Ch156 - Side 2 - To you, far away (1)

The guard attendants who had solemnly carried out the ritual repeated every day at last untied the canopy that had been bound to the bedposts. The Duke of Benoist, who had gained the honor of bearing the lamp thanks to his rare visit to the court, observed the ceremony to the very end together with the attendants who had assisted with the Emperor’s bedtime, maintaining impeccable decorum throughout.

Once the canopy was fully lowered and the Emperor’s bed disappeared from view, they offered their respectful goodnights and withdrew from the bedchamber. Soon after, even the Balustre, and then the door to the lavish bedchamber itself were completely shut. Silence fell in an instant.

Ebroin V, having concluded all of the day’s official duties, lay alone in the dimly settled darkness. All that remained in the room were the long, wavering shadows cast by candlelight and himself. The warmth he had grown accustomed to over the past few years was absent from his side once again.

The sheet on the other side of the bed, unheated by another’s body, was cold as ice. Though the thick quilt stuffed with goose down was covered with a velvet spread, the chill resting against his skin showed no sign of fading.

…Am I to fall asleep alone again tonight?

The Emperor turned his gaze toward the empty side of the bed, thinking with quiet bitterness. The pillow, abandoned by its owner, felt unbearably desolate.

There had once been a time when he willingly savored this solitary moment in its entirety. As was still the case now, his public life then functioned exclusively as that of the Emperor of the empire. Time in which he could exist as a private individual, unmindful of others’ eyes, was exceedingly rare, and during those scarce hours, he gladly savored the freedom and solitude granted to him.

But now he knew a far better way to rest. To go to bed together with someone he could rely upon, to share small conversations while bringing the day to a close. The steady presence of a spouse who always remained at his side had brought a profound sense of stability to the Emperor’s life, one he was experiencing for the first time. Now, he could truly rest only when that person was with him.

Tick. Tick. Tick.The only thing stirring the deeply settled air was the steady movement of the second hand. Though quite some time had passed since he lay down, Ebroin V found himself unable to fall asleep, tossing and turning until boredom finally drove him from the bed. The cold air raised goosebumps on his skin.

The Emperor draped himself in a thick robe and sank deeply into the long chair placed before the fireplace. In his hands were letters taken from the writing desk. On nights when he slept alone like this, he would habitually read the letters Eugène had sent him, and the traces of those lonely hours remained plainly etched into the frayed ends of the parchment, filling the Emperor with quiet melancholy.

‘To His Majesty, the Emperor.

I respectfully submit my report. In accordance with Your Majesty’s command, the undersigned and the officers of the ‘Queen’s Chair’ fleet, having set sail, encountered three days ago in international waters of the Alwitz Sea near latitude 54.7° north and longitude 8.8° west the pirate band known as the ‘Red Kraken,’ who had threatened the safety of imperial subjects and launched a preemptive attack against Your Majesty’s loyal Grand Army. We pursued and annihilated them in full.’

Driven by longing, the text he unfolded at random happened to be the letter Eugène had sent years ago, shortly after returning to duty for the first time. …No, let us be honest. This was less a personal letter than an official report of operations. His neat, deliberate handwriting, true to his temperament, recorded the results of the engagement in a calm, detached tone that revealed not a trace of personal feeling.

After an unforeseen incident had sent his lover out to sea, to a place scarcely different from a battlefield, the Emperor had waited for weeks in anxious suspense. And the letter he finally received was this. A formal dispatch that omitted even the most basic words of well-being, as though such matters were entirely secondary.

Recalling how he had first received this letter through the Navy’s reporting channels, the Emperor let out a wry smile. Though many years had passed, he still could not suppress the lingering sense of disappointment whenever he thought back on it.

Ordinarily, he made a point of refraining from interfering in Eugène’s affairs outside the palace, yet at that time, he had found it utterly impossible to endure. Ebroin V began to recall the memories of that period with a faint, wistful feeling.

***

Five years ago, the‘Eight Years’ War,’ignited by disputes over the succession to the Rodom throne, was deteriorating steadily.

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As if in time, around that time, the latest sailing ships that Ebroin V had secretly ordered through Kayediv were launched one by one. The most impressive among them is the large battleship with 80 cannons.

As though timed to coincide, the latest generation of sailing warships that Ebroin V had secretly commissioned through Kayediv were launched one after another around that period. Among them, the most striking was a massive ship of the line equipped with no fewer than eighty gun ports.

The culmination of Kayediv shipbuilding technology, the vessel was both beautiful and sturdy enough to justify its astronomical cost. Deeply impressed by this formidable warship, Ebroin V bestowed upon it the distinctive nameQueen’s Chairat its naming ceremony.

The honor of becoming the ship’s first captain fell to Admiral Chastan, who, following the revision of the Lex Ardica, became the first naval admiral in the history of the empire to hold the rank while being unmarried.

‘Why such a name for the ship?’

Eugène, who normally showed little interest in trifling matters such as jewelry or clothing, seemed unable to overlook this particular detail. Setting aside the sailor’s characteristic fixation on fine ships, from his perspective, having only just returned to naval service after a series of turbulent events, the symbolic weight of being an admiral who commanded the Imperial Navy’s foremost flagship was not something he could afford to ignore.

Ebroin V saw straight through the complex and subtle feelings that made him pleased at heart yet reluctant to accept the gift without shame, and raised one eyebrow with a meaningful look.

‘Why? Does it not please you? I think it suits you exceedingly well.’

The Emperor’s attitude, posing the question instead, was brazen to the point of shamelessness. Having already suffered through similar situations more than once, Eugène pressed his lips together and hastily fell silent, striving not to be drawn into the Emperor’s contrivance. It was futile. Ebroin V, possessed as he was of a gambler’s temperament, would never let such a perfect opportunity slip past.

That evening, Ebroin V abandoned the diamond ring that had been rejected so many times before and instead offered theQueen’s Chairas a proposal gift, boldly attempting what he believed to be a decisive marriage proposal, only to suffer his seventh rejection. Given the nature of the gift, it was a failure that struck particularly deep.

At the time, however, he did not even begin to imagine what kind of catastrophe this unprecedented gift would one day bring about.

Several months later, disaster arrived without warning.

‘Your Majesty, urgent news!’

In the middle of a meeting, an attendant who had not been announced in advance rushed into the council chamber. Such an interruption during a political meeting attended by the Emperor himself was exceedingly rare. When the Emperor realized that the messenger who could not hide his urgency belonged to the Ministry of the Navy, he paused the meeting and turned his attention to him.

‘What has happened?’

At the time, the matter to which Ebroin V devoted the greatest attention was the expansion of the Estina Empire’s maritime influence. Seizing upon the civil war that had broken out within the Confederation of Five Nations, he steadily widened the operational reach of the Imperial Navy, extending his hand even into maritime trade, a domain long dominated by the Confederation, and expanding his power at an alarming pace.

Above all else, the issue into which he poured the most effort was the securing of commercial sea routes to the Eastern Continent. Following the example set decades earlier by King Feldiner in his youth and prime, he actively recruited maritime explorers and provided them with financial backing, pursuing a policy that aggressively promoted the opening of routes through privately led expeditions.

‘The ‘Silver Eagle,’which had been searching for the whereabouts of a missing civilian exploration vessel, was attacked by pirate ships. Colonel Morlière, who served as its captain, was killed in action, and the surviving crew and vessels were captured by the pirate fleet that attacked them.’

At the shocking report brought by the courier, the air in the chamber froze solid. Ebroin V, leaning back against his chair as he listened, questioned the messenger again in a voice as cold as ice.

‘What did you say? Mere pirates dared to attack Our Navy?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty. The Silver Eagle and its escorts numbered only three ships, whereas the enemy fleet consisted of no fewer than seven vessels, forming a small flotilla. Fortunately, one escort ship managed to escape the encirclement and deliver this report, but the fate of those who could not escape remains unknown. According to the captain who submitted the report, the recent string of disappearances involving civilian exploration ships also appears to be their doing.’

‘Ha!’

Ebroin V let out a hollow laugh when he heard that the incident, which had been gnawing at his nerves like a mouse trapped in a cupboard, was connected to this affair as well. Marquis of La Baille, Admiral of the Navy, halted mid-discussion and asked the messenger with a hardened expression.

‘Have you identified those who attacked the Silver Eagle?’

‘Fortunately, it seems we have. According to the survivors, the figurehead had a very distinctive form. It was a kraken shape painted in red dye, and the pirate flag bears the same emblem.’

The messenger spoke with confidence, but most of those present did not immediately grasp the implication. When the Emperor turned an inquiring gaze toward him, Eugène, attending the meeting in his capacity as an adviser, explained its meaning. His eyes had gone frighteningly cold.

‘Based on the confirmed information about the vessels, the enemy appears to be the Red Kraken pirate band that has been operating covertly around the Alwitz Sea of late. Pirates who live by plunder often stage grotesque decorations on their ships or fly menacing flags in order to break their opponents’ will. The Red Kraken is precisely such a case. As their name suggests, they use the image of a red kraken as their symbol.’

After finishing the explanation, Eugène tilted his head with a hardened face and added as if talking to himself.

‘…But something is strange.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If the reports are accurate, the scale of the fleet is suspicious. Seven ships at once? That sort of reckless deployment would be difficult to attempt even for the pirates of Hertha, let alone the Red Kraken.’

Operating ships is, by nature, an extremely costly endeavor. Even maintaining them in seaworthy condition demands considerable expense, and the longer a voyage lasts, the more those costs rise exponentially.

By contrast, encountering merchant vessels worth plundering on the vast open sea is not a frequent occurrence by probability alone. Even if he did not possess Eugène’s level of expertise, Ebroin V had sufficient understanding of naval operations to grasp his point at once.

‘Indeed, when one thinks about it, it is not very efficient. Rather than having seven ships guard a single route, it would be far more stable for each ship to raid along its own route.’

‘As the civil war within the Confederation of Five Nations has intensified of late, the Confederation Navy’s deterrent presence along the eastern trade routes has vanished, and pirate depredations have been growing more severe by the day. The Red Kraken pirate band is a representative example of a rising new force that has taken advantage of that opportunity. I am told that most of their crew consists of conscripts who fled combat and defeated remnants, yet even so, the speed at which they have expanded their power is abnormally fast.’

The Marquis of La Baille, who was effectively the chief person responsible for this matter, harbored similar doubts. There was no officially confirmed information, so he held his tongue, but in many respects the movement was undeniably suspicious.

‘By the conventions of the Ministry of the Navy, how is a case like this usually handled?’

If the Emperor’s interest in the Imperial Navy had not been as high as it was now, this sort of issue would have been dealt with internally by the Ministry of the Navy. Duke Chirac readily acknowledged that he was entirely a layman in this field and sought counsel from the expert, the Marquis of La Baille. Upon hearing his question, the Marquis adopted an extremely cautious expression.

‘Is there any need to adhere to convention?’

‘If it were only a matter of external scrutiny, that would be one thing, but with an issue like this, there will surely be eyes within as well, watching with interest.’

He knew nothing of the substance of the affair itself, but a seasoned politician had weapons of his own. It was the insight born of long years spent in politics.

The Ministry of the Navy received the full support of Ebroin V, and for the first time in the history of the empire, had earned the honor of standing at the center of the political stage. But that elevation was not without its growing pains. Unlike before, all eyes were upon it, and every action and every step had to be weighed with care.

The greatest problem lay with the conservative factions within, who were disgruntled by the radical reforms. Marquis of La Baille bitterly pursed his lips and, with no other choice, explained the usual procedures.

‘Running a ship requires far more knowledge than one might expect, which is why we provide extensive training. It is not merely about imparting technical knowledge. We also aim to instill the character and refinement expected of a commander through the apprentice officer system. This system functions like cultivating a lineage of knights, where active commanders train officer candidates. The bonds formed through this system allow the supervising officers and their protégés to continuously support each other and grow together.’

‘Hm. It sounds like a sound system.’

‘I do not mention this to boast, Your Majesty, but merely to explain a culture unique to the Navy. The relationships formed in this way are traditionally comparable to those of a patron and protégé. Apprentice officers serve first aboard the fleet of their supervising officer or provide equivalent assistance, thereby gaining the experience needed to advance. In return, the supervising officers are responsible for the protégés’ safety and future. In such cases, the officer who once served as a mentor to someone like Colonel Morlière will take responsibility and carry out their revenge.’

Upon hearing this, the Emperor’s expression changed. Only then did he realize why Marquis La Baille had hesitated to act according to protocol. However, Duke Chirac failed to notice the shift in his countenance and casually asked.

‘Who was Colonel Morlière’s supervising officer?’

‘It was I, Your Grace’

‘Huh? What did you say?’

When the answer came from the unexpected side, Duke Chirac turned to look at him in surprise. Admiral Chastan, the Emperor’s official lover and holder of one of the empire’s highest nobility titles, the Duke of La Mer, stood there with a face as blue as fire, and declared coldly and firmly.

‘I was the supervising officer of Colonel Morlière. I was the previous captain of the Silver Eagle, and from now on, I will take up his revenge as thePunitor.’

And thus, the incident began.