The Brooch
It was the brooch Curtis had reluctantly pinned to her collar that afternoon.
“This is the token I received from His Grace Brigadier General Berk at the time of his proposal.”
One of the attendants had swiftly taken it and presented it to the king.
Chloe would never forget the king’s face as he accepted it and checked Grand Duke Berk’s crest.
He looked as if I’d smacked His Majesty right in the forehead with the brooch.
Finished with her recollection, Chloe smiled sweetly.
“I made good use of it, Your Grace.”
“…I’m glad it proved useful.”
After a brief silence, Curtis said that and held out his hand to take the brooch back. Chloe beamed and smoothly drew the hand holding the brooch away.
Like the capable superior officer he was, Curtis immediately understood what she meant, and his expression curdled.
“That… Warrant Officer.”
“Yes, sir. Please speak.”
“First of all, thank you…”
Unable to continue, Curtis dropped his gaze from her and roughly dragged a hand over his face.
“Sit down first.”
“Yes, sir.”
Like a soldier, she sat on the sofa with quick, neat movements.
The brooch was still in her hand.
One corner of Curtis’s mouth twitched lightly.
It was past midnight. Chloe had a fair idea what her superior, sitting alone with his female aide in his office, intended to say.
She had no intention of waiting for it.
“Forgive me, but was today’s situation arranged by Your Grace?”
At Chloe’s question, Curtis rubbed his forehead like a man with a headache.
The answer was obvious anyway.
“…More or less. I’m sorry.”
“No, I understand.”
At that answer, Curtis stopped rubbing his forehead and looked back at her. A strange light flickered in his violet eyes.
She shrugged.
“After spending three hours in that place, I could see that I am, in fact, an extremely suitable match for Your Grace.”
The reason the grand duke hated by the king had, though on the spur of the moment, presented Chloe as his marriage partner.
It was not a particularly complicated story.
The current king and Curtis had different mothers.
Curtis’s mother was Mildred, the second queen whom the late king of Ibanes had taken after being widowed.
The late king had never intended to take a new queen.
But life never did move according to one’s intentions.
He fell in love at first sight with Mildred, a princess of the small maritime kingdom of Glintland who had come as a diplomatic envoy, and proposed to her.
Unfortunately, love was not mutual.
The princess, however, was a rational person.
You love me? Then let’s marry. But in exchange, protect my country.
In return for becoming queen, she demanded that Ibanes provide Glintland with military funding.
Asking one kingdom to strengthen the military power of another kingdom that might invade at any moment was, under ordinary circumstances, a condition unlikely to be accepted.
But the peculiar geography of the two nations made it possible.
The only sea Ibanes possessed was the Prado Coast.
The Prado Coast, where a dragon was said to sleep, was regarded as sacred, and its currents were so swift that invasion by sea was impossible.
So even if sea-ringed Glintland strengthened its navy, Ibanes had no great problem with it.
And one more thing.
I don’t want my child to be dragged into political strife and killed. Please allow my child to hold titles in both kingdoms.
Queen Mildred demanded that any child she bore be guaranteed dual titles.
In a crisis, that would allow the child to renounce the succession rights of Ibanes and live as a Glintland citizen.
The late king gladly accepted every one of her proposals.
And as promised by the late king, Curtis, born between them, received the surname Berk at the age of three along with one title each from Ibanes and Glintland.
The problem was that Curtis was not merely excessively handsome, but also an extraordinarily clever and talented prince.
The late king adored Curtis.
Enough that the first prince, whose right of succession had been secure—that is, the current king—felt threatened.
Naturally, the first prince went beyond finding Curtis uncomfortable and began keeping him in check.
So openly that everyone knew it and could only pity Curtis.
Even Queen Mildred’s death had been riddled with suspicion.
The late king died first, and Queen Mildred soon followed him.
It was an accident.
In a foreign villa, by fire.
The Ibanes royal family expressed regret and quickly drew a line, declaring it an unfortunate accident unrelated to the royal household.
But people whispered in secret about the queen’s death, wondering whether the current king had had a hand in it.
Of course, the newly enthroned king pressured Curtis.
In the end, Curtis fulfilled what was, in this era, considered an almost vanished duty of the second son.
He enlisted in the military.
But he did not relinquish his Ibanes title.
The king apparently found that intolerable, like a thorn in his eye.
As long as Curtis remained Grand Duke Berk, his nominal right of succession remained as well.
On top of that, Curtis went on to win several major battles, and the grand duke now enjoyed overwhelming popularity among the people.
Naturally, the king’s long-standing inferiority complex toward Curtis had not vanished. If anything, it had grown worse.
This political marriage, too, had clearly been devised because the king wanted Curtis removed from the country before Crown Prince Frederick ascended the throne.
Still, Chloe could not quite understand Curtis’s way of handling things.
“If you dislike marriage, couldn’t you simply renounce your title and nationality and go to Glintland? Strictly speaking, His Majesty is only trying to marry Your Grace off because he finds you threatening.”
It was not as though a man like Curtis Shan Berk would be mistreated merely because his nationality changed.
In other words, she was asking why he was clinging so desperately to Ibanes, a country that clearly disliked him, to the point of putting her forward as a fake marriage partner.
At Chloe’s words, Curtis gave a short laugh.
Unlike the smiles Chloe had seen from him before, however, this one was self-deprecating.
“Do you know what title I hold in Glintland?”
“I understand it to be Soleria Marcher Marquis.”
Chloe answered without much thought, then immediately went, ah.
The moment she heard the words, she grasped the full chain of circumstances tied to that title.
Curtis, too, looked at Chloe and smiled with one eye narrowed.
“You noticed?”
“Roughly. But I would appreciate your explanation.”
“Not arbitrarily trimming information to fit one’s assumptions is the mark of an excellent soldier. Good.”
After lightly praising Chloe, Curtis spoke in his usual manner—calm and compressed.
“For one thing, the coastline is too long. I’d have far too much work to do.”
Soleria.
It had the longest coastline in Glintland.
And it was also a place pirates had been plundering without end for decades.
Because all of Glintland’s major ports were concentrated there.
The Soleria Marcher Marquis was the title responsible for that entire coastline.
If Curtis became the Soleria Marcher Marquis, war with pirates would be inevitable.
That was what he meant by having far too much work to do.
However, as his aide, for whom overtime was already a fact of life, Chloe suddenly felt an urge to stab Curtis in the head with the brooch in her hand.
Unaware of Chloe’s inner thoughts, Curtis continued.
“And if I go to Glintland, I’ll be treated like yesterday’s leftovers.”
Chloe lightly furrowed her brow.
She did not understand.
“Forgive the disrespect, but even in Ibanes, Your Grace is not exactly…”
Curtis narrowed his eyes.
Ah.
Only then did Chloe become frightened.
Had she just said something one should not say to a superior?
But it’s true.
It was entirely thanks to Curtis that Ibanes had fought the three kingdoms and secured an armistice.
Yet the king, far from treating Curtis as a hero, had shoved him into the Royal Guard.
In Glintland, he would be cold-shouldered and suffer hardships?
It was the same in Ibanes.
If anything, isn’t Glintland better since there won’t be a king constantly trying to devour him?
Anyone would think so.
But Curtis gave an unexpected answer.
“You’re not wrong. But if I won’t be rewarded whether I go there or stay here, then it’s better to remain in Ibanes.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t wage war alone.”
Ah.
At the unexpected answer, Chloe closed her mouth.
“And Glintland is a weak kingdom. Poor, too. If I become the Soleria Marcher Marquis, I’ll end up pouring every bit of my fortune into Glintland’s military expenses and receive nothing in return.”
War was, by nature, a contest of finances.
Whether the opponent was another nation in all but name or pirates, if one intended to clash by force and decide victory, money was required.
But Glintland was not a wealthy place.
As evidence, the ports along the Soleria coastline were not receiving proper protection despite suffering enormous damage.
It was the kingdom’s main trade route.
Yet the king of Glintland had dodged responsibility, claiming, “Because that trade route has been attacked, the treasury is short and support is difficult.”
As if that were not enough, he had supposedly added, “If each port city acts independently and enriches the treasury, I will provide additional support then.”
It was absurd.
Even if Curtis became the Soleria Marcher Marquis, Glintland would obviously tell him to fight the war with his private fortune rather than provide support.
It would be like pouring water into a bottomless jar.
By contrast, Ibanes, at the very least, did not cut off support during war.
Well, of course. That king gained far too much from the war against the three kingdoms.
In any case, if Curtis was going to fight as an unwanted burden either way, it was far better to be Ibanes’s unwanted burden, where he could at least receive support, than to go and fight as a solitary man.
“To begin with, I’d already finished making that calculation when I was eighteen.”
“Aha.”
Thus Curtis enlisted in Ibanes’s military, but did not give up the title of Grand Duke Berk.
The problem was that Glintland, which was essentially his maternal family, had not given up on Curtis either.
Glintland’s current king was Curtis’s maternal uncle.
He, too, possessed Queen Mildred’s rational and intelligent nature.
Unlike Queen Mildred, however, he was also regarded as someone whose mind worked in a rather underhanded direction.
While Queen Mildred was alive, Glintland had cut approximately ninety percent of its military spending thanks to Ibanes’s support.
In other words, after her death, military expenses had climbed right back up by ninety percent.
When Curtis was born, he had been no more than the third prince of wealthy Ibanes.
But the king of Glintland calculated the future.
That was why he bestowed the title of Soleria Marcher Marquis.
At present, Curtis was a citizen of Ibanes and Grand Duke Berk.
Because the title of Soleria Marcher Marquis had been granted on the condition that he naturalize as a Glintland citizen, he had no obligation to fulfill it for now.
But if Curtis married a direct member of Glintland’s royal family, his nationality would become Glintland’s.
Naturally, his person would be bound to the obligations of the Soleria Marcher Marquis.
The king of Glintland, who was in urgent need of military funds, took note of that fact.