Margrave Goran And Lydia

I realized the truth the day after that fateful night, when I went to town hall to deliver madeleines and chocolates.

A portrait of the adult Count Goran hung in the mayor’s office at town hall.

There was no mistaking it. It was Alvin.

…Looking back, there had been plenty of suspicious things about him, but ultimately, I supposed the reason I hadn’t noticed was that I hadn’t wanted to.

Alvin was an irreplaceable friend I’d made since coming to this land.

“Are you angry with me for keeping it a secret?”

When he asked, I shook my head.

“No. I just can’t help wondering why you go out of your way to visit when you must be so busy.”

Alvin answered without a moment’s hesitation.

“Because I want to see you, Lydia.”

I sighed.

“I’m saying you’re an eccentric, you know.”

“…So you are angry after all?”

“I’m not angry, but if I’d known, I would never have gotten involved with you.”

Carelessly spending a night with him had been the greatest blunder of Lydia Venesca’s life.

“Then it was the greatest stroke of luck of my life. Incidentally, why do you dislike the idea of being involved with the lord of this territory so much? Have you heard something bad about him?”

“No, he’s a very well-regarded lord. But you see, I came here to enjoy a leisurely life after retirement. I had absolutely no intention of becoming the mistress of someone as troublesome as a territorial lord. Besides, you’re a count. If you want a mistress, surely you have your pick of younger, prettier women…”

“Wait.”

He interrupted me.

“What is it?”

“There’s something wrong with that assumption. I’m proposing marriage to you. If you give me a favorable answer, I’d like to marry you immediately.”

“…”

Come to think of it, he had said something like that before.

“It’s only because I can’t fulfill your conditions for marriage that I’ve had to settle for being your lover.”

“Conditions?”

“You told me you wanted someone who would let you continue running your inn and wouldn’t expect you to accommodate your husband’s schedule.”

“Ah…”

“Obviously, fulfilling those conditions right away would be difficult.”

“No, as one of your subjects, I’d much rather the lord’s wife stopped running an inn and devoted herself to her duties as the lady of the territory. Someone other than me, of course.”

Alvin declared firmly.

“I have no intention of marrying anyone but you.”

“…Is your territory going to be all right with that?”

The question slipped out before I could stop myself.

“Ideally, one of my own children would succeed me, but there are other members of the Astrate family. I imagine one of my grandfather’s siblings’ grandchildren will inherit the title.”

“…………”

I frowned when I heard that.

They were rather distant relatives. Such arrangements were one of the causes of succession disputes.

Marriage wasn’t a question of whether a territorial lord wanted to marry or not. It was one of his duties.

“All you need to do is marry a suitable young noblewoman.”

“I have no intention of marrying anyone but you, Lydia Venesca.”

Alvin addressed me by the surname I hadn’t told him.

“…So you knew after all.”

“I’m sorry, but I had someone look into your background. Allow me to commend you for your courageous actions, and to express my sincere regret that such an outstanding knight as yourself was forced into retirement.”

With those words, he bowed respectfully to me.

“Thank you.”

“…………”

“…………”

Silence fell.

“Um…”

The person who spoke up was neither Alvin nor me. It was Dennis, Alvin’s attendant.

“I’m sure I’m intruding, so I’ll excuse myself.”

When I turned around, Dennis looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“You’re welcome to stay, Sir Dennis. You won’t be doing your job if you leave the person you’re supposed to be guarding.”

When I addressed him, he shook his head vigorously.

“No, Lady Lydia. I know this place is safe, and frankly, Lord Alvin is far stronger than I am. So please, by all means, I’ll leave the rest to you two!”

Having blurted that out, he bolted like a startled rabbit.

I turned to Alvin, who had been left behind.

“Shall we head back too? I’ll make us some tea.”

“No, we’ve finally got some time alone. Why don’t we talk a little longer?”

He gazed out across the pasture for a while before quietly beginning to speak.

“I know I was wrong to keep it from you. But I was afraid that if you learned who I was, you’d leave this place.”

“That’s…”

I couldn’t deny it.

If I’d discovered the truth shortly after arriving here, I might well have abandoned everything and fled.

“I was surprised when you said you didn’t want to get married, but when I thought about it, I realized I felt the same way. I didn’t want to get married, but I did want children.”

“Wow.”

Hearing someone else say it made it sound absolutely awful.

But more importantly…

“Even if we have children, I have no intention of handing them over to you.”

They didn’t even exist yet, but I couldn’t help making that point absolutely clear.

“I have no intention of taking your children away from you.”

Although Alvin’s answer reassured me, it also raised the question of what would happen to the succession of Goran.

“Have you really no intention of marrying someone else?”

“If it’s you, I’ll overcome any obstacle to get married. But I have no intention of marrying anyone else.”

Alvin stated this unequivocally.

Overcome any obstacle? Wasn’t that a little dramatic?

“I’m sure your subjects would feel more reassured if you married a young lady of suitable standing rather than a washed-up knight like me.”

“Would they? My marriage isn’t such a simple matter. The people responsible for my parents’ deaths belong to House Giel, a family of marquises among the central nobility in the royal capital. As the family of the chancellor and the queen’s own family, they wield tremendous influence. Well, you probably know more about House Giel than I do, so I needn’t explain. That family still has its sights set on Goran. I can’t afford to give them any openings. A daughter of the high nobility is simply not a viable marriage partner for me.”

Naturally, Alvin’s hatred of House Giel ran deep.

They had murdered his parents and nearly usurped his family’s territory, and he still hadn’t managed to avenge them.

Meanwhile, House Giel was living comfortably in the royal capital, enjoying its days of glory without a care in the world.

“Certainly, the queen’s faction could be called the largest faction in the country, but there are still nobles who oppose her, beginning with Duke Yoril. What about taking a daughter of one of those nobles as your wife?”

Although the queen’s faction dominated the royal court, there were also forces that resented its influence.

But Alvin dismissed the suggestion.

“The ties between noble families are too deeply entangled. Out here on the distant frontier, we can afford to refuse their demands, but for central nobles living in the royal capital, a ‘request’ from the queen is practically an order.”

“Well, I suppose that’s true.”

I had never been in a position where I dealt directly with the queen, but I had seen and heard enough about her.

My impression was that she was a remarkably shrewd woman who liked to present herself as innocent and carefree.

She was adept at distinguishing between public and private matters, and she always managed to get whatever she wanted.

Just as Alvin had said, there wasn’t a noble in the country who could refuse a “request from Her Majesty the Queen.”

“…That’s what happened to my uncle. He married a daughter of the central nobility and tried his best to support his wife as she found herself caught between her husband and her family. In the end, he betrayed and murdered my father.”

“Alvin…”

“As far as I’m concerned, even the nobles who oppose the queen cannot be trusted. They feared her, and although they knew House Giel was pulling the strings behind the scenes, they turned a blind eye. Back then, there wasn’t a single person among the central nobility who would take my side.”

It wasn’t just Alvin. Most of the people of Goran disliked the central nobility. No one in this territory had forgotten who was responsible for the tragedy that had befallen their lord’s family.

“Then what about a young lady from a provincial family? One of the other margrave families, for example?”

It wasn’t as though I desperately wanted Alvin to get married.

I wasn’t married myself, so I was hardly in a position to tell him that he ought to marry.

However, I was curious about what this man, who had no desire to marry one of the highborn young ladies whom everyone considered so desirable, actually wanted in a wife.

“There were certainly some young ladies of suitable age from other margrave families. But none of the women I met were particularly different from the young ladies of the royal capital.”

Apparently, Alvin had at least made an effort to find a wife when he was younger.

“Really?”

“Perhaps they simply weren’t willing to open up to me, but I couldn’t imagine wanting to spend the rest of my life walking alongside any of them, supporting each other. Even though they came from margrave families, most of their mothers belonged to the central nobility. I got the impression that they were under their mothers’ influence.”

“Ah…”

I could more or less picture what he meant.

To preserve Goran’s autonomy, he needed a woman who wouldn’t submit to the queen. Otherwise, the outcome would be disastrous for both Alvin and the territory of Goran.

At last, I understood why Alvin was so cautious about marriage.

If he couldn’t find someone within the country, perhaps he could look abroad.

“What about foreign noble families?”

I was about to finish the question when I realized something.

No, that wouldn’t work. Come to think of it, this man…

“My mother was the daughter of a margrave from a neighboring country. It would not be desirable to introduce foreign blood into the family for two consecutive generations.”

Apparently, his father had already tried that approach.

Thanks to that marriage, relations between Goran and the neighboring country were exceptionally good, however.

“My ideal marriage partner would be a young noblewoman from a family no higher than the rank of count, preferably one far removed from the royal capital. They have few connections with such nobles. On the other hand, if I marry someone who isn’t a noble, the elders of my family will raise a fuss.”

“I see.”

Most lower-ranking nobles in the capital belonged to the factions of powerful aristocrats, but provincial nobles tended to have deep roots in their own lands. Their connections were generally limited to influential local families or, at most, the ruling families of neighboring territories. They had little contact with the central nobility.

And even if they were lower-ranking nobles, they were still nobles. They couldn’t be treated the same way as commoners.

The difference in status between them and the powerful House Giel was so great that it actually made them more difficult for that family to manipulate. Of course, House Giel could force the issue if it really wanted to, but doing so would attract unwanted attention.

House Giel had plenty of enemies. Its opponents were hardly going to overlook an incident that could be interpreted as the persecution of lesser nobles.

“Furthermore, I’d prefer someone with few ties to her parents or siblings. It would be easier to reject excessive demands from her family, and it would reduce the risk of the queen’s faction using her relatives against me.”

It was a rather brutally pragmatic way of putting things, but I couldn’t argue with his reasoning.

“For the sake of my territory, it’s better that I don’t marry anyone who fails to meet those conditions. At the very least, I intend to remain unmarried for as long as the current king occupies the throne.”

The Crown Prince was the son of the previous queen, who had been a foreign princess, rather than the current queen.

Once His Highness the Crown Prince ascended the throne, the queen’s influence would naturally diminish, but His Highness was only fifteen years old.

…That was still a long way off.

A margrave served as one of the kingdom’s bulwarks. They were a special class of noble with military power at their disposal, and their status among the high nobility was beyond question.

Goran was also a wealthy territory with a thriving economy, and although Alvin wasn’t devastatingly handsome, he was certainly a good-looking man.

By all rights, he was in a position where he ought to have been able to marry a beautiful wife and enjoy a happy life.

“You’ve had a rough time of it, haven’t you?”

I couldn’t help saying that to him.