The Chancellor’s Visit [Interlude]

That day.

After a knock, the Chancellor of the Kingdom of Luminous entered the study together with the head butler.

Crown Prince Arios stopped his pen, rose to his feet with visible delight.

“Chancellor! If you’ve come here, does that mean you’ve brought Father’s reply!?”

Waiting until the head butler closed the door and withdrew, the Chancellor of the Kingdom of Luminous halted precisely fifteen steps later in front of Arios’s desk.

“As for that matter, another day.”

At once, Arios collapsed back into his leather chair.

“Why not!? Why will Father not permit my wedding to Mail!?”

He shouted, biting at his nails.

The Chancellor gave the Crown Prince a glance, then looked over the top of the desk. He flicked a glance at the attendant, who met the Chancellor’s eyes and nodded. That alone conveyed his assessment of the prince’s administrative ability.

The only thing this Crown Prince lacks is an eye for women.

That was the look on his face.

“And on top of that, he says I’m not to bring Mail with me when I go out…”

At the violent shaking of Arios’s leg, the Chancellor turned his gaze back to him.

He had refined features. Looks inherited from his mother, build inherited from his father.

The Crown Prince of our kingdom, one whom no one would be ashamed to present anywhere.

But.

With that consort, there was nothing to be done.

Just as the Chancellor let out a small sigh, women’s laughter drifted in on the wind through the window behind Arios.

“Ah. Mail is having a tea party in the garden with the noble daughters.”

As the Chancellor narrowed his eyes at the window, Arios explained with a broad smile.

“I can’t take her to parties. Calling the daughters of nobles to this residence instead should be fine, shouldn’t it?”

“I had heard that Lady Mail is currently in a period of education to become Crown Princess.”

The Chancellor pointed this out gently.

She could not speak a single foreign language. First conversation, then manners. There was a mountain of things to learn, and she also had to memorize the faces and ranks of important people from every country. Dancing, piano, classical arts for refinement. Was dancing not the only thing that girl could do properly?

“Everyone needs a break from time to time. Isn’t it pitiful? Until recently, she lived a life that had nothing to do with being Crown Princess.”

Arios shot back with a sullen expression.

Because she wanted to become Crown Princess, she drove Lady Shitoen out, the Chancellor wanted to shout, but barely held it in.

“I see. The matter for which I called today is this.”

The Chancellor turned to the civil official waiting behind him.

The official stepped forward and presented Arios with a single letter that had been resting on a silver tray.

“An invitation? May I bring Mail with me?”

The moment he received it, Arios smiled happily, but after seeing what was inside, he frowned.

“…This is Shitoen’s and that prince’s wedding, isn’t it?”

“That is correct.”

The Chancellor replied expressionlessly.

Should this be called a generous country, or should we say they are mocking us and send the invitation back slapped against the table?

That Kingdom of Tidros was trying to invite Crown Prince Arios to the wedding of Lady Shitoen and Prince Saryu, to be held several months later.

“…What did Father say?”

Arios, too, seemed bewildered.

“He said he would leave it to Your Highness. He also said that you may bring Lady Mail.”

That girl who could speak no foreign languages, could not even bow properly, coquetted with men, and whose only asset was her youth.

“I see!”

At once, Arios broke into a smile.

“Then let us go. No, yes, now that I think about it, I did do something pitiful to Shitoen. It might be good to go and offer my congratulations.”

Did something pitiful to her?

It might be good to?

With what mouth…

With what mouth could he say that? The Chancellor clenched his fist.

“Your Highness, have you heard the rumors regarding Lady Shitoen afterward?”

Forcing down the boiling rage within him, he tightened his lips that threatened to tremble.

“Rumors? About that girl?”

After looking puzzled, Arios gave a thoroughly unpleasant laugh.

“What, is the engagement already near collapse? That… what was he called, that bear prince. Has that prince also grown disgusted by Shitoen’s hateful body?”

Ha ha, Arios laughed, tossing the invitation onto the desk.

“She was a gloomy girl, after all. Not like Mail, see—she never laughed brightly. She was always in the residence, and even when I brought her into society, she never got excited.”

She was in the residence because you shut her in there.

Society is for work. It is not a place to frolic and enjoy oneself. In fact, now that Shitoen is gone, society—especially the younger set—is in disarray. That girl named Shitoen, despite being so harshly mistreated, had properly kept a tight rein on society as Crown Princess. No matter how much ill was spoken of her, she had the power, by virtue of her station, to manage it and make that power plain.

And yet this Crown Prince…

“I hear Lady Shitoen is extremely capable, and that Prince Saryu dotes on her.”

When the Chancellor stated this sharply, Arios stared with his mouth hanging open.

“…What?”

Arios let out a stupid little sound.

“I hear she cured something like an endemic illness that had been tormenting the local people. The owner of that territory was a person of high rank, and also one who stood as Prince Saryu’s equal, so the King of Tidros was deeply moved and went so far as to send an envoy to the Kingdom of Tania with his gratitude—”

The Chancellor cleared his throat.

“—bringing with him, I hear, a contract granting special arrangements regarding mining resources. We believe there may now be development of new trade routes in the future.”

Arios sprang to his feet. Behind him, his chair crashed over.

“In that kingdom, Prince Saryu firmly guards the northern and western borderlands, while the count called his right hand holds the east. Their Crown Prince enjoys overwhelming popularity within the country, so the next generation is secure as well.”

And yet you, the Chancellor endured the rest.

“With all due respect, Crown Prince—were you aware that Lady Shitoen possessed such talents?”

Arios gave no answer.

Only the hand resting on the desk trembled in tiny shakes.

“…That’s impossible. That girl was… that girl was nothing but a creepy girl.”

He said it as though squeezing the words out.

“Are you referring to the dragon crest?”

The Chancellor spoke with a sigh.

“That’s right! That lizard-like—”

“Did Your Highness the Crown Prince see it with your own eyes?”

“…What?”

“That dragon crest.”

The Chancellor took one step closer to him.

“Did you actually see the dragon crest bestowed upon Lady Shitoen?”

The Chancellor counted well up to fifty in his head, but there was no reply. Arios remained hanging his head.

“You did not see it?”

There was no answer to that either.

But the absence of an answer was answer enough.

The Chancellor clicked his tongue inwardly. In his mind, he beat the Crown Prince again and again.

“With all humility, I have once seen what is called a dragon crest.”

“…What?”

Slowly, Arios raised his face.

“Of course, it was not Lady Shitoen’s. I have an acquaintance in the Kingdom of Tania. I was granted the honor of seeing it specially by a noble person who bore a dragon crest.”

It is that special, the Chancellor repeated to himself again and again.

It is an extraordinary thing. A marvelous thing. The kind of thing that may happen only once in a lifetime, if at all.

And you were supposed to marry such a girl, he thought.

“That person was a man, but he had a dragon crest on his calf.”

“I-it looked like scales, didn’t it!? Like some ugly lizard!”

Arios leaned forward, spittle flying.

“No.”

The Chancellor shook his head firmly.

“They were like cherry blossom petals… four tattoos, each about the size of a pinky fingernail. They were drawn upon his calf in a circle.”

“F-four?”

Arios murmured. The Chancellor made a circle with his thumb and forefinger.

“About this size. I remember being astonished at how very small they were. When I asked whether they were all of roughly this size, that person told me that women’s are even smaller. At most, he said, there would be two tattoos.”

“Why did you not say so!?”

Arios shouted.

The Chancellor drew in a great breath and roared back at him.

“Because it is too presumptuous even to speak of it, you fool!! Because everything about it is kept secret!”

Carried by the force of his anger, the Chancellor slammed his hand against the desk.

Arios flinched, his shoulders jerking.

“One must not even speak of having seen it! One must not put even its form into words! Its very existence is noble and sacred—that is what a dragon crest is! Why can you not understand the honor of being granted such a thing! And you let it slip away before your eyes! You threw it away! Are you so witless that I must spell all of this out for you before you understand!?”

“Your Excellency.”

Behind him, the subordinate civil official called softly.

The Chancellor steadied his breathing and straightened his posture.

“My apologies. I shall return another time.”

He gave the Crown Prince a small bow and turned his back.

He was sick of this already.

At the edge of his vision, he saw the civil official bow deeply to the Crown Prince. Let us leave just as we are. I cannot bear to look at this man’s face any longer.

“W-what am I supposed to do!?”

The Crown Prince’s voice came chasing after him from behind.

What is he supposed to do?

Ha ha, the Chancellor laughed.

“You should have married Lady Shitoen at that engagement ceremony.”

He turned back and said it clearly. Arios did not move a muscle.

“But Your Highness let her go. We, too, exhausted every word we had, but King Tania’s anger would not soften. There is nothing more to be done. Still, measures have been taken.”

He continued in a flat tone. Arios was staring at him with a deathly pale face.

“If she cannot become ours, then it would be best if she became no one’s. There is no other way.”

With that pronouncement, the Chancellor opened the door.

No report had arrived yet, but through various arrangements, the plan to assassinate Shitoen was already being carried out.

They had tried mixing peaches and apples into her meals, foods so ill-suited to her body that they would give her a high fever, but that had been discovered in advance. Next, they had launched a surprise attack while she was in a café, but Prince Saryu, famed as the Winter Bear of Tidros, had repelled it with ease. When they heard he had made camp for some reason, they had thought it a perfect opportunity, but there had been no opening.

Still, this country too has elite assassins.

(I am sorry, but she must disappear.)

She was a regrettable loss of a girl.

The Chancellor let out a small breath.

Surely she could have become someone who would have strengthened the bond between the Kingdom of Tania and our kingdom.

In fact, that was exactly what she had become in the Kingdom of Tidros.

As he left the Crown Prince’s study, lively laughter from the women outside drifted in again through the window, and this time the Chancellor clicked his tongue loudly for real.