“Isn’t that just crazy!”
In Alfonso's room after Raphael left, Elko screamed as if he couldn't control his anger.
Some of it was because he was genuinely angry, but mostly it was to solidify Alfonso and the rest of the knights' bad image of Raphael.
“Despite that bastard’s betrayal, the Prince treated him like a human being and even gave him an audience, so who is going to curse at whom?”
However, it was true that Raphael was rash. Neither Sir Bernardino nor Sir Manfredi were willing to take Raphael's side.
“Elko. Let’s do it gently, gently.”
“Is this the time to be gentle? That guy went and swore at the Prince!!”
Sir Bernardino, having failed to persuade Elko, changed the subject altogether to get his attention.
“If you want to accept the invitation of the Marquis Guatieri, the Prince must move now.”
“Yes, Elko. Stop being so angry and get things done first.”
Sir Manfredi also joined in to sort out the situation.
“Let’s move quickly.”
Sir Manfredi tapped the wall with his scabbard to signal. He was still not used to the palace, even though he had a good rope.
But the skilled palace attendants rushed in despite the crude signal and helped the Prince with his grooming.
As more and more eyes started to watch, Elko was also unable to bring up sensitive topics anymore.
Alfonso was also more familiar with the battlefield and armor than with the palace. He wanted the intervention of his servants to be minimal.
As soon as the rough draft of what could be called a palace-style garb was completed, Alfonso stood up, dismissing his attendants.
“Let’s go.”
But the grooming certainly had some positive aspects that could only be enjoyed in the capital.
Surrounded by people and forced to keep his mouth shut, Alfonso's anger cooled down.
Alfonso walked through the palace grounds and out the main gate with his mouth tightly shut.
The guards all chanted a slogan to mark the Prince's departure, and the Prince and his knights passed before the guards, who were arrayed in a stately manner.
On his way to the Marquis of Guatieri, Alfonso chose a horse, not a carriage. Sir Elko also accompanied him on the way, not because he was a member of the gathering, but because he insisted on it.
Because he had a disability, he could not appear at official functions.
So, he had no choice but to insist on resting in the palace and accompany him only to the main gate.
“Elko.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
But Elko soon regretted not going along with them.
“We were talking about money earlier.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“What kind of money are Raphael talking about?”
Alfonso added.
“Was there any gold from Countess de Mare?”
The Prince usually did not repeat himself when talking to his subordinates, but he asked in such detail.
Elko felt a chill down his spine for a moment, but he habitually licked his lips and answered as usual.
“No way, Your Highness. If there was something like that, how could we not have known about it?”
Alfonso did not answer, but his brow furrowed and his thick lips were pressed together in a straight line.
From the Prince's profile, Elko realized that he was not persuaded.
“Wasn’t the gold that Baldessar brought the money sent by the ‘Etruscan Parish of the Holy Emperor’?”
Elko's speech became long. It seemed that further persuasion was needed.
“That woman... isn’t the father of the Countess de Mare Cardinal de Mare? He is the head of the diocese of San Carlo and the head of the branch of the Etruscan Holy See, so she asked my father to help the Prince, so it’s her fault, isn’t it?”
Elko started talking nonsense without anyone asking him to.
“No, but what kind of person is Cardinal de Mare that he would make a decision about important matters in the Holy See just because his daughter is a little bit swayed? He even killed his own wife! Isn’t it completely absurd for him to claim credit for that?”
At the mention of 'the man who killed his wife', Alfonso glanced at Elko.
The rumor that Cardinal de Mare had killed his mistress Lucrezia, who had been embroiled in a scandal, with his own hands was spreading like wildfire in high society.
So, it wasn't that much of a secret.
However, Elko had no social connections. He was not of noble birth, nor did he have any close aristocratic friends.
Alfonso asked abruptly.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
"Yes?"
Elko was momentarily taken aback by Alfonso's question. He thought it was a question he would never hear in his life.
He finally answered with difficulty.
“Who would come to a disabled person like me...”
Alfonso looked ahead again.
Judging from his expression, it's not a lie. If he thinks about Elko's movements, there's no particular woman he meets.
Where on earth did Elko hear all these stories if he hadn't had a new lover from a noble family?
“Sir Dino.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Didn’t Sir Dino originally manage my schedule?”
“It was like that when I was in the palace.”
In Yesak, since Sir Bernardino had to hold the sword, all such chores fell to Sir Elko.
“I’m back. Sir Dino, take care of me.”
In Alfonso's memory, Cardinal de Mare was clearly on the list of people to be invited to an audience.
'The timing of the request for an audience with the Cardinal is strange.'
If Sir Elko's account is true, Cardinal de Mare was the person with the greatest stake in Prince Alfonso's return to glory.
The gold sent by the Etruscan branch of the Holy See played a major role in transforming Prince Alfonso's force from a collection of barely surviving knights into a properly organized Black Helmet Unit.
If so, the Cardinal should have been the first to visit the Prince when he set up camp outside the walls of San Carlo.
No investor just invests and doesn't receive any reward. Even if there is, it's not Cardinal ee Mare.
In fact, it was unusual for such a large investor to make no demands at all while the Prince was fighting a war in Yesak.
'Even the Marquis of Guatieri appeared outside the walls.'
All those who wanted to line up for the Prince showed up in advance while Alfonso was standing outside the walls.
An investment of 100,000 gold ducats was a huge sum of money. It was impossible for someone who had already made a bet so firmly in advance not to show up.
'Dino and Elko do things differently.'
Alfonso suspected that Sir Elko had prevented Cardinal de Mare's visit and had deliberately postponed the audience.
Elko was the type to look into everything and prepare for it himself.
While it was comfortable because things went smoothly without any specific instructions, there was a tendency to cross the line a bit.
Alfonso sometimes felt like he was given less information when working with Elko.
On the other hand, Sir Dino had no way of knowing what Alfonso was thinking. If there was something he was not sure about, he would always check with Alfonso himself before proceeding.
It wasn't suitable for entrusting something to someone in a big way, but it was good for Alfonso to be able to see things through with him so that he wouldn't miss anything.
'Now that we're back at the palace, it's time to reorganize the personnel.'
Elko's loyalty was beyond doubt, so he was left alone without being replaced, but now, meeting people and making plans became much more important than running around the battlefield.
Alfonso decided to take care of this part himself.
'If it is true that Elko changed the timing of the audience at will...'
So when he met Cardinal de Mare, he would be very angry, because he would be receiving gold without paying anything in return.
Thinking this far, Alfonso suddenly felt like throwing everything away.
On the battlefield, his head was clearer. At that time, everyone had to fight together, win, and advance, and that was the end of it.
'It's hard.'
Alfonso was in a very depressed state.
The sight of Raphael running away made him feel suffocated, but the thought of where Raphael would go made him feel doubly suffocated.
'...It's obvious.'
Raphael would head straight for Ariadne. Alfonso knew Raphael very well.
A friend who cannot be understood, but understanding and predicting behavior patterns are separate things.
“Your Highness, I think I will have to stay with you until here.”
Alfonso raised his head at Elko's voice. He was already at the main entrance of the Marquis Guatieri's residence.
Now it was time to shed the façade of the capable Prince and undefeated commander once again.
"Let's go."
It was time to hear what the Marquis of Guatieri, who was qualified to convey the voice of the great lords, had to offer to Prince Alfonso.
"Ari!"
Ariadne saw Raphael rush into her study, grumbling. She could tell from his expression that something was wrong.
And the clever Ariadne only had to look at this to realize what kind of news Raphael had brought.
She wanted to run away.
She wasn't ready to know the truth yet.
“Ari! I’m just returning from the palace.”
She didn't want to know that Alfonso had forgotten her, that he didn't love her. She didn't want to know that the unshakable truth was that she couldn't be with Alfonso.
“I talked to Alfonso.”
Raphael's face appeared lumpy as if he were looking through a badly cut pane of glass.
“Ari, it was my fault. I went for nothing!”
But Raphael angrily pronounced the verdict.
“It’s true that Alfonso is married!”
Ah.
“The other person is Princess Lariesa!”
Bad feelings come true.
“I was wrong about the person!”
So this is what happens in the end.
Raphael's voice continued to be heard, but it felt unreal, like something she was hearing in a dream.
“Alfonso is a real bad guy!”
No. Don't say it.
“Ari, how can Alfonso hit us in the back of the head like this after all we’ve done for him?”
Don't let me hear it.
“It was so dirty and lethal... You should have seen that look on his face! That bastard...”
Don't even curse at that guy. I just want to be stuck in time forever, floating around in a purgatory with no conclusion.
An unfinished story has hope in itself.
“Seeing that Cesare bastard keep coming up, I feel like I’ve grown up to be a dirty, petty man...”
She wanted to ask Raphael to stop talking. But she was afraid to do so. For some reason, her throat was choked up and shr couldn't speak.
Raphael was a man who believed in logic above all else. If she were to get caught up in her emotions and close her ears to the facts, Raphael might be disappointed in her.
For the past four years, Raphael has been Ariadne's business partner, comrade, and best friend.
It was a relationship that started because of Julia, but now she was closer to Raphael than to Julia.
If she were to lose touch with Raphael, Ariadne would have no one left with whom she could openly share her views.
Humans cannot live alone. Ariadne, who did not like people very much, was aware of this.
Raphael's voice boomed from afar.
“He took the gold like that... It wasn’t just you who gave him military funds, but Lariesa as well, so there’s no need to repay that favor...”
Raphael's voice moved away and closer, repeating.
Ariadne had a hard time deciding if this was her problem or if Raphael's voice was objectively muffled.
So Ariadne couldn't believe her ears when she heard the next sentence.
“Ari, engage with me!”
In Alfonso's room after Raphael left, Elko screamed as if he couldn't control his anger.
Some of it was because he was genuinely angry, but mostly it was to solidify Alfonso and the rest of the knights' bad image of Raphael.
“Despite that bastard’s betrayal, the Prince treated him like a human being and even gave him an audience, so who is going to curse at whom?”
However, it was true that Raphael was rash. Neither Sir Bernardino nor Sir Manfredi were willing to take Raphael's side.
“Elko. Let’s do it gently, gently.”
“Is this the time to be gentle? That guy went and swore at the Prince!!”
Sir Bernardino, having failed to persuade Elko, changed the subject altogether to get his attention.
“If you want to accept the invitation of the Marquis Guatieri, the Prince must move now.”
“Yes, Elko. Stop being so angry and get things done first.”
Sir Manfredi also joined in to sort out the situation.
“Let’s move quickly.”
Sir Manfredi tapped the wall with his scabbard to signal. He was still not used to the palace, even though he had a good rope.
But the skilled palace attendants rushed in despite the crude signal and helped the Prince with his grooming.
As more and more eyes started to watch, Elko was also unable to bring up sensitive topics anymore.
Alfonso was also more familiar with the battlefield and armor than with the palace. He wanted the intervention of his servants to be minimal.
As soon as the rough draft of what could be called a palace-style garb was completed, Alfonso stood up, dismissing his attendants.
“Let’s go.”
But the grooming certainly had some positive aspects that could only be enjoyed in the capital.
Surrounded by people and forced to keep his mouth shut, Alfonso's anger cooled down.
Alfonso walked through the palace grounds and out the main gate with his mouth tightly shut.
The guards all chanted a slogan to mark the Prince's departure, and the Prince and his knights passed before the guards, who were arrayed in a stately manner.
On his way to the Marquis of Guatieri, Alfonso chose a horse, not a carriage. Sir Elko also accompanied him on the way, not because he was a member of the gathering, but because he insisted on it.
Because he had a disability, he could not appear at official functions.
So, he had no choice but to insist on resting in the palace and accompany him only to the main gate.
“Elko.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
But Elko soon regretted not going along with them.
“We were talking about money earlier.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“What kind of money are Raphael talking about?”
Alfonso added.
“Was there any gold from Countess de Mare?”
The Prince usually did not repeat himself when talking to his subordinates, but he asked in such detail.
Elko felt a chill down his spine for a moment, but he habitually licked his lips and answered as usual.
“No way, Your Highness. If there was something like that, how could we not have known about it?”
Alfonso did not answer, but his brow furrowed and his thick lips were pressed together in a straight line.
From the Prince's profile, Elko realized that he was not persuaded.
“Wasn’t the gold that Baldessar brought the money sent by the ‘Etruscan Parish of the Holy Emperor’?”
Elko's speech became long. It seemed that further persuasion was needed.
“That woman... isn’t the father of the Countess de Mare Cardinal de Mare? He is the head of the diocese of San Carlo and the head of the branch of the Etruscan Holy See, so she asked my father to help the Prince, so it’s her fault, isn’t it?”
Elko started talking nonsense without anyone asking him to.
“No, but what kind of person is Cardinal de Mare that he would make a decision about important matters in the Holy See just because his daughter is a little bit swayed? He even killed his own wife! Isn’t it completely absurd for him to claim credit for that?”
At the mention of 'the man who killed his wife', Alfonso glanced at Elko.
The rumor that Cardinal de Mare had killed his mistress Lucrezia, who had been embroiled in a scandal, with his own hands was spreading like wildfire in high society.
So, it wasn't that much of a secret.
However, Elko had no social connections. He was not of noble birth, nor did he have any close aristocratic friends.
Alfonso asked abruptly.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
"Yes?"
Elko was momentarily taken aback by Alfonso's question. He thought it was a question he would never hear in his life.
He finally answered with difficulty.
“Who would come to a disabled person like me...”
Alfonso looked ahead again.
Judging from his expression, it's not a lie. If he thinks about Elko's movements, there's no particular woman he meets.
Where on earth did Elko hear all these stories if he hadn't had a new lover from a noble family?
“Sir Dino.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Didn’t Sir Dino originally manage my schedule?”
“It was like that when I was in the palace.”
In Yesak, since Sir Bernardino had to hold the sword, all such chores fell to Sir Elko.
“I’m back. Sir Dino, take care of me.”
In Alfonso's memory, Cardinal de Mare was clearly on the list of people to be invited to an audience.
'The timing of the request for an audience with the Cardinal is strange.'
If Sir Elko's account is true, Cardinal de Mare was the person with the greatest stake in Prince Alfonso's return to glory.
The gold sent by the Etruscan branch of the Holy See played a major role in transforming Prince Alfonso's force from a collection of barely surviving knights into a properly organized Black Helmet Unit.
If so, the Cardinal should have been the first to visit the Prince when he set up camp outside the walls of San Carlo.
No investor just invests and doesn't receive any reward. Even if there is, it's not Cardinal ee Mare.
In fact, it was unusual for such a large investor to make no demands at all while the Prince was fighting a war in Yesak.
'Even the Marquis of Guatieri appeared outside the walls.'
All those who wanted to line up for the Prince showed up in advance while Alfonso was standing outside the walls.
An investment of 100,000 gold ducats was a huge sum of money. It was impossible for someone who had already made a bet so firmly in advance not to show up.
'Dino and Elko do things differently.'
Alfonso suspected that Sir Elko had prevented Cardinal de Mare's visit and had deliberately postponed the audience.
Elko was the type to look into everything and prepare for it himself.
While it was comfortable because things went smoothly without any specific instructions, there was a tendency to cross the line a bit.
Alfonso sometimes felt like he was given less information when working with Elko.
On the other hand, Sir Dino had no way of knowing what Alfonso was thinking. If there was something he was not sure about, he would always check with Alfonso himself before proceeding.
It wasn't suitable for entrusting something to someone in a big way, but it was good for Alfonso to be able to see things through with him so that he wouldn't miss anything.
'Now that we're back at the palace, it's time to reorganize the personnel.'
Elko's loyalty was beyond doubt, so he was left alone without being replaced, but now, meeting people and making plans became much more important than running around the battlefield.
Alfonso decided to take care of this part himself.
'If it is true that Elko changed the timing of the audience at will...'
So when he met Cardinal de Mare, he would be very angry, because he would be receiving gold without paying anything in return.
Thinking this far, Alfonso suddenly felt like throwing everything away.
On the battlefield, his head was clearer. At that time, everyone had to fight together, win, and advance, and that was the end of it.
'It's hard.'
Alfonso was in a very depressed state.
The sight of Raphael running away made him feel suffocated, but the thought of where Raphael would go made him feel doubly suffocated.
'...It's obvious.'
Raphael would head straight for Ariadne. Alfonso knew Raphael very well.
A friend who cannot be understood, but understanding and predicting behavior patterns are separate things.
“Your Highness, I think I will have to stay with you until here.”
Alfonso raised his head at Elko's voice. He was already at the main entrance of the Marquis Guatieri's residence.
Now it was time to shed the façade of the capable Prince and undefeated commander once again.
"Let's go."
It was time to hear what the Marquis of Guatieri, who was qualified to convey the voice of the great lords, had to offer to Prince Alfonso.
***
"Ari!"
Ariadne saw Raphael rush into her study, grumbling. She could tell from his expression that something was wrong.
And the clever Ariadne only had to look at this to realize what kind of news Raphael had brought.
She wanted to run away.
She wasn't ready to know the truth yet.
“Ari! I’m just returning from the palace.”
She didn't want to know that Alfonso had forgotten her, that he didn't love her. She didn't want to know that the unshakable truth was that she couldn't be with Alfonso.
“I talked to Alfonso.”
Raphael's face appeared lumpy as if he were looking through a badly cut pane of glass.
“Ari, it was my fault. I went for nothing!”
His ragged breathing sounded incredibly loud. Ariadne wanted to beg him to stop, to stop, to stop. She doesn't want to hear it.
“It’s true that Alfonso is married!”
Ah.
“The other person is Princess Lariesa!”
Bad feelings come true.
“I was wrong about the person!”
So this is what happens in the end.
Raphael's voice continued to be heard, but it felt unreal, like something she was hearing in a dream.
“Alfonso is a real bad guy!”
No. Don't say it.
“Ari, how can Alfonso hit us in the back of the head like this after all we’ve done for him?”
Don't let me hear it.
“It was so dirty and lethal... You should have seen that look on his face! That bastard...”
Don't even curse at that guy. I just want to be stuck in time forever, floating around in a purgatory with no conclusion.
An unfinished story has hope in itself.
“Seeing that Cesare bastard keep coming up, I feel like I’ve grown up to be a dirty, petty man...”
She wanted to ask Raphael to stop talking. But she was afraid to do so. For some reason, her throat was choked up and shr couldn't speak.
Raphael was a man who believed in logic above all else. If she were to get caught up in her emotions and close her ears to the facts, Raphael might be disappointed in her.
For the past four years, Raphael has been Ariadne's business partner, comrade, and best friend.
It was a relationship that started because of Julia, but now she was closer to Raphael than to Julia.
If she were to lose touch with Raphael, Ariadne would have no one left with whom she could openly share her views.
Humans cannot live alone. Ariadne, who did not like people very much, was aware of this.
Raphael's voice boomed from afar.
“He took the gold like that... It wasn’t just you who gave him military funds, but Lariesa as well, so there’s no need to repay that favor...”
Raphael's voice moved away and closer, repeating.
Ariadne had a hard time deciding if this was her problem or if Raphael's voice was objectively muffled.
So Ariadne couldn't believe her ears when she heard the next sentence.
“Ari, engage with me!”
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