Chapter 12

Duke Kling was silent for a while after reading her daughter’s letter exactly twice.

What he took seriously in the letter was her mention of “the way to protect you and me.”

That suggested that she did not leave recklessly for a trivial reason, but with a deliberate purpose in order to eliminate some threat imposed on them right now, which he didn’t know at all.

What she said in the letter could be ridiculous. She grew up without knowing politics and turbulence, which made her often play funny games or show troublesome stubbornness.

He suspected she might have concocted a huge trick intended to deceive somebody or cause trouble for him.

But Marianne usually didn’t talk about Estelle when she was kidding.

In the letter she clearly said, ‘I can swear on Mom.’

He wanted to find his daughter immediately and question her, but he quickly admitted that he couldn’t. He also admitted that he didn’t need to ask why Hugo and Mrs. Icell didn’t inform him in advance.

Perhaps they were surprised to see his daughter’s unprecedented actions and had no choice but to follow her orders. And it was none other than the duke himself who trained them like that.

After all, he was no longer angry at his daughter. He even helped her by keeping her plan secret. But he couldn’t accept her request that he should not send any more security men.

What was more urgent than finding out the situation clearly was to keep his daughter safe.

He secretly sent several knights with a few words to Milan before dawn on that day.

Fortunately, Marianne’s temporary plan was never leaked outside his mansion. As usual, there was a daily routine at the Lennox mansion, and guests visiting the mansion found nothing unusual in the intelligence they got from the mansion.

That was the same for Ober’s deputies to whom Marianne had Hugo and Mrs. Icell alerted before she left. Indeed, they were desperately and competently dealing with Ober’s men.

About ten days after she left the mansion, a surprising piece of news was delivered to the Lennox mansion. It was the emperor’s order proclaimed not only to the Lennox Castle but also throughout the empire.

The order, which was published on the busiest streets of each province of the empire, was written in dark and large characters as follows:

* * *

Early in the evening, there were urgent footsteps in the corridor leading to the emperor’s study. A small man soon emerged, wearing large glasses and holding a bag full of documents. Curly pink hair, red eyes, and pale skin as if he were never exposed to sunlight, the body looked like a pink rabbit. Unlike his cute look, his expression was quite serious.

He almost ran down the hall and stood before the door of the study.

The servant on standby before the office recognized him and knocked on his behalf.

“Your Majesty, Sir Colin, the chief internal minister, wants to see you.”

“Let him come in!”

The door was opened at his cold voice.

Colin hurriedly came into the room and offered his greetings.

He was impatient because he arrived later than the scheduled time.

And his impatience made him make a mistake.

“May God give the honor of Airius to you! I’m so sorry…Oops! ”

A pile of papers in his arms slipped and spilled over the floor.

“It serves you right! How come you, not your servant, is bringing all that stuff like this?”

The man, standing by the emperor’s desk, clicked his tongue.

“I was in a hurry, so I didn’t think about it…”

“Hey, is it something you have to think about at all? Are you so stupid?”

A man with red hair and a big build like a bear approached the door. Then he squatted next to Colin who was picking up the messy documents.

“Thank you, Sir Jed…”

“If you are grateful to me, send a bottle of alcohol to the Treasury.”

Officials working in the cabinet regarded anybody as a spy if he didn’t know that the chief Treasury secretary was a notorious drinker. Colin replied in the positive, thinking that his complaint befitted his character.

“What about Duke Hubble? He said he would come this month, right?” Jed whispered lowly.

With a sullen face, Colin shook his head while picking up the papers.

Jed suddenly stood up without giving Colin any chance to stop him.

“Damn old man, Duke Hubble!!”

Jed was just about to throw curses at him when someone called, “Colin.”

Eckart, the young Emperor of Aslan, inaugurated as the seventh emperor of the Frei imperial family, gently put down the quill pen after signing the edict.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“I want to see the documents you have brought to me.”

As soon as Eckart said that, Colin quickly picked up the rest of the documents. Still upset with a reddening face, Jed stared at Eckart and then snached the papers from Colin to bring them to the emperor. Collin, who was empty-handed all of a sudden, followed him silently.

“What’s the point of looking at them? Too obvious! He’s going to continue this childish resistance until he puts his own mole in the concubine palace.”

Eckart held out his hand to Jed who was still fuming with anger.

His blue eyes right under the graceful platinum hair inherited from the Frei family turned cold. Catching his blue eyes, Jed reluctantly handed over the papers.

But Jed continued to complain as if he were still angry.

“How many months has he been resisting? He didn’t come last month with excuses that he was sick, he didn’t come two months ago, citing the frozen road, and he didn’t come three months ago because it snowed too much. I just can’t put up with his poor excuses any more.”

“Three months ago he said he couldn’t come because he did not receive my message when he blocked the road for the messenger in person,” the emperor said.

“Do you think that makes any sense? Besides, he said he would come back to the cabinet meeting if you repeal the tax reform decree you proclaimed, but he didn’t come. Now, he is trying to control your marriage to his liking,” Jed fumed.

While handing over the documents, Eckhart pressed on his splitting temple. Jed’s words were harsher than those he used in the imperial family, but they were to the point.

Intrinsically ambitious for power, Duke Hubble hated Eckart even when he became the crown prince. Such hatred led him to boycott Eckart’s ruling before and after his inauguration as the emperor of Aslan in an uncooperative manner. In recent years, his resistance became more serious. He not only organized anti-emperor forces, but he also wielded his power as if he already seized the power of the emperor in his hands.

“Ober?”

While reading the documents with an annoyed expression, Eckart read aloud a familiar name.

“Colin. Did the Foreign Minister also say that he would not attend the cabinet meeting?”

“Well…” Colin slurred while standing at a distance and rolling his red eyes uneasily.

“Colin!” Eckart called him again, as for pressing on his quick reply. Colin helplessly opened his mouth.

“You’ll see the reason if you read the next chapter, he said the quarry in Chester collapsed so much that he returned to his territory while he was on his way to the capital.”

While Eckart was turning over the documents, Jed cut in out of curiosity.

“Quarry? Why did it collapse suddenly?”

“Marquis Ober said he didn’t know why. But I suspect that somebody was involved in it because there was no earthquake or typhoon. Nor was the ground dangerous. And if you look closely at his letter…”

“Well, this is what Ober says, ‘I urge you to quickly find concubines for the peace of the imperial family. And let me attend the cabinet meeting next time so that I can put forward a new revised tax law.’ What do you think?”

“Yes, what you just read bothers me. Don’t you think Ober is trying to throw his weight behind Duke Hubble?”

Colin looked up at the emperor with an upset expression.

“Haaa! Not only the Interior Minister, but also the Foreign Minister intend to obstruct the emperor’s governance? They are such crap! Aren’t they your brothers under the family tree even if they hate you? How can they do this to you?” Jed fumed like a teapot boiling over a brazier.

Eckart, who might have been more angry than anyone else, said nothing.

Colin feared his heavy silence more than Jed’s fiery anger.

What was reflected in his blue eyes was not anger but emptiness. And Colin could not figure out what kind of feelings he hid in his eyes.

“When you return, send a messenger to Chester to find out the situation of the landslide damages and report back to me.”

After a long silence, Eckart made the best decision he could make as an emperor.

“Let me put off the cabinet meeting today. You don’t have to think twice about the matter of my marriage. So, don’t even respond.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Colin lowered his head in a depressed mood.