Chapter 131
Chapter 131: The Situation
***
The middle-aged swordsman went silent for 2 seconds.
Then, he suddenly snapped his head up, eyes bloodshot with rage as he glared at Victoria. His expression cracked completely, and through gritted teeth he said: "Your Majesty, what did you just say? I didn't catch that. Are you trying to—"
Before he could finish, Lecter standing off to the side let out a sharp clang as he drew the sword at his hip.
"Lord Bart! Lower your head!"
The middle-aged swordsman Bart heard that and froze, his hand instinctively reaching for the longsword at his waist.
"You dare—!"
Swish!
Lecter moved like a lightning strike. In the next instant, the blade he had a firm grip on was already pressed flat against Bart's neck.
Bart was still in a half-kneeling position, his right hand having just reached his hip, and yet he didn't dare move another inch.
Lecter curled the corner of his mouth into a cold smirk, slowly beginning to apply pressure.
"Lower. Your. Head. Don't make me say it a third time."
The sharp edge of the blade pressed hard against the skin of his neck, as if it would slice right through at any moment. Bart's breathing grew ragged, and then, slowly, his head went down.
Whether it was saliva or cold sweat that slid down his cheek and soaked into the carpet beneath him, no one could tell.
I watched it all and felt a flicker of irritation rise in my chest.
But until I understood the full picture, I figured I'd best keep my mouth shut for now.
I hate getting tangled up in these kinds of things, just don't drag me into it.
"If there's a next time, don't blame my sword for showing no mercy."
Lecter said, and given how serious his expression was right now, it clearly wasn't a joke.
"...Is this your stance, Your Majesty?" Bart said after a long pause.
His voice was unnaturally low. I could hear the fury he was barely holding back beneath it.
And then Victoria, who had been watching the whole thing unfold in silence, as if none of it had anything to do with her, finally set down the wine glass in her hand.
She waved a hand toward Lecter, and Lecter stepped back, sheathing his sword.
"My stance depends on yours," Victoria said softly. "If you're here to resolve things, then I've already told you the way forward. Commander Bart, is there anything else?"
"Resolve things? You call that resolving things?! You're disbanding them, Your Majesty! You can't do this! Those Iron Guard warriors, they all have families! Wives and young children to protect, aging parents to support! They have people depending on them! If you do this, what are they supposed to live on... You're telling them to die!"
Bart's cry was filled with grief and rage, raw and hoarse, as if he'd been dealt some terrible injustice. He looked every bit like a man of loyalty, fighting for the sake of his brothers.
I furrowed my brow and shifted my gaze toward the side of Victoria's face.
Victoria's expression remained perfectly calm, completely unmoved by Bart's words.
"People with two hands and two feet, why would they die?" she said without any urgency. "If Commander Bart feels that bad about it, you're also welcome to pay their wages out of your own pocket. The Clive family is loaded. 20,000 Iron Guards, I'd imagine sustaining them for a few years wouldn't be much of an issue."
The remark, delivered almost like a joke, only pushed Bart's anger further over the edge.
"Your Majesty, are you still mocking me at a time like this?! 20,000 men... how could the Clive family possibly afford that!"
"Oh?" Victoria watched him with an expression that was somewhere between a smile and not. "You can't afford it?"
At that, Bart's lowered head shifted slightly... and in the end, he didn't dare raise it again.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, his voice dropping low.
"Exactly what you think I mean, Commander Bart," Victoria said. "Over these past 10 years, how much has the treasury allocated to the Iron Guard, and how much of that actually reached their hands. Going through those accounts line by line would be a tedious affair, and a disheartening one at that. If the sums were smaller, I might have just let it go. But the Clive family is still out here expanding the Iron Guard's roster as we speak. Does this... really need me to spell it out any further?"
"You—" The middle-aged swordsman's face flushed red. "That's not true! Your Majesty, that is slander!"
"Whether it's slander or not, you know full well in your own heart." Victoria's tone was completely unbothered, like she was talking about something utterly trivial. "Rather than standing here saying useless things to me, you'd be better off heading back soon and discussing with that Finance Minister brother of yours which units to cut. The sooner, the better. Otherwise, starting next month, half of the Iron Guard's wages will be covered by the Clive family. The royal city does not feed parasites."
"Parasites?!" Bart's breathing grew heavier. "The Iron Guard are the warriors who protect the royal city, they—"
"Commander Bart, drop the act. It's embarrassing." Victoria let out a quiet sigh. "The city walls are guarded by the royal capital garrison. Internal order is handled by the Arbitration Office. Hunting down bandits and outlaws is the Church Knights' job. Commander Bart, the Iron Guard wears the finest equipment money can buy, but aside from ham and beer, tell me... what exactly have you ever protected?"
Her words were calm, completely stripped of any emotion, and they silenced Bart entirely.
The air was still. So still it felt like even the atmosphere itself had frozen over.
Glug. Glug.
All I could hear was the sound of Victoria pouring red wine into her glass. Then she raised her slender hand, pinched the stem, lifted the glass once more, and swirled it gently.
My gaze lingered on her elegant profile for a moment before I turned and looked over at Lecter nearby. He shrugged at me.
Rolling my dark eyes, I finally managed to piece together a rough picture of the situation from their words and reactions.
When I'd come back earlier, the armored guards I saw at Mansion No. 2, they were the Iron Guard. And this middle-aged swordsman standing before me was their commander.
These Iron Guards, from the sound of it, were little more than a bunch of people drawing a government paycheck for doing absolutely nothing. As far as the royal city, or even all of Isenbell was concerned, they were an entirely redundant army. And this army... just from Victoria's attitude alone, it was clear they weren't under the royal palace's command. At least, they wouldn't take orders from the Queen.
They only took orders from this middle-aged swordsman. Or rather, they answered to the Clive family, while being funded entirely by the royal treasury.
This army had 20,000 men.
By my estimate, that number likely outnumbered the Sword of Kanri and the royal capital garrison combined. And on top of that, the Clive family also held the reins of Isenbell's finances.
These people were lining their own pockets under a false banner, while the entire country footed the bill... and they were still steadily growing their "private army." What they were aiming for couldn't have been more obvious. And what Victoria was doing right now was cutting off a portion of the power in their hands, trying to stop things from getting any worse.
I had no idea how things had gotten to this point, or how many nobles like this were lurking inside the royal city.
All I knew was that if things kept going this way, these people would eventually hollow out this prosperous nation from the inside out.
Once I'd worked all of that out, the look I gave the middle-aged swordsman carried a hint of disgust.
It was exactly because people like this existed that the royal city's atmosphere had rotted to this state, and why someone like Alex had come to exist in the first place...
After a short while, he spoke.
"Your Majesty, was there really any need to be so... harsh about it? This leaves neither of us with any way to back down gracefully, is that truly what you want?"
That was as good as laying everything bare on the table, but Victoria simply glanced at him and gave no response.
She began slowly savoring the wine in her glass.
Bart waited for a while, heard no reply from her, and let out a cold laugh.
"In that case, allow me to remind you of something." The false emotion from earlier was completely gone from his voice now, he wasn't even pretending to be drunk anymore. Yet he still didn't dare lift his head. "Every single wage payment and piece of equipment for the Iron Guard is fully covered by the royal treasury. That rule was established by your mother, the Regent Queen Dowager at the time. Before Her Majesty makes any changes, shouldn't you first consult her on the matter?"
The moment those words left his mouth, I felt Victoria's eyes grow ice cold.
She held her wine glass, staring down at Bart kneeling before her, her face as frigid as a layer of frost had settled over it.
"I am the Queen. I don't need her opinion." she said.
"Is that so..." Bart paused, and then his tone shifted sharply. "I wonder, Your Majesty, does your confidence by any chance come from that black-haired young lady seated beside you?"
My heart gave a sudden lurch, and my mind immediately kicked into gear.
Bart's words snapped something into place for me.
When I thought about it carefully, what was Victoria's reason for flying into my courtyard in the first place? If she'd done it on purpose...
She knew Bart would be coming today, and she'd also guessed that I would take advantage of the day off to come back here, so she waited for me here. After coming inside, she made up an excuse to have Lecter bring dinner over, then deliberately let herself be discovered, drawing him here.
She'd even said something earlier like "sitting alongside me is an act of defiance against the crown."
She knew that if she said that, I would absolutely do the opposite, I'd insist on sitting down on that sofa no matter what. And just like that, it cemented the image that we were meeting as equals in standing.
This was only the second time we'd met, and she'd already figured out exactly how I tick. This woman... she's frighteningly sharp.
Her read on people is just too precise. Through what looked like casual, offhand calculations, she was steering events one step at a time toward exactly the outcome she wanted. And with Lecter constantly emphasizing to the other party that "Her Majesty has important matters to attend to," I could guess that the moment this middle-aged swordsman walked in and saw me, he must have immediately assumed that their Queen had already established a connection with the Valen Empire, and that I was an imperial princess sent by the Empire to negotiate terms.
As for what exactly was being negotiated? He could figure that out himself. The deeper his suspicion, the greater his hesitation.
So she was using me as a weapon or a shield... did she really think I'd let her have her way?!
So I spoke up immediately: "This has nothing to do with me."
"This has nothing to do with her."
One voice soft and gentle. One voice cool and clear.
The two sentences came out of my mouth and Victoria's at the exact same time.
I turned my head in mild surprise and found myself looking directly into her calm, still, golden eyes, serene as the sea.
A question formed in my mind, and I felt my brows knit together.
"I have other things to discuss with this young lady." Victoria said, turning her head back. "Commander Bart, this matter is settled. Take your people and go."
The words had barely fallen when I heard another burst of commotion from outside the courtyard, a mix of voices and scattered footsteps, heading toward the mansion.
"Vicky should be in here, right... why did they switch to No. 3?"
"She's the Queen. She says what goes, since when does it matter where she wants to be..."
"This child... so willful! Decades of protocol, tossed out just like that. What a disgrace!"
I saw the hand swirling Victoria's wine glass pause, just barely.
"Ha." Bart let out a soft laugh. "Your Majesty, perhaps you've drawn your conclusions a little too soon?"