Chapter 49
“Your Majesty, Count Gale requests an audience.”
“Send him in.”
The door opened and Count Gale hurried in, bowing properly as he approached.
“Y-your Majesty. Did you rest well last night—?”
“And the Cardinal?” Cedric asked, unable to hide the ill omen twisting his mood, pressing the count for an answer.
“Wasn’t he supposed to have departed long ago?”
Count Gale’s mustache quivered. In a voice reduced almost to a whisper he replied.
“W-well… he went not to the palace, but to the house of Marquis Ferdian.”
“He went to the Ferdian house?” Cedric repeated.
At the chill that visibly crept over Cedric, Count Gale swallowed hard and continued cautiously.
“Yes. Yes, Your Majesty. They are… searching the Ferdian estate.”
Upon hearing that, Cedric’s expression contorted into something fierce. He flung the glass before him across the table.
Crash!
The goblet smashed loudly on the marble floor.
“You vile bastard…” he muttered.
Count Gale shrank back, suddenly trembling.
‘He actually dared to bite my father’s throat?’ Cedric thought. Who would have imagined another madman like Tezette Rittenhaus? Cedric ground his teeth, forcing down the rising tide of rage.
Getting swept up by emotion would solve nothing. He needed to find a way out of this situation—fast.
‘If the Cardinal rips into Marquis Ferdian, I’ll be in danger too.’
Before Astair could dig the matter up any further, he had to act in a different way.
While pondering, Cedric suddenly remembered what Count Gale had reported the previous afternoon after visiting the temple.
“Count Lort said there was someone impersonating Your Majesty that day.”
“—Impersonating me?”
“Yes. He had red eyes, so no one suspected anyone else. The knights who were there said it sounded true.”
An idea on how to turn the situation came to him. Cedric smiled crookedly and refilled the spare cup. He wet his throat, then summoned the count.
“Count.”
“Y-yes, Your Majesty.”
“Go to the Cardinal and give him a message.”
“What… what should I tell him?”
“Tell him we’ve found the real mastermind behind this.”
Cedric’s red eyes shone chillingly as he tipped his cup.
At the Ferdian estate, at that same moment.
Marquis Ferdian had finished breakfast as usual and was working while smoking a cigarette. Then one of his retainers entered the study with a knock.
“You called, Your Grace?”
“Since Bolton was caught yesterday, we need to find another way. Be careful this time—secure a sacrificial subject without getting caught.”
Marquis Ferdian spoke of the next plan as if yesterday’s affair had been nothing. But the retainer hesitated and didn’t reply right away.
Noticing the pause, the Marquis looked at him.
“Do you have something to say?”
“Your Grace, just to be safe, shouldn’t you lay low for a while, given what happened yesterday?”
“Why? Do you think that Astair will dig into our house?” the Marquis scoffed.
“You… Your Grace—” the retainer started, then realized he’d used the wrong form of address and clamped his mouth shut, watching the Marquis’s face.
Marquis Ferdian disliked anyone calling Astair “Your Grace.” The Cardinal was second only to the saint in the nation’s power structure. Technically, he outranked even a marquis. Besides, Astair carried the reputation of a ‘savior of the country.’
He disliked the idea that the son who had left the family in disgust was now parading his success as if to mock him—like saying, I was right and you were wrong. The retainer quickly corrected himself.
“I don’t mean to imply Master wouldn’t— But still, it wouldn’t hurt to prepare for the unexpected, would it?”
Despite the retainer’s concern, Ferdian scoffed.
“I know my son. He isn’t the sort who’d sink his teeth into his own father.” He recalled a childhood memory of Astair. Once, his eldest son Rix had been bitten by a hunting dog Rix had been tormenting. Ferdian, furious, raised his musket to kill the dog. It was Astair who stepped in front of the muzzle and begged, “Please, Father! I’ll tame him. I’ll make sure no one gets hurt. Don’t kill him….” The servants dragged Astair away and the dog was killed in front of him. Astair had wrapped himself around the dying animal bleeding and cried, then personally buried it, falling ill for days afterwards.
That was his son: the kind who couldn’t bear to see a single animal suffer. How could such a boy ever raise a blade at his father? Yet the retainer’s unease remained.
“But, Your Grace—”
“When did anyone start disagreeing with my orders?” Ferdian’s cold rebuke cut the retainer off. He bowed and left.
Ferdian clicked his tongue at the shutting door. “Cowardly fool. How could I ever entrust anything important to him?” Bolton had been the most reliable for this kind of job, but he had been taken to the temple yesterday.
‘Well, Astair won’t be able to do anything; it’ll be wrapped up and he’ll be released soon,’ Ferdian thought, trying to minimize the matter. Then another retainer barged in, clearly urgent.
“Y-your Grace. You must come out at once.”
“What is it?” he asked.
The retainer hesitated, then said, “From the temple… the holy knights are here.”
“What?”
Ferdian rose and looked toward the gates. He could see his knights standing opposite the holy knights at the estate’s iron gate.
‘Did Astair send them?’ he wondered.
No—he couldn’t imagine his son coming to strangle him. Ferdian went out to the gate himself. The Ferdian knights parted as he approached; the holy knights were at the center, led by Lancelot. Ferdian strode up to him.
“It strikes me as poor form for so-called holy knights to surround an innocent man’s house in broad daylight and threaten him. Do you even know where you are?”
“Last night, Bolton Asner was arrested on charges of kidnapping a child and attempted murder of civilians. During questioning he named you, Your Grace, as being behind it,” Lancelot said.
Ferdian’s brow furrowed in fury. Bolton had likely named him on purpose—using Ferdian’s name to bury the matter.
“This is not simply human trafficking; it seems linked to a heretical group that worships a demon god.”
“…”
“You are to come with us, Your Grace,” Lancelot declared.
“Who ordered this? My son?” Ferdian let out a bitter laugh.
“You lot are trying to humiliate me, acting as if you speak for Astair.”
“…”
“Bring Astair here. If you suspect me, tell him to come by his own feet. I won’t open this gate until he arrives himself,” Ferdian barked, turning away.
At that moment, the line of knights split and Astair stepped through.
Seeing him, Ferdian’s eyes betrayed a flicker of unease. Astair met him with an unreadable, indifferent gaze and spoke.
“It’s been a while, Father.”
Then he corrected himself with a small, rueful sound.
“Ah—should I call you Marquis Ferdian now?”
There was a deadly chill in the blue of his son’s eyes as he looked at him.
“Open the gate, please. Father.”
Before meeting that gaze, Ferdian had not expected this—hadn’t expected that the son who once sobbed over a single dog’s death would one day return having ready his blade and set it against his own neck to protect countless fragile lives.
