedy man’s heart. The display before him was nothing more than a probe. He knew that the Bishop’s very involvement in the succession of this frontier kingdom was itself a stepping stone toward the cardinalate.
“If I have offended you, I apologize. I merely thought that, considering all Your Excellency has devoted to the Church thus far, you deserve that seat this very day. If my judgment was shortsighted, please forgive me.”
The Bishop, who had looked ready to pass severe judgment on Evan at any moment, suddenly asked a question.
“Can you keep that promise?”
“I have never spoken a word I could not keep. I stake my life on it.”
“Hmm…”
The Bishop stared piercingly at Evan’s face with razor-sharp eyes. How much time passed?
“What would I do with your life? But do not forget—if you fail to keep the words you just spoke, you will taste suffering far worse than death for the crime of mocking me.”
“Have no concern, Your Excellency.”
Apparently satisfied with the answer, the Bishop burst into hearty laughter.
“Kuhahahaha! Coming here truly was the right choice! Who would have thought a little lamb who could appreciate my devotion would exist in a backwater kingdom like this? All of it is the guidance of God.”
The Bishop nodded with a greedy smile. The killing intent that had been fixed on Evan vanished as if it had never been, and even his manner of speech returned to normal.
“Very well. In consideration of Your Highness’s deep intent, I shall grant you the opportunity. Until the Third Prince’s coming-of-age ceremony, I will watch what you prepare.”
With that, Evan had succeeded in briefly holding back the flow of a massive wave.
“Then I shall take my leave.”
Just as Evan, satisfied with the results, was about to rise and leave, the Bishop tossed out a question as if in passing.
“Come to think of it—are you not curious about your royal father’s condition?”
…Ah.
Evan’s steps halted. Honestly, from his perspective the king must not survive. Perhaps for that reason he had completely neglected thoughts of the monarch. The current Evan was a ruler who thought of the nation and its people—yet such a man showed no concern for his own father.
Tsk. The moment I saw him I should have asked first about the king’s illness… An unexpected mistake.
He had been so focused on the contest of wits with the Bishop that he had forgotten the role of a son. It felt as though he had needlessly exposed a weakness.
But the water was already spilled. Without turning around, Evan answered calmly.
“Is not everything within God’s plan?”
The Bishop’s eyes narrowed. Then he laughed as if pleased.
“Indeed. Everything is God’s plan. Heh heh heh.”
Leaving the Bishop’s strangely charged gaze behind him, Evan stepped out of the Guest Palace.