Chapter 16: Potential Allies
Inside the gently swaying carriage, the early hum of the capital stirred beyond the windows—vendors shouting, horses trotting, iron-rimmed wheels clacking across the stones.
Prime Minister Monforte adjusted his gloves and turned to Lancelot, his posture still rigid, formal. "May I ask, Your Royal Highness, where we are headed today?"
"Nowhere in particular," Lancelot answered, his tone casual but sharp. "Just around the capital. Observation, mostly."
"Observation?"
"It’s been some time since I’ve left the palace, Prime Minister," he continued. "Too long, I’d say. So I’ve decided to inspect Madrid with my own eyes. Not through reports, not through noble gossip—but directly."
Monforte raised an eyebrow but didn’t protest. "Very well."
As the carriage rolled past the grand plazas and arcaded buildings of central Madrid, Lancelot turned his gaze to the window, though his thoughts wandered inward.
Leandro Monforte... he recalled.
That name had stood out to him the moment Alicia said it. It wasn’t just a name on a ledger. It was a memory from his studies—one of the few ministers in the court who wasn’t wholly consumed by greed, factionalism, or old privilege.
Lancelot had been reviewing reports and internal dispatches during his sleepless nights—letters Monforte had written to the king, memoranda on trade expansion, his criticism of outdated feudal practices. The man was a centralizer, an Enlightenment-influenced technocrat. A reformist.
If I play this right, Lancelot thought, I don’t need to fight him. I can make him my greatest ally.