The first letter looked like was sent to the Duke by a spy, it seems like the new King and the Queen of Clearwater have fought a big battle in and close to Eagle City, and the result ended up as a major loss for the King? The second letter was even more horrifying, even so, it was only half written, it was still clear that Duke Ryan wanted to annex the North. The idea of becomingindependence was clearly revealed. The letter wasn’t finished and it was furthermore unknown to whom he wanted to send it.
But Petrov still understood immediately what His Highness wanted to tell him – there was no need for him to resist because the new King had already enough problems on his own. Otherwise, the Duke would have never dared to declare his independence. With his elite knights, he was already invincible in the Western territory, the only difference to the King’s Knights laid in their numbers.
The secret letter could have been forged, but the second parchment was indeed written with Osman Ryan’s handwriting, so unless the prince found a witch that could mimic the writing of others… For a short moment, he thought about this possibility only to immediately dismiss this speculation again.
The Prince had no reason to try to deceive him, implementing someone as his representative wasn’t one-sided, if his representative was unable to rule over the stronghold, the Prince would also not profit from the deal. Moreover, every Duke assigned by King Timothy would become an enemy of the Prince.
If he wanted for House Honeysuckle to stay above the other four noble families, he had to rely on the support of the Prince, and on the other hand, in order to ensure that everything was handled in his interest, the Prince would also have to make sure that the Hull Family wouldn’t get challenged.
When he had thought everything through, Petrov slowly stood up and bowed towards Roland, “The Hull family is willing to serve you.”
“Well,” the latter nodded, “but it’s not up to you to decide, I’ll have to ask you some questions first.”
“Your Highness, please.”
“What are you going to do with those who are against you?”
“How much do you estimate the monthly tax revenue will be? Also, how would you guarantee that you can pay a thousand points each month?”
“In the case that I request you to vigorous expand the trade and commerce sector, what would you do?
“…”
Petrov had thought that His Highness would take this opportunity to gather as much information about the other Lords of the Western territory, he had never expected that the other side would ask such weird questions, in the end, this were almost all only questions about his policy, means, and his general business knowledge.
After he having all of these questions asked of him, Petrov put his mind into answering them one after another, along with his answers, His Highness’ expression also became more and more satisfied. Finally, the Prince clapped his hands and said, “Well, that will be enough for today. When you have calculated how to redeem the value of 3000 points, you can come back and free your father, rest assured, during these days I will properly entertain him.
“Your Highness, that representative…”
“Will be announced another day.” Roland gave one of his knights the signal to see him out.
When Petrov left the hall, he had much to think about, he got his God’s Stone of Retaliation back from Carter – it was still the same brightly shining blue stone, it seems the value of fifty gold royals wasn’t much.
*
“What can you tell me?” Roland turned his view to Nightingale who stand beside him.
“Oh, basically everything he said was the truth,” she shrugged, “he was much more sincere than the several Ladies and Gentlemen you have previously talked to. That said, is it right to tell everyone the same story? Furthermore, showing them those letters, all of them are confidential.
“Not to everyone,” the Prince looked down at the list in his hands, “They were all from the five noble families, only those big nobles are suitable to manage Longsong Stronghold in my stead. If their power is not strong enough, even if I was to give them this position, they wouldn’t be able to run this stronghold, in the end, there would only be a lot of infighting. As for the news that Timothy Wimbledon was defeated by Eagle City, that’s not really a secret so to say. Sooner or later the news would spread through the whole Kingdom of Graycastle, for me it’s even better that it spreads a little faster.
But the content of this news was just perfect for me, he thought, if the 2nd Prince wasn’t defeated, I’m afraid that I would have to spend a lot of time to hold him back – and even if he tried to use force, the results may not have been so beautiful.
“So… will you choose him?”
“If nothing else happens,” Roland said with a smile, “he was the first one who took the initiative to ask by himself, the subjective initiative has always been the most important quality of th