Inspection (2)
"S-Sir, please let go of my hand…"
"Ah. Excuse me."
The moment I released her, Elizabeth snatched her hand back and hid it behind her body. She stole a glance at my face, then finally spoke.
"You really don't have to worry about it so much. Sir Henry did smash it, yes, but thanks to that the ghosts don't come out anymore…"
"Oh—so the ghosts are gone for good?"
"Yes. They've disappeared now."
"That's a relief."
Even with her saying so, the guilt sat heavy in my chest. How could it not?
Think about it. The place Elizabeth lived was the top of a tower—a wind-scoured height with one whole wall blown open. It was still spring, too; the air hadn't even turned properly warm. The fact she hadn't caught a cold yet was a minor miracle.
Apparently eager to escape the subject, Elizabeth cut to the real point.
"By the way—you said you came because of a misunderstanding. What did you mean by that?"
"Ah. The meeting earlier. The Supreme Committee."
"Ah… yes."
"It must have looked as though we only ever sided with Her Majesty the Queen. But we didn't collude or anything of the sort."
"So you're calling that a coincidence? The two of you kept putting forward the exact same opinions."
"W-well—yes. Hard as it may be to believe, that's the truth."
I explained. I had simply agreed with whichever position looked more reasonable, and those just happened, by pure chance, to be the Queen's.
"Aha. So it was all a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding…"
"Princess?"
She was staring blankly at the boarded-up wall where the wind still leaked through. Wondering why she'd gone vacant, I called her name—and she whipped around to face me.
"Sir Henry. Do I look like a fool to you?"
"Pardon?"
"You're saying every single matching vote was a misunderstanding? On agenda items that complicated? Do you honestly believe that's possible?"
I felt wronged. What was I supposed to do when our opinions had simply lined up that well?
"Even if—for the sake of argument—even if that were truly the case, even if my opinions weren't that… reasonable,"
Moisture was welling in her eyes.
"Just once. Just once, you could have agreed with me. It's one thousand three hundred people, Sir Henry."
"One thousand three hundred?"
"Yes. One thousand three hundred. The people who will die because of the measure that passed today."
I had no idea how she'd arrived at the number, but she was probably right. Even by my own rough count, roughly that many would die.
"They're my people, Sir Henry. My people…"
Her voice frayed into sobs. She kept speaking with her head bowed low.
"Do you have any idea how much I prepared for this? How much I hoped? I may be incompetent and useless, but this time I thought I might actually be able to do something. In this cruel reign, I thought I could save even one person."
It came back to me then. Unlike Mary, who tossed opinions out like scraps, Elizabeth had agonized over every word before she spoke.
"I'm not a fool either, Sir Henry."
She kept her face hidden, but I could see the tears dripping onto her knees.
"This rebellion, the assassination attempts, the Supreme Committee—I know everyone is only using me to seize power. They prop me up for show and run the country among themselves. And—"
Elizabeth lifted her head and looked straight at me. Her eyes were brimming.
"—you too, Sir Henry. You must have come here because there's something you want. I know that much…"
"If you know all that, why open the door for me?"
"Because. I have to be used."
Sniff.
"Only by being used can I avenge my father and fulfill a royal's duty to the people. So drop the nonsense about misunderstandings."
She scrubbed the tears away with the back of her hand and fixed me with a resolute stare.
"Tell me what you want from me."
I met her eyes. The look she wore was determined, yet the longer our gazes locked, the more strength drained from it. Even so, she never looked away.
Right. There was nothing here that needed my help. She was never someone whose will would break in the first place.
With a woman like this, I could afford to expect a little more.
"Princess."
"Yes."
"Would you care to have an affair with me?"
"…Huh?"
The face that had just insisted she was no fool went instantly, thoroughly blank.
An affair. A word for a relationship socially and morally improper. That was precisely what I was about to propose.
"I want you, Princess, to hold far more power than you do now. Enough to surpass Queen Mary."
"…And the reason?"
What else? To play both sides.
Queen Mary currently held the real power, but she had no foundation. Elizabeth overflowed with legitimacy. In short: Mary's floor was high, but Elizabeth's ceiling was higher.
"So you mean to raise both of us to a certain height, then snatch whichever one suits you once the situation becomes clear."
"Exactly. Which is why you have to become one of my options, Princess."
She thought it over. Five minutes must have passed before she opened her mouth again.
"I'll do it. Facing Queen Mary won't be easy, but I'll steel myself for it. But why is this an affair?"
"Colluding with the daughter behind the wife's back. What relationship could possibly be more improper than that?"
"Pfft. You've got a point there."
A faint smile surfaced. It looked good on her.
"Then let's try it. This 'affair' of yours."
Despite the word she was using, Elizabeth smiled with pure, clear light.
Once we had entered into our improper relationship, Elizabeth threw herself into action in earnest. She set out to seize power by leveraging her legitimacy.
"I'm tired of always being the one who's used. It's all right if I use Sir Henry once, isn't it?"
"Of course."
I had wondered what she meant to do with me. What she chose was an inspection tour—the kind of periodic circuit that royals made through the realm.
The nobility had already been more or less cleaned up. The high-ranking houses had been brainwashed by Mary; the lesser ones had been executed.
And whatever factions remained were wiped out in the last rebellion.
As a result, almost no one among the nobles could still be called a loyalist. So Elizabeth turned instead to the common people.
The upper ranks might be one thing, but to ordinary folk, Elizabeth was still a good royal. The late King Leopold had been famous for his love of the people, after all.
"Queen Mary? Who's that?"
That was the reaction the current queen inspired. By contrast:
"Oh! There's Princess Elizabeth! No wonder she's so beautiful—King Leopold's daughter through and through!"
They went wild with enthusiasm. Building a foundation on that popularity was Elizabeth's plan.
So she submitted a proposal to the Supreme Committee.
"…Therefore, this is a motion to conduct an inspection tour and soothe the people's unsettled hearts after the recent rebellion."
"I am opposed."
Mary voted against it. But—
"I am in favor."
"I'm in favor as well."
—two votes carried it. Mary chewed her lip, glanced once at me and once at Elizabeth, and left.
The inspection plan, thus approved, was put into motion at once. A procession of escort troops, attendants, and maids set out. I accompanied them, for the record.
I need to see whether this actually works.
I had to confirm whether she could truly build a base this way, as she believed.
The destination was a village near the capital—nearly a half-day's round trip, observing the people along the route.
The inspection itself was predictable.
"Wow! That's the carriage the princess rides in!"
"The princess is inside!"
The commoners were enraptured. And—
"Wow! It's the people!"
—so was Elizabeth. Apparently this was her first time outside the castle as well. The two sides gazed at each other with mutual fascination.
A zoo, was that the word? Places where animals were penned up for people to gawk at—they were looking at one another exactly like that, like monkeys in a zoo.
How does she have such a fierce love for the people when she's never even seen them before?
Like a phantom pregnancy. Phantom commoners, maybe. The feeling that arrives simply because you believe they exist.
In the middle of her delight, Elizabeth came over to me.
"Sir Henry. What is that?"
She pointed at a snack being sold on the street—food you would never have occasion to see inside the royal castle.
"That's an apple roasted with honey brushed over it."
"Aha."
"Would you like to try one?"
"Oh—would that be all right?"
She looked so eager that I offered, and she nodded.
"Then I'll go buy one."
A princess could hardly go shopping herself, so I stepped forward. I left the carriage and headed for the vendor.
"One of those, if you please."
"Yes, sir. That'll be two copper coins."
The merchant demanded money. I was stunned.
I asked for goods and he wanted payment? Wasn't it common sense that everything was free? An utterly alien spectacle.
Normally people thank me just for taking the goods.
Thank you for saving our lives. But asking for money? The world was spinning the wrong way.
Still, this wasn't our duchy. I couldn't simply seize the merchandise. I turned back toward our party first.
I needed to make some money.
"You two. Come over here."
"Yes, Young Master."
I called over one attendant and one maid. Then I started a side job for the first time in a long while.
"Hand over everything you've got."
"…Excuse me?"
"What do you mean by that…?"
They resisted at first, but after my kind explanation—I'm a duke's son, and you're servants—they obediently surrendered their coin.
Just as I was about to turn and make the purchase—
What is this?
The little child inside me whispered something.
A craftsman. Someone who pours years, decades, an entire lifetime into a single craft. I, too, was a craftsman in one particular field.
And that craftsman's instinct whispered to me now: the maid was hiding something.
"You. Come back here."
I called the maid from a moment ago.
"M-me?"
I studied her carefully—and then I felt it.
"Here it is."
"Kya—kyaaah!"
Just as I thought. She had hidden a wallet in her undergarments. My craftsman's spirit, honed over more than a decade of plunder, had been exact.
Inside the wallet were two gold coins.
Lucky.
As I was about to leave, something else slipped out of the wallet.
A medallion engraved with the symbol of the Holy See.
Perhaps it hadn't been mere craftsman's instinct at all, but a warrior's. I must have sensed murderous intent without realizing it.
In any case, it seemed I had caught a spy while shaking people down for pocket change.