Chapter 79
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*Sponsored chapter by Virginie. Thank you ❤️ (2/2)
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Meklen held up his hands, palms visible, and mumbled something to save his life.
"I, uh, have a small vial of holy water in a pouch at my waist. But this is for a quick result, and if you want to make things official, you'll have to go to the chapel and..................."
"I think I'd be fine with going ahead, simply, but what do you think, Chief Priest?"
He felt the glass dig deeper into his throat.
Meklen shuddered and screamed.
"Oh, tell him to put that away first, please!"
***
Half a day ago, the Pilten Hill, a couple hours' horseback ride from the imperial castle.
Emperor Karl watched breathlessly as the procession of his subjects rode up.
"Prove the Prince’s lineage! Prove it, prove it!"
"Dissolve the parliament! Dismiss, dismiss!"
From his vantage point on the hill, the people wriggled like an organism.
He remembered looking down on the city from this hill when he was young.
The promises he had made then came flooding back to him.
"I will make an empire with trains like Galicia. I will pave those dirt roads with cobblestones, and build a system where wagons can run at a high speed."
He was only halfway there, for the people were as numerous as the trees in this forest, and they would turn against him and the prince.
As the emperor stood in a daze, his old friend, the prime minister, spoke up.
"You must go, Your Majesty. The guards are being mobilized here in Pilten. They won't make it to the imperial castle."
"..................are they really my people, that all they want is the dissolution of our parliament?"
The emperor asked not because he didn't know, so the prime minister didn't answer.
A shadow fell over the golden eyes that had once resembled the brilliant sun. Then, grimly, he ordered.
"The guards are not enough. Send a messenger to the imperial capital at once to bring in the imperial army."
"Yes? But..............."
"If they get into the city, it's over. They'll eat me and Leopold alive."
The ambitious emperor who dreamed of an advanced empire was old.
He was now just a father trying to protect his child, despite the scandal his son had caused.
The prime minister could only sigh and nod.
"As you wish, sire, but you have an audience this afternoon with the Count of Burg. He was adopted by Ferdinand, so his loyalty should not be questioned, but you should still appear relaxed."
The Emperor nodded reluctantly.
"You're sure Vineno had nothing to do with it, are you?"
The Emperor's gaunt face was caused by the mob, as well as suspicion of an old loyalist. The recent revelation of Count Deir’s involvement with Nasau's impersonator was the cause.
Count Deir denied any involvement, but evidence was found in his office detailing the mob's plans for the rally.
The Emperor was both furious and bitter, as the Deir family had famously suffered greatly from the pension cuts. The Deir family was one of the system's most prominent noble families.
That alone should have been a blow to the Emperor, but he happened to be the Chamberlain's brother-in-law.
The chamberlain had been his eyes and ears, and the emperor had every reason to be worried and sleepless.
Even though there was no evidence of the chamberlain's involvement in the affair, the emperor could no longer fully trust him. His failure to report for duty at the masquerade ball was also nagging at him.
As a result, it was the prime minister, not the chamberlain, who had accompanied him here.
"I don't think it's Vineno, Your Majesty. The Margrave of Vineno have only been looking south since Sedie took the throne. There's a lot of nasty stuff going on there, human trafficking and slave markets and all that, and he hasn't changed his attitude since I gave him the mandate, so you might as well drop your guard about him.................."
"No."
The Emperor cut him off.
There were many reasons why he had become wary of the Margrave of Vineno, but Count Deir’s affairs played a large part. Countess Deir and Countess Vineno were sisters.
Furthermore, Count Vineno had been knighted by Emperor Wilhelm himself.
Emperor Karl had always been wary of the Margrave, even though he had not been involved in the affairs of the palace due to the frequent border disputes with Domus, and even though he had been loyal to him since his ascension to the throne.
In this day and age, it made little sense for a Margrave with private soldiers to exist, but they had struggled to defend the Margrave for generations, and they could not take them away overnight.
The Margraves of Jesenice and Burg were trusted by the Emperor, but the trust of the Burg had recently become unreliable.
Ferdinand had abdicated on account of illness, and he had been unable to conceive a son without luck, so he had adopted a foster son.
A foster child was not to be taken lightly.
If he were Ferdinand, Karl would have rather had a dice roll and given the title to a woman.
The prime minister, sensing his lord's intentions, hid a sigh.
"In any case, let us return to the palace."
As the emperor and prime minister mounted their horses, a hundred guards mounted in unison and escorted them front and back.
It was a conspicuous move, barely recognizable as stealth, but the Emperor himself could not come out to inspect the protesters on foot.
The sun was rising to the highest point of the sky.
***
In the end, Meklen had to tilt the bottle of holy water over the man's wrist.
"I know it's unlikely, but..................... I hope you don't deceive me anymore, High Priest."
There was definitely bone in the man's words, telling him not to deceive him "anymore" when he didn't even remember him.
Meklen shuddered, and a clear liquid trickled down the man's wrist. Not that it would change the outcome.
Of course, he'd poured as little holy water as possible, hoping to somehow keep the mark from rising, but nothing ever goes as planned.
Meklen swallowed hard under the watchful eye of the terrifying black-eyed subordinate and replied.
"I do not .................. deceive, no. I work in the name of God, and I have never deceived anyone."
The stoic face paled.
He hadn't taken the time to prove Prince Leopold’s lineage. Meklen realized for the first time in his life that the minute hand had never moved so quickly to the next space.
The man's wrists were as white as Leopold's, but his hand below the wrist was a different story.
Thick-palmed, rough-skinned hands that could never have belonged to a scholar who held a pen.
The knobby fingers were spotlessly clean, but the smell of gunpowder seemed to reach the priest's nostrils from a mile away.
Those merciless hands had taken many lives for their own ends and purposes, and he knew they would reach for his own at the first sign of the half-moon over his wrist.
The high priest swallowed hard, unable to take his eyes off the man’s wrist for a moment. But the man with his sleeves rolled up remained nonchalant.
"You have never cheated, ha................... Does the god embrace cowards who stand by while others cheat?"
The man's seemingly gentle tone held a sharp edge.
"That, that's..................."
But Meklen didn't have to answer that sharp question.
Less than five minutes after pouring the holy water, a blue half-moon appeared on the inside of the man's wrist. It was the exact same shape as Emperor Karl's, and it was as clear as if it had been there since day one.
The owner of the blue half-moon remained unmoved, as if he had received his due, but tears of regret welled up in the chocolate-colored eyes of the High Priest.
He dropped to both knees at the wordless man's feet.
"Caius Albrecht von Heidenberg.................., Your Imperial Highness, the gods are.................. pleased to see you back in such good health."
In the hallway on the top floor of the Parma castle itself, where the endless line of onlookers waited, knees dropped to the floor like dominoes.
Caius's booming laugh pierced the eerie silence.
He laughed aloud, but Heidenberg's golden eyes glowed coldly.
They were solid, as if they could not be pierced by an errant low needle, and they fit the occasion perfectly, as if they had never left the palace.
The man was merely sitting on a simple stool with his sleeves rolled up, but it should have been obvious to all who saw it.
The true owner of the throne had returned from a long absence.
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Write a comment
LC (Tuesday, 03 December 2024 13:53)
Ahhhh! Thanks Virginie and Dora!!! What a chapter!