The problem was that Ramza had no heir. The Asvelt Empire was, without exception, a hereditary monarchy, but as far as Rosenmarie knew, Ramza had always talked about how the imperial throne ought to go to a person who truly had the makings of an emperor. Needless to say, this view of his was the height of heretical thinking and utterly unacceptable to his subjects. Most of them were naturally eager for him to take an empress into the imperial family and produce a son who would inherit the throne. But Ramza had always said it would only breed conflict and stubbornly refused to listen. The Asvelt Empire had enjoyed the rule of generations of good emperors, but that was not to say that, in the empire’s long history, conflict had never broken out over the succession.
Tempus Fugit 888. The attempted assassination of the third prince had spawned a conflict now commonly remembered as the Labyrinth of Night Mist that had, in less than a month, grown into a civil war that tore the empire asunder. After several years, the third prince had defeated the first prince’s forces, taking the throne as Emperor Ramza X. As the Record of the Asvelt Empire had it, there had been unspeakable bloodshed, and neither nobles nor commoners had been spared. If a foreign nation had chosen that period to mount an invasion, the Asvelt Empire would have faced its darkest hour since its founding. But it seemed no such attack had come. In that grim age, the winds of war tore through the whole of the continent. In Rosenmarie’s analysis, they had all been too preoccupied to go to the trouble of invading a region with no resources to speak of.
The empire’s produced its fair share of good emperors, but it’s easy to insert meaning into what’s passed. Anyone who thinks we’ll have good emperors forever and ever is either a massive fool or the world’s biggest optimist.
One only had to look at the current state of Fernest to know the fate of a country ruled by a dullard. And Rosenmarie, on a personal level, was not as much a patriot as Felix or the late Gladden. Still, it was precisely because she had seen up close how Ramza, driven by fear for the future of the empire, had devoted himself to the affairs of the realm that she had sworn him her wholehearted loyalty. It had been a move quite unlike herself, really.
Then there’s the next thing—Felix and the Azure Knights’ defection. That makes even less sense than a new emperor...
Felix’s absolute loyalty to Ramza was plain as day, but that by itself was not a reason to stir up rebellion against the empire. If everything Oscar had told her could be believed, then it was a direct line from refusing to acknowledge Darmés as emperor to refusing to acknowledge Ramza’s own word. The Azure Knights would not have followed him as far as to mark themselves as traitors, not to mention that Felix would never have held his position among the empire’s Three Generals in the first place if he were so shortsighted.
There must be a reason for why the Azure Knights chose to go along with Felix’s rebellion. Much as I get the feeling it’d be fastest to get the story from the man himself... Well, in any case, I’m sure I’m right about the emperor.
But when she offered her theory about Ramza’s death being due to illness, Oscar dismissed it right away.
“What? It wasn’t illness, then?”
“It was not, my lady.”
“Then some sudden accident?”
“Not that either. I was told that His Imperial Highness himself announced his intention to abdicate and named Chancellor Darmés as successor to the throne.”
“I’m finding it hard to swallow any of this,” Rosenmarie muttered at length. Everyone knew how deeply Ramza had trusted Darmés. But short of an illness or an unforeseen accident, abdicating while they were still in the middle of war was completely and utterly unnatural. The current conflict had begun when Ramza had declared his intention to unify Duvedirica. Bluntly put, abdicating the throne without seeing through to its conclusion a war that he himself had instigated was intolerably selfish.
“I think as you do, my lady. But with the abdication ceremony over and the coronation having followed it in short order, dismissing the story as a fabrication might prove difficult.”
“And then Felix found it even harder to swallow than I did, so he raised a rebellion against our new emperor Darmés. Is that the way of it?”
“Guessing at Lord Felix’s reasoning is beyond my poor intellect, but it seems the Azure Knights did clash with the emperor’s direct forces in an early engagement on the outskirts of the capital.”
“Direct forces?” It took Rosenmarie a moment. “Oh, the army under that ghastly woman’s command.”
Once, at Darmés’s introduction, she had exchanged a few words with Lieutenant General Flora Ray, who commanded his direct force. Rosenmarie remembered her as being pale as a corpse and sounding when she spoke as though she had left her emotions behind somewhere. It seemed she had originally headed the intelligence division that Darmés had established independently of the shimmers. This was only something Rosenmarie had happened to overhear, so how true it was she didn’t know, but what was certain either way was that she had not gotten a good impression of the woman.
“I was told that the actual battle ended in a series of scattered skirmishes...” Oscar spoke evasively in a way that wasn’t like him. Rosenmarie jerked her chin up, indicating for him to continue.
“Apparently, while these skirmishes played out, Lord Felix stole into Listelein Castle...” He hesitated. “Well, if you’ll forgive my cutting to the point, it appears he kidnapped His Imperial Highness, former emperor Ramza.”