Engagement Period (1)
"…Sir Henry, what is the meaning of this?"
The proposal—no, it wasn't a proposal anymore.
Once the engagement was sealed and I stepped out of the audience chamber, Elizabeth was already waiting for me.
"Come now, try saying it. Not Sir Henry—Daddy."
Calling the man who was about to become her father "Sir Henry."
How rude.
"This is no time for jokes! Right now, right now… waaah."
Elizabeth started to say something, then froze as if her brain had short-circuited.
"Where… where do I even begin explaining what went wrong…? Ah, right. First!"
"First?"
"You were supposed to propose to me!"
"For that, I am truly sorry."
"Sorry? Urgh—and why are you talking like that all of a sudden?"
"Why else? I'm your father now, aren't I? Using formal speech with you would be rather strange."
The awkward register couldn't be helped.
Even fathers have to start somewhere.
"That way of speaking is even weirder… Please just talk normally."
"Understood."
A father speaking formally to his daughter.
The household hierarchy was already a wreck, but we were still in the adjustment period.
I decided to let it slide.
"Fine. Then first—why did you suddenly propose to Her Majesty the Queen?"
"It was love at first sight. Your mother was simply too beautiful."
"Well… that's true. Her Majesty is beautiful. Far prettier than someone like me… more feminine…"
Well.
As far as I was concerned, Elizabeth and Queen Mary simply occupied different tastes.
Queen Mary just happened to have something Elizabeth lacked—something that hit my preferences dead center.
Elizabeth glanced down at her own chest, cleared her throat with a little ahem, and pressed on.
"Anyway, that's not the point. We need to cancel the engagement immediately."
"The engagement, you say?"
Why cancel an engagement that had only just been sealed?
"Do explain your reasons."
"I can't say it here. Come to my room a little later."
I hesitated a moment, then answered.
"Very well."
"You must. You absolutely have to come."
Hearing my answer, Elizabeth stressed it several more times, explained where her room was, and said she would go ahead first.
Elizabeth's room was at the very top of the castle—the tip of a tower.
Do they normally stick a princess's chambers somewhere that remote?
You'd think they would put her somewhere more central.
The accessibility was appalling.
Maybe they had taken inspiration from fairy tales.
You know the ones.
Princesses locked away at the top of towers.
Climbing the stairs one step at a time, I turned it over in my mind.
Why does she want the engagement called off?
The reason was obvious enough.
Politics, no doubt.
I had done a little digging before coming here.
Queen Mary was of common birth, and Elizabeth was the true heir of the bloodline.
Which meant that if Queen Mary were somehow to die, Elizabeth would become queen.
So long as Queen Mary never bore a son.
But Queen Mary was the lawful queen. If she produced a son, a legitimate successor would be born.
Men, after all, still ranked higher than women in the order of succession.
So was she trying to stop the queen from marrying at all?
If not that, then maybe she had fallen for me—but honestly, that possibility was vanishingly slim.
I hadn't gotten that kind of look from her.
Knock, knock.
"Come in."
I had reached the top of the tower before I knew it. When I rapped on the door, a clear, pure voice answered from within.
I opened the door and stepped inside.
Princess Elizabeth sat on a bed that looked thoroughly worn overall.
The room had clearly been cleaned with care and was tidy enough, but the furniture as a whole had a shabby air.
In every respect, it did not look like a room where a princess ought to live.
"I've asked them to bring tea and a light snack. They should be here shortly."
Offering tea and refreshments to a guest.
She had been raised as a proper noble, at least.
"Thank you. So—what exactly did you call me all the way up here to explain?"
I had no intention of waiting around for the tea and snacks to arrive, so I cut straight to the point.
This was the top of a tower; those things would take forever to get here.
"All right. Let's begin at once. Listen carefully. This isn't for my sake—I'm telling you this for yours."
I settled in to hear her out.
Elizabeth was not particularly good at organizing her thoughts, her explanations lacked coherence, and she left out a great many things along the way—but boiled down, it amounted to roughly this:
Queen Mary was a witch.
She used wicked powers, and when Elizabeth's uncle got in her way, she killed him.
Judging by the high ministers, she could even brainwash people.
Therefore, there was no telling what she might do to me.
So I should flee at the first opportunity.
She also went into long, sorrowful stories about her father and little memories of her happy childhood, but those were the essentials.
And after hearing the whole thing, my honest thought was this:
Is she unhinged?
Magic? In this day and age?
Granted, as a boy I had daydreamed about embedding a ninth circle into my heart, becoming a grand archmage, conquering the world while the women around me wallowed in regret, ruin, and obsession—but I knew that wasn't reality.
The shock of her father's death when she was young had probably twisted her into a full-blown conspiracy theorist.
I looked at her with pitying eyes.
"Wait—why… why are you looking at me like that? You don't believe me, do you? You don't believe me."
"Not at all. I believe you. So Queen Mary is a witch. I see."
Denying this sort of thing only made the condition worse.
Affirming the situation and gently guiding it back toward reality was the proper therapeutic approach.
"…You really believe me?"
"Of course. Queen Mary is an evil witch who uses curses."
"Exactly!"
"And every night she commands ghosts."
"Yes! That's precisely it!"
"And just by locking eyes she can peer into people's hearts."
"Uh… I don't know about that…"
"She flies through the sky, too."
"…"
"And she controls the wind. Summons the southeast wind and all that, right?"
Elizabeth was glaring at me.
Her eyes were full of murderous intent, but her face was so round and soft that it wasn't particularly frightening.
"Stop mocking me! I'm telling you it's real!"
I may have overdone it.
The way she kept bobbing her head and going Yes! with every line had been too entertaining to resist.
"Of course. Of course. I believe you."
"Haa. You don't believe me at all. And I can't even prove any of it…"
Elizabeth didn't push the point any further.
Even she knew, on some level, that by ordinary standards it was complete nonsense.
"Ugh, how am I supposed to make you believe…"
She was clutching her head in frustration when a knock sounded and a maid entered.
Elizabeth hadn't even given permission yet.
Are they close?
If they were, this level of informality wouldn't count as rudeness.
The maid spotted me, flinched in surprise, then addressed Elizabeth.
"Your Highness. The tea and refreshments you ordered."
"Oh—yes. Thank you. You can set them here."
"Yes, Your Highness. Please call if you need anything else."
The maid closed the door and left again.
"Let's eat first, then continue."
"Understood."
Well then. Time to sample the tea of the Lancart Kingdom.
I took a sip of the tea the maid had brought.
Ugh. What is this supposed to taste like?
The tea was completely cold, and whatever had been steeped in it tasted vile.
Wondering if these people actually lived on this swill, I glanced at Elizabeth—
"…"
She had taken a sip herself, and her expression had gone stiff as stone.
Then, in a trembling voice, she said,
"Ah—ahaha. Being all the way up at the top like this, the tea must have gone cold on the way."
"The flavor is rather extraordinary as well."
"Th-that's… the maid hasn't been working here very long, so…"
Sure.
I inspected the food the maid had brought as well.
Dessert—and it reeked of spoilage.
A shabby room at the peak of the castle.
Rotten food and bizarre tea.
A maid startled by the sight of me.
Add everything Elizabeth had just told me, and the picture came together easily enough.
She was being tormented.
Servants—maids, butlers, and the like—were like their master's hands and feet.
They moved according to their master's will as if they were part of the body itself.
If, as Elizabeth claimed, Queen Mary loathed her with a passion—
then the queen's limbs, the maids, would come to loathe Elizabeth just as quickly.
And a stepmother abusing and despising her stepdaughter was a story as old as time.
"W-well, shall we continue what we were talking about earlier?"
"Your Highness."
"Yes?"
"They served tea in this state, and you aren't going to scold them?"
"S-scold them? It might just have been a mistake because she isn't used to the work yet…"
A mistake, my foot.
How does someone who makes that kind of "mistake" become a maid of the royal palace?
"To my eyes, it looks entirely deliberate."
"What? N-no, deliberate? Ahaha, of course not."
Elizabeth mumbled and laughed.
Apparently she meant to laugh it off.
She had called me here and told me all of this out of concern for me.
Her mother is a witch, so run away.
She had taken a risk to warn me without even knowing whose side I was on.
Whether it's true or not, I can treat this as a kind of favor.
My brother had always told me never to forget a kindness or a grudge.
I took those words to heart—never forgetting a grudge even unto death, while occasionally forgetting kindnesses as I went about my life.
Anyway, the point was that I wanted to help Elizabeth at least once.
Jingle-jingle.
"Wait—if you ring that…"
"The maid will come up, yes."
I rang the bell that summoned the maid.
I would help her by educating that maid properly, just this once.
It isn't difficult work.
Maid education was my specialty.
Back at the family estate, I had personally trained eight disobedient maids—and six of them had successfully completed the program.