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Chapter – 29
The Messengers of Norden
“The Empress?”
Henrius could not believe his eyes. He had never dreamed the Empress would actually appear in person.
And she wasn’t alone. Henrius stared blankly at the procession of Artois family officials who filed in behind Josephine.
“Why are you here?”
“Didn’t Your Majesty order me?” Josephine replied calmly. “To ‘roast’ Prince Siegfried.”
“That was—!”
That was just a moment of angry bluster.
Not for a single moment had Henrius ever wanted Josephine to be involved with Siegfried.
“These negotiations are your father the Grand Marshal’s business, not the Empress’s. Where is the Grand Marshal, and why are you here?”
“No. This isn’t my father’s matter, it’s mine. I was the one caring for Prince Siegfried until the rumors spread.”
The people in the chamber stirred all at once. They hadn’t expected the Empress herself to confirm this.
Henrius was so flustered he was briefly at a loss for words.
“Empress, choose your words carefully.”
“I heard you asked to see me, Lord Georg.”
“Your Imperial Majesty.”
The delegation, led by Duke Georg, collectively bowed respectfully toward Josephine. Their attitude was markedly different from how they had been belligerent toward Emperor Henrius just moments ago.
“Let’s get straight to the point. Is it true, Your Majesty, that you have been caring for Prince Siegfried all this time?”
“It is true.”
The scar running from Georg’s eye to his forehead twisted menacingly.
“Then the rumors that Your Majesty has been abusing His Highness the Prince are also true?”
His words brought a momentary silence to the negotiation hall. Everyone was waiting for Josephine’s answer.
Henrius, too, waited anxiously for Josephine’s response.
“No. They are completely false. I have never left a single bruise on him.”
“And how will you prove that? In Norden, the rumors that Your Majesty continuously abused the Prince, driving him to a critical state, are already being treated as fact.”
It was an aggressive question, but, unexpectedly, Josephine smiled faintly. It made some of the onlookers briefly question her sanity.
“It is true that Prince Siegfried fell into a critical state.”
Clack. A chilling sound of several warriors behind Georg gripping their sword hilts could be heard.
“But I swear I never once laid a hand on him. In fact, I met Prince Siegfried for the first time just a week ago.”
The emperor’s ministers, including Secretary Theodorus, listened to the Empress’s statements with bated breath. There was no way to predict whether the words that would come from her mouth now would be a lifeline preventing war or a bomb.
“Saying you met him a week ago means the Prince was well enough to move about at that time?”
“Yes. Although, of course, he was suffering from some minor chronic illnesses.”
Josephine received a bundle of prescriptions from one of the attendants standing beside her, Dolkin.
“Apparently, due to a constitution unsuited to this climate, he has been suffering from various complications all this time.”
She flipped through the prescriptions, sorted by date, and continued her explanation.
“However, strangely, when cross-referenced with various records like the palace infirmary expenditure ledger, it appears the physicians in charge of Prince Siegfried only issued prescriptions but never actually provided the medicine.”
“Y-Your Majesty! How can you spread such baseless rumors—!”
Theodorus cried out, his face pale. How could she so casually reveal such a tremendous secret?
“So, I examined all the medical reports they wrote over the last ten years, and I saw familiar names.”
Unfazed, Josephine thrust the prescriptions forward for them to see the names written on them.
“They were His Majesty the Emperor’s elder half-brothers. The now-deceased First Prince Leonid and Third Prince Delorenz. As you can see, these two names were mentioned most frequently.”
Georg took the documents Josephine offered and began flipping through them one by one.
“‘Superficial wounds from training play’, ‘lacerations’, ‘fractures from falls’… What is all this?”
“Upon investigation, it turns out these palace physicians only kept records and never properly treated the Prince even once.”
Josephine felt her own mood growing colder and more resolute with each word she spoke.
“So, the reason the Prince failed to grow up healthy since childhood was the result of kowtowing to my brothers-in-law, the First and Third Princes.”
“Empress!”
Unable to listen any longer, Henrius shouted. For a moment, the gazes of everyone, including Josephine, shifted to him.
“You barge into the negotiation hall without permission and spout unbelievable slander. Are you in your right mind?”
“Then who will prove my innocence, Your Majesty?”
Josephine stared directly at Henrius with a stern face.
“You’re the same, Your Majesty. You never believed me from the start, so you probably had no intention of defending me even as the rumors reached this point.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“No. You were always like that. Henrius.”
Despite Henrius’s glare, Josephine firmly stated the resentment she had long suppressed.
“You never once trusted me. You were always too busy doubting.”
“You’re insane. Mad.”
“No, I am perfectly sane. And because of that, I no longer have any expectation that you will clear my name.”
Once public opinion had hardened this much, the imperial family of this country would have pinned everything on the Empress, regardless of the truth.
Henrius, swept up by that public opinion, would surely have doubted and discarded her again.
This was the husband she had spent two whole lifetimes with. It would be stranger not to know what kind of man he was.
Then, before they could move, she had to strike first and set everything right.
Revealing in detail the crimes of those who actually tormented Siegfried and holding them accountable.
And thereby clearly establishing the rights and wrongs between the two nations.
That was the surest way to clear her own name and end this protracted struggle.
“So, are you saying His Highness the Prince was subjected to continuous abuse not by Your Majesty, but by other members of the Orlande Imperial Family?”
“Yes, that is the truth.”
The faces of everyone on the emperor’s side, including Henrius, turned pale. The long-hidden, horrific scene of abuse was finally surfacing.
“Does His Majesty the Emperor confirm this as well?”
At Georg’s follow-up question, Josephine shook her head.
“No. In fact, His Majesty the Emperor, being the son of a concubine, is a half-brother to the main instigators, the First and Third Princes.”
“Josephine!”
Henrius’s hands gripping the armrests of his chair tightened instantly.
Georg seemed a bit taken aback by this sudden revelation of the Orlande Imperial Family’s secret.
“Therefore, the current Emperor was in a position where he couldn’t even participate in the decisions they made at the time.”
Henrius’s status as an illegitimate child had just been exposed to the world.
“However, this is a matter that the current Emperor must acknowledge and for which the Imperial Family must provide compensation.”
Now, Georg and the delegation even seemed to be suppressing their momentum and growing solemn. Some even coughed awkwardly.
“In that case… Perhaps…”
They themselves also had years of standing by, viewing Siegfried as a discarded prince from his own country.
In this way, Josephine once again confirmed Siegfried’s true position.
From Henrius, who treated Siegfried like a beast and beat him half to death, to Huber, who secretly wished for Siegfried’s death and deliberately discarded his medicine.
And she had realized much from the gazes that had been cast upon the sick Siegfried locked up in prison all this time.
Just how truly demonic these members of the imperial family were.
How desensitized Siegfried, who bore the brunt of their abuse and tyranny, had become to those painful years.
And that Siegfried had never received a single word of apology from them.
That couldn’t be allowed.
Siegfried deserved an apology from Henrius and from them.
This wasn’t a matter of national sentiment or saving face.
Anyone with a shred of humanity would do so.
“……No.”
It was then that Henrius muttered as if tossing out the words. Sensing foreboding, Josephine looked at Henrius.
“Your Majesty?”
“It’s not true.”
Theodorus, sensing something ominous, called out to Henrius, but it was already too late.
“The Empress is not in her right mind at the moment. I forgot to mention it to our esteemed guests.”
“What are you saying?”
With the evidence so clear. Georg immediately frowned.
The statement Henrius made next was even more shocking than what Josephine had said earlier.
“Though I refrained from saying it until now, concerned it would tarnish my empire’s prestige, the Empress is currently under suspicion of having had illicit relations with Prince Siegfried.”
