14. Melting Point (24)
14. Melting Point (24)
Back in his room, Nika listened closely as his two escorts reported everything they had gathered over the past two days. This was precisely why he had chosen the Golden Palace.
The Third Consort had given birth to a son several months ago. At the time, the Crown Prince's faction hadn't paid much attention to the child. The Emperor lay unconscious on his sickbed, and even if he were to wake, surely he wouldn't displace a grown Crown Prince in favor of a squalling infant.
But the Emperor who awoke threw himself into state affairs with a vigor no one had seen before. With a single stroke, he dismantled every reform the Crown Prince's faction had championed. Nobles already nursing grievances against the Crown Prince's agenda flocked to the Emperor's side.
The Crown Prince's faction had gambled heavily to push those reforms through. Every move had been predicated on the assumption that the Crown Prince's ascension was imminent. They were trading old enemies for new allies, clearing the ground to cultivate fresh talent.
Then the reforms collapsed before any of it could take root. The Crown Prince's faction hadn't finished consolidating its own power base—they'd only succeeded in multiplying their enemies. In the old days, he could have blustered through on the sheer authority of being Crown Prince. But now the nobles had an alternative: the Third Consort's son.
None of this was enough to cost him the title of Crown Prince. Those who possessed power were, by nature, averse to sudden upheaval. The number of nobles willing to abandon a decade's worth of carefully woven connections and rebuild their networks around a newborn prince was not so great.
What stood in the way was the year of aggressive reforms the Crown Prince had forced through. To sweep that aside and embrace those nobles would require swallowing an enormous political debt. The Crown Prince had withdrawn from the capital—had abandoned the central struggle—precisely to buy time and whittle that debt down. Even the clownish degradation of his own reputation was a necessary part of that process.
A few days ago, however, the Crown Prince had stumbled upon a clue that could resolve everything at once. It had been buried in one of the Intelligence Department reports received before his arrival.
[A partially burned paper was recovered from the fireplace of the room where the Third Consort's faction met. Reconstruction of the document yielded the name 'Comprachicos.']
Comprachicos?
The Crown Prince had never heard the name before.
Fortunately, one of his escorts—Natasha—recognized it. As a senior agent currently serving in the Intelligence Department, she briefed him on what the agency knew about the organization called Comprachicos.
"They provide the child you desire?"
"Yes. Their clientele is primarily wealthy, and they locate the specific children their clients want."
"So, in other words... a human trafficking ring."
The Crown Prince frowned but showed no deeper revulsion. Slavery was, at its base, legal in the Empire. Compared to children sold into the mines or brothels, an operation like Comprachicos could be counted among the more respectable facets of that trade.
The Crown Prince reviewed every scrap of intelligence on the Third Consort's faction daily. He could feel the current shifting beneath this lead—a decisive move that might end the power struggle between them in a single stroke.
It was only a hunch, but his hunches had a habit of proving right.
His fingers, drumming against the stack of documents, stopped. There was only one reason the Third Consort would be entangled with an organization that bought and sold children.
"A fake prince?"
"Your Highness suspects the same? The moment I saw this, it was my first thought as well."
The Third Consort had shown no sign of pregnancy for years—then suddenly conceived and bore a son. The circumstances were more than sufficient for suspicion. In the long history of succession struggles, cases of false bloodlines smuggled in to seize inheritance rights were plentiful.
If they could prove it, they could destroy the Third Consort entirely.
"There is, however, the Imperial Grand Ceremony held when a prince turns five, is there not? That includes a bloodline verification procedure. Does the Third Consort's faction have some means of bypassing it?"
"Who knows. Perhaps she believes that if she eliminates me and ascends to the throne first, the matter will resolve itself. In any case, it's well worth investigating."
Months before giving birth, she had sojourned for a time at Borjomi. At the time, it had been dismissed as political theater—a performative withdrawal, claiming 'the palace leaves me no days to rest' and protesting the Crown Prince's reforms. But something deeper might have been concealed beneath the surface.
Most of her time in Borjomi had been spent at the Imperial Retreat, but intelligence suggested she had briefly ventured out to visit the Golden Palace. If one were to arrange a clandestine meeting with a dubious organization like Comprachicos, that would have been the place.
Nika had chosen the Golden Palace as the site of his Secret Royal Inspection for that very reason. With his itinerary already fixed and Borjomi nearly within reach, he couldn't alter his destination—so he'd improvised, selecting this location to evade the Third Consort's watchful eyes.
But he'd been forced to move so quickly that there'd been no time to consult with Pelebin. Worse, his decoy, Koka, had also made his way to the Golden Palace. Under these conditions, it could hardly be called a covert investigation.
On the morning of the fourth day, word came from the Intelligence Department: the Third Consort's faction had visibly increased its activity in Borjomi. Whether it meant an attack on him or the destruction of evidence, time was running out.
"We'll finish this quickly, before they can take any measures of their own. Both of you are to suspend my protection today and devote your full efforts to the investigation."
The two escorts exchanged troubled looks at the Crown Prince's pronouncement.
"But Your Highness, your safety—"
"I've already spent four days in this hotel. It's secure."
Nika did not mention that he had anticipated an attack. Had he revealed that, they would never have agreed to this Secret Royal Inspection in the first place.
"Sir Dmitri, continue examining the lodging records from the period when my stepmother stayed here. And Natasha—track down that promising witness we discussed yesterday. Understood?"
The two escorts reluctantly accepted his orders.
Once the discussion was settled, Nika straightened his clothes and prepared to leave the quarters. The women's attire he'd so loathed on the first day now went on with a hummed tune. He even struck poses before the full-length mirror, checking his appearance from every angle.
"Your Highness... you seem remarkably cheerful?"
The knight's observation drew a sheepish look from Nika as he turned.
"I-it's simply... it's been a long time since I could empty my head and enjoy a game, that's all..."
"Hm? Didn't you once say games bored you? That everything was too predictable?"
"Th-that depends on the game..."
Nika studiously avoided their gazes and hurried out of the quarters.
Dmitri, uncertain whether to be pleased or concerned by his lord's sudden transformation, scratched the back of his head a few times before rising to see to his own task.
"I'd best be off. Ah, Natasha—what say we trade assignments? Your target is some old ex-soldier, isn't he? I'd wager I'm better at prying information out of that sort..."
"Interview work demands a high degree of skill. A trained operative will fare far better."
Dmitri raised both hands in surrender.
"Fair enough. Can't beat an intelligence agent at her own game."
"That aside, I'll need to ask questions about Her Highness's body. For that, a woman is preferable to a man."
The Third Consort, during her stay at the Golden Palace, had received massages from a bath attendant named Carlson. His hands were said to cure chronic muscle pain and shoulder stiffness with miraculous speed—so renowned that appointments had to be booked weeks in advance.
If the Consort had received a massage here several months ago, she would have been pregnant at the time. The bath attendant might know something about it.
Natasha had already devised her approach: posing as an attendant to a pregnant noblewoman, she would inquire whether massage was safe for someone in that condition, and whether he had ever treated a pregnant client before.
The two gathered their respective materials and departed.
***
Carlson, the Golden Palace's most sought-after bath attendant, wrapped a towel around his neck and prepared for work. In thirty years, he had never once deviated from his schedule—aside from the past few months.
He gazed toward the dugout beside the boiler room where he lived. Its entrance was now piled with luggage, as if someone were about to set off on a journey. Enough for two people.
"Today's the last day."
At his words, the white-haired old man arranging the baggage straightened up, wiping sweat from his brow.
"What's this? Regretful, now that the time's actually come?"
"Hardly. I'm simply pleased those burdensome freeloaders are finally leaving."
"Still can't be honest, I see."
Bartel, former butler to Viscount Bergson, knew full well that his friend had been quietly looking after his mistress without ever admitting it. Carlson's every action was steeped in the peculiar loneliness of a man who had spent long years avoiding human contact.
"Must you leave in the dead of winter, of all times?"
"We have no choice. The pursuers' gaze is drawing closer—I can feel it. The chaos stirred up by the Crown Prince's visit makes this the ideal moment to slip away."
"Even so, to go to such lengths..."
Bartel knew exactly what his friend was trying to press him on. He, too, had quarreled with Anais over the matter more than once. But her resolve could not be broken.
"It is the Master's choice. I will trust and follow her."
He delivered the answer and pretended to refocus on the luggage. His mind, however, was flooded with worry for Anais.
'To raise my odds of survival, I will do anything.'
She had not appeared in the tavern for two days because she'd accepted a request to serve as a go tutor to an elderly nobleman.
In this era, it was common for noble widowers to keep clever young women as conversational companions and unofficial wards. Under titles like caretaker for young relatives, sickbed nurse, or tutor of ancient languages, they employed these women—and not infrequently demanded more than the stated role implied.
To be sure, many such arrangements remained entirely proper. Society, however, treated them as little different from compensated companionship, and the mere fact of being hired by a bachelor was enough to set tongues wagging about the woman involved.
For a titled noble holding her own territory, like Anais, such a proposal was little short of an insult. The Anais of old would never have entertained it.
But she knew that safely escaping the net closing around her required the help of someone with power. So she had accepted his offer as the price. Having already sold her smiles, her words, and her talents before a crowd for money, she could endure this much.
Duke Shtani, the man who had hired her as a go tutor, was what was known as an "honorary duke." A duke he was, bearing the right to vote in an imperial election should the need arise, but he possessed no actual fief.
To be sure, even honorary dukes were nominally assigned territories corresponding to their rank. Those lands, however, had long since been divided up as permanent fiefs by lower-ranking nobles or absorbed into imperial direct administration, leaving them no meaningful authority to exercise.
Their work consisted mainly of compiling reports from their assigned regions and submitting them to the Imperial Household. Yet even that was enough to afford them a lifestyle many landed nobles might envy.
They held the power to decide which news to exaggerate and which to downplay, which incidents to view from one angle and which from another. They were the primary window through which provincial voices reached the capital, and in exchange for that mediating role, they customarily received various concessions from the local nobility.
Anais calculated that a man of Duke Shtani's influence and wealth could secretly extract two people from this city. And so, for the past three days, as they played go together, she had been obliged to offer him subtle overtures—to smile and laugh when he "accidentally" seized her hand.
"You went that far? Oh my, Your Grace, how impressive."
"Exactly. Women value ability over age. A man like Your Grace is still in his prime."
"I'd say His Highness didn't invite you to the party precisely to avoid your seasoned charm. What if all the ladies fell for you?"
Uttering words she did not mean, she flattered his boasts and pretensions as they entered the tavern together. The employees and patrons who had long admired her watched with disappointment. The proud young noblewoman, they concluded, had been nothing more than another tavern girl fawning over money and power after all.
'It's fine. I am Anais Bergson. Right now, I am simply playing the role of "Anya."'
Whenever she met a gaze filled with contempt, she steeled herself anew. She hadn't intended to stop by at all—she'd planned to leave immediately—but she had seen Somo's face and couldn't bring herself to go without a word. She had no wish to repay kindness with cold ingratitude.
"They monopolized the challenge rights?"
Somo told her about the two people who had swept through the tavern over the past two days.
"Ah, my jealousy is positively blazing. Having to yield you to some pair of lovebirds..."
"I-Indeed..."
Anais turned toward where today's challengers sat, flashing a cheap smile at the old duke beside her.
And the moment her eyes met one of the figures seated there, her body went completely rigid.
"Ah."
She swallowed a sigh.
Frank Wonderstein.
The man she had been trying to reach was sitting right there, waiting for her.