Standing before the two of them was Grand Duke Fisablen, though he was dressed in a sleeping robe and wearing soft-soled cloth slippers, with no weapons on his person. He looked for all the world like someone who had woken in the middle of the night to use the privy and grab a drink of water.
"Hehe, couldn't sleep, so I got up for a stroll. The moonlight is lovely tonight — before I knew it, I'd wandered all the way over to your place..." Grand Duke Fisablen said it with complete conviction.
Lorist curled his lip, his face full of contempt. Who are you trying to fool, old man? The villa you're staying in is three houses away from mine. You're telling me your casual little stroll brought you right into my rear garden, and you managed to slip past the night watchmen on the outer perimeter? As if any of that was unplanned. You clearly came to have a clandestine meeting with me and didn't want to be noticed.
"Let's go to the study." Lorist turned and walked off, not bothering to waste any more breath on the old man.
Despite being tall and powerfully built, Genorio was sharp-minded and perceptive. He went ahead into the study, lit the candles, and carefully drew the curtains. Then he asked Lorist, "Your Highness, is there anything you need?"
"Bring us a few dishes to go with the drinks, and grab some of the good wine from the cellar too. After that, go get some rest — it's late," said Lorist.
Genorio acknowledged the order and left. Grand Duke Fisablen, however, was practically glowing: "Duke Kenmaes treats you with more respect than His Majesty himself. Not only did he leave the finest villa for you, but he even sent his treasured wine collection to your cellar. And now that the
The Second Prince had hurried here a few days ago. By convention, the most luxurious villa should have been offered up as his lodging. But since he had arrived unannounced, and the finest villa was already occupied by Lorist, Duke Kenmaes proved quite shrewd. He said nothing about the matter, instead offering his own house to the Second Prince and moving himself into a small cottage at the edge of the villa district. This move left anyone hoping for a spectacle at a loss for words.
No one dared come and ask Lorist to yield the house to His Majesty. Even the Second Prince didn't mind. He told the nobles, "First come, first served. I'm merely an uninvited guest, and Duke Kenmaes has already given up his own residence for me. What right do I have to complain about him?"
Everyone understood in their hearts that if they asked Lorist to give up the house for the Second Prince, he would certainly comply — but he would promptly pack up and head back to the Northland right after. At that point, all of the Second Prince's scheming would come to nothing.
"You know how many bottles of good wine that fellow Kenmaes has taken from my cellar, drinking and helping himself? It's not on the same scale as yours, but I can't be bothered to keep count," Lorist said, inviting Grand Duke Fisablen to take a seat.
The longer he spent around the old man, the more Lorist realized that despite being a Grand Duke and a third-tier Sword Saint, he was nothing more than a lecherous drunkard. He truly couldn't understand how the man had become a third-tier Sword Saint. His love of wine was on par with Duke Kenmaes's, except that Kenmaes could enter Lorist's study and browse the wine cabinet at his leisure, while this old man couldn't get into the study at all. He had other methods, though — every year during the New Year celebration, he would vanish without a trace, only to be found in the wine cellar.
None of Lorist's fine wines had been purchased. They were all spoils of war. When he had destroyed the slave kingdom on the Haneabada Islands, the greatest harvest had been the vast collections of rare wines from the slave nobles' estates — tens of thousands of bottles in total. Back then, Lorist had wanted to distribute them all to the soldiers of the family's armed forces, but
So those tens of thousands of bottles were shipped back to the Northland for storage. Over the nearly ten years since, they had been consumed through various family celebrations such as New Year festivities, rewards and gifts, and Lorist's own daily indulgence — close to ten thousand bottles gone. And ever since Grand Duke Fisablen had started attending the
A rough estimate showed that each time the old man came for the New Year celebration, he consumed around three hundred bottles of fine wine, leaving Steward Sper fuming with heartache and secretly cursing him to drink himself to death. Unfortunately, as a third-tier Sword Saint, Grand Duke Fisablen was robust and hearty — the kind of man who could eat and drink endlessly. A petty curse couldn't do the slightest thing to him. As the grandfather of the Norton Family's matriarch, Princess Celiavia, he treated the wine cellar like his own vegetable garden every time he visited, and Steward Sper had no choice but to greet him with a warm smile...
"Out with it. Sneaking over here in the middle of the night instead of sleeping — what do you want?" Lorist pulled up a chair and sat down in front of Grand Duke Fisablen.
"Nothing at all. I really was just taking a stroll," the old man insisted, still stubborn.
"You expect me to believe that?" Lorist said with undisguised disdain. "Did His Majesty send you to sound me out?"
"No." The old man denied it flatly. "I came this late specifically to keep him in the dark."
"Is that so? What are you scheming about?" Lorist thought to himself that this old fox was as wily as they come, and he needed to be on his guard.
Grand Duke Fisablen leaned back and slumped into the sofa. "I'm not scheming about anything, alright? I just came over to ask why you refuse to send troops."
"I won't say anything about the grand cause of reunifying and restoring the Empire — that's just empty talk meant to fool people. All I know is that the soldiers armed by our Norton Family will not sacrifice themselves for some so-called noble cause." Lorist spoke the plain truth.
"Mm, that's a fair point." Grand Duke Fisablen nodded in agreement. This was the way of the nobility — profit above all else. When there was no conflict of interest, everyone was all smiles and good cheer. But the moment interests clashed, even blood brothers settled accounts with cold precision, every last copper calculated to the fraction. Those who acted out of loyalty or tried to play the good Samaritan were either treated as fools or suspected of ulterior motives.
"Oh, right — what conditions and benefits did His Majesty offer your Fisablen Family to get you to agree to send troops?" Lorist asked.
"I haven't agreed to send troops yet," Grand Duke Fisablen replied.
"What did you say?" Lorist was taken aback. "Why won't you agree?"
He had expected Grand Duke Fisablen to be the first to answer the Second Prince's call for military support, so learning that even he had refused piqued Lorist's curiosity.
"It's simple. I told His Majesty that if the Norton Family won't send troops, then the Fisablen Family can't either. The Fisablen Family's forces have always considered the Norton Family's forces as their biggest rival. If the Norton Family refuses to send troops, then we have to stay put to guard against them — which means we can't send troops either." Grand Duke Fisablen answered with an air of absolute composure.
"You..." Lorist's eyes immediately turned cold. "Old man, you think roasting the Norton Family over the fire isn't enough — you just have to go and pour oil on it, don't you?"
The old man was clearly dissatisfied with the conditions and terms the Second Prince had offered him, but couldn't very well refuse to his face, so he'd dragged the Norton Family out to use as a shield.
"That's quite the blame-shifting you've got there... But do you really think His Majesty will buy your little story?" Lorist sneered.
"Whether His Majesty believes it or not, I don't know — but I believe it." The old man was perfectly composed.
Lorist gave him a thumbs-up. "Old man, you are truly shameless. You've come to our family for the New Year celebrations three years running, drunk our family's finest wine, and you actually think His Majesty is deaf and stupid enough not to know where you've been?"
The old man was utterly unfazed. "So what if he knows? Don't forget, I'm Cilivia's grandfather — what's wrong with visiting one's own granddaughter? Besides, what His Majesty cares about is whether there's any military cooperation between our two families. I've already admitted that your Northland Four Family Alliance forces our family to purchase enormous quantities of civilian goods and materials every year while refusing to sell us any military equipment. His Majesty even urged me to be patient, to avoid conflict with you, to swallow my pride and make concessions..."
Lorist was rendered speechless. The old man truly deserved his reputation as an old fox — in just a few sentences he'd severed any implication of collusion with Lorist, spun his annual visits to the New Year celebrations into an act of endured humiliation, framed the Fisablen Family's commercial dealings with the Northland Four Families as coercion and oppression, and the Second Prince — whose mind was nothing but the grand dream of a unified empire — had actually believed the lie...
Lorist shook his head with a bitter smile. "You two-faced old wind-vane. Back when the Second Prince was establishing the Iberian Kingdom, your Fisablen Family was his hidden hand behind the curtain. Now you've reinvented yourselves as His Majesty's in-laws, and His Majesty trusts you more than he trusts our Norton Family, who have served the Kingdom all along. What absolute nonsense."
"Heh heh..." Grand Duke Fisablen was about to say something when there was a knock at the door. Gennorio entered carrying several bottles of fine wine, then took a few platters of dishes from the servants waiting outside before taking his leave of Lorist.
The old man's eyes lit up as he grabbed a bottle of wine, pulled out the pine-wood stopper, poured himself a cup, and drained it in one go. Only then did he fill the silver cup in front of Lorist.
"Tell me, what conditions did His Majesty offer you that weren't good enough, making you throw the blame onto our heads?" Lorist took a light sip of the wine in his silver cup and asked.
"Nothing special. He simply promised our family an additional quota of two hundred thousand immigrants for our territories, but in return, he wants us to deploy two legions..."
Lorist smiled wryly. "I figured as much. His Majesty couldn't very well offer anything better. Don't forget — if our Norton Family were to fall in the future, your Fisablen Family would immediately become the biggest thorn in His Majesty's side..."
"So right now we're using your Norton Family as a convenient excuse — when the sky falls, you'll be the ones holding it up. As long as we publicly treat you as our greatest enemy, His Majesty will continue to trust and favor our family. But thinking he can fob off the Fisablen Family with just two hundred thousand immigrants and expect us to risk our lives for him — that's far too optimistic of him." The old man spoke these treasonous words with an indignant huff.
"Then tell me, what is it you actually want?" Lorist asked with amusement.
"We want a province's worth of territory in the interior," the old man replied.
"Oh..." Lorist's hand trembled and he nearly dropped his cup. "Is that even possible? Stop dreaming, old man. You've had too much wine — go home, wash up, and sleep it off..."
"Of course it's possible," the old man said with a straight face. "If you're willing to cooperate, His Majesty would find it quite easy to accept this condition. Besides, I've only had two cups — I haven't even finished a single bottle. How could I possibly be drunk?"
"Oh? You're not talking nonsense in your cups? Think about it. Your Fisablen Family, just like our Norton Family, already has one directly governed territory and two administered territories. That's the limit. On what grounds would His Majesty grant your family an additional province? Doesn't he worry that the two of us are already growing in power far too quickly?" Lorist laughed mockingly.
He was quite clear about His Majesty's first-phase strategy — the goal of reclaiming the Andevulf Province, the Portaorgo Province, the Campona Province, and the Northwestern territories would be easy enough to achieve. The two provinces from the former Ruhrm Duchy would need to be resolved through negotiation. Most likely, there wouldn't be any major war. His Majesty would simply leverage his overwhelming military presence — nearly a million troops — to pressure the Trade Alliance into returning those two provinces and reaching an agreement.
"From a risk perspective, His Majesty's plan has a very high chance of success. Participating in this war would be more beneficial than harmful for us. It's just that both of our families need greater benefits, rather than His Majesty tossing us a few scraps from between his fingers and calling it done. If the two of our families coordinate our efforts cleverly, His Majesty will be compelled to satisfy both our demands." The old man pressed on persuasively.
Lorist shook his head. "I still don't want to get involved. This war holds no benefit for our family."
"Could it be that you have no interest in Muyeyuan Province?" Grand Duke Fisablen struck straight to the heart of the matter.
"Heh... And what if I am interested? Would His Majesty actually grant Muyeyuan Province as a governed territory to our Norton Family? Besides, what exactly are you scheming? Don't forget — Muyeyuan Province is your Fisablen Family's governed territory..." Lorist fixed his gaze on the old man.
"What I'm scheming will benefit both our families. Just remember that. In the next couple of days, His Majesty will summon you to discuss the conditions for dispatching troops. When he does, tell him that you'll agree to send troops on the condition that he reassigns Muyeyuan Province to you as a governed territory..."
"Easy for you to say. What excuse could I possibly use to demand Muyeyuan Province?"
"You fool, just say it's a precaution — that you're concerned the Fisablen Family might launch a surprise attack on the Northland. One glance at the map makes it clear: whoever holds Muyeyuan Province can directly threaten the Northland. It's a matter of ensuring the security of the Northland family territories... As long as you insist on being granted Muyeyuan Province as a governed territory before agreeing to send troops, His Majesty will have no choice but to come negotiate with me..." The old man's analysis was crystal clear.
Lorist broke into a laugh. "And then you'll have His Highness the Second Prince grant your Fisablen Family an inland province as compensation, won't you? But I don't understand — your Fisablen Family is doing perfectly well out on the northeastern grasslands. Why would you want an inland province as family territory? Splitting your family's forces in two only makes it easier for enemies to pick you off separately..."
Grand Duke Fisablen let out a long sigh. "Boy, once the Norton Family's branch clans grow large and numerous, you'll understand the difficulties of being a patriarch. If we were in the inland provinces, our Fisablen Family's three territories would have been parceled out long ago. But on the northeastern grasslands, we can't afford to do that. We have to huddle together for warmth — only unity ensures survival.
"Right now, our family has nearly a thousand members, of varying quality. There's infighting and backstabbing everywhere, with conflicts springing up left and right. Even as patriarch, there are times when I'm powerless to do anything about it. That's exactly why we want an inland province — to kick out all the troublesome elements and let them fend for themselves in that territory. We dress it up as a 'family branch separation,' calling it a method of preserving the family bloodline, but in reality, it's a form of self-purification to consolidate the foundation of our family's domain. Understood?"
Lorist fell silent.
Grand Duke Fisablen tossed back the last of his wine in one gulp, grabbed two bottles of fine liquor, and stood up. "So long as you know where things stand, that's enough. I should be going before someone catches wind of this. Remember — just insist on Muyeyuan Province, and His Majesty will come to me to negotiate the rest on his own. Heh heh, he'll agree to all our conditions. Without both our families in this, he hasn't got the confidence to see this war through!"
Grand Duke Fisablen departed without a sound, vanishing as if he had never been there at all. The candle in Lorist's study, however, kept burning all the way until dawn.
...