The Maid of the Cursed Princess

“You have returned.”

Upon the Crown Prince’s belated homecoming from his nightly ‘stroll’, a sole woman greeted him. A viridian-tressed beauty who, had her countenance not been marred by extensive burn scars, would have unequivocally garnered admiration.

“How went my impersonation of Count Villefort? Convincing, I trust?”

“Regrettably, as one who has never once laid eyes upon the esteemed Count Villefort in the flesh, I can’t readily give you a good or bad answer.”

“Ah, just the answer I anticipated from you.”

Conversing with the woman in an amicable rapport more befitting long-acquainted confidantes than mere subordinates, the Crown Prince reclined upon a divan in his study’s alcove.

“Is the Princess still alive?”

“Given that I haven’t heard news of my son’s skin being flayed yet, I suppose she’s still alive.”

The Crown Prince hadn’t directly confirmed his younger sister Sibylla’s continued survival himself.

“Judging by that person’s brazen yet poised demeanor, she likely remains under their custody for the time being.”

He had merely deduced Sibylla’s status based upon Dorothy’s audacious insistence they relinquish her into their care once more.

“You seem rather certain?”

“Certainty remains utterly elusive in any regard, just like on the battlefield. You know that.”

The Crown Prince chose to temporarily table any concerns regarding Sibylla’s welfare, for far larger, more tumultuous tidal waves loomed ever closer toward the shore of Hyperion.

“What news from our investigations?”

“The prime suspect – though he could scarcely be considered more than a material witness at this juncture – has been quite accommodating in his cooperation thus far. He readily spilled Baron Clermont’s name without any special measures being taken.”

“There’s nothing more foolish than expecting loyalty from Lombard barbarians. Any other names of note?”

“Excluding Marquis Vallière, approximately half of the central nobility have testified to contributing to their employment.”

The deposition from that cane-bearing Lombardian insurgent had proven remarkably lucid and detailed. Enough to implicate a significant number of the Crown Prince’s political opponents.

“I must admit, Marquis Vallière’s absence from that listing strikes me as rather unexpected. Have we initiated any arrests?”

“We’re finding and transporting all those whose names come up.”

“If the police prove insufficient to handle the demands, feel free to mobilize the gendarmerie as well.”

While their disturbingly cordial compliance certainly seemed suspicious on the surface, the Crown Prince saw no reason to spurn this fortuitous opportunity. He couldn’t not use it when he had such an excellent justification to break their power.

“Considerable backlash is expected, of course.”

“Then let them resist. If that bomb was inevitably fated to detonate sooner or later, we might as well provide the spark to light the fuse ourselves.”

The Crown Prince fully expected the nobility’s resistance wouldn’t conclude with mere grandstanding legislative obstructionism. With tangible evidence now in hand, far more drastic countermeasures would undoubtedly follow.

“And the capital’s military strength?”

“The central royal armies have essentially been co-opted and commandeered by the nobility factions. While the police and gendarmerie are likely to be on Your Highness’s side, they’re inferior both quantitatively and qualitatively compared to the central army.”

Realistically, expecting the standard police to match the central armies’ capabilities would have been a tall order even for the gendarmerie. The quantity and quality of armaments differed from the start.

“As for the royal guard, their discipline has become utterly lax over these past years as you well know. Since the majority are from central noble families, the likelihood of widespread defections or betrayals remains exceptionally high.”

“In other words, we’re surrounded on all sides.”

Or to put it another way, Hyperion itself could be considered a tiger’s den.

“Which will no doubt only embolden their arrogance further, fostering delusions that unleashing their blades guarantees an inevitable victory.”

An inadequately armed police force. An undermanned gendarmerie. A royal guard of dubious allegiances poised to potentially betray at any moment.

It’s like being told to fight a bear with a gun with a bent barrel and damp gunpowder. A scenario that must seem the quintessential shooting-fish-in-a-barrel harvest from the tiger’s ravenous perspective.

“And that is precisely what we’ll aim for.”

“You intend to bait them into overextending their reach by presenting an irresistible lure, Your Highness?”

What the Crown Prince was aiming for was for that bear to finally bare its teeth, unable to resist its appetite upon glimpsing that tantalizing, helpless prey before its very jaws.

“What about the letters to my old friends?”

“The couriers have already dispersed in every direction.”

[The commander awaits his soldiers.]

The content of the letter the Crown Prince wrote himself was very concise. But the brevity of the content doesn’t mean its significance is light.

“Those who haven’t enjoyed the glory they should have rightfully enjoyed must be longing to tread the land of Orléans proudly this time. The pigs in the capital will realize that what they’ve let loose in the meadow isn’t sheep.”

Those brothers in martial fraternity who had splintered from Hyperion’s heart under the central nobility’s unremitting suppression – the Crown Prince understood their festering discontents and simmering ambitions better than anyone else.

“But… do we really have to bring that man too?”

“I know you’re not on good terms with him, Bertier. Truth be told, pinpointing a single general officer who does enjoy an amicable history with that man might be harder.”

Eloise Bertier. The man his longtime comrade and capable chief of staff was wary of, and the reason for that wariness.

He couldn’t not understand the reason. Especially as the Crown Prince who had been the supreme commander of the war.

“And yet we need his presence for the moment. No, I should say even if others don’t come, he must come.”

For now was the time to prioritize that man’s proficiencies over his inherent shortcomings and defects of character.

“Only once his steed’s hooves have trodden the cobblestones of Hyperion’s very streets can our victory become assured.”

“..I understand Your Highness’s will.”

Regarding the unequivocally assenting Bertier, the Crown Prince redirected his gaze toward the nocturnal moon overhead.

This country’s fated trajectory would soon be determined.

“I can’t help but wonder which of us will be the first to embrace the hangman’s noose.”

The die had been cast.

At about the same time the Crown Prince was talking with his confidant.

“…How is the situation?”

“It seems difficult to say it’s good.”

Prince Louis deliberated alongside Viscount Lusignan regarding their prospective courses of action.

“Baron Clermont and numerous central aristocracy have already been arrested, evidently those who collaborated funding those mongrel rabbles. I dare to predict that His Highness the Crown Prince must have caught onto something.”

“Yes, that was my assumption as well.”

It wasn’t just randomly arresting central nobles, but excluding those non-collaborators, like Marquis Vallière, in employing the mongrel gang and only arresting and transporting those who did cooperate.

This signified their unmitigated failure, their hastily improvised scheme having collapsed in utter catastrophe.

“As my lady instructed me to convey you, ‘You should have listened to me from the start.'”

“….As I felt before, it’s not a very pleasing tone.”

Yet the Prince and Viscount Lusignan weren’t the sole individuals present within that chamber.

“Had the Slave Prince not violated our initial contract and kidnapped Princess Sibylla, none of this would have occurred in the first place. Isn’t that right?”

“…”

Ruslan, completely unresponsive as if utterly catatonic, accompanied by the gentleman with a monocle beside him.

“The lady was angered by the nobles clandestinely hiring separate assassins without her consultation, interpreting their actions as a profound lack of faith in our capabilities.”

“Was that insulting enough to violate the original contract? Is this how you usually handle business?”

“I merely convey my lady’s intentions.”

The atmosphere grew increasingly hostile with the Prince’s reproach and the gentleman’s sophistry.

“Let’s all take a moment to calm down. Shouldn’t we decide how to resolve the situation going forward?”

Attempting to mediate between the two, Viscount Lusignan clapped his hands together to reestablish focus.

“It’s not a problem that Baron Clermont and others have failed. But their status as your allies, Prince, now languishing under arrest does represent a considerable setback.”

Roughly half, half of the central faction disappeared, and not arbitrarily – clearly facilitated by some decisive material evidence.

The existence of evidence means that they won’t be able to get out easily, and in the worst case, they could even be executed. Could any political faction truly function cohesively after losing nearly half its membership under such ignominious circumstances, their reputations indelibly tarnished?

Impossible. The world isn’t so lenient. Viscount Lusignan was more sensitive to politics than anyone.

“In this situation, there’s only one option left. We must seize our blades before they raise their cudgels to bludgeon us into submission.”

“..That sounds like a very irreverent statement. It’s not just my imagination, is it, Viscount Lusignan?”

Strike before being struck. Bare one’s fangs and unleash one’s throat upon the enemy.

“We must turn against His Highness the Crown Prince.”

An open declaration advocating outright rebellion.

“Wait, just a moment now! I can’t possibly agree to any notion of bringing harm to my own brother, under any circumstances whatsoever…!!”

“Your Highness.”

In stark contrast to the Prince’s agitated vehemence, the Viscount’s tone projected an unsettlingly placid timbre:

“There is one matter that I’ve been curious about for a while.”

“What nonsense all of a sudden…?”

“Your motivation for aligning yourself alongside our cause – was it truly for the sake of any grand ideal?”

Intoning those chillingly composed words laced with latent menace:

“Or was it for the sake of a child?”

“….What did you say?”

“Prince Louis Ferdinand d’Orléans, the bastard offspring born from a relationship with some common wench, even though you’re not yet married.”

What he had wanted to hide to the end beneath layers of subterfuge.

“The unborn child you forsook.”

That ignominious primordial sin.