Unruly Summon Chapter 19: Admission (Patreon)

"Oh? What are you sorry for, exactly?" I questioned the princess as I walked slowly down the aisle, keeping my eyes open for an ambush. The throne room had far too many pillars for my liking, and parts of my brain were insisting there was a squad of crossbowmen hiding behind each one. More logical parts insisted that if an ambush was going to happen, it would have happened before they let me get within spell-casting range of the king and queen, but I had no intention of trusting wholly to that sort of logic.

"I lied to you. Misled you. I treated the life of someone you considered precious as a mere tool, to use and discard. If you'll permit me, I'll explain my reasons, and if, after that, my death is required to satisfy you..."

She reached into a sleeve of her dress, drawing out a short dagger and placing it on the floor in front of her. She was certainly going all out for this performance.

"All I ask is that you do not hold accountable those who merely followed orders," she continued. "The responsibility is mine alone, and I will not see others suffer for it."

We had a lot to say on Earth about people who 'just followed orders'. A great amount of evil had been committed by such people, and 'I was just following orders' was a very poor defence both in my mind and in the eyes of many laws, but if she wanted to monologue at me, I saw no reason to stop her. "Explain away, then," I invited.

"The root of the problem is that heroes have typically lived peaceful lives up until their summoning, so when I claimed us to be days away from the destruction of our kingdom, you had no frame of reference with which to evaluate the claim. Instead, you could only use what was available, applying intuition to what you saw around you. If I'd made the claim in silken clothes, in a chamber of gold and jewels, with a bustling population going about their business outside of the window, would you not have been less inclined to believe me? You would question how we could have such wealth if we were days from destruction. How citizens could be going about their business. Would you have waited around while we gave you hours of lectures on the production capacity of weapons? Of the quotas imposed by the dwarves to avoid our purchasing bankrupting their gold mines, or emptying their weapon stockpiles and leaving them vulnerable? Of the logistics of food transport, and how the loss of our northern farmland would lead to certain widespread starvation and civil war months or maybe even seasons later, but would not have a great immediate impact? Would you have listened, or would you have demanded we send you home?"

"I wouldn't have demanded you send me home, for exactly the same reason as I didn't in this reality," I answered. "I didn't trust you. The summoning left you in a terrible state, and yet you talked of casting it again. I had no frame of reference in which to judge magic, either, but an intuitive assumption there was that sending me home would take just as much effort as summoning me. Would you really send me home, if that was the case? You could summon a new hero much faster if you simply killed me. I stayed because I deemed it the safest option, and because I thought it likely I could do some good whether or not you were lying to me."

The three members of royalty frowned, apparently not having expected that answer at all. It was the first movement I saw from the king and queen, neither of whom had spoken since my arrival. Stephanie kept saying 'I', claiming all the responsibility for herself. Had she really made these plans on her own? The king and queen had obviously been aware, but it was true it had only been Stephanie in that summoning chamber.

Was she truly the mastermind behind everything? Or, given how easily they were prepared to discard Mary, were the king and queen equally not above throwing away their own daughter as a scapegoat?

"So, you didn't trust us from the beginning," continued Stephanie, giving a self-deprecating smile. "Wow, I thought I was finished discovering new ways in which I'd screwed up."

"That explains the display of poverty, but I'd more or less guessed your reasoning there. I can guess your reasoning for today's farce, too; you wanted to make me see the demons as evil, so I'd have less hesitation about killing them."

Stephanie nodded. "Yes. The problem is that you're too well protected here. Make no mistake; the demons would have made such an attempt on your life, were they able, but we did our job too well. Too few people know of your existence, and you haven't left your small corner of the castle. We didn't leave the demons an opening to find out about you, let alone to attack, but you don't know that. You could easily mistake it for the demons not wanting to attack."

"That explains your motivation, but it's not the part of the 'why' that I'm interested in."

Princess Stephanie nervously licked her lips, but didn't break eye contact. "Because one life is an acceptable sacrifice to save hundreds of thousands. As a member of royalty, sometimes I need to make difficult choices. Choices that cost lives. I do not believe that my choice was wrong."

"Some apology this is," I snapped.

"Apologising for my actions and believing those actions to be justified are not mutually exclusive."

"Perhaps not, but that wasn't what I meant."

Stephanie looked at me in confusion, obviously not comprehending my point.

"I think he's telling you to apologise to Mary, dear," spoke Queen Victoria.

Stephanie's gaze flicked over to Mary, the princess displaying nothing but surprise and confusion. "I apologise to you, too, then," she said, but it was obvious she didn't understand why.

The horrible thing was that from what I guessed of how the slave collars worked, Mary would have been a willing participant in all this, had she only been asked. The pain and death would have been unimportant. She would simply have been happy fulfilling her duty. Presumably, the only reason she wasn't asked was because they wanted me to watch her die, and they didn't want to risk her giving anything away.

Urk... that was why Christine had wanted to enter her room without me. It wasn't anything to do with safety; she needed to tell Mary what to say to me!

"So, was your explanation for how the war started a lie, too?" I asked.

"No, although I admit I misled you a little. I said the local nobility were aware of the plot. That was because they ordered it. I swear they came up with it on their own; it was not ordered from above."

"My daughter requested to handle this audience, but please let me interject here," said King Edward. "A part of the blame for the situation lies with me; I ordered the nobility to find some way to increase their production. I did not expect them to resort to theft to accomplish that order."

Why did she hide that fact last time? It could explain why they believed the theft could be carried out successfully, given the increased resources the provincial nobles could wield compared to a group of farmers.

... Actually, that was a good point. A squad of knights setting foot on foreign soil was rather more serious than a band of bandits. It could go some way to explain how things escalated to war.

"So, now what?" I asked. "You expect stabbing yourself to be enough to make me forget all this, and head off on my merry way to kill demons for you?"

"I accept that we've destroyed your trust, and I understand if that means you're unwilling to fight for us. However, perhaps you no longer need to. I am well aware of what Mary was poisoned with, and what it means that she's standing behind you now, alive and well. Ironically, your actions today have brought us a hope that extends far beyond today's war. Please, perform that same miracle on an area of corrupted land. Prove that you can purify it, and... we will surrender to the demons. It will hurt, and the short-term difficulties will be immense, but if we survive them, we'll have a hope for the future greater than at any time since the dragons first came."

"I can certainly do that much," I agreed, somewhat taken aback by the sudden twist. It was a big jump from curing one person to clearing enough land to make any difference to the food situation. "But don't you risk me being sent home by the gods the moment you surrender?"

All three members of royalty relaxed at my agreement, serious faces relaxing into relieved smiles.

"No, because that would not solve the problem you were brought here to solve. We wanted you to save us from the demons, and you being taken after our surrender but before the restoration of our land would mean our end. The demons would have destroyed the kingdom."

"Very well. I'll see what I can do."

"Then only one point remains before we can put today's nastiness behind ourselves," said Stephanie nervously. "The matter of my punishment. I put my life in your hands. Should you wish it, I shall slay myself here, or if you prefer, you can do it yourself. If that's not enough for you, and you wish to strip me of whatever honour I have remaining, we can arrange a public execution. Or, given your aversion to death, perhaps you would prefer other options? Given my actions towards Mary, perhaps you would consider it poetic justice to enslave me. Or have me relinquish my title of princess, and be thrown out of the castle as a commoner."

"You want me to decide that?"

"Of course. By our law, I have done nothing wrong. By the standards of nobility, the fact that I failed my task is enough to warrant punishment, but that would be an internal family matter and would certainly not result in death. Had I succeeded, I would only be praised. It's your personal justice we must satisfy here. I already told you, I am prepared to sacrifice one life to save our kingdom, and if that life is mine, so be it. I will do whatever is required to ensure the best chance of your success at reclaiming our land, and winning back your trust is a vital part of that."

"That's some serious determination you have there," I said, striding forward. She didn't flinch as I picked up the dagger, remaining kneeling and staring straight forward, but I didn't miss the sweat beading on her forehead.

"Don't you two have anything to say here?" I asked the king and queen.

"As a father, there is much I want to say. As a king, duty demands I hold my tongue."

"Are you sure?" I asked, gripping Stephanie's excessively long hair and pulling, lifting up her chin and exposing her throat.

"M... Master?!" exclaimed Mary,

Stephanie's breathing accelerated, but she still didn't speak. Likewise, though King Edward was gripping the arm of his throne so tightly that his knuckles whitened, he didn't say anything.

"In this, the king and queen of Ricousian recognise and respect the decision of Princess Stephanie Ricousian," declared the queen, remaining somewhat calmer than her husband.

How could any mother remain so calm in this situation? Queen or not, there should be something. I couldn't believe she was that ice cold towards her daughter.

And then the reason for her calmness smashed into me like a brick.

All three of them knew I was bluffing.

Stephanie had pretty much admitted it outright by referring to my aversion to death. She already knew me too well. She'd arranged the attack against Mary because she knew it would take something of that scale to get me to consider attacking demons. She was well aware of my opinion on slavery, too. She'd listed off a bunch of horrific punishments in the full knowledge that I'd never carry them out, followed by the one I was actually likely to choose. Yes, she was sweating, but there was an antagonistic, armed hero looming over her. However certain she was I wouldn't actually hurt her, the autonomic response of having a dagger waved around near her exposed throat couldn't be overcome by logic.

She probably was scapegoating herself, to protect her parents, or whoever was actually coming up with these plans. No, scapegoating was the wrong term. It didn't count if she expected to get off relatively free. Get her disowned and kicked out of the castle? Did I have the leeway to check up on her every week and ensure her parents weren't slipping her a stipend? Of course not! And what about once I went home?

Even after all of this, these people were still trying to manipulate me.

The worst part of it was that I could understand why. This audience, as much as anything, had convinced me that not a single person in this room was malicious. They were simply pragmatic and logical, willing to put the needs of the many ahead of the few, regardless of the impact on the few.

"Fine, I've decided," I declared, and swung the dagger.