Surviving as a Prince of Britannia

Author’s Note : This interlude is part of a short SPQR-focused arc. It shows what was happening on the Roman side before the story returns to the main Britannian timeline. The main storyline will resume with Chapter 26 after these interludes.

In this fic, the EU has been replaced by the SPQR. Its official languages are Latin and Greek. For readability, SPQR dialogue is generally rendered in English unless the language itself matters to the scene. In-universe, characters are speaking Latin, Greek, Britannian, or other languages as appropriate.

This episode is told from the point of view of Paraklitís tís Archís, Head of the Central Intelligence Department of the Bureau of Barbarians.

SPQR

The Senate and People of Rome

First Capital, Rome

The Center of the World

The Roman Senate

Shortly after news reports emerged that Eugene—the traitor and former Exarchos Romae who had failed to last even thirty minutes after declaring her coup before forwarding her address to hell—had colluded with Regulus Cissingensis, the current ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν βαρβάρων, the Head of the Bureau of Barbarians, immediately before the coup—

and on the day after the young Empress, as if she had known in advance, dismissed Regulus at once, while Galeatus Carbonarius, the Megas Logothetes, or Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Senatus Populusque Romanus, placed every department-level officer directly under Regulus on standby—

the hearing chamber, once again set up in the Roman Senate hall, was drowned in suffocating silence.

Most of the senators from both Rome and Constantinople were present.

Only three seats remained empty.

I, Paraklitís tís Archís, an old man in my late seventies, stood in the witness box.

Cough

I rested both hands on my cane, closed my eyes for a moment to steady my breath, then opened my mouth.

“...It was only a few minutes before the traitor Eugene’s speech.”

My voice was low, but clear.

“I received a direct call from Regulus Cissingensis on a secure phone.”

At that moment, gasps escaped from several places in the gallery.

Angelica Limitanea, Chairwoman of the Roman Senate, senator from the province of Germania Inferior, and presiding officer of the hearing, asked me in her ringing voice.

“What were you ordered to do during that call?”

Unlike the other department heads—who had denied their guilt to the end, been arrested by the Imperial Guard, detained by the police and prosecutors, and dragged into the chamber in prison uniforms—I, the most senior of the Bureau’s department heads, had been the only one to confess everything during the investigation and declare that I would testify again at the hearing.

For that reason, I had not been arrested.

I had come from my own home, dressed neatly in a suit.

I lowered my gaze for a moment.

After a short silence, I raised my head.

“...He said this.”

“‘From this moment onward, mobilize all personnel and resources of the Central Intelligence Department of the Bureau of Barbarians and secure the following individuals.’”

A murmur began to spread through the chamber.

Angelica struck the desk.

Bang

Bang

Bang

“Witness, be specific.”

“I will omit titles of respect. He only named them.”

My voice sank lower.

“Regulus Martialis Altocastarenis.”

The previous Imperator Basileus, who had abdicated in favor of his daughter and now kept silence as a monk on Mount Athos.

At the time, he had still been the reigning emperor.

“Lily Aemilia Altocastarenis.”

The current Augusta Basilissa, only daughter of the previous Imperator Basileus, Regulus Martialis Altocastarenis.

At the time, she had still been the crown princess.

“Leila Vittonia Malcalia.”

The Caesarissa.

At the time, the Megas Domestikos.

The Athena of the Atlantic War.

At that moment, the hearing chamber froze.

I quietly added,

“...The list was longer than that.”

“However, I believe those three names alone should be enough for you to understand.”

Among the other department heads who had been dragged in wearing prison uniforms, some stiffened in their seats, while others lowered their heads.

“I... truly respected Lord Regulus. I wanted to grant him whatever he wished.”

My voice trembled for a moment.

“But the moment I heard that list—I thought, no.”

“This is wrong.”

From another side of the chamber, an agitated voice burst out.

“That is a lie! It is a one-sided claim without evidence!”

“It is fabricated! We cannot simply trust Lord Archís’s word—”

Liars.

Do they have no shame?

But I have no time to argue with traitors.

I shook my head.

“At first... I intended to destroy this order as well.”

I slowly reached out and pointed toward an evidence bag.

“But I have the notes I left behind, and the secure phone containing the call records has been preserved exactly as it was.”

Then Theonikos Gelasios, Chairman of the Constantinopolitan Senate and senator from the province of Cappadocia, questioned me.

“Is that secure phone the evidence now submitted before this chamber?”

“Yes.”

I stopped speaking for a moment.

Cough

My breathing had grown labored.

But soon, I spoke again.

“I am nearly eighty years old now. I am frail, and I am nothing more than a widower who sent his wife to God’s side before me.”

“I had intended to retire once this hearing was over.”

My gaze slowly swept across the gallery.

“At this point... what would I have left to gain by lying?”

At that moment, another department head gritted his teeth and shouted.

“Even so! Even if such an order was given, it was never carried out—”

Oh?

So did Zeus let Poseidon and Apollo go unpunished simply because they failed, even though they had plotted to throw him down from the throne of Olympus?

After clearing my mind, I raised my head and faced him.

“That is true. It was not carried out.”

“But think about it.”

“There are only two places in this world where people can be seized and confined without any judicial procedure whatsoever, simply because someone finds them inconvenient.”

“The heresy across the Atlantic, Britannia—the Imperial Household of Charles, the Antichrist with more than a hundred wives.”

“And Sinica—I mean, the Chinese Federation—the Black Society, the hands and feet of the High Eunuchs.”

“Have our nation, the Senate and People of Rome, and we, the Roman people, fallen to that same level?”

Someone swallowed hard.

I bowed.

“I did not obey that order.”

“However, the very fact that such an order was given had already crossed the line.”

Finally, I said,

“To God, to the Imperial House, and to the citizens—”

“I can only offer my deepest apologies.”

“That is all.”

For a long while, no one in the hearing chamber could say a word.