Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 27
From the moment she saw that rose, Priscilla understood.
Why her noble brother, who was supposed to be sitting in Brandenburg enjoying wealth and power, had appeared at the other end of this distant continent, sneaking into the palace without even a single guard by his side.
The life force of the pink roses in Brandenburg was fading. He was worried about her.
Priscilla took a deep breath.
“Listen to me,” she said. “I am in good health. The roses in the castle live and bloom for me. Since I have left Lemena, they will naturally wither over time, but that doesn’t mean I will as well. I have no complaints about my life now. You should return to Lemena immediately, or at least leave Doran.”
Dwight looked at her. The concern in Priscilla’s eyes was unmistakably genuine.
“It’s different here from Lemena. And from… Pennigra,” Priscilla whispered softly. “If I had known, I would never have agreed to this. Please leave before midnight, after the court ball ends, Duke Dwight.”
Her tone became almost stern by the end of her statement.
Dwight was about to speak when he suddenly stopped. Like a keen hound sensing danger, he quickly approached the door.
Two maids approached, carrying a large silver tray, seemingly preparing to make the bed for the King.
Dwight frowned slightly. Did they not know the Queen was still in the room? If the King and Queen were talking, how could servants just enter the room? Or was the Queen’s behavior not meant to be public?
Unaware of the eyes watching through the door crack, the two maids chatted softly about the drama at the ball tonight, placing the silver tray on the ground and pushing open the door of the large room at the end of the corridor.
“Ahhhhh—!”
Almost simultaneously, a piercing scream echoed through the night, startling Priscilla almost to the ground. Dwight steadied her, quickly scanning the room for another exit.
Nobles, especially kings, commonly built secret chambers and passages in castle palaces, but not always.
Even if there were secret passages in the room they were in, it would be difficult for a Duke visiting for the first time to find one so quickly.
“What happened?” Priscilla tried to approach the door but was stopped by Dwight. The two maids were still screaming, and footsteps were already sounding in the hallway.
“Something must have happened in the room.” Dwight quickly assessed Priscilla’s attire. “Don’t go out now. Wait until more people arrive, pretend to be alarmed, and blend into the crowd. Their attention will be on the room. They won’t notice you coming from next door.”
Priscilla was uncertain. “What about you? We’ll just hide here and wait…”
“No.” The young Duke had already quickly considered several possible scenarios and responses after the scream. “If it’s a violent incident, experienced military officers will immediately check the vicinity of the incident site. This room would be the first to be scrutinized.”
He was absolutely right.
The two screaming maids were pulled up from the ground as people from all directions gathered, and the spacious corridor was nearly impassable. Petite Priscilla managed to slip out unnoticed amid the chaos, blending in with several noblewomen who had come in response to the noise.
“What—what’s happening?” she asked.
The doorway to the King’s room was already crowded, making it nearly impossible to push through.
“The Queen! The Queen is dead!” someone at the front screamed in terror.
Before the crowd could react, another voice shouted, “The Queen is alive! There’s another woman—”
“Go find His Majesty!”
“His Majesty isn’t in the room?”
“Find His Majesty!”
The guards struggled to disperse the crowd. Priscilla, concerned for her brother, lingered reluctantly. A guard approached her, and she preemptively said, “I won’t leave until I am sure the King and my husband are safe. I won’t obstruct you, but you must tell me—”
Her words faltered as the Countess stared in astonishment at the tall guard before her. Under the distinctive helmet of a Mokwen palace guard was a sunny and handsome face she knew all too well.
Priscilla quickly stepped back. “I won’t push forward. I’ll just watch from afar. Is that okay?”
It seemed the Countess’ concession persuaded him, and the guard backed away.
Priscilla’s heart pounded as she watched the guard casually lean against the door where the Duke of Brandenburg was hiding, seizing the moment to slip inside. Soon after, two guards came out.
“There’s no one in the next room,” the tall guard told others. “Check the other rooms!”
Priscilla finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Mokwen Palace was lit all night—a sudden murder in the palace prompted King Tifa to summon Duke Baylor, Earl Lestrop, and the Senate to an emergency meeting in the middle of the night.
The council hall was heavily guarded, and no one outside knew what was happening inside.
Queen Christine was finally revived by doctors, but she vehemently denied any involvement with the woman who died in the King’s room, claiming she had been drugged and left there by someone unknown.
That was what she said.
His Majesty’s promiscuity was no secret; even before Queen Christine had joined Mokwen from the Duchy of Lebis, his infamous mistress had already publicly flaunted her relationship with the King, causing the Senate to worry that Mokwen might welcome its first courtesan queen, with even a hotheaded minister considering a death plea to advise King Tifa to banish the too passionate and openly promiscuous Lady Dulie, whose nude paintings had fetched astronomical prices.
However, despite his licentious personal life, King Tifa was quite astute in politics. He took over the marriage arrangements originally belonging to his elder brother, Lamore, after he fell from a carriage and was trampled under the chaotic hooves of warhorses, leaving not even a whole corpse behind.
The Duchy of Lebis wasn’t large in terms of land, but it was rich in minerals, and its natural barriers protected its wealth from prying eyes, making it a powerful ally of the Mokwen Kingdom. Tifa’s marriage to Christine was also one of the main reasons he took up the royal crown.
Such a Queen, regardless of Tifa’s real feelings for her, couldn’t be easily abandoned, given the strong position of the Duchy of Lebis.
“Even if she killed her husband’s mistress in the King’s room?” Shivers, dressed in a Mokwen Kingdom guard uniform, leaned against the wall in a rarely trafficked corner, still keeping an eye on the outside.
Dwight paused.
“The murderer… it’s not certain yet,” he said. “The truth is unclear now. If what everyone sees is the truth, then, as the Queen, she is fully entitled to deal with her husband’s improper relations. The only issue is the identity of the woman who died beside her.”
This statement might seem a bit cruel and unfair, but it was actually very objective.
If the dead woman was a noble, then if the Mokwen royal family wanted to protect Christine (which was very likely), they would need to make some compensation and concessions to the family behind that woman, even if just for appearances, and the Queen would face some punishment. But if the woman was a commoner or lower, her death would be in vain, and afterwards, people would only talk about how the Queen must have been driven mad with anger to have taken action herself.
“So, should we leave?” Shivers asked. “There’s no moon tonight. Most of the guards are concentrated around the King. If we want to escape, now is the best time.”
Regardless of who the real culprit was, it had nothing to do with them. The Duke had already achieved his goal of personally confirming Priscilla’s situation, so the best choice was to quickly leave the palace.
Because once the Queen was declared innocent and Tifa began to investigate the real culprit, the palace would surely be under martial law. They would be like stones among wheat; if anyone conducted a thorough check, they would eventually be exposed.
The Duke fell silent.
Actually, there were many things about this night that he couldn’t understand. For example, why Priscilla went alone to Tifa’s room—as a Countess, such behavior, if seen, could spark rumors of an affair by the next day. Setting aside Tifa and Priscilla’s relationship, Dwight didn’t think his sister hadn’t considered this. Moreover, if Priscilla hadn’t been stopped, would she have entered the room before Christine, and would the suspect confined in the room with the corpse have changed from the Queen to the Countess?
Priscilla and Christine’s simultaneous decisions to go to the scene alone—was it a coincidence, or were they… guided?
Dwight lowered his eyes, his long lashes hiding his murky emotions.
One more thing.
Charlie.
That crazy, secretive rabbit. The map he provided, after sampling and verification, largely matched the actual situation; it was a real map.
But the spot he marked for their meeting was no more than twenty steps away from the King’s room. This was also one of the reasons he was able to stop Priscilla from entering Tifa’s room.
As a group of suspicious figures secretly infiltrating the palace, who, in their right mind, would set a meeting point near the most critical area of the palace?
More importantly, Charlie himself didn’t show up.
Until now, neither Shivers nor he had seen a trace of that rabbit-headed shopkeeper.
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