Chapter 05: First Step Outside
A few days later at noon.
In a room deep inside the palace, Zenjirou stood in front of the kneeling young knight and called out to him with a voice as dignified as possible.
The name of the knight that was kneeling before Zenjirou.
His braced features gave the impression that he was honest and serious, but hardly anyone would be brave enough to relax his features during an oath ceremony in front of a direct royalty. It would be dangerous to judge his character from the first impression alone.
The well-forged iron blade reflected the sunlight shining in from the windows, and sparkled.
Zenjirou patted the shoulders of the kneeing Otario one after another with the flat surface of the drawn sword, then slowly sheathed it again.
“I hereby swear to be yours to command, to put my life on the line, to never defy your orders, to never stray from the righteous path and to never be afraid of a distress.”
Thus, the oath ceremony of Knight Otario ended without a hitch.
After Knight Otario left the room of the palace, Zenjirou made a sigh of relief, so small that no one near could hear it. He somehow managed to get over it without committing any mistakes.
Zenjirou shivered his body reflexively when the middle-aged man with a slender face— Secretary Fabio, standing in attendance behind him, called out to him.
For Zenjirou, they rather seemed to show something on the lines of “I’m keeping a close watch on every single movement of the stallion, who came out unwanted, so he doesn’t do anything stupid”.
From their first meeting until now, the middle-aged man had only taken an attitude that could never be misunderstood as favourable, so Zenjirou, too, unconsciously ended up harbouring negative feelings more than necessary.
Zenjirou opened his mouth while he recalled the proper response as a royalty that he had learned in his lessons with Octavia, in his mind.
He turned about and asked that, whereat Secretary Fabio asserted while keeping his stony mask as always.
“Yes. From now on, Knight Otario will be a direct henchman to you, Zenjirou-sama, while at the same time he serves for the Dragonback Archery Knights. The salary for a royal henchman accounts for twenty large silver coins per year, so it surely will be a great asset for the Maldonado Family.
“Oh, he gets an extra salary?”
“Yes. A knight’s loyalty is bought with money after all.”
Zenjirou tilted his a bit puzzled and inquired further.
“Of course it does not come from money alone. The words of the master strengthen the loyalty and the actions of the master maintain it. However, the foundation is kept up through money to the bitter end. Loyalty will not be established without the base of money.”
It was disillusioning, but the knights without an own piece of land, only lived from the salary they received from the country. Bravery and loyalty were literally for sale and needed to fetch a price as high as possible.
With his inexpressive mask, Secretary Fabio watched Zenjirou as he nod convinced, and called out to him with a verbal expression of suddenly recalling something.
Zenjirou shivered inside again upon the sudden topic chance while he replied without letting it show on his face or in his tone.
“Yes. Our Carpa Kingdom has scattered landholdings under the direct control of the royalty, besides the capital and its outskirts. The lord of these lands is Her Highness Aura at the present time and governors are installed there, but as royalty, you have the right to take them over, Zenjirou-sama. Though your accession of them would only last for your lifetime.”
“It will be redundant when you stay inside the inner palace like you have so far, but when you increase your activities outside from now on, you would certainly need your own title and a capital you can spent freely. Not to mention, an independent source of funds will be essential should you desire to add more henchman like Knight Otario.”
Zenjirou was immersed in his thoughts.
Considering that he was the “loyal retainer of the Queen”, it was obviously weird, even if he had a point.
The Prince Consort had a status and income of his own, levying an army of his own with that income.
(Is he suspicious of me? No, it’s too obvious, even if that’s the case. If anything, he’s giving me a warning, I guess, in a roundabout manner)
While he pondered like that, the secretary stood at attention and suspiciously watched his every movement with his strict eyes.
As he had sworn loyalty to Aura, he was trustworthy, but when he gave him a cold glare of suspicion like this, Zenjirou felt uncomfortable and fearful.
Zenjirou knew at least that this wasn’t the place to be obstinate and give an uncooperative answer, so he cleared his throat once with an affected cough, then honestly denied it.
“However, I thought you had made up your mind to leave the inner palace to be of use to Her Highness Aura? Excuse me for saying this, but even when you are Her Highness’s consort and acknowledged as a direct royalty, your repertoire of what you can accomplish is rather limited without a title.”
“…Even if that’s the case, it’s a problem to be discussed between my wife and I. You’ve no right to propose it to me over her head.”
“…Yes, please forgive me for speaking out of line.”
His inexpressive mask crumbled for a tiny bit and revealed a smile as he deeply lowered his head towards Zenjirou.
A few hours later. The sunlight, shining in from the windows, started to get a sunset tinge, when Secretary Fabio visited Aura, who was attending to her duties in her office.
Aura only glanced at him as he bowed curtly while remaining seated at her desk.
The young and serious-looking man standing behind her— her second secretary Alejandro handed Secretary Fabio the pack of dragonskin parchments he was holding, upon his master’s words.
“Okay. I will take over from here on.”
After handing the dragonskin parchments to the middle-aged first secretary, the second secretary sincerely bowed once, then left.
“Did you fare with Alejandro well, Your Highness?”
“Quite so. His conduct is rather adorable, unlike yours. Still, he is not all that ‘quick on the uptake’ for his job yet. If I were to be feeling well, it would be alright to have him around to let him get accustomed to it, but right now he can fulfil a substitute role at best.”
“Understood. I will do my utmost from now on to teach him, so that he will meet your standards.”
Aura had known Fabio for a long time, so she subtly sensed his burning passion for teaching the younger generation behind his stony mask, and pitied the young secretaries a bit.
“Do that. By the way, how did it go?”
“Very well. The oath ceremony of Knight Otario finished without a hitch. Zenjirou-sama has already returned into the inner palace.”
“I see. Glad to hear. So, let me hear your opinion. How did my husband come across to you?”
However, now that Zenjirou had made up his mind to be more active outside of the inner palace to a reasonable degree, it was necessary to inquire what kind of impression her loyal retainer with the stony mask had of him.
“Very well. It appears that he is somewhat accustomed to keep up appearances from the outset. Due to that, I believe that he will not commit any fatal mistakes if we were to entrust official matters to him.
The secretary talked swiftly in a fluent speech, then temporarily stopped and added some more at the end after a short shrug of his shoulders.
Aura showed a sullen face and buried her head in her hands when her secretary said so blatantly.
The Queen took her hands off her face and supported her chin with them, immersing herself in her thoughts with a serious expression. In reaction, Secretary Fabio twisted the corners of his mouth into a faint smile and said bantering.
Aura discerned from his tone that Zenjirou must have said that and replied with a small smile.
She gave him a favourable impression like that, but in fact, Zenjirou hadn’t really acted with prudence in mind. He simply was aware of the fact that Aura and him may be on equal terms in private, but had a distinct distribution of roles, namely superior and inferior, in public.
“Would it not be alright to let him succeed the title ‘Duke of Valentia’, considering his position as your husband?”
“Fabio, refrain from testing me. Do not worry, I have no intention to grant my husband that much power. At least while I sit on the throne, the dukedom of ‘Valentia’ and the county of ‘Potosi’ will remain under my control. I will not pass them on to anyone.”
Being scolded by the Queen, the secretary shrugged his shoulders lightly without showing any sign of repentance, and evaluated her decision like that.
The independent royal income from them exceedingly strengthened Aura’s power in this feudal state. It would be nothing but a foolish move to entrust one of these two major sources of revenue to someone else besides her, even her husband.
Aura frowned when her secretary pointed that out, but she was sane enough to just nod to it.
Detached lands originally tended to be an good breeding ground for corruption or revolts, but the reason why it functioned exceptionally well without problems in the Carpa Kingdom was the “teleportation” spell amongst the magic that the members of the royal family could use.
But at the present time, the Queen aka Aura was the only person in the Carpa Kingdom, who could use “teleportation”. In that sense, it was desirable, too, that Zenjirou learned magic and many children with a direct bloodline were born.
“Well, yeah. Fortunately, that matter is progressing well. And I did not feel sick even once today either. According to Doctor Michelle, I already have the toughest phase of the morning sickness behind me.”
“Glad to hear that. Come to think of it, you personally met the envoy from the Twin Kingdom today, did you not? What did he say?”
The diplomatic differences with the Twin Kingdom. To find a point of compromise over what to do with the latent power of the “Bestowal Magic” that Zenjirou had, they had held a secret meeting today.
“First of all, my initial impression was that they do not intend to restraint our child. But they seem to be ready to intervene if my husband were to make a child with someone else than me.”
That reaction was what he had anticipated from the beginning. Convinced, Secretary Fabio inquired further.
Aura shrugged her shoulders once more and honestly shook her head.
This is nothing definite, but my gut feeling tells me that they are more focussed on winning over the ‘Space-Time Magic’ bloodline for their own country rather than trying to prevent that our country keeps the ‘Bestowal Magic’ bloodline.”
Of course, that was only an excuse from their side, while Aura had her own excuses.
To begin with, Zenjirou hadn’t intentionally stolen their bloodline or anything, so they had no reason to comply any further. Logically speaking, the Twin Kingdom had sent Aura and Zenjirou their “blessings” when they had married, so they had no right to complain about his bloodline now. That said, Aura didn’t expect either that foreign affairs followed such prim rules.
“No idea. It is hard to say anything at this point. I am afraid that we will talk past each other for a while longer. After all, there is a ‘bloodline magic’ at stake. We both cannot yield for various reasons.
After saying that, Aura craned her neck again while still leaning against the backrest.
“In the worst case, it might not even reach a conclusion in your lifetime.”
“…If possible, I would like to avoid that. The longer it takes to solve a matter like this, the more both sides will see the legitimacy of their own claims and stop compromising. I would rather not see that the generation of my child will spark the next great war.”
“We can only prepare ourselves for a drawn-out argument. I am restricted until I give birth anyway and making overhasty decisions is never good. Further on, it will be troublesome when the secret gets out by chance. I am sure you can imagine what someone like Puyol would say if he were to get wind of this?”
“…He would gleefully push a concubine onto Zenjirou-sama for sure. In order to actively steal the ‘Bestowal Magic’.”
It was quite likely that the moderate faction, anxious about the Twin Kingdom, would be cast aside.
Aura mumbled as if to convince herself and unconsciously stroke her stomach holding the child with her right hand.