The Blessing
"Sh-shameless..!"
The Imperial Princess of the Empire, Kiana Frabel, thrust her still-scarlet face in close, letting out a strangled shriek.
"Young master.. a.. no matter how mature you've gotten, a.. you're still a minor..!"
"...."
"I think.. that sort of thing is still far too early.. ugh.."
Beside her stood yet another woman — Ella, pretending to shield her eyes with her palm, yet sneaking peek after peek through the gaps between her fingers.
"..Um, I'm not the only one who has no idea what the Princess is going on about right now.. am I?"
"...."
"And your maid.. why is she acting like that again?"
And there, standing utterly bewildered before the lot of them, Shino Charlotte drifted into my view — leaving me nothing to do but duck my head and heave a long, deep sigh.
'....'
"Sh-Shino, as the daughter of a ducal house, I believe you ought to carry yourself with a little more decorum—"
"Young master, but what exactly are you two.."
"..Your Highness? I'm afraid I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about..?"
'..Ah, my head hurts.'
Unexplained headache detected in user.
Cause of headache: confirmed — stress.
I know that already, so quit popping up out of nowhere.
Tap, tap— footsteps echoed through the hall. The soft tread of a single pair of feet gliding over a floor of pure white stone.
Down the center of that floor — stone tiles like slabs of polished marble — a crimson carpet of the softest, costliest wool stretched away in a long line, and along its edge, beautiful paintings still hung packed tight upon the walls.
"Luindel, why would he be visiting the Imperial Palace at a time like this?"
"...."
"Have you no guess of your own?"
"..I regret to say that I do not, Your Majesty."
"Well.. fair enough, I suppose. Who else could hope to fathom the mind of that sly old serpent?"
The two voices rang out once more down the endless corridor. One man strode ahead, red hair and scarlet cape fluttering; the figure at his heels was the Golden Knight, still wearing his trademark blank expression as he set down one slow step after another.
Tap, tap— clack, clack— the footsteps that until moments ago had numbered one had somehow doubled to two, and beyond them, nothing else could be heard at all. Only the sound of minds grinding away at a problem.
'There is no reason.. none that I can think of, however hard I try, for him to come all this way.'
"Your Majesty, we have arrived."
"Ah.. yes, so we have."
The splendid procession of paintings along the wall came to an end, and before it stood a single door. The very same russet-brown door that had been assigned to Jenison.
Creeeak— the hinges that had held the door shut spread their jaws, and the room within lay open to view. A colossal bed that could have slept three, even four, without crowding; a silver table gleaming brightly; furniture that spoke of wealth at a glance. A cool breeze drifting in from the beautiful terrace swirled this way and that through the room.
"..May these words I speak from this moment onward be received as Your will and Yours alone—"
But it was not only the wind drifting through the room.
"And forgive me, who wail for the sake of the children You love.."
"...."
"And help me to hold thoughts that belong not to this lowly earth, but to heaven.."
Even with personages of such tremendous standing as the Emperor and the Golden Knight walking in, the prayer that someone inside kept reciting showed no sign of stopping.
"And grant me the wisdom to dare comprehend Your pure and noble thoughts.."
"Your Holiness, His Majesty has arrived."
"So that I may come to understand Your will.. Hm?"
Unable to watch any longer, Luindel stepped up to the kneeling figure and tapped his shoulder a few times, and only then did the man break off his prayer and look their way.
"Ah, my apologies. I failed to notice His Majesty had even entered, and in my heedlessness.. I have been discourteous."
"Haha, not at all.. I rather enjoyed listening, in fact. That prayer of yours."
"I can only be grateful to hear you say so."
The head rose slowly — the head of the man who had been reciting his prayer inside the room. Hair and beard bleached a fresh white swayed in the cool breeze, and here and there across the pure-white robes he wore, embroidery of gold thread had been stitched.
"So. What business brings you all the way here?"
"Haha.. merely to behold Your Majesty's face after so long an absence—"
"No one in this world knows better than I that you are not that sort of man, Pope."
At the Emperor's flat, unyielding tone — one that allowed no possibility of it being true — the Pope could only laugh sheepishly.
"Heheh.. I knew I would hear as much, but it still stings a little, I'm afraid."
"Spare me the words you don't mean, and tell me the purpose of your visit, won't you? I have more than enough work piled up as it is."
The moment the Emperor finished, the Pope's expression hardened in an instant — like ground sodden through by rain, left to bake dry beneath the next day's sun.
"..What is it you are thinking, Your Majesty."
A voice impossible to imagine from the kindly old man who had been chuckling away only moments before. Even for the Emperor, who had known him since childhood, it was a decidedly rare sight.
"I'm not sure I follow."
"That letter sent to the Saintess — was it not from Your Majesty?"
"It was. And it seems to have been delivered safely — a genuine relief, wouldn't you say?"
"...."
"Ha, I know full well what it is you fear."
"...."
"Inviting her — a woman formally affiliated with the Church — is strange conduct on our part to begin with."
The Church had all but monopolized the priests since time immemorial, and the previous imperial house had strained itself trying to pry those priests loose from its grip.
"H-hey! Blood keeps pouring out of my precious little finger?! Can you not treat it properly?!"
"Bear in mind that not so much as a single wound may be left on His Majesty's body. I said put greater care into his treatment!!"
"Ahem.. You there.. I hereby command you to pay a visit to my chambers later."
The previous imperial house had a record of dragging priests out of the Church by force under the pretext of their own comfort and exploiting their power for itself. Fortunately, thanks to the Pope before him and the Saintess of the time, matters never swelled quite that far — but even now, the truth remained that relations between the Crown and the Church were an awkward affair. At best, the Church would send over its few idle priests now and then. Precisely that much, and nothing more. Until now, that is.
"But this time, at the very least, I extended the invitation out of nothing more than pure goodwill."
"..Might I ask you to explain what goodwill it is you speak of?"
"Well then, first, let us sit and talk."
Two sofas of gleaming leather caught the eye, set across a table draped in a tablecloth that looked expensive at a glance.
"Shall we move over there? My legs are beginning to ache from all this standing."
"...."
Behind the two men as they silently took their seats, Luindel stood unbending, hands clasped behind his back — as though there were no place there that belonged to him. The Emperor had offered him a seat as well, but when Luindel deftly declined, he did not press the matter further.
"What is it you wished to discuss, Your Majesty."
"My, my. I never took you for one to rush things.. What could be so urgent? Can we not take this slowly?"
"..As the matter concerns the Saintess herself, and no one else, I fear I was rather sensitive about it.. My apologies."
"Think nothing of it. I take no particular offense."
Silence — just as it seemed the silence was about to settle over them once more, the Emperor, stroking his own chin, at last opened his mouth with slow deliberation.
"Well, there was no grand design behind it."
"..What is that supposed to—"
"As you know well enough.. the nobility always receive their blessing at the church when they are young, do they not?"
"They do."
"And yet, there happens to be a child who to this day has not received even that commonplace blessing."
"...?"
"The very child you know."
"You mean.. Jenison?"
"Just so. Every piece of intelligence that reaches me says one and the same thing — that he never received a blessing."
"...."
"For a child who has rendered such signal service, once would do no harm, would it?"
"...."
"It is not as though the child has no ties to the Church whatsoever, either."
"...Your Majesty."
"Hm? What is it?"
"I trust Your Majesty is already aware, but until now, the blessing was something only nobles could receive — a prerogative that belonged to them alone."
The blessing: an earnest prayer offered up to the divine that every road lying ahead of a person might run smooth. Its reach was astonishingly broad, spanning everything from the trivial to the extraordinary — coins catching at one's heels one after another while walking down the street, an arrow that should never have struck home piercing the target dead center, a hiding place one had spent an entire lifetime searching for revealing itself with absurd ease. And so on, and so forth.
Something that would, in one way or another, invariably prove a boon upon the road ahead. And since our oh-so-proud nobles had never had any reason to grant a chance at such a thing to the common folk—
"Of course I am well aware of that."
"..Then surely you are equally aware that the backlash from the other nobles will be every bit as great."
"I am."
"The envy of his peers, above all, will be beyond fierce. More than a few of those children have let a sense of being the chosen few take root to an alarming degree, so how could they possibly.."
"Haha, but was the child not one of their own number to begin with?"
"...."
"And as for that matter, worry yourself not. I have already made my own arrangements."
"..Pardon?"
"Haha, I find myself quite looking forward to the child's reaction when the time comes."
"..Pardon?"
"Hm? You didn't hear me?"
"..I heard you quite clearly, but might I ask you to say it once more?"
"Ugh, honestly! Tomorrow Father is going to confer the rank of baron upon you personally, so get ready—"
"...."
User's headache is reaching critical intensity.
Urgently recommend rest at once..
The dizziness was beginning to set in. For real, this time.