Chương 52: Chapter 1.52: Thus always unto Tyrants

Favius swallowed hard as both the mask of the Consul and the kind, grandmotherly matriarch fell away. What lay beneath might have been genuine, or just another one of Aelia's many faces, but it was a face he knew well. That of an ambitious researcher encountering a new perspective on their subject of interest.

"How do you know of pestilential essences?" she said, her tone filled with fascinated curiosity.

"I..." Favius stumbled as his thoughts raced. What can I say? This is bad. The side of his mouth twitched upward. The first trick of being a con man is to always double down with more confidence when questioned. He adopted a slight sneer.

"Well, it is a rather obvious implication of the Theory of the Elements and Essences, is it not?"

"Obvious?" Aelia replied, and her eye twitched. After a moment, she laughed.

"To someone like me, indeed. Yet the other fools in the Academy believe that the theory is lacking." Favius barely managed not to sigh in relief. Great. If I can just get her to rant about her academic rivals. He controlled his expression.

"Why do they consider it lacking? What hinders them from seeing the obvious, Grandmother?" She snorted.

"The concept is clear in its practicality and elegance, yet nobody has ever managed to purify a pestilential essence." She shook her head, and her eyes went briefly somewhere else.

"Even I only ever got glimpses of a stable pestilential essence." She gave a disgusted snort.

"Its refinement is an achievement that has eluded me for decades." Favius maintained a smile of perfectly controlled polite interest, yet inwardly suppressed a shiver. Well, Grandmother, I'm so sad to hear that your bioweapons research hobby has failed to bear any appreciable fruits. Truly, what an utter tragedy. But before either he or Aelia could continue, Urania snorted.

"I knew it, Favius. You didn't come up with that. The Magi already knew it." Aelia stroked her hair. Yet the look she gave Favius was rather different.

"That is not quite true, but..." She hesitated for a moment.

"It is rather obscure lore that is not even taught to first-degree initiates of the Tower of Life. If you truly derived it from first principles, child..." She chuckled.

"I can only hope that you are blessed with a talent for the arcane." Favius's eyes lit up, but his next question was interrupted by a stern yet polite knocking on the door. Aelia didn't seem to notice it.

"But remember, Favius. Such lore is so secret that those who are inducted into it are made to swear a blood oath." The warmth in her eyes flickered, and for a moment, he felt he had reached too close to the hearth fire, and the tips of his fingers had been scorched.

"Do not be careless." She packed up the pieces of soap that Urania had given her and shoved them into a fold of her leaf-woven robes. She squeezed Favius's arm and hugged Urania again.

"Yes?" she called out to the door, her voice stern. A bronze-clad guard with an iron helmet opened the door.

"Consul Nyctara Aquilara. Consul Orestara Marinus wishes to speak to your grandson." He swallowed as the woman's attention settled on him, and Favius couldn't help but grin at the almost incidental display of power.

"Then I shall not leave my honored peer waiting for too long." The guard inclined his head, wisely refraining from comment. They marched back out into the hall, and Favius shook his head at the renewed clawing heat. His eyes assessed the sweaty yet well-dressed gossiping crowds. The temperature is another display of wealth. It's like how being fat in the past on Earth was considered a sign of you being well off.

He snorted as he did a quick Fermi estimate, guessing at the temperature and scale of the room and arriving at a ludicrous amount of firewood. What they are burning for each hour of this party… He shook his head. They walked to the center of the hall, and Favius noticed that both Serpens and Marcus stood with another woman. Before he could assess her, Urania touched his shoulder. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Look." He saw Caliga animatedly talking in the presence of one of the estate servants they had brought along. The man was holding a box while Caliga was waving about a piece of soap, much to the delight of a smiling group of noblewomen who were all busy sniffing and rubbing their hands over it.

"Seems that went off without a hitch," he murmured to his sister. Aelia spun her head almost one hundred and eighty degrees while she kept walking.

"Your soap. You are giving it away..." She trailed off as both Favius and Urania smiled, and she studied Favius's and Urania's expressions, confident and guilty respectively. Without changing her expression, the Consul turned back. She stopped and hugged both of them one last time in full view of everyone.

"Very well. Time you talk to Valeria. Do not be afraid. She's not a bad woman and merely needs some reassurance." Favius nodded while Urania squeezed her grandmother tightly. Leaving Aelia and the crowd behind, they walked across the hall, and the room grew silent. Everyone was watching the encounter while trying to make it look like they were not observing. Favius assessed the woman he would have to convince that he shouldn't be executed for the sins of his parents.

Consul Valeria was like Aelia, yet her polar opposite. Aelia's presence and authority was that of an ancient oak whose roots incidentally ground a mountain into rubble. Valeria was small and plump where his grandmother had been slim and predatory. Her round eyes and whiskers gave away her sea-lion heritage, the one that Brutus had told him she shared with the Onarch, the priest-king of Lirene. As they approached, the woman's dark, dog-like eyes assessed them. But Favius saw no loyalty in them.

No, the presence was like that of a blade of incorruptible steel carving a path through the waves of a storm. Two fingers were raised, and both Serpens and Marcus stopped, interrupting their conversation in an instant.

"Favius. Urania," the woman said in a voice that washed over him like a spring rain, almost pleasant, yet still too cold for comfort.

"It seems your new mother-in-law saw fit to hand you back your offspring, Marcus." Marcus chuckled sourly, while Serpens sneered.

"Indeed. I can only pray to the Gods that sanity will prevail in this meeting at least." Marcus looked over Favius's shoulder, and the reincarnator didn't have to turn around to know that Aelia was lingering just within reach.

"None of that," said Valeria, looking at him. Unlike Serpens, she did not dismiss Urania, but studied first her, then Favius.

"Boy, tell me, what is the highest virtue of the Republic?" Favius responded without hesitation.

"Stability." Good. An expected question. Serpens snorted.

"So you at least put some effort into drilling your heir on parroting the correct things. Well done, Marcus." Valeria turned her head, and the dead-eyed man shut his mouth in an instant.

"Why?" she asked, a gentle smile on her lips. Favius considered. It needs to be genuine. If she believes this is just a memorized answer, I'll put myself in a worse position. The solution came to him.

"It is obvious, is it not? We as aristocrats have a duty to care for our lessers." He turned his head meaningfully towards Serpens.

"When those of means and power fight, it is the weak and innocent, those whom we ought to protect and guide, who suffer the most, even if they bear no fault in the conflict." Surprisingly, a smile bloomed on Serpens's face, and he gave Favius the nod of a duelist acknowledging an elegant maneuver. Marcus smiled broadly, and Valeria raised a hand to her mouth and chuckled.

"Well struck, boy. It seems there will be another sharp tongue of the Ovinius bloodline in the future."

"Will there?" interjected Serpens, and everyone turned to him.

"The boy's very own point illustrates why he and the others ought to have been drowned in the river alongside the other lapdog's puppies." Marcus straightened and clenched his fists.

"You—" he rumbled in a growl of menace. Yet Valeria interrupted him with a single gesture.

"Serpens. Elaborate."

"The boy is still the son of the closest confidant of the Dictator, and he spoke of the need for stability and the duty to protect the people so no more innocents die. Yet how many innocents are going to die when the Dictator's loyalists rally around him in a few years and try to seize power again?" Valeria's eyes settled on Favius, and he again felt the attention of the room shift, crashing on him with the prickling sensation of a cultivator's might. Fuck.

I'm a child from a world that did not value rhetoric, and I'm going up against a master politician who has been trained in public speaking as soon as he could utter his first words. But a memory came to him. Severin's hands holding his, the man's last words. He knew what he had to say.

"I will not support any such campaign. My..." He hesitated and looked at Marcus.

"Severin, General Ahenopugnus, made me swear with his last words to honor the values of the Republic and to not reduce the Dictator's legacy to mere dreams of tyranny." Favius let his gaze wander around the entire room.

"I would rather die than dishonor my father's memory." The room was silent, and Favius fought the impulse to move, to take a step back from the assessing attention that was dissecting him with all its might. After half a dozen heartbeats of studying him, Valeria clapped her hands together.

"Well spoken indeed. I believe this settles it, Marcus. You shall have your heir." Favius let out a breath. Yet the woman wasn't done speaking.

"If he can answer this last question." His hammering heartbeat returned.

"Tell me, Favius." She studied him with those eyes, which were as deep as the bottomless ocean.

"Why are the values of the Republic so important?" Favius swallowed. He dismissed repeating comments about how the Constitution was what separated them from barbarians, how it made the Republic superior spiritually, morally, and materially. All of those lines would be something I just parrot. And that might not satisfy her. No, there's an easier solution here. After all, I did not grow up in a society used to worshiping autocrats. He took a breath and spoke with conviction born of an education in a different world.

"Autocrats, monarchs, and other warlords rule through might. But the Republic allows greater efficiency through compromise and the development of reasoned governance through debate, not just the necessities of power." He met the woman's eyes and felt the glimmering marine steel blade approaching. Finally, she smiled.

"A wise sentiment. I shall keep an eye on you, boy."

"So will I," growled Serpens. The man's menace washed over him. I've really done it. He allowed his shoulders to relax a fraction, but tensed when he saw Marcus's gaze on him. His adoptive father meaningfully looked over his shoulder, where Caliga was handing out another batch of soap to noble ladies. Favius felt like he had just been caught stealing candy from the kitchens.