The Sinful Young Master

Chapter 483: Jolthar did not return – 2

It started with Richardus, as most unpleasant things in the imperial court tended to do.

“Your Highness,” he said, his voice loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear.

He stepped forward with the measured confidence of a man who has been waiting for a specific moment and has recognized its arrival.

“The sun is descending. The hall has been standing for the better part of two hours. The court has obligations beyond waiting in a room for a man who, by all reasonable assessment, has not survived the task he was given.”

He waited, letting that land before continuing.

“Perhaps it is time to acknowledge what the evidence before us suggests.”

“The sun has not set,” Milan said.

“Not yet,” Richardus agreed pleasantly.

“But within the hour it will have, and then the thirty days will have concluded, and the matter will be settled in the way that failed obligations are always settled. The question is whether we continue standing here pretending otherwise or whether we acknowledge reality and proceed accordingly.”

Several ministers behind him made sounds of agreement, the particular sounds of men who have been waiting for permission to say what they have been thinking and have just received it.

“Prince Milan.”

This came from Halvren, who had positioned himself carefully among the ministers and now stepped slightly forward to add his voice to Richardus’s momentum.

“With the greatest respect for your position and your intentions, calling this court together on the assumption that a man would return from the Dreadland Depths alive and on schedule is – and I say this gently – an extraordinary presumption.

The Depths have claimed warriors of considerably greater established reputation than Jolthar Kaezhlar. The Emperor’s mission was generous in its terms and more than sufficient in its timeframe. That the man failed to complete it is regrettable but hardly surprising.”

“He has not failed,” Milan said.

“There is still time remaining.”

“An hour, Your Highness,” another minister said from somewhere in the cluster behind Richardus. “Perhaps less. And the man has not sent a single word in twenty nine days. Not a message, not a courier, not any communication whatsoever.

In the absence of any evidence that he is alive, let alone returning, the court is being asked to stand and wait on the basis of what exactly?”

“On the basis that the time has not expired,” Milan said, keeping his voice even with considerable effort.

“With respect,” Halvren said, in the tone people use when respect is the last thing they intend, “this gathering was premature and frankly inappropriate.

To call the full imperial court together, to occupy the Emperor’s hall and the Emperor’s time, on the basis of a hope rather than any confirmed information – that is not a small matter, Your Highness.

It borders on a misuse of the imperial process.”

This produced a louder murmur through the assembled court, the sound of people who have been standing for two hours and have decided that agreeing with the criticism is more comfortable than continuing to wait.

Lorryll stood in his position among the lesser nobles and said nothing, which was exactly what Elara had told him to do.

His initial plans had been halted when he found Elara in the capital. He decided to follow her lead for now; she had informed him about the people who wanted Jolthar killed. They should just watch for now. Lorryll had paid no attention to her in the past, later when he learned that she had Myron wrapped around her finger and had connections to Deivrutas. She had achieved all of this without the clan’s help, which was an incredible feat in itself.

He simply watched Milan absorb the pressure from multiple directions simultaneously and allowed the corners of his mouth to remain completely still.

Andrion moved slightly closer to Milan, close enough to be a visible statement of position without saying anything that could be used against him later. He kept his expression neutral, but his eyes on Richardus were not neutral at all.

“The misuse of the imperial process,” Milan said, his voice tightening despite his best efforts, “would be to declare a mission failed while the time limit granted by the Emperor himself remains unexpired. Every man and woman in this hall is standing here because the Emperor granted this audience. If anyone wishes to argue that this gathering is inappropriate, that argument is one they must make to the throne, not to me.”

A brief silence followed that.

Nobody immediately volunteered to make that argument to the throne.

The Emperor sat above all of it on his dais and watched with the patient stillness of a man entirely comfortable allowing a situation to develop at its own pace.

He was neither agreeing with the minister nor giving a nod to what Milan was saying. He kept a blank expression on his face, making it difficult for everyone to know about his intentions.

He had not spoken since the gathering began. He showed no particular inclination to speak now. His eyes moved occasionally across the hall with the slow comprehensive attention of someone reading a room the way a general reads a battlefield, missing nothing and reacting to nothing visibly.

Empress Mandaqini sat beside him with her spine straight and her expression doing the work her husband’s refused to do, her disapproval of the entire proceeding visible in every precise line of her posture.

She had never wanted Jolthar Kaezhlar to succeed at anything and she was not attempting to hide that preference behind diplomacy.

Dayamati watched from her position with the faint quality of someone privately entertained by proceedings that everyone around them is taking with complete seriousness.

She had said nothing and moved very little, but her eyes had been active throughout, gathering the kind of information that a woman in her position was always gathering in rooms like this.

Richardus drew breath to continue, clearly having prepared considerably more than he had yet delivered.

Milan was hoping desperately and trying very hard to control the situation.

That’s when a loud booming sound came.