Chapter 209

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 209
Chapter Title: Ariadne's Plan
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“I will send the Gallico army back to their homeland.”

At Villa Sorotone, Cesare’s residence in the capital that was just beginning to take on the colors of autumn, the black-haired girl gazed at the master of the house with calm, green eyes.

Cypress trees in the garden, the very color of her eyes, seemed to embrace Ariadne.

“I need your help, Your Grace.”

Somehow, she was like a perfectly serene painting.

And in that painting, Ariadne seemed to have found her rightful place.

She had once lived at Villa Sorotone.

Cesare did not know this, but he felt it in his heart. This was where she belonged.

A strange sense of elation washed over him. Turning back the Gallico army—that would be recorded in the history books.

And he was there, at the scene of this history in the making.

It wasn’t that she was taking part in his history, but that he was taking part in hers. This was only natural.

For it was something Cesare could never accomplish alone. It was a strange yet pleasant sense of being overwhelmed.

“…Anything. What do you need?”

“You have wartime operational command, don't you?”

He was a commander-in-chief in name only, having lost all his troops, but the position itself was still intact. This was thanks to Duchess Rubina’s efforts.

“That's right.”

“I need the authority to open the city gates at night. And the weight of your name on the operational orders.”

For Ariadne, a private citizen with no title or position, to contact the Montpellier Heavy Cavalry would be problematic later on.

It would be a problem if the operation failed, but an even greater one if it succeeded spectacularly.

Someone would inevitably appear and tear her apart, demanding to know by what authority she had done something so audacious.

The operation must be carried out under the name of Commander-in-Chief Cesare to provide her with a shield of protection.

“First, let's hear the plan. And…”

If what Ariadne intended to do was absurd, Cesare too would be taking a great risk.

His situation was already precarious as it was.

If opening the gates at night provided the enemy with an opening, Duke Cesare would truly become the target of all the capital's condemnation.

He would become a scapegoat in place of Leo III.

But he had a strong premonition that Ariadne's plan would succeed.

“If this goes well, I’ll be the one taking all the credit in the end. Why are you doing this, my lady?”

Ariadne smiled bitterly. Her expression was hidden from Cesare by her face veil.

“…That’s a good question.”

*I am moving at the behest of fate. I don’t know where this will take me.*

*Can I save the Kingdom of Etruscan and its people? If I do save them, what will happen to me?*

*As for why I’m doing this, neither you nor anyone else could ever fully understand.*

The words that never left her lips were all contained in her bitter smile.

Only a shimmering halo, invisible to Cesare’s eyes, stood guard beside her.

* * *

A week earlier, with Raphael de Valdesal’s help, Ariadne had analyzed the Gallico army’s pattern of advance to the south.

In truth, there was little to analyze.

The Gallico army was bypassing all the major northern cities—which would have made for excellent targets for plunder—and advancing in a straight line toward San Carlo.

What that meant was obvious.

“Here. Like this.”

Raphael took Ariadne’s hand as she dotted a point on the parchment.

Instead of plotting the points sequentially, he estimated the average distance between the existing dots and drew a straight line across the parchment.

Startled at having her bare hand held, Ariadne looked at Raphael, who apologized with a sheepish smile.

“Ah, I'm sorry.”

His bashful smile, as if it were a genuine mistake, left Ariadne flustered, and she immediately accepted his apology.

His clean, pale, and childlike expression showed not a trace of ill intent.

“Oh, it's nothing.”

*Was I being too sensitive?*

Still, Ariadne looked down at the parchment, thinking that Raphael’s speech had become strangely clipped lately.

The end of the line Raphael had drawn led to the northern hills on the outskirts of San Carlo.

“It’s a hilly area, perfect for stationing troops. They’ll regroup there and then put pressure on San Carlo.”

Raphael tilted his head as he spoke.

“To be honest, I don't know exactly what the Gallico army is after. It's clear they're marching on San Carlo. But what then? They don't have enough men for a siege, and as far as I know, they have no siege equipment.”

Traditional siege equipment included battering rams, catapults, and siege towers. The latest trend was artillery, including siege cannons.

These were bulky, easily spotted from a distance, and slow to move.

Siege cannons are key strategic weapons, so if they had crossed the border, it would have caused an uproar.

But there were no reports of siege weapons being spotted with the Gallico army, nor any word of them being issued artillery.

Besides, they were moving far too quickly for an army hauling siege equipment.

“You said San Carlo isn't a defensive city, Raphael.”

“That’s right. It has no moat, the walls are low, and most importantly, the city's perimeter is far too long.”

“Even so, would siege weapons be absolutely necessary to capture San Carlo?”

San Carlo was the greatest metropolis on the central continent.

Montpellier, the capital of Gallico, had been rising rapidly in recent times, but it still fell far short of catching up to San Carlo, which had been founded in the same spot since ancient times, its architecture and history layered over and over. A planned city like Montpellier could not hope to match it in a single bound.

“But we are a thousand-year-old capital. We have all the basic defenses. With their numbers and equipment, taking San Carlo would be extremely difficult. If I were their commander, I wouldn't even try.”

And it was too late in the season to be reinforced with equipment from their homeland, with winter fast approaching.

Even if a convoy were dispatched immediately, the first snow would fall by the time any siege weapons crossed the Prinoyak Mountains and arrived here.

It wasn't easy politically, either.

When the Gallico army was just loitering near the border, they could make the excuse that they had ‘accidentally strayed across while conducting training exercises nearby.’

Pope Ludovico had seemed ready to graciously accept any excuse.

But once they began their southern advance into the interior, their actions verged on a violation of international protocol, something even Pope Ludovico would find difficult to defend.

Pope Ludovico might ignore Leo III's first protest.

But if the protests were repeated and forceful, or if the army's stay was prolonged and they did more than simply linger, not even the Pope could continue to shield them.

“Under normal circumstances, it would have been like this.”

Raphael moved Ariadne’s hand, which was still holding the quill, to connect the northern cities of Regento, Ermo, and Manfredo in order.

Having had her hand guided again, Ariadne simply handed the quill to Raphael.

“Here.”

But it seemed Raphael was done with the quill.

He took the quill, set it down on the desk, and used his own index finger to point to the three major northern cities.

“They would have plundered them sequentially on their way down. Considering the defensive capabilities and sizes of the cities, that would be the textbook approach.”

“But if they started plundering cities…”

Raphael nodded.

“From that point on, it’s all-out war.”

Not even the Pope, not even the resurrected Emperor of the Ratan Empire, could protect them then.

“They have business in San Carlo. Either they plan to make a swift, brazen descent on the capital, strike it, and leave, or they intend to propose some kind of terms for negotiation. It must be one of the two.”

“Could their decision to come down without plundering cities along the way also have been to avoid the Black Death?”

Ariadne pointed out one possibility.

She didn't know it, but that was the very reason the commander of the Montpellier Heavy Cavalry had advanced south in a straight line, avoiding the cities.

Raphael partially agreed with her speculation.

“That could be. They've avoided all the cities, passing only through the grain-producing regions. With their supply lines stretched, it seems they intend to procure as much as they can locally.”

“…The harvest in the central regions was at least partially underway. It must have all been plundered.”

“I suppose so. But there's a limit to how much they can carry, so they probably burned the rest.”

“…Bastards,” Ariadne muttered.

War was never fair, but they were stealing Etruscan's hope for the next year without even a declaration of war.

If the harvest failed in the central regions, following the north and south, the shock would not end next year.

They weren't even taking the grain for themselves to eat.

They were simply burning it all so that Etruscan could not use it. It was pure destruction.

She asked, clenching her teeth.

“Will they return home when winter comes?”

“Normally, one would think so, but the Gallico army is currently operating in a way that defies all common sense.”

An inland advance without a declaration of war between nations of the same faith, a march that doesn't involve plundering major cities.

And on top of that, a southern march into plague-ridden lands. It was unprecedented.

“Whether they’ll actually return home for the winter… I’m not sure.”

Ariadne shook her head.

“If they won't go back, then I'll have to make them.”

“…Do you have a good plan? The Pope's intervention, perhaps?”

Raphael’s question was reasonable.

The only forces left in Etruscan were the Capital Guard, and only the king had the authority to move them.

An authority Ariadne certainly did not possess.

Moreover, since Ariadne was a cardinal's illegitimate daughter, it was natural to assume she would aim for a political or diplomatic solution by moving the Holy See.

But instead of answering, Ariadne gave Raphael a small smile.

It was something she couldn't guarantee would succeed. Blood might be shed.

Ariadne wanted to protect Raphael, who aspired to the clergy.

“…When it’s more concrete, I’ll let you know.”

It was a dismissal.

This was always the line Raphael could not cross. Though disappointed, he nodded with a smile.

“Let me know when you're ready.”

He added.

“Because I really want to know.”

*Because I want to know everything that’s inside that amazing mind of yours.*

* * *

The first person Ariadne shared her plan with was not Raphael, nor Cardinal de Mare, but Sancha.

“I'm going to infect the Gallico army with the Black Death.”

Sancha was the one who had trained the nursing corps at the Rambouillet Almshouse.

She was also one of the most knowledgeable people in San Carlo regarding the prevention and control of the Black Death.

So much so that the plague doctors operating in the capital would secretly seek advice from Sancha, who was merely a maid from a noble house.

“How?”

“The safest method, really, is to launch corpses and their byproducts into the enemy’s encampment.”

At the end of the First Crusade, the Moorish Empire had used catapults to launch the corpses of Black Death victims into Yesak, the thousand-year-old city that had been conquered by the crusaders.

The Lion King, who had led the First Crusade to victory, had already returned triumphant to the central continent with most of his forces. His nephew, Count Yekon, newly crowned ‘King of Yesak,’ was left to make a desperate last stand in the plague-ridden city before falling to the Moorish Empire.

The records from that time say that dead bodies, not stones, rained down from the sky into the city walls.

At first, the King of Yesak and his men had remarked, ‘If you want to break the walls, you should be launching something hard. What is this nonsense?’ and ‘If their goal was to disgust us, they’ve succeeded.’ But soon, they lost their ability to fight as the Black Death overran the city.

Even the Lion King's vaunted order of knights was no exception. No army could maintain its fighting capacity in the face of a plague.

And the Moorish Empire, which had launched the bodies, suffered virtually no losses.

“…Do we have any catapults we can use?”

“No. And the enemy isn't defending from within city walls; they’re on the move in open country. It’s not a situation for catapults.”

Another route of infection was needed.

“Do you have any good ideas?”

“…I’ll look into it. We'll need to decide whether to use corpses or the byproducts of patients first.”

Having received Ariadne’s secret order, Sancha hurried to the Rambouillet Almshouse.

Her task was to devise a method that would maximize infection among the enemy while minimizing casualties on our side.

And just two days later, Sancha returned, looking a little pale.

“…Um, my lady. There's someone you need to meet.”

“Who?”

“But… I’m not sure if I should be arranging this.”

Ariadne asked.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Greta from the Rambouillet Almshouse has requested to see you.”

She was the girl from the almshouse's nursing corps whom Sancha had once praised as being very bright.

“Ah, I remember. Didn't you say Greta recently became the leader of Team 2?”

The almshouse’s nursing corps was divided into Team 1 and Team 2.

Considering Sancha was leading Team 1 herself, Greta, as the leader of Team 2, was the most outstanding among the new trainees at the Rambouillet Almshouse.

But Sancha lowered her head.

“You remember. I thought it would have been a trivial matter for you… But that doesn't matter anymore.”

“Why?”

“I think Greta… has caught the Black Death.”