“Guards,” Roland clapped his hands, and immediately two guards came into the parlor, holding Cornelius between them.
“We’re in the Palace Hallo, what do you mean with this!?”
“Very simple, you now have two choices,” Roland stood up from the seat, freezing Cornelius with his look, “First, you admit that you’ve wronged, that the house doesn’t belong to you. And then I can look at what happened just now as nothing more than a farce. Your second option is admitting that during the Months of Demons, you betrayed your Lord, fleeing from the battle without the permission of your Lord, shamefully escaping to Longsong Stronghold. If you take this option, I will put you in prison for desertion, where you will wait for the day of your hanging. Which one do you choose?”
The sweat pouring from Cornelius’ forehead didn’t stop, he swallowed in fear, hesitated for a moment before he quivered: “Your Highness, I… I made a mistake, it was not my house.
“So this was all a misunderstanding,” Roland shrugged, and then said to the guards, “Send the Baron on his way.”
When Cornelius was nearly through the door, the Prince stopped him once more: “Right, when you take your ship back to the Longsong Stronghold can you please deliver a message for me? Tell those… ah, who have maybe the same misunderstanding as yourself, in case they don’t want to choose the second option, they don’t need to waste their time by coming to Border Town.
“Anything you want, Your Highness,” Cornelius said with a forced smile while leaving the room. But the moment he turned around, Roland could see how his counterpart was gnashing his teeth.
When he was finally out of the castle and saw the two guards leaving, the Baron felt relieved.
He pulled out an already wet handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He resolutely spit out a mouth full of spittle. While imagining the spit directly smashing into the Prince’s face. Yet this still wasn’t enough to release his anger, so he had to stamp repeatedly onto the spit, until his heart was finally comforted.
Cornelius thought that if he hadn’t received such reliable information, he would never have dared to come back to Border Town so early. In general, the aristocracy will always return even later than the civilians. After all, mining and hunting was dirty work, it was so hard that the aristocrats would never do them.
Their part was just to supervise the production. And wait until there was enough ore so that it could be transferred. And in their spare time they would go to their hunters’ houses, and ask whether they had any suitable high-quality fur to purchase.
But this year the situation was completely differently, Cornelius had heard from the financial director Sir Reynolds that Duke Ryan was ready to drive the 4th Prince out of Border Town — this wasn’t a betrayal to the King of Graycastle, no instead they were upholding an order from Timothy Wimbledon, the new King: “Roland Wimbledon is no longer the Lord of Border Town, and if he wants to get re-assigned to a new territory he has to return back to the king’s office first.”
Duke Ryan had spoken these revolutionary words in front of Sir Reynolds, who had been able to climb up from a position in the City Hall to the position of financial director in only five short years. If they hadn’t had a distant relationship as relatives, and if he hadn’t sent him two high-quality furs each year, Cornelius would never be able to know what went on in the minds of the people in charge of the west.
“Gaining a new territory after returning to the King” was just an empty statement, even Cornelius knew, that the first Prince without being able to say anything had been sent to the guillotine. So if the 4th Prince went back, would the new king show him mercy?
