No Normal Person Can Reach the Summit - 1
A cardinal feeding carrots to a horse wandering the Imperial Palace. The sentence was perfectly correct in every grammatical sense, yet my brain refused to accept it with an almost uncanny stubbornness.
Is this a dream?
The thought crossed my mind for a fleeting second. Had they installed some new defensive magic throughout the palace to commemorate the new emperor’s accession?
A miraculous ward that lulled intruders into sleep without them even realizing it, forcing them to dream? It sounded entirely plausible. To protect the palace of the continent’s strongest nation, you’d need magic of at least that caliber.
If I hadn’t entered after a proper inspection, I really might have believed it. What kind of defensive magic intercepts even legitimate visitors who aren’t intruders?
“Respect to the wise who follow the Lord’s light; reverence to the martyrs who shed blood for the faith.”
After a brief bout of denial, I quickly made the sign of the cross and spoke. Since the cardinal had greeted me first, answering properly was only polite.
“A believer who longs for the Lord’s embrace greets Your Eminence.”
I even dipped my head lightly in greeting, and the cardinal’s surprise was plain to see.
Of course she was surprised—that was the whole point. The greeting I had just used dated back to the earliest days of the Dawn Church.
“Remarkable. Even among bishops there are many who do not know that form of address unless they are well-versed in tradition. I never imagined an ordinary brother of the faith would know it.”
And because I had invoked the ancient greeting, the cardinal’s lips curved into a faint smile, radiating a far more amicable air.
Perfect.
Exactly the reaction I had wanted, so I returned the smile.
From her perspective I was a personage blessed by God. For that personage to show respect for and understanding of the Church’s traditions could only please her.
“I have an acquaintance deeply knowledgeable in the Church’s traditions. Thanks to him I’ve learned a great deal about the Church.”
“Ah.”
I didn’t stop there, and the cardinal’s expression grew even gentler.
“Yes, of course. Brother Tanian has always taken a deep interest in the Church’s traditions, so it is only natural that you would know as well.”
The acquaintance I mentioned was none other than Tanian, one of the most important figures even within the Holy Kingdom itself.
“Ah, we shouldn’t linger here. Let us proceed to the Solar Hall. I came out ahead of time, excited at the prospect of meeting you both, but His Majesty and the other cardinal are already waiting.”
“Oh dear. Then we must go at once.”
As if only just remembering, the cardinal clapped her hands lightly and naturally guided Mar and me along.
Fortunately, it seemed I had made a good first impression.
To be honest, I hadn’t particularly wanted to name-drop Tanian in front of a cardinal. It felt a bit like trash-talking him as a hopeless club member and the despair of the ’77 season on ordinary days, only to sell him out the moment I needed him. Anyone with a conscience would feel awkward about it.
Even so, I had mentioned him because my counterpart was a cardinal. When dealing with a cardinal on official business, you play every card you have.
Not an opponent you can afford to hold cards back against.
A cardinal’s prestige is never light. In the Dawn Church’s earliest days they were the martyrs who charged to the front and died for the faith; after the Church achieved religious supremacy they became the monsters who reigned as the leadership of the continent’s greatest religion.
The Empire’s youngest minister? Godfather to the Crown Princess? Those are qualifications that earn a cardinal’s courtesy, not qualifications that allow you to treat a cardinal lightly. On this continent the only ones who can stand above a cardinal are the Emperor and the Pope.
That was why I had sold out Tanian with tears in my eyes. To stand tall before a cardinal, the title of “Tanian’s acquaintance” was far more effective than any secular authority.
“Brother Tanian also asked me to convey his regards. He said he regretted being unable to attend your wedding as a guest.”
“Though our bodies may be distant, his heart reached us fully. Please tell him we received the gift as well and not to trouble himself over it.”
“Yes, I shall certainly do so. Ah, and speaking of when Brother Tanian had just returned to the country—”
I simply hadn’t expected it to be this effective.
The distance from where we met the cardinal to the Solar Hall was not far. Yet in that short stretch we spoke far too much about Tanian. I felt like a clueless newbie who had pretended to know something in front of a veteran and gotten stuck in an endless conversation.
It was painful. Better than a cold or awkward relationship, certainly, but I really didn’t want to talk about Tanian at length.
Is she part of Tanian’s faction?
At the same time I marveled at Tanian’s ability. A kid not even twenty years old had turned a cardinal—and a prefect at that—into an enthusiastic supporter. I suppose that was only natural for one of the romance-fantasy male leads.
“And he also said that you, Brother, were a precious connection he had made in the Empire.”
“That is glad news indeed.”
In any case, every time the cardinal finished speaking I nodded mechanically and offered the appropriate responses.
Endure it. If the price of this annoyance is maintaining a warm atmosphere with a cardinal—especially one I suspect is the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints—then it is a net gain.
…We still haven’t even introduced ourselves, though.
I nearly let out a hollow laugh without meaning to. Whether as the price of selling Tanian right from the first greeting, we still hadn’t even exchanged names.
Of course the cardinal would have known I was the Minister of the Inspectorate Ministry before she came, and I knew that the female cardinal visiting this time was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, so it wasn’t a major problem… but still…
Why is there no normalcy anywhere?
This time a sigh nearly escaped. Tanian from the Holy Kingdom was abnormal, and the cardinal right in front of me was abnormal. I was starting to suspect the Holy Kingdom was a land blessed not by God but by a curse.
Feeling stifled, I quietly took Mar’s hand beside me. Thanks to me becoming the tank that pulled all the cardinal’s aggro, Mar had been able to hold her breath and stay out of the cardinal’s line of sight.
So just lend me your hand a little. I felt like I needed the contact to keep my mind clear.
Hmm.
Hmmm.
He passes.
Watching the Minister of the Inspectorate Ministry nod with a stiff smile at regular intervals, I reached my conclusion.
He passes. Someone upon whom the Lord Himself had bestowed a blessing could hardly be wicked, but seeing him in person he was even more decent than I had expected. Truthfully I had assumed that a noble who had risen to real power at such a young age would possess at least a touch of arrogance or a domineering streak, yet—
He’s far too gentle.
Simply gentle. To a degree that hardly matched his bearing or the post he held.
It was astonishing. No matter how quiet and modest a person might be, a taste of power usually drove them mad. Yet here was someone born of noble blood who had seized power through his own ability… and he was like this?
“What sort of person is Brother Karl, you ask? It’s difficult to explain. All that comes to mind is that he is a decent man, a good man.”
Suddenly the words Tanian had spoken before we came to the Empire resurfaced. When I first heard them I had taken them as mere courtesy—the sort of thing one says when one must praise someone and has nothing better: “He’s a good person.”
It was the truth.
He really was a decent man, and that was why Tanian had said it. Why on earth was it true?
A little embarrassed, I cleared my throat and examined the minister again. I had intended to sound him out with behavior that was not outright rude but merely a little dense, and since the minister himself had first mentioned Tanian I had simply continued on that topic.
…Honestly, talking about Tanian had made me run a bit wild, yet the minister had still gone along with it quietly. He might have been cursing me seven ways from Sunday inside, but outwardly he remained calm.
At this rate I feel bad about probing any further.
My original plan had been to grasp the minister’s character only briefly, then withdraw somewhere private for a serious, in-depth investigation.
Even if he had received a blessing, one still had to ascertain a person’s true nature in order to make a proper judgment, and one needed to know how greatly the Lord’s blessing had influenced the minister and his wife. Only then could one decide whether to canonize them as Saints, leave them as Apostles, or simply let the matter drop.
But I had already tormented such a gentle person enough; a deep investigation now felt awkward. I had come here to bestow honor upon the virtuous, not to inflict suffering. The suffering I had endured from seasickness on the voyage was quite enough for one person.
We’ll take them at least as far as Apostles.
After a brief consideration I reached a clear decision. Beatification as Apostles would be the baseline.
If Elder Aldino found out he would rage about how slapdash the beatification process was, but so what? If he had a complaint he could take the post of Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints himself.
In the first place, entrusting such a key department as the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to a stripling not even thirty years old was the real mistake.
Fortunately, not everyone from the Holy Kingdom was strange.
“It is an honor to meet in person one whose renown resounds across the continent. This old man is Aldino Voitaya, who has been granted the undeserved duty of overseeing the Congregation for Divine Worship.”
“I too have long heard of Your Eminence’s fame. It is said you chart the path the Church must take and serve as counselor to His Holiness the Pope.”
“Heh heh, you flatter me. I merely prattle on with an old man’s stubbornness.”
Unlike Cardinal Alexandriana, who had chattered without pause, Cardinal Aldino—who had been conversing with the Emperor in the Solar Hall—displayed a courteous and mild demeanor. He was the very picture of the archetypal elderly priest.
Yes. This was normal. This was how it should be. Because I had encountered two uniquely eccentric figures from the Holy Kingdom one after another, I had ended up generalizing the entire Holy Kingdom as abnormal.
It was shameful. If someone looked at the second and third section chiefs and declared, “The Audit Department is full of lunatics,” I would have been the first to spit blood in indignation. There were normal people like the deputy minister and the fifth section chief—why use those two as the standard?
I should reflect on this.
From now on I would take Cardinal Aldino, not Tanian, as the standard for the Holy Kingd—
“Regrettably, from the standpoint of the young and vigorous, an old man’s stubbornness like mine is nothing more than tiresome nagging.”
…?
A sudden sense of dissonance struck me. The words were spoken with a laugh, so anyone hearing them would take them as humility, yet they carried a faint undercurrent of genuine feeling.
Moreover, upon closer look, Cardinal Aldino’s gaze was not directed at me. He was looking at someone standing in the same direction as I was.
The moment I realized the identity of the someone behind me, I immediately dismissed the dissonance. Apparently the young and vigorous someone and Cardinal Aldino were frequent sparring partners. It was hardly a matter for an outsider like me to concern myself with.
So they have generational conflict here too.
My heart suddenly grew peaceful. From a cardinal I was meeting for the first time, I sensed the familiar fragrance of a certain minister.
That minister had called me a brat and a pup who kept wandering about at the drop of a hat—every insult under the sun, if I recalled correctly.