I was attending the Grand Council, urgently convened under the leadership of my father-in-law and the Judicial Minister, for the first time in a long while. Adelbert, who had stepped in as proxy for the Finance Minister, looked puzzled to see me in the chamber.

"I heard the Gale Knights cracked down on a ladies’ salon, but was it really serious enough to warrant calling the Grand Council?"

"His Grace will be the one to judge that."

"...Surely not that rumor we’ve been hearing?"

It seemed Adelbert had heard the rumor too—the one claiming I was the Grand Duke’s illegitimate son. For Adelbert, who was still consolidating his footing within the Finance Department, it was an extremely sensitive and delicate topic.

His relationship with me had changed in many ways. Adelbert had very little leverage among the four ministers, so he’d been signaling that he wanted to stay on good terms with the Military Department through me.

My father-in-law hated the Finance Department so much that just hearing the name was enough to jolt him awake from a dead sleep, but if Adelbert kept up this posture, there was a decent chance my father-in-law would take his side.

"That rumor is the one. It’s been an entertaining little story."

"You’re remarkably composed. The truth is, the Deputy Inspector General told me, but I dismissed it as a baseless rumor. Fools who don’t know you, my lord, must have cooked up that gutter talk out of petty jealousy."

Adelbert added that, embarrassingly, most of the bureaucrats in the Finance Department were going along with the rumor. He let me know that my reputation inside Finance was still as bad as ever. I hadn’t expected otherwise.

The biggest reason was that I was a political enemy, but the supplies and expenses I’d been demanding also accounted for a huge share of the budget. Between the war with Épinay and everything I’d been doing since, I’d run up an outrageous tab.

Just as I cursed Finance for being stingy with funding, they must have hated me right back for spending money like water. The important part was that I’d spent it on official duties, which gave me the justification.

I’d never embezzled tax money the way the Administrative Department had, at least.

The Administrative Minister, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, looked terribly haggard.

No, the venom in him had thickened, his stubbornness ratcheted up another notch.

He looked ready to pickle the first person who crossed him.

And the most aggravating part was that I stood a good chance of being that person.

I could tell from the way Inspector Dickmeyer was glaring at me.

"Lord of Feuzen."

"Yes, Minister. Please go ahead."

"I wanted to thank you for uncovering the tax embezzlement in the royal demesne."

Did I hear that right?

The Administrative Minister said his piece and then turned toward my father-in-law.

I stared blankly at his back.

Had something gone wrong with the cranky old man’s breakfast?

"The Administrative Minister is a hardline Grand Duke loyalist. I once heard from my father that he’ll use any means necessary to resolve anything that harms the royal family."

"Since tax embezzlement damaged the royal house, he’s grateful to me for exposing it?"

"He keeps public and private matters strictly separate, so that much is certain."

If only my own father were that way. As the heir who’d ended up in a power struggle with his own father inside Finance, Adelbert clearly envied the Administrative Minister. He hadn’t wanted to oppose his father either.

In any case, I felt strangely off-balance seeing this new side of the Administrative Minister.

"Count Steiner. You wouldn’t have called the Grand Council over some trivial matter at a time like this, would you? The Finance Minister has only stepped back temporarily. I’m not going to let you lot run wild as you please."

"Hmph. A stubborn old man who didn’t even notice tax embezzlement happening right under his nose has a lot to say."

"You uneducated foot-soldier types wouldn’t understand the burden of managing all that land."

"Burden, my ass. Is that something a man in charge of the royal demesne should be saying? If it weren’t for my son-in-law, you’d still be tarnishing the royal family you love so much."

"What did you say? You’re only riding your son-in-law’s coattails, yet your mouth is still running overtime!"

The Administrative Minister and my father-in-law were already snarling at each other. Of course. There was no way that stubborn old man would let it slide. If the Finance Minister had been here, it would have escalated into a three-way brawl.

The Judicial Minister, who had torn into the Administrative Department mercilessly, was the one quietly reading the room now.

Adelbert watched the scene and sighed.

He clearly didn’t have the seniority to jump into an argument between old men.

"Taking control of the Finance Department was well and good, but I’m at a loss for how to deal with those two."

"You’ll be overshadowed by their presence for now, but once the generational shift comes, won’t your experience put you at an advantage, Lord Adelbert? My father-in-law won’t be War Minister forever."

"It’ll take at least ten or twenty more years. They’ve got enough fight in them to bicker like that."

That was enough lip service. Honestly, I was hoping my father-in-law and the Judicial Minister would live to eighty like Old Man Bertheim and retire around then. Until that day, Finance wouldn’t stand a chance.

Adelbert had wanted to push his father aside and seize power, but to the other ministers he was just a green newcomer. And that label would cling to him unless those men retired.

My father-in-law and the Judicial Minister would be entering their fifties next year, and the Administrative Minister had just turned sixty. By medieval standards they were retirement age, but as Adelbert feared, they looked good for another twenty years.

Old Man Bertheim had retired three years ago, after the late king passed. From Adelbert’s perspective, it was a genuinely awkward position to be in. But overcoming it was a matter of his own ability.

Adelbert was a far easier counterpart for me to deal with than the Finance Minister, so I was hoping the Finance Minister wouldn’t return and Adelbert would formally inherit the position.

"His Grace the Grand Duke!"

The chamber doors opened and the Grand Duke entered. The Administrative Minister and my father-in-law, who had been tearing into each other, masked their displeasure at his arrival and returned to their seats. They were tame as lambs in front of the Grand Duke.

"So. I hear you’ve brought an interesting matter?"

What was with the way he looked at me when he said that?

It was now obvious he already knew everything through Hoenir.

A massive scandal that threatened to shake Altringen’s legitimacy was unfolding, and the Grand Duke seemed entirely unruffled. Maybe the rumor that the crown prince was illegitimate was a tool of his.

Because he was a king with a Conspiracy disposition.

A Conspiracy disposition operated on a different wavelength from ordinary thinking. And Grand Duke Karlus, who relished conspiracies, was the worst of the lot. It made sense now why father and son had such polar opposite dispositions, Justice and Conspiracy.

That was, if Crown Prince Franz really was Baron Constance’s son, as the circumstances suggested. Prince Louis shared the same Conspiracy disposition and the same talent for hiding his real intentions, just like his father.

I hadn’t checked the queen with the Scouter yet, but based on her behavior so far, my guess was that she likely had some deeply unpleasant traits. That would explain how she’d raised a son like Louis.

Evangeline, who was famously labeled a creature of vanity, was practically a saint by comparison.

Actually, hold on. Was it possible the princess was another of the queen’s illegitimate children?

Once a person started down the road of suspicion, there was no end to it.

My father-in-law began explaining the events of the past several days to the Grand Duke in detail.

The Administrative Minister, listening along, brought up the disturbance I’d caused.

"Is this related to the incident where the Lord of Feuzen raided a ladies’ salon?"

"Raided? Has age stripped you of your vocabulary? That was clearly a crackdown."

The fact that I had hit Lady Mühe’s salon had stirred up considerable chatter among the nobility. Some were even claiming I was relying on the Grand Duke’s protection to oppress nobles. It was less oppression and more putting a stop to their backstabbing.

But the affair had grown larger than expected, leading to the Grand Council being called. The Administrative Minister had apparently been listening more to the nobles’ complaints than to the actual rumor.

"Count Dickmeyer! Have you been so busy cleaning up shit that you’ve lost track of how the world is turning?"

"I know about the rumor that your son-in-law is His Grace’s bastard. Disrespect toward the Altringen royal family certainly deserves punishment, but is that important enough to convene the Grand Council on short notice?"

"Of course it’s important! Those bastards weren’t just talking about my son-in-law. They were spreading lies about His Highness the Crown Prince too!"

"...The crown prince?"

The Administrative Minister’s expression hardened. He must have been hearing this for the first time. With the tax embezzlement scandal still being cleaned up, with people being punished and administrators replaced, it was understandable that he was out of touch with the latest gossip.

But tax embezzlement was a serious matter, nearly on par with treason, and the practice had been allowed to take root over years. The Grand Duke’s lack of attention had let those people grow complacent.