The second prince’s anger made him move before thinking, and movent in a throne room was as readable as speech.
"You dare!" the second prince howled.
The sound wasn’t rely loud; it was desperate, the kind of volu that tries to manufacture authority in a room where authority is already seated on the throne.
Ludwig turned his head toward him at a deliberate pace, giving the prince nothing to bounce off of, no startled flinch, no defensive posture, no appeasing smile.
Inside, Ludwig filed the outburst under predictable. The prince’s pride was always hungry. He wanted an enemy because enemies gave him shape.
’Seems like soone wanted the attention again. At least he wasn’t as loud as the first ti.’
"Was there a problem in what I said?" Ludwig kept his tone level, almost curious, as if the prince had raised a procedural concern rather than a challenge.
That made the prince’s outrage look childish by comparison, which was a risk, humiliating a prince publicly was a ga that could get a man killed later, but Ludwig had already committed to a posture of calm competence.
Retreating now would look like fear. Fear would make the nobles sll blood.
"You want the throne to reward you for rely clearing your na?"
The second prince leaned into the words, trying to fra Ludwig as a beggar.
Ludwig noticed the small angle of the prince’s body toward the nobles rather than the throne; he wasn’t speaking to his father, he was performing for the nobles, trying to recruit their judgnt.
"Since my na would be dragged through the mud as being accused of black magic, I’d expect a compensation once it’s eventually proven that I partake in no such matters."
He didn’t say it like a plea. He said it like a clause. Ludwig could feel the nobles recalculating: so disliked him for speaking boldly, so respected him for it, and so were simply irritated because a man outside their circle had dared to speak like he belonged.
Ludwig kept his hands behind his back, refusing to gesture as if his argunt needed decoration. If the Emperor accepted the logic, Ludwig’s position strengthened; if the Emperor rejected it, Ludwig at least forced the rejection to be explicit.
’Two can play the sa ga.’ Ludwig thought, after all the Emperor was playing the sa ga. And everyone can participate in the ga of politics if they can afford their necks to be hacked for saying the wrong thing.
"It is fine. Viscount Ludwig does have a point. Now, beyond this," the emperor looked around, "It seems that my security has grown rather lax, for there to be... rats, underneath my foot without the guards or knights ever noticing."
The Emperor’s calm dismissal of the prince’s outrage was the real reprimand. It wasn’t shouted, but it cut.
Ludwig watched the second prince stiffen as if struck; being ignored was worse than being scolded.
Every guard in the room tilted their heads in sha as they realized the emperor was talking about them. The synchronized motion looked practiced, like an army trained to apologize as a unit.
Ludwig saw the tension in their shoulders, the tightness in their jaws, the humiliation they swallowed because anger would be insubordination.
"Everyone guard and knight present here in the palace will have their salary deducted for one year. And the deducted value will go to sir Ludwig Heart."
A year’s salary could break families quietly. The palace didn’t care. The palace never cared.
The punishnt wasn’t simply corrective; it was symbolic redistribution.
The Emperor was taking failure and converting it into reward for competence, and he was doing it in the most public way possible.
Ludwig understood the second layer imdiately: by paying Ludwig with the guards’ money, the Emperor ensured the guards would rember Ludwig, and in rembering him they would rember what he represented, competence, danger, and the Emperor’s favor.
"I don’t need such grand rewards," Ludwig shook his head, "Please, your majesty, it will make an unpleasant mory for these guards..."
Ludwig ant it. Resentnt was a kind of weapon too, and guards carried weapons.
He could handle monsters. He preferred not to handle knives in the dark from n who believed he’d stolen bread from their children. His refusal was also tactical; it frad him as considerate, which made it harder for the nobles and the guards to paint him as ambitious.
He offered the Emperor a graceful out without directly rejecting the Emperor’s authority.
"Unpleasant?" the Emperor laughed. "It would be quite the opposite." The Emperor looked to his right.
The laugh loosened the room slightly, but it wasn’t warmth. It was control. Ludwig watched the Emperor’s eyes shift, and he watched everyone else follow that motion like iron filings to a magnet.
Whoever the Emperor looked at next would beco important by default.
"The old emperor would have executed every guard, knight, squire, from here to the gates of the capital of Lufondal for such a breach." The third prince, for the first ti spoke a full sentence.
"And you, Sir Ludwig had just saved them from such a punishent. A year’s deduction, I’m sure they’ll willingly agree to give you their lifesavings if you ask. After all, it is far better than the gallows."
The third prince wasn’t challenging his father; he was explaining the rcy, making sure the room recognized it as rcy.
Ludwig glanced at Alexander, surprise, yes, but also calculation. A prince who spoke rarely and precisely was more dangerous than one who shouted often. And the whole room began understanding it. After all, Ludwig had the fate to fight alongside the prince back in the west. But rare were the eyes that saw that feat. Many still believe the third prince to be unfit for the throne.
"Really? What changed your mind if you don’t mind asking, not that I want their passing, I’d rather take their money than see them die."
"Alexander had ntioned how you were always careful and protective of the wellbeing of others though you had a heavy burden and responsibility. Not to ntion that even a beast-man can beco a guard. It would be a sha to have one of my son’s guards die so early in his service."
The Emperor’s explanation was layered. Ludwig could hear it: this wasn’t only rcy, it was policy.
The ntion of beast-man wasn’t casual; it was a deliberate reminder that the Emperor’s rcy was broader than old bloodlines. A warning to nobles who still thought in purity.
’Must be talking about Redd,’ Ludwig thought as a cold droplet of hypothetical sweat fell down his back. ’My guy was about to die not even a week from his first real job.’
"You are magnanimous beyond compare. Thank you, your majesty," Ludwig nodded.
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