“Tell me, Jurgen, when was the last time my ancestors ever settled for an armistice without the throat of our enemies beneath our boot?”

The seneschal only sighed, ignoring the prince as he continued to work his laces.

“Especially Ingo,” Heiko carried on nevertheless. “As you yourself claimed, his prescience is abnormal. His ruthlessness lives in infamy. What about his character lends itself to someone who would rather construct a moratorium with the Horned King than annihilate him completely and live immortally in the archives of history?”

Jurgen took his time to pull one leather boot off, and then the other, before flopping back on the chaise.

“Your brother,” he sighed, “is not lying about his intentions, aetheling. While I may not know the specific inner machinations of his mind, I do know that your father would have never approved of such an underhanded and craven method - especially committed against the Ilysian king, whose own family has served as a formidable adversary of your ancestors for some generations, now.”

The logic behind the seneschal’s words made Heiko falter only momentarily. Ingo might have honored their father just as any good and righteous son would, but that did not mean he was the same man.

“Be that as it may,” Heiko replied with an exhale, “he is not being lucid with his intentions, to neither the Ilysians nor his own. It does not bode well for smooth foreign relations.” After a second of thought, he added, “Nor for providing me reason to behave. Surely, he is not dense enough to believe that I will simply abide by your wishes while in the Republika. He has emboldened my power by sending me here alone.”

The comment weighed the seneschal’s brow. Cautiously, he said, “You are not alone, Prince Heiko.”

It might as well have been a question - or, more accurately, a plea. Jurgen, above all others, knew that the Achterecht’s inclination to scheme and plot did not stop at Ingo and Alfred.

Emboldened. The Second Prince drew a thumb across the cover of the Ilysian book. He chose the word mostly to give rise to the old man, but it was an accurate descriptor - more so than he had expected. He was the Viper of the North to the entire noble world, but it was in his own kingdom that the worst responses to it were endured. Foreign diplomats that entered the domain would avoid him entirely, save the few who had a penchant for ‘warming the frigid’. It could’ve easily been assumed that the Ilysian legates would treat him in a comparable way during the cabinet assemblies, because while Simonese nobility knew the lines that could and could not be crossed with their contempt for Heiko, the Ilysians would not. They would employ the utmost caution - a weakness that the Second Prince would be able to utilize to his own ends.

His viridescent gaze flicked up to the seneschal. 

Still, he would have to employ his own caution, as Jurgen would be able to immediately recognize the symptoms of a plotting Achterecht. Dries, as well.

“The fate of our success will be the plaything of the Horned Forum in the days to come. Despite the brief display of myself today, those crusty old legates believe that they have successfully gauged my disposition and political acuity,” the prince said to the seneschal. He knew Jurgen took careful note of the sudden change in topic, but most things could be thrown from a scent with a simple ruse. The man knew that and would not waste his energy on suspicion until he had solid proof of it. “All but that commander believes me a snake of the most wretched breed, thanks to my brother. They will take out on me their frustration over the fact that it is not the great Polar Wolf  who graces their table, heedless to the fact that while I would find their pompous dispositions proper fun, Alfie would crush them, one by one, until there was nothing left but a pile of dust and bone.”

The seneschal’s concurring chortle was derisive.

“It would undermine my position all the more,” Heiko continued, “if Martijn or Dries try their hand at overshadowing me during the summit with ineffectual conversation of their own.”

“It would, wouldn’t it,” Jurgen hummed tauntingly. “But they are not under my control, my lord. I may be the king’s seneschal but that gives me little power over ealdormen - and Dries has been a little cunt since he was a wee one. He will do whatever he so pleases, no matter how I protest - and he is protected entirely by the sentimentality formed through his long standing companionship with your brothers. You know this.”

The prince scowled at the reminder. “Then what you are saying is you have no control of the retinue? Pity.”

Jurgen waved a dismissive hand at him as he reclined further on the chaise, resting his head on the cushioned arm.

“You don’t know what my brother is up to, you have no rein on the men he sent.” The prince tutted. “What good are you at all, Jurgy?”

“Hush yourself.” It was a rather exhausted excuse for a rebuttal.

The prince indulged himself in a chuckle as he opened the Ilysian book, strumming his fingers over the stiff title page. The Ilysian alphabet was stout and rigid – every letter was composed with variations of straight lines, ideal for carving into stone, not into paper. But the Ilysians were people of tradition and obduracy.

“You will regret choosing to accompany me to the Republika,” he informed Jurgen after a brief period of silence.

The seneschal heaved a great breath as he positioned himself more comfortably. “I’m quite sure you’re right.”

Jurgen had always reminded Heiko of a hunting hound: at the whim and order of the master he had blind faith in, muzzle painted crimson with the blood of prey, grunting and groaning when respite was finally allowed for his weary muscles. But he was not a bad man, nor his heart ever wayward. He was as steady and durable as the stones of a stronghold, which was precisely why Heiko’s father had plucked him from the nothing he came from and burdened him with the weight of duty - the weight of friendship with an Achterecht.

The prince would have pitied the bastard, had he been in a position to do so. 

“Alas,” he murmured to himself, dropping his gaze to the foreign words on the page. Soon enough, Jurgen’s eyes would flutter closed, aided by the Ilysian heat and the sedative effect it had on the wretched northerners who were forced to venture beyond their comforts. The depth of the man’s sleep would be marked by the volume of his snoring, and when it reached a pitch that Heiko knew indicated a state of torpidity, his real work would begin. All he had to do was that which he was most exceptional at: bide his time in utter quietude until the moment to strike presented itself. 

And it always did for the Viper of the North.

⚔