The Storm King

Chapter 297: Invitation

The Royal Court remained in session taking care of miscellaneous business like minor property disputes between landed nobles and other civil suits between members of the nobility for several hours after Leon and Lapis left. It was so boring that by the time Trajan walked out of the throne room, he could barely remember even half of what had just happened.

To delegate more judgmental authority to the Arbiters would drastically weaken the Crown, but Trajan couldn’t deny that doing so would free up a lot of the King’s—and by extension, his representatives’—time to devote to other things. Passing laws in the King’s demesne wasn’t a power that Julius was going to give up, and neither did Trajan think that August or Octavius had that intention, but at the very least, Trajan wouldn’t mind letting the Arbiters do as their titles indicated and arbitrated property disputes according to the King’s regulations.

For the time being, though, he knew that he would have to get used to days like this, where nothing he cared about was done. Octavius and August cut each other off at nearly every opportunity, with varying levels of subtlety. If it wasn’t clear to the entire Royal court prior to this that the two hated each other, then it certainly was now, which Trajan knew was only going to lead to even more extreme factionalism.

The elder Prince quietly groaned in stress and anxiety about the direction that the Kingdom was heading for, and he didn’t think that his presence in the capital was going to be enough to stop what seemed like an inevitable civil war. If it was going to be averted, he was going to have to get more involved than he would ever want, which would undoubtedly bring accusations against him of attempting to usurp Julius’ crown while the King was gone.

Trajan was unable to decide on any course of action, though, as his thoughts were interrupted before he and his assistants had even reached their new offices.

“Your Highness!” came a voice from behind their small group. Trajan turned around and saw the familiar face of the Legate of the Knight Academy, Germanicus Ahenobarbus Aeneas, the brother of Count Aeneas, a nobleman in the Eastern Territories. Over Trajan’s long stewardship as the de facto Lord of the Eastern Territories, he had maintained a good relationship with the Aeneas family, as they were one of the most powerful noble houses in that region. They had fought against the stone giants in the north for so long and had grown so skilled in the arts of war that they were widely considered the best family of military strategists in the entire Kingdom.

“Lord Aeneas!” Trajan said as he did his best to wipe away the fatigue in his face and muster up a smile. All Legates were technically equally ranked, but the Legate of the Knight Academy was one of the most important and prestigious non-combat posts in the entire Royal Legion, so Trajan didn’t want to just brush him off.

“Please, Your Highness, it’s my brother who’s the Lord,” the Legate said with an understanding and good-natured smile. He bowed at the waist as he approached the Prince.

“What can I do for you, then, Sir Germanicus?” Trajan asked, hoping that his use of the Legate’s first name would signal to him to drop the formalities, though being in the middle of the Royal Palace with hundreds of other courtiers making their way out of the throne room close by, he wasn’t optimistic about the Legate dispensing with the tiring ceremonies.

“I happened to notice that Your Highness claimed Sir Leon Ursus as one of your personal knights,” the Legate said with a stony look on his chiseled face. “I was hoping I could speak with Your Highness about him in private. He was a trainee at the Knight Academy less than two years ago, you see…”

“Ah, I understand,” Trajan replied with his tone turning serious. Leon was knighted against Knight Academy guidelines, those being a year in training, ascension to the third-tier, and a two-year minimum squireship. Leon’s squireship had only lasted a matter of a few weeks, and Trajan guessed that this was what the Legate wanted to speak about.

The Legate accompanied Trajan and the Prince’s assistants to his office, and once the two arrived, the assistants left with barely another word. The two men then took their seats in the richly appointed office. The Legate seemed ill-at-ease, and he shifted several times in his armchair as he struggled to get comfortable. Trajan even noticed a bead of sweat on his wide brow between the strands of his black, unfashionably long hair.

“So, for what reason did you need to speak with me about my knight?” Trajan asked with only a hint of hostility and well-concealed killing intent.

“Your Highness, I simply wished to make an invitation to you and to Sir Ursus to join the graduation and knighting ceremony for Sir Leon’s class,” the Legate said with a light tone as he finally settled down in his chair.

Trajan’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and confusion and he asked, “Is this all? This hardly needed a private setting, did it?” Perhaps Trajan was paranoid, but he couldn’t help but think that the Legate knew something about Leon’s identity just by the way he was acting, though he couldn’t fathom why the Legate would want to approach him about it in that case.

“This is a somewhat delicate situation…” the Legate said with noticeable hesitation. “That Sir Ursus was knighted outside of the regulations that my Academy has dictated isn’t widely known, and I would like to keep it that way. I have no intention of petitioning the Crown to revoke his knighthood, especially as it would only be reinstated in a few months when the ceremony takes place, and besides, the Consul of the North himself knighted Sir Ursus, or so he bragged in the official statement he sent to me not too long ago.”

Indeed, the Consul of the North had boasted to the Legate of knighting one his Academy’s squires as if he were daring the Legate to try and blacklist him from receiving any squires from his institution from that day forward—and this was long after he’d told Roland that Leon was dead. The Consul was a whimsical man, and he could always fall back on faulty records if Roland and August ever found out that he lied to them. It wasn’t like they could do anything to him with the King indisposed, anyway, so he acted largely with impunity.

“I don’t want to act against a Consul, but nor do I want this to establish a precedent,” the Legate continued. “I don’t want the knights to whom we send our squires to start knighting them of their own accord. I would consider it a personal favor if just Sir Ursus were to attend, but as his direct superior, a Prince, and a Consul, I would be most remiss if I were to not also invite Your Highness as well.”

Trajan frowned in thought. It wasn’t that onerous of a request, and Trajan could admit that he was probably just being paranoid about the Legate’s knowledge of Leon’s identity. Plus, it could get him out of the palace for a few hours, even if it was for just another tiresome ceremony.

The Prince began to slowly nod, and he said, “I’d be happy to attend this ceremony, and I’ll pass on your invitation to Sir Leon, though I won’t force him to attend. Have your people get in touch with mine, we’ll get it on my schedule.”

“Will do, Your Highness,” the Legate said, grateful even for that much effort on the Prince’s part.

“Now, is there anything else you wanted to speak with me about?” Trajan asked, clearly angling to get back to his own work.

For a moment, it seemed like the Legate was going to say something substantial, but after some hesitation, he simply said, “No, Your Highness, thank you for this meeting.”

Trajan simply smiled and nodded as the Legate rose, bowed, and made for the door. However, that smile ended when he saw one of his knights waiting outside with a poorly concealed look of panic. Once the Legate had left, the knight hurried inside and closed the door behind him.

“What is it?” Trajan asked in concern. The man was a fifth-tier knight and Trajan didn’t think that there would be much that could shake him.

“Your Highness…” the knight said as he dropped to one knee in a hurried bow. “The man you ordered me to watch for… he entered the capital two days ago!”

“Tell me everything you know,” Trajan demanded of the knight.

Unfortunately, the knight didn’t have much information about Justin himself, as Justin had only gone to the estate of a foreign noble with his daughter and then returned to his yacht in the docks. Those he traveled with, however, did not return.

“Who were these others?” Trajan asked as he stroked his chin in thought. “Servants? Knights?”

“We can’t say for certain,” the knight responded. As he explained Justin’s schedule, he’d taken the Legate’s seat. “Most of them were doubtlessly servants, though, given their low tier and the mundane tasks that they partook in. Mostly restocking the yacht with provisions and charged gemstones.”

“How many stones?” Trajan asked in mild curiosity. It was a general rule that the more magically advanced something was, the more gemstones charged with magic power it would need to operate its enchantments.

“Yes, Your Highness,” the knight confirmed.

“Why go to a Varro’s when they needed that kind of volume…?” Trajan wondered out loud. Varro’s wasn’t a bad place to buy charged gemstones, but for that kind of money, they could easily go to the Heaven’s Eye Tower and purchase gems of much higher quality for that same price, though it would take much longer for the gems to be delivered. “They must need the stones soon…”

“There were three individuals that we identified as persons of interest, as well,” the knight continued, drawing Trajan’s attention back to him. “The first, a short man with a stocky build-”

“I don’t need complete descriptions, just so long as all of you can recognize them,” Trajan impatiently interrupted.

“Yes, Your Highness,” the knight quickly said. “The most important feature they all possessed was power in excess of the sixth-tier!”

Again, Trajan stared at the knight in disbelief, as that kind of power at Justin’s fingertips could’ve made him the strongest noble in the entire Kingdom, and possibly even King if he played his cards right. And yet, if Leon hadn’t tipped Trajan off about his suspicions, Trajan would’ve had no idea that Justin had that kind of fighting potential.

“Keep an eye on Lord Isynos and tell me where he goes, but keep your distance from those three for the time being,” the Prince said out loud.

“If I may ask, Your Highness, what are you going to do about them?” the knight asked. “It isn’t much of a surveillance operation if the Lord we’re watching can act through intermediaries.”

“I know that, but I doubt that you’ll get very far watching seventh-tier mages,” Trajan said. “It’s entirely possible that you’ve already tipped them off, and I don’t want my people to end up dead. And make no mistake, if these people are who I think they are—and they are, if their sheer power is anything to go by—then they’ll think little of killing anyone who gets too close. So, don’t get close.”

“Yes, Your Highness, I’ll pass that along to the rest of the team,” the knight replied.

“Good…” Trajan muttered as the knight departed his office with his orders. He had another meeting to plan, this time with the Royal Spymaster, and he needed to figure out just what to tell the man, and even before that, if he should even be trusted. He was chosen by Julius, so Trajan was inclined to say yes, but still, he needed to speak with him first.

The news of Justin’s arrival almost a month before he’d planned was throwing him off a bit. He needed to speak with the 1st Legion’s Legate, too, so that he could proceed with his plan to get Leon out of the city. He thought it best to keep Leon and Justin as far away from each other as he could for as long as was possible.