Chapter 90

Traces of the war with the neighboring kingdom still lingered here and there across Alharn. The most seismic of them was the throne passing from House Alharn to House Adler, but there were other things the war had left behind, woven into the fabric of society.

Intelligence was one of them.

Unlike the royal guard or the city watch, Intelligence was an institution founded solely for the war. Rooting out spies, gathering enemy information, and — when necessary — not shying away from illegal methods... roughly speaking, a place set up to handle that kind of dirty work. That sort of thing was necessary in wartime.

An institution, once established, doesn't disappear easily just because the war ends. What had been put off from month to month on the pretext of tensions along the border soon settled into something semi-permanent.

The stated purpose of rooting out subversive movements abroad expanded to cover both foreign and domestic ground. There was some pushback, but... with the war so recently over and the country still on edge, no one raised much of a voice. On top of that, assassination attempts on the royal family kept happening, and there were deaths. Waldemar Alharn, who had lost his younger brother, greatly expanded Intelligence's powers.

Ryan Adler didn't scale it back either.

And so Intelligence carried on.

Exactly what Intelligence did was shrouded in mystery. Its members weren't publicly known, and it answered to the king and no one else.

...So it was said. Internally, the picture was a little different. Ever since Albrecht Bertholdt had taken over as director of Intelligence, the organization had gained a measure of autonomy. That was because the king had trusted Albrecht's brilliance.

Well. His Majesty only wants to hold the country together. He'd have concluded I was the man best suited for the job.

Albrecht had said something like that to his aide.

Whatever the king's intent might have been, it ran in the same direction as what Albrecht wanted, so Albrecht made sure the king got what he was after.

That Albrecht was dead now, and a new director had taken the post.

And the king was showing an interest without precedent. The people who had grown accustomed, under Albrecht's command, to an organization that ran like fine clockwork were thrown by the sudden commotion.

The king's interest took visible forms. He didn't come around in person to interfere, but... how else were they supposed to explain the budget being poured on them for no stated reason? Not just the budget — whatever nonsense the new director might report, the king would smile and nod. He'd add that he didn't need to be briefed on every last thing, that the director should handle it as he saw fit.

All because of the new director. The very director the king reportedly cherished more than his own son.

Gauss Manfred handed a new file to the director, who was working through the last of his paperwork. Grisha took the slim file as warily as if it were a monster about to bite him.

"Word is that His Majesty has allocated another special budget on top of the usual."

Grisha looked at the royal seal on the papers. He glared at the writing as if he could will the letters to change, then handed it back to Gauss.

"...Put it into operating expenses."

"Better than nothing, I suppose, but — are you truly all right with this?"

"Better than nothing."

Grisha muttered in a tired voice.

"If I refuse and it comes back as something more troublesome, then I really am in trouble. Better than being short on budget, isn't it?"

"Intelligence has never been short on budget."

Grisha grabbed his coat and got to his feet.

"Salute your director."

The blunt tone didn't faze Gauss in the slightest; he gathered up the papers and followed Grisha out.

"By the way, your glasses?"

"...Not you too?"

Grisha grimaced.

"Sir Bertholdt keeps saying the same thing, doesn't he?"

"Well..."

"Wear them, would you. I saw you miss a step on the stairs this morning."

"..."

Grisha pretended he hadn't heard.

"You never know what might happen. By the time something has happened, it's already too late."

"Or nothing might happen at all."

"What about what already has happened?"

"It passed without incident, so it's fine."

Gauss clearly had a lot more he wanted to say, but Grisha ignored him and climbed into the waiting carriage.

The carriage was new, made because His Majesty had been so anxious. From the outside it looked no different from the hired coaches you saw on any street, but it had been built from specially treated materials that could take a heavy impact. The interior was the same.

Intelligence could easily have built it in-house given how much budget was floating around, but His Majesty had ordered it built himself and personally bestowed it on Grisha.

Gauss hadn't been present for that, and he hadn't asked Grisha to confirm, but he was certain this carriage had been made using the same specifications as the royal family's private coaches.

Nothing else would explain why Grisha's face soured every time he looked at it.

"Honestly..."

Once the carriage was moving, Grisha spoke hesitantly. It was quiet enough that Gauss would have missed it if he hadn't been watching him.

Grisha really hadn't wanted to say it out loud — he looked flustered when he realized Gauss had caught it.

"Marquis?"

"..."

Grisha turned to look out the window. Nagging from his mother, his friend, and his subordinate notwithstanding, he still had no glasses on. Gauss wondered how much he could actually see out of those eyes, but he didn't press the point.

It was a long moment before Grisha finally spoke.

"Harold won't agree with me, but I don't think there'll be any more assassination attempts."

"He most certainly will not agree."

"That's what I just said!"

Gauss said nothing and just looked at his superior. Then, with a sigh —

"How about... being a bit more aware of your own position?"

"I'm aware. But this business..."

Grisha hesitated.

"...even with Carlisle, there's a certain limit."

"A limit?"

"The assassination attempt — I don't think it was really aimed at me so much as at getting out from under Harold."

"That doesn't mean you think it wasn't dangerous, does it?"

"No, that isn't it. They'd have judged it the surest way to shake Harold off. It worked, too. And if it succeeded, so much the better."

Harold had said the same thing.

Having confirmed that Grisha wasn't dismissing the assassination attempt itself, Gauss let out a small breath of relief.

"But something about it is nagging at you?"

"I've known Carlisle my whole life, after all."

The First Prince was three years older than Grisha. That anyone his age was still carrying on like this was, frankly, laughable.

"Carlisle... isn't stupid enough to try to harm me directly."

Gauss's eyes went wide. That was the exact opposite of what he usually said about Carlisle.

"Count Bertholdt never said anything of the kind."

"Well, of course not — to Albrecht's eyes, everyone in the world was an idiot."

"...That's, hard to argue with."

"Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying Carlisle is clever."

Grisha said it firmly, apparently unwilling to leave any room for misinterpretation.

"Why do you think Harold hates Carlisle?"

"Sir Bertholdt? I heard they didn't get along at the academy."

"Why didn't they get along?"

"Well..."

Grisha gave a snort.

"His Majesty had been dreaming of passing the throne to me since before I was born. But how long would a newborn king last? The queen's brother had only died a year earlier, hadn't he?"

"..."

"Waldemar Alharn died under suspicious circumstances too. To this day, no one's ever established whether it was assassination or an accident."

Just like Albrecht Bertholdt's death.

Gauss swallowed the addition he wanted to make.

"And there was a border conflict right on the heels of Waldemar Alharn's death. That's why."

"Certainly... under those circumstances."

"He'd have been killed for sure — there was no choice. He set conditions, though, I heard."

That explained why Ryan Adler had taken the throne despite hating the job of king so much. Gauss had privately guessed at as much himself, so Grisha's words were more confirmation than revelation.

Grisha shrugged. What he was about to say next was more of a family conversation. Whether royal-family matters could be treated as merely family matters was, of course, another question entirely.

"Once I came of age, the throne would pass to me."

"...!"

"And I refused. Which is how we ended up with things as they are."

"Hmm..."

"Should I have taken it back then? Albrecht said the same thing. I think that now too. I never imagined His Majesty was going to drag it out for over a decade."

Grisha waved a hand dismissively.

"But to get back to what I was saying. Given that arrangement, I was raised as, well, essentially the crown prince. Parts of the palace Carlisle wasn't allowed in were open to me; the education Carlisle didn't get, I did. And Carlisle's older than I am."

Three years. Enough to remember all of it, and enough to figure out the reasons.

"The only time Carlisle could get at me directly was the two years we overlapped at the academy."

"And that's why Sir Bertholdt—"

"Carlisle isn't stupid, I told you."

Grisha looked out the window again. It was impossible to tell what he was looking at.

"He never went so far that the adults had to step in. But he did make life harder for me — enough that Harold got fed up and annoyed."

"..."

"Because he knows the line he can't cross."

Remembering how this conversation had started, Gauss caught what Grisha was trying to explain. But he couldn't agree.

"Isn't this different from back then, though? They'd have assumed you would inherit the throne. Now... they've moved to more extreme methods."

"No. Just as we can't predict how Carlisle will move, Carlisle can't predict what His Majesty would do if I died."

"..."

"What if His Majesty decided to remember his dead nephew fondly and hand the throne to his sister?"

"...Surely not. Miss Lambert isn't—"

"On the surface, I'm also just the young lord of House Lambert."

"..."

"And His Majesty wasn't royalty to begin with. If anything, dig into House Lambert or House Reichnek and you'll find more Alharn blood than His Majesty has. You don't think there's Alharn blood in my family?"

"That..."

Gauss hesitated, then nodded.

"No. As you say, Marquis."

"Right. Which is why Carlisle would sooner kill his own father than kill me."

But that wasn't remotely reassuring. If anything, it magnified Gauss's worry.

Carlisle not wanting Grisha dead didn't mean there wouldn't be more assassination attempts. This one had happened without Carlisle's involvement.

If anything, if Carlisle hadn't ordered it, that made it worse. That would mean there was some organization — the Kingdom of Barun, or something else — moving on its own without waiting for Carlisle's orders.

"Right, so — wear the glasses."

"..."

"Sir Bertholdt might have let it slide, but I won't. If the First Prince can't rein it in, it's more dangerous, not less. I'll pass word to the captain of the royal guard as well."

Grisha's face crumpled.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the carriage came to a stop before Grisha could voice his complaint. Gauss got out first, before Grisha could say anything, and stood ready to escort him.

"..."

Grisha shot Gauss a light glare, then pulled a pair of glasses from his coat and put them on.

"Well done."

"..."

If the destination had been the palace, Grisha wouldn't have put them on to save his life, but this was the Reichnek Hotel. Gauss wasn't oblivious enough to miss the significance.

Even a fully grown adult was afraid of his mother's nagging. Claudia, curious about Harold's nephews, had informed her son she'd be staying at the hotel until she left for the Reichnek domain.