The First Test (5)
It's only natural.
Distributing the cure would ignite a war with the Holy Kingdom, while liberating the quarantined villagers would provoke severe public outrage among the imperial populace. Caught between religious wrath and civil revolt, silence was the Empire's only shield.
"Haaah… So that's how it is."
Edwin let out a long, heavy sigh upon hearing my answer. For a boy his age, his face was weighed down with far too much gloom and solemn worry.
"Why the deep sigh, Your Highness?"
"No, it's nothing."
Heaven only knew what unnecessary thoughts were churning inside that little head of his. I stole a quick glance at Edwin's pale profile before snapping my attention back to the road ahead.
"I shall pick up the pace. We must slip through the gates before they close for the night."
With a firm crack of the reins, the carriage surged forward. Long shadows stretched out behind the dust kicked up by the spinning wheels as an unusually exhausting day slowly gave way to twilight.
Leaving the quarantine village had been simple enough, but the real trouble began once we arrived at the Third Prince's Palace.
"…Good heavens."
The moment Catherine laid eyes on Sage, her jaw dropped in utter horror. It was only natural; I had left promising to bring back a distinguished tutor for the young prince, only to return with a disheveled man who looked like an outright vagrant.
"Oho! They told me you were penniless, but this place isn't half-bad at all, eh? Well, well, an imperial residence is an imperial residence—everything here is top quality!"
Indeed, nothing about him resembled a legendary scholar. He looked every bit like a brazen old scoundrel who had spent decades brawling in the gutter. Sage swaggered about the parlor, poking his nose into every corner with complete disregard for decorum.
"Oong?"
Just then, the parlor door swung open, and Princess Emilia toddled into the room. The moment Sage's eyes met the little girl's, he flinched and took half a step back in surprise.
"Grandpa? Who are you?"
"…Hah?"
Sage pointed a gnarled finger at Emilia and turned toward me, his brow furrowing. "What on earth is this little puppy?"
"Whaaat?! Lia isn't a puppy! Lia is a person!"
"Well, well. Look at that, the puppy talks."
"Lia said she's not a puppy!"
"Of course you are. A little stray mutt, aren't you? No, wait… with hair like that, should I call you a golden retriever pup?"
"I said I'm nooooot!"
Emilia threw an absolute fit at the strange old man who dared brand her a four-legged animal. Stomping her tiny feet, she puffed her flushed cheeks in outrage.
"No! No, no, no!"
"What? What do you mean, no?"
"Not a puppy!"
"Then what are you, eh?"
"Lia is a person! Lia is the Imperial Princess!"
"…A princess?"
Sage knit his bushy brows, then his eyes went wide as realization struck. He dropped swiftly into a deep squat, bringing his face level with Emilia's.
"Oho, so you're the First Princess! Emilia Luce Ventrum!"
"Excuse me!"
Unable to bear it any longer, Catherine raised her voice in sharp indignation. "How dare you utter Her Highness's sacred name so casually! Mind your manners at once!"
"Tsk, useless formalities. Why should an old man tiptoe around calling a toddler by her name?"
"W-What did you just say?!"
Sage didn't pay the slightest attention to Catherine's sputtering outrage. Instead, he scooped up the staring Emilia with both hands, hoisting her straight into the air.
"Kyaaaaah! Princess Emilia!"
Catherine shrieked loud enough to faint at the sight of a complete stranger laying hands on the imperial bloodline.
"Yes, yes, little Princess. A pleasure to meet you. You can just call me Grandpa. Understood?"
"Uh… uhhh…"
Caught off guard, Emilia blinked up at him with wide, curious eyes. Then, her gaze locked onto the magnificent, fluffy white beard cascading past Sage's chin, and her blue eyes began to sparkle like sapphires.
"Cloud!"
"Ack!"
Emilia locked both chubby fists into his snowy beard and began tugging with all her toddler might.
"Wheeee! A cloud! It's a cloud!"
"C-Cloud, my foot! This is part of my flesh and blood, you little terror! Let go!"
"Lia wants to taste the cloud!"
"Gaaah! Don't put that in your mouth!"
Belatedly, Sage tried desperately to set her back down, but it was far too late. Emilia had an iron grip woven tightly into his whiskers and had no intention of releasing her prize.
"Aigoo, forget going bald—my whole blasted beard is going to be ripped out by the roots!"
"Ehehehe! High up! So high!"
"High up, nothing! Let go already, you stubborn little mutt!"
"Lia said she's not a mutt!"
"Ow, ow, ow! Fine, fine! I get it, I yield! Just stop pulling so damn hard!"
Swept up in the chaos, Sage ended up bouncing the giggling princess gently in his arms. At a glance, they looked strikingly like a doting grandfather roughhousing with his mischievous granddaughter—an unexpectedly sweet, domestic sight.
"…Nanny."
Still maintaining a strained, trembling smile, Catherine leaned close and hissed into my ear. "Who on earth is that home—I mean, elderly gentleman?"
"I already told you. He is to be Prince Edwin's new mentor."
"Hohoho, you did. You certainly did say that."
Catherine's mouth twitched uncontrollably as she watched Sage jog across the room with Emilia riding high in his arms. When the old man finally declared defeat, collapsing sprawled across the plush velvet sofa, a vein visibly throbbed on her temple.
"He doesn't look like a nobleman in the slightest, nor does he look like an educated scholar."
"Appearances can be deceiving. He is a truly extraordinary individual, so there is no need to fret."
"Extraordinary? In what conceivable way?"
Catherine glared at Sage with profound suspicion. To distract the toddler and peel her off him, the old man was currently stuffing delicate tea pastries directly into Emilia's mouth from the tray left by the maids.
"You didn't get swindled out in the city, did you? I know you're not the type to fall for that sort of thing, but still…"
"Despite what he appears…"
I didn't care if Sage was mistaken for a lunatic beggar, but having my own judgment questioned was another matter entirely. I nearly blurted out that this unkempt old man was the legendary Great Sage, but clamped my mouth shut just in time.
If I speak carelessly and trouble arises later, it will be a disaster.
It was far safer to keep his true identity under wraps.
"Nanny?" Catherine gave me a puzzled look when I abruptly cut myself off. "Despite what he appears, he's what? Is he someone incredible that I don't know about?"
"…Have you ever heard the name Great Sage Lill?"
"The Great Sage? Well, of course I have!"
Sage's fame far exceeded ordinary bounds. Even Catherine, a commoner-born noble from the far provinces, knew his legendary name by heart. Although his development of the cure for the Scale Disease had been kept from the public ear, his lifetime of academic and alchemical breakthroughs was vast enough to fill libraries.
"I heard he vanished into thin air one day… but why bring him up all of a sudden?"
"To tell you the truth, that man over there…"
I adopted the gravest, most solemn expression I could muster and pointed at Sage.
"…is a distant relative of the Great Sage."
"Whaaaat?! Truly?!"
"Truly." I pitched my voice low, whispering so only Catherine could hear. "It isn't widely known, but the relatives who share his bloodline are all regarded as geniuses on par with the Great Sage himself. He happens to be one of them."
"I-Is that so?"
Though bewildered, Catherine seemed to buy the explanation. She mulled it over for a second, then tilted her head with renewed doubt.
"Wait a moment… Why would someone so brilliant agree to tutor Prince Edwin?"
"…Well, things just worked out that way."
"Wait, wait, wait." Catherine pressed a hand to her forehead in mounting panic. "Isn't Viscount Lill a wanted fugitive across the entire continent?"
"He was. But since he was officially declared missing and presumed dead, no one is actively pursuing him anymore."
"Aaaah, no, this still won't do! Even if he isn't the Great Sage himself, harboring the kinsman of a convicted traitor in the imperial palace…" Catherine stared at me with wide, fearful eyes. "Wait, how did you even find a relative of the Great Sage in the first place, Nanny? They say not a single soul on the continent knows where he or his family disappeared to…"
"…I have strictly personal connections."
"I-I see…"
Catherine nodded slowly, but the deep lines of anxiety remained etched across her brow. "Nanny, I'm simply terrified. Can we truly allow him to stay in the prince's palace? This really feels wrong."
"Catherine."
I turned smoothly, clasping both of her hands in mine. Taken aback, Catherine's cheeks flushed a bright, startled pink.
"N-Nanny?"
"In truth, the Great Sage was a dear acquaintance of my late foster parents."
"Pardon? R-Really?"
"Yes. And through my parents' memory, he reached out to me with a desperate plea."
"W-What kind of plea?"
"He begged me to help that pitiful old man over there. A man who spent over a decade hunted and roaming the far corners of the continent simply because of the blood in his veins—a frail, broken soul who no longer possesses the strength to run."
With a single breath, the boisterous, robust old hermit who had been thriving quite comfortably in the quarantine village was transformed into a tragic, frail old grandfather on death's door.
It's a complete fabrication, but there's no helping it.
My connection wasn't through fictional foster parents, but through my past life, and Sage wasn't a distant relative, but the Great Sage himself. Yet I could never reveal the truth. It was absurd enough to claim I had woken up in someone else's body after death; who would ever believe I had once been the continent's most feared assassin? I would be lucky not to be thrown straight into an asylum.
"Urrrgh…"
Catherine wrestled with her conscience, clutching her head in agony, before finally letting out a defeated groan. "Fine. If that's the case, we have no choice."
"Thank you, Catherine."
"Still, Nanny…" She crossed her arms, watching Sage with uneasy eyes. "How are we going to introduce him to outsiders? We certainly can't tell people he's related to the Great Sage. Anyone serving as the prince's tutor must have an unimpeachable background…"
"You need not worry about that."
I rose to my feet, smoothing down the front of my skirts with measured grace.
"The Founding Day Festival will begin before long, will it not?"
Catherine blinked at me in confusion. "Yes, it will. But what does the festival have to do with this?"
"Our palace must prepare to receive guests as well."
Catherine furrowed her brow, trying to decipher the hidden meaning behind my words. "Prepare for guests…?"
"I have thought this for some time now: the grounds of the Third Prince's Palace are far too desolate."
The estate was vast, yet all that grew across the sweeping courtyards were a handful of bare flowering trees and a few patches of common weeds. I watched Sage continue his noisy squabble with Emilia, the corners of my mouth curling into a faint, knowing smile.
"Don't you think it is about time we hired our own gardener?"