Chapter 107. The Death of the King
Inside the tent, the atmosphere was both lively and delicate.
One after another, everyone took their seats again, and the natural center of discussion became the thrilling yet ultimately joyous appearance of the white deer bearing an auspicious omen.
King Augustus was glowing with health, beaming with delight, clearly still immersed in the immense joy of being “favored by Heaven.”
“Hahaha! Who would have thought that such a thing would happen today?
A delightful surprise, truly a delightful surprise!”
“Your Majesty is favored by Heaven. It is only natural that the divine deer should bring an auspicious sign,” a minister immediately chimed in with flattery.
“Indeed! Your Majesty governs diligently and loves the people. Moved by this, the gods have sent down this omen to manifest Your Majesty’s virtue!”
The ministers all joined in one after another, their praise rising like a tide and lifting the king higher and higher into self-satisfaction.
Only Prince Aiden, seated not far below the king, wore a clearly sullen expression on his small face.
He was still thinking about that gentle and beautiful white deer. In his eyes, it had clearly come to find him and his grandfather.
Yet the adults had forcibly turned it into a sign of merit belonging solely to his father, and that made him feel it was terribly unfair.
The thoughts of a child were simple. He still could not understand the tangled political implications hidden within it all.
The king, however, had been coaxed into roaring laughter and was in exceptionally fine spirits, naturally with no time to notice his son’s mood.
Feeling his throat go dry, he called out enthusiastically, “Damn it, after talking this much, your king needs wine to celebrate!
Federico! Where is your fine wine?
Bring it up at once and let everyone taste the flavor of the Western Frontier!”
Federico naturally noticed Aiden’s sulking expression, but at this moment he had no leisure whatsoever to comfort his grandson.
Hearing the king’s call, he turned his gaze toward Count Bos, who stood behind him, and gave him a slight nod.
Count Bos immediately understood and stepped forward. “Your Majesty!
The wine is already prepared just outside the tent. It shall be brought in at once for Your Majesty and the assembled lords to sample.”
“Hahaha! Good! Quickly, quickly! Bring it all in!” The king waved his hand impatiently.
At one side, a faint gleam flashed through Marquess Cons’s eyes at once, and he immediately spoke up.
“Velik! What are you standing around for, you fool?
Did you not hear His Majesty and the Prime Minister? Go help bring the wine in at once!”
Velik, who had already been standing there in some confusion, was called out by his own marquess and instinctively moved to obey.
“There is no need to trouble him.”
Federico’s steady voice rang out, cutting off the motion.
Without even sparing Cons a glance, he spoke directly to Bos. “Bos, you go.”
Count Bos nodded expressionlessly, gave the king another slight bow, then turned and strode out of the tent.
Though Federico had directly rebuffed him and cost him face, the smile on Marquess Cons’s face did not change in the slightest, as though it were nothing more than a trivial interlude.
He exchanged an exceedingly subtle glance with several marquesses seated across from him.
In one another’s eyes, they all saw the same excitement, the plan was on the verge of success.
The plan was complete. All that remained was for that old lion to die.
Cons sneered inwardly, as though he could already see Federico collapsing to the ground in agony as the poison took hold.
Very soon, Count Bos returned. Behind him followed two of Federico’s guard knights.
The three of them carried several wine jars that looked rather ancient and were tightly sealed with clay.
The jars themselves were plain in style, somewhat out of place amidst the luxury of everything else in the tent.
Marquess Cons immediately rose to his feet, his face full of eager warmth.
“Come, come, let me lend a hand as well! To be able to carry such fine wine first is an honor in itself!”
He walked straight to the largest of the jars and, paying no heed to the dirt upon it, personally lifted it up.
Then he carefully set it down on the table before the king.
Turning back, he began feeling and patting at the remaining wine jars in what appeared to be a casual manner.
Very soon, he found his target.
His heart was nearly hammering out of his chest, yet he forced his face to remain calm.
He lifted that jar and placed it on the table before Federico.
“Prime Minister, please.” Cons made a courteous gesture of invitation.
Suppressing the heart that felt ready to leap out of his body, he returned to his seat.
His gaze dropped downward, and he no longer dared look directly at Federico.
He feared that the bone-deep hatred and the ecstasy of long-awaited vengeance in his eyes might spill out for all to see.
Federico looked at Cons, who had suddenly become so eager, and an almost imperceptible frown creased his brow.
But the wine had been brought in by his own men. Cons had merely handled its placement, and there seemed to be no fault to pick at on the surface.
He glanced at the wine jar before him. The clay seal was intact, and it looked no different from the others.
For the moment, he suppressed his suspicions.
After sitting down, Cons rose again under a signal from Marquess Memphis and lifted the remaining jars.
With great enthusiasm, he began pouring wine one by one for the nobles and ministers inside the tent.
As a former Prime Minister and an illustrious marquess, the sight of him personally holding the jar and pouring wine drew all kinds of reactions from those present.
Some were flattered and thanked him repeatedly. “Ah, how could I possibly deserve this?
Marquess, for you to pour me wine in person, I shall have something to boast about when I return!”
Others teased him half in jest. “Cons, you old fox, why are you being so diligent today? Are you trying to ask His Majesty for something again?”
As he poured, Cons said,
“Today, His Majesty encountered an auspicious omen, and I too am delighted in my heart!
Let me pour for everyone, so that we may all share in the joy! Share in the joy! Hahaha!”
Still laughing, he never stopped moving.
He made certain that the golden or silver goblet before every minister and noble of weight in the tent was filled with a golden-colored liquor.
Very soon, the wine had all been poured, and its fragrance spread throughout the tent.
Returning to his seat, Cons raised his cup again and called loudly in Federico’s direction.
“Prime Minister, will you not tell us a little about the marvels of this fine vintage from the Western Frontier?”
Federico cast him a glance, feeling even greater disgust toward the old fox, and was just about to rise and say a few perfunctory words.
“What is there to introduce?” King Augustus had long since been so tempted by the aroma of the wine that he was growing impatient, and he cut them off at once.
“We drink, that is all! Why so much nonsense? Hahaha! I shall go first!”
As he spoke, thoroughly excited, he directly brushed aside the guard beside him who had intended to test the wine for poison with a silver needle and sample it first.
He picked up the massive wine jar before him with both hands and tilted his head back, drinking straight from the mouth of the jar in great gulps.
Amber-colored liquor ran down from the corners of his mouth, soaking into his luxurious robes.
With the king being so uninhibited, no one else could continue standing on ceremony.
With a quiet sigh, Federico lifted the wine cup before him. His gaze swept across everyone in the tent.
“Gentlemen,” he said in a low voice, “please.”
“Prime Minister, please!”
A chorus of responses sounded throughout the tent as everyone raised their cups.
Yet at this moment, the atmosphere inside the tent was far from as lively and harmonious as it appeared on the surface.
The few who knew the truth, Marquess Cons, Marquess Memphis, and several others, had palms drenched in cold sweat as they held their cups.
Their throats bobbed ceaselessly, and their hearts pounded so violently with tension that it felt as though they could hear the beating inside their own chests.
Their eyes were all locked fixedly on Federico’s hand, on that cup of wine that was about to touch his lips.
Cons did not even blink. In the depths of his heart, he was howling madly:
Drink it! Drink it! Hurry and drink it down!
Federico! Die! Die! Go die!
All the humiliation you have given me in the past and the present, I, Cons Montauban, have never forgotten for a single moment of my life!
Under the gaze of countless eyes, Federico calmly raised the cup to his lips and drank.
Time itself seemed to freeze at that instant.
He drank it? He actually drank it!
Cons was nearly unable to stop himself from leaping to his feet.
And yet Federico showed no sign of pain whatsoever.
He even closed his eyes, as though he were carefully savoring the taste of the wine, lingering over its flavor.
What?
Cons’s heart suddenly sank. His brows drew tightly together, and a fierce unease seized him in an instant.
That reaction was wrong!
“Good wine! Good... urgh...”
Just then, another voice rang out. It was King Augustus.
He lowered the wine jar, wiped his mouth, and began to praise it loudly.
But before he could finish, his voice abruptly dropped, turning slurred and indistinct.
The healthy flush on his face vanished with startling speed, replaced by an unnatural ashen pallor.
His massive body swayed, his eyes beginning to lose focus, as though an invisible curtain of darkness were rapidly descending over the world before him.
“Mm...?”
“Y-Your Majesty?” A guard at his side sensed something was wrong and called out tentatively in a low voice.
Before the words had even fully left his mouth, King Augustus’s enormous body suddenly went limp. With a heavy thud, he pitched forward directly onto the ground.
The table overturned, cups and plates were flung into disarray, and he lost consciousness completely.
This sudden, earthshaking disaster instantly shattered all the false clamor inside the tent.
“Your Majesty the King!”
“Your Majesty!”
“Father!”
Cries of alarm erupted from every direction.
The guards at the king’s side were so terrified that their souls seemed ready to leave their bodies. They rushed forward in panic to lift him and check his condition.
The entire tent immediately descended into chaos.
Startled by the sudden disaster, Federico snapped his eyes open.
In an instant, he hurled the wine cup in his hand to the ground. It shattered with a sharp crack, fragments and wine spraying everywhere.
Then he rose abruptly and, with a ringing metallic hiss, drew the sword at his waist.
The blade gleamed with a chilling light, and his voice was colder still, carrying unquestionable authority.
“All of you! Until His Majesty the King awakens and the truth is established, no one is to leave this tent!
Any violator will be treated as a traitor!”
Count Bos drew his sword almost at the same instant and took up a guarding position at Federico’s side.
The several guard knights who had brought in the wine immediately stepped forward as well, blades drawn, instantly taking control of the entrances and exits of the tent.
The chaotic scene froze for a moment.
Marquess Cons’s mind had gone almost completely blank the instant the king collapsed.
How could this be? How could it be the king?!
That jar of tainted wine should clearly have been...
Like a lightning strike, he suddenly realized something, and an icy terror that pierced to the bone swallowed him whole.
But he could not admit it. He absolutely could not!
Forcibly crushing down the horror in his heart, he quickly arranged a mask of mingled shock and fury across his face and violently pointed at Federico.
“Federico! How dare you!
You dared poison His Majesty the King! It was your men who brought in this wine! It was you! You were the one who poisoned it!”
Turning the accusation back on his enemy was the only thing he could do now.
Federico’s eyes were cold as blades. His sword point shifted slightly toward Cons, and though his voice remained steady, it was laden with towering rage.
“Cons! It was you who personally handed the wine to the king!
It was you who first urged everyone to drink!
If we are speaking of suspicion, you are the first who cannot escape it!”
“You! You slanderous wretch!” Cons trembled with rage, his face deathly pale, though whether the color was genuine or not, none could say.
At that moment, Marquess Memphis and Marquess Roman also recovered from their extreme shock and stupor.
They looked toward Cons, their eyes full of alarm and questioning.
But matters had already come to this. They and Cons had long since been bound to the same war chariot. If one fell, all would suffer.
The two of them could only brace themselves and, bringing their own trusted men, step over to Marquess Cons’s side, forming a line of confrontation against Federico’s faction.
The atmosphere in the tent instantly became razor-sharp. Both sides had swords drawn and aimed at one another, glaring furiously, as though a bloody clash might erupt at any moment.
Those ministers of the kingdom who were neutral, or wholly ignorant of the truth, had gone pale with fright and no longer knew what to do.
“My lords! My lords! Please calm yourselves! Please, you must calm yourselves!”
Seeing that the situation was on the verge of spiraling completely out of control, one of the only two titled knights in the tent, old Marquess Graham, who had always been known for his steady and prudent nature, had no choice but to step forward. He positioned himself between the two sides.
“What matters most now is His Majesty the King’s safety! Summon the royal physicians! Summon the royal physicians first!”
Count Belin, the kingdom’s Minister of Finance from the Eastern Frontier, had also gone pale with fright and hurriedly echoed him.
“Yes! Yes, exactly!
The old marquess is right! Call the physicians first! Saving His Majesty is what matters most!
My lords, do not act rashly! Please, do not act rashly!”
There, in a corner of the tent steeped in utter chaos, suspicion, and fear, hidden where no one noticed, the kingdom’s Minister of Intelligence, Bernard, stood quietly.
His head was lowered, as though he too had been stunned senseless by this sudden catastrophe.
Yet beneath the shadows, the corner of his mouth slowly lifted in an icy, almost imperceptible curve.