Two Dukes (3)
I wrote to Mavel. The gist of it went something like this:
Brother, it would honor me greatly if you would attend the engagement ceremony and grace the occasion with your presence.
— Duke Iden Esterji
At the bottom of the letter, I had signed my name in bold strokes: Duke Iden Esterji. And with that, the number of men claiming to be Duke Esterzy had become two. A bird conjured by spellcraft carried the letter to the imperial capital in a single day, and returned with Mavel's reply clutched in its beak.
Your invitation has been received. However—Duke Iden Esterji? Surely some mistake has been made. As far as I am aware, our father never passed his title on to you.
I do not take you for a man so bereft of judgment. If some error has indeed occurred, I expect you to set it right without delay.
— Mavel Esterzy, the sole Duke of Esterzy
"He's carrying on as if he's forgotten why he was hauled off to the capital in the first place."
Luka scoffed the moment he finished reading.
"Tell him plainly to quit his delusions. No one in this house will ever serve that man as duke."
I took up my pen and drafted a reply to Mavel's letter.
I cannot imagine why you believe there has been a mistake. While you were detained in the capital, the people here raised me up as duke to fill our father's absence.
You may not care for that fact, but what has been done cannot be undone.
I trust that three years in the capital have been ample payment for your crimes. Should you come, you will receive the hospitality due to the eldest of the family.
— From Iden Esterji, to his beloved brother Mavel
The meaning was plain: the title had flown from your own hands, so don't go blaming me for it.
While the letter winged its way to the capital, I passed my days with Uld at the detached palace.
Perhaps because my visits there were rare, and the woman who would soon be its mistress sat beside me, the head chef seemed to have poured extra care into the menu. Faced with a banquet spread so lavishly the table legs might buckle, Uld sat struck dumb.
And yet she never once reached for the food. Instead, she kept stealing glances at me.
"Why aren't you eating?"
These were dishes she could rarely have gotten her hands on before, surely.
"Is there something here you don't care for?"
"No, my lord. It's only... I think I ought to learn how it's meant to be eaten first."
Uld said, looking embarrassed.
"Eat however you like. I don't fuss over petty etiquette."
I said it offhandedly, then asked her:
"...Did Robert say something to you?"
I could still picture Robert, head of the family council, sneering at Uld and calling her a vulgar woman.
"Yes."
Uld nodded without protest.
"He pointed out that I lack refinement. It shames me to admit it, but he wasn't wrong. I've never had anything resembling a proper education, so if I'm not to be a burden to you, my lord, I must study everything I can, as hard as I can... my lord?"
"...Sorry. I'm listening."
For a moment, I had failed to keep my expression in check. It struck me anew just how accustomed I had grown to this body and this station—the sight of her gripping a bone in her left hand while dismantling the meat with a single fork had actually registered as barbaric.
Uld even picked up the stripped meat with her fingers and ate it that way. And yet nothing about it felt crude. Her hands moved with such practiced ease, and the maids had done her up so thoroughly in noble finery, that the whole scene somehow looked elegant.
"Yes, I'm resolved to study anything and everything with all my effort."
Watching Uld kept dredging up memories of my past life. The years I had wandered, pulling wild greens and hunting whatever beasts I could catch. If someone had pressed a knife and fork into the hands of that younger me, I'd have cut a far sorrier figure than she ever did.
"Where is this master of yours now?"
"He left the temple a few years ago."
"Why?"
"He never told me. I originally stopped in Andrassy intending to seek him out and ask why he'd gone."
Uld's voice turned gloomy.
"If you become the Duchess, your master is bound to hear of it."
"That's what I'm hoping for."
Her expression brightened a little.
"But watching you speak earlier with all those distinguished people... I couldn't help wondering whether I'd been too naive to put myself forward."
"I'll say it as many times as it takes: you're not. I need you."
I gave her that assurance without reservation.
It must have started when I gave up my identity as a Daoist and resolved to live as the third son of House Esterzy. That was when I had begun keeping score of things like face and dignity.
The political marriage was an extension of the same shift.
Which was exactly why Uld's arrival felt like a mercy. If I held her up as a mirror, perhaps I wouldn't go the way of Mavel and Chris.
Under the pretext of getting better acquainted with Uld, I enjoyed my first holiday in ages. We strolled the gardens trading small talk, or wandered the palace tracing the leftover marks of my childhood.
A few days later, the bird that had flown to the capital returned. Judging by the timing, one thing at least was certain: Mavel was cooking something up. A delay like that meant scheming, plain and simple.
With our father lying unconscious, the title rightfully belongs to me as the eldest son. Setting age aside, few would deny my fitness as heir—not with the esteem of the nobility and the backing of the imperial family both on my side.
I beg you to lay down your ambition. His Majesty has no wish to see the North thrown into turmoil. Persist in this stubbornness, and you may well force the imperial family to intervene in House Esterzy's internal affairs.
— With sincere concern, your brother Mavel
"...Absurd."
All I could manage was a hollow laugh.
What this letter carried was a threat. He was saying he would drag in an outside power—the imperial family—to settle the question of succession.
"What do you make of such shamelessness, Lucian?"
"It seems His Majesty has been blowing a great deal of wind into Mavel's sails."
Lucian said with a smile.
"Of course, Mavel is more than qualified in his own right. He has a gift for cultivating second-grade mana cores wherever he goes—one might say the family that wins Mavel wins the world, and it would be no exaggeration."
"And the livelihoods of his people collapse in the process?"
"Not that they would ever know. So long as the crown sits upon his head."
"Then I suppose Mavel needn't concern himself with mine."
I sent Mavel another reply, this time carrying a stern warning: one territory cannot hold two lords.
I opened the window and released the bird into the sky. It was unusually clear today. Perfect weather to begin a blood-scented war between brothers.
"I have laid out both the favorable and the unfavorable prospects for you, but they will have weighed those same factors themselves. The fact that Mavel refuses to bend despite that means..."
"The Emperor must have promised him support substantial enough to make it worth his while."
"House Esterzy alone boasts two known Grand Masters. For the Empire to intervene in the strongest single force within its own borders can mean only one thing."
"You mean the Imperial Seven Pillars."
"Yes."
The Imperial Seven Pillars. Seven Grand Masters sworn to the Emperor's service.
I had already gone up against one of them: Kalman. He was a transcendent powerhouse, wanting for nothing as a pillar of the Empire—mana enough to draw out sword-qi stretching past three meters without end, paired with a sure-hit strike that never once strayed from its mark.
If Kalman ever crossed over into the Central Plains, he wouldn't merely be hailed as the finest martial artist under heaven. They would venerate him as a demigod.
Mavel's reply came only after three more days, with thirteen days left until the engagement ceremony. This letter bore no signature in his name. In its place was stamped the Emperor's seal.
I read it aloud before my closest retainers. In a sense, this missive was no different from an imperial decree.
We have no wish to see the North thrown into confusion over the matter of succession. No subject of the Empire desires such a state of affairs.
On the coming feast of Saint Manilan, two envoys shall come to the duchy to mediate this dispute. Regard them as Our own person, and extend to them every courtesy.
The letter opened by nailing down my status as a mere young lord.
So the imperial family takes this keen an interest in northern affairs now. The last time I visited the capital, they wouldn't even grant me an audience.
"Who are these envoys?"
"Undoubtedly the Imperial Seven Pillars. The intent is to cow us with force, is it not?"
"It is the Seven Pillars."
I set the letter down.
"One of them I know. Kalman, the Sword Duke."
"Kalman seemed like a man one could reason with. Though I doubt he'd put our circumstances above the Emperor's orders."
I agreed with Lucian's assessment.
"And the other is King Sandor."
The mood among the retainers shifted at once.
Sandor was king of the southern Kingdom of Sandor, a man named in the same breath as my father whenever talk turned to the strongest Awakened alive.
But Sandor was more infamous for his atrocities than celebrated for his strength. As the Empire pushed its borders southward, he had butchered the native tribes with such savagery that his name became a byword for slaughter. They say the desert sand was soaked so thoroughly red with blood that cacti bloomed from it.
So he truly meant to make Mavel duke, whatever it took.
The date was cunning, too. The feast of Saint Manilan fell just three days before the engagement ceremony. With no telling what might happen that day, postponing the engagement would be all but unavoidable.
"Counting only known Grand Masters, it is two against two—an even match. Though the imperial side still holds five or more Pillars in reserve, to say nothing of their far greater hosts of soldiers and knights."
"They can't commit all of that without a justification."
And justification was a thing one could manufacture. For all I knew, that was exactly why two Grand Masters were coming.
"Let us prepare for the worst."
I turned to Luka.
"You'll need to keep the workshops running without pause. If we're to arm every last soldier with the new weapons."
"Leave it all to me."
"Lucian. I want you gathering intelligence. I need leverage—something that can tilt the negotiations our way."
"Standing against the imperial family is a heavy prospect, even for me..."
Lucian glanced around the room and smiled.
"But I, too, was raised on the North's water. I will serve this task with all my heart."
"And Talon."
"Yes, Lord Iden."
"Protect my father. Take the entirety of the Steel Guard with you."
"Understood."
Talon nodded, his expression carved from stone.
My brother knew full well that our father had cherished me, not him. If Father ever woke, every one of Mavel's hopes would die on the spot—and so I had to keep in mind the possibility that he might cast off even the last shreds of human decency.
At last, the feast of Saint Manilan arrived. A taut tension had hung over the ducal residence since morning. I was pushing my food around the plate, neither eating nor sending it away, when the blare of a long horn rang out and the grounds outside dissolved into commotion.
"Reporting to His Grace the Duke!"
When the messenger hurried in and dropped to one knee, I knew that what was coming had finally come.
"The delegation from the imperial House of Pellion has arrived!"
And yet the messenger's voice was pitched far too high. There was something flustered in it. From what I remembered, Kalman's visit to the duchy had caused nothing like this.
"Is something the matter?"
"The one leading the delegation is..."
Kalman?
"...His Highness Raphael, the First Prince."
Only then did I understand why the man was in such a state.
Raphael Romarin Pellion. Head of the Imperial Seven Pillars—and the man every last person had warned me to be careful around, back when word came that he would be visiting the capital alongside my father.
"He's sent his beloved firstborn. It seems His Majesty truly has no intention of yielding."
Lucian said with a smile. I answered coldly:
"Then this should be worth watching. I have no intention of yielding, either."