But Solye was the king. The throne he never wanted still weighed him down with responsibilities he had never asked for. Herscherik could easily imagine his father, being far too kind, tormented endlessly by those responsibilities. He saw Solye as a very gentle and kind man. The people of his country, though, must have only seen their king as a bumbling fool. Herscherik finally realized that his father had not changed out of his clothes from the party yesterday and figured that he must have stayed up by his fireplace all night, troubled by the event. Looking, perhaps, for some way to save Ruseria.
“...Then why doesn’t the king get rid of the bad guy?”
Have him executed without a trial. A king, a man with that kind of power, could do it. Even though Herscherik knew that it was the wrong thing to do, he had to ask.
With a sad smile, his father stroked the head of his youngest son.
“Because then, the king would be a dictator. Not a king. I would rather be a fool of a king than a dictator... I don’t want to become what he is.” Drawing a line of morality—that was the only thing Solye could be proud of in his life and in his reign. “I really am the worst king there is...” Defeated, Solye confessed how he truly felt.
Even as he resigned himself to taking orders from his puppeteer, he couldn’t afford to follow every order. No matter how he was disrespected, Solye was still the king. Though it took a heavy toll on his mind, the king had always played a delicate game of parley with the minister and his men. For the most part, all of the nobles that opposed the minister had been dispatched from their positions or exiled from the capital and the political scene. Some had fallen to illness or accidents. This led to Solye facing the minister’s gang alone, with no hope of anyone backing him up. Whenever they proposed policies only designed for their personal gains, for example, the king did everything he could to minimize the damage to his people. Still, the kingdom was gradually rotting from the inside and sinking into the mud. On his own, Solye couldn’t stop his country from crumbling away.
“But I still...” Wanted to protect the people I love. Solye’s drained and painful expression finished his sentence for him.
A king and a dictator may appear similar in nature, but they were separated by an uncrossable line. Even if Solye made himself a dictator and took out the puppeteer in the shadows without just cause, it would only create another abscess that ate away at the country. When a similar situation would inevitably arise again, Solye would be forced to use his power again, this time without justice. As a result, his unchecked power would only deteriorate the country further and bring about its doom. There were many countries that had ended this way in the world Herscherik inhabited in his previous life. He did understand the state of his nation and his father’s predicament. Still, he couldn’t let it go.
“But...! But!”
What about Count Ruseria!?
Herscherik’s eyes were flooded again with tears that he thought had dried up. Faced with the fact that he was his father’s heaviest shackle and the reality that he could do nothing about it, a sense of powerlessness overtook Herscherik. He dove into his father’s arms. He hated himself for not being able to do anything but cry... which made even more tears streak down his cheeks.
The mare simply watched the father and son from afar.
When his master returned to the room, the butler with the deeper-than-emerald steel-colored hair, Rook, greeted them with a perfect bow.
“Welcome back, Your Majesty.”
He looked up with his nearly black eyes to find Solye carrying the Seventh Prince Herscherik, who had cried himself to sleep.
“Thank you. Can you make my bed, please? And let Meria know. She must be worried.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
With a short reply, Rook immediately headed into the bedroom to make the bed. That being said, Solye hadn’t slept a wink the previous night, so he practically just had to run his hand over the comforter.
After Rook left his quarters, Solye gently lowered his son down onto his bed and tucked him in. With one finger, the king wiped away the tear streaks on Herscherik’s cheeks and stroked his hair. Each and every movement Solye made overflowed with his love for his son. He silently stepped out of the bedroom and closed the door before letting out a long sigh.
Perhaps it was too early to tell him.
He knew that he had to tell Herscherik the truth sooner or later... He thought he knew that, but he didn’t realize how soon that day would come. Solye trudged to the sofa and sat down, letting out another long sigh. After silence had ruled the room for a few moments, Rook returned.
“How was Meria?” Solye asked, recalling how the brunette and small-statured Meria had served as the only lady-in-waiting to Herscherik’s mother.
She wasn’t of noble birth but a commoner from the countryside who began working at the castle after graduating from the academy with excellent grades. A woman of her status would not have had a chance of working in the royal quarters if it hadn’t been for the insistence of the king’s favorite wife, who wanted her to serve as her lady-in-waiting. This meant that Meria had no connections to the nobility nor any influence from the minister’s allies. She was someone Solye could trust, and she had even volunteered to serve as Herscherik’s nanny.
“She was worried, but I let her know that the prince is here.” After a beat, Rook continued in the tone of a concerned friend, “...Did you tell him everything, Solye?” Rook was, in fact, concerned for the king who now wore a morose expression. Rook was the king’s only confidant, his childhood friend, and one of the very few men he could trust. “Did you mind your surroundings?”
Solye nodded at his confidant who had given him a sharp glare. “Just to be safe, I searched the area and set up a barrier before telling him... Besides, they wouldn’t expect me to have such a weighty conversation with a three-year-old.”
“Right... I never expected your youngest prince to be the first one to ask you.”
Rook had also expected the princes and princesses to realize the state of their country and come demanding their father of some answers. But neither Rook nor Solye had expected the youngest to beat everyone else to the punch. They would have bet that the First Prince would have been the one to come to him first, within the next few years or so. Their expectations about the timing of it aside, Solye had always been determined to tell his children the complete truth when they asked for it. That was his responsibility as a king and father. The rest he would leave up to each child to decide—whether to remain a member of the royal family or forsake their position to live free... or to join the minister, even.
Come to think of it, Hersch was always a little different than his brothers.
Until he was one year old, he had grown up similarly to the rest of Solye’s children. After that point, though, he seldom cried. Instead, Solye had noticed that Herscherik often followed people with his eyes, as if to observe their temperament. As soon as he could stand, he started changing and eating on his own, too. Herscherik did occasionally show some childish stubbornness, but he mostly behaved very well. He never threw a tantrum; he kept his emotion in check like an adult. Come to think of it, Herscherik had grown up so fast that even his childish demands seemed like an act at times.
Now, Solye recalled that Herscherik had always seemed timid or embarrassed when he saw him. For a while he was concerned that his son disliked him, but when he’d asked Meria about it and discovered that the prince acted the same way toward her, Solye was quite relieved. It seemed as though Herscherik somehow did not know how to be a child. Still, Herscherik was the one that came to him this morning, showing his emotions practically for the first time, begging him to save Ruseria.
“But the prince is only three. Didn’t you think to play it off?” You should have, Rook thought, criticizing Solye with his eyes. Herscherik was so young that Rook couldn’t help but give his master such a glance.
“Not after he looked at me like he did,” Solye shook his head.
He had considered for a moment how to dodge the question, thinking Herscherik was much too young. At first, he did consider postponing the conversation. But, as soon as he saw Herscherik’s unwavering, teary eyes, Solye knew that his son wouldn’t be satisfied with a cheap excuse. Besides, he could easily imagine that Herscherik would never back down unless he explained the cruel reality of how the marionette king could not save the count.
“What’s on the docket today?”
“...After breakfast, you have a meeting with Minister Barbosse. Regarding Count Ruseria.”
“All right.” Solye let out another long sigh.
The true ruler of the castle struck while the iron was hot. Solye suspected that Barbosse intended to finish the job before the king had any time to react. In fact, the minister must have orchestrated this outcome. More than anybody, Solye knew what kind of man he was dealing with.
And I couldn’t do anything about it...
The sense of powerlessness that had become so familiar since his coronation overwhelmed Solye once again. All through the night, he had tried to find a way out for the count, to no avail. That’s how thoroughly Barbosse had prepared to frame Ruseria. Solye imagined that he must have gotten hold of some incredibly damning evidence to make Barbosse pull out all the stops like this. Barbosse was going to make sure Ruseria was disposed of, and the king knew that the minister would force him to dig the count’s grave alongside him.
All because I’m powerless...
Putting all of his weight onto the couch, Solye gazed up at the ceiling. Torn up by his feeling of powerlessness, the king sighed heavily. As he lay there in silence, Rook proposed, “...Solye. If you wish, I can take the count and...”
“No,” Solye interrupted his old friend in a stoic tone he rarely employed.
“But...”
“If you do, he’ll come after you... I should be the only one who lives with this guilt.”
As his friend tried to argue, Solye turned his eyes to him, stopping him with the shake of the head. Rook could feasibly help Ruseria escape. He could get the count out of prison and hide him in his family home far from the capital. If he went through with that, though, Rook and his family would be Barbosse’s next target. The Febvres, Rook’s family, had already been forced out of the capital by the minister. They were lucky to be alive. Some nobles that opposed Barbosse had ended up dying or losing their titles as their land or business mysteriously failed.