Chapter 331 — The Letter of Investiture

"I have it," Rebecca said at once, producing from her person a tube bearing the pale-gold royal seal of the Moen dynasty, one end still sealed with wax. "I wanted to look, but Sir Philip said a letter like this mustn't be peeked at, and that I had to deliver it into your hands personally..."

Seeing the deeply aggrieved look on Rebecca's face, Gaoyang could well imagine what an effort it had cost the girl to hold back from peeking all this time. He took the tube with a smile, and then, in front of Amber and Rebecca, broke it open.

Inside the tube was a scroll made of fine parchment, bound with a ribbon woven from pale-gold and pale-violet threads. Clearly this was not merely a letter.

It was a formal document from the royal house.

Gaoyang unrolled the scroll, glanced at it casually, and tossed it to Rebecca: "Put it in the collection room when you're done reading. Don't lose it."

Rebecca immediately fell to reading the contents of the scroll with impatient eagerness. When she finished, she looked up blankly: "Ancestor, does this mean you're now the legal lord of the Kant domain? And the king even gave you a great stretch of royal domain east of the Kant domain as well?!"

The contents of the scroll were exactly as Gaoyang had guessed: a letter of enfeoffment from the royal house—or, to put it another way, a document of the royal house's "compromise" with and "acknowledgment" of the fact that Gaoyang now ruled the Kant domain.

The moment Amber heard what it was, she could not help crowding in: "Let me see, let me see! This is the first time I have ever laid eyes on a real letter of enfeoffment... Wow! The clasp on this binding is actually gold!?"

"Is there any need for such astonishment?" Gaoyang regarded the two girls before him with faint amusement. "So long as Francis II has not yet gone senile, this document was bound to reach my hands sooner or later. Kant is nothing but a viscount's domain; set against my ducal title, it is a trifling gift, and the King has no reason to be stingy. As for that patch of royal domain... well, that is merely a little bonus thrown in."

As he spoke, he shook his head slightly. "I simply did not expect it to be delivered ahead of time—and by griffin messenger on an urgent dispatch, no less. I had originally thought the relevant letter of enfeoffment would arrive in Cecil after the spring thaw, but now it seems... the shifting situation has given His Majesty a sense of urgency."

"A shifting situation?" Rebecca blinked in some confusion. "You mean the situation between Typhon and Ansu? Does that have anything to do with the letter of enfeoffment?"

"Of course it does," Gaoyang said with a smile. "The war between Typhon and Ansu is very likely to be postponed, which means the rulers of both nations must consider reopening diplomatic channels—and there is a strong chance the King himself will enter the negotiations in person. But the Second Dynasty's hold over Ansu cannot match that of the First, so to ensure domestic stability throughout the coming period of talks, Francis II must placate—or rather, curry favor with—the nobles at home well in advance. Whether they belong to the war faction or the peace faction, he must reach out to them and sound them out; and someone like me, who belongs to neither the war faction nor the peace faction, must also receive his consideration—because I am of the Ancestor faction. His Majesty lives in constant worry that this old ancestor of his might suddenly leap out and give him a thorough scolding."