Pope Glacia
I had finally arrived in the Holy Kingdom.
My escort consisted of the Magic Corps and the knights of Ashtar. The Ashtar brothers seemed to care for me quite a bit. What sort of Saint rolled into the Holy Kingdom with the Magic Corps in tow and a dozen knights for good measure? The headcount itself might not look like much, but once you factored in the underlings those knights dragged along it ballooned by a factor of ten. Roughly a hundred people, in other words. I had the Ashtar brothers swap half of them out for nuns. We compromised so that only half would actually enter the country, but half of a hundred was still fifty.
“Ah, I always end up thinking the same thing. Why the hell did they build a Holy Kingdom in the middle of a forest?”
“Once you get past the trees it is fairly flat, is it not?”
“Yeah, sure. Except I heard they had to clear the forest first just to put the place up.”
“Is that so?”
“Anyway, I have been here before and nothing has changed.”
There was almost nothing worth looking at. With religious folk making up such a high percentage of the population, anyone in clerical robes counted as a bureaucrat. That went for the ordinary nuns too. Even the lowest-ranking sisters handled state business, which was how the place managed to function with so few people. The Holy Kingdom’s nuns were sharp and highly capable… except for Siria. The mere thought of that bitch made my blood boil all over again.
“At least putting William out in front of us was a good call.”
“Yeah.”
That son of a bitch had tried every trick in the book to force me into the same carriage. I used the Ashtars’ authority to kick him out. If he did not like it, he could try punching through the Magic Corps and the battle-nuns. The brothers would have gone insane and put a bounty on William’s head with every adventurer in Crad. So we sent him on ahead. Whether he was sulking or not, he did not even bother guiding us, but the road was the same one I had already traveled; finding our way was no trouble.
We were well into the heart of the capital when a troop of knights appeared. Not William. The woman at their center was someone I knew: a golden-haired beauty with her hair carefully braided. Elias, vice-commander of the Holy Kingdom’s knight order. Word had it she was a cardinal’s daughter. A little thick-headed, too. Back when I was Noah and staying in the Holy Kingdom she had already chewed me out for being rude.
“Hmm. There ought to be an imperial shop somewhere around here…”
“Are you the party of the Empire’s Saint?”
“What of it?”
I had decided to come in hard from the first exchange, so I kept the speech blunt and casual. Let her taste the arrogance of an imperial bitch.
Elias’s face flickered with open confusion at my tone.
“Ah. I am Elias, vice-commander of the Holy Kingdom’s knight order. Before you are granted an audience with His Holiness the Pope, the Cardinal wishes to welcome you personally—”
“No need.”
Unnecessary.
“Pardon?”
Why the blank look? She should have expected at least this much from me.
“I may have a woman’s body, but I am still a princess of Ashtar and a veteran of war. From where I stand, meeting the cardinal—who is a pillar of Holy Kingdom politics—separately is simply uncomfortable. Just find me a decent inn, or better yet make this a day trip and get me in front of the Pope right now.”
I said it with complete shamelessness and a razor edge.
“A day trip? You mean you intend to have an audience today and leave immediately?”
Of course. What pleasant sights was I supposed to be gawking at here?
Honestly, this was psychological warfare. Elias was the cardinal’s daughter. Sending the cardinal to “welcome” me was a probe—they wanted to treat me like any other noble young lady, butter me up the way they would any high-ranking guest. Pure gamesmanship.
“You said you would recognize the Empire’s Goddess Church. Then at least try to make sense. Let’s be blunt: you have already finished investigating me, right?”
“Ugh.”
“That I am a corrupt Saint who uses a rootless religion called the Imperial Goddess Church to exploit the people and play with them behind the scenes.”
“That is correct.”
Her expression changed. Moments earlier she had been forcing a smile of welcome; now she looked, if not openly hostile, thoroughly displeased.
“So why bother making each other blush? I only came because of the relationship between the Empire and the Holy Kingdom, and frankly I am not impressed. One day-trip audience and I am gone.”
“But… are you not a princess of the Ashtar family?”
And what exactly was an Ashtar princess supposed to do about that?
“Before I am a princess I am the Empire’s Saint. I do not think it is proper to start waving my family name around.”
“Bringing up the family only when it is convenient—”
“If that bothers you so much, why don’t you become an Ashtar daughter yourself?”
“Kh.”
If it rankled, she should try being born Ashtar. A cardinal’s little girl from a piddling Holy Kingdom had no business talking.
“Anyway, consider the cardinal’s invitation withdrawn.”
“B-but even if you are not a formal envoy from the imperial capital, you are still the Saint of a great power. Are you certain you can simply do that? You should calculate carefully.”
Calculate. She chose a good word. Elias was trying to be clever, but that was the extent of it.
“The one who needs to do the calculating is your wonderful Pope. Sending some half-baked bastard as an envoy to Ashtar, throwing the hearts of Ashtar’s next head and its finest general into chaos, and then daring to try to lay hands on me on top of it?”
“What are you—”
Time to play the card. Who would have guessed that damnable William would actually prove useful?
“Do you not understand why I came separately from that William fellow?”
“Surely not…”
“Fine. I will yield a hundred times and admit there are foreign eyes watching. But is it not equally ridiculous for a cardinal’s daughter to be escorting the Empire’s Saint to the cardinal?”
“!!”
Why the stupid look?
“I have no idea what your real intentions are, but I will stay at an inn. If that bothers you, summon the Pope. More precisely, tell him to come find me himself.”
Trying to probe me, that old fox? She still had a long way to go.
“Even if Sir William committed an error, that is far too rude toward His Holiness the Pope!”
Elias raised her voice.
Ah, so noisy. Exactly like a female Ryler—blind loyalty to the Pope. Plausible, but she had picked the wrong opponent.
“What nonsense. Calling me here as a threat when you have no intention of recognizing the Imperial Goddess Church is pretty ridiculous itself, is it not?”
Elias had no comeback. The woman simply lacked cunning. The Pope had sent a surprisingly dim subordinate.
“That’s about the level you are. That is why you follow your precious Holiness like a dog.”
“Are you saying I am wrong?”
No, your problem is that you are an idiot. I could not say that out loud, so I let it slide.
“Not at all. I merely meant you are loyal.”
“You remind me of a certain mage.”
Probably talking about Noah. Well, well—she still had a bit of intuition left. Too bad nothing would come of it.
“Is that so.”
“Very well. I shall escort you to an inn.”
That was the end of the conversation. Elias led Celia and me to an inn and, of course, put the bill on the Pope’s tab, which delighted the proprietor.
“Are you sure this is all right? Beggar or not, he is still the Pope.”
“Mm. That is exactly why.”
This was a fight—psychological warfare. A contest over who bowed first. Back when I was Noah I had put up with it because of the Hero Party’s position and my own circumstances. Things were different now. Let her try a staring contest with me.
“What do you intend to do?”
Celia looked surprisingly worried. Well, she was the next Magic Tower Master; maybe she was fretting about relations between the Tower and the Holy Kingdom.
“We wait until the Pope comes herself. Do not worry. Nothing will splash onto the Magic Tower.”
The Pope was not that petty a woman.
“The Pope coming in person? Is that even possible?”
“That is why we hold out.”
I intended to dig in until the end. We had all the leisure in the world. There was still time before the Empire’s founding festival, and when that day arrived the Emperor would summon me. The one who would grow desperate was the Pope.
“And if she truly refuses to recognize us?”
“Recognition would actually be the problem.”
“Pardon?”
I had realized it late myself, but there was a snag once you thought about it.
“Think. The Imperial Goddess Church already considers itself legitimate. Having to receive recognition from the Pope? Making a trip to the Holy Kingdom in order to be recognized? That would mean I, the Empire’s own Saint, am admitting that the Imperial Goddess Church has a defect.”
“Ohh. I see.”
“So I am here for ‘diplomacy,’ not to seek recognition. I deny it absolutely. And it is not even rude. A cardinal greeting me personally is already an excessive reception for a theocratic state—too transparent. I am not rudely rejecting it; I am simply declining.”
“Now that you mention it, the one who has been put in a hurry is the Pope.”
She had requested the meeting herself, so she would have no choice but to come. Leaving everything else aside, William’s existence had already stamped them as the rude party. This was going to be fun. Come find me, then. By now the Pope would be sensing something. The days ahead looked entertaining. I had not the slightest intention of rolling over the way Noah once had.
Pope Glacia was flabbergasted. She was barely managing to keep a rising surge of fury under control.
The Saint’s arrival itself had been fine. She had assumed the girl was merely an insolent noble chit, only to discover the wench was no ordinary opponent. That much she could accept. The larger problem was—
“Your Holiness, what are we to do about this?”
After receiving Elias’s report on the meeting with the Saint, Glacia felt heat climb the back of her skull. Yes. All of this was that worthless grandson’s fault.
“Grandmother, that is—”
The damnable, useless grandson had tried to seduce the Saint, only to hand her a perfect pretext instead.
“I am not your grandmother; I am the Pope. How dare you twist my words so the other side can misinterpret them? You even gave them the moral high ground of calling us the ruder party.”
“I had only heard the rumors that she was a wicked woman. Your Holiness thought the same, did you not?”
“Have you never heard that seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times? And the other side is Ashtar. You pulled a stunt like that against a princess of Ashtar?”
Whatever else one might say about them, the Ashtars were a family on the rise and a long-established power that had wielded influence in the Empire for ages. The Saint might well be the wicked woman of the rumors, but William’s insolence toward Ashtar still demanded punishment. And of all people, this particular Saint was a sharp one—someone who would wring every last drop of advantage from the cards she held. A vixen of a woman, and she was the Empire’s Saint.
“I am sorry.”
“Your insides are no different from those of the Empire’s Goddess Church pontiff.”
“Grandmother, that is—”
So he found that comparison especially cutting. Pure ability-wise the Empire’s pontiff was superior, and the Pope happened to hold him in surprisingly high regard.