Wife of The Demon Prince
Chapter 233: Victims

Chapter 233: Victims

The court room went silence at the crown Prince’s nonchalance remark. Hamon didn’t wait for their response and turned towards Oliver, who was standing by the entrance waiting for his orders.

"Oliver, bring him in."

"Yes, Your Highness." Oliver bowed and immediately left the hall, soon he returned with a man, the royal blacksmith who made the armours for the soldiers of Findara. The blacksmith bowed to the king and queen, "Hail your majesties!"

The man’s sudden appearance set off a wave of murmuring in the court room. The blacksmith strode forward next to Edwin, who had a shocked expression on seeing the man.

The blacksmith handed a parchment to the king, who asked in puzzlement, "What is this?"

"With all due respect, your majesty. This parchment contains the proof that her majesty had made a request to my workshop to make armours the same as the crown Prince’s soldiers. And those same armours were worn by the men who attacked my village months ago. Her majesty is behind the ambush on the commoners." The man admitted confidently, he wasn’t afraid to lose his life by saying the truth, he had lost his family in the ambush, thus he wanted justice for them, which was why he had agreed to testify against the queen today.

The buzz in the court room grew even louder, and Merona’s expression darkened as she watched the stupid blacksmith Edwin had brought to her chamber few months ago. Her brother had told her the blacksmith wouldn’t dare go against them, and she’d trusted his words and gave the man the orders to make the armours, but now...This wasn’t good. Something bad would happen since the blacksmith had appeared to be on Hamon’s side now, she shouldn’t have put Edwin in charge of all this in the first place!

Merona hurriedly spoke in an attempt to stem the accusations against her before the mood soured against her, "Your majesty, someone is trying to defame me. Someone must have paid the blacksmith to come here and say all this."

The blacksmith frowned and protested, "These are all the evidence in the parchment and her majesty’s signature when she gave me the orders to make the armours...And not just me, the captured men confessed as well, believe me your majesty, I wasn’t paid to say this. All I want is clear justice for my family who lost their lives in the ambush."

Frederick, who was skimming through the parchment and listening to the two speak, finally glanced towards the blacksmith, "Did you say some men were captured and confessed?"

Oliver was the one to reply to this question, "Yes, Your majesty. The captured men confessed to following her majesty’s orders."

Merona’s brow lifted sharply at Oliver’s reply, she would not let herself roll over and lose in the face of the public, "How can we trust the words of a mere blacksmith and some captured men? I am the queen, and I have many enemies who want my down fall, there is no guarantee that they were my men. They maybe acting on someone’s orders as well." She defended.

Merona had already planned to place the blame of the incident on someone else, but avoiding suspicions was not easy. Moreover, she hadn’t expected the bastard to bring this here today. She was supposed to look for ways to free her son at the moment, not some lowly commoners case. However, she maintained her composure in the face of the accusation.

"I request a reinvigoration by his majesty himself. It is a great shame to my honor if you were to take the words of some captured men without any proof..." She trailed off, and looked around at the officials and elites gathered in the court room and spoke with authoritative strength, "We are here to settle the matter of the second Prince first, not one about me."

Merona turned her head towards Hamon, she had to delay this matter before she found a solution. And this bastard she wanted him gone before then. Several officials rushed to agree with Merona.

"Her majesty is right. Rather than questioning the queen, whose guilt is not certain at the moment, it is imperative that the crown Prince’s punishment should be permitted for illegally detaining the second Prince."

"Yes, Your majesty, the crown Prince should be punished at once!"

Hamon gave the officials a cold glare, that made them immediately shut up, "I have my reasons for not officially bringing Cassius’ case out...if you all want to hear, it will be my pleasure to explain it to you." He nonchalantly remarked with his hands folded against his chest.

Merona and some of the officials looked in astonishment towards Hamon. An ominous feeling hovered over Merona’s mind. ’Does he have another evidence to prove Cassius’ crimes which I don’t know about for him to look this confident in front of everyone?’

Facing the queen’s stunned gaze, Hamon calmly spoke to Oliver again, "Bring the second Prince here."

A moment later, the badly beaten Cassius was dragged into the court room by two soldiers, he jerked his arms away from the soldiers grip the moment they stepped inside.

Upon seeing her son’s condition, Merona furiously stood up from her seat, "Hamon! What is the meaning of this?! How could you beat a Prince this badly?!" She demanded angrily. However, Hamon pretended as if she wasn’t even talking to him, not even sparing her a glance.

"M-mother, look what he did to me..." Cassius gestured to his tattered clothes and bruised body. Hamon had kept him in a smelly dungeon, and only fed him once a day after whipping him with a leopard skin belt. However, when the soldiers had suddenly came to drag him out of the dungeon, he’d thought they’d execute him without his mother’s knowledge, but upon seeing her, he felt relief washed over him. He was sure his mother would bring him out of that monster’s clutches!

Before Merona could speak again, Hamon’s soldiers walked inside the court room with a sack of drugs Cassius used in his parties. The people’s eyes couldn’t help but turn towards the soldiers.

Hamon gestured to the sack and spoke, " In this sack are the toxics drugs the second Prince uses at his parties."

Edwin burst out in rage, "You have no proof of this!"

Hamon smirked in amusement, "I am not as foolish as you, Edwin. I have proofs to back my claims."

Edwin was about to burst again, but the queen shot him a glare to stay quiet before he made things worst for them. And so he swallowed his outburst and clenched his fist to hold back his anger.

Hamon had made his preparation beforehand. He casually brushed past Edwin and held out another parchment report to the king, "This is all the list of drugs Cassius uses at his parties and how they affect ones mind and body." He informed Frederick, who took the parchment with a tired look on his sickly face.

Hamon turned towards the officials and the elites, "If anyone doesn’t want to believe, we can burn some here and see how it works." His cool red eyes turned towards the speculating nobles in the court room, "Well, by burning it here we can identify those who have never come in contact with the drugs and those who are used to it."

While Cassius inhaled the drugs almost all the time, his system had developed some immunity to it. Hamon had made some tests on Cassius and knew it wouldn’t affect him the way it would affect someone taking or inhaling it for the first time. Thus, if they burned some of the incense here and any nobles who showed to have resistance to it, it was likely they may have enjoyed the drugs together with Cassius at his party.

Hamon’s words made some of the nobles to stiffen on their seats. Even Merona was stunned. She was skilled at producing and mixing various plants to make poisons, and her son had the skills to make various plants to make drugs as well, and she knew better than anyone how it would affect the body. She hadn’t expected Hamon to have detected what the drugs does to ones body this soon.

Unknown to the queen that her son had invited Ara to his party, which was how Hamon had first known about the drugs and gave some experts to examine it.

’I...I did not prepare for this.’ Merona was aware of the disaster that was about to befall on them if Hamon burned those things here. Edwin also noticed that the situation was about to get worst, and he quickly retaliated against Hamon.

"Even if the second Prince is using drugs, Why did his highness take the matter to his hand instead of bringing it to court?"

Hamon clapped as if he’d been waiting for this moment, "Good question, Edwin. I never thought you’re this smart seeing how you do things." He stated, then without waiting for Edwin to speak, he called out, "Bring them in!"

Not long after he called out, some guards led some women inside the hall in lines. However, all the women wore the same red outfit with big red veiled hats, covering their faces.

Frederick looked towards the women with a frown, "Who are these women?"

"Your majesty, these women here are all Cassius’ victims, he had violated them by drugging them at his parties. The victims only agreed to testify if their identities and faces were hidden from the public. But if his majesty wants, you can know their identities in private." Hamon declared to the king.

Ara, who had been seating silently the whole time, began to stretch her neck from where she sat to look at the women in red. Perhaps Evangeline’s cousin was one of them. After she’d told Hamon about Evangeline’s cousin that night, he had gone to meet some of the victims who were scared to testify against the second Prince, because of the queen. He had somehow convinced them into testifying against Cassius, however, most were still reluctant. Therefore, they agreed only if Hamon would hide their identities and faces.

Ara glanced towards Evangeline, who sat two seats away from her, their eyes met in midair and Ara offered her an encouraging smile. Evangeline returned the smile before turning back to the women.