He's in Love with the Devil.

Chapter 20: The Sword the King Wants to Borrow

"If you're in Angell, what's the status?"

The king asked as he sat by the window, looking out at the street.

"There is no status. Your Majesty." The Knight Commander smiled bitterly, "In fact, before I was rescued by the Lord Duke, I had the name Modia Llewellyn."

"Llewellyn?" The king caught the key word, "You are a member of the Angell royal family."

"Yes." The Knight Commander replied, "A descendant of a banished prince. Your Majesty, this is really not something to boast about."

The king quickly understood why the Knight Commander said that.

Things had to be pushed back to eleven years ago, and it was a power struggle that belonged within the Angell State.

The Knight Commander's father, one of the princes of Angell at the time, had lost the competition and, accused of "intending to murder his brother", had been exiled and had to flee Angell.

This was not an uncommon occurrence, and stories of this kind abounded in this era.

Wasn't the King himself going through something like this right now?

The only slight difference was that the Knight Commander's father had been unfortunate enough to contract typhoid fever after taking him away from the Heartbreak. Before his death, the Knight Commander is entrusted by his father to the Duke of Buckingham in Rogaland, who, perhaps for political reasons, arranges for the Knight Commander to take on a new identity.

But this the king was supposed to be unaware of.

After hearing the Knight Commander's words, the king not only did not disappoint, but instead smiled imperceptibly.

He thought that he indeed possessed a suitable candidate.

Angel had a longstanding grudge against the royal family.

It was located in the southwestern part of Rogaland.

The first king of Rogaland took his cavalry and longbowmen deep into the belly of the Angell state and forced the Angell rulers to surrender by force. Since then, there has been a lot of "submission" and "rebellion" between the Angell and Rogaland royal families.

What angered the Rosicrucian family the most was that three hundred years ago, the King of Angell was involved in a murder, and together with the enemies of the royal family, killed the Crown Prince at that time. In 1134, the royal court convened a council and passed a penal code that established the lowly status of the Angle nation.

Since then, the conflict between the two sides has become more and more acute.

There is no doubt that the Angle rulers, who always had a grudge against the royal family of Rogaland, would have intervened after the upheaval in Rogaland over the "death of the king". However, compared to Archduke Grice and other people with bad intentions, Engel was purely a s**t-stick.

They only wanted to make Roglan unhappy without a specific goal.

This was one of the reasons why the king chose Engel.

Who would have thought that the king would suddenly join forces with the Angles, who were usually the most unpleasant to look at?

On top of that, the king had his considerations.

Thanks to the Duke of Buckingham's qualified care for his nephew, even though Pullan I grew up to be a tyrant, he still received a systematic education from an elite crown prince, and had a certain understanding of the situation of his territory. That was why the king was able to rummage through his memory for information related to Angel.

If the woodland nobles in the north were repeatedly ridiculed by the upper class, then, Angel was directly considered unable to reach the stage.

The natural scenery of Angell was beautiful - large unexplored forests, fast flowing rivers, and majestic mountains. It was these mountains, valleys, jungles, and rivers that limited the development of Angell. The land is barren, and internal transportation is difficult.

As a joke, "A year's worth of tariffs in Angell couldn't buy a single button on the sleeve of the King of Rogaland."

The nobles only took Angell as a laughing stock, but the king saw in it something that could be borrowed and used at this time.

That was Engel's soldiers.

The harsh natural conditions made it difficult to develop agriculture in Angell. Many of them, to this day, still used hunting as an important means of making a living. The Angles who hunted bears and killed leopards in the Swift Mountains were excellent fighters, and because of this the Angles were able to start rebellions time and time again.

What the king wanted was to borrow the sword that could kill bears and leopards.

Engel's warriors don't have the financial means to build armor, and they don't need to prepare a lot of escorts for their knights to go to war like normal nobles do. Therefore, their marching speed was fast enough to plunge into the battlefield in the middle of Rogaland from the mountains in the southwest in the shortest possible time.

Then, a question came up.

How should the king make this hunting knife of Angel's work for him?

--He gave the Knight Commander a letter.

That letter had been in the king's hand since before the knight-errant entered the door, and after listening to the knight-errant's words, the king put pen to paper and added a few more lines to the letter. Then he sealed the letter with his own hand, using fire-paint.

No one knew what was written in it except the king himself.

"Take him with you and hurry back to Angell in the fastest time possible to meet your cousin." The king said in a calm tone, "Tell him that time is only a week."

The Knight Commander took the letter in confusion.

Angell was a painful place for him, and he swore to the king that even if he lost his little life there he would deliver the letter to his cousin in person.

"Remember."

The King spoke suddenly as the Knight Commander walked to the door.

"You are the sworn Knight Commander of King Rogaland, a representative of the Rosebud royal family."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The Knight Commander took a deep breath and left with his head held high.

..................

"That was awesome, my liege."

After the Knight Commander left, the devil stepped out from the shadows of the room. He seemed to have a new hobby of being divine.

"Look at that poor fool of a man who has been used thoroughly, even if you had given him a knife, he would have been able to send it into his own chest without hesitation at your command."

"Then I am afraid you will be disappointed." The king said, "If there is such a knife, it is certainly not to stab my knight."

The devil pretended not to understand the meaning of the king's words, "Yah, I'm your loyal knight of hell."

The king sneered.

The devil had come to remind the king that he should get moving.

At this time, the sworn knights by the king's side, besides the knight commander, there was another one who also left quietly in the morning. The same was ordered by the king to escort a secret letter.

After the carriage departed, it took the road towards the direction of the royal palace.

Along the way, the cavalrymen running through the avenue became more and more numerous. As the king expected, the news of "the king's death" broke out with the speed of a thunderbolt in the whole land of Rogaland on the third day after the attack.

By the time the king's carriage stopped at the tavern again, people could already be heard discussing this matter.

The fire was warm, the harp tunes of the Southland were light and almost nasty, and the tavern was full of joy.

Yes, joyous.

In stark contrast to when William III died, there was little grief ......

To put it bluntly, most people were overjoyed. The tyrant's passing was literally the best news for them to know this year.

The minstrel strummed the strings of his battered lyre, and the comical clown who had also landed here tossed colored balls up and down for the crowd. Most of the people here were drunk, and they raised their glasses to each other, saying "Amen" and "Blessed be the Lord".

The only sober ones were at the King's table in the corner.

The king and his knights were in disguise, sitting in a low profile. The devil didn't look much different from the average young man either. Not many people noticed their table, but the clamor of the people could still clearly reach the king's ears.

The devil swirled his glass with his fingertips to make himself look no different than the group of drunks, and he observed the king with the help of his glass.

He was destined to be disappointed, though.

The king reacted to nothing.

That's when a witty man sang an adapted hymn:

"Blessed be the king, O gracious and holy one.

Bless his people and his welfare.

Let him live a less great life, but die an honorable death.

Let us sing with joy

Thanks be to the Holy Lord!" [1]

This song was originally sung by the people on the day of the king's birth, in the hope that he would be as great and glorious as his father. When it was sung at this time with a slight alteration, the irony was simply mean-spirited - yes, the tyrant's death was nothing short of a Holy Lord's blessing to Rogaland.

The knights at the table couldn't hold back any longer, and their hands went to the hilts of their swords.

The king put down the wine glass he was holding and stopped them with a look.

The knights sat down at the table red-faced with anger, while the king listened to the clamor in the tavern as if it was not he himself who was being celebrated for his death, looking as if it were him.

By this time there had been a further refill:

"...... Blessed be the King by the merciful and holy Lord!

Bless his judges and his sheriffs

Bless his foresters and his deacons.

Better make them like the King.

So that we may sing with joy

Thanks be to the Holy Lord!" [2]

And then there's the unanimous shout of "Thanks be to the Holy Lord."

The king calmly listened to the whole thing.

..................

However, there were those who were saddened by the news that the king was dead.

The Duke of Buckingham was definitely one of the saddest.

But the Duke's grief was quickly put aside, and in the shortest possible time, he set about investigating the facts of the matter, and began to do all he could to hold the fort for his nephew.

He did not believe that his nephew was really dead.

"The bloodline of the Rosebud family cannot die out so easily."

This Duke who had once slain the Abyssal Strait becoming a nightmare for the Blesians said so.

The Duke of Buckingham immediately abandoned the cautious introversion he had once made for his nephew and displayed a cold, iron-blooded hand. On the day he received the news, the Duke of Buckingham sent out his soldiers and threw all those who dared to publicize "The King is dead" in the streets into the prison.

The prisons of the capital of Rogaland were filled in a few days.

The Duke's reputation was tarnished by such ruthlessness, but he did not care.

--You know that, right?

--You are the only one I can trust right now.

The old Duke recalled the scene on the day of the King's departure. He had a vague feeling that perhaps the king had already had a premonition at that time.

What did he say at that time?

"I will guard Rogaland for you."

Ten years ago, he answered that. A dozen years later, he still answered that.

"Bring me my sword."

The Duke ordered.

The Duke of Buckingham donned the red cloak presented to him by the King, on which was pinned the crest of the Iron Rose. The squire came forward quickly with his sword, which he took and hung at his waist, the scarlet cloak covering it.

He was going to the emergency council that was about to be held.

The contents of the council--

Who will succeed to the throne?

Author's note:

[1][2] Based on a 15th-century English ballad, which reads, "May the good Lord bless the King and his people and his well being, let him live great and die glorious/Let us sing for joy/Thank God", during the reign of Henry V, when the country was strong and thriving.

Buckingham Ducal Persuasion: take the sword.