The Most Beautiful Gift
After returning to the Imperial Palace, I heard from Sir Brand the news of Mary and Sir Harun's engagement. The wedding was set for a month from now — perhaps a rushed progression for a proposal, but considering both of their ages, it hardly seemed too soon.
Should I go pay a visit?
My destination, for the time being, was the head maid's quarters. There was something I needed to collect from her.
"I've made the preparations as you asked, but may I ask what this will be used for?"
Accepting the spare set of Mary's maid uniform, I simply asked her to keep quiet and went on my way.
As a rule, a secret stops being a secret the moment it's told to anyone. I had no doubt the head maid's lips were hardly loose, but one could never be too careful. I had no intention of letting a surprise gift stop being a surprise.
"Mirror Flower, Water Moon."
Disguising myself with Mirror Flower, Water Moon as though I were merely heading out with an escort in tow, I passed through the palace's main gates and arrived straight at the Polaris Workshop. Had I granted myself a talent for the arts among my many gifts, I wouldn't have needed to commission the workshop at all — but no matter how I turned it over, a talent for art seemed utterly worthless to my future, so I had never bothered.
"Is that not His Highness the Prince?"
The Polaris Workshop and I were well acquainted by now, so the moment I stepped inside, the artisans around me bowed in greeting. I acknowledged each of them in turn and climbed the stairs to the guild master's room, where the man — evidently briefed in my absence — greeted me with a broad smile as he poured tea.
"What brings you to us today?"
I appreciated that he dispensed with pleasantries and went straight to business; it made a pleasant change from those who dragged their feet with hollow flattery. I drew out Mary's maid uniform that I had brought with me.
Using this as a reference, please craft the most beautiful pure-white dress in the world.
"A dress?"
Yes — not just any dress. One to be worn at a wedding.
"Could it be... for your fiancée, Lady Lapis?"
No. It's for my maid, Mary.
At my words, the guild master clicked his tongue in quiet disappointment. It was only natural, I supposed. Thanks to its storied name, Polaris Workshop's clientele was almost exclusively noble, and the mere perception that its works belonged to them alone lent those works tremendous value.
On top of that, my adapted retelling of Cinderella had become quite the sensation, and word had belatedly spread of the shoes I had gifted to Lapis and Aria. Once people learned they were Polaris creations, commissions had poured in as if from underground, and the workshop had reportedly made a fortune.
So he had likely assumed I'd come with another trendsetting commission — only to discover the subject was an item for a maid. No wonder the wind had gone out of his sails.
Come to think of it...
The book had been published anonymously, but Aria and Lapis might well have guessed its author was me.
Well, even if they know, it's no great problem.
I had adapted it, after all — nothing improper had made its way into the pages.
I understand what you're thinking, Guild Master... but Mary is my wet nurse as well as my maid. Given your trade, I can forgive a commercial eye — but please don't wear it so openly on your face. I know exactly how Polaris maintains its value, yet I do not believe Mary is someone who would diminish your name.
"F-forgive me, Your Highness."
It's quite all right. In a sense, this is closer to coercion dressed in my authority than a simple request...
"Not at all. To repay what one has received is only proper. I will reflect on the fact that I was weighing even that against its commercial worth."
With his head bowed deeply as he accepted Mary's uniform, the guild master continued.
"Do you have any additional requirements?"
When the dress is worn, I hope the wearer won't be swallowed up by the garment. Rather than flaunting one's charm to those around her, I want the image of someone receiving a blessing. Please convey that to the painter, without fail.
"Understood. I will send you a rough design within five days."
At his words I nodded, rose from my seat, and returned to the Imperial Palace. Aria, evidently worn out from Academy life, had been taking time entirely to herself ever since returning from Duke Altair's territory. I had no particular desire to disturb her rest, so for the time being, it looked as though my days would be a dull stretch of nothing in particular.
*
Outside, rain was falling for the first time in a while.
Perhaps because it was summer rain, the sound of it drumming down — pleasantly cooling the heavy, humid air — was truly lovely to listen to. I would have liked to linger a little longer, listening to the raindrops strike the earth, but Lapis had come up to the palace, insisting she wanted to spend whatever time remained before returning to the Academy by my side. So I rose and made my way to the quarters assigned to her.
At first I half expected her to read the letters I'd sent and then demand to know why I insisted on making things difficult for her — but thankfully, that wasn't the case, and I was able to relax a little. Honestly speaking, returning to the Academy would be a considerable source of stress for her, and my conscience still stung more than a little on that count.
Nothing irritates quite like whispers at your back, after all. So I did my best to look after her, bringing Lapis along wherever I went.
Or... would it be better to simply leave her be, to enjoy her rest quietly the way Aria does? I found myself wondering whether my consideration might not be more a burden to her than a kindness — but I had already arrived at her door, so I gave a light knock and turned the handle.
"Lapis? All ready to go?"
With rain falling outside, there would be no leisure to write and communicate, so I laid the power of the Kotodama into my words in advance.
"Yes. I'm all ready."
"Then let's go."
We stepped outside together, and thanks to the gentle drizzle, the air felt refreshingly cool.
"Come a little closer."
"Ah..."
The umbrella wasn't as large as I'd imagined, so I wrapped an arm around Lapis's waist and drew her in beside me. Was it the weather that made her body feel so distinctly warm — or the heat of her flustered skin?
Lapis possessed a wealth of talents and a beautiful face, but she also had a gift for putting a person's heart at ease. When you're alone with a friend you aren't close to, silence is awkward; when you're with your dearest friend, the same silence somehow feels comfortable. It was that kind of peace.
And perhaps because she had washed her hair in scented oil not long ago, the distinctive fragrance of Lapis's hair drifted around us, made all the richer by the heavy humidity. Before I knew it, I had quietly gathered her blue hair into my palm — brought close enough to press to my nose.
She flinched!
Startled as she was by what could fairly be called a rather shameless act, Lapis merely flushed crimson and made no move to stop me — as if to say that if it was me, she didn't mind.
"S-please watch where you're... walking."
"Sorry."
Lapis had caught me, so lost in her that my feet had wandered off course. I came back to myself, and before long we arrived at the Polaris Workshop.
After twenty-seven days in total, the wedding dress was finally finished. With Mary's wedding only two days away, it had come down to the wire.
On the day of the wedding, could you arrange for one painter from the Flarris Workshop to attend?
"It would not be difficult, but..."
The guild master looked at me, plainly curious as to my intent. I only shrugged and answered with silence.
"Haha. I shall clear the schedule of our finest painter, then."
Having caught on that this was meant to be a secret, he laughed good-naturedly and handed me a beautiful box containing the finished wedding dress — a box bearing the emblem of the Polaris Workshop. Some nobles were said to collect these very boxes, which told you everything about how much heart they poured into their work.
Keep up the good work.
"To His Highness the Prince and Lady Lapis as well — may you have a blessed day."
Leaving the Polaris Workshop, I opened the umbrella once more. This time Lapis pressed close against me of her own accord, and we walked together in silence through the rain — yet why did the walk back feel so much like sitting on a bed of nails compared to the walk there?
Perhaps it wasn't that Lapis had inconvenienced me in any way, but rather that I felt guilty toward her. I had overstepped where Aria was concerned, after all. And only belatedly did it occur to me — was it truly right to bring her, my fiancée in name and fact, along to shop for a gift for someone else's wedding?
When it's our wedding, I'll give you something far grander than this.
Writing while stopped at an awkward angle tilted the umbrella somewhat, so I adjusted it — making sure that Lapis, at least, stayed clear of the rain.
Which left my other shoulder slowly soaking through.
"I'm all right, you know. I've already received the most wonderful gift in the world."
Lapis gently wrapped her hands around mine, still tracing letters in the air, and lowered them. She had evidently noticed my shoulder getting drenched. With the umbrella held upright once more, she gazed ahead and spoke in a soft, murmuring voice.
"I can walk through this world on my own two feet, and stand at your side, Your Highness. That moment... the day we met — that was the most wonderful, happiest gift I could have asked for. So please, don't trouble yourself over it. She was your wet nurse, after all. I'm neither so foolish as to feel jealousy over you seeing to the wedding of a woman who raised you, nor do I feel any lack — any sense of being unloved by you."
So this was what people meant by a gracious, virtuous wife.
Whatever political calculation had begun our engagement, holding onto her might just have been the finest thing I'd ever done.
*
On the rain-soaked road back to the Imperial Palace, Lapis looked up at Rohen beside her and drifted into memories of a distant past.
Her beloved fiancé, just one year her junior.
The day he healed her body, the day he first slipped shoes onto her feet, she had made up her mind: she wanted to become a wife who was cared for by this man.
But as she grew older and matured, little by little, into a young woman, she came to notice something.
That at his side, there were fewer people who truly stayed with him than anyone might have guessed.
And somehow, the back that had once seemed so tall to her began to look small.
Yet she soon realized that, too, was wrong.
It wasn't that he had grown smaller — it was that she had grown.
Only then did she resolve once more.
She would not be a wife who was cared for by this man. She would be a wife this man could lean upon.
A man who knew only how to protect and look after the precious few people he held dear.
Then who, in turn, was to protect and look after him?
That was exactly who Lapis wished to be.