Chapter 75: The Other Side of the Burning Shore

“Maximilian Zander, at your service.”

When I entered the conference room, only King Rathbald and Marquis Beowulf Eldenberger were there. Eleven seats at the round table remained empty. Two knights of the Kings guard were standing there, but they should not be counted.

“Um, am I the only one who was called? Or is someone else coming later?”

When Maximilian asked, Rathbald shook his head quietly.

“I will summon the Twelve Nobles later. But first, I wanted the three of us to talk.”

You mean just the key players in the peace negotiations?

The knight brought a new chair and said go ahead. There are plenty of chairs available around the round table, but I guess he meant not to use them without permission.

Maximilian felt a little gloomy about calling people over and treating them with disparities.

It is more troublesome to sit down at random and have the Twelve Nobles complain about it later, I understand that. However, I couldn’t help but feel the insidiousness of the royal court.

“To what extent has Sir Maximilian heard about the current situation?”

Beowulf asked.

“The Third Prince of the Allied Powers is seeking protection, and that’s as far as it goes.”

“Yes, but I don’t care about the runaway kid now. The problem is that what he said matches what the spy said.”

A prince from an enemy country had come into exile, a big deal no matter where you look at it. When I turned a quizzical eye on him, Beowulf said in a voice that sounded as if he cursed everything in the world.

“The barbarian king Cassandros has been assassinated.”

“What the hell, who did it!?”

“Maybe it’s who you think it is.”

“The second prince, Arsames…?”

“I guess. Holding Amaterasu, sitting on the throne, if this wasn’t the culprit, I’d laugh out loud.”

“That macho old man, you can kill him. ……”

When I saw the sword dance of Cassandros, he was older than anyone else in the room, yet he seemed to be more full of life than anyone else.

“He died of illness with about 30 crossbow arrows sticking out of him.”

That’s the way it’s supposed to be, Beowulf said with an ironic smile.

“So now the Allies are in turmoil?”

“That’s it, but you seem to be surprisingly calm.”

“Assassinated the king, huh?”

The irony of fate, you might say, is this. Cassandros himself was blown away by the proof of the king, the amaterasu, and it seems to have given legitimacy to the usurpation of the throne in the hands of Arsames. It’s a mess, but it’s not like we’re in the middle of a rebellion festival.”

“… how should we move?”

When Maximilian asked anxiously, Rathbald, who had been silent until now, opened his mouth gravely.

“It’s not so much that we can’t move as that we should move. The peace agreement forbids any military action against them for five years.”

“Ah……”

“If we send out troops to take advantage of the chaos, we will allow the Empire to intervene, which in turn will be a witness.”

“Are you saying that you can’t move? Was Arsames planning a coup d’état when the peace talks began?”

“Yeah, that’s it…”

Beowulf said, looking up at the ceiling as if seeking answers from God.

“It looks like he did it impulsively…”

“He did it…”

It would have been terrible if they had killed their parents or usurped the throne in such a fashion.

“That handsome man was in a position where the throne would roll in sooner or later if he just waited.”

“I heard that he is the second prince, but what is the succession right?”

“The first prince suffered from an eye disease and became a priest. He has renounced his right of succession. He was good friends with Arsames and encouraged him to succeed to the throne.”

“Arsames’ position was safe.”

“The problem is that the first and third are the children of the legal wife, and the second prince is the offspring of the concubine.”

The line of succession becomes complicated when the maternal line is also taken into account. Although the bloodline must be preserved, too much blood can cause disturbances, a problem that has plagued the royal family since ancient times.

“I guess the original plan was to have the third prince take over. They sent Arsames out to work, and the third prince was carefully brought up in the palace, but here another problem arose. The third prince became a naive, dim-witted child, and the powerful families began to support Arsames.”

The incompetence of the king is also fatal to the vassals. Especially independent ruling families valued his ability rather than the strength of the king’s blood.

“In other words, he could have been king if he had waited for the old king to die or retire. I think he was counting on five or ten years.”

Maximilian also saw the big picture. And he could understand Alsames’ impatience.

“I guess he couldn’t wait. At the peace negotiations, the king showed his overflowing vitality, and he must have wondered. Will he really die in a few years?”

By holding Amaterasu in his hand, his body was filled with strength, and he embarked on a new big project called centralization. It doesn’t seem like he will die very soon.

Even if ten or twenty years pass, the father will still be alive.  If he was not careful, he might not be able to succeed to the throne and die first. Such anxieties must have been gradually weighing on him.

“That old man didn’t just let his concubines sleep next to him, but he actually stuck with them. He seemed to be in such high spirits.”

“Lord Beowulf, you are in front of the King.”

Maximilian chided him for his vulgarity in the presence of the king.

“Oh, excuse me for this. What I’m trying to say is that the king could have had a fourth child.”

“……He’s over seventy, you know?”

“It’s not like there aren’t people in history who have had children at that age. No, it doesn’t matter if you can actually do it. The problem is that Arsames might have thought so.”

The father is very unlikely to die. He grows old in vain. He says that old children are the cutest. So who will be the next king?

It was reason enough to be impatient.

“However, being frightened by the shadow of an unborn child is so…”

“Sir Maximilian is somewhat laid-back and can’t imagine what happens to those who crave power when they fall prey to doubt and suspicion. People can easily turn into demons.”

Beowulf said with sharp eyes. Those were the words of the man who killed his brother and usurped the position of head of the family.

“In the darkness of suspicion, I realized that the five-year truce period, the proof of the succession of Amaterasu, and the antipathy of the ruling families against the king. ”

“It seems that there will also be pushback from the ruling families who have supported Arsames. Their autonomy is about to be taken away, and they won’t do anything?”

“I wonder if they will even add the cause of “for the good of all” to the mix. If this happens, he’ll probably misunderstand that he’s being guided by fate or something. He’ll start bringing up the moldy signboard of the Holy War.”

Is it only after he has taken his father’s hand that he realizes that it was not God’s guidance but the devil’s entrapment? Or is he still dreaming sweet dreams?

“… and what I’ve said so far is all my imagination, but I don’t think it’s that far off.”

“I think so too. By the way, how is the third prince doing?”

“I’m entertaining him in a locked room.”

Judging from his tone, Beowulf doesn’t seem to have a very good impression of the third prince of the Allied Powers.

“That idiot, what do you think you said when you came to the royal palace? ‘I want to marry Listil-sama and set up a government in exile here.’”

“… what merit does it have for our country?”

“He told me with full confidence that he would have the justification to attack the Allied Powers. Only his sense of jokes seems to be top-notch. It wasn’t funny, though.”

Both sides were exhausted from the long war, so they decided to cease fire. It would only be a nuisance if the sparks of war were brought in during the ceasefire period.

“If you brought this up a decade or so later, when the cease-fire is over and national power is restored, well, it would be worth considering. But now, now? It’s the worst possible timing. Too little political sense.”

“I understand why the ruling families support Arsames.”

“And by the way, the third prince has a legitimate wife he left behind in the country.”

“Wow……”

He is quite thick-skinned, for he would then go into an enemy country and say, “I’ll take your princess.

Political affairs are not always conducted by the best people choosing the best solution.

Justice, desire, insecurity, and incompetence. The Cauldron of Hell in which they are all stewed together, the resulting dish cannot possibly be good.

Pan, and a dry sound resounded. The king seemed to clap his hands, and Beowulf and Maximilian turned their attention to him.

It’s a signal that the story is largely laid out and that the conclusion is to be stated.

“All we can do is wait and see. As for the treatment of our guests, that will depend on how the other side reacts. Please refrain from any rash actions.”

“Ha”

The two bowed their heads at the same time, ending the discussion for the day.

Until the situation settles down, he will not be able to return to the count’s territory, at least until the treatment of the third prince is decided.

Maximilian let out a sigh in the hallway on his way back to his room. Since approaching the Marquis, he has been able to appear on the stage, but he is always involved in troublesome matters.

The nectar of power is sweet, but apparently not very good for the body.

A week later, a knight who called himself the messenger of Arsames arrived.

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