A Ruthless Breakfast Gathering (2)
I can smell it from here.
Just listening to that voice, I could already reek the unmistakable stench of a troublemaker.
I slowly raised my head. The voice belonged to a knight sitting at an adjacent table, in the middle of his meal.
“My, and what of it?”
Catherine spoke up before I could. She had already whisked the cloth-wrapped bundle of food beneath the table, tucking it out of sight with impressive stealth. Had this woman been a thief or a pickpocket in her past life? The suspicion felt entirely reasonable as I watched her.
“See? What did I tell you?” The knight who had called out to us smirked, turning to his dining companion across from him. “A worthless royal is still royalty, after all.”
He shot a sidelong, leering glance in our direction, tossing out a crude jest without an ounce of shame.
“Trailing two women behind him wherever he goes. The little brat must’ve developed a taste for fun awfully early.”
“Come now, you’re being wicked. Why bring that up while we’re eating?” The companion opposite him merely chuckled, shaking his head at the vulgar remark.
“Goodness, what an eyesore,” Catherine muttered sharply. “Men whose faces ruin an appetite certainly know how to run their mouths to match.”
“…Catherine.”
Before I even had a chance to step in, she had already lobbed a live bomb. True to form, the knight sprang from his chair.
“What did you just say, wench?”
“Oh dear, was that out loud? My, I thought I was speaking to myself! My apologies!” Catherine made a dramatic display of fussing, rising from her seat and bowing stiffly from the waist.
“Say that again. What did you just call us? Eyesores that ruin an appetite?”
“Good grief, didn’t I already apologize? Did you take a fleeting remark to heart that quickly? Aww, for a grown man, your chest is terribly narrow!”
The knight’s face flushed crimson at her mockery. His arm shot upward, looking ready to strike her down on the spot.
“They say a servant takes after their master, and sure enough, you insolent little b—”
“I believe the same could be said for you.”
“Huh? Who the hell are you now?” The knight’s face twisted into an ugly scowl as I cut in.
“Aren’t you also an attendant serving an imperial prince?” I pointed my fork toward the hand he still held raised in midair. “Consider this a friendly warning: it would be wise not to spit in your own master’s face.”
The knight’s pride was visibly wounded. His lips curled in pure disbelief.
“Are you preaching at me right now? Do you miserable wenches even know who I am…?”
“Do I need to know? Even if I did, what I have to say wouldn’t change.”
“I am the personal escort knight to the Second Prince! Wenches who were practically banished to the wretched Third Prince’s Palace don’t hold a rank high enough to even look me in the eye!”
Ah. Escort knight to the Second Prince, is it?
So he was the replacement for the previous guard whose arm had been lopped off before being stripped of his rank. Seeing how recklessly he flapped his gums, he clearly hadn’t heard how his predecessor had ended up in that state.
“Catherine, are you finished eating?”
“Ah, yes! All done!”
“Then let us leave. His Highness should be emerging shortly.”
I pushed back my chair, deliberately looking right through the man. Catherine scrambled to her feet behind me. Finding himself completely brushed off by two palace servants, the knight’s face darkened from bright red to an apoplectic shade of purple.
“Stop right there!”
He roared, lunging after me. The instant his fingers gripped my shoulder to yank me around—
Thud! Crack!
I drove a fist straight into his solar plexus, followed instantly by a stinging backhand across his cheek.
“Guh—!”
A wet, choked gasp rattled in his throat, and he crumpled heavily onto the floorboards. His companion sprang out of his seat in utter shock.
“Hey! What are you doing?!”
“It seems no one ever taught you the basic decency of keeping your hands off an unmarried woman,” I murmured coldly, looking down at the heap on the ground. “For a man bearing the title of an imperial knight, no less.”
“Khh… ugh…!”
Veins bulged along the knight’s neck as his lips flapped uselessly. But he couldn’t manage a coherent word; a thin trickle of dark blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.
I tried to hold back, but did I hit him too hard?
Well, the slap to his cheek was the least of his worries compared to the blow to his chest. As I stared down at him with disdain, his companion rushed over to haul him upright, bellowing at me.
“Have you lost your mind?! How dare you lay a hand on Prince Lloyd’s knight—!”
“Does a knight’s crest give you license to grab a strange woman’s body without her consent? It seems the Empire’s chivalry has truly perished.”
I raised my voice deliberately, projecting it across the dining hall. Every eye in the room instantly snapped in our direction.
“No matter how progressive the Empire may be, is it acceptable for a man to lay hands upon an unmarried maiden so brazenly?”
Attendants and maids bustling through the hall began whispering furiously among themselves, casting glances of unmasked revulsion and contempt toward the two men.
“Th-That… damn it… Our apologies!”
Flushed red with utter humiliation, the companion hoisted the semiconscious knight over his shoulder and beat a hasty retreat. The hall, which had fallen dead silent during the altercation, immediately erupted into loud chatter the moment they disappeared.
“Nanny, are you all right?” Catherine fluttered around me, examining me from head to toe.
“I’m fine.” I brushed off the shoulder where the knight’s fingers had clamped down. The more I thought about it, the more irritating it became. I swear, when will these imperial knights ever break their vile habit of grabbing women whenever they please?
“Still, how did you do that just now?”
“Do what?”
“That move! The way you deflected his reach and slapped his face across the room!” Catherine clung to my side like a burr, chattering excitedly. “Please teach me that! The swat-and-smack combo! Pretty please!”
“…None of this would have happened if you hadn’t provoked them in the first place, Catherine.”
“Oh, come on! They were spewing awful insults about Prince Edwin!”
“Even so, exercise some restraint next time. I would rather not invite unnecessary noise like today.”
“What?! Nanny, you’re the last person on earth who should be saying that!”
As we made our way out of the servants’ hall, I could hear the maids behind us already busily trading details. Thanks to their enthusiasm, the scandal of the Second Prince’s escort knight humiliating himself after trying to molest a palace attendant during the imperial breakfast spread across the entire palace before the morning was out.
“Your Majesty!”
Inside the grand dining hall, just as the Imperial Family Breakfast Gathering was drawing to a close, an attendant hurried through the doors with an urgent expression.
“Forgive the intrusion, but an urgent matter requires your attention…”
He leaned down and whispered into Emperor Carbelius III’s ear. Whatever words were spoken, the Emperor’s features hardened like stone.
“Such a shame, when we have gathered together for the first time in so long. Regrettable as it is, we must conclude our meal here today.” The Emperor drained his goblet and rose to his feet.
“Your Majesty, has something happened?”
“It seems the magic beasts have gone on another rampage. The aristocratic council will have to be moved up as a result.”
“Is the situation dire, then?”
“Do not fret, Empress. Magic beasts appearing has become an everyday occurrence of late.”
He waved off the Empress’s concerned inquiry with an indifferent hand.
“Everyone, you may rise.”
At the Emperor’s single command, every royal and consort gathered at the table stood in unison, marking the conclusion of the ruthless breakfast gathering.
“What do you mean, a hunting competition out of nowhere?!”
Back in our quarters, Catherine looked at me with a face full of distress. From the moment she heard the news Edwin had brought back from the breakfast gathering, she had done nothing but pace back and forth, stomping her feet.
“Prince Edwin doesn’t know how to shoot a bow, nor does he know how to ride a horse! What on earth are we supposed to do?!”
“It is an imperial decree from His Majesty. He ordered all three princes to participate, so Prince Edwin can hardly excuse himself alone.”
“Ugggh, this is a disaster!” Catherine let out a sigh heavy enough to cave the floor in.
“Why are you sighing so deeply?”
“Of course I’m sighing!” She collapsed into a chair and pressed a palm to her forehead. “If His Highness attends an imperial hunting competition, at least a third of our palace’s operating budget is going to vanish into thin air!”
“It’s merely a hunt.”
I picked up a piece of dried tropical fruit from the table and chewed on it lazily. It was part of the rations Catherine had pilfered from the Emperor’s Palace earlier.
“Is there any reason it would require such an exorbitant sum?”
Catherine shoved a small fork into my hand while scolding me under her breath for eating with my bare fingers.
“An imperial hunting competition hosted by the throne is on an entirely different scale! It’s held on the private imperial hunting grounds, and nobles flock to it alongside the imperial family! And this time, His Majesty commanded all three princes to take part, didn’t he? That means high nobility will show up in droves!”
“And?”
“The hunting competition is a battleground for showing off wealth and prestige! The higher a noble’s standing, the more absurdly lavish they dress—from the pedigree of the mount beneath them to custom riding habit silks, down to master-crafted bows and arrows!”
Only then did Catherine’s distress begin to make sense.
“How utterly pointless. It is supposed to be a hunt, not a peacock pageant.”
“Unfortunately, that’s exactly what it is! Even the game they hunt is meant purely for boasting rights!” Catherine threw her arms up toward the ceiling, wailing. “Aaargh, what are we going to do?! His Highness doesn’t have proper riding attire, let alone a decent weapon! Tailoring everything from scratch will blow our budget completely…”
She froze mid-sentence, then clapped her hands together.
“Wait! We do have a bow and arrows!”
“You mean the ones gifted by the King of Adamant?”
“Yes! Exactly those!”
I wasn’t so sure an iridescent adamant weapon was suited for a standard woodland hunt. Isn’t the thing far too eye-catching?
Then again, if the entire point of the event was to show off, perhaps that made it perfect. I chewed on the dried fruit, wearing a dubious expression.
“Haaah… but the biggest problem is still unresolved.”
How can there be this many problems? I frowned at her despairing tone.
“What else is there?”
“There are two massive hurdles left, and the first one…” Catherine’s face crumpled into tears. “We don’t have a horse!”
She pumped her arms back and forth, frantically mimicking a galloping steed.
“Does the 3rd Prince’s Palace not possess its own carriage?”
“Carriage draft horses and hunting thoroughbreds are completely different beasts! Besides, all the animals assigned to our stables are closer to pack mules than horses!”
In short, they were hardly mounts suitable for flaunting royal majesty.
“Then can we not simply borrow one?”
“Absolutely not! A mount is the ultimate measure of status! If word gets out that an imperial prince showed up riding a borrowed steed, everyone will laugh him out of the grounds!” Catherine tugged at her hair as if teetering on the edge of sanity. “No, never. That cannot happen. Having His Highness ride someone else’s hand-me-down horse is unthinkable!”
“…Catherine.”
“To buy a decent thoroughbred at minimum… one, two, three gold coins… no, dozens…”
She mumbled to herself like someone possessed, counting on her pale, trembling fingers. The sight was almost pitiful. At this rate, she looked ready to dig her own grave and climb right into the coffin.
“Catherine, calm down.”
I reached out, gently catching both of her hands and pulling them down.
“Leave the horse to me. I’ll see to it somehow.”