Myself Before Others - 1
During this New Year's Audience season, holing up in one place like some resident spirit or vanishing into a corner was simply impossible. Back when I was still Audit Department Chief Karl Crassius, it would have been easy enough. As Count of Tailglehen and faction leader, however, it was something I had to avoid at all costs.
The great lords of the North wanted connections with the mainland nobility, a presence in central politics, and standing in high society—and they had all gathered under me. If the faction leader himself dragged his feet in a situation like that? The northern faction exploding in a glorious blaze would have been as inevitable as sunrise.
Fortunately for me, I had a fair number of nobles I could introduce to my faction members.
"It's been rather empty with one marquisate left vacant all this time. Order has finally been restored."
"I am an unworthy man who has received an excessive honor from His Majesty the Retired Emperor. I humbly ask for your generous guidance."
"Haha, set your mind at ease. I am not so cold-hearted as to show no warmth to a friend of my son-in-law."
Even my fifth father-in-law, Marquis Iones, who was currently exchanging warm greetings with Marquis Barandiga, was one of the nobles I could introduce without strain. There was nothing strange about faction members forging friendly ties with their leader's father-in-law.
My fifth father-in-law himself seemed eager to get on good terms with the newly minted marquis. I didn't know the details, but it looked as though the marquises had their own quiet factional struggles going on. Then again, if men of that rank spent all their time laughing and clapping each other on the back, that would have been stranger still.
This should be enough for this year.
In any case, I watched my fathers-in-law getting acquainted with the faction members while I kept a half-step back.
The Iron Blood Duke—leader of the eastern faction and, at present, the empire's sole border guardian. Marquis Iones, who contended for first or second place among the empire's thirteen marquises. Count Flanbel, a key figure in the Golden Duke's faction. And even Baron Atini, who had been receiving dazzling attention ever since becoming my father-in-law.
Yes, this was enough for now. Connections had to be built gradually. Suddenly bloating the network would only leave everyone confused about who was who. Better to remain strangers than that.
"What are you doing standing there alone?"
"Ah, Father-in-law."
While I had been staring blankly at the networking session, my first father-in-law had approached and spoken.
"Pushing your subordinates onto your fathers-in-law so you can rest by yourself... You've already learned how to work people hard."
"If I butted in unnecessarily and only diminished your dignity, that would be a problem, wouldn't it?"
"Still as silver-tongued as ever."
He snorted softly at the subtle flattery, but thankfully he did not seem offended.
Becoming family—or family-to-be—had softened him dramatically. Well, the bastard who discarded a precious youngest daughter and the thief who stole her away were entirely different creatures. He might dislike both, but the latter at least inspired a certain love-hate.
"You have it rough as well. This year's New Year's Audience is going to end with nothing but matchmaking on every side."
I could only offer an awkward smile at his next words. The matchmaking he mentioned included introducing faction members to my fathers-in-law, but it also referred to Ainter and Shati.
After the New Year's address, Ainter had immediately approached the northern faction and exchanged light greetings with its members. Whether he had already received a hint from the Emperor, he had even held a particularly long conversation with Shati.
Of course, "long" was relative—it had been little more than a greeting—and the expressions of the two prospective spouses themselves had been perfectly ordinary. Still, any noble with a sharp eye would have already noticed. Those two were going to be a politically arranged couple.
How could they not notice?
Honestly, it wasn't even a matter of sharp eyes. Among the northern faction members, only Marquis Barandiga had brought a daughter, and a newly titled imperial prince had gone out of his way to speak to Marquis Barandiga's daughter. Anyone with even a speck of noble intelligence should have grasped the situation at once.
That was why my father-in-law had offered me that not-quite-comforting comfort. If a faction member became the partner in a political marriage with the imperial family, the odds were extremely high that the faction leader had arranged the match.
"I've done all I can. The rest must be left to heaven."
"Is that so? Glad to hear it."
My father-in-law nodded calmly, then opened his mouth with his usual brusqueness.
"Then go worry about your own wedding. Stop loitering around elsewhere."
"...Of course. Naturally."
The bluntness caught me off guard for a moment, but I recovered quickly.
I had told him many times that I would marry Mar once she graduated. Yet here was the prospective son-in-law, with the wedding right around the corner, spending his time on other matters instead of preparing for marriage to his own daughter. It was no wonder my father-in-law's insides were burning.
How far along is it, I wonder?
At that not-quite-scolding, I quietly turned the matter over in my mind. In truth, I was not handling the wedding preparations myself. I had been at the Academy until not long ago—what preparations could I possibly have made?
Instead, Mother had been pouring her full strength into them.
—Bringing the first daughter-in-law into the family is naturally the lady of the house's duty. Don't worry and leave it to me.
Sometime in the hazy past, I had readily entrusted the preparations to Mother after her confident declaration. There was nothing odd about the lady of the house overseeing a family celebration.
The only possible variable would have been interference from House Valenti, yet Mar's mother had also left this wedding entirely to the Crassius family. She had said they would cover half the expenses once everything was finished—though I honestly suspected they would simply foot the entire bill. A ducal house thoroughly Dutch-paying for their own daughter's marriage seemed unlikely.
It should be nearly finished.
I mulled it over briefly and quickly reached a conclusion. Mother was the one who had managed the family's major and minor affairs in place of Father, a member of the Imperial Diet. With her motivation fully engaged, the wedding preparations would already be entering their final, smooth stages.
Besides, her expression had been bright when I visited the fief not long ago. If there had been any hitch in the preparations, she would have looked troubled or spoken to me about it long before now.
Mother's smooth wedding preparations had just hit the emergency lights.
"Your Majesty. I am deeply sorry to say this, but your humble servant must have been so overawed by Your Majesty's dignity that he failed to open his ears properly."
On the final day of the New Year's Audience, I had been summoned by the Emperor for a shared meal when I heard something utterly strange.
So I instinctively denied it. What I had heard must be wrong. Or the Emperor must be joking. Clinging to that slender hope, I barely managed to open my mouth.
"Ah, I should have waited until after the meal. I've needlessly burdened the Minister."
Watching the Emperor smile faintly, I glanced at the hand gripping my knife.
No. Stay calm. If I throw this, there's no going back.
"I hear the Minister will soon be marrying as well. What do you say to holding it at St. Paronas Cathedral? Given that it is a celebration for both House Crassius and House Valenti, that level of grandeur would be fitting, would it not?"
Yet the relentless confirmation that followed made my hand tremble. Fitting at that level?
It's not fitting at all.
It far exceeds it, you bastard.
The completely unexpected venue left me speechless. St. Paronas Cathedral was the cathedral seat of the Ausen Archdiocese—the foremost among every cathedral that existed in the empire, a place of immense history and authority. That was precisely why the Emperor himself had held his own abdication ceremony there.
Of course, St. Paronas Cathedral was the site of the abdication ceremony, not a place used only for abdication ceremonies. Digging through history turned up precedents for other uses as well.
One of those precedents was when Emperor Eimanka had bestowed dukedoms upon the five great meritorious retainers who had contributed enormously to the founding of the empire.
Is this man actually insane?
Holding a wedding in the very place where an emperor and dukes had been born. As an honor granted to a subject, it went beyond glory and into the realm of pure terror.
"From now on, flaunt your power and show your ambition."
Suddenly the Duke of Victory's words floated up in my mind.
Had the Duke of Victory already known? Had that been a warning that the Emperor was going to do something crazy and I should prepare myself?
You could have been a little more specific.
For the first time, I felt a small resentment toward the Duke of Victory.
If he had told me in advance, I could have at least prepared...
After the New Year's Audience ended, Karl returned to the mansion, pulled me into his arms, and lay down on the bed.
It was a warm embrace, yet at the same time it left me at a loss. The expression I glimpsed on Karl's face looked quite complicated, and the smile or kiss that usually accompanied his hugs was nowhere to be found.
Something must have happened. He had seemed somehow drained ever since dining with His Majesty the Emperor; clearly something had occurred then.
What could it be?
No matter how hard I thought, nothing came to mind. His Majesty, who trusted Karl so deeply, would never have said anything harsh to him—and even if he had, he would not have done so over a meal.
...Surely not.
Then the diplomatic mission scheduled to depart for the Armein Kingdom before long rose in my mind. What if His Majesty trusted Karl so completely that he was including him in the mission? What if Karl had to leave for another country soon?
The moment that thought took hold, the arms I had wrapped around Karl tightened.
No.
That alone could never be allowed. I had finally become able to marry Karl—only for the groom himself to be absent? On a diplomatic mission that, even if he left today, offered no guarantee of returning before spring?
A wave of sorrow crashed over me, and I bit my lip hard. I prayed it wasn't so, yet once the suspicion had taken root, my heart kept leaning that way.
"Um, Karl."
"Hm?"
So I mustered my courage and spoke. I wanted Karl to soothe my anxiety. I desperately hoped it was not a matter of him leaving just before our wedding.
"Did... something happen?"
I could not completely drive out the tension, and I ended up stumbling over the words.
"...Well..."
It was embarrassing, yet I could not even show it when Karl let out a small sigh. What did embarrassment matter when the wedding I had waited years for was about to be postponed?
"About our wedding."
The moment the word "wedding" left Karl's lips, my heart began to pound wildly.
Surely not. It couldn't be. It wouldn't be delayed.
Please.
For an instant my vision blurred. Tears I had not even noticed were welling—
"I think we'll have to hold it at St. Paronas Cathedral."
"...What?"
"His Majesty recommended holding the wedding at the cathedral. If we do it there, all sorts of talk will start flying. I was worried it might put too much pressure on you, Mar."
At those words I blinked blankly.
So it wasn't about postponing the wedding... just a matter of changing the venue?
"M-Mar?"
The resentment that surged right afterward made me give Karl's back a light pinch.
Anywhere is fine...
The place did not matter in the slightest. As long as I could marry Karl, I would smile even if we held it in an ordinary commoner's home.
Besides, St. Paronas Cathedral was where the Great Emperor, after founding the empire, had personally placed the empress's crown upon the first Empress. It was the supreme place that symbolized eternal and noble love.
He only thought about the politics, didn't he?
Karl had probably never even considered the romantic aspect and had only recalled the precedents of the coronation and the birth of dukes. Knowing his personality, it was obvious.
"It is burdensome after all, isn't it? Even now I can tell His Majesty—"
"We have to do it there. I don't want any other place."
"...Okay."
I cut off Karl's oblivious words with firm finality.
Until now the venue had not mattered, but now that things had come to this, anything other than the cathedral would feel unfair.