Possession
Should I have set finer conditions when I made the request? Or had the sum I pledged simply fallen short? I had thought I'd shown sincerity enough.
"Allan. Beat this arrogant wretch until I tell you to stop."
"Y-Your Highness? What are you—!"
"You shut your mouth. I don't care if he dies. Start now."
"At least give me a chance to explain!"
The instant I possessed the body, I was ordered to beat a man I had never seen.
Whether it was the Creator's courtesy or not, the original owner's memories came flooding in all at once, but there was nowhere near enough time to pull myself together.
Refusing... isn't the answer.
Cross someone who could order a perfectly healthy man beaten to death, and what kind of end was I inviting? Even so, I couldn't carry the order out to the letter.
What I held was a morningstar, its grip heavy and superb in the hand. Fixed to the end of a haft I took for ironwood was a vicious-looking piece of star candy. Swing a thing like that at a person and someone was getting killed. No exceptions.
Had my hesitation annoyed her? The one who had given the order came toward me at an unhurried pace.
"You're odd today, Allan. You swore that if I told you to bark, you'd bark, and if I told you to bite, you'd tear them apart. No matter who it was. Don't tell me that was a lie?"
The first thing that caught my eye was a wealth of silver hair and violet irises. The gaze was a little sharp, but the overall impression was round and cute.
Her behavior was not cute in the slightest. Her mouth made a show of displeasure, yet her face was brimming with mischief. It was the look of someone deliberating how to dispose of a subordinate who had dared ignore her order. I wasn't reading into it. She was actually licking her lower lip.
Watching her, I let a sigh slip inward.
Sienna.
Sienna Carlyle. One of the characters in the novel, and the Empire's Second Imperial Princess. In a romance-fantasy world that was, on the whole, a peaceful place, she alone was busy filming a horror story. A villainess.
Not the cute sort who torments the protagonist, takes a few hits, and comes to her senses. A true villain, rotting the nation from within while she rode the Emperor's inexplicable protection. She pushed opium through the Academy, whipped up a frenzy of stock speculation that threw the country into chaos, and when that finally cornered her, she schemed her way into starting a war. There was a separate main villain, the Dark Church, but beside her it barely left an impression.
"Allan? Not going to answer?"
"I am, Your Highness."
The man I had possessed was that Sienna's right hand, her escort knight, Allan Madoff. He took after his liege; whatever morals he possessed had been shoved into the gutter. There was nothing especially layered about him. When Sienna gave an order, he snickered and pulverized some innocent person's joints. His skill was considerable, but not enough to stand beside the strongest this world had to offer.
Punishing the palace staff was Allan's job too, wasn't it.
Sienna made a habit of punishing the people who served in her own seat of power, Thames Palace. It was never punishment for its own sake. There was always a pretext. Petty theft. Contact with the factions of the half-sisters competing over who would be named crown princess. If there was so much as a small handle to grab, the punishment was severe without fail. Now and then she even seemed to be reading minds.
The attendant begging me had probably had some trivial offense pinned on him. Even if he truly were guilty, it wouldn't be anything that warranted beating him to death in the middle of the palace.
"Sir Knight! Please, speak for me! I think Her Highness has badly misunderstood...! What crime have I—! Ah, it's true I took money from Baron Balderin, who follows the First Imperial Princess, but it was only eight hundred thalers...!"
Watching him plead for his life to a man with no power to grant it was almost pitiable. Regrettably, I was in no position to save anyone or not.
"Well? The poor thing is begging like that, Allan."
"Your Highness."
"Don't worry. The truth is, I like frank counsel. And if it's counsel from the escort knight who has served me loyally all this time, it goes without saying. If you want to stop me from punishing an innocent man on guesswork alone, you're welcome to."
...Because I was the one being dressed down in real time.
From the look of things, Sienna was more interested in me than in the wailing attendant. It was only natural. The dog who had quietly beaten people on her orders was suddenly showing his teeth. For all I knew, she was already calculating what he was worth.
"Answer me, Allan."
All at once her voice sank low. The royal guards around us began to watch me, tension climbing into their faces.
How I conducted myself here would decide my treatment. I was a close aide in name, so she likely wouldn't kill me, but something unpleasant was coming all the same.
I can't afford to come to grief the moment I've possessed this body.
Surviving came first. I was sorry for the attendant sobbing desperately for help, but it couldn't be helped. Still, what was I supposed to do to slip past that woman's anger? I needed a way to satisfy Sienna's sadism without having to haul away a corpse.
I finished the brief calculation and opened my mouth.
"Forgive me, Your Highness. I was deep in thought."
"Deep in thought? I didn't know you were this soft, Allan."
"Not that. It struck me as inefficient."
"...What?"
"Until now I have punished the disloyal many times on Your Highness's orders. A suitable beating to correct their habits, then expulsion from the palace. On occasion I sent them out as corpses. ...And yet this has happened again."
"And?"
"It is time you showed clemency."
Bewilderment rose across Sienna's face. Before those small lips could part again, I supplied the particulars.
"Keep using him as an attendant."
"And why would I."
"Because then you can make an example of him."
I said it as I walked steadily toward the man. The morningstar I set down as a matter of course. A frame on the small side for a man, a face twisted so grotesquely I couldn't tell whether he was smiling or about to cry, hands trembling as they clutched his own hem. As I drew near he forced up a smile and tried to say something.
I ignored him and simply kicked. I aimed for the outside of the knee.
"Ghk—!"
I had moderated the force well enough, and still his leg folded helplessly inward. He gagged and tried to collapse. I didn't allow it. There was no chance that woman would be satisfied with a single leg.
"Keeping your post comes at a price."
I seized the flailing attendant by the collar and swung.
"Wait—!"
Two blows in quick succession. No, three. The sensation of shelling corn that belonged to someone else was sickening, but I managed my expression somehow, picturing Sienna watching from behind me.
"Will this suffice?"
The result of the violence I had dealt was wretched. Even a rough look said a torn ligament at the least, and several shattered teeth. Months on crutches, if he was lucky. It could easily be worse.
"Pretty. So what is it you mean to do?"
Sienna asked it while looking down at the attendant as he twitched with effort.
"...How about keeping this fellow at your side whenever you receive people from the First Princess's camp? It would let you display Your Highness's mercy. A guilty attendant given nothing more than a light admonition, then kept close again."
"And if he keeps colluding with them?"
"Then you use that as well. A princess as shrewd as Your Highness will take my meaning."
All that remained was Sienna's decision. She looked from the groaning, ruined attendant to me and back again, and spared a brief glance for the guards and maids watching the scene in unease.
Please let her be satisfied around here. Parading a limping attendant through the palace wasn't a bad look. Or taking him along to gatherings with the other princesses and souring the air—that ought to suit her taste.
Fortunately, the wish didn't seem to have been in vain. Sienna smiled with her eyes and gave a small nod. The looseness in her gaze said she was reasonably satisfied.
"Not bad. Shall I do as you say, Allan?"
"I only follow Your Highness's command. If you wish, I will handle it the usual way."
Wearing a faint smile, I nudged the head of the attendant sprawled on the floor and sobbing with the toe of my boot. It was to head off a whim. I had no grounds for it, but I had a feeling that sighing in relief at this moment would draw her suspicion.
"Fine. Then he keeps his post."
"A wise decision."
Fortunately, that was the end of it. Sienna turned away with a bright expression, and I left the wreck of an attendant where he lay and fell in behind her. My chest was cold with the knowledge that I had cleared one crisis, but even so, an escort knight's duties still had to be done.
"That aside, Allan. I didn't know you had this kind of cunning in you."
"I had thought someone other than myself would offer counsel. They had not."
"True. All any of them know how to do is what they're told."
"It seems no one realized how highly Your Highness values communication."
The rest of the retinue looked sick at the exchange. If I hadn't done at least this much, a corpse would have left the palace today.
Of all people to possess.
Allan Madoff had made his name—an infamous one—as Sienna's right hand. And unfortunately, he was also a man whose ending was already written. The novel itself was unfinished, but Allan Madoff was the sort who got crushed by the protagonist early on and made a miserable exit. On Sienna's orders he had run a drug trade against the students of the Academy, the novel's setting, and gotten someone killed.
From here on, my task was to avoid that ending. I was not entertaining the delusion of reforming Sienna. What she had just shown was enough to confirm she was not someone you could fix and put to use.
Even the original never tried to wash her clean.
The days ahead under this woman were not going to be easy. Allan Madoff's crimes were hardly a matter of one or two, and he already had far too many enemies. But the situation didn't feel so absurd that I couldn't endure it. It wasn't that I was resigned because I had brought this on myself. This side really was, by a hair, the better of the two. Better than scraping along among trash that barely counted as family. Unlike them—people you could never predict, or in what way they would make themselves your problem—Sienna at least came with a measure attached.
Right. I would try living, once.
"I'll be expecting things of you, Allan."
"An honor, Your Highness."
I answered with perfect courtesy and looked at the back of Sienna's head. For all the viciousness of the mind inside it, it was a small, pretty head.