Chapter 78: Espionage
The hum of Madrid’s electric grid was constant now—a soft background whisper that masked deeper, darker movements in the capital’s underbelly.
It began with a letter.
Folded into the coat of a Prussian diplomat as he boarded a train back to Zaragoza, it passed from hand to hand until it reached the outer districts of the city, where a narrow house in a tailor’s quarter doubled as a safehouse. There, in the basement, a man with graying hair and a precise mustache opened the envelope and read.
His name was Gustav Halberd, an agent of the Prussian Central Intelligence Ministry, and he had been in Aragon for six years—first posing as a language teacher, then a tradesman, and now an investor in ceramics. He had watched the rise of Prince Lancelot with a mix of awe and dread.
Now the letter made it clear: Berlin wanted answers.
"The tram system. The hydro-filtration plant. The underground grid. The rumored electric generator east of Calvaria—confirm everything. And the military implications. We are not looking at a progressive kingdom anymore. We are looking at a dominant power."
Gustav folded the letter and burned it over a brass dish.
Meanwhile, in the Palace
Prince Lancelot stared at the report in front of him. It was neatly typed, held together with a brass clip, and bore the seal of the Royal Bureau of Internal Security.
"There’s been an increase in foreign funding of trade guilds," said Isandro Ruiz, his chief of security. "More contracts signed with entities that don’t exist, more coin moving through dummy banks in Zaragoza and Valencia. We suspect three—maybe four—separate spy networks. Prussia, Glanzreich, Britannia, and perhaps even Francois."
Lancelot closed the file.
"So they’ve started sniffing."