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How Will Spring Come Without Winter’s Passing? (2)
“Your Majesty said, ‘Be a member of the royal family and set an example for others.’ I can do nothing but take the initiative and serve as such an example.”
I could see the Marquis of Bielefeld sigh in relief at my exemplary answer. I would not normally say this, but I felt a little like my docile answer.
“Keep in mind that power comes with responsibility. In the future, as the royal family, let us set an example for others and lead by taking the initiative.”
I gave a bloody smile upon hearing the king’s words.
“Why only in the future? How about right now?”
“Hear me out,” I said as I looked at him. “If you bow before another country, can you be called a royal family which takes the initiative and the lead?”
The king’s expression hardened.
“When I followed my uncle north, a spy was mixed in among the royal infantry that went with me. I had thought that it was one that Your Majesty had sent to watch over my uncle and me.”
“That was the beginning of the year,” a stern voice spoke up, and the king turned his face to look at the approaching man.
“Your Majesty, I posted that spy,” said the royal courtier, Gung Jungbaek, as he stepped forward and knelt.
“Did you?”
“I am ashamed, but the situation at the time when His Highness the First Prince headed north did not look very good.”
“Count Balahard was there at his side, so you did something useless,” the king said.
“If you choose to punish me, I will receive it readily.”
The king tapped the throne’s armrest.
It was no small crime that the royal courtier had dared to spy on a member of the royal family, and he had to be punished.
“If you wish to apologize, it should be to the person concerned, not to me,” the troubled king stated, giving me the choice. It meant that whatever punishment or forgiveness was to be doled out would be doled out by me.
“Your Highness, I await your punishment.”
“Okay. As you have admitted your wrongdoing, you will be punished.”
I did not refuse the man’s offer.
“I will gladly accept any punishment.”
“Oh, it won’t be a glad affair for you.”
My choice was to punish Gung Jungbaek, not to forgive him.
“Because I have never seen someone with a slit throat be glad.”
I had decided upon the most severe of punishments: The death penalty.
“He did it with an honest heart. The punishment is excessive,” said the king.
I shook my head and said, “If it was done in honesty, he would have told Your Majesty.”
I looked back and saw that Jungbaek was still gazing at us with a guilty face. But I could see that he also believed that he had not committed a mortal sin.
An impudent man.
“The spy was named Joseph and was mixed into the royal infantry. His purpose was not to monitor me, but to study Winter Castle and the political dynamics of the north as a whole.”
Jungbaek once more defended himself as he stood in front of the king. He said that his man was to be alert to any radical developments, to prepare the kingdom for an unforeseen conflict. He had no other motives.
Jungbaek’s excuses convinced the king.
“He wasn’t scouting the situation to plan a possible uprising. No, he wanted to grasp the dynamics of the north and then report his surveillance to his imperial handlers.”
“Your Majesty! I can’t handle this! All my life, I’ve been living only for the sake of the royal family’s well-being, as much as I live for it today! If I must die, I will die! But you cannot let me die with the stigma of serving two masters hanging around my neck.”
The king’s face seemed to spit blood, so great was his anger toward me.
“Gung Jungbaek’s family has served us Leonbergers from generation to generation as royal courtiers. I will not countenance the prince’s allegations.”
“Just because a father has loyally served the royal family with all his heart does not mean that his children would do the same,” I answered.
“You take giant leaps of speculation,” came the king’s reply.
“Your Majesty, Jungbaek is not who you think he is.”
Even the Marquis of Bielefeld stepped forward to defend the man.
“I see. I misunderstood,” I decided to say, and then stepped back. As I did, both the king and the marquis became rather confused. It seemed that they had expected me to push for Jungbaek’s punishment to the very end. They wondered what I was up to.
As they looked at me, I just shrugged.
The king then said that I had insulted Gung Jungbaek’s family, a family which had been loyal for generations, and ordered me confined to the palace for three days as punishment for my frivolity. I accepted his verdict.
Of course, I had no intention to stay in the palace for three whole days.
After two days, a night filled with ambitious portent arrived. Gunn came to me, and I got up from my seat while I interpreted her hand signals.
“Then please do the rest,” I ordered her. She bowed her head and disappeared from my presence as if she was but wind. I led Arwen and Carls to a secret passage that led from the palace. I was afraid to escape from the royal palace, but we did so regardless.
“Did you enact my orders?” I asked Gunn. Instead of answering, she lifted her hood, which was of an exceedingly long cut. I noticed how unusually pale her face was.
She tapped her shoulders, which meant: “It was hard.”
Gunn took the lead, and we followed her. We wandered through the dark and twisting alleys of the capital until, finally, a prestigious mansion reared up before us. It was as huge as the First Palace, and it was guarded.
b Come this way} Gunn gestured as she guided us along the walls of the mansion.
b Wait here} she swiftly gestured, and we all halted as we hid ourselves in a dark spot of shadow against the wall.
‘swish, swish,’ a black-cloaked figure came from the mansion. As if he was about to vault a high wall or leap a wide ditch, the furtive man’s eyes darted in all directions for a while before he began striding away.
At that moment, I felt the presence of a mighty energy bloom from afar. It wasn’t on the level of a Sword Master, but it was close.
“Don’t move,” I ordered. The sound of heavily armored men moving in armor was heard as it echoed against the wall.
‘cheolkop, cheolkop, cheolkop.’
Then, palace knights and guards in golden armor appeared. The mansion was fully encircled and wholly besieged. A middle-aged knight appeared from among the palace knights. I’ve seen him standing beside the Nogisa on several occasions, as he was the deputy commander of the palace knights.
“You have dared to intrude into the king’s residence, and so deserve to die! But if you reveal yourself now, that will be taken into account and might gain you clemency!” the knight bellowed.
I watched the cloaked figure, who looked around in confusion at the sudden appearance of the palace knights and guards. Another group of men now ran to the knight.
“Do you dare kick up a fuss here? Do you know what this place is?” one of the men demanded.
“This is the imperial ambassadorial residence!” exclaimed another.
The knights and guards of the empire stood before the mansion. These were the soldiers guarding the Marquis of Montpellier.
“Who the hell dares make a fuss here in the middle of the knight?” an imperial knight, seemingly the leader, demanded as he stepped forward. “Why are the palace knights here in such numbers?”
“We tracked a man here who had invaded and then left the palace,” the deputy-commander stated, and the imperial knight frowned.
“Are you accusing one of us?”
“Not in the slightest! I have already caught the culprit,” the middle-aged knight said as he pointed straight at us. “You there! Come out!”
At that, I left the shadows and went to stand before the knights. Then, I flipped the hood from my head.
“Well, Your Highness? Why is your Highness here?” the middle-aged knight asked with wide eyes as he recognized me.
I watched the smirking palace knights and answered him with natural grace, “There is no moon out, and the air is so rich and thick. It is such a lovely night for taking a stroll. Is it not so?” I said, and as I asked that last question, I looked directly at the man who had left the mansion.
He was surrounded by both palace knights and imperial knights, so he could not go here nor there. His posture was rigid as if set in stone.
“Grab that man, and make him kneel before me,” I ordered the palace knights. They enacted my orders without delay. I was certain now: My status in their eyes was different than before.
The black-cloaked ghost drew his sword and struggled desperately, but the court knights were the best of the best among the kingdom. And he wasn’t facing just one of them: Five or six rushed the man. His sword was instantly torn from his grasp, and he was made to kneel on the ground.
“Wait,” I ordered, and the palace knights paused before they removed the man’s hood.
“I will check for myself,” I told them.
“I am an unidentified person. Are you sure you wish to take the risk?”
He tried to threaten the palace knights in such a pathetic manner.
“I’m a Sword Master,” the man said, but that ploy wouldn’t work with me. I nodded, and the palace knights approached the figure and flipped his hood.
“Agh!”
“Why is the royal courtier here?”
The palace knights who recognized the ghost gasped in shock.
“I told you,” I said as I disregarded the reactions of those around me, “that your punishment won’t be a glad affair.”
At my words, Jungbaek’s face turned a deathly pale.
* * *
“Tell me how the hell it happened.”
I was with the king after the success of my ambitious excursion.
“I threw out the bait, and the fish bit into the hook.”
“And the fish was the royal courtier?”
I nodded. The king had publicly affirmed his loyalty to the man and had rebuked me for my rashness. I had not been careless; indeed, I had merely acted as if I was. By doing so, the empire’s spies would not skulk away due to feeling a prudent sense of crisis.
“How did you know?”
“I’ve had people attached to him from before.”
“And how did you guess Jungbaek was a spy?” the king asked.
I shook my head and said, “My people were not attached to the royal courtier from the start.”
My observers had not been put on Jungbaek but the imperial ambassador. I had ordered the swords-elves to watch the Marquis of Montpellier, to ensure that he stayed in line. This order had an unintended but profitable outcome: I learned the identities of all the people who covertly entered and exited the mansion of the marquis.
The swords-elves then stealthily followed these intimate guests, discovering their identities, and keeping track of their movements. Surprisingly, the royal courtier was among the informants, the very man who oversaw the great affairs of the royal palace, and to an extent, the capital. The king stretched his eyes as he heard my explanation.
“Do you have a list?”
Without a word, I removed a sealed envelope from my chest pocket and handed it to the king.
He opened it as soon as he received it and scanned its contents. He then closed his eyes and remained silent for a while. His face was filled with shock.
I had to give it to him. The names of the nobles on the list were not one or two. Nearly half the nobles in the entire kingdom had their names on that list.
Even if not all of them were spies, it was safe to say that at least half of them were selling information about the kingdom to the Marquis of Montpellier.
In simpler terms, it could be said with some certainty that at least a quarter of the kingdoms’ nobility was firmly on the empire’s side.
Suffice it to say, terrible would be too mild a term to describe the feelings felt by a king who had fought against the empire his entire life.
“Why didn’t you tell me there was such a list from the beginning?”
I just shrugged at the king’s question. He must have wondered why I had fielded such a childish play and gone through all the hassle.
“Would you have believed me?”
I had said that the royal courtier was a spy, and the king had not believed me then. In such a situation, would it have been wise for me to make public that I possessed a list of names of those who dealt with the Marquis of Montpellier?
The king was convinced by my argument and made no further comment.
“I apologize. You have proved that all the deeds that occur in the palace are relayed to the imperial ambassador in one ambitious night. Junbgbaek certainly deserved your suspicions, but it was hard to doubt such an adept royal courtier. It would have been nice if you had waited a little longer to throw the bait so that we could have threaded the needle properly.”
I chuckled at the king’s lament.
“What did you say to the empire in those days?” I asked him then.
“Because I seemed regretful, they misunderstood. I was told to take responsibility for my actions and withdraw. They must have guessed that as soon as their takeover was completed, I would already be a failed man.”
“Let’s take it back,” I implored him. The king frowned. He seemed surprised that I would say such a thing. I pressed on, “A nobleman who has long enjoyed power in the capital can seem to fall from grace. He might have lost his power, but he would still have a lot of wealth.”
The king’s eyes shined as if he understood what I was getting at.
“It would be nice, to have their secret plots twisted and aimed back at them.”
“Maybe we can entangle a person with a legitimate grudge. Would they not grasp at the chance to give the enemy of their enemy more power?” I asked him, and thought, for example, the eldest son of the royal family, known as the first prince, or me.
I had already decided to deal with the royal courtier personally. He might be thinking that he would be jailed or exiled to the empire, but I was going to follow through and let him pay the price. And the only price the traitor had to pay was his life.
As I chuckled, the king began to laugh.
Then, he suddenly smiled, but his face soon enough turned awkward. It seemed that he wasn’t used to having such a conversation with me.
The same was true on my account, I also became awkward for no reason, and this motivated me to leave and get on with my business. I was trying to get up quietly, but then the king told me, “The nobles on this list should be thinned out over time.”
“You don’t have to deal with them in haste just because they are so many. Their time will soon come.”
“Their time?” the king asked.
I squeezed my ass, which had been halfway lifted, back into the chair, and I stared at the king.
“Isn’t there something else we need to talk about first?” I asked him.
I was quite relaxed as I looked at the king, but I still so clearly remembered all the soldiers of Winter Castle who had died while awaiting non-existent reinforcements.
The last time I saw my uncle was etched into my mind.
So, I asked, “Why did you abandon the north?”
I wanted to hear the king’s reason for abandoning the north when he could protect it.