Lady Reiling (1)

“Papa, where are you going? Mama is over there….”

“It looks like Mama is busy. We can greet her later. Shall we go see the Lusa, Theodor?”

“Yes, yes!”

Reichardt swiftly scooped up Theodor, who was about to run toward Alicia, tucked him under his arm, and headed for the Lusa Garden. Only after the child’s attention was completely fixed on the Lusa Garden did he set down the little body he had been carrying in his arm.

“……”

As he left the residence grounds, Reichardt looked back toward where Alicia was. His spouse, who had confidently said she had figured out something about the late-night guest named Lady Dalia, was thoroughly verifying whether her hypothesis was correct by summoning the master of the intelligence clan.

“Papa, Papa!”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

Theodor called out to him as he was lost in thought. With a troubled look, Reichardt alternated his gaze between the bright face looking up at him and the place where Alicia, whose attention was drawn to the unexpected incident, would be.

“Theodor, do you remember what Mama said you should do about things she says at home with people who are not family?”

“Yes. Theodor did not hear it.”

Theodor covered his ears with both hands and then removed them. The gesture of the tiny hands covering the equally tiny ears was indescribably adorable.

“Our son is really smart.”

“Really? Theodor wants to be smart. People said Her Highness the Grand Duchess is brilliant. They said brilliant means smart.”

“Theodor. By any chance, have you ever seen the blue bag in Papa’s big desk room?”

The child’s shining violet eyes fluttered wide. The eyes that had trembled for a moment looked clearly up at Reichardt.

“Yes, the bag was big and pretty.”

As though he wanted to run away, as though he wanted to feign ignorance, Theodor fiddled with his fingernails and answered with difficulty.

“Did you open the bag?”

With very careful words, Reichardt approached the core of the dangerous incident.

Shake shake.

The child’s face shook from side to side with an innocence that could not be doubted.

“Papa is not trying to scold Theodor.”

Reichardt’s large hand gently stroked the small back of his head.

Nod nod.

That innocent little head, as though something weighed on his conscience, nodded meekly.

“Uncle Jamie said I mustn’t open the blue bag or touch it.”

It was highly likely that it had been Jamie Rens who had brought Theodor near the blue dispatch pouch of the Grand Duke of Tessen. Jamie seemed to have trusted good little Theodor, who listened well, enough to teach him that he must not touch the Grand Duke’s dispatch pouch.

“I see… now.”

Reichardt thought there was no problem either with Jamie teaching the Grand Duke’s dispatch pouch to Theodor, who would someday become the Grand Duke of Tessen, or with Theodor merely having looked at it.

“I didn’t open the bag, and……”

“I see.”

Reichardt did not press the child, who seemed as though he might or might not speak, but watched him with a gaze that showed he remained interested.

“I wrote a picture letter……”

Theodor painfully confessed the truth of the incident.

“A picture letter.”

The dispatch pouch of the Grand Duke of Tessen was sent every day to Baden, the imperial capital. The recipients of the letters in the Grand Duke’s dispatch pouch were the Emperor’s Chief Steward and the steward of the Grand Duke’s residence in Baden. The steward in Baden separately removed the letters or document box that the Grand Duke had specifically marked out to be separated, under the Chief Steward’s watch, and the Chief Steward presented the remaining letters to the Emperor.

“They said the blue bag was what Tessen sends to His Majesty the Emperor.”

“That’s right. It is used to send the letters and documents the Grand Duke of Tessen sends while handling official duties to His Majesty. His Majesty also sends back matters for the Grand Duke of Tessen to handle in it.”

So what kind of picture letter did you write and send to His Majesty the Emperor, Theodor?

Reichardt wondered how to phrase that question so that it would not sound too stern.

“Does it really go to His Majesty?”

“It really does.”

“Then did His Majesty get my letter?”

Theodor turned to Reichardt with a readily delighted face.

“He probably did.”

Reichardt nodded, trying not to press the child, who was still so little.

So then, what did you draw in the picture letter, Theodor?

At the thought that the picture letter had truly been delivered to the Emperor, a shy smile spread across the child’s face.

“I didn’t draw very well.”

“Was that so?”

“Yes, because His Majesty is wonderful like an angel. I still can’t draw very well.”

Theodor mumbled in a worried tone. Reichardt, the Grand Duke of Tessen, who had spent years on the border interrogating enemy soldiers and enemy spies to gather information, finally grasped the outline of the major incident his two-and-a-half-year-old son had caused.

“You drew His Majesty’s face in the picture letter and sent it? Theodor.”

“Yes! I drew His Majesty, and Dorothea, Georg, and Conrad, and Her Majesty the Empress. I wanted to draw everyone I saw at the Imperial Palace, but the paper was too small.”

“I see.”

Having understood the situation, Reichardt reacted with a somewhat blank face.

‘What should I do?’

Unlike him, Theodor, satisfied that his secret letter had safely arrived, looked relieved.

“Lusa! Have you been well?”

The child ran toward the Lusas roaming around the Lusa Garden with a bright smile.

“What should I really do?”

Reichardt watched Theodor with his eyes and let out a faint sigh.

The Emperor, having received Theodor’s picture letter through the blue dispatch pouch of the Grand Duke of Tessen, was deeply moved and, longing for the nephew he had last seen half a year ago, was coming to the Grand Duchy of Tessen.

The excuse was that he was coming to attend the banquet of the Grand Duchess of Tessen.

There was no way to know how large the Emperor’s delegation would be. The Emperor had not been invited to the Grand Duchess of Tessen’s banquet, but he was not the sort to be deterred by such things.

“I’m sorry, Alicia. I do not think I can stop that uninvited guest. Our son has invited the Emperor.”

Whispering words of apology that Alicia would not hear, Reichardt smiled back at Theodor, who was beaming at him.

Reichardt was dressed in his favorite outfit for going out. Wearing newly tailored indoor shoes, a man with a simple wedding ring, the blood-alliance ring bestowed on him by the Emperor, and the uniquely woven three-strand ring Alicia had given him looked splendid and luxurious.

“I have something to tell you.”

Alicia steeled herself a little when Reichardt lifted her hand with one adorned in luxurious ornaments.

“Please listen without being too shocked.”

Reichardt seated Alicia, who was showing her puzzlement, on a nearby sofa and sat beside her as well. As Alicia sat on the cozy sofa, she wondered what astonishing news Reichardt was about to tell her.

Life in Tessen had been peaceful.

“His Majesty the Emperor’s delegation is coming to Tessen.”

“……”

It felt as though she could hear the sound of cracks running through the peaceful daily life of Tessen.

This had become troublesome.

Alicia tried to pull her hand away from the large one holding it. Reichardt carefully kept the soft hand from slipping away and opened his mouth.

“His Majesty is coming together with the imperial delegation.”

Alicia’s violet eyes wavered in shock.

“What?”

Confusion and astonishment spread across the face that had been excited even when confronting the greatest demonic beast of hell.

“They will arrive in Restoe in three days.”

Reichardt found the trembling violet eyes, shaking in surprise, pitiful and heartbreaking. For Alicia, who was bound to panic, Reichardt released the information little by little.

If he said too much all at once, the confusion would be extreme.

“W-what. Why is His Majesty coming here?”

“He is coming to attend the first banquet that the Grand Duchess of Tessen is holding in Tessen.”

“I did not, I did not invite His Majesty!”

Alicia raised her voice, a rare thing. A faint suspicion had risen in the eyes looking at Reichardt.

Surely, Your Highness?

Reichardt quickly shook his head. Thump thump, Alicia’s heartbeat, pounding violently with shock, was heartbreakingly vivid.

“I did not invite him either. But we cannot refuse the Emperor because he was not invited.”

“I know. Why is His Majesty coming without even an invitation? All the way out here. Baden must be extremely chaotic with the great nobles of the imperial capital fighting over pride.”

Alicia, from Tessen at the far northern edge, knew the political situation in the imperial capital well. He had expected that, but Alicia seemed to know the situation in the capital in even finer detail than he had anticipated, and Reichardt was slightly taken aback.

“His Majesty is not coming alone.”

He delivered the next piece of news.

Alicia abruptly shoved away the hand of the man who had been politely holding hers. Alicia, who had jumped to her feet and was about to turn away, instead poured tea into the nearby teacup and gulped it down. Her violet eyes, which had flinched once, rapidly darted to the right, then shot to the left, then returned to the teacup as she hurriedly thought.

“Her Majesty the Empress is not coming too, is she?”

“That is correct. How did you know? Her Majesty asked that her visit be kept secret. Did word come from the Empress’s Palace?”

Reichardt obediently told her what he knew, even confessing that the Empress had said not to mention it.