The lodgings the Kingdom of Laurent had provided for me were excellent.
Of course, there were soldiers standing guard outside, but the interior was quite spacious and comfortable.
It seemed they intended to treat me properly as a guest, so long as I did nothing unnecessary.
‘I have no particular intention of doing anything unnecessary, either.’
I did have one more scheme prepared, but that was for when I left.
I planned to wake early tomorrow morning and get ready.
What I would use this time was a stratagem specialized in sowing discord, the kind Cao Cao had prepared with Jia Xu’s help.
‘It’s a real relief, now that I think about it, that I read Romance of the Three Kingdoms so many times.’
As I lay in bed, lost in one thought after another, there was suddenly a knock at the door.
“Excuse me, Prince Consort. A guest has come to see you.”
“A guest?”
“Yes, well… His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief himself…”
“Huh…?”
To my surprise, the one who opened the door and entered was General Alfonso himself.
He ducked his large frame through the doorway, looked at me, and grinned.
“I seem to have come just as you were about to rest. Pardon me.”
“Ah, I wasn’t about to sleep yet. What brings you here at this hour…?”
“This old man has a bit of liquor he brewed in preparation for the arrival of guests. If you don’t mind, would you care for a cup?”
It was obvious to anyone that he was blatantly trying to fish for information, but I had no particular reason to refuse, so I nodded.
“How could I avoid the chance to share drinks with the greatest general on the continent?”
“Haha, I thank you for the praise. Then follow me.”
#
General Alfonso led me to a quiet place a short distance from the barracks, took out a large bottle of liquor, and poured it into porcelain cups.
It was not the wine or distilled spirits commonly drunk in the Empire, but fruit wine with raspberry pulp floating in it.
When my mouth fell open at the sweet-and-sour fragrance, the general spoke with a proud air.
“This is raspberry wine made from raspberries grown on my own estate. It is a specialty of the Kingdom of Laurent… well, not quite. It is a drink I personally use to entertain guests.”
“Oh, thank you for offering me something so precious. I’ll enjoy it gratefully.”
General Alfonso and I clinked our cups and poured the liquor down our throats.
When I let out an exclamation at its sweet-and-sour taste, General Alfonso grinned broadly.
“As expected, you can hold your liquor. I thought as much.”
“Do I look like a drunkard to you?”
“Perhaps not a drunkard, but I thought you would enjoy it quite a bit. A man’s intuition.”
“I may not look it, but the greatest drinker in the imperial palace is none other than me. I even once won a drinking wager against Count Gross.”
“Huh, Count Gross… that fat fellow? Haha, then you truly are a formidable drinker.”
General Alfonso shook his head slowly, then suddenly looked at me with a sharp glint in his eyes.
“In that case, it will be difficult to get you drunk and have you spill information on your own.”
“If I were that weak to alcohol, I would have refused this meeting.”
“You are not very surprised.”
“I am not so naive as to believe an enemy commander would offer me liquor without any ulterior motive.”
General Alfonso met my eyes for a moment, took a sip from his cup, and then suddenly released a faint murderous aura.
“Earlier, I insisted to His Highness that you should be killed. Seeing you now, I am even more certain.”
“Would killing someone like me, who cannot even swing a sword properly, change the course of the war that much?”
“I am somewhat certain that it would. I do not have much basis for it, but it is the intuition of an old man who has rolled around on battlefields for over thirty years. I do not think we will lose the war if we do not kill you, but my intuition tells me that if we kill you, we will certainly win.”
“People can be wrong.”
“I have not been yet.”
“Then, General, what are you doing instead of drawing your sword and taking my head right now? You’re wasting good liquor.”
“Are you not afraid of death?”
“I have nearly died so often lately that I have grown used to it. At the very least, if you kill me, General, you will cut off my head in one stroke, so I will consider it a better death than dying in the Empire.”
“Regrettably, His Highness did not permit it, so that is impossible. This body is a soldier, not royalty. And so, I intend to do what I can.”
General Alfonso drained a cup of liquor, looked me in the eyes, and asked,
“Lord Ian Harper, have you any intention of defecting to the Kingdom of Laurent?”
“…Why do you ask such a question?”
“This, too, perhaps, is a question born of intuition. I am certain that your position in the Empire is not all that stable. Should I say this question comes from… a sense of kinship?”
#
Instead of answering, I took a sip of the raspberry wine.
When my cup emptied, General Alfonso filled it for me, and I gave a light nod in thanks.
There were many thoughts surging through my head.
It took a little time for them to settle, and the words that came out of my mouth were things difficult to confide to anyone.
“…As I said, I was originally a hostage. I came from a weak nation in the south called the Kingdom of Sterling. My homeland was conquered by Princess Victoria’s southern expeditionary force, and I was taken as a hostage in place of the actual royal family. I deceived the Empire and pretended to be a false royal.”
“Hah, what remarkable courage. To do something so brave… and so foolish.”
“Fortunately, I adapted well to the imperial palace and lived while receiving the favor of the imperial family. Then… the fraud was exposed, and I, who had nearly become an official prince consort, suddenly became a condemned criminal. My family was detained in the capital, and the original royals of Sterling whom I had tried to protect suffered terrible fates.”
“……”
“The king became a steaming pot of meat soup, the princess likely became a prostitute in a cheap brothel, and the prince… I do not know. He is probably dead.”
“Huh.”
“And I… was lucky enough to receive a stay of execution. If I succeed in conquering the Kingdom of Laurent, my crimes will be pardoned and I will become an official prince consort. If not, well, I suppose I will become meat soup as well. That is why I came here.”
“Is that possible while this body stands guard?”
“I do not know. I must try as far as I can. But there is one thing I am certain of.”
“What is it?”
“Until now, my only goal was survival. To survive, I turned my eyes away from all manner of terrible things and pretended not to see those who suffered. But if I return alive this time… I do not intend to do that anymore. Once my position becomes firm, from then on, I will make every effort to change the Empire.”
“You cannot change the Empire alone.”
“But is it not worth trying? If everyone gives up because the world is difficult to change, then the world will never change.”
General Alfonso stared at me silently.
I did not avert my gaze either, and met his eyes.
For a long while, the two of us faced each other without looking away, and then, as if by mutual agreement, we both extended our hands.
“I truly regret that I have only now, only here, met you, Lord Ian Harper. It would have been good if I had known you longer, and more closely.”
“I, too, am deeply saddened to face a hero like you as an enemy.”
“Let us take tonight’s conversation to the grave. In any case, when this war ends, one of us will be buried forever.”
“I will do so.”
We clasped hands firmly, then raised our cups once more and clinked them together.
That night felt truly long.
#
The next morning, as expected, when I left the castle, the crown prince did not show so much as the tip of his nose.
He likely had no reason to see off an unpleasant envoy.
The massive drawbridge in the castle wall opened, and just as I was about to ride across the moat, atop the enormous twenty-meter-high wall, General Henry Alfonso alone had come out to see me off, looking down at me.
From atop my horse, I gave him a respectful military salute and shouted,
“Thank you for seeing me off, General! The next time we meet, I suppose it will be as enemies!”
“One of the two of us will die. This is our final farewell in this world. Go in peace!”
General Alfonso offered a heavy farewell.
I was about to turn my horse’s head, but then, as though something had just occurred to me, I clapped my hands and approached one of the Laurent soldiers lined up below the wall.
“Ah, right! I nearly forgot. I had a personal letter to deliver to General Alfonso. Please give this to the general up there.”
I took out a thick, sealed letter from my breast and handed it to the subordinate, then immediately lashed my horse with the riding crop and shot across the plain toward the imperial army’s camp like an arrow.
“Run like mad, Marengo! If we get caught, you and I both die!!!”
“Neighhh!”
Atop the wall.
An adjutant hurriedly ran up the stairs and handed the letter to General Alfonso.
“General! This is the letter the imperial envoy left behind!”
“A letter?”
General Alfonso, wearing a puzzled expression, tore open the envelope and unfolded its contents.
As he read down the letter, his brow instantly twisted.
The contents of the letter were bizarre.
[I do not think I will ever forget the raspberry wine you served me last night. Even after I return to the Empire, I will…]
The ordinary, insignificant contents remained clearly visible.
However, here and there, only the most important passages that seemed to concern military operations or secret agreements had been blackened out, as though someone had deliberately poured an ink bottle over them, leaving them damaged and utterly unreadable.
The ink did not seem to have dried long ago; the paper was damp, and ink even came off on his hands.
As if, after conveying top-secret information that must never be discovered by others, someone had deliberately spilled ink to destroy the evidence.
“Th-this vicious bastard…! It is a double-agent stratagem!”
General Alfonso immediately realized what these ink stains meant.
As if promising only him the throne in the command tent yesterday had not been enough, today there was this black-ink letter amplifying suspicion.
If this letter fell into someone else’s hands, he would be framed without question as a traitor who had colluded with the Empire and made some sort of secret pact.
“Release a pursuit unit at once, chase the envoy, and bring me that bastard’s head! And His Highness the Prince—”
General Alfonso, cold sweat running down his face, shouted to his adjutant and hastily turned around.
It was at that very instant.
“General Alfonso, did I not order you not to kill the envoy? Do my words mean nothing to you?”
“……!!”
General Alfonso’s entire body stiffened as if struck by lightning.
At the top of the stairs on the wall, having climbed up at some unknown point, the crown prince in splendid armor was glaring at General Alfonso with suspicious eyes.
“I heard that last night, you drank alone with the Empire’s envoy in a secret place.”
“Yes, that is so.”
“And I hear that before the Empire’s envoy left, he left a private letter in secret only for you, General.”
The crown prince slowly extended his hand toward the letter in General Alfonso’s grasp.
“Now then, hand that letter to me as well.”