MPNS Ch 81

Chapter 81

Count Froaste, a noble based in the Ossinis capital, paused mid‑flutter of her fan and remarked to one of her long‑time friends, Lady Lucy Safia, Viscountess:

“Come to think of it, the Flower of the Palace has grown rather clever of late… It seems the dear now can even tell which is larger between a two‑digit and a three‑digit number.”

The Viscountess Safia replied:

“Oh, do stop. The number of those who have shared that bed must still be quite beyond reckoning.”

An elderly gentleman, the Marquis Vissinio, overheard them and murmured to his aide as he passed. His aged hand, holding a silver cup of amber brandy distilled from fruit wine, lifted to cover the sagging corner of his mouth—an affectation, as though such a gesture absolved his verbal sins.

“Come to think, His Highness has lately been in frequent contact with the heads of the four houses. Even alley beggars know His Highness’s appetites are vast.”

“For beasts, they did seem oddly impotent—yet it appears the Lords are not such milksops after all.”

At this, Yurih Kishchin, Left Wing of the Paladins and the Pontiff’s maternal grandson, let out a sharp whistle and murmured to Oryx Ziments, the Grand Master:

“So the platinum‑haired one’s infamy remains. If this body were not consecrated to God for eternity, I’d gladly spend it to amuse that golden‑haired royal—”

Oryx cast a chill glance down at the Pontiff’s kin. Stung, Yurih shut his mouth. Oryx, for all his rigidity, had a gentle disposition and a single devotion to God—a certain innocence. Such ribaldry left him unarmored, yet the look he gave was keen. Yurih found dealing with Oryx strangely difficult of late—especially since arriving at court. He found it odd, shrugged it off.

When the Paladins fully entered the ballroom, nobles of the capital preened like peacocks and murmured. They were very busy tonight: to gawk at Nikiel, rumored to have lost memory upon meeting a demon, and to gawk at the Paladins, who ordinarily would never have brought consecrated arms into a ballroom—four eyes were not enough.

There was more: whispers that Nikiel had finally come to his senses and was seeking to mend relations with the Lords.

“Let’s not believe every rumor. Whatever the case, His Highness is still His Highness,” one of them said. The nobles around him nodded along. But then the pale doors of the hall opened—and those who saw the entrant raised fans to hide their lips and gasped.

“My word…”

“Oh my…”

It was Yullan Balt who entered—and looking thoroughly, impeccably grown. The suit he’d worn last year might have been believed the very clothes of a man leaving for the Tournament at once: mud‑spattered leather boots, coarse breeches, and a cloak so dusty it was hard to tell if it was gray or black. The year before had been no better. Yullan always entered the ball in a hunter’s garb, kissed the edge of the king’s mantle, and departed for the campaign.

But Yullan Balt today was different. He wore a black frock coat with gold buttons carved in relief as golden wolves. The satin—surely the finest Ashinca silk—wrapped his broad shoulders, restraining his feral air and making him seem a great carnivore standing polished and proper in formal wear.

While most Ossinis men wore their hair long, Yullan Balt and Raymon Boltwick kept theirs somewhat short. As front‑line captains of the Knights, they found long hair a nuisance. The wildness of cropped hair, encased in such luxe fabrics, made maidens sigh softly—only to earn a chiding glance from their chaperones.

Allewyn followed his lord inside, casting about busily. Benedict, behind him, clicked his tongue.

“What are you doing—so restless?”

“I’m checking if Prince Nikiel has arrived. The captain says he must dance with His Highness this year.”

Benedict looked at allewyn as though he’d taken leave of his senses. He too knew the prince had lately neither caused scenes nor shown gross ill manners, but he still felt it premature to push his own commander as the prince’s match.

Allewyn thought otherwise. Having taught the prince fencing a handful of times, he seemed already attached—suspiciously so. But whether Benedict frowned or secretly suspected a bribe from the prince did not matter to Allewyn; to his mind, Benedict had tossed his sense to the crows.

Just look—our captain, who never cared for finery, is wearing satin like a gentleman, you dolt.

Last evening, Yullan had ordered the butler at the Balt ducal town house to fetch a frock coat in his measurements. Sudden though the command was, Jeffcock, town butler trained by Finn, the chief butler at the Iteren main seat, had every year already secured the finest Ashinca satin frock coats and Ossinis men’s formal wear from the capital’s tailors; acquiring a suitable garment was no problem.

Impressed by the speed—shown only in a slight lift of brow—Yullan, for once not eating and sleeping in the training yard, went to the town house, bathed in scented water, dressed, and set out. He handled a few small matters in the afternoon—one could not spend all day preening—but for Yullan, it was rare to move so carefully, lest he wrinkle the cloth.

The last time Allewyn had seen the captain this cautious was two Tournaments ago, when he had to walk amid the nest of newly hatching Spitz—a monstrous bird. Spitz chicks imprint upon the first they see as a parent. One could not allow oneself to be taken as the parent of monsters due for culling; thus Yullan had carefully crawled out of that great nest. Allewyn had not seen him move with such care since.

The effort showed: the young lord of Iteren shone. Allewyn sighed in relief.

Unless His Highness has found another partner, our captain will outshine the rest.

To his mind, Raymon still growled at the prince on sight; Lucien was surely cloistered with research; and Jikari—bird that he was—rarely stayed long in the capital. For the Prince’s first dance, Yullan was ideal.

Another of similar mind stood among the crowd: Baroness Minervina Weiss, the Boltwick retainer and Hunt Bureau administrator. Entering the ballroom, she scanned the room. Indeed, Nikiel had not arrived. As in past years, he would likely appear with the king. For a prince without a set partner, who was more fitting than Raymon Boltwick for the first dance?

She turned to the man at her side. He looked gaunt, as if recovering from a fever, but the shadow that lay across a handsome face lent him a certain solemn allure.

These last days, to Baroness Weiss, Raymon had been singularly odd. Among young male nobles of the capital, he set trends; not a wastrel who poured every hour into fashion, but a man of eye who wore nothing ill‑made. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, long legs, a handsomely masculine face—clothes looked good upon him, and because of that, men paid premiums to the tailors he patronized.

Yet one day, he returned far more slovenly than usual. Even with a frock coat thrown over to hide the low‑quality tunic and breeches beneath, the contrast between the coat’s fine cloth and the poor stuff underneath only made the inferiority sharper. The memory stuck with Minervina because the next day he shut himself in and would not go out.

A competent subordinate, she had, on the very day of his retreat, asked Evelyn Wolf, Deputy of the Hunt Bureau: