“We’ve received a report from Rob,” Nia said. “It appears that they’ve taken the bait.”
“Seriously? That easily?”
We were inside the office of the lord’s manor in Stonegaze. Everything was going swimmingly so far, enough that it was kind of a strange letdown.
Rob, by the way, was the name of the old gardener.
“They’ve fallen for it so easily that I’m a tad worried that it’s an act.”
“Yeah, that happens. I understand how you feel, though.”
I shrugged at Nia’s worry, though not dismissively, and explained myself when she gave me a questioning look.
“People on the offensive never think that they’re going to be attacked. In the same way, people who think they’re going to set someone up never expect that they’re the ones getting set up. Balthazar and his lackey are no exception to this.”
“I see,” Nia said, thoughtful. “Now that you mention it, his personality would make it so that he would most likely just accept what he was told because it would benefit him,” she murmured her thoughts, nodding a few times in understanding before gasping. “No. It might make sense, but we shouldn’t let our guard down. Next time, we might end up falling into the same mentality.”
And this is what makes Nia and Balthazar so different, I thought to myself, marveling at Nia’s wisdom. I had just been about to warn her of the same thing, though I’d just be repeating what I’d heard.
“His Highness Prince Alphonse told me the exact same thing,” I replied. “The moment you think that you’ve caught the enemy off guard is when you’re at your most vulnerable.”
“So we shouldn’t dismiss the idea that their reaction could be their own way of luring us into a trap, yes?”
“That’s right. So we need to keep on paying attention to their movements, but in a way that still works for us, just in case they’ve really fallen for our trick,” I said.
“That’s true. It wouldn’t be good if we hesitated too much and did nothing.”
Mentioning His Highness must have made my words all the more believable, because Nia looked somewhat satisfied. When it came to matters of subterfuge, His Highness was rarely wrong. And to think he and I were the same age. Growing up in the gilded pit of noble society must have exposed him to a lot.
Anyway, this got our basic plans out of the way, but...
“But good on Rob, easily getting intel from the inside of Sylvario’s royal palace,” I said, bringing up what I’d been wondering. I knew that it had to be true if Nia was bringing it up, but I wasn’t so sure that I wouldn’t voice some thoughts as to where it came from.
Nia must have known that as well, because she answered without seeming put off. “Yes, apparently the information came from his former coworkers,” she said quite simply.
“Rob’s former coworkers,” I repeated before going silent for a moment. Then, I brought up my question, seeing as it was probably an appropriate time. “Rob’s a gardener, right?”
“Yes, he’s a gardener.”
“Not a garden keeper?”
“Hee hee, aren’t garden keepers spies from an eastern country?” Nia replied, her giggle like the ringing of a bell.
It was Nia, so her knowing about that wasn’t unusual. But the fact that she answered without a moment’s delay made me think she might’ve seen through what I was trying to ask.
“I see. So Rob is a gardener, not a garden keeper.”
“Yes. Rob is a gardener.”
Hmm. Nia had put some emphasis on Rob’s name. She was probably implying that no matter what he used to do, he wanted to be a gardener now. If that was the case, then it’d be rude to keep on prying, both to Nia and to Rob.
“Okay. Rob is a gardener. The information he gets from his contacts just happens to be correct.”
“Yes, that’s a fine way to think of it.”
Nia seemed a little bit relieved when I stopped asking questions. For someone with a past in espionage to be willing to do something as dangerous as reach out to former coworkers for intel, he must be incredibly loyal to Nia and enjoying his life here. It’d be nice if he did. And if that was the case, then as his employer, I wanted to protect both him and his current circumstances.
“But if that’s the case,” I said, “if things with the Sylvarian royal family are so bad that people are willing to forsake them like this, then the intel we’re getting must be pretty accurate.”
“It might be more accurate to say that they’re forsaking the second prince specifically. They must have deduced that his current position and plans for power would only hurt the kingdom in the long run.”
“I see, not good for the ‘kingdom,’ not the ‘royal family,’” I said for confirmation, getting a smile back from Nia. That must’ve meant I was right. “Could it be that the knights are in charge of Sylvario’s spies?”
“There are spies under the command of the knights, yes.”
“Ahh, that’s why. Which means that there are spies under Sir Eisendarque’s command.”
Now things made sense. Sir Eisendarque, the commander of Sylvario’s knights, had given up on the royal family after the mess around Princess Sonia’s disappearance, and since then he had been quietly distancing himself from them. While he had yet to do anything openly, he was apparently also gathering other Sylvarian nobles who’d lost faith in the royal family behind closed doors. This, of course, meant he had probably gotten control of the knights in his own turf, the Order of Knights, before all else... And if the spies were under his influence, then it was likely that they were trustworthy. That was also probably exactly why it was so easy for Rob to get the intel in the first place.
“Well then. I guess now all we need to do is keep an eye on how they move while we prepare for our counterattack. But they’ll probably rush into striking before they’re really ready. It’ll probably happen in a month or less.”
After all, Balthazar had to invade before his brother Elmer, the first prince, even found out what he was planning. Even if it’d be hard to notice Balthazar’s plan thanks to Gorthuk handling the procurement of war supplies, the best they could hope for would be to hide it for a month at the most. Plus, from what we knew about how many mercenaries they’d gathered, they’d probably have enough that by the time they wanted to mobilize, an invasion wouldn’t be out of the question.