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Chapter 14
The clatter of hooves gradually faded, and at the coachman’s shout the carriage came to a halt. While he had been lost in thought, they had apparently already reached the Central Command.
“Today will be Your Excellency’s day.”
The attendant smiled and put an end to his hesitation. Keel steadied his breathing for a moment, straightened his back, and repeated the word composure to himself.
“So it will. Let us go.”
Keel was a seasoned old man who could produce the proper etiquette and dignity for any occasion as naturally as breathing.
Shaking off the last of his lingering unease in an instant, Keel stepped into the headquarters with the same confident bearing as always.
When he passed through the barracks and entered the command center, the soldiers who recognized him bowed respectfully. In the spacious corridor, the retainers of the lords who had arrived earlier were gathered, whispering predictions about today’s meeting.
Amid the faint, barely audible whispers, the name mentioned most often was, unsurprisingly, his own: Gödel Keel.
“Here comes the man of the hour.”
As soon as he entered the meeting room, Duke Witten greeted him with a generous smile. Unlike the welcoming duke, Rutherford, seated across from him, covered her mouth with a fan and shot him a sharp glance.
“This is the meeting you’ve been so eagerly awaiting, yet you don’t look well. Did something happen last night?”
“Who knows. I was too excited to sleep, I suppose. I thank you for your concern, but I would appreciate it if you would concentrate on the meeting today.”
Deftly parrying Rutherford’s pointed question, Keel took his seat. At that signal, the murmuring that had been drifting around the room vanished at once.
In the solemn atmosphere, probing glances flew back and forth.
In the silence, where no one could easily open their mouth, the old man who was the focal point of the meeting slowly turned his head and surveyed the room. As his gaze slowly swept the chamber, he spotted the empty seat at the far right end and faintly frowned.
“And I asked him so earnestly to attend.”
The seat where Walter Heiberg, the Grand General, should have been sitting was empty.
He knew the man was busy, but to skip even a meeting this important. Keel expressed his displeasure with his whole body, then collected his feelings with a small breath.
There’s no need to be annoyed.
It’s actually better this way. Rather than having him show up and drag out his objections, it might be best that he’s not here at all.
If the decision were made by majority vote with all the lords gathered, not even the Grand General could easily argue its rightness or wrongness.
Keel evened his breathing and raised his head again. Exchanging glances with the lords with a stern face, he chose and rechosen the sentences he would lay out.
“It seems everyone has arrived, so I will begin the meeting.”
The warm autumn sunlight settled around the meeting room, and teacups were set one by one upon the table.
A silence passed, long enough to melt everyone’s hardened convictions, and then Keel slowly rose from his seat. Just as the opening address was about to flow from between his tightly closed lips,
“Forgive my lateness.”
The door opened, and Walter, in formal attire, entered the hall with someone following behind him.
Bewilderment rose on the lords’ faces.
It was an entrance unlike the Grand General, who always arrived early and watched the meetings as though he were there and not there. Before the surprise had even faded, Walter turned his body to the side and bowed to the woman who had come in with him.
“Please come in, Your Highness.”
The moment the woman behind him revealed herself, the lords opened their mouths and let out breaths that might have been sighs or lamentations.
Her hair, half gray and half gold, her eyes of a deeper gold, and her pallid, almost white skin, together with her upturned eyes, contributed greatly to a sharp impression.
“This is the first time I’ve greeted you like this. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”
The woman, who seemed to be the very embodiment of the western nomads’ features, dazzled the eye with a beauty that was somehow familiar yet uncanny.
Keel, staring at her with wide eyes, soon narrowed them and let out a hollow laugh. With a thought of surely not, he asked as politely as he could.
“I believe the last time I saw you was when you were three or four years old. Is Lady Ansila well?”
Whether she failed to notice the hidden sarcasm or not, the slave’s daughter showed no confusion and put on a gentle smile.
“I’m glad that such a noble person asks after her. My mother is well. Having left the palace, her complexion has actually improved a great deal.”
Among the lords, who had been eavesdropping on the two as if entranced, a sense of dismay slowly spread.
They had finally worked out where that exotic beauty came from and who this unnamed woman was.
Amid the murmuring, Lucy slowly raised her head.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, everyone. My name is Arsinoe.”
She moved the hand that had been fidgeting with the hem of her dress and slowly clenched it into a fist.
To take the lead in the atmosphere, she had to seize the initiative before the commotion settled. Lucy looked quietly at Keel, pondering how to steer the flow of conversation.
Her opponent was an old elder without equal in political skill, and he was by no means an easy adversary.
But in terms of years lived, he was a man far younger than Lucy. She had ample confidence that she would not lose in a verbal contest.
The outcome would depend on whether he was proud enough to fall for her leading questions.
Gödel Keel.
The Duchy of Keel, which monopolized fertile plains and the Fortmire Strait, was one of the wealthiest domains in the kingdom on trade revenue alone.
Born as the legitimate eldest son of such a house, Gödel Keel had passed through the military academy and the Royal Academy, succeeded his family without any obstruction, and, with the skill he had developed dealing with merchant guilds, had won over the socialites of the capital and led the revival of the entire kingdom. He was a true hero.
Judging by his track record alone, he was fully worthy of being called the noble of nobles. Combined with past glories and his own achievements, he possessed a dignity higher than anyone present.
But that might be his weakness.
Nobles were beings who lived as a privileged class from birth.
They felt themselves to be fundamentally a different breed from commoners. They labored under the delusion that their subjects were not family or friends but beings who existed to support them, and that their lofty lives would never be infringed upon until death.
Duke Keel would be no different.
In his life, he had never once met anyone who shook his authority. Even the late king of Parnas had watched his reactions and chosen his words with care.
On the surface he always presented the image of a calm sage and feigned generosity, but inside, there was likely a cunning old snake that hated having its loftiness infringed upon.
How would he react if his authority were challenged?
Lucy looked at him with a careful gaze and cautiously began.
“I beg your generous understanding for having barged in so abruptly and committed such rudeness.”
She lifted the hem of her white dress and bowed her head respectfully. Whether it was her imagination or not, the prickling glances directed at her seemed to soften, just slightly.
“I have learned of the current situation in the palace roughly from the Grand General. I hesitated, thinking this was no place for an unrefined person like me, but I made my decision and stand here nonetheless.”
“I am quite curious what your decision might be. To have brought the Grand General along all the way here, it must be quite a momentous one.”
Keel rose from his seat and looked at Lucy with piercing eyes.
His calm-toned question carried no emotion at all, as if he truly just wanted to know.
“Having learned little, my words may be somewhat blunt. Can you tolerate that?”
“The leniency shown to the young cannot even be called consideration. I will let it pass as appropriate, so speak.”
Lucy bit her lip and cautiously read his reaction.
Not showing arrogance even from a position where he could be more arrogant than anyone: that was why Keel could be chairman.
He would probably use maturity as a weapon to refute her opinion.
To steer the flow her way, it would be more practical to wear a different mask than that of Arsinoe the individual.
“Leaving the throne empty and neglecting the palace for such a long time. Is that not unprecedented?”
Lucy changed her voice and continued in an accusing tone.
“I hear that you have not even been able to decide how to deal with the foreign envoys, and keep putting off your diplomatic replies. Setting aside my own position, as a single citizen of this kingdom, I feel lamentation at the lords’ indecisiveness.”
“…Hmph.”
Keel opened his mouth, then closed it again.
