Chapter 51
#51. Servant Cedric (17) - Great-Uncle
‘It wouldn't be scary if Claudia went on a rampage alone, but if she joined forces with the neighboring lords allied with her and they made their voices heard, that could become troublesome. Should I quietly put them in check in the Second Prince's name?’
‘I should also prepare for an assassination attempt. The fact that she thwarted assassination attempts against the Second and Third Princes means she must have exceptionally skilled swordsmen serving as her guards. There is still a chance they might come for my neck as a last resort, so I need to protect myself thoroughly.’
‘I should also make the benefits Redbell stands to gain from Claudia's marriage perfectly clear. If I can create a general atmosphere of anticipation surrounding the marriage, then even if Claudia clumsily tries something like a public-opinion campaign, she'll simply be swept away by the wave.’
Armin Redbell's political maneuvering was truly meticulous.
He did not let his guard down despite Claudia's faction being relatively weak, and methodically blocked off every avenue she might use.
Rather than committing his forces piecemeal like his younger siblings, he aimed to overwhelm her completely from the outset, showing why he had secured his position as Redbell's heir so early.
There was just one unfortunate thing about Armin: he had judged his opponent by the standards of common sense.
“Armin Redbell!! How dare you stab me in the back!?”
Thus, when the Second Prince, his face bright red, stormed into Armin's territory, Armin could only panic, unable to understand what was happening.
“Please calm yourself, Your Highness. Stab you in the back? How could I ever do such an outrageous thing to you? First, let us calmly discuss─”
“Calm? Calm? Do you think I can calm down right now! Do you have any idea what I just heard from that bastard Bartholomew!?”
Grand Duke Bartholomew.
At the name of Grand Duke Bartholomew—the King's younger brother and a major figure vying for the throne—Armin's face stiffened slightly.
He instinctively realized that the Second Prince's fury was not something that would end as a simple misunderstanding or mishap.
And that instinct became reality with the words that followed from the Second Prince's mouth.
“That bastard said to me, ‘Your Highness, I understand that you are impatient in many ways, but even so, trying to conduct business by selling off a young member of your own family? I cannot help but question your character as a member of the royal family.’ He spouted that nonsense! There are rumors spreading throughout the entire royal court that I tried to sell my niece to build up my power!! That girl Claudia has been going around with Bartholomew, testifying that this whole affair was my plot!! Are you still going to pretend you know nothing about it!?”
“What kind of nonsense is that….”
Armin staggered unconsciously.
The back of his head throbbed as if he had been struck as hard as possible with a hammer.
‘Knowing that House Redbell had backed the Second Prince, she sided with the King's younger brother? Has she lost her mind?’
The Redbell Marquisate and House Sarnos were each supporting the Second Prince and the King's younger brother, respectively, and were pouring considerable effort into securing victory.
The victor would gain even more as the foremost contributor to the struggle for the throne, while the loser would have just as much taken away.
If the King's younger brother won, he would certainly not leave House Redbell alone after it had supported the Second Prince and obstructed him.
House Redbell's influence was so great that destroying it outright would be impossible, but if two of the kingdom's three great powers—the royal family and House Sarnos—cooperated to pressure the marquisate, the resulting damage would be beyond imagination.
And in that situation, she had clung to the enemy and stabbed Redbell in the back? Just because she didn't want to get married?
‘Th-this idiotic girl…!! There are limits to being immature!!’
No matter how thorough and cautious Armin was—or rather, precisely because of that personality—he had never imagined that Claudia would make such a move.
Yes, she might be able to avert the immediate crisis.
But what would she do afterward?
If the Second Prince won, he naturally would not leave Claudia alone, while if the King's younger brother won, her usefulness would be at an end.
Use Claudia as a puppet to rule Redbell? Would the vassals meekly accept a traitor to the family?
Judging by Armin's common sense and knowledge, Claudia's move was equivalent to burning down the house itself simply because she disliked bugs swarming inside it.
It might somehow work during summer, but once winter arrived, it would be a suicidal act that would have her freeze to death in the cold.
The problem was that Armin himself was about to be swept up in that suicidal act as well.
“Please do not misunderstand me, Your Highness! This was Claudia's unilateral action! It was absolutely not some plot devised by our family!”
“You claim that in the mighty House Redbell, you had no idea a mere young lady had left the territory and contacted the King's younger brother? Are you telling me to believe that? Surely you are not going to say that you simply left the girl you intended to use in a political marriage unmonitored!”
“That is….”
Armin gritted his teeth.
He had certainly ordered his subordinates to watch Claudia, but not a single one of them had reported that anything like this was happening—or even that Claudia had shown signs of making a move.
It was proof that no matter how thoroughly a plan was drawn up at the top, it was all wasted effort if the people on the ground did not act according to it.
Of course, his subordinates did have an excuse.
It was hardly their fault that the servant Claudia had hired happened to be capable of using even illusion magic, was it?
“And even if this was all that girl's unilateral decision, it is still a problem!! In the end, the fact remains that Redbell stabbed me in the back!!”
A world in which collective punishment was taken for granted.
Whether Claudia's actions had been unilateral or not, the fact that she was born of Redbell blood meant that Armin Redbell could not escape responsibility.
He had become the leader of a truly vile group project bound together by bloodline.
No, in a sense it was even more miserable than that, because the actual leader was too powerful for anyone to touch, leaving the relatively manageable Armin to be chewed out in his place as vice leader.
While desperately placating the rampaging Second Prince, Armin fumed inwardly.
‘Claudia, I will definitely make you pay for this humiliation…!!’
***
“Hahaha! Watching that brat's face turn red and pale was the best entertainment I've seen in ages!”
An elderly man with striking platinum-blond hair shot through with gray in places burst into laughter.
He was the King's younger brother, and Claudia's great-uncle.
Claudia smiled at Grand Duke Bartholomew.
“I'm truly glad I could be of help, Your Highness.”
“There is no need for stiff formalities like Your Highness and all that. Just call me Great-Uncle.”
“Then Great-Uncle it is.”
“Huh. Usually, people humbly demur and ask whether they really can, but you accept it without hesitation?”
“I am rather straightforward.”
“Hahaha! Good, good! Thank heavens you don't resemble that sly man, Marquis Redbell, at all!”
Claudia's words and behavior were remarkably unrestrained.
No matter how reckless she was, she did not go so far as to speak casually to a royal relative who was also her great-uncle, so she used the bare minimum of honorifics—but only that much.
The King's younger brother, however, seemed to like it, remaining cheerful throughout.
“When my elder brother decided to hand his niece—your mother—over to that marquis bastard as his second wife, I was deeply dissatisfied. Was it really right to hand this little girl over to a man close to my own age and make her his second wife? She was frail as well, which made it even worse.”
“Being on the receiving end of a political marriage is quite a nuisance.”
“Rest easy. I will not let you suffer what your mother did. I am not like that shameless bastard who is trying to sell off his own grandniece as he pleases.”
Claudia did not take the King's younger brother's boastful promise entirely at face value.
He was acting like a boisterous grandfather who missed his great-niece and treated her kindly, but he was also a politician who did not hesitate to employ schemes and political strife to seize this country's throne.
Wasn't that obvious just from the fact that he was dragging Claudia around and making her testify about this affair in order to attack the Second Prince right away?
For now, Claudia was pretending to be close to the King's younger brother because she was useful to him, but whether he would maintain the same attitude once he decided her value had fallen remained to be seen.
‘Well, who cares? I'm using him too, after all.’
Armin might have been cursing Claudia for making such a foolish move, but Claudia thought differently.
Even if she switched sides and supported the King's younger brother, Redbell and the Second Prince's faction would not collapse so easily.
That was because Marquis Redbell had already reaped substantial gains.
The struggle would remain deadlocked for quite some time, and it would certainly be a long while before Claudia's value to them disappeared.
And given time, she was confident she could go beyond merely being valuable or not and become a major power capable of deciding the struggle for the throne itself.
The improved secret art Cedric had newly given her was absurdly powerful.
Even if she abandoned Redbell entirely, a sufficient grace period would let her build a faction of her own on par with it.
Of course, that did not mean she had to throw away what she already held.
“Great-Uncle, you haven't forgotten, have you? The mastermind behind this affair was solely Armin, the eldest son, who conspired with the Second Prince and overstepped his authority. It was not the will of Redbell itself.”
“Hmm. Since such a good opportunity has presented itself, wouldn't it be better to strike at all of them at once? House Sarnos in particular is making a huge fuss about how we must seize this chance.”
“Which leaves a bigger wound: a single stab with the tip of a sword, or a sideways blow with the flat of the blade? When you try to hit several places at once, your strength is divided accordingly.”
“Hahaha, you have quite a talent for dressing up ‘cut out the troublesome eldest son and leave the other parts for you to devour’ in pretty words! Certainly, if the attack is directed at ‘Armin Redbell’ personally rather than ‘Redbell,’ the vassals will be less likely to resist.”
“If that gives Great-Uncle a new supporter, wouldn't that be good for Grandfather as well? If his only supporters were House Sarnos, then even after ascending the throne, he would have to respect their opinions. But if his supporters were divided between me and House Sarnos, he could make us compete with each other according to his wishes.”
“Hmm.”
At Claudia's words, the King's younger brother's eyebrows twitched.
A smile still lingered on his lips, but the emotion contained in it was quite different from before.
“I ought to retract what I said earlier. Though you resemble my niece on the outside, you've certainly inherited that marquis's blood on the inside.”
“…Could you take that back?”
Claudia's face soured rapidly.
At that frank yet oddly human reaction, the King's younger brother burst into laughter once again.
In a corner of the room where the two of them were talking.
Though Cedric stood by like a shadow alongside the other servants, a look of satisfaction was visible on his face.
It was true that Cedric had laid out the broad strategy, but filling in the details and improvising on the spot had been Claudia's doing.
The immature noble lady who had once been regarded as a good-for-nothing even by the servants in her own mansion had somehow grown enough to discuss the future with a candidate to become the next king.
It was one week before Cedric's contract was due to end.