Even... even if he could hold Golden Scale Port, even if Duke Schmidt and Karl arrived in time and wiped out the rebels.
Whose merit would it be? Duke Schmidt's—the young Prince Consort's! At most, he, Elmer, would be credited with "meritorious defense," barely enough to make up for his failures.
But could they really be made up for? What would the Empress Dowager think of him? How would those political enemies eyeing him like tigers in court attack him? Would they seize the chance to kick him while he was down, claiming he had ties to the rebels? That he had raised bandits to bolster his own standing? Or even... that his surrender to Sauron back then had been born of treacherous intentions, and that now he had indulged his subordinates' rebellion?
At the thought of the Empress Dowager's mercurial, harsh, and ungrateful nature, and of those political enemies in the Royal Capital who devoured men without spitting out the bones, Elmer felt a bone-piercing chill shoot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head, colder even than the sea wind.
He could almost see himself stripped of everything, clapped in irons and thrown into prison, perhaps even dragged to the execution ground.
"Schmidt... Karl..." He turned the two names over in his mouth, his heart a tangled mass of feelings.
Duke Schmidt was the true colossus of the Northern Territory—deeply calculating, commanding heavy troops, and perhaps not all that obedient to the Empress Dowager either.
Karl von Schmidt, that young Lord of Carnford, the Empress Dowager's son-in-law, had won brilliant military achievements and was riding high in the limelight.
Were that father and son truly coming with their armies to "rescue" him? Or were they... coming to pluck the peach? Perhaps they had