The Proposal (3)
The wind carried a sharp, briny taste.
It had been a long time since I’d felt the air of a ship’s deck beneath me.
To either side stretched an endless sea; above, a cloudless, brilliant sky. Straight ahead, lashed to the bowsprit with rope, hung the butler.
That crazy bastard, seriously.
How do you mix up the person you’re proposing to? I tell him to propose to the young, beautiful princess, and he goes and does it to the queen?
I’d held back the urge to murder him on the spot and simply strung him up on the bow. He was staying there until the voyage was over.
I was sailing for the Lancart Kingdom, and the reason was obvious.
The proposal.
Word that I had sent a letter proposing to Mary Tudor had reached the Duke—my father—and I was summoned to the family head’s hall at once. The way he looked at me said, plain as day, Even your old man has his limits.
It hadn’t been that bad even when I’d ambushed and plundered an allied nation’s ship.
The steward standing beside Father launched into a long explanation of why this marriage could never happen. After listening, I promised Father I would go in person to apologize and set out with a ship of my own.
What did I know about politics or diplomacy? Father had decided on primogeniture from the start. He gave the heir’s education to my elder brother and knightly training to me. I was confident with my body; with my head… well. It left something to be desired.
Still, after the steward’s earnest lecture I grasped the essentials well enough. Cut short the long, tedious explanation and it went like this:
The king of Lancart had been Leopold Tudor. He was dead. Cause of death: illness. When a king dies the throne usually passes to a prince, but Leopold had only one child—a daughter. That was Elizabeth, whom I knew. Until a proper heir appeared, the queen would rule as regent. And that queen was the very Mary Tudor to whom I had just proposed.
So.
I might as well have proposed to the king himself.
If it had been a count’s or duke’s daughter, a proposal would have been nothing special. Even a princess was usually fine—women step one pace back from politics. But a queen, and one who was the de facto ruler as regent?
That was different. A marriage offer to such a person was a political upheaval that could shake a nation’s balance of power, and it required prior agreement. In short, a one-sided proposal like this was a diplomatic insult.
Father, however, didn’t care about that.
No need to stand on ceremony with a weak little country like that.
What mattered was:
We’re the ones taking the loss.
The ranks didn’t match. Marriage was supposed to benefit both sides, yet we would be the only ones losing. Lancart was a minor kingdom; our duchy was a great power. They had nothing to give us, and we had endless things we could give them. Therefore the proposal had to be withdrawn.
Father weighed nothing but profit and loss. So he sent me to apologize and cancel the proposal before they could snap it up. Go undo the damage and come back at once.
For reference: once this was over, Father would almost certainly execute the butler as well. That was the kind of man he was.
I took a little more of the sea wind, then spoke to the navigator.
“I’m going below. Call me when we arrive. And if you spot any other ships, no plundering.”
“No plundering, Captain? So just kidnapping, then?”
“No kidnapping either.”
“Then… a simple toll?”
“No tolls.”
“No plundering, no kidnapping, no tolls…”
The navigator wore the expression of a man who had just heard something that should not exist in this world.
“That’s right. We’re short on time.”
“…Understood.”
Leaving the dejected navigator behind, I entered the captain’s cabin. Inside were a bed, a table strewn with sea charts and bottles of liquor, and a statue of the sea serpent.
Sailors are superstitious by nature. Our house worshipped that sea serpent. Inside the Empire they called us pagans for it, but it was our proud culture. The method of worship was simple. Unlike the Empire’s goddess, who required temples and days of preparation for a proper rite, we just grabbed a few people, threw them into the sea, and—
Orcadis.
—prayed silently to the splash. Done. Efficient, wasn’t it? There wasn’t even a formal prayer. Of course, as with any god, I had no idea whether it actually did anything.
Still, given the circumstances, the thought crossed my mind that I might as well offer up the butler outside and try a prayer. But I wasn’t sure what to ask for, and the butler was a fellow believer—would he even like it? In the end I simply lay down and let time pass.
An hour or two later—
Knock-knock.
“Enter.”
“Captain. We’ve arrived.”
I stepped out at the navigator’s word and saw the peaceful face of White Harbor, Lancart’s greatest port. Citizens bustled about in the ordinary rhythm of a harbor town.
Clang-clang-clang!
“Shit! That’s a Vargas ship!”
“They’re back again! Those snake-tattooed bastards! Sound the alarm!”
“Waaah, Mamaaa!”
“Mama’s here. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right. Go inside and stay very quiet, darling.”
We entered White Harbor to a grand welcome.
Lancart was famous as a land of fine food. Its specialties were wine, women, and horses—and true to a gourmet nation, all three could be eaten. All of them tasted excellent, too.
They used their fine horses to raise heavy cavalry and keep a strong land army. Unfortunately, Lancart’s horses could not gallop across the sea. As a result the quality of the Lancart navy was—
Pathetic.
From the standpoint of the Vargas, whose naval power was formidable, Lancart was like a battered wife. After a stretch of outside work, when money ran short, you dropped by—
“If you take even that, what am I supposed to do?!”
“Hush. I’ll give it back later.”
“Still, you can’t—ah!”
—and money duplicated itself again.
After enough beatings, Lancart once tried to strike back. They set out to build a navy and resist. We paid a visit while they were stitching ships together stitch by stitch.
“Heh heh. You should’ve said you had something like this. We’ll put it to good use.”
“Please, no… just this once… waaah!”
We seized every last ship. Later we came back again.
“Heard you’re building a navy these days? We’ve got a few extra ships ourselves lately. Interested?”
“…These… these are our ships…”
“So are you buying or not?”
“…I’ll buy.”
“We’re practically giving them away. You know that, right? Then you should say thank you.”
“…Thank you.”
After that, Lancart never tried to raise a navy again.
With a history like that, every pair of eyes I met on the road to the audience chamber of Lancart burned with resentment.
On the way from White Harbor to the royal capital the butler gave me a variety of briefings—basic Lancart etiquette, how to phrase the apology and the withdrawal of the proposal, and one more thing:
Mary Tudor herself.
I was told she had a splendid nickname.
Bloody Mary.
To hold on to the power she gained after the late king’s death, she had killed countless people. Her legitimacy was paper-thin, so she purged anyone who might raise a rebellion. That was how the name stuck.
I absolutely cannot marry this one.
In the corridor leading to the audience chamber a familiar face appeared.
“Sir Henry.”
It was Lady Elizabeth. An astonishingly lovely face, clouded by a complicated expression—half sorrow, half disappointment.
“Weren’t you going to propose to me?”
“About that…”
I explained everything from the beginning.
“So it was a misunderstanding!”
Like sunlight on a spring day, a smile flooded her face and she beamed at me.
Yes. The only woman who would become my wife was her. Now that I had decided to propose once, I would apologize to Mary Tudor and then propose to Elizabeth again.
Of course.
A man needs principles and constancy.
And a man keeps his word once given.
Creeeak, boom!
The heavy doors of the audience chamber swung open. Ornate chandeliers, portraits lining the walls. Courtiers stood in ranks along both sides of the hall, centered on the throne. And on that throne sat—
Holy hell.
Hair the color of fresh blood, skin so white it stood in stark contrast. Every feature was beautiful; the whole effect was dazzling. Her catlike, bewitching eyes brimmed with allure.
But the face was not the point. Below it, the curves of her body swayed with every breath and seized the eye. A figure like that could not possibly live a wholesome life.
“Are you the one who proposed to me?”
Beautiful and entrancing, the voice of the queen—Mary Tudor—addressed me.
No. The letter had been sent in error. I was supposed to apologize. Father had given me a strict order. I was going to marry Elizabeth. I had to keep my principles and constancy, I had to—
“Of course. I will love you for the rest of my life. Marry me.”
Did I think I was some kind of saint? I was a pirate.
Principles and constancy, my ass.
As if spellbound, I proposed.