Chapter 238
A map was spread across the broad table.
A chart this detailed—showing the jagged eastern coastline, the southern archipelago, the western forests, and the northern plains—wasn’t something money could buy. Terrain was always valuable military intelligence.
And the people gathered in this office were the ones best positioned to use that intelligence. The most important, most militarily powerful figures in Maindulante.
Cledwyn spoke, his eyes coldly lit.
“Maindulante sits at the northernmost edge of the continent. Cold, isolated—and that means there’s no one behind us to stab us in the back.”
The south knew little about Maindulante. How vast it was, what it could become. All they had was a shallow impression.
That it was worthless land.
In truth, Maindulante was larger than several kingdoms combined, with terrain that shifted dramatically from region to region. Warm, restorative coastlines and icy deserts existed side by side within the same borders.
It was better if the enemy stayed ignorant.
“The Empire is almost entirely inland, aside from a strip of northeastern coastline. Of course, they insist our northern coast counts as part of the Empire’s ports.”
A few people chuckled. Cledwyn returned a sympathetic smile. In a room like this, it mattered.
“That’s one reason the Empire, though displeased with us, hasn’t crushed us outright. Their navy is pathetically weak, and the army has too few routes to advance. In a sense, the terrain itself is already waging our defensive war for us.”
He let the humor land, then continued without softening his tone.
“But there’s no need to hand them an entrance.”
Either way, once Abelus threw off his remaining restraint, he would point his spear this way. To do that, he would first try to seize the Tipian Marquessate.
To strike fast, to strike cleanly—to topple Maindulante, which was already winning a defensive war through terrain alone.
“Topple” might not be a word Abelus would use. He couldn’t openly destroy a great noble house without an excuse. Perhaps that convenient mind of his was already soothing him with, ‘This is just politics. A diversion to draw attention away from recent missteps.’
But Maindulante had no intention of becoming a political tool for a foolish Crown Prince, and Abelus would rather step down than admit the inferiority complex he’d carried toward Cledwyn for years.
So Maindulante had only one path.
Not to miss this moment—when all the clever people had vanished from the Imperial Family.
“The Empire’s soldiers lost their drive long ago, and the knights are so busy flattering their superiors that they can’t tell right from wrong. Their foolish master chases ever greater glory and ever greater power, blaming the people of lands he himself is tearing apart.”
As she listened to her husband, Nerys pictured that foolish master far away.
Over there, he would probably be claiming that the Tipian Marquessate was aflame with rebellion. Nerys knew Abelus well enough to be certain he would drag out any flimsy pretext to justify what he wanted.
Cledwyn fell silent. Nerys spoke in his wake.
“To tell the truth, I don’t want to fight. I cherish the lives of my people. I cherish your property and your lives more than anything. If I had the choice, I’d be reading on a sunny hill right now, wondering which region’s apples will taste best this autumn.”
If she hadn’t known the Imperial Family would never leave Maindulante—or her—alone, she might still have hesitated. Armed conflict always returned as suffering to the people.
It could return as the loss of someone here.
Yet no one looking at the couple wore a tragic expression. They only burst into loud laughter.
“You can read books after it’s over, can’t you?”
“Our region’s apples are unconditionally the best.”
“There’s no need to worry. You won’t lose a single one.”
How could anyone promise not to lose “a single one” in war? And yet their unwavering certainty—no, their eagerness to rush out this very moment—settled something in her chest.
Yes. This wasn’t her fight alone. It wasn’t even just the couple’s fight.
This was Maindulante’s fight.
The fight of those who had been rejected even as they were asked for loyalty.
Cledwyn placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder. A smile touched the face that was almost always stern.
“Aidan. The explanation.”
Aidan, who had stood silently beside the map, raised a long pointer and began to outline the operation. The vassals of Maindulante leaned in, listening closely.
❖ ❖ ❖
The Tipian Marquessate seethed with unrest.
Even under the late marquess, Hudis Tipian, the people had grievances, like the people of any land: subordinate lords demanded too much labor, relief didn’t reach the poor even in a bad harvest.
But after the new marquess took power, those old complaints became luxuries.
Village women wove until their fingers split. Children crafted goods late into the night. Men were forced to repave the square at the castle gates and build pointless bridges, all to fuel an achievement contest between subordinate lords and newly arrived officials.
In that state, farming couldn’t be done properly. Taxes had climbed to absurd levels. Even with a good harvest, they would barely scrape by, and now wheat withered in the fields because no one had the time to tend it. Obeying orders with a sword at their backs, the people of the marquessate felt as though they were sinking into death, day after day.
Then another labor order came.
His Highness the Crown Prince was graciously sending troops, and if they were loyal subjects, they should repave the roads and provide the supplies needed to host them, so the soldiers would not be inconvenienced.
“Why are Imperial troops coming?”
“The mood is ugly, so they’re calling them in to scare us. Last time, Jack next door protested when the lord took the relief food the temple distributed and hauled it to the castle. They threw him in jail. If we keep our heads down, it’ll pass.”
“Pass? What will pass? This winter will pass without wheat?”
The people guessed it was their own master—Marquis Tipian—who had called the troops. Everyone knew: many would die this winter, and the eyes of those who refused to accept that grew fiercer by the day.
If they stayed still, they would die. If they rose up, they would die. What was the marquess thinking? Even if they were his own people, was he truly going to suppress them by borrowing the Empire’s sword?
The furious people didn’t know that Marquis Tipian himself was troubled by the arrival of the Imperial troops.
“Was the journey peaceful? It must have been difficult, coming from so far.”
The commander, Ralph, held a lower rank than Marquis Tipian. But his position—Crown Prince’s confidant, and his childhood companion—made even a great noble overly polite. After all, the Crown Prince always took Ralph’s opinions seriously.
Ralph was the Crown Prince’s age. The marquess was old enough to be his father. Yet Ralph, fully aware of his standing, replied without even a trace of humility.
“There was nothing particularly difficult, Your Excellency. His Highness the Crown Prince thinks of his subjects day and night. What hardship could there be for me, his right-hand man, dispatched to the frontier?”
At the word “frontier,” the marquess’s brow tightened. Ralph’s family was prestigious enough to place their son beside the Crown Prince, but they were not great nobles.
‘I tried to be polite first because I was thinking of him, but the young one has no manners.’
Seeing the marquess openly bristle, Ralph smiled thinly. He had been raised at the Crown Prince’s side and treated with respect regardless of lineage. And he knew enough about the late marquess’s death to want to keep his distance from this disgusting old man.
When Princess Camille killed the late marquess to catch the current Grand Duchess, and before that, when the late marquess was imprisoned in Maindulante, this old man had done nothing but watch.
‘Once this is over, I won’t have to see him again anyway.’
There were ranks even among great nobles. Even Elandria—a founding contributor—had tried to betray the Imperial Family and ended up in that state. So how could Marquis Tipian, merely the lord of the territory on the way to Maindulante, ignore the Crown Prince’s representative?
Ralph didn’t waste time. He spoke as if issuing an order.
“I heard Your Excellency is deeply concerned about the unrest among the disloyal, after the late marquess’s sudden passing. As you well know, since you have already received the letter, His Highness the Crown Prince—your lord—is prepared to spare no assistance.”
Cold sweat broke over the marquess.
The Crown Prince’s letter offered an absurd excuse, and the intention beneath it was even worse.
The marquessate’s atmosphere was only “slightly” bad, and security within a territory was meant to be handled by its lord. Sending Imperial troops without warning was interference in internal affairs. And to set up camp at the entrance to Maindulante, south of the Illopium Mountains, of all places… wasn’t that an open provocation toward the Grand Duke of Maindulante?
No matter how much legitimacy the Imperial Family claimed as descendants of heroes, they couldn’t do whatever they wanted. If the Imperial Family attacked a noble without justification, the foundation of trust that held noble society together would crack.
Of course, the marquess knew the Crown Prince had seized power because the Emperor had nearly died at his own daughter’s hands and now hovered between life and death. Was the Crown Prince truly such a fool—so ignorant of noble society? Maindulante would not bow obediently to an Imperial Family that suddenly tightened a hand around its throat.
The cowardly marquess went pale. Ralph looked down on him and sneered.
“Don’t worry. This is all for the sake of the marquessate. Once the marquessate is stable, there will be no need for us to remain.”
That was unlikely.
The marquess could read Ralph’s attitude clearly. At a loss, he suddenly remembered something from some time ago.
Since when had the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess been so close—those two who had deliberately stopped here on their way north? The Grand Duchess had chilled the room into silence, cutting down any talk about the late Grand Duchess’s illegitimate child. Later, he learned the couple had even sent people to the village where the bastard had grown up, gathering evidence so cleanly that no one could speak of the Grand Duke’s status again.
If they hadn’t erased that evidence, the marquess might have been able to bargain with the Imperial Family using it as leverage. But now he couldn’t. And if he offered even suspicion without proof, Maindulante—closer than the Imperial Capital—would likely retaliate first.
Until recently, he had only regretted that incident.
But faced with this situation, suspicion crept in.
Had the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess known this day would come?
‘Surely not.’
Unless they were prophets.
Or unless they had intended this situation themselves.
Ralph had no idea what was turning in the marquess’s head. But he didn’t think a petty man like this would say anything worth hearing. He only spoke coldly.
“Then I’ll be going. I’m busy.”
Because there was much to prepare, if he was going to fabricate a rebellion.