The imperial stables, reserved for the royal family, stood vast on the outskirts of the palace.
This place was less an ordinary stable than another grand palace built for horses.
Considering how the empire, once a nomadic people, treated horses—and how vital a strategic resource horses remained even now that it had become a vast empire—it was hardly strange.
Far from the palace’s main hall, where a splendid and bustling social gathering was in full swing, the languid afternoon sunlight of the second day of the event streamed long into this place.
Inside the stables, the smell of well-dried, top-quality hay mingled sharply with the scent of animals.
Cutting through that quiet air, the hearty conversation of two middle-aged men rang out.
“Your face doesn’t look good, Count. Did the empire’s greatest drinker spend the whole night with a burning stomach after losing to that young prince from a defeated kingdom?”
“Urgh— Your servant approached the boy in accordance with Your Majesty’s command to probe him a little, but somehow things ended up that way…”
At the emperor’s mischievous joke, Count Gross clutched his still-splitting head and groaned.
It seemed the vicious hangover from last night still clung thickly to his very bones.
“Oh, Your Majesty. Please, have mercy and stop teasing me. It still feels as though boiling lava is surging up inside me. To pour down liquor that strong, forty proof, without a single sip of water or a bite of food, and without pause at that—Ian, that prince, may look frail on the outside, but his insides must be made of steel.”
“Kuhahaha! It seems even Count Gross, of all men, is no match for the years. To think that you, who have stood by my side for decades, would be brought to your knees in drink by a boy so young. Not being there to see it is the regret of a lifetime. I should have summoned an imperial painter and ordered him to capture the sight of you passed out!”
“How can you say something so cruel! If I had been just five years younger—no, even three—the result would have been entirely different! Five years ago, that Sterling prince would have been crawling at my feet, begging me to spare his life.”
At Count Gross’s indignant protest, his pride clearly wounded, the emperor burst into helpless laughter and nodded.
“Well, I’ll grant you that. I saw closer than anyone how, in your youth, you charged across the battlefield for days and nights with a bottle in your hand. There were battles we survived thanks to that drunken rampage of yours.”
The two men were more than sovereign and subject; they were old comrades-in-arms who had crossed countless lines of death together on blood-soaked battlefields and built the great empire of today.
They had been together since before the emperor was even emperor.
Between them lay a deep, unshakable intimacy that needed no stiff formalities.
“By the way, I hear you boldly made a wager with that prince yesterday. They say you boasted you would give him a very grand gift if he won. Just what sort of gift were you planning to give him? Were you going to have him pester me to open the imperial treasury?”
“Ah, about that, Your Majesty. In truth, what I intended to give him was…”
Count Gross cleared his throat and was just about to continue.
“Aaaaaaaagh!”
From deep within the stables, a terrible, desperate scream that seemed to tear through the eardrums burst out through the heaps of hay.
The fine horses that had been peacefully chewing their feed startled, neighing and stamping their forelegs, while the imperial guards following behind reflexively moved their hands to their sword hilts.
The emperor and Count Gross both stopped in their tracks at the same time.
“What is going on!”
Count Gross, who had been groaning from his hangover only moments ago, instantly transformed, his eyes turning into those of the fierce general who had once carried storms of blood with him, and he roared.
At that, one of the stable hands rushed over in a fluster, his face deathly pale as he gasped for breath.
“C-Count! Marengo! Marengo has caused trouble again! She bit the arm of the keeper who was trying to feed her!”
“What? That mad beast has started again!”
The emperor and the count rushed without delay toward the inner stable where the scream had come from.
The emperor’s guards ran ahead first and secured the surroundings.
“Aaaaagh!”
The scene was horrific.
One keeper was rolling on the floor, clutching his right wrist as blood dripped from it, writhing in agony.
On the floor lay an overturned feed bucket, hay scattered everywhere, and chaotic streaks of red blood.
Seeing the keeper’s right wrist, torn open so badly that the bone was nearly visible, the emperor frowned, and the count shouted urgently.
“Stop that man’s bleeding at once and take him to the infirmary! Check carefully whether any bones are broken or tendons severed, and use the finest recovery medicine to treat him properly!”
The count gave swift, precise orders to the attendants and knights gathering around.
After confirming that the keeper had been carried away on a stretcher, he glared fiercely toward the problematic stall, his face filled with anger as he breathed hard.
“She is truly beyond use. What does it matter if she has excellent bloodlines and a sturdy body? Far from letting anyone ride her, she won’t even allow people near her! We’ve changed riders countless times, but not a single one has managed to put a saddle on her back!”
“……”
“They say every Akhal-Teke has a damned temperament, but that one is damned even among them! Mares are usually on the docile side, so why in the world is that one…!?”
The emperor, too, peered into the stall with a stiff expression, his brow furrowed.
There stood a horse gleaming in a pale gold, her luster so beautiful it was dazzling.
Long, powerful legs, smooth and explosive curves of muscle, and an elegant mane that flowed like silk.
She possessed a flawless appearance truly befitting the finest steed in the empire, the sort that would only appear in legends.
Whenever the sunlight struck her, it was enough to create the illusion that golden powder was scattering through the air.
Yet the pale golden horse confined within the stall strangely changed the instant the emperor approached, as though she had never mercilessly torn into human flesh.
She blinked her large, clear eyes meekly and pushed her head through the bars.
Then, gently snuffling and swishing her tail as though asking for the emperor’s touch, she displayed an exceedingly docile and lovable attitude.
At that astonishing behavior—whether she had instinctively recognized the empire’s supreme ruler, or was simply cunning enough to put on an act—Count Gross erupted in fury.
“That, that, that fox of a mare is turning my insides upside down again! Look at her. The moment Your Majesty arrives, she somehow recognizes you as someone important and pretends to be well-behaved. Is that really the same beast that was rampaging like she’d bite a man to death just moments ago?”
Count Gross clutched the back of his neck in disbelief and irritation.
Perhaps his blood pressure was rising, because his face once again flushed bright red like a tomato.
“I guarantee you, Your Majesty, the moment you turn your back, that thing will roll her eyes back and start raving like a demon again. We already have two sturdy stallions whose necks were snapped clean after taking a direct hit from that mad mare’s hind legs. She was so violent that I thought perhaps breeding her might calm her temper a little, but every male that approached from behind had his skull smashed in with a single blow!”
“…Now that I hear it, her temperament is no ordinary savagery. A beast like that would bite our own allies to death before we even rode her onto the battlefield.”
“If only she could be tamed, there would be no finer steed under heaven, but since she cannot be tamed, she is utterly useless. It would be better to slaughter her and turn her into horse jerky!”
At the word jerky, Marengo neighed as though wronged, and the emperor’s eyes widened.
“Does that horse understand everything we say?”
“Of course she does. The problem is that her personality is that damned awful.”
“Akhal-Teke jerky, hahaha… Still, try to tame her somehow. If she can be properly broken in, she would be excellent.”
The emperor clicked his tongue in disbelief, yet shook his head with a faint smile, as though inwardly pleased by that wild nature.
On the other hand, Count Gross, who as the imperial stablemaster had been burdened with this troublesome creature, glared at Marengo as though she were his mortal enemy while she puffed out gentle breaths like a docile lamb, and let out a deep sigh heavy enough to sink the ground.
“I truly wonder whether a rider who can climb onto that mad bitch’s back will ever appear in all this empire… Even I, who have handled thousands of fine horses over my lifetime, am beginning to doubt it. It might be faster to put a saddle on a lion’s back.”
“I believe you can do it. When it comes to horses, who else is there but Count Gross? You can do it. Take heart.”
“…I will do my utmost, Your Majesty.”