“Your Highness, a message from His Majesty the Emperor.”
The next day, I was summoned by the Emperor before my lunch had even finished digesting.
Amber, who had brought the message, cautiously addressed me with an extremely tense expression.
“You are to arrive exactly two hours from now, by three in the afternoon. His Majesty wishes to have tea with Your Highness…”
“Very well, I shall prepare. Where must I go?”
“…It is the greenhouse tended to personally by His Majesty. It is where His Majesty usually becomes lost in deep thought.”
Amber fidgeted restlessly, her lips moving slightly several times, then squeezed her eyes shut and spoke as if pleading.
“…Please, go and do your best, Your Highness. I do not wish for my connection with Your Highness to end here either.”
“Pardon?”
“You know what I mean, do you not?”
“…I shall try my best to survive.”
I cannot remember well how the time passed after that.
I think I was so nervous that I had never been this tense in my current life.
Fifteen minutes before three, a middle-aged man dressed in black arrived at my quarters and bowed his head.
“I have come to escort you, Your Highness.”
“Very well. Where must I go?”
“You need only follow me.”
A man who appeared to be the Emperor’s trusted confidant led the way, and I followed his guidance deep into the imperial palace.
After walking for some time through maze-like corridors, changing directions this way and that, the place I reached was before a massive iron door.
“You may enter this way.”
The man vanished in an instant when leaving, just as he had come.
The moment I lightly placed my hand on the massive iron door, it slid open as if by magic, and upon opening, a world entirely different from the cold marble corridors of the imperial palace unfolded.
“Wow…”
It was a beautiful greenhouse filled with the fresh fragrance of all manner of rare flowers and trees.
But without any time to appreciate that stunning scenery, the moment I noticed a man sitting alone at the round table in the center of the greenhouse, I could no longer feel this place as beautiful.
‘…The Emperor!’
I had naturally assumed the Emperor of the Empire would be surrounded by imperial guards, but in the greenhouse there was no one except the Emperor and me.
The Emperor, dressed in light casual attire, closed the book he was holding as I approached and pointed with his chin at the empty chair opposite him.
“Sit.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
As I carefully took my seat, the Emperor personally picked up the teapot placed on the table.
And slowly poured tea with a reddish hue into the empty cup before me.
“Recently, I have picked up the pastime of brewing tea myself. Each time I sit in this greenhouse drinking tea alone, calling for an attendant every time became bothersome, so I started brewing it myself, and it is more enjoyable than expected.”
“I understand that brewing tea is no easy task.”
“Indeed. If you err even slightly in temperature or brewing time, the bitterness overwhelms the fragrance and ruins the tea. It is something requiring appropriate care, yet not overly arduous. It is an excellent means of distracting oneself for a moment while lost in contemplation.”
The sound of hot tea filling the cup alone divided the silence of the greenhouse.
After bowing my head to the Emperor in courtesy, I quietly lifted the teacup and took a sip.
It was an excellent tea of the finest quality, with an intense fragrance and a bitterness that crashed in belatedly.
“How is the taste?”
“It is very fragrant. A precious aroma I have never encountered before.”
“It is made from tea leaves grown in the barren mountain ranges of the north. Some say it is harsh, but it suits my palate very well.”
“I believe it suits my taste as well.”
“You have good taste. Are you a tea drinker?”
“I prefer cold beverages, however.”
“Then you should become accustomed to tea going forward. The Empire is, regrettably, a place where cold beverage culture is not favored.”
The conversation itself still felt quite amicable, yet the Emperor’s violet eyes seated across from me were not gentle in the slightest.
“You must be wondering inwardly as well. Why an empire with overwhelming military power would bother dragging the bloodlines of enemy states to the imperial palace to hold as hostages.”
The Emperor set down his teacup and opened his mouth in a languid voice.
“Do you think that perhaps the small southern kingdoms might join forces in fear of the Empire’s might and stab us in the back, so hostages are taken out of fear?”
“No. Even if all the kingdoms of the south united and staked their national fate to attack, I am well aware that they could not defeat the Empire’s elite cavalry.”
Well, five thousand were beaten like dogs by three hundred; what would change just by gathering more numbers?
A coalition army is fundamentally harder to be stronger than a unified army, and even in numbers the Empire would be overwhelming.
To my composed answer, the Emperor lightly stroked his beard.
“Precisely. To be frank, taking hostages is merely an old pastime of the Empire.”
“A pastime, Your Majesty?”
“Indeed. Trampling the four corners and expanding territory is possible well enough with military force alone. However, there is no cheaper or more convenient way to obtain the most rapid yet humiliating submission while spilling less blood than by grabbing and shaking the leash of the bloodline the monarch cherished.”
The Emperor leaned deep into the backrest and stared fixedly at me.
“Of course, I also harbored a bit of personal curiosity. What thoughts those royal wretches who boasted about hundreds of years of tradition across the continent and flaunted their so-called blue blood held in their hearts. And what they knew as leaders of their nations. Whether they could maintain that proud kingly spirit even after being dragged to the heart of the Empire.”
“But for quite a long time, not a single one satisfied this petty curiosity of mine. Those who pretended to be noble would wet themselves begging for their lives when placed before the execution block, or were busy flattering by selling out their own country and people.”
The Emperor’s gaze darkened deeply.
“That was until yesterday, before you opened your mouth in the audience chamber.”
It seemed yesterday’s dialogue had definitely piqued the Emperor’s interest.
The Emperor rapped his thick fingers against the table, tap, tap, and posed a serious question.
“Therefore, today there is one more thing I wish to ask you. You have previously discussed the Empire’s rule and system, have you not?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Then, what do you think of the philosopher-king politics advocated by an ancient philosopher? The politics where a single philosopher-king possessing perfect wisdom, reason, and even military might wields absolute power to control and lead the foolish masses.”
I quietly set down the teacup.
It was an explicit question thrown directly by an absolute sovereign who firmly believed himself to be the continent’s one and only philosopher-king.
This was not the place for obvious flattery to suit the Emperor’s mood.
The Emperor before my eyes would either send my head flying the moment he heard such flattery, or at the very least immediately lower his evaluation of me.
“It is a highly idealistic and romantic concept; however, from the perspective of operating a real nation, I believe it has fatal flaws.”
“Hoo. Fatal flaws, you say. What problem could there be when led by a perfect sovereign?”
“The greatest limitation of philosopher-king politics is that the very precondition of the philosopher-king required to establish such a political system is too difficult to satisfy in reality.”
The Emperor leaned his head forward slightly as if intrigued.
“No matter how perfect a sovereign appears by the will of heaven and ushers in an unprecedented golden age, as long as he is human, he will eventually grow old, fall ill, and reach the end of his lifespan. The problem is what comes after the monarch closes his eyes.”
“What comes after.”
“Yes. What would happen if the successor who sits on the next throne is not a perfect philosopher-king like his predecessor, but merely average, or worse, a fool drunk on power? A nation that relied solely on the overwhelming capability and judgment of the monarch would collapse in an instant the moment that pillar disappears.”
I gazed once at the Emperor’s hand resting on the table, and once at his violet eyes, then continued.
“A system that waits for a single perfect human to be born and stakes the nation’s fate upon it is far too fragile a gamble. I believe truly excellent rule lies in building and bequeathing sturdy institutions so that the nation can function without trouble even if a very ordinary person sits on the throne, or even if someone somewhat lacking wields power.”
As my words finished, a heavy silence descended upon the greenhouse, so deep that not even the sound of rustling leaves could be heard.
The Emperor rested his chin on his hand and silently stared at me.
For a moment he looked at me expressionlessly, then a very small and faint smile flashed across his lips, yet one so chilling it sent a shiver down the spine.
“…You are truly audacious.”
“Your Majesty, I merely answered according to my convictions—”
“Do you think I asked you because I did not know that?”
The Emperor’s voice was low and calm, yet a bizarre sense of pressure that felt like flaying skin pierced my flesh.
“At the end of thoughts I have reached through decades of contemplation, I asked wondering how far you would follow. Had you flattered me, spewing nonsense that the politics led by a sovereign such as myself is the perfect politics, I would have cut out that three-inch tongue of yours immediately.”
The Emperor slowly leaned his upper body forward.
His violet eyes, drawing close across the table, flashed as if they would sever my nape.
“However… you follow along far too perfectly. To the point of raising goosebumps.”
“…”
“That is why I am now seriously contemplating.”
The red black tea in the teacup rippled faintly, pressed by the Emperor’s momentum.
I held my breath waiting for the Emperor’s next words.
I felt like a frog standing before a snake.
The Emperor erased that small smile and murmured in a low voice.
“Whether I should sever the neck of this clever, audacious sprout right here and now for the sake of the Empire. Or whether I should keep him alive a while longer to use as a conversational companion in this tedious imperial palace.”
What the Emperor was exuding was pure murderous intent.
It was cold, rational killing intent of an absolute being, entirely different from the beastlike rage the First Princess had exuded.
“If you had ascended to the throne of Sterling, that tiny southern kingdom would have become an immensely dangerous nation for the Empire someday. A very troublesome and bothersome enemy, no doubt. Now I wonder. How is it that you ended up coming here as a hostage?”
Before the Emperor’s gaze, where murderous intent and bizarre curiosity were grotesquely intertwined, I bit my lip tightly.