The Princess and the Teddy Bear (3)
"There we are, all finished. If you need anything, just pull this cord here beside the bed, all right? Whether you'd like a drink of water, or need to visit the washroom, or for any reason at all—don't you hesitate to ring for me, heehee."
"Mm... okay, Sarah... tha...nk you... haahm."
"Oh my, look at you yawning. I'll take my leave, then. Sleep well, my lady."
"Mm... good night... you too, Sarah..."
The doorknob turned with a click, and once the maid had gone, silence settled over the room.
A mana-powered night-light spilled a gentle glow across the chamber, and in that dimness Adele could just make out her surroundings. She lay still, gazing up at the ceiling.
Ornate, lavish decorations crowded every inch of it, and at the center hung an elegant chandelier that looked as though it had been carved from a single enormous crystal—the crowning jewel of it all. The bed she lay in was so vast that ten children could have piled in with room to spare, yet every inch besides Adele's own little nest was so packed with stuffed animals of every color and kind that there was scarcely space left to set a foot.
And the blanket—the downy softness of the goose-feather duvet drawn over her was a pleasure she had never once tasted in her life until now. Not so long ago, she would never have dared imagine herself enjoying such luxury.
Fortunately, unlike everything her late mother had drilled into her until the words were etched into her ears, the people here seemed to like her a great deal. Father, of course—but the servants, too, every last one of them, doted on her.
And... Brother, as well.
Her body was already at its limit; sleep was reaching for her even now. Still, Adele clung stubbornly to the day's memories, turning them over and over in her mind.
Brother Edwin...
"Do you know who I am?"
By the time those first words left Edwin's mouth, Adele was already halfway out of her wits. Who was he? In the days she had spent at the estate, she had gathered up, whenever she could, the stories the maids whispered behind their master's back.
The eldest young master of House Reed. A nasty, eccentric temper. A dislike of commoners. He'd even had his engagement broken off by a fiancée as sweet as an angel, and then gone and caused enough trouble at the Academy to get himself suspended... and on, and on.
The more she heard, the larger her fear had grown.
She had already been told, before she ever set foot in this house, what she was. And if the young master was ill-tempered on top of that, and hated commoners besides—well, she hardly needed to see his face to know what he would think of her.
Father had soothed her gently and told her not to worry. But the moment she actually stood before Edwin, every resolution she had so carefully prepared scattered like dust.
His bulk was enormous, filling the room—by Adele's measure, at least—and a piercing cold lived in those gloomy grey eyes. Add to that the plump cheeks and the belly that pushed out in front of him, and his whole appearance called something very particular to mind.
Yes. This was a troll. The monster from the fairy tale Sarah had read to her only yesterday—the one that had stolen the princess away from the prince. And now that troll was asking her if she knew who he was. Stay calm. Pick the right answer, or you won't survive this.
Adele wrung every drop of thought from her head, and at last offered, very carefully, the answer she had settled on.
"A-aren't you the Young Lord...?"
Ah. That hadn't been it. Edwin's face pinched, as though the reply displeased him, and he shook his head slowly from side to side. This was bad. She'd said the wrong thing. What was going to happen to her now?
Cursing her own stupidity, Adele squeezed her eyes shut.
"No. That's not it..."
"...We're siblings, aren't we?"
"...And so the proper thing is for you to call me... Brother."
The instant one particular word reached her ears, the eyes she had screwed shut flew open. She had considered it, briefly—and then judged it impossible, and discarded it first of all. And it had been the right answer after all?
Dazed, Adele heard herself echo him before she even knew she was speaking.
"B-Brother...?"
The word left her lips, and Edwin's face warmed into a pleased little smile. He nodded, then came toward her, set his hand on her head, and stroked her hair as lightly as if he were brushing it.
Wh-what?
The suddenness of it startled her—and yet the touch was so gentle that she found she could not pull away. No. She did not want to. And only then could Adele look up at him properly.
Those eyes that had seemed so cold now held a quiet fondness, and a kind of pity, all directed at her. And that belly of his, now that she looked again, seemed somehow comfortable—soft, even. This wasn't a troll.
No. This was a teddy bear. The one she loved more than anything—the one she kept beside her and hugged every night as she fell asleep. That teddy bear, with its plump cheeks and round belly just like Edwin's, was one she had, as it happened, named Eddie with her own two hands.
Yes. This was surely the guidance of the gods. The Mother Goddess, taking pity on a girl who had never once skipped her daily prayers, had sent her a new brother. A kind, gentle, fluffy teddy-bear of a brother!
By the time her thoughts had carried her that far, every unkind thing Adele had ever believed about Edwin had already been wiped from her heart without a trace.
Adele broke into a silly grin and pulled Eddie, who had been waiting beside her, into a deep hug. She had been right. Brother Edwin was so very kind. He had told her to eat plenty of sweets, and he had even eaten the bell peppers and carrots she hated in her place. And it had been Brother Edwin, too, who had noticed first that she was nodding off in the drowsy hush after the meal, and who had told her to go on upstairs.
She felt rather ashamed of herself now, for having likened him to a monster even for a moment.
Tomorrow, I'll be the one to greet him first.
She still regretted how stiff she had been with nerves today—how she hadn't even managed to meet his eyes properly. Vowing that tomorrow she would show him a different side of herself, Adele closed her eyes.
Before long, the only sound in the room was the faint rhythm of her breathing.
"Good morning, Adele. Did you sleep well?"
Perhaps because so many kinds of exhaustion had piled up on me the night before, my eyes had pried themselves open of their own accord in the small hours. Since I was up anyway, I had gone and done a bit of exercise, washed, and was on my way back when I ran into Adele in the central corridor of the inner residence.
She still looked half-asleep, shuffling along with her nightgown dragging and rubbing at her eyes without pause. The sight of her brought back the Adele who had been nodding off in the banquet hall last night. She really had been adorable. She seemed to need a great deal of sleep, though—perhaps because she was still so young. Wouldn't it be all right to let her rest a little longer?
"Nnh... hueh?"
Adele made a peculiar little sound at my greeting, then finally came to herself and began fussing with her clothes, trying to put herself in order. Her cheeks looked a touch pink. Embarrassed, maybe, at having been seen in such a sloppy state. Genuinely cute...
"G-good morning, Brother. I'm sorry. I was going to greet you first..."
"That's quite all right. More to the point, you still look as though you haven't had enough sleep. If you're tired, you can go back in and rest a while longer. Children need their sleep, don't they? When I was your age, I used to nap so often the days could barely keep up."
"H-huh... really...? I mean, I'm fine... but still..."
Watching Adele wage a grave inner war over something so small, I could feel a laugh rising whether I wanted it or not. Was it really a matter that deserved this much agony? She seemed to be torn between the wish to look grown-up and a perfectly ordinary need for sleep—but there was no call for that already. A child was at her best when she was allowed to be a child.
I decided to settle the matter for her.
"Come. Let's go back in. I'll tell Sarah to set your breakfast aside, so you can eat whenever you wake. How does that sound?"
"B-B-Brother?!"
I scooped Adele up and started for her room. She came off the ground before I had even put any real strength into my arms, so light it felt as though she weighed nothing at all. Could a person even be this light?
She had said she'd had a hard life. It was possible her growth had lagged because she had eaten so poorly as a small child. That could become a problem. I would have to ask the head cook to take extra care with nutritious meals suited to a child.
"B-Brother... you can put me down now..."
"Haha. Worried your brother might be straining himself? You needn't be. A little thing like our Adele? I could carry ten of you and hardly notice."
"Our... Adele...? Hehe..."
Adele made a token show of squirming at first, but when I showed no sign of setting her down, she soon gave up and let herself go limp in my arms. I carried her straight to the bed, laid her down, and drew the covers over her so she wouldn't catch a chill. And sure enough, still short on sleep, she drifted off again before long.
I left the room and headed not for yesterday's banquet hall, but for the small dining room we used from day to day. The butler had already informed me that Father was out on business for a short while, so this morning's breakfast would be a solitary affair.
There was a family council in the afternoon, which meant whatever I needed to take care of would have to be finished in the morning.
I ate quickly, changed into outdoor clothes, and stepped out through the front gates of the estate.
"Hah... hah... damn, this is exhausting... it's so filthy far..."
After some thirty minutes on foot from the estate, my destination at last began to come into view. Thirty minutes of walking is not, in truth, a great distance. It was only that this body's stamina was abysmally lacking.
Before my roughly heaving chest stood a building of considerable grandeur, its exterior finished in pale greyish-white marble. Saints were depicted in colored glass across the arched stained-glass windows, and from the peak of the high spire a long-stemmed cross rose to complete the solemnity of the place.
Its proper name was the Maidheaden Diocese of the Three Gods Religion—what people more commonly simply called the church.
And since the overwhelming majority of the population, regardless of station, held faith in the Three Gods, the Holy Kingdom—the seat of that faith—stood as one of the great pillars of power in this world.
I caught my breath for a moment, then approached the guards stationed at the church doors.
"Greetings, Brother. May I have your name, and the purpose of your visit?"
"You've been working hard. Inform them that Edwin Reed has come to see the Bishop of Maidheaden."
I produced the family seal. The guard examined it, then nodded.
"House Reed's Young Lord is most welcome. This way, if you please... We shall send word to His Grace at once. I must ask that you wait a short while."
I followed the guard's lead into the church's reception room. I had arrived without any prior notice, and had been prepared to endure a reasonable wait—but contrary to my expectations, the diocese's bishop appeared in the reception room in less than five minutes.
The priestly robes stretched over his ample frame were soaked through with sweat; he had, by the look of it, come running the moment word reached him. Moments like this, you had to admit, made power look rather appealing.
"Welcome, Young Master Edwin. I do hope you have not been kept waiting long?"
"I had only just arrived. To receive such a welcome when I came without so much as a word of warning—I can only be grateful."
"Haha. When the Young Lord of House Reed himself pays a visit, how could our hospitality be anything less? Please, do sit."
In the original story, Edwin was a character who never appeared again after a passing mention that he had been expelled and sent home. But once I had confirmed, from the memories I carried, exactly where that hometown sat, I understood that his absence had another reason besides.
If the episodes I knew from the original played out here as well, then in a future not so very far from now the Empire would be forced into a great war against a sudden, overwhelming host of demonkin.
And though the war would, for a number of reasons—the exploits of the protagonist's party among them—eventually end in a ceasefire on both sides, by that point more than half the nation's territory, the south in particular, lying closest to the Demon Realm, would already have been reduced to a wretched wasteland of ash.
The most unfortunate fact of all was this: my own fief, Maidheaden, sat on the precise border between the Empire and the Demon Realm.
Given that geography, the moment war broke out this place would be trampled under the demonkin armies in an instant. And unlike other regions, where some measure of recovery might still be possible, Maidheaden would fall and vanish without a trace.
It was not a difficult conclusion to reach.
If I did nothing, that was exactly what would happen.
And the only person who could so much as begin to prepare for that dreadful future was a single man. Me.
The reason I had come to the church today was to obtain a certain something I would need if I meant to avoid that catastrophe.
Something that could be found nowhere else—something only the Church could provide.