Constantine
"I don't understand. Have I ever given you any reason to doubt my loyalty, my King?"
I found myself smirking, stepping closer to him.
"I would like to think so, Baldwin. Considering it's only you that keeps stretching out the helpful hand to Grace Oak every now and then. It is your son, after all, that is ambassador—spending rather too long meeting up with strange parties. Those things in themselves are more than enough for me to dismiss and dismember him for as much information as I want. But I won't."
"Why?" he shook his head, his bottom lip trembling only slightly.
"Because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, Baldwin. I want to give your family the benefit of the doubt. You're the oldest noble family in this country, and you've done pretty good for yourself. Don't give me any reason to end your line forever."
"My King," he said. "Your Majesty, it's a misunderstanding. My son is simply enjoying youthful exuberance."
"Then why did you suggest him to be ambassador, knowing full well his reputation precedes him?"
He went silent, his eyes now on the floor, his fingers laced together, twisting and rubbing over his knuckles and then back and forth.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I will never give you a reason to doubt my loyalty. I will get to the bottom of this, my King. Rest assured, I will bring these treasonous elements to justice."
He gave a quick bow just as I brushed past him and headed back inside.
Once settled and fully showered, I retreated to my office, placed my head between my hands, and simply rubbed against my wet hair.
Pain had long since exploded in my shoulder.
"It's a sprain," the doctor had said. "Luckily you didn't dislocate it, but it's your elbow I'm worried about."
I rubbed against the sore spot.
"And of course your back. Your ankle has also been sprained, so luckily we don't need to bandage anything."
My door soon opened, with my personal physician peeking his glass face inside. He soon pulled himself in completely, along with a nurse behind him holding his briefcase.
"I had been so busy," he said. "Then you go ahead and get yourself nearly exploded. What exactly am I supposed to do about that? What am I supposed to do if you die? You'd be the youngest serving monarch in the entire country's history!"
He reached me, pulled off my shirt in one quick swoop, exposed my elbow, and then began to click his tongue in displeasure. The nurse behind him, however, had her eyes focused on my chest with a clear redness on her face.
She cleared her throat, raised the suitcase to the hand level of the idiot four-eyed doctor of mine, and simply waited.
"I hear the other guy was bad, huh?" he chuckled, bending to his knees and taking a closer look at my elbow.
"And by 'other guy,' it was a woman. And yes, she's slightly worse. Dislocated shoulder, bruised hip, a broken bone—but that's just about it."
I found myself grumbling.
His hazel eyes found mine from behind his glasses.
"You sound angry. Don't tell me you like this one. As if you'd say. But I thought she was fine. I thought she was in the ballroom when it happened."
I shrugged.
"That is a matter of personal and national security, Jude. I can't tell you without necessarily endangering your life."
He rolled his eyes, reached for the suitcase, and opened it quickly. He pulled out forces, cotton wool, and alcohol to clean the area around my terribly bruised elbow.
He mumbled something about national security.
"Being around you is a threat to my life," he said out loud. "With the amount of trouble you've put me into? You and your madness at the Academy back when? It's a miracle I'm not six feet under just yet—and no thanks to you."
He poked at my elbow intentionally.
At first, I laughed, and soon I let out a rather long groan of pain, clutching my other hand onto the armrest of my chair.
"I'm not sorry," I grumbled.
He wiped clean the dark area, then wrapped it up in a bandage.
"You'll live," he said, tapping against his handiwork.
"I have to," I mumbled, before standing to my feet and heading over to the suit hanging on my jacket stand.
I quickly buttoned my shirt, not so respective of the sudden stiffness of movement and the restraint caused by the bandage around my elbow. But there were a few things I wouldn't let others do for me—and that was dressing myself, dammit.
Quickly, I pulled on my jacket, my ceremonial robe, and headed out the door.
"You're supposed to be resting, Last by Michael Jackson," Jude called out after me.
"There's no rest for the wicked. Neither you nor I are ever going to get any day's rest."
I briefly turned, shot him a small wink, waved, and shut him practically inside my office before heading over to the council room several floors away.
Inside was already a madhouse.
Uncle Sergey had effectively taken over, pointing fingers at whoever, everyone, and anyone who dared to breathe.
"I would like to think you would all do your jobs," he said. "Just because I'm Minister of Defense doesn't mean I have to pick up your slack. This one was close—too close."
I stepped close to him, shook my head, and waited for him to turn, but the man simply didn't.
When in the throes of passion, he tended to be unrecognizable, inconsolable, and most of all, unreachable.
"I mean, it's not like we're in a zombie apocalypse. Calm down, Uncle Sergey."
The man finally turned to me, his face pink with rage, his mouth open, his fingers in my face.
"You—"
I stepped back, cleared my throat, and gave a quick bow.
"Your Majesty. I didn't know you would be back so soon. I thought you would be resting."
I cleared my throat, smacked him on the shoulder, and walked over to my seat.
"No rest for the wicked," I said again. "You ever heard that one? They think I'm a tyrant outside—might as well just lean into it, no?"
I lowered myself into my seat, allowing the council to do the same.
"Sit down, Minister. I hear you have a rather terrible history of hypertension in the family."
I jested at Sergey. The man, however, didn't defend himself, didn't complain. He simply stood stiff, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked at me.
His eyes were filled with worry, his shoulders set, his face bunched up.
He would have said a million and one different things—asking about how I was, whether or not I was in pain—but not now.
"There are a few people I've commended with the task of finding out precisely who could have tried this. But it's not the first, and neither will it be the last. So long as we are here, so long as we exist, and so long as we do not give in to a specific set of demands—it will happen over and over again," I said to my council.
"What matters is simply how we handle it."