Chapter 766: Private Council

Jadis had expected to have a lot more trouble reaching Hraustrekr than she did. She knew that the prince was on the front lines with his father and brother, and thanks to her communication with Ammy and Wilhelm, she knew that Hraustrekr was at the camp that day with the emperor, though Kestil was at a different camp. Even knowing where the first prince was, Jadis had still figured on having to force her way into a conversation with the stubborn asshole. Guards blocking her advance, attendants telling her that their lord was unavailable, sudden and unexpected meetings that required the prince’s presence and gave reason to evade her, and even magical barriers had all crossed Jadis’ mind as likely means by which Hraustrekr would avoid speaking to her. Instead, before Jay had said more than a single sentence to the guards standing at the entrance to the royal encampment, she had been let inside and swept along by a gaggle of harried-looking aides right up to a large but practical tent where they abruptly left her without any sort of explanation at all.

“Come in.”

Hraustrekr’s imperious voice came from inside the tent, confirming that the attendants had led Jay to the place she had wanted to go without asking. The flap for the tent had been tied open, and a fire’s light was coming from inside despite the sun having not yet reached the lower quarter of its arc. Ducking her head, Jay stepped inside and was greeted by the expected sight of Prince Hraustrekr, though the elf wasn’t alone.

The interior of the prince’s tent was a large space clearly intended to host meetings of large groups. A round table had been set up in the middle of the space, and several maps were spread out across the surface. There was a confined campfire set up to one side, the sort that was powered by magic and enchantments, which was the source of the warm light, though there were other light sources in the tent that were of the more typical enchanted sort that were closer to glowing crystals than candles or torches. While the enchanted campfire and lights were a costly display of wealth, the rest of the furniture inside the tent was more practical in nature than luxurious. Nothing looked cheap, but none of the items were overly extravagant, either. Solid was the word that came to Jadis’ mind, as the crafters had clearly focused on making items that would be durable, rather than pretty.

Two men, one a human, the other an elf, stood to the left of the map table. They were soldiers, high ranking, though Jadis wasn’t sure if they were generals or some rank a step below. She didn’t know who they were either way, and they both eyed her with the look of someone who was unhappy to have been interrupted in the middle of busy work. Across from them on the other side of the table stood a figure Jadis was acquainted with, though she wasn’t sure she could call the woman a friend. Una, the Golem carved into the shape of a fluffy sheep, bowed her marble head towards Jadis. She wasn’t a particularly large Golem, so Jadis was momentarily confused as to how Una was visible above the edge of the table until she realized that the stone lamb was standing on top of a custom-made wooden platform. While Jadis was somewhat surprised to see Una at the encampment, she was far more taken aback by the look of Prince Hraustrekr.

Every time Jadis had ever met with the First Prince, he had always presented as a precise, orderly, and utterly composed paragon of a stiff-backed noble. Sure, once they started talking, he usually devolved into some level of bluster and rage that ruined that composed look, but he still always started the conversation looking pristine, and almost always ended that way as well. That day, however, it seemed that Jadis had caught Hraustrekr at an awkward moment.

The prince’s armor had been partially removed. His breastplate, pauldrons, and faulds were off, though his grieves and one vambrace were still equipped. The padded armor and shirts he wore under his plate armor were askew and the signs of sweat trails were visible on his neck. His normally carefully pulled-back hair was in disarray and there was a small smudge of some detritus stuck to the tip of the elf’s left ear. Frankly, the man looked like a sweaty mess and judging by the mud and black blood that she could see being cleaned off his cuirass by a squire who stood frozen in place behind the prince, Jadis assumed that Hraustrekr had only recently returned from the front lines, a likely a battle at that.

“Lady Jadis,” the prince addressed her with an unconcealed glare. “What do you want?”

Jadis was taken back yet again. She was used to the heir apparent hiding his rudeness under veils of courtly manners. His blunt aggression was shocking, yet in a way, refreshing. If the prince wanted to speak plainly, that suited her just fine.

“I have an important and urgent matter I need to discuss with you,” she answered straight away. Then, after a hint of a pause, “It’s a private matter.”

Hraustrekr stared at her for a moment, one hand undoing the buckles on the vambrace of his other. He had been standing with his head bowed over one edge of a map that Jadis thought depicted the surrounding landscape, though it was hard to tell since she wasn’t familiar with the area and she was looking at it upside-down. He was still bent slightly as he glared up at her, a cross expression on his golden features. When he spoke, he didn’t take his eyes off of her.

“Everyone out.”

The two soldiers and the squire did not hesitate. With only a bow towards their lord, they quickly vacated the tent, brushing past Jay on their way. Una followed after, her departure less hurried. The Golem paused when she reached Jay and bowed her head again.

“If you have time later this evening, I have questions about your class progression.”

“I might,” Jay smiled lightly at Una. “Alex and Eir are here, on the other side of the camp, if you want to ask them about their classes.”

“Thank you,” Una replied before trotting out of the tent.

Despite there being no one else nearby, the flap of the tent closed behind the Golem, leaving Jay alone with Hraustrekr. While there were no other outward signs, Jadis got the distinct impression that the flap closing wasn't just a simple piece of oiled canvas flopping into place. This was the prince’s tent, the place where he discussed battle strategy with his generals. If he wanted a conversation held in the tent to be private, it would be private.

“Again,” Hraustrekr sighed in a less aggressive tone, “what do you want, Lady Jadis?”

“Duke Colgrave is trying to frame me for smuggling eleria and other illicit goods out of the country and into Volto.”

Hraustrekr’s fingers stopped fiddling with the buckles on his right vambrace at Jay’s announcement.

“And what has led you to make such a claim against a venerable, loyal, and heretofore honest noble of the Alfhilderunn Empire?”

The way Hraustrekr sounded as he asked his question reminded Jay that she was not, in fact, carrying any weapons. She had left her maul, her hurlbats, and her utility knife with her other selves as a symbol meant to show that she wasn’t there to fight with the first prince. However, the dangerous look in the elf’s green eyes made Jadis keenly aware that Hraustrekr wasn’t some weak politician or a foppish noble, but a man of the battlefield with a hundred years more experience than her. And, disconcertingly, his sword laid bare on the table before him.

“I caught a spy who has been infiltrating the Fortune’s Favored compound for months. I interrogated him to find out what he knew and he had a lot of information to tell me. Turns out he had a lot more to say about me and my own than just what he had observed during the times he had managed to sneak around our workshop and private rooms.”

“A spy,” Hraustrekr repeated. Finally straightening up to his usual stiff-backed posture, the prince finished unbuckling his vambrace and set the piece of armor down on a side table where some of the rest of his equipment had been laid out for cleaning. “And you trust the word of this man? A scoundrel who would no doubt say anything, do anything, to avoid his just and lawful punishment?”

“No, I don’t trust him,” Jay answered with one eyebrow raised. “But I trust the forged documents that he gave me that fake my involvement in this fabrication of Colgrave’s making. I trust the letters that he provided that show the true provenance of the eleria and the other goods that are being set up as coming from me. And, maybe most importantly, I trust the word of Lady Elodie Brunholt, who I confronted just this morning with the evidence, and who has since sworn to me that she was forced into abetting this plot by her grandfather.”

The last was the only part of her speech that was technically a lie. It was Elodie who had come to Jadis to let her know about Colgrave’s misdeeds, but since Jadis was trying to avoid dragging Elodie’s name through the mud with the rest of her family, she had bent the truth a bit. Well, even that was only a small bending, since she really had gone to Elodie that morning and told her about what she had learned from Ned Aubert and what she planned to do about it all. After all, this wasn’t a situation where she could just say whatever she wanted and simply hope that Elodie would go along with it when she was inevitably confronted by others. The noblewoman had to be on board with the plan, or it wasn’t going to work.

And so, too, did Prince Hraustrekr.

“She gave me this to support her claims,” Jay held up the letter that Elodie had shown to her in the palace gardens. “It’s a forgery, with a hidden message in the envelope intended to drag Amarantha’s reputation down with my own.”

Jay watched Hraustrekr’s expression carefully as his gaze shifted to the letter held up in her right hand. She still wasn’t sure if the prince was involved in the plot or not. It was possible that he was completely oblivious to Colgrave’s plotting, but she doubted that highly. In her opinion, it was more likely that he was aware of the duke’s antipathy towards Jadis and was tacitly allowing him to take actions that had the potential to benefit the prince, should the plans succeed, but was otherwise disconnected and therefore separated enough that he couldn’t be implicated if things went wrong. And yet, it was also possible that the prince was fully involved and had known about the plan from the start. In fact, he could even be the origin of the idea for all Jadis knew.

Whatever the case, Hraustrekr’s expression was too closed for Jadis to get even a hint of what he was thinking.

“Let me see,” the prince commanded as he held out his hand.

Jay stepped close to the round table and passed the letter to the elf. She had no fear of him trying to destroy the evidence; even if he was directly involved, he wouldn’t take such a stupid and pointless action. Jadis had more evidence than the letter to use against Colgrave thanks to Ned, a fact that she didn’t need to mention for an experienced negotiator like Hraustrekr to assume was the case. No point in laying the whole hand bare without a few extra cards up her sleeve, as Maeve put it.

The prince took his time reading the letter, then more time examining the hidden message, even going so far as to pull out a few trinkets from a small lockbox that Jadis assumed were enchanted tools to use on the paper and envelope. What the enchantments told him, Jadis didn’t know, but after a few minutes Hraustrekr tossed both the letter and the small crystal with a metal handle he had been using to examine it onto the table before placing both hands on his hips. With eyes narrowed, he regarded Jay with a lion’s stolid intensity.

“You have evidence of a crime, with witness testimony to support said evidence. The natural course of action for any citizen would be to take such evidence to the local magistrate. I know you have no trouble getting the attention of Eldingholt’s magistrate whenever you wish. And yet, you bring these claims and these evidences to me. So, once more, I am forced to ask the question. What do you want, Lady Jadis?”

“I want this to stop.”

“Stop?” Hraustrekr raised his eyebrow. “Stop what? What is it that you want to stop?”

“This,” Jay motioned at the letter. “All of this,” she motioned again, this time at the prince. “I don’t want people making up lies about me, I don’t want people spying on me and selling my personal details to cultists, and I don’t want nobles trying to put a collar around my neck so they can satisfy their own lust for power.”

Jay kept her voice calm and even as she spoke, showing none of the frustration and anger that she felt inside. She didn’t want to get into a screaming match with the prince. She wasn’t there to fight. She had come to Prince Hraustrekr to make a deal, and a hot temper wouldn’t help with that goal.

“I just want to be left alone,” Jay stated in her most sincere terms. “And to do that, I want your help.”

“My help?” Hraustrekr looked as though he was genuinely taken aback by the request. “You wish for my help? No, no, you wish to be ‘left alone’ as you put it. Left to do as you please without consequence or reprisal, free to act and not be acted upon by others who might take issue with the changes that you bring in your wake. You wish for immunity to the wants and desires of those who do not share your beliefs, a feat that not even an emperor can achieve, and you wish for my help in accomplishing this impossible task.”

Jay grimaced, biting her tongue to keep from snapping at the man. Then, after taking a deep breath and releasing it, she nodded once towards the prince.

“You’re right. I do wish for that. I wish I could have all of that. I think probably everyone does, at least sometimes. Wishing everything could always go their way and that they could just ignore anyone who disagrees with them. But I know that’s not how life works. It’s no different for shoemakers nor kings. I don’t think even the gods have that kind of freedom.”

Leaning forward, Jay took her helmet out from under her left arm and set it on the table, letting the weight of her hand rest on the crest as she stared hard at Hraustrekr.

“All of that said, I still want it to stop. And I’m still going to do everything in my power to make shit like this stop,” she motioned with her right hand at the letter that lay on the table between them. “And I’m giving you a chance to help me.”

“Giving me a chance?” Hraustrekr repeated, his expression colder than steel.

“Yes, a chance,” Jay nodded. “I could have gone to Vraekae with this. More importantly, I could have gone to your father with this. I still could. You know he’d listen to me.”

“Yes, yes he would listen to you, wouldn’t he?” the prince snapped before she could continue. “And you would get everything that you would want, I’m sure.”

Spreading his arms out to either side, the gold-skinned elf’s gesture seemed to not just encompass his tent but the whole of the imperial army.

“Just as you wanted in Glanum, just as you hoped for in Volto. Now the empire is moved to defend the feckless fools who neighbor her. Now we are forced to march to war before we are ready and for the benefit of those who would slide knives into our backs at the first opportunity. Do you even—”

“I’m not here to argue with you about Rubaline!”

Jay’s shout was sharp and, if there were no wards to prevent it, loud enough that Jadis was sure that everyone within a hundred yards would have heard it. Closing her eyes and breathing deeply through her nose, Jay ruthlessly suppressed her outburst.

“I can’t convince you that you’re wrong about how you’ve been handling this invasion, and you can’t convince me that I’m wrong in my own opinion. I’m not here for that debate. It’s out of both of our hands now, anyway.”

“Yes, it is,” Hraustrekr agreed. “For now.”

“For now.”

Taking another moment to just breathe, Jay straightened her own posture and tried again. She didn’t smile at Hraustrekr. She couldn’t bring herself to do that. But she did her best to keep Princess Lynn in mind, as well as the image of the man who had earned such a kind woman’s love.

“I want Duke Colgrave to be thrown into a prison, and I want him replaced with Elodie Brunholt.”

The laugh that came from the prince’s throat seemed to surprise her as much as him.

“Is that all?” he asked while gesturing with one hand. “I had thought you were going to ask for something more difficult, such as the moon, or perhaps the stars.”

“I’m serious,” Jay pressed forward. “Look, he’s a fucking pest who won’t stop trying to entrap me in his convoluted schemes and, more importantly to you, keeps failing at it. While his actions were at most a minor nuisance to you before, now they’re a real threat to your own reputation. Can you really afford to have the head of one of the most powerful families backing your claim to the throne acting like this? Shit, what do you think would happen if Kestil found out about this?”

Hraustrekr’s eyes flashed at the mention of his brother, but Jay kept going before he could snap.

“Not that I want to tell him about this. I’m not even trying to blackmail you here. I think that shit’s gross and I don’t want to be like the people who keep trying to do it to me. I really am just offering you a chance to work with me on something that would benefit us both.”

“And how, exactly, would replacing Duke Colgrave with his scheming goose of a granddaughter be to my benefit?”

“Well, for one thing,” Jay crossed her arms over her chest, “I’m actually kind of on good terms with that goose. But more than that, I’m on definitely much better terms with that goose’s fiancé.”

The reminder that Jadis had a good relationship with the Hero and his companions wasn’t exactly subtle, but it was important to her point that it was made clear.

“Maybe you didn’t notice, but I tend to be a lot nicer to people I have a good relationship with. I talk nicer, I act nicer, and I give them nicer prices on the things that I’m selling. Things that you can only really get from Ahlstrom Aviation.”

Taking a stance that reflected her own, Hraustrekr crossed his arms over his chest, giving Jay a calculating look.

“Elodie Brunholt isn’t even in line to take the Colgrave title. Her uncle is the inheritor. And even if he were to decline the title, it would then go to Colgrave’s daughter, Vanessa Brunholt, and her simpleton of a husband.”

“By normal means, sure,” Jay shrugged. “A duke can choose who he passes his title to, though, just like the emperor. He doesn’t have to go with the firstborn. He doesn’t even have to go with a child. He could go with a grandchild, if he felt it was the best thing for the family. And considering Elodie is going to be married to Ludger, the best friend and closest companion of the Hero Wilhelm, maybe she really is the best choice for head of the household.”

“Maybe she is,” Hraustrekr said, his tone quiet and filled with suspicion. “Such a change would be extreme, especially before the demonic invasion has ended, but the potential benefits are apparent. However, wherein lies the benefit to me?”

“Like I said before,” Jay caught herself smiling at the stubborn prig. “I do nice things for people I like. You’re a prince, aren’t you? I’m sure you have people who do your shopping for you. Even when it comes to… bigger purchases.”

Hraustrekr did not smile back at her. But he did uncross his arms. As he laid the palms of his hands onto the table and leaned forward, he gave Jay a look that could no longer be called hostile. Evaluating, yes. Scheming, possibly. But hostile? No. The look was no longer hostile.

“I’m listening.”