Little Golden Duke? - 3
In the end, it had come to this.
"Crown Prince."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
At his father's summons he bowed his head at once. He could guess well enough why he had been called, and there was nothing for it. This was a matter that demanded he prostrate himself as thoroughly as possible.
"It has grown hard to see my heir. You come only when We summon you."
"I am most humbled, Your Majesty."
The voice was low, yet it pressed down on him with a crushing weight of authority, and he bowed still lower.
That was not a warm, fatherly wish that his son would visit more often. It was exactly what it sounded like: a rebuke for the indolence of appearing only when called.
To think she would move so quickly.
He admitted it. He had taken this affair far too lightly. He had assumed that for a new blood-bound faction centered on the Audit Department Chief to rise, it would take two or three years at the least.
Of course he had not been mad enough to think, Well, there are two or three years left, so I may as well watch the show. He had meant, at the very least, to begin drawing up countermeasures this week and to report to His Majesty as well.
But the Demon Duke had overturned the board in an entirely different sense.
I never thought she would scatter messenger birds.
The mere image of Magic Tower mages dispersing in every direction nearly drew a hollow laugh from him.
The Demon Duke had first revealed her one-sided love at the Crown Princess's birthday banquet. He had expected the guests present to spread the news little by little among themselves—never that she would take the matter into her own hands.
It wasn't planned. It was an impulse.
He had jumped to conclusions. Because it was the Demon Duke, he had assumed every move was meticulously calculated.
But no matter how he looked at it, this was the sudden act of someone blinded by love. If this had been a scheme, he would have renounced the position of Crown Prince and gone back to being a private citizen. He had no confidence he could stand above a duke who plotted in such a fashion.
In any case, the Demon Duke's outburst had set off a massive detonation across the empire. The construction of a blood-bound faction was still a long way off. Yet thanks to her spectacular performance, high society had already begun factoring that future faction into its calculations.
It's over.
Which meant it had, for all practical purposes, already risen. When everyone treats something as a fixed constant, it becomes one.
Two or three years left? Nonsense. It was finished before two days had even passed—before he could prepare a single thing.
"It would be no exaggeration to call this a blessing upon the empire. Crown Prince, see that you are fully prepared for this great fortune."
"I shall take it to heart."
Unprepared as he was, the Crown Prince could only obey the Emperor's words. That was the only way to keep the Emperor's wrath from crashing down upon him.
Fortunately, his father showed little more than mild displeasure and did not rebuke him severely. He left only the formal instruction that the Crown Prince attend carefully to the changes this incident would bring.
Silence settled after that, but he dared not leave first. To move without the Emperor's leave would be an act of disrespect.
"Crassius is a loyal subject."
"Yes. Truly so, Your Majesty."
At last, after the wait, his father spoke again.
"Ever since Great Emperor Eimanka received the Mandate of Heaven, the Crassius line has always stood with the imperial house."
He only nodded. That was precisely why His Majesty could accept the present affair with a measure of calm.
Because the one the Demon Duke held in her heart was a Crassius. More precisely, because he was a member of an Imperial Count house.
At least there's that much to be thankful for.
Even put charitably, his father was excessively cautious; put bluntly, the man was a patient of chronic suspicion. Even so, his distrust of the Imperial Counts was relatively mild.
Faith in a loyal subject? Three hundred years of trust? No soft, warm reason of that sort. It was simply that the imperial house and the Imperial Counts were now bound so tightly that they could no longer be pulled apart.
In the earliest days of the Imperial Counts—when Great Emperor Eimanka had only just founded the empire—imperial politics had been complex and bizarre.
A patchwork nation.
That was the only way to describe it. Not a true whole, but a forced agglomeration of pieces.
There had been many who were the Great Emperor's vassals in form and allies in substance. The marquisates and counties of today had been among them. Of course, the Great Emperor's achievement in forcibly uniting those disparate powers and handing them down to later ages was truly worthy of praise.
In any case, amid that patchwork, the Imperial Counts had served as the Emperor's direct vassals, guarding the imperial house and checking the allies. Three hundred years of political partnership had forged the imperial house and the Imperial Count families into two that were as one.
"…If Varenti and Katoban become one with Crassius, then they too will stand with the imperial house, will they not?"
That was why his father could speak so. At the very least, an Imperial Count house would not turn against the imperial family even with a ducal house at its back.
Perhaps His Majesty was even quietly relieved. Unless a duke meant to live a lifelong bachelor, a ducal house would eventually form ties with some other family. And if ties were to be formed, better with an Imperial Count than with some third party.
"Your words are most just, Your Majesty."
Indeed, sealing off the marriage cards the ducal houses might have played by binding them to an Imperial Count could even be called a gain.
Yes. He would think of it that way.
He would. And so would his father.
My thanks, Audit Department Chief.
Come to think of it, the very existence of the Audit Department Chief had blocked the cards of two entire ducal houses.
If that was not a loyal subject, who was? Had he not been an Imperial Count, they might even have considered elevating his rank.
Once he had watched the Crown Prince withdraw, he lay back down. Even standing for a short while was exhausting now.
Still, this had been a matter that required summoning the Crown Prince and scolding him. Fortunately the Crassius family's entanglement had lessened the gravity of the situation—but to neglect an affair in which the marriages of ducal houses hung in the balance…
Immature.
The thought rose unbidden. And with it, the thought that it could not be helped.
The Crown Prince had been invested only two years ago. Before that investiture he had been little more than a prince in name alone.
An overwhelming lack of experience. And that lack of experience was something he himself had brought about, so whom was he to blame?
At least he has talent.
Fortunately, the shortfall of experience was being filled by talent and effort, and experience itself would come with time. He could not call the boy an entirely satisfying heir, but he cleared the passing line.
…Compared to Dorgos, of course, anyone would have passed.
It is my own lack of virtue.
And that, too, was not a problem for which he could blame another. It was merely the shortcoming of a man wearing the fine-looking shell of Emperor.
He had wanted his heir to be a legitimate son, unlike himself. He had wanted a solid maternal house to support the imperial authority. That was why he had chosen the Second Prince—Dorgos.
But aside from being legitimate, Dorgos had possessed none of the virtues of a sovereign. The Apsilon family, which ought to have upheld the imperial power, had instead challenged it and shaken the empire's stability.
Patience had been driven past its limits, and past them again, until at last they crossed every line that could be crossed, and catastrophe arrived.
It was always going to end this way.
He regretted it. He lamented that he had not decided sooner.
He should have abandoned legitimate succession and killed Dorgos early. Or else, to secure Dorgos's succession, he should have killed the Crown Prince.
Neither choice was especially difficult. Looking at Dorgos's qualities, he would have chosen the former in the end.
He had walked an easy road as though it were the hardest one of all. He had shed blood that need never have been shed, and wasted time that need never have been wasted.
Which is why the Crown Prince, at least…
Which was why the Crown Prince must not fall. The Crown Prince forged by the expenditure of the imperial house's strength must not be allowed to collapse in vain.
When his vassals hesitated to offer counsel for fear of his reaction, he himself would have to step forward. He would have to make of the boy a perfect sovereign.
That was his mission for the sake of the noble imperial house and the great empire—his destiny, to preserve the Mandate of Heaven that had begun with Great Emperor Eimanka.
And the pillar is firm as well.
And as if the Great Emperor himself were watching over them, there was also a talent to support the Crown Prince. A very young talent, at that.
Had the Audit Department Chief been older, the Crown Prince would have found him hard to control. But he was younger than the Crown Prince. Easy for the heir to manage, and capable of decades of devoted service to the empire.
And now marriage into ducal houses, no less.
Truly a stroke of heavenly fortune. Secure the Audit Department Chief properly, and the two ducal houses would move with him.
How fortunate that this had erupted while the Audit Department Chief was still young—while he himself still lived.
The Golden Duke affair was a nightmare.
The memory of several decades past made his head throb.
Wives multiplying twofold in the blink of an eye. By the time he had collected himself, the Golden Duke had taken twelve wives—which meant twelve more families entangled with the Golden Duke.
…Even now, recalling how the political world had convulsed then made him dizzy. The Golden Duke's faction had swollen into the foremost power in an instant.
Two is manageable.
It was regrettable that both were of ducal houses, but still—only two. Compared to twelve, it was barely a speck.
Something to watch. Not yet something to worry over.
I summoned Young Lady Luise and Young Lady Irina to the vice president's office. Ordering fellow nobles about like this was something I disliked, but the matter was important enough that I had no choice.
"…So that's what happened."
When I explained the events of the banquet, the two young ladies seemed at a loss for words and only watched me carefully for cues.
I understood. Even I, who had watched someone try to snatch the sword away before my own eyes, had been afraid—how much more so for these two, who were only hearing the tale secondhand? Bewilderment would outweigh anger.
Even so, I had to tell them. We were allies. Allies standing side by side with the sword.
If the Demon Duke seized the sword and tried to monopolize it, we would be left with nothing but to stamp our feet and cry.
"Um, Senior… if Her Grace the Demon Duke is… th-that is…"
Young Lady Luise finally managed to open her mouth, but she was still so flustered that her words stumbled over themselves.
She looked almost broken. It was not a fitting sight for a lady, but I understood that as well. Unlike me, who was of a ducal house, Young Lady Luise was only of a baronial family. How crushing must the pressure feel?
Even Young Lady Irina, who at least ranked among the higher nobility, was trembling at the corners of her eyes, cowed by the very name of duke.
"That's right. She's one of only five dukes in the entire empire."
At those words, moisture gathered in Young Lady Luise's eyes.
"And I, too, am of one of only five ducal houses."
But at the sight of me speaking so boldly, her eyes went round. Young Lady Irina also stared, as though she had not expected me to declare it with such confidence.
"Birth is no obstacle to love. And even if it were—I am of a ducal house, the same as Her Grace the Demon Duke. There is nothing in which I fall short of her."
Of course I fell short. How could a member of a ducal house and a duke herself be the same?
Even so, I spoke with pride. I performed pride; I performed the air of someone unbothered.
This isn't only my affair.
If I yielded, these two would be cast adrift on an open sea.
They had respected me and sought my leave. They had acknowledged me first and said that later would be fine.
And that first was supposed to yield to someone else? To someone who might show magnanimity—or might choose monopoly instead?
I could not allow that. That would be a betrayal of Young Lady Luise and Young Lady Irina.
And of my love as well. And of my convictions.
I will never let him be taken.
Karl is mine. Even if my opponent is a duke, I will not step back.
"So don't worry. We simply go forward as we are."
I reached out and firmly took Young Lady Luise's and Young Lady Irina's hands in mine.
"But an unexpected rival has appeared—so we'll have to hurry a little, won't we?"
At those words, the two young ladies nodded as if entranced.
Pleased by their reaction, I allowed myself a faint smile. The affection they had already held, and the sudden arrival of a formidable rival. Now these two, too, would show Karl their hearts.
That makes three.
Not two, but three. Even if I held one in each hand, one would still be left over—three.
Even a duke—could she truly approach a Karl already surrounded by three?