The Abandoned Empress

“I’ve leaked Lady Monique’s health condition despite the emperor’s gag order.”

“Who did you talk to?”

“Duke Jena.”

“Tell me why you leaked and decided to surrender yourself.”

The royal doctor said, swallowing, “I had no choice but to follow his instruction because he knew my weakness.”

“Your weakness? What is that?”

“That is…”

“Answer me right away.”

“… Well, when I became a royal doctor, I went out to treat an outpatient, but because of my misdiagnosis, the patient died. If anybody knew about it, I would be a dead man because the patient who died was the successor of the family. ”

“I see.”

It was indeed his weakness. How could a royal doctor allow the successor of a family to die because of his misdiagnosis? Like he said, he would have not only lost his medical license as a royal doctor and be in big trouble if anybody discovered this, but also incur the wrath of the family who lost their successor. Most likely he would have lost his life.

Once he started to talk, he continued with a more relaxed expression, “So, I decided to be loyal to him in return for keeping my secret. I regularly reported to him about the condition of the late emperor and the current emperor, and I was instructed to report to him about anything related to Lady Monique, however trifling it was.”

The young man with blue hair leaned forward, holding his chin. Then he stared at Duke Jena coldly and said, “Very interesting. Duke Jena, what do you think? ”

“I think it’s nonsense that you don’t have to listen to.”

“Really? Well, we heard the man in charge of my wines and the royal doctor’s testimony. Next witness is an assistant royal cook, I hear. Don’t you think it’s too peculiar to be a coincidence?

Hearing their testimony, anybody would think you had the intention to kill me by poisoning. In fact, you have actually poisoned me.”

“Do you really believe such nonsense?”

When I watched the two staring at each other sharply, I recalled one question that I had for a long time.

The palace office in charge of the emperor’s wines, the royal doctor and the assistant cook.

Although I was not sure of the cook, it was certain that the palace officer and the royal doctor were, and now Duke Jena’s moles, given their long connection with the duke.

According to the High Priest, a man can be violent in temper, though not impotent, when he is poisoned.

What if his plan to kill the emperor by poisoning was not discovered? What if Jena became the empress and gave birth to the successor to the throne? Of course, it’s my assumption at this point. In that case, however, was it possible for Duke Jena to take control of the empire? He would remove the violent emperor from the throne, then exercise power as the grandfather of the young emperor.

I felt goosebumps at the thought of that. Although it was just my absurd imagination, I already know a situation similar to this. What if all these assumptions actually became a reality in the past?

Oh no! I shook my head hard.

‘That can’t have happened! It’s just a delusion. No matter how similar the past and present are to each other, even if all the people around the emperor were Duke Jena’s men, no matter how much the emperor, who was always cold to me, harrassed me with an unusual hostile attitude, and no matter how much the old me was suspicious of poisoning, this couldn’t be true…’

This time Marquis Mirwa said, “This is direct evidence that can prove Duke Jena’s crime. This is a confidential document the duke sent to me, which details his plan about the assassination of the emperor. ”

I was terribly confused by the fearful assumption that occupied my mind, but I listened to his continuing testimony while shaking it off.

Duke Jena, who was staring coldly at the document, said, “I don’t know what the document is about. Do you have any evidence that I sent it? As things stand now, there isn’t anything that you can relate to my family.”

“I think I can prove it myself.”

Coming one step forward, Duke Verita said, pulling a couple of documents out of the pile, “Go ahead!”

Not caring at all about the duke’s cold expression, Duke Verita smiled, then showed him the seal stamped at the lower space of the documents.

“You must have seen the seal stamped on all these documents. This seal is not engraved with the crest of the family, but it contains the symbols of the family. Sword and rose, and Volente Castina. Which family does it symbolize?”

Everyone’s eyes were focused on the documents.

Duke Verita said with his mouth turned up, as if he was satisfied, “These documents were obtained from Viscount Apinu and Earl Lanier respectively. As you can see, one document contains his coded instruction about the poisoning of Lady Monique, while the other one shows how to decode it. And this document submitted by Marquis Mirwa seems to have a coded plan about the assassination of the emperor by poisoning, given the words here such as the emperor, poison, buying off, wine, etc. By the way, it seems everybody is paying attention to one person now, namely Duke Lars. Then, is the culprit of this incident Duke Lars?”

“… Hey, what kind of joke are you cracking? Duke Verita, I’m afraid they might misunderstand me…”

“But the symbol as well as the family motto is used by the Lars family only…”

“I clearly warned you not to crack a joke.”

While keeping silent all along, Duke Lars spoke sharply, raising his eyebrows. He knew Duke Verita was joking for a change, but he seemed very displeased with the fact that his family was mentioned in this sensitive case.

Avoiding Duke Lars’s glowing eyes, Duke Verita, said, clearing his throat, “So, since I first got the document with this seal, I went through all sorts of data to check if there was anything related to the phrase over the past year. As a result, I discovered one thing. There was a family that used this symbol well before the Lars family used it. It was the Duke Jena family.”

“Yes, that’s true. Our family once used it, but don’t you think it’s a leap in your logic that you pointed me out as the culprit, based on our family’s record dating back several hundred years? Isn’t it more reasonable to think of Duke Lars as the culprit?”

I felt it very weird that the Jena family, who I thought had been associated with the noble faction, used that symbol a long time ago. And I felt bitter when I discovered it because I felt that’s probably why he hated my family so much.

Well, that’s it. That’s not so important to me anyway because what I had yet to hear from Duke Verita would be much more exciting. Like Duke Jena said, it would be hard to connect the phrase used by the Jena family several hundreds ago with the seal in question. But I already secured the most decisive evidence to prove it.

“Actually, I came to discover one fact some time ago. I hear that there is a secret space in your house that only you can enter. I was so anxious to know what’s in there that I couldn’t go to sleep.”

“Well, any prestigious old family has such a secret space in the house, as you know, and that’s nothing new. Oh, it looks like you don’t have one in your house, Duke Verita. Well, you were no more than a marquis family 30 years ago, stationed in the provincial area, so it’s natural you don’t have one,” said Duke Jena sarcastically, with his mouth turned up, “If you were so curious, why didn’t you ask me? I would have gladly shown it to you. Even though my political position is different from yours, I can be generous enough to do so as the empire’s most prestigious family.”

“No thanks, because I already saw it.” Only

“What the heck? What did you see?”

There was embarrassment in his face, who remained calm until now.

I unwittingly broke into a smile, so I smiled, watching them staring at the duke while listening to him quietly.

“Well, it took some time to open the lock because its unlocking system was coded, but in the end I made it. The decoding was very simple. Volente Castina. Isn’t that a contradictory answer?”

“No way! How could you open it?”

“It seems you made it a long time ago because it was very old-fashioned. I was very impressed with the mural showing your family’s activities in the early days of the empire. Frankly, I felt a bit sorry because such a prestigious family like yours would soon disappear into the dustbin of history.”

“What the heck did you say, you bastard?”