Encouragement and Persuasion
"You mean Lady Ariel?"
Gelwood echoed the question with a puzzled look.
No—more precisely, ever since the four final candidates had been chosen, one baffling situation after another had been unfolding.
None of the four had a reputation that made them suitable for the Grand Ducal house, and, ironically, all of them shared the same peculiar commonality: they had graduated as top students of the Royal Academy in the same year.
Grand Duchess Lumiang was someone who always made the right decisions based on her innate powers of observation. Gelwood had begun to worry that something might have gone wrong with her judgment. Yet a Grand Duchess's decisions were not a realm where a mere aide could interfere; all he could do was hope she would at least manage to pick the least of the worst.
Then had come the final candidate's declaration of withdrawal.
First his mistress's incomprehensible choice, and then the incomprehensible choice of the man she had selected. Questions had begun breeding more questions.
And on top of that—
"Assign a watcher to Young Lord Elden."
Yet another mystery had begun.
Elden was a quitter who had declared his withdrawal. The tournament regulations contained not a single clause regarding withdrawal, so there was no way to force him to stay and no way to stop him from leaving. More to the point, there had been no reason to reject the declaration or refuse it. There was no need to keep a man who had lost all will to compete sitting in his seat.
That was why Gelwood could not understand why the Grand Duchess was trying to hold onto someone who had withdrawn—and even less why she would assign a "watcher" to shadow that same quitter's every move.
Just in case, he had investigated whether anything of note had happened with Erincia Velock during their Academy days, but he had turned up nothing that could resolve the mystery.
The Grand Duchess asked no questions about the other three candidates. All her questions and all her interest were directed solely at Elden.
Gelwood had wondered if the withdrawal might be some sophisticated strategy meant to engineer the current situation—but Elden's eyes had been sincere, and everything he had done afterward only reinforced a powerful desire to quit. He looked for all the world as if he had completely cut off any interest in the marriage tournament. He made no preparations whatsoever for the official schedule that had been distributed. He simply shut himself away in the library, grinning to himself, or wandered into the city to eat commoners' food—eccentric behavior, all of it.
Gelwood had even reported the matter to His Grace the Grand Duke, but had received no particular answer. Only that every decision had been left entirely to Grand Duchess Lumiang.
Why this obsession with a man who had withdrawn? What did it mean to show such intense interest in someone who had already lost interest in her?
Even if they somehow made the quitter the champion, if that same quitter laid down the trophy on the grounds that he had declared his withdrawal before the final evaluation matches even began, there would be neither legal basis nor regulation by which they could force him. It was not a mid-match withdrawal—he had withdrawn before anything started.
Of course, laying down the trophy would earn him the Grand Duke's cold stare and would throw cold water on the grand finale of the northern festival that was the marriage tournament. But even so, they could not find fault with him, could not dismiss him, and could not force a betrothal. No matter how powerful the Grand Ducal house might be, they could not order a forced marriage upon someone who refused—and for the sake of not becoming a laughingstock abroad, that was the one thing they had to avoid. At the very least, so long as other final candidates remained.
Not a single question had been resolved, and the doubts only kept piling up. In the end, he had no choice but to ask directly.
"Forgive my presumption, but… may I inquire as to the reason you are having Young Lord Elden, who has declared his withdrawal, watched? I find myself wondering whether I have overlooked something."
At Gelwood's question, Lumiang asked one of her own.
"How do you view Young Lord Elden's withdrawal, Aide?"
The overall director of the marriage tournament. A genius of insight. She had asked because she wondered whether a man like him might have noticed something about Elden's eccentricities.
"Well… if it were a strategy that exploited a loophole in the tournament regulations, I would call it a splendid success—but it does not particularly look like a strategy to me."
"You think he is sincere, then?"
"Yes. For the time being, that is my assessment."
"And what of the changes he has been showing?"
Hmm. Gelwood swallowed a thoughtful sound and took a moment.
A clear change. A strange change. Even a genius of insight found it difficult to define.
"I do not know. It could be preparatory work for using the withdrawal as a strategy… but the change itself also seems 'sincere,' which makes it hard to define."
The withdrawal was sincere. The change was sincere. Elden Raphelion—however he had managed to graduate top of his class—had been the one student who hated books more than anything. And yet the face he wore while reading them, laughing, growing sad, being moved, had looked utterly genuine. The debates he held sitting across from Lady Ariel, in particular, had been quite serious and heated. The face of Elden that Gelwood had personally spied on—because the watcher's reports had been so hard to believe—had been exactly that.
Of course, one could conclude that he had simply discovered a new amusement, but something about that neat little answer still felt unsatisfying.
"Right?"
Lumiang asked as if she had expected exactly that answer.
"Pardon? What do you mean?"
"Right now, we have learned nothing about Young Lord Elden. Even with a watcher assigned, we still know nothing of his intentions, his thoughts, his reasons, or the truth—none of it."
"…That may be so, but is there any particular need to find out? If it is a strategy to curry favor, we need only refuse to be drawn in. If it is sincere, we need only send him on his way with grace."
"No. I will not tolerate even a single withdrawal."
Lumiang answered with firm resolve. There was a trace of anger in her voice, and through it Gelwood could sense the reason for her obsession.
Rage. The rage she directed at the man who had withdrawn seemed to contain a twisted love-hate, or a seething, aching affection. What dark history bound the two of them, and what past was the Grand Duchess still chained to?
Gelwood carefully opened his mouth.
"However… even if we force a man who has withdrawn to rejoin the tournament, I do not believe the situation would change…"
At his concern, Lumiang showed a rare smile—the smile of an unyielding researcher, full of tenacity.
"I have no intention of forcing him."
"Pardon?"
"I am going to set his will ablaze through encouragement and persuasion."
"What do you mean by that…?"
Perhaps the clue of love could open a breach in this impregnable fortress of a problem. And at the end of it, she would bring the walls down and reclaim what had been hidden. There was no problem that could not be solved.
Wearing a smile of quiet triumph, Lumiang handed Gelwood a small note.
"Deliver this to Young Lord Elden."
"What… is this?"
It contained the secret of tomorrow's evaluation match, Hide-and-Seek—along with her partial, preferential encouragement, her rallying cry, and a temptation he would find impossible to refuse.
Tap, tap~ Tap-tap~
"Hmm-hmm-hmm~"
Light, excited footsteps. Cheerful steps. A humming little tune. Her escort knight, waiting outside the library, sensed that something about today was different from usual and spoke from behind Ariel.
"Has something good happened, my lady?"
"Hm?"
"You seem especially cheerful today."
Normally Ariel only headed home after the library's closing time, and by then she was always drained. Her bright face would sag; her steps would grow heavy. He knew it came from hunger, from the physical toll of starving herself for the sake of reading—but today's unusually high spirits were more than enough to make him wonder.
She stopped short, turned, and pointed a finger at herself.
"Me? Do I? Do I look cheerful?"
…What more was there to ask? When the escort knight nodded, Ariel tilted her head.
"Hmm. Really? I feel the same as always."
"It seems your heart has always been cheerful, but your body has simply been sagging from lack of stamina."
"Is that so?"
Apparently a proper meal had been enough to stop the stamina drain. The lunch had been late, but the food she had eaten in the Great Hall had been truly excellent. Of course, for a young lady of a marquisate it was the same ordinary fare she always ate—but perhaps the talk of books they had shared while eating had made it feel excellent. Either way, she no longer had to listen to her stomach growling, and the concentration that used to fray from hunger had held firm all the way to closing time. Thanks to that, she had even exceeded her planned reading quota.
Even after "wasting" time on a meal, her reading volume had risen slightly compared to the day before. It was ironic, but whatever the reason, Ariel could not help feeling good. An increase in reading volume meant she could finish her set plan faster—and that meant she could sooner give the warmth of the south to the people whose feet were stuck in this freezing land because of her reading journey.
I wonder if Elden's training went well?
Ariel suddenly thought of Elden. There was no denying that the quality of her reading time had improved thanks to the man who had become her conversation partner and meal companion, so thinking of him felt natural. Remembering the slight sense of regret she had felt while watching Elden's back as he headed for the training grounds with Rachel also felt natural. And his escort knight was someone she had long admired—the great protagonist who had shaken countless young women's hearts. Meeting Elden was delightful enough, but for a bookworm, meeting a novel's protagonist in the flesh was an enormous joy.
He said he couldn't come tomorrow because of the evaluation match, so the day after tomorrow… maybe I should hit closing time and then go watch him train?
Yes. That sounded good. She was curious, after all. How magnificent would it be to see the Purple Knight swing her sword? An opportunity to watch from the front row was not something she could pass up. And after watching, she would have to tell the maids how splendid it was. They would all fall over in shock, wouldn't they?
Having made up her mind, Ariel started walking again and soon reached her lodgings. She went straight inside, finished her bath, and was about to start on a late-night snack—when someone arrived.
"My lady?"
"Hm?"
"You have a visitor."
"At this hour? For me? Who is it?"
Who could it be? There was no one who would come calling at this late hour. She did not even know anyone in the northern territories.
"I could not see their face—they had the hood pulled deep—but they said they were a classmate from the Royal Academy."
Ah.
"Elden?"
She set down the spoon she had just been about to lift, her face bright with welcome, and started out to greet her nighttime guest.