The Late King’s remains would be preserved for one month. In the Sanctuary, a plaster statue would be made from a cast of his remains, after which he would be placed in a stone sarcophagus and interred there.
Such a royal funeral would be held for about two days, followed immediately the next day by the new Queen’s coronation.
After the coronation, a three-day festival would be held in the royal citadel. Nobles and diplomats would be invited to observe the funeral, coronation, and festival.
Furthermore, it would be opened to the people as well, so that they would learn the majesty of royal authority.
“This is practically asking me to kill them.”
Yet many nobles had sent replies to the invitations saying, ‘Due to circumstances, I cannot attend.’
Politically, I could escalate that into questions such as, ‘You will not even attend the Late King’s funeral?’ and ‘Do you not think the new Queen is a real monarch?’ It was a justification to purge those nobles.
In truth, there would be bastards who really did hold such intentions.
"......Do you truly intend to kill them?"
The Administrative Officer asked, and I laughed it off.
“No. Write only that we fully understand their difficulties and will help if there is anything we can do.”
News of the Finance Minister’s slaughter would have spread, so I understood their fear.
I, too, had once worried that the Late King’s secret letter might be a purge of the military faction.
The Late King had very firm control over the area near the Royal Domain and the main house, so purging the capital’s nobles would not be a problem.
But to purge nobles who ruled other provinces and the cities beneath them, there was no justification other than, ‘They plotted rebellion.’
Absence from the funeral and coronation was a somewhat weak justification.
“However, add a postscript that every northern noble will attend.”
“Yes, I understand.”
He did not have any doubts?
The Administrative Officer was born a commoner and seemed to have done nothing but work.
He knew nothing of politics.
Nobles facing purges or other threats of ruin would often seek asylum from a foreign emperor or king by handing their fiefs over to that other country.
That was the wise thing to do as well.
The kingdom was a peninsula nation. The only land routes it shared with other countries were narrow passages in the northeast and northwest, as well as the mountain-plateau passes and cliff paths in the North.
But if the North was blocked, close coordination with forces beyond our borders was impossible.
The entire northern mountain-plateau region was under my jurisdiction as well.
If I held the Royal Domain in the south and the northern mountains, then even if nobles of the central plains region resisted, I only had to lock them in and beat them down.
Thus, my reply that everyone in the North would attend meant, ‘Where do you think you can run?’
‘If they are idiots too stupid to understand that, they deserve to die.’
The nobles of the northern region were extremely pleased that a northern regime had now been established. They said all of them would attend in order to catch my eye even a little.
In fact, I would have to tell some of them to stay behind and guard their strongholds.
“Your Highness!”
“What is it?”
It seemed a letter had arrived from the royal post office.
Normally, it would be filtered through the Minister of the Interior before being brought to me. The fact that it was not meant.......
“A reply from the Duke of the East has arrived.”
“The Duke of the East?”
And what was bound to come had come.
The King’s brother, third in the line of succession—now second.
He was the nearest male in the line of succession and the kingdom’s strongest knight, the one most suited to lead a military state.
Until the Late King summoned me, even I had thought he would take the throne, or quickly adopt an heir and arrange a marriage between that heir and Her Majesty, who would then be cousins.
Succession through a royal marriage that would guarantee the next royal authority to the Late King’s daughter, Casertania, was the natural procedure.
‘It was the method supported by the greatest number of people as well.’
The Duke of the East still had no son.
He had only recently seen his sole newborn daughter, fourth in the line of succession and now third.
That made the calculations of succession order complicated, leading to much debate.
Naturally, the Duke of the East would probably not come.
He would use the suppression of the eastern peninsula’s rebellion as justification.
It was an open secret that he coveted the throne. Would he attend the new Queen’s coronation?
Even if merely formal, attending the coronation was a political move by which he would acknowledge his niece as Queen.
“Interesting.”
However, the Duke of the East’s reply was, ‘I shall naturally attend.’
"He is not coming, surely? But should I write the Duke of the East a reply similar to the other absentees’?"
The Administrative Officer had not checked the letter and, expecting that the Duke of the East would not come, was about to write a reply.
“No, no. Wait. Hmm.”
I stopped the point of the Administrative Officer’s pen and gathered my thoughts for a moment.
“Since he says he is coming, the reply must be different.”
“Pardon? He says he is coming?”
Even the Administrative Officer seemed to find it unexpected.
Of course, as the Late King’s biological younger brother, it was proper for the Duke of the East to come to the funeral.
"If he comes, it will greatly ease my worries."
Her Majesty held the legitimacy in the succession, but the Duke of the East held the actual power.
Wary of that, the Late King had brought in me, who guarded the North, and taken measures to give the new Queen strength.
If the Duke of the East quietly acknowledged the new Queen’s succession, Her Majesty’s inheritance of the throne would be secure, and there would be no reason for unrest in the kingdom.
But I could not judge the Duke of the East to be without ambition.
If he had no ambition, why would he hold the Lion Unit, the royal family’s loyalist force that embodied actual power?
If he wished, he could raise the banner of rebellion, saying, ‘The Grand Duke of the North holds the young Queen and manipulates the affairs of state.’
If that happened, the kingdom would enter its greatest civil war.
I had not stepped forward to take charge of state affairs without the skill and confidence to stop that.
But if the Duke of the East and I fought, the kingdom’s strength as a whole would decline.
We would be unable to maintain either the East or the North as a region.
The Late King must have known that as well, so he likely entrusted this to me hoping I would prevent the Duke of the East’s rebellion before it happened, rather than stop it after it began.
“Hmm.”
I had to write a reply to the Duke of the East.
Having invited him, there was no reason to tell him not to come. But as the most powerful noble, I intended to pressure him to arrive disarmed by discussing his protocol.
“Administrative Officer.”
“Yes, Lord Protector.”
"Add a postscript to the others that the Duke of the East is coming as well. Also, leave word that those who attend should not bring some unheard-of bastard-born person and diminish their own house’s standing."
The Duke of the East’s attendance would still give nobles who had ignored the invitations to the royal citadel’s event something to think about.
In the present situation, if they did not follow the Regent and royal family, who held legitimacy, nor the Duke of the East, who held actual power.......
What did they intend to do?
“I will write the reply to the Duke of the East myself.”
Borrowing the Administrative Officer’s pen, I wrote the reply to the Duke of the East myself.
‘Without the Duke of the East, the royal family’s senior-most elder, I was at a loss to take on such an important matter. I ask that you come and grace the occasion.’
‘However, I worry that the eastern disturbance may grow if you leave your post.’
‘The royal family will take responsibility for Your Grace’s protocol and reception, according you the utmost honor, so that the eastern rebels do not entertain improper thoughts.......’
I wrote that his coming was welcome, but that he should not bring troops with him.
I did not write about the Lion Unit’s return either.
The Lion Unit’s recall was an important political issue, but if it entered the royal citadel together with the Duke of the East, there would be a problem.
If their rebellion broke out inside the royal citadel, I was not without confidence that I could suppress it, but the very prospect of urban warfare inside the royal citadel would greatly harm royal authority.
It could make the capital’s citizens think, ‘What a mess this country is in, now that a young Queen has taken the throne.’
“Was I too polite?”
I was acquainted with the Duke of the East.
And in my current position as the royal authority’s proxy, I was of higher rank.
Would it not be all right to write a little more forcefully?
‘Do you want to die?’
That was not something to write in an official state document, of course.
So I wrote one additional letter as an enclosure to the official letter.
‘......The words above are polite because I have to engage in politics.’
‘You must have confidence, so come alone without attendants. Even if there are schemes in the palace, I do not believe you will be unable to get yourself out alone.’
I had openly picked a fight over pride.
Would a warrior capable of cutting down hundreds come trailing soldiers behind him? Would it not be fair to say he was scared?
I had had the confidence to enter the royal citadel alone and escape if things went wrong. There was no reason the Duke of the East could not do the same.
‘From that bearing, I will know whether you are coming to conduct a funeral or contend for the throne.’
‘As advice, it is right to conduct a funeral rather than contend. If you truly wish, you can sufficiently express your political position by conducting the funeral and not attending the coronation.’
‘Of course, if you put on such a farce, it would be good to consider what would become of your reputation.’
***
A hooded man accompanied by two burly men who looked like mercenaries took a letter from a royal postman on his way.
“Is it a letter from the royal citadel?”
“It is a personal letter from the Regent, the Lord Protector.”
The hooded man had taken lodgings at this inn several days ago, and had done nothing but stroll around the royal citadel.
Other than that, he seemed to spend his time idly, paying in silver coins.
After the civil servant from the royal citadel’s offices left, the hooded man received and read the letter he had delivered.
“Ahahahaha, he is still impressive. This man, honestly. His confidence is tremendous. He has always been that way.”
Then, after reading the letter, he laughed heartily as if he found it amusing.
“Including the royal citadel’s guard, their forces number only around six thousand. We heard that a northern reserve unit entered recently.”
“If we were to attack, now would have been the time.......”
"There is no way it is only six thousand. If it is the Grand Duke of the North, he will have occupied every crucial point in the central mountains and prepared. Leaving only the minimum force to hold out under siege, he excels at breaking an enemy’s will to fight with aggressive field battles instead."
The royal citadel was the kingdom’s center, but it lay toward the southwestern coast of the kingdom.
If the Grand Duke of the North had entered first on the Late King’s secret letter, he would already have stationed troops at every chokepoint on the road from the East to the royal citadel.
They had come by hiding aboard a merchant ship at sea, so they could not have known that.
But they thought it was only natural.
“I keep hearing songs. The people of the royal citadel have enough leisure to sing.”
“The Northern Army is distributing food and teaching songs to the children.”
The royal citadel was now full of the subjects’ singing.
At every mealtime, it had been more than a day or two since overenthusiastic subjects began shouting toward the royal citadel, ‘Thank you, Your Majesty the Queen!’
Because the royal citadel’s soldiers did not stop them, what had initially been only a few people’s behavior had now become a full-fledged fad.
In the royal citadel’s shops, cute crafts and pale lavender goods said to be Her Majesty’s favorites since her days as a Princess were displayed.
They went well with the royal citadel’s central streets, made of white stone that reflected the sunlight.
From this, the new Queen’s public support appeared to be good.
“That is also what the Grand Duke of the North does well. I heard he actively teaches music and hymns to spread news, and uses lyrics to teach subjects letters and writing.”
“I apologize for my presumption, but I do not quite understand why that is helpful.”
“If you do not understand, look only at the results. Within a few years of his taking charge, the North became a region where the population surged and strong soldiers gathered. He is that remarkable a man. People all think of him as a provincial bumpkin, a mountain man who is merely clever at petty schemes, but that is not so.”
“That is true, but.......”
“We have sent word, so we will be able to meet without the young Queen or the Privy Council knowing. If they cannot even notice that, their counterintelligence has stopped working. There is nothing disadvantageous to us.”
***
Those people....... Ah.
This was becoming interesting.
I had hidden Cuckoo agents in the capital, inherited the Late King’s counterintelligence network, and received intelligence from the Foreign Minister, the only one among the Late King’s Privy Council ministers who had spread his connections so widely that he was not simply a supporter of the Duke of the East.
At an inn in the capital, three mercenaries were suspicious, according to intelligence from the counterintelligence network and the spy network I had spread in the North.
They were mercenaries, yet all they did was stay at the inn and stroll about. The man in the shabbiest clothes was being treated with reverence.
Thinking it might be an incognito young noble, I stopped by to confirm. There was also the possibility that they were spies or assassins, so I brought about five knights in case of trouble.
“Hmph.”
“Hah. I wondered what had become of you.”
“It has been a long time.”
“Good to see you.”
The Grand Duke of Friuli, the Duke of the East.
Second in the current royal family’s line of succession, he was at an inn in the capital in disguise.