Threads in Glintland
The documents contained far more detail about Isabelle than Chloe had expected. Part of that was probably because Curtis had planted a fair number of secret agents in Glintland, but another reason was that Isabelle la Glintland had apparently become a much bigger sensation in her homeland than Chloe had imagined.
“Why did you plant so many secret agents in Glintland?”
“I have a title there, don’t I? If I’m going to time my escape from my dear, proud elder brother, I need to keep up with current affairs.”
He said it so indifferently that it was exceptionally annoying.
In any case, Isabelle had become a hot topic not only because of her beauty, but because she was a collateral relative who had suddenly been adopted by the King of Glintland. She might have been a woman adopted for a political marriage because the nation lacked strength, but everywhere in the world, there were people who clung desperately to bloodlines.
However, the newspapers that had tried to dig deeply into her past had all, without exception, stopped after being pressured with closure by the king. A considerable number of those discarded articles remained in the file.
“Isn’t information like this expensive?”
“Cheaper than you.”
There probably weren’t many spies who cost ten million sing a year. Chloe let out a sound like air escaping and continued reading.
At any rate, the newspapers of Glintland seemed to have investigated the new princess’s past with considerable enthusiasm. Attached to the documents was a discarded article with a rotten title like “The Harlot Who Spat at a Countess Is Reborn as a Mother,” along with a press illustration of Isabelle la Glintland holding a child. The added notes contained comments such as old incident article, and by this point, Chloe almost found the King of Glintland impressive for having buried all of it.
“That was as far as I’d seen. A few pieces of inferred information came along with it.”
In any case, the woman who had been prosecuted for spitting at a countess seemed to have steadily drawn attention in a small city. It had even been reported that she was holding a child.
Among the newspapers, quite a few had zealously investigated who the child’s father was. After all, if a woman like Isabelle, who stood at the center of public attention, had married someone—or at the very least had borne an illegitimate child—that too would have made for a fairly profitable article.
“What’s this about falling in love?”
“That part is entirely my conjecture.”
As he said that, Curtis pushed several documents toward her as well. In truth, until what had happened at last night’s banquet, he had set this information aside separately, thinking it might have been inflated as gossip.
“Secret agents only send fragments of information. But from the position of someone compiling them, other things become visible.”
“Oho.”
“But.”
Curtis, leaning against the bed, asked in a distinctly displeased tone, “Did you read documents in that posture when you worked overtime too?”
Chloe was lying sideways across the bed, accepting the documents Curtis handed her. A short while ago, Julia had received orders and brought her a Royal Guard uniform from the estate, and Chloe had changed into it. Since she was wearing trousers, she had lain down on the bed, pressed her hips against one wall, and stretched both legs upward to rest against it. Curtis appeared deeply dissatisfied with her lax posture.
“This isn’t an interrogation room. Am I not allowed to lie down a little? Your Grace, you’re leaning against my bed yourself.”
“I’m asking whether you used to do this before.”
Hidden between the lines was, No wonder you always worked with the door shut. Chloe, still lying down with her eyes fixed on the documents, answered halfheartedly.
“The chair in the Aide’s Office is so hard that if I sit in it too long, my back hurts and my legs swell.”
“…”
No answer came from the man sitting with his back against the bed. Apparently, he did not mean to tell her to fix her posture and sit properly. Maintaining her position, she slowly traced the writing on the documents with her finger as she read.
According to the recorded information, the name of the court administrator who first prosecuted Isabelle was Blackwood. And that administrator named Blackwood had registered a marriage in a neighboring city a few months before Isabelle’s case was completely over.
“Administrator Blackwood registered his son’s birth separately five months after the marriage registration.”
“Yes.”
Even if it had only been five months, the child had been born after the marriage registration, so strictly speaking, he was not illegitimate. However, because the marriage had been registered in another city, only a brief marriage certificate had been attached.
The wife’s name stamped on the marriage certificate was Belle Blackwood.
“The reporter who wrote this article presumed that Belle Blackwood was Isabelle la Glintland. It was also confirmed that Isabelle la Glintland visited that neighboring city around the same period.”
That part was indeed written in the documents as well.
Also, around the time of the marriage registration, Isabelle had not attended the remaining trials, claiming illness, which caused the schedule to be delayed. At the time, everyone had assumed she really was ill because she had shut herself indoors and stopped going out, but…
“If she was pregnant, that would be more than enough reason.”
“No, but wait. Is that even possible?”
At Curtis’s words, Chloe asked back in surprise. And no wonder: even just from the documents, Isabelle and the administrator were clearly enemies whose hostility had matured over several years.
The case had dragged on for roughly two years, and Isabelle had avoided sentencing several times by using the young man from the Count’s family who loved her, or by drawing sympathy and muddying the point.
But the administrator surnamed Blackwood had stubbornly clung to her until he succeeded in getting Isabelle fined.
“Of course, she was in the wrong, but… at this point, weren’t they sworn enemies? How do people like that get married?”
“Maybe he’s a masochist. Anyway, that isn’t the important part.”
Curtis replied without emotion and pointed at the documents. In truth, with only these materials, it was difficult to conclude that Belle Blackwood was Isabelle la Glintland.
“But it’s strange in itself that a court administrator would go out of his way to avoid the court where he worked and register his marriage in another city.”
“But for someone at the level of a court administrator, isn’t marriage a kind of public event?”
“That point is worth noting too. Administrator Blackwood didn’t tell anyone around him that he was married. He didn’t even hold the simple sort of party people usually throw after marriage, despite being a fairly well-known and respected administrator in the region.”
Chloe tilted her head.
“So, in chronological order, Blackwood prosecuted Isabelle, they fought for two years, and then… assuming they fell for each other.”
“…”
“Two months after Isabelle shut herself indoors, the administrator registered a marriage. And five months after that, a birth registration.”
“For reference, the fine was enforced eight months after the marriage registration. Isabelle, who had dodged sentencing every which way until then, appeared without protest, stated she had no objections, and received her sentence.”
So she had found out she was pregnant, married, and then, after the child was born, cleanly accepted the fine.
Laid out like this, Curtis’s conjecture was fairly reasonable. But it was also true that Chloe simply could not understand it. What on earth had happened for people who were enemies to this degree to end up married?
Because, as Curtis said, he was a masochist?
Whether Chloe understood it or not, Curtis pulled over one more sheet of paper and pointed to a certain section with his finger.
“And this part. Do you see it?”
“Oh.”
Chloe blinked and peered down at the document.
The document in question was a petition sent by the King of Glintland to the five kingdoms that shared the southern Sarova Sea.
Its contents were nothing extraordinary. Anyone with an interest in the sea would know the story. Pirate King Bartholomew was rampaging through the Sarova Sea, including Soleria, so Glintland was requesting that they join forces and defeat him.
Glintland had suffered the greatest damage, but paradoxically, the other kingdoms had not suffered much, so the request was ignored every time.
Therefore, it would have been easy to skim past without much thought.
But Curtis pointed to the name of the envoy who, over the most recent year, had been entrusted with that petition and had traveled through the other four kingdoms.
It was Blackwood.
“We’ll have to make that woman talk to learn exactly how it came to this, but we can make a circumstantial guess. Both husband and wife were caught by the King of Glintland. On top of that, apparently no one knows where the Blackwood son currently is.”
“Eeeh.”
A king would go that far? Is that country’s king as pathetic as ours? When Chloe looked at Curtis with that expression, the man smiled deeply.
“For reference, the countess Isabelle la Glintland spat on was apparently the king’s nanny. And that young man was a child born to her very late in life.”
“Aha?”
The pieces all came together.
The old countess, the king’s nanny, must have been furious that the lowborn bastard girl who spat on her had not only wounded her late-born son, but had gone on to seduce even the court administrator. Worse, she had borne that administrator’s child, and all that remained for them was to live well and comfortably.
For the old woman, it must have been unbearable. Perhaps she had even believed that the administrator she trusted had also been tempted by that harlot.
For some reason, Chloe could vividly picture the scene: the countess, who had intended to spend her old age in a small city, running to the capital in tears to plead with the king.
“No, then he should have punished her. He adopted her and made her a princess?”
“Maybe her face was too much of a waste to punish.”
Curtis answered indifferently, then flinched under Chloe’s steady gaze as she lay there looking at him, and cleared his throat.
“I mean she had the kind of face that could be roughly used for marriage dealings with another country.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Who said you did?”
However, even amid the densely packed information and reasonable conjectures, there were still parts that did not sit right.