“Come, then. That secret letter the imperial envoy left behind—let me have a look at it.”
As though he had nothing to hide, General Alfonso handed the ink-smeared letter to the crown prince without the slightest hesitation.
“Please look, Your Highness. This is a stratagem the imperial bastards devised to drive a wedge between you and me. That greenhorn who came as their envoy harbored wicked intentions and tried to trap me!”
The crown prince did not even respond to General Alfonso’s explanation. He merely stared hard at the letter he had been handed.
The ordinary greetings were written plainly enough, but every crucial sentence that seemed likely to contain some grave secret pact had been slathered over as though black ink had been spilled across it.
The crown prince’s brow twisted.
In an exceedingly displeased tone, he sneered.
“A stratagem to sow discord? But General, why is it that only the important parts have been so neatly covered up? It is almost as if someone hurriedly tried to destroy the evidence before I could see this letter. Before the ink had even dried, no less!”
“Your Highness! Why would I ever commit such a foul deed!”
General Alfonso shouted, his voice filled with injustice and rage.
His roar rang out so thunderously that it seemed to shake the entire wall.
“I have spent forty years on the battlefield for this Kingdom of Laurent! Every scar on my body is proof of the blood I shed for the royal family! How could a man such as I now collude with the imperial bastards and sell out my homeland? If Your Highness truly doubts me, then split open my chest this instant and see my loyalty for yourself!”
General Alfonso struck his own chest roughly with his fist and lifted his head stiffly.
“The moment I opened the letter the envoy left behind, I sensed that its contents were suspicious and intended to bring it straight to Your Highness! I, Henry Alfonso, have not a single thing to be ashamed of under heaven, nor a single line of falsehood to confess! My innocence is known to the hundred thousand soldiers who follow me, and to every citizen of this nation!”
The old general’s thunderous roar, honed over a lifetime given to the battlefield, shook the castle.
“……”
The crown prince bit his lip and silently glared at the face of the upright hero.
The general’s dignified attitude only scraped more sharply against his nerves.
“……Very well. I understand perfectly that you are innocent, General, so do not get so worked up. You are about to split my eardrums. Burn this letter or do whatever you wish with it.”
The crown prince said so and returned the letter.
Then, forcing the corners of his mouth upward, he began walking down from the wall.
Yet from his retreating back, the stench of thorny suspicion still wafted thickly.
As he descended the wall, the crown prince’s innermost thoughts were rotting coldly.
‘Impudent old man. He dares pressure me by bringing up the people and the soldiers in front of me?’
In truth, the crown prince knew perfectly well that the crude ink-stained letter was a fake sent by the Empire.
No matter how stupid the Empire was, they would never send a real secret letter in such a sloppy manner.
But what truly enraged the crown prince was not whether the letter was genuine.
The problem was General Alfonso’s attitude when he had been handed the letter and questioned about it.
‘When a monarch has doubts, one ought to prostrate oneself on the ground, apologize in fear, and bow one’s head. Yet he dares raise his chin, shout that he has done nothing wrong, and look me straight in the eye? With an air more kingly than my own?’
The crown prince had long found General Alfonso displeasing.
He could not stand that perfect man who received the blind reverence of the soldiers, the adoration of the people, and even dared to lecture him, the crown prince.
Whether he was innocent or not, the very fact that such a man existed felt like a challenge to his already unstable authority.
‘He claimed he had no interest in power… but he does not support me. If that man says even one word in favor of that woman and that brat, or if he goes so far as to support them outright… my throne will end there.’
A chilling assumption flashed through the crown prince’s mind.
‘What if…… in this defensive battle, that old man wins another legendary victory against the great Empire? What if he is praised once more as the hero who annihilated the imperial army on the plains?’
If that happened, Henry Alfonso’s reputation and power would truly grow irreversibly vast enough to swallow even the Laurent royal family.
He would become the next king, but it was obvious that his position would be reduced to that of a puppet.
The crown prince’s hand trembled invisibly.
‘Rather…… rather, if he were to die this time……’
A light mingled with murderous intent and greed gathered in the crown prince’s eyes.
He now feared the growing reputation of General Alfonso, his strongest sword, more than the enemy invasion itself.
‘The war must be won, but Alfonso must lose. Only then can I become king, and only then can I hold power even after taking the throne. How should I do it…?’
#
At the same time, in the imperial army’s headquarters tent.
Having returned safely and thrown off my envoy’s robes, I was leaning back deeply in a chair, leisurely sipping tea.
“……There is no doubt. That prince, steeped in his inferiority complex, must be starting to agonize even now over how to get rid of General Henry Alfonso.”
The imperial generals, who had been listening quietly to my report, clicked their tongues in admiration.
“Even though that crown prince must have realized the letter was fake, you think it will work?”
“I deliberately soaked it in ink and wrote it like a complete mess so he would realize it was fake. By common sense, who would believe that was genuine? The letter itself is not important. What matters is the process by which General Alfonso tries to prove his innocence.”
I drained the rest of my tea in one long gulp and continued.
“General Alfonso will naturally insist that he is innocent. With that personality of his, there is no chance he would apologize. I intended for that unbending dignity of his to offend the crown prince. Jealousy, once it sprouts, tends to grow regardless of the truth. However… for this scheme I planted to bear fruit, we need victory.”
I set the empty teacup down on the table and rose from my seat.
“With this, my part is done. Whether this operation shines or fails now depends entirely on all of you. From this point on, it is our turn to win by force. This is not something I can do, so I will trust in the strength of everyone here. Please win.”
No sooner had I finished speaking than Victoria, seated at the head of the table, let her purple eyes gleam and burst into a hearty laugh.
“Hahaha! Yes, well done. Since you have laid out the board so brilliantly, it is now time for me and the generals here to tear those bastards apart on the plains.”
She sprang up from her seat and headed out of the tent.
The generals and I all followed her at once.
The sun had set, and pitch-black darkness had fallen over the imperial camp.
As we stepped outside the tent, an oppressive sight, wholly unlike the usual resplendent imperial army, unfolded before our eyes.
“……Perfect.”
Victoria murmured as she looked down at the black army, which did not reflect even moonlight.
The warhorses of the imperial army’s elite heavy cavalry, poised to sortie, were all clad in jet-black barding.
The soldiers’ breastplates and helmets were likewise made of black steel, and those few wearing ordinary helmets and armor had painted them with soot and black dye, blending perfectly into the darkness.
And that was not all.
The hundreds of catapults secretly deployed to the rear of the plains, the huge boulders piled up to be loaded into them, and even the stones and iron shards in the grapeshot baskets had all been painted in black ink so the enemy would not notice their trajectories as they fell from the night sky.
In a suffocating darkness where even allies would find it difficult to make each other out, on a black night when even the new moon was hidden behind clouds, our first charge would commence.
“Launching a large-scale cavalry charge at night is an unprecedented act of madness in imperial history. Even my palms are sweating from the tension.”
Victoria roughly gripped the hilt of the greatsword at her waist and smiled, boiling with excitement.
“I wonder whether they will meet us head-on. There are too many variables at night…”
“I expect they will. There are two reasons.”
I counted them off on my fingers.
“First, judging by their camp, they were preparing a square formation as well. If they simply lock the gates and turn this into a contest of sheer weight, the Kingdom of Laurent will eventually lose to the Empire. Only by grinding down their infantry and trading them for imperial cavalry will the numbers work out for them despite the difference in national power. And second…”
Recalling the crown prince’s face, I spoke in a voice filled with certainty.
“They, too, desperately need a great victory. If this turns into a siege, they may win strategically, but they cannot claim victory in battle. So they will surely strike our rear or flank with their cavalry.”
“A hammer and anvil operation, then.”
“Yes. In the end, it is a battle where both sides reveal their hands and fight. If their anvil breaks first, we win. If not, we lose.”
“Or we break their hammer.”
Victoria nodded.
“We can do it. We will shatter their square formations without fail, cross those walls, and trample the heart of Laurent. Ian, watch closely as this black storm you created devours our enemies.”
“May the Empire’s victory accompany the tip of Your Highness’s blade.”
The generals and I placed our hands over our chests in unison and offered a military salute.