20
“So what exactly are we supposed to make of all this?” Ferris put a thoughtful finger to his lips as he and the rest of the group rode away from Lupghana in a dragon carriage. They were on the way to a guardhouse on the border between the empire and the kingdom. From there, it was onward to home.
Ferris’s question was aimed at the two members of the Council of Elders, seated across from him just as they had been on the way here. Miklotov and Bordeaux had been kept in confinement by imperial soldiers during all that had happened. The two of them had been safely released, and the entire royal delegation was now making its way back to Lugunica.
Much as that was a relief, repeated requests of the two captives for additional details went effectively unanswered.
“Hmm,” Miklotov responded. “I understand why you might feel that some loose ends remain to be tied up, young Ferris, but I believe we shall proceed just as His Majesty said. All these events constituted a purely domestic matter within the empire. As such, I was told the royal delegation would be rewarded with appropriate recompense.”
“Appropriate recompense… Does that mean we’re getting the nonaggression pact?” asked the cat-boy, not looking much happier. Miklotov nodded silently.
After everything had been dealt with, and Miklotov and Bordeaux had been released, Vincent had summoned them all to his audience chamber once again. Whereupon, he promptly agreed to the nonaggression pact they had requested. The bureaucratic formalities remained, of course, but with that, the objective of their envoy had been achieved.
Yet somehow, the group didn’t feel they could wholeheartedly celebrate.
“It just doesn’t quite sit right with me,” Ferris commented.
“Live with it,” Bordeaux replied, crossing his beefy arms. “We might not like exactly how it happened, but we got what we wanted. Gotta call that a victory. We have our nonaggression pact, even if it does have a time limit. Just means we know exactly how long we have to get the kingdom back on track.” His eyebrows were arched, and he seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as Ferris.
Julius nodded at the frowns on Ferris’s and Bordeaux’s faces. He himself, though, was bothered by something slightly different than they were.
“You look troubled, Julius,” Reinhard said from beside him, as if the Sword Saint could see right through his friend.
“I am,” Julius said honestly, moved to look into his comrade’s eyes. “I don’t suppose I’d be very convincing if I tried to deny it. Truth be told, something still piques my interest in Volakia. Something, if I may say, I almost regret having left undone.”
“If there’s anything you regret, you should let us know. Given our position, I don’t think we’ll be coming back here with any regularity.”
Having a nonaggression pact didn’t mean relations between the two countries were going to improve. And what’s more, Julius was a member of the royal guard. It wasn’t his place to be leaving the capital. However, the worries that remained in the man’s heart concerned none of these things.
“You have a regret, Julius? Ooh, what is it? Do you wish you could have tried riding on a sky dragon? Or gotten a better look at that weird red sword His Majesty had?”
“Ferris, I am not a child…”
“So that stuff didn’t interest you at all?”
“…Ahem. In any event, that was not what I had in mind.” Realizing he was not likely to win this debate, Julius simply dismissed the demi-human’s interjection. Instead, he turned to Miklotov, sitting across from him and stroking his beard. “Lord Miklotov. Is it possible His Majesty himself was pulling the strings behind everything that happened on this trip?”
“ ” The old counselor stopped stroking his beard at that. He squinted, calmly meeting Julius’s gaze.
“What do you mean?” It was not Miklotov, but Reinhard who answered. “Emperor Vincent, pulling the strings—of what, exactly?”
“Everything. All of it. Master Balleroy’s betrayal, the Viscount Holstoy, who allegedly masterminded the attempted coup—what if the entire plot was part of Emperor Vincent’s calculations?”
“Th-that’s not possible, is it? I mean, just think about it—if Ferri hadn’t tended to His Majesty’s wounds, I guarantee he would’ve died. If he knew there was going to be a rebellion, then before it even started, he could have—”
“Vincent Volakia is a consummately rational man,” Miklotov interrupted, having resumed his beard stroking. Julius raised his eyebrows and asked another probing question.
“Then, Lord Miklotov, you believe you know what he was thinking, as well?”
“ ”
At that, Miklotov curled his lips into a quiet smile, but he didn’t answer. Julius, though, realized with astonishment that the silence itself was the answer, the most eloquent possible response.
“The emperor didn’t actually want a war between the kingdom and the empire. It would have been in his interest to grant the nonaggression pact we were requesting. But…there was a reason he couldn’t do so too readily.”
Citizens of the empire, be strong. It was the very teaching that drove the succession of the Volakian Empire.
Lugunica had lost its covenant with the Holy Dragon. There suddenly seemed to be a decisive shift in the cold war that had stood for so long between the two nations; the empire could not have been better poised to attack. From the perspective of its citizens, at the very least, a nonaggression pact would surely have been unacceptable. Unless, perhaps, there were some excuse. Some reason that compelled negotiations with the kingdom…
“So mew think he deliberately schemed to have our delegation caught up in an attempted coup?”
“Obviously, if the gears didn’t mesh just so, the outcome would have been very different,” Reinhard said. “I’m sure His Majesty was quite careful to guarantee everything went off as planned. No doubt he had agents among the rebels, pushing for certain courses of action and controlling the path of events.”
“But who in the world would it have been? Are you thinking of Viscount Holstoy?”
As the two of them discussed Miklotov’s suggestion, the councilor turned his quiet gaze on Julius, who sat enveloped in silence.
Someone who would follow Vincent’s orders, incite rebellion, and yet retain control of events. Julius had an inkling; he knew someone in just such a position. When he reflected on what had happened, it seemed like an entire chain of improbable happenstances. But the strangest thing of all had been Vincent Volakia’s baseless certainty. If one wanted to chalk it up to instinct, then there was nothing more to be said, but what if it wasn’t? What if there had, in fact, been a firm foundation for his baseless certainty after all?
“Balleroy Temeglyph.”
One of the Nine Divine Generals, and the highest-ranking military officer to join the rebellion against the emperor. It was he, Julius thought, who had been the poison pill the emperor had slipped into the coup.
“ ”
Ferris and Reinhard were left speechless when they heard the name Julius offered. They thought about it: the shot that had taken off Vincent’s arm. Why the arm? A man of Balleroy’s skill targeting a defenseless opponent should easily have been able to take off his head.
“Ferris, I believe your healing abilities were already part of the emperor’s calculations… But that last gasp of Balleroy’s—that was for real.”
The traitorous general had claimed that his motive was revenge against Reinhard. There had been no lie in those last words of his. Julius was convinced Balleroy had set up the situation the way he did in order to kill Reinhard. Perhaps Vincent had even known of this lust for vengeance and used it to bring Balleroy around to the game he himself wished to play.
“The emperor of Volakia has firm faith in what he has seen, what he has thought, and the belief that Heaven has chosen him. I reiterate: He is a man of consummate rationality, as well as unflinching opportunistic judgment.” Miklotov seemed to be indirectly affirming the conclusion Julius had come to. In truth, it was a verdict that shook him to his core. Julius was confident of it after his time with the emperor, brief though it was. Vincent Volakia was a peerless strategist and a superlative ruler, whose ability to calculate and scheme was to be feared. It was he who embodied more than anyone else the way of life of the Holy Volakian Empire.
“The kingdom itself should be so. Have you young men had this thought?” Miklotov asked quietly. His question was directed at the three royal guards sitting across from the two elders. He wanted to know what they thought of the Volakian Empire, having observed it firsthand.
“ ”
The three responded only with silence. But it was not silence lacking an answer. When Julius glanced to either side of him, at Ferris and Reinhard, he saw no doubt in their eyes. Both of them were already convinced of the answer to that question. There was a core within each of them that would never be shaken. An awareness of their own destinies that they had carried since they were young, an absolute loyalty to the royal line, though extinguished. Unshaking will to follow the person to whom they owed everything, though that person was gone.
Did Julius himself, he wondered, have any such thing in his own life?
“Mmm. I see, I see. Excellent answers, all.” The elder across from them smiled, seeming to take the collective silence of the three young men for a response. They were taken aback, but Bordeaux shook his head, a knowing look on his face.
“You never change, Sir Miklotov. I know those eyes of yours can see a lot—maybe too much, sometimes! Just how far ahead did you see this time?”
“Only as much as a man can see when he’s too old to quite stand up straight and knows but little life is left to him. One thing I can say is that the buds of the next generation have begun to shoot forth in the kingdom. Mmm. This was a most significant mission indeed.”
Miklotov nodded as if to affirm his own statement, but Bordeaux only looked at him, the crags and crevices of his face deepening in a frown. It was then, listening to the two of them, that Julius understood that he and his friends had not been an incidental part of this envoy from the kingdom. They were the ones recommended to take part from among the members of the royal guard. True, Reinhard had been requested by the empire, but in a broad sense, they were all there for the same reason. The three of them were to experience the empire for themselves, to feel Volakia on their skin.
All the knights present—Reinhard, of course, but Julius and Ferris as well—presumably had long futures ahead of them as members of the royal guard. This was an experience on which they could draw in days to come. Perhaps Vincent had even requested Reinhard’s presence specifically to pit him against the Nine Divine Generals…
“Impossible…,” Julius said, the word catching in his throat as the possibility dawned on him. Innumerable maneuvers, calculations, and plots lay behind this mission to the Volakian Empire. Vincent certainly had his hand in the events, but what about the kingdom? What part had it played? Could it be that Miklotov himself had known what would happen before they ever left?
“You give me far too much credit, my dear Julius.”
He was no longer even shocked when Miklotov seemed able to read his thoughts. The elder smiled calmly, then gazed out the window. Bordeaux likewise gave a thoughtful look, his arms crossed. Evidently, the two councilors had presented all the lessons they were going to give today.
“Watch out, Julius, or those furrows around your eyebrows’ll stick!” Ferris said, pointing between his own eyes for emphasis. Julius found he couldn’t stay serious in the face of the relaxed cat-boy.
“It seems a great many webs have been woven in the shadows, where we see them not. But I suppose first and foremost, we should be glad that all of us are returning home safely.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure. Plus, Reinhard finally got to take off the Collar of Submission. How’re you doing? Bet it feels great to have that thing off, huh?”
“Yes, wonderful. Like I’ve been released from the most claustrophobic confinement. I know you’ve both been worried about me—from now on, I’ll be able to move and act freely.”
“Confinement or no, you still meownaged to beat Volakia’s strongest fighter—that’s our Reinhard!” Ferris said, and the Sword Saint laughed, turning up the collar of his shirt next to his now-bare neck.
Julius nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Both of you. The pondering can wait until we get home.”
“So you’re still set on pondering? Couldn’t mew take it a little easier?”
“Just the way I am,” answered Julius. The other two, knowing their friend would never change, looked at each other and shrugged affably. Julius, for his part, looked out the window of the dragon carriage and up at the sky.
There are no borders up there. The kingdom and the empire may bump up against each other on land, but the blue goes on forever.
“But then, even so…”
There were other borders, invisible ones. Things buried in thoughts or in individuals’ ways of life. He knew now how the empire functioned; he had seen the loneliness of its emperor, discovered the greatness of his strength, and now he was going home to his kingdom.
What kind of kingdom would it be in these coming days? It was a vital question, one that could not go unanswered in a land with no king. And when his country strode forth into that yet unknown future, what benefit would this experience of his be?
“ ”
Julius let his thoughts roam as he looked up at the sky. It would not be long until the answer to that question came to him in the form of a meeting with a young woman, an encounter that would set him on the path forward.
The royal selection that would determine the next king of Lugunica—it was only months away now, drawing closer every passing moment.
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