The Man Who Couldn't Sail
“What is it?”
“He says he’ll appoint me commander-in-chief of the navy and have me wipe out that troublesome Pirate King. And of the pirate plunder I find in the process, thirty percent will be sent to Ivanes.”
Ah, the Pirate King.
Chloe, having come from the navy herself, knew the name well enough in broad strokes. Bartholomew, the Pirate King who ran wild out of Soleria, was said to have amassed plunder equal to ten years of Ivanes’s national budget.
In other words, if the two kings struck a nice little backroom bargain and shoved Curtis into Soleria, everyone came out happy.
The King of Ivanes would be delighted to see Curtis, whom he could not stand, gone from sight. The King of Glintland would be delighted to use Curtis to open Soleria’s strangled throat.
The only person not delighted at all was Curtis himself.
For him, it meant pouring in his private fortune, suffering himself half to death, and receiving not a single scrap of reward.
So he called that daring move by another name.
“A filthy little trick.”
Chloe could understand how Curtis felt. Even so, she thought a man who had lied through his teeth and called his perfectly ordinary aide his lover just to avoid getting married was hardly in a position to say that.
Honestly, it’s none of my business anyway.
Wasn’t that true?
If, a couple of hours ago, Curtis had not gone around claiming Chloe was his lover or whatever, then everything Curtis had just laid out would have been nothing more to Chloe than some headache-inducing affair among people far above her station.
“I can see why His Majesty would be tempted.”
As Chloe said it, tilting her head with an expressionless face, Curtis let out a breathless laugh, as if he could not believe what he was hearing.
Hey. Who exactly was supposed to be the one in disbelief here?
Chloe opened her mouth cautiously.
“But Your Grace is a war hero, aren’t you? If what you said is true, then you wouldn’t have to worry about your personal funds.”
Whether it was a Pirate King or some other internationally disputed criminal, when a party subdued such a wanted figure, it was customary for the subduing party to take half the plunder.
So, you said you didn’t want to fight poor earlier. Earn the money and use it—was what she meant, and Curtis narrowed his eyes.
“As you’re from the navy, Warrant Officer, you ought to know. I have no intention of becoming some pathetic sailor.”
Chloe tilted her head again.
“Well, the Ivanes navy is like that, yes. All they do is stay stationed on the Prado Coast… But I heard Glintland’s naval system is fairly decent in its own way. The discipline is strict, too.”
“…To be precise, I mean I have no intention of steeping myself in saltwater for the rest of my life while clinging to the railing of some rotting ship.”
Huh?
What was the problem with that? He would be the commander anyway. Why would the supreme commander have to steep himself in saltwater—
Chloe got that far before she noticed something and parted her lips slightly.
“…Can you not ride ships?”
“Who says that?”
Curtis bristled far too quickly.
“What are you saying to the man who brought about the armistice with the Three Kingdoms?”
Under ordinary circumstances, Chloe would have shut her mouth around this point.
But in Chloe’s hand, she still held the brooch engraved with Grand Duke Berk’s seal.
So Chloe found a little more courage.
“…Is it that you can’t swim, or that you get seasick?”
Curtis’s smooth forehead furrowed.
Ah, I really should have kept quiet after all, she thought, just as he changed the subject.
“…We seem to be discussing something utterly unrelated to the original topic. What I’m saying is—”
“Is it perhaps both?”
Silence passed between them.
Chloe felt a little refreshed.
Curtis, on the other hand, felt foul.
There was something neither Chloe nor the king knew.
It was not as if Curtis liked Ivanes either.
From the age when his mind had begun to work with some degree of sense, he had wanted to leave Ivanes.
Perhaps far more desperately than the king wanted him gone.
Unfortunately, however, he could not.
That was the conclusion he had reached after riding ships about twenty times.
It was not that he had never considered becoming the Soleria Marcher Marquis.
Curtis had boarded ships in order to see whether he might become the Soleria Marcher Marquis.
And then he vomited from seasickness.
It must be because it’s my first time.
He vomited the second time, too.
The third time should be fine.
The third time was the same.
He vomited all twenty times in total.
At the end, feeling as if he truly might die, he tried to get off the ship, slipped, and fell into the water.
And that was when he realized it.
He did not agree with water.
Some might ask in return whether a commander of his rank couldn’t simply give orders from land without boarding a ship.
That was something only people who did not know how small a country Glintland was would say.
In Glintland, there was a saying: “When hands are few, even a king must help in the kitchen.”
Why?
Because it had simply been a country short on people since olden times.
Poor, barren, salt-heavy land.
A country that would have collapsed long ago if not for its salt fields.
To begin with, a proper commander could not avoid the battlefield and wag his tongue from somewhere safe.
If he did, far from winning, he would have his very soul stripped bare. Was that not the way of war?
To make matters worse, Curtis’s prospects in Glintland were not exactly comfortable either.
That was because the current King of Glintland had no legitimate children.
The moment Curtis married the adopted duchess, he would be far too close to the throne even in Glintland.
Naturally, the King of Glintland would never leave him on land.
If Curtis went to Soleria, the king would somehow drive him out to sea.
There might be people who wondered what would happen if they went to all the trouble of bringing in a war hero, only to shove him around like that until he died.
But that was something only people who did not know how wealthy Curtis Shan Berk was would say.
There were rumors that the dividends he had earned from the war against the Three Kingdoms equaled five years of Ivanes’s national budget.
If he died, Glintland would swallow up what remained of Curtis Shan Berk’s fortune.
Whether he lived or died, Glintland would profit either way.
“Curtis, they say the duchess of Glintland has departed with a proposal letter.”
Fifteen days earlier, in the afternoon.
The news Second Lieutenant Noel, his old friend, brought to his office was something Curtis had already expected.
That Noel had been able to bring the news so quickly was also thanks to the spy Curtis had planted on purpose.
“I deliberately waited until Prince Frederick was married, and yet the moment the royal marriage ended, everyone came charging in.”
Curtis had left the seat beside him empty so that the king would continue thinking he could dispose of Curtis through a political marriage at any time.
If Curtis proposed in advance to a young lady from some vaguely influential family, it was obvious the king himself would interfere.
So he had planned to find a suitable partner by the time the prince’s wedding was over, then rush through his own marriage immediately afterward as if roasting beans over a lightning flash.
But the war had blocked him.
Once the armistice treaty with the Three Kingdoms was concluded, the king shoved Curtis into the Royal Guard and kept him directly under his eyes.
There had been no opening.
And the moment the royal marriage ended, Glintland made its move.
“It would be best to say I have a lover.”
“But who?”
Both men fell silent.
“What were you doing until that age? You should have had a romance or two…”
At his friend’s words, Curtis’s eyes sharpened into triangles.
The time he had wasted after being driven by the king onto battlefields amounted to six years.
Which meant he had been on battlefields the entire time since he was twenty.
On top of that, his temperament leaned toward fastidiousness, and he did not particularly like other people’s scent.
On second thought, Noel found it remarkable that a person like him had somehow endured six years of war at all, and so he stopped scolding him.
“…Your younger sister, perhaps…”
Despite Curtis’s careful tone, Noel narrowed his eyes as if he had heard something unspeakable and made it perfectly clear there was not a chance.
“Absolutely not her.”
“My apologies. That was thoughtless. Forget it.”
Curtis sighed.
For the moment, it was fair to say finding a fiancée within fifteen days was impossible.
Then how about finding a woman who would strategically pretend to be his lover?
The king’s blatant checks and interference would not end, so the key was finding a woman who could withstand them.
In that sense, the great noble families were out.
To begin with, among young ladies of a suitable age, there were not many whose place beside someone was still empty.
“What about looking among the other ladies who have had a crush on you? You know, that Miss Aria from the navy, was it? Since she’s navy, the conditions roughly fit.”
At Noel’s words, Curtis shook his head irritably.
“You know as well as I do, Noel, how badly that sort of personal sentiment can ruin a job.”
“…”
The emotion called love sometimes drove the person it was aimed at to the very end of hell.
Curtis had seen far too many people who had ruined their work or destroyed someone else’s life because of that kind of feeling.
The late king was a fine example.
“Besides, if the woman is from some half-baked family, the king will block it with every excuse he can find.”
The two men clutched their heads at the same time.
It was then.
With a crisp knock, someone appeared before them.
“Loyalty. Excuse me, Brigadier General. I’m submitting the Royal Guard artillery training records and mana-stone usage report you requested.”
It was the aide who had come under his command three months earlier.
Chloe Amboise.