“Well, what a pleasant surprise. I never dreamed a saint would grace me with her presence.”
The man in the dark cell snapped his book closed and greeted me. Jade Berklein.
He approached me, a thin smile on his face. Books were highly prized gifts in the dungeon, and though Berklein had lost his title, he still had a long list of ardent supporters—it was likely the books were from them.
“Jade Berklein, I’ve come here to ask you some questions.”
“An interrogation, eh? I like to think I answered everything honestly during the investigation. If you’ve only come here to interrogate me, I’d rather you go through the proper channels instead of using a dungeon visit as an excuse.”
“This isn’t an interrogation. I’ve come to ask you questions out of personal interest.”
Since this was unofficial and I wanted to get it done as quickly as possible, I wasn’t in any position to go through the official channels to question Berklein. Eric would conduct a proper interrogation anyway, so I didn’t think it was necessary to go through all the hassle.
“Personal interest, eh? So, what kind of questions do you have to ask a man who tried to kill you? I already gave my motive and I’ve accepted my death sentence. What more could you possibly want to ask?”
Lest we forget, he tried to kill me. I got in the way of his attempts to kill Eric, so he used Jill to try to get rid of me. Since Berklein’s plan had failed, he was now incarcerated.
“Tell me about Prince Dale. Tell me everything you know.”
“Prince Dale? Ah, so that’s your angle. That little devil Algrene is finally on the move, then.”
“Wow, you’re quite sharp. Do you know what Duke Algrene is planning?”
The day we lured Berklein into a trap, he retched in front of everyone at the party and confessed to his crimes. At the time, I thought he was a fool. But maybe I misjudged him.
Jade Berklein wasn’t just charismatic, he was brilliant. He lured devoted supporters to him in an attempt to become a major power. He very well might have slain Prince Eric if he hadn’t grossly misunderstood Jill’s nature.
In the short conversation we’d had thus far, I was already starting to amend my opinion of the man.
“Algrene was trying to kill Prince Eric just like I was—no mistaking that. There was no telling when he was going to step in and thwart me, so I always kept an eye on him.”
“Is that all?”
“Well, I could add that Algrene buttered up Prince Dale a lot. They dined together too many times to count. That’s why when you said you wanted to talk about Prince Dale, I figured Algrene had set the wheels in motion.”
That was a reasonable deduction for him to make. And he was right. Berklein was a cunning man.
“So, did Algrene use Prince Dale to start something?” he asked.
“Yes. He integrated his mercenary company into the royal guard. He did so right after the king announced he would be revoking the dukes’ special rights…”
Berklein raised an eyebrow. “Ooh, that’s a bold reform. By mercenary company, I assume you mean the elite soldiers he’s collected from across the continent?”
Prince Eric had been striving to achieve these reforms and they were the very reason he was targeted by the dukes, so Berklein must’ve been surprised to hear it was the king who finally enacted it.
“Algrene probably sought out military talent from outside Elshaid in order to recruit assassins. I’m sure you know I wasn’t the only one who sent assassins after Prince Eric, right?”
“What?! Ah… Now I see.”
Duke Algrene sent promising chefs to the Ren Empire to study, funded a hopeful ice cream parlor, and gave aid to anybody with talent—that was just the kind of thing he did.
But now it was clear that it was all a cover to smuggle assassins into Elshaid.
If Berklein’s inferences are correct, then it’s very likely his so-called mercenary company is a band of assassins.
This was something I had theorized, but Berklein’s useful piece of intel had narrowed down our investigation quite a bit. I wasn’t about to take everything Berklein said at face value, but I did think it was worth further investigation.
“So are we finished talking about Dale now? I hardly know the man anyway. At first, my plan was to use him as a puppet to run Elshaid after I got rid of Eric.”
“‘At first’? So your plan changed at some point?”
“That man… He never revealed his true nature. Whenever Algrene or I talked to him, he always acted like he sympathized with us, but he always kept a distance. In a way, I started to think he was more of a sly fox than Eric.”
It sounded like Berklein regarded Dale very highly. At the very least, he thought it would be difficult to take control of Elshaid, even if Eric were out of the picture.
“However, when it came to my own supporters, I brainwashed them into worshipping Dale rather than Eric.”
“You brainwashed them? That’s right, I heard that the Almer family worshipped not only you but Prince Dale as well. That they wanted him to be king.”
“Well, yes, I thought it could be a way to get Eric stripped of his title. That’s why I manipulated all my followers into worshipping Dale and wanting him to be king.”
I would be lying if I said it didn’t anger me to hear Berklein outline his plan to cross Eric, but he might give me the clues we needed to crack the case. I decided then and there that I had to tell Prince Eric about all of this.
“Anything else you want to ask me?”
“No, thank you, that’s enough. More than enough, really. To be honest, I’m a little surprised by your willingness to cooperate.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I just couldn’t stand by and let the likes of Algrene upstage me. The idea of letting that righteous fool rule the kingdom sounds a thousand times more appealing than that.”
I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but it sounded like Berklein hated Algrene more than Eric. Everything he said seemed to add up and there was no point in my doubting him, so I decided to take him at his word.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Too bad about what I did to Jill Westoria.”
“What?”
“The biggest obstacle to breaking her was getting rid of her sense of guilt over killing you.” He chuckled and added, “That’s why my plot to kill you failed. Even now, it still haunts me.”
Why is he bringing this up now, of all times…
Maybe he was trying to tell me that Jill never wanted to kill me.
I tucked Berklein’s words away into the back of my mind and left the dungeon to deliver the news to Prince Eric.