Unruly Summon Chapter 14: Assassination (Patreon)

"What was so urgent that you asked my guard to wake me in the middle of the night?" asked King Edward, peering at his daughter with a mix of annoyance and confusion. Even if she was family, they were royalty, and barging into his bedroom in the middle of the night was just Not Done. There were procedures to follow! She'd been unable to convince the guard to let her in overnight, so had turned up again first thing in the morning and camped outside until her parents emerged of their own accord instead.

"I can't help but wonder the same," echoed Queen Victoria.

"You need to call off the staged demon attack!"

"Why?" asked the king, his confusion growing. "What happened?"

"He knows Magus Visus and body strengthening!"

"What? Are you certain? Wendy's report explicitly stated that she didn't teach him even a fragment of the required image, and Christine's stated that his first and only attempt at using body strengthening almost killed him."

"I saw the residual mana in his muscles myself! And he looked right at me. Through a wall."

"Mana in muscles doesn't mean much. There's a huge gap between being able to move mana into your body and being able to effectively utilise it for enhancement. And couldn't looking at you have been coincidence?"

"No way! The way he reacted, I'm certain he could see me."

"You need to calm down," said the queen. "Why don't you start over, from the beginning?"

Princess Stephanie took a deep breath, realising that she had indeed started in the middle of her explanation. "Yesterday, after his magic lesson, he cast a spell in his room with only Mary as witness. Christine assumed it was Parvus Sanatio, but didn't confirm it. Then, on arrival in the room you had repurposed for tutoring, he expressed surprise while looking in the direction of the bookcase. At the time, I thought it was because he wasn't used to parchment, but now it occurs to me that behind the bookcase was the office of Minister Serge, which was not stripped of decorations."

"That's heavily circumstantial," pointed out the king. "And you haven't explained how he learnt the spell."

"I don't know how. Maybe watching Wendy cast it was sufficient. Another bit of evidence is that his behaviour around Mary has changed since then. He's looked uncomfortable whenever he interacted with her," added Stephanie, remembering how green he'd gone at Christine's mention of her lack of choice.

"Again, circumstantial. From your reports, he's always been uncomfortable with her. What about seeing you through a wall? When did this happen?"

"Last night. I was on a nighttime stroll outside and passed his room. He tracked me as I went by, the entire time I was in range."

"How do you know? Even if you were using Magus Visus yourself, it wouldn't have let you see his eyes."

"I could see which direction his face was pointing!"

"Wait," interjected the queen. "Once again, you've skipped over some important facts. A nighttime stroll? Outside the castle without a guard? And you just happened to pass by his room after casting Magus Visus?"

"I... I..." stammered the princess.

King Edward pinched the bridge of his nose. "You really need to give it up," he said.

"You promised me! It was the only reason I agreed to put myself through... through... this!" She gestured downwards, indicating her dirty clothing that was not at all befitting of a princess, along with her dirty hair and lack of makeup.

"I merely made an observation. Nothing more."

"What did you observe, dear?" asked Victoria coldly.

"That's beside the point right now," deflected Edward. "So far, all you have is circumstantial evidence. May I suggest the obvious; ask Mary! Why didn't you do that on your nighttime stroll?"

"Because he could see me! If I'd stopped to talk to Mary, he would have known!"

"Putting what promises you may or may not have made aside, I fail to see why this means we should cancel the staged demon attack," pointed out Victoria.

"Because he already knows we misled him about Mary's collar, and that there exist rooms in the castle with such niceties as enchanted carpets. He'll be questioning everything. Suspicious of everything. Furthermore, our plans for containing him if anything goes wrong don't account for him knowing body strengthening. If he discovers the attack was staged, we're doomed."

"And how would he discover that? Rather, is it not more important than ever that we follow through? Giving him a reason to hate the demons will take his mind off any suspicions he may have about us. Magus Visus will show him that the collar is enchanted, but not what it does, while leaving him with Mary long-term risks him figuring it out. Seeing a room with an enchanted carpet doesn't mean much. After the attack, have him moved to Fort Terrusarn under the guise of security and being able to safely train wide area magic, and there won't be anything inconvenient for him to see."

"Except for all the slaves that work there."

"They aren't his. Order them to have nothing to do with him, and he won't be able to discover anything from them."

"No, it's too much of a risk," argued Stephanie. "You said it was my place to make the call on whether he would be useful, and I did. Now I'm making the call that staging the attack is too risky, and we'd be better off cutting our losses and being completely honest with him."

King Edward stared at his daughter for a few seconds, but she didn't even flinch. She steadfastly returned his gaze. "You're obviously serious," he sighed. "Very well. I'll give you a chance. Justify yourself."

"He may not know the extent of it, but he already knows we've been dishonest. Even so, he's remained fully cooperative and hasn't mentioned returning home. If we come clean now, it's possible he'll remain so. If not, at worst, he will cease to cooperate. Based on his personality, I'll guarantee he won't betray us, but will simply become a neutral party. Meanwhile, if he discovers that we murdered Mary in an attempt to sway his decisions, he will turn on us, and if he's able to utilise body strengthening, Christine isn't certain she can defeat him."

"You based that on mere conjecture," replied the king. "You aren't certain he knows we've been dishonest. Even if he can cast Magus Visus, you don't know what he's seen. Even if he has seen something he shouldn't, you don't know if he's realised the significance. But even if he fulfils all of those conditions, and you're right about him growing stronger than Christine, you're still missing one important fact; him becoming a neutral party is no better an outcome than him turning on us. The end result is the same in both cases; we all die."

"That's not necessarily true. Even if he doesn't fight the demons, he'll still want to help both us and them. With his power, he'll be able to penetrate deep into the corrupted lands. He may even find a way to reclaim them."

"More conjecture. And even if he can, do you believe he'll act quickly enough to avoid the mass starvation and civil war that would result from surrendering to the demons?"

"As a neutral party, he could broker a peace. Promise the demons our land after a number of seasons, by which point he could reclaim more! With the number of lives already lost in the fighting, both sides should be able to stave off food shortages for a while."

"It's an interesting thought, but nothing more than wishful thinking. The demons have prepared for this war, and I do not believe that a hero who's unprepared to fight them will end it. We need him unconditionally on our side, and nothing you have said has argued against our current plans being the best way of ensuring that. In light of the possibility he's able to use body strengthening, I'll lend a member of my personal guard to the backup plan, but beyond that, I don't believe any adjustments are needed."

"Actually, she does raise an important point," said Victoria. "If Thomas is capable of casting magic without an image, how will we guarantee he's not able to heal Mary? He may well succeed a cast of Maius Sanatio. Perhaps we should rethink the plan to have her speak to him on her deathbed."

"That, at least, will not be an issue," replied Edward. "We wanted to make this assassination attempt authentic, after all, so we've brought in a dose of devil-fire."

"W... What. You're going to use that on Mary? Deliberately?" gasped Stephanie, her face turning pale.

"It's what a demon assassin would use. It's what they have used; one of their failures is how we got hold of this dose."

"Yes, it's a good choice," nodded Victoria. "Not that I'm completely comfortable with that being in the same castle as me, but at least it will soon be disposed of."

"No! He's going to kill us all... I want no part of this!" shouted Stephanie before fleeing from the room.

"Follow her!" shouted Edward to his guard. "Ensure she doesn't go anywhere near the western wing!"

The guard went running off after the terrified princess.

"A bit of an overreaction, surely?" sighed the queen. "Mary's collar will detach her from the pain. In any case, now that our melodramatic child has left, will you please elaborate on your 'observation'?"

"Oh, that? I merely pointed out that the crown is passed down not for stupid reasons like who was born first and happened to have a penis, but that a wide range of factors would be considered, even if that meant skipping a generation."

"And having a famous hero—the saviour of the human race—for a father would certainly be a major mark in someone's favour. Few things could quite match a heroic parent for bolstering someone's initial loyalty from the public," finished the queen. "So, that's all? You simply led her to believe that if she bore the hero's child, that child would inherit the crown? And there I was thinking the worst of you..."

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I followed Christine through the castle corridors, so many magic words rattling around in my head that I was worried they'd start leaking out of my ears. For that matter, there was so much potion sloshing around my stomach that I wasn't sure how lunch would fit.

"Stephanie still hasn't turned up," I observed. "Shouldn't you be worried?"

"Princess Stephanie Ricousian is the second princess of this kingdom. I may not personally know where she is, but believe me that someone does. Were she missing, the castle would be in uproar. Another task must have come up that precluded her from overseeing your training."

I wasn't too upset about having one less pair of eyes watching my every move, but I did wonder what sort of tasks could unexpectedly come up for a princess. Not that I had too much experience of princesses, but I imagined them spending lots of time in balls or etiquette lessons, neither of which would suddenly turn up at short notice.

Even without the princess, I still had Christine and Mary watching me. Annoyingly, I hadn't got an answer to my question of how to subvocally cast spells, despite asking while waiting for a mana potion to kick in. The nebulous response implied that there was perhaps a way, but that it was too soon to teach it to me. The cynic in me replaced that explanation with that they didn't want to teach it to me, just like she hadn't taught me Magus Visus or any information gathering spells. We'd moved on to some defences later in the lesson, but it was still completely combat oriented.

"Here we are," declared Christine, knocking on the door of the room in which I'd once dined with royalty. "Mary, since this discussion concerns you, please would you return to Thomas's room to wait."

"Yes Mistress," agreed Mary easily before doing an about turn. Seemed a bit rude to have her follow us this far just to have her do a one-eighty the moment we arrived, but at least now I was down another pair of eyes.

"Please enter," came an unfamiliar voice from inside, and Christine pushed the door open.

"Minister Dennis Banks, I present Thomas Smith, the hero," said Christine, handling introductions. The minister wasn't quite what I was expecting; an elderly man with a head of sparse, whispery hair, dressed in an old-fashioned woollen suit. Or old-fashioned for Earth, anyway. "Thomas, this is Minister Dennis, Mary's owner."

"It's an honour to meet you," he declared, standing up and holding out a hand.

I hazarded a guess what he was after and shook it, despite never having seen anyone shake hands on this world thus far. "Nice to meet you, too," I responded.

"Do sit down and tuck in before it goes cold," he said, gesturing to a wooden bowl steaming away on the table. "As much as I'd love to stay and chat, I'm afraid I don't have the time. I don't think there's a single individual in this castle who isn't run ragged at the moment. Except perhaps for the guards, but I'll let them off, because standing around is their job. Besides, standing around for hours on end while remaining constantly alert is harder than it sounds. I know a few nobles who learnt that lesson the hard way, skimping on their guards' pay, hiring whoever was willing to work for a handful of bronzes a day, then waking up with a knife through their heart when their guards fell asleep on the job."

I took my seat at the table, marvelling at how much the guy was chatting given that he allegedly had no time to chat. The food was stew again, but it was nourishing and hot, so I tucked in.

"Anyway, onto the topic at hand. Mary. Your request to take ownership of her isn't possible," he said bluntly before dipping a spoon into his stew and chewing it with gusto.

"Uh... Okay?" I hazarded. "I didn't request that, as such, but I don't know what Christine told you."

"That you were worried about her stabbing you in your sleep. But let me tell you, you're worrying about the wrong thing. Yes, if I ordered Mary to attack you, she would, but what about that young knight behind you? Lady Christine, were King Edward to order you to kill this young man, what would you do?"

"Kill him, of course," she responded instantly, as if the answer was obvious.

"See. You don't need to be a slave to follow orders," continued the elderly minister. "We'd be in a right pickle if half our soldiers decided they would quite like to not risk their lives on the battlefield, wouldn't we? Not to mention that Christine would have a far greater chance of actually succeeding."

"Did you have to be so blunt about it?" I asked my bodyguard, possibly with something of a pout. "And I would hope you'd at least make sure the orders were really coming from the king, and that he was of sound mind and had a damn good reason."

"If I had reason to believe the orders were suspect, then yes, I'd question them," she acknowledged.

"It's all theoretical, anyway," continued the minister. "Frankly, I'd be happy to turn Mary over to you. You simply aren't able to fulfil your legal obligations. A slave owner is required to provide food, shelter, clothing and such like, but you aren't able to do so. As a guest in this castle, you're dependent on us. So, since you can't take ownership of Mary, I figured I'd do the next best thing. You expressed concern about never having met me, so here I am. Now you've met me. Hopefully, that'll help put your mind at ease."

It didn't, really, but I wasn't going to say that out loud. It wasn't as if I could gauge his personality from a ten-minute meeting, most of which was spent inhaling stew. Besides, the 'next best thing' wasn't this; it would be freeing her! I'd even go so far as to claim that should be the best option, yet he hadn't even mentioned it.

"Could..." I started, intending to ask him why. Alas, I was rather rudely interrupted by a scream.