The Send-Off
In the instant after Mrs. Chandler breathed her last, an official sent at a gallop from the Imperial Palace proclaimed the imperial will to the citizens packed into the square.
Anais Carlyle, having yielded to the instigation of a wicked confidant and thereby cast down the dignity of the Imperial House, shall be held to account and confined to a convent.
With the edict came a long, florid account of how the Emperor, grief-stricken, had reached the decision only after great anguish—and, thrown in for good measure, an order that the people cease taking the Healthy Syrup.
“Citizens of the Imperial Capital, receive the imperial command with reverence!”
Through all of it, Mrs. Chandler’s corpse lay sprawled where she had fallen, a wretched ruin of a body. It was not cleared away until more than a day had passed.
Is this any way to send off a child setting out on a long road?
“Live quietly, and reflect on what you have done.”
Those were the Emperor’s last words to her, just before she was to leave for the convent. Third Imperial Princess Anais could only blink, too dumbfounded for anything else. She knew perfectly well that silence was a breach of courtesy, but what did etiquette matter now? It was over in any case. From this day on she would have to live in a cloistered convent crawling with nuns. Her father, blind to everything churning inside her, only went on stringing out the same airless phrases.
“Anais. You are to reside solely within the convent grounds. Contact with the outside will be forbidden as well, though your other comforts will be seen to. You understand what that means?”
“......”
“You aren’t listening. ...Hah.”
Wishing he would simply leave it there, Anais lifted the head she had kept bowed and looked the Emperor full in the face—and faltered. What? He was watching her with an expression she could not have named. Bloodshot eyes, a countenance gone haggard in a matter of days. For a pitiless ruler who had cut down every brother and kinsman to take the throne, some of them with his own hand, it was a strangely frail look. Frail enough to seem unfamiliar even to his own daughter.
Did I behave wrongly?
No chance was given her to mend the discourtesy. In a voice thick as if something had caught in his throat, the Emperor left her with a single charge, then turned and went in haste.
“See that you keep well.”
“Father?”
Running after him to catch his sleeve would have been absurd, so Anais only stood there in awkward suspension, worrying the hem of her dress between her fingers. The Empress, who had come out to see her off, drew near with a look that found the girl thoroughly pathetic.
“You ought to have thrown yourself into his arms and dried your tears on his clothes. Had you done so, His Majesty’s heart would have torn—but the ground would have shifted, if only a little, in your favor. He would have looked after your welfare himself at least once every few days.”
“......”
“I want to help you, and yet time and again it is you who kicks the chance away. There is truly nothing to be done now. ...You are leaving, so I will say no more.”
“Mother.”
Help. And a chance. Bewilderment welled up in Anais all over again as she looked at the Empress. This was the first time they had faced each other since the counterfeit Healthy Syrup. A mother who had not offered so much as a word of comfort in all that time was suddenly speaking of opportunities; of course the feeling curdled. Even so, she could not start a quarrel in the last moment before parting, and she pressed it down and bore it. There was, however, one thing she absolutely had to ask.
“Mother. Why did you do that to me?”
“Anais.”
“Did you really have to go so far as a whole performance, just to drive me into a corner? If you had dropped me even a hint, I could have—no. What did I even do that was so wrong in the first place? Even if I was at fault, it wasn’t as though the harm was going to reach you, was it?”
Everything she had been holding back spilled out in a jumble. She had to know why her own mother had set her aside, joined hands with Sienna, and cast her into the pit. Over a handful of mushrooms? Or because she had not heeded a warning? That much, honestly, was true—but children who refuse to listen to their parents are hardly a rarity.
Even if I have to go, I am going to hear this.
Anais stared at the Empress with her eyes wide open, resolved not to take a single step until she had an answer. The heartless woman did not give her the one she wanted.
“Daughter. That is not the question you ought to be asking.”
“Then what am I supposed to ask?”
“Dorothy Chandler. The first thing you should ask is what became of the family of that old woman who died in the square yesterday. For the moment she died bearing your sins for you, but if the bereaved start talking nonsense, the situation may yet change.”
“Change? I know Mrs. Chandler is dead, but her family are only commoners.”
“That depends on how one chooses to use them.”
“......?”
“In fact, Sienna tried to secure their persons in secret. She is diligent past all reason, that girl. ...Even so, I sent people to spirit the woman’s husband and children away somewhere quiet, so you need not worry.”
“......”
“Spare me the thanks.”
With that, the Empress flicked a hand to send her off, and those who received the order put Anais into the carriage.
“Go, now.”
At the Empress’s quiet dismissal, the carriage rolled forward. Anais thrust her face out the window in a rush, but the Empress had already turned her back.
Did that really happen...?
While Mrs. Chandler played out her one-woman scene in the square and died by slow degrees, Sienna had been trying to lay hands on the family. The viciousness of it—grinding Anais underfoot one more time when she had already hit the bottom—left her speechless. And with that, she began, dimly, to understand what the Empress had meant by a chance.
What if, after the psilocybin, she had simply kept her head down and endured? It would have hurt, of course. But that hurt would have amounted, at most, to friends drawing away and a base of support worn thin. No. Even without the Healthy Syrup, Sienna would never have left me alone. She tried to deny it, and a new question rose at once. What if she had not withdrawn from the Academy? What if, before putting the Healthy Syrup out into the world, she had taken a few weeks and tested what it actually did? What if, when Sienna staged her act with the counterfeit syrup, Anais had not been taken in—and had instead drunk it down herself, cleanly, without a flinch? To sit here now and argue over what-ifs was a meaningless exercise. She knew that futility far too well, and still she could not stop, because there was nothing else left that she could do.
Her thoughts broke only after another ten minutes or so, as the carriage made its slow way along the grand avenue.
“Wait—please, just a moment!!”
Someone had dared to shout at a carriage bearing the imperial crest. It would have been fair to take him for a madman, but Anais could not ignore it. The voice that caught in her ear was somehow familiar. Certain she would regret it if she simply passed him by, she turned to the knight leading the column.
“I know that voice. I’m leaving either way—a greeting can’t hurt, can it?”
“Yes, Your Highness. By all means, exchange a word.”
The carriage halted.
“Lucky you came this way! I waited the whole time worried I might miss you.”
A young man came toward her as he spoke. Dark blond hair, green eyes, an ordinary build. Unremarkable at a glance, and yet, taken feature by feature, there was not an ill-favored line on him—an attractive youth. Those kind eyes alone seemed to set a heart at ease, and with them came the stray urge to look after him in some small way. Nor was it only the impression. To Anais, he was someone who held a rather particular meaning.
“Senior Leon.”
Leon Lauderdale, second-year of the Imperial Academy’s Faculty of Swordsmanship. As a first-year he had barely left a mark; now there was not a soul who did not know the genius of the sword. He was an acquaintance of hers as well—another faculty, another year, a senior she had happened to grow close to at the start of the term. Once she had harbored feelings beyond friendship, but after infamy settled over her she had gone out of her way to avoid him, afraid he might turn a cold eye on her.
I never dreamed we would meet again like this.
Shame rose in her even now. Stripped of her right of succession and everything else, driven out of the Imperial Capital—how could she not be ashamed? And yet the gladness came first. Someone welcoming her like this, when she had lost it all and was being cast out. He was cheerful to a slightly excessive degree, but still: that there was a person here to see her off made her happier than she would have thought possible.
“You really waited for me?”
“The truth is, I’ve wanted to see you for a while. I figured if it wasn’t this time I’d never get another chance, so I waited—and it worked!”
The sound of his voice alone warmed her chest. She was all the more grateful that he spoke to her so familiarly, without standing on formality. Psilocybin, jimsonweed, morphine, opium, ephedra—for a moment the ordinary days she had lived before she was jerked about by rubbish of that sort came back to her of their own accord. Days whose worth she had not known while she still had them, and understood only after they were gone. Perhaps because her heart had gone soft, her eyes stung, but Anais held it in. She could not show tears to someone who had gone to the trouble of coming to see her off.
Leave smiling. That’s the right way.
She looked at Leon and forced the smile.
“Thank you, Senior.”
“I’m the one who’s grateful!!!”
“You don’t have to shout like that... no, it’s all right. There’s so much I want to say to you, and there isn’t much time. Still, I’m glad I got to see your face before I go. Truly.”
If she could have had her way, she would have promised they would meet again. That would have been too selfish. Even so, she wanted somehow to give him her thanks, and the urgency began to climb in her. If she had known it would be like this, she would have prepared a gift. What broke through that urgency was something Leon let slip all at once.
“Thanks for making such a good medicine!”
“...What?”
“Oh—was it that old lady who croaked yesterday who actually made it? Either way, if it weren’t for you, that medicine never would’ve come into the world. ...Hey, if it’s all right, can I ask you one thing? Any way to get a lot of something like it, cheap? This isn’t enough.”
What was he saying? Anais stared at her senior with a stupid look on her face. She could not believe words like those had come from the mouth of someone so kind.
“Senior, what on earth are you—”
“You don’t know? Never mind. I’ll find it myself.”
And Leon smiled, bright as a clear day, wide enough to show his gums. It was a smile that somehow set her on edge. Anais could only blink, with no idea how she was meant to answer. He was nothing like the Senior Leon she knew.
What is this?
Whether they took the greeting for finished, the procession began to move again. Blank-faced, Anais followed him with her eyes, but he only went on waving, that bright look still fixed in place, as if some happy occasion had come to pass.
“Take care—!”
He was the only person who saw her off with a smile.