104 — Qualifications Of The High Priest (1)

“Your Grace, will you be at Iliante again for this year’s hunting season?”

Vicente slowly turned his head. At his side stood a young noble lady with an innocent face, asking with a gentle smile. Of course, her parents were standing right beside her, and officially he was speaking not with the girl but with her parents. Still, the parents had put their daughter forward.

Last year around this time, Vicente had not even known what it meant. Now he did. This was a showcase—parents presenting their daughter.

“Well… this year, I’m not sure…”

Even from far away, Ana Rosa stood out. His subordinates would say it was because Vicente had sold his soul to the princess, but objectively she stood out. At the Grand Empress Dowager’s birthday party, the only person who could dare attend in mourning clothes was the Grand Empress Dowager’s own daughter.

In black mourning dress, Ana Rosa was speaking with someone, her veil trailing only behind her head. Properly, her face should have been fully covered—but she was already attending a party she should not have been able to attend at all, and it was not just any party but the Grand Empress Dowager’s birthday party, with the Grand Empress Dowager strongly insisting her daughter be present. Otherwise, Ana Rosa’s attendance would have been impossible. Under those circumstances, she could not hide her face.

“What? You won’t go to Iliante this year?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I may have to attend to His Majesty.”

Everyone around Eusebio was old, and he was sick of it. So he kept dragging Vicente into his orbit—and Vicente was sick of Eusebio more than anyone.

Marquis Kodrit always looked at Eusebio as if expecting something, but to Vicente, Eusebio was just a brat. Not unintelligent, exactly—just uneducated, a fool who could not understand other people.

“Oh my—His Majesty…!”

He had not meant it in any flattering way, but the young lady covered her mouth and gasped as if impressed. Without thinking, Vicente looked toward Ana Rosa again. If he said things like this, what would she say? She would snort, or sneer… he could not imagine any pleasant reaction.

“It’s not that my taste is for women who snort or sneer at what I say.”

Some men would want a woman to think highly of them, even if she later grew disappointed. Vicente preferred someone who snorted in his face to someone who decided he was “great” on their own and then decided they were “disappointed” on their own. Most men would not agree, but Vicente did not care.

“Ah—of course, I’m only one of the many officials who stand ready for His Majesty.”

He spoke quickly to crush the girl’s ridiculous expectations, but her father raised his wineglass and said, “What do you mean?”

“Anyone who sits in the nobility council knows how much His Majesty relies on Your Grace.”

A line that could have been praise or insult. Vicente glanced secretly at Ana Rosa in the distance and answered,

“His Majesty looks after everyone. Isn’t that right, Count?”

At Vicente’s force of will, the count flinched, then replied, “Of course,” and hurried off with his wife and daughter. The wife seemed to scold him for moving away so soon, and the daughter looked sulky, but the count did not care.

He had no choice. He had just linked the king to a man rumored to commit sodomy.

“I drove off a rat—maybe the rumor will improve now.”

Vicente did not care what others thought, but it would be troublesome if that princess—so proud of her double-faced nature—thought that way. Gonzalo would surely get angry and ask why it was troublesome at all, and Vicente would not really have an answer. Still, on an emotional level, Vicente hated the idea of the princess thinking he was a catamite.

When he turned his head, Mabel—Count Ingseoseu’s daughter-in-law—was smiling as she approached. Her faint smile carried almost none of her father’s face.

“Madam.”

When Vicente acknowledged her, she held out her hand as if it were only natural. Vicente took the back of her hand and pretended to brush it with his lips, kissing the air lightly before letting go. Mabel gave a snort.

“You’re the same as ever.”

“Consistency is a virtue. Isn’t it?”

“In an age like this?”

Mabel snorted again, then took a sip of wine. With her mouth hidden behind the glass, she whispered in a low voice.

“Be careful, Your Grace. The rumors have already started.”

Vicente lifted one eyebrow, and Mabel lowered her voice further.

“They’re saying there’s a designated candidate for the position of Duchess of Beltrayeva.”

“……”

“On the surface it sounds like a good thing, but… it could be an attempt to swallow Beltrayeva whole. All it takes is one child, doesn’t it?”

If Vicente married Ana Rosa and they had a child—then if Vicente were removed, the child with Ana Rosa would inherit everything. After that, with some excuse, they could summon Ana Rosa into the palace, and the palace would seize not only all of Ana Rosa’s wealth but Beltrayeva’s wealth as well.

Besides, the Grand Empress Dowager had not devised such a plan for the first time. Had she not already planned something like this when she sent Ana Rosa to Mun Nation as empress?

Vicente looked at Ana Rosa again. She was alone for a moment. The woman staring somewhere quietly did not look lonely or shabby. If anything, she looked down on everyone like a predator watching a plain in stillness—ready to leap down and snatch her prey the instant she chose it.

“If a child is born, then that child is naturally my heir. Whatever schemes the elders are plotting has nothing to do with the child. Your warning is excessive.”

If he had a child with Ana Rosa, what kind of child would it be? Vicente felt as if he already knew. A child who resembled Ana Rosa completely.

“You’re really thinking about marriage?”

Mabel asked, startled, and Vicente shook his head.

“Isn’t it far too early to talk about marriage when we aren’t even engaged?”

“You didn’t say no.”

Mabel looked down at the floor for a moment, then whispered.

“Father finds you uncomfortable. If he can replace you, he absolutely will.”

“So there’ll be one more person who wants to replace me. That’s fine. What changes if you pour one cup of water into a river?”

At Vicente’s implication that there were already many who wanted him dead—and Marquis Kodrit was just one of them—Mabel looked at him with exasperation and stated flatly,

“My father isn’t a cup of water. Unless you call a tidal wave a cup.”

Vicente narrowed his eyes and replied,

“And I won’t be the first one hit by that tidal wave, Madam.”

Marquis Kodrit wanted a son. More precisely, he did not want to seat his beloved daughter as marquis and make her suffer. He wanted to give her an appropriate estate and set her up to live comfortably.

But the marquis and his marchioness did not get along, and of course they had not produced a son. The marchioness was already in her early forties, and the marquis had begun to calculate taking his only daughter as his heir.

The problem was that Mabel had married for love. She truly loved her husband. They even had a child together. But if she became the marquis’s heir, she would be forced to divorce. Her husband was the heir to Count Ingseoseu, and the marquis would not overlook the possibility that his heir marrying another house’s heir could lead to the houses merging.

From the start, this marriage had been permitted because Count Ingseoseu’s side thought Mabel might become heir and thus bring Kodrit over, while Kodrit’s side was confident they could force a divorce at any time. Otherwise, in noble society, a love match would never have been so easily approved.

“If only my younger brother hadn’t…”

Mabel bit her lip. She had had a younger brother, but he had died in a fall from his horse after joining the Cobrasah civil war. He had not even died fighting on the battlefield, which made the family’s grief more dreadful. It was no different from a dog’s death.

“We’ll see who the tidal wave hits first.”

With that, Mabel turned away. Vicente did not add anything, because he knew it was pride wrung out to her last drop.

Instead, he could not hold back any longer. He began walking, slowly, toward Ana Rosa.

He had been anxious for a while.

From a few steps away, Ana Rosa looked like someone so bold she could launch a daring assault—like an iron fortress. But once he came within half a step, her instability came into view.

She was like a moth. The kind of person who would gladly burn her whole body for what she wanted. Vicente had already seen, again and again, that she did not know how to retreat to safety. He could not stand it—he wanted to speak to her and check whether she was all right.

Many people were sending him subtle looks as if asking him to address them, but Vicente ignored them all. Just as he was only a few steps from reaching Ana Rosa, the Marchioness Kodrit brushed past him, approached Ana Rosa, and murmured something into her ear. Ana Rosa gave a faint nod and moved.

Vicente’s head followed the direction she was going.

It was where the king stood.