Risou no Himo Seikatsu - Volume 11 - Chapter 4.2

Several days later, Zenjirou had mostly put the matter of Lucretia Broglie’s vexing request from his mind and was slumped opposite his wife in the living room. He let out a long sigh.

“I’ve sent her back to the Twin Kingdoms for now, so we just need to wait for the reply.”

“Well done, Zenjirou. Now the final two people are decided. After all, a daughter of the Broglie family could hardly travel alone.”

Seeing a glimmer of hope, Zenjirou asked a question. “Uh, Aura? She made the request on her own and she’s back in the Twin Kingdoms asking for permission to actually go through with it. Why are we just assuming that it’s a done deal?”

His wife turned a pitying gaze on him, but her words were calm. “Because the Twin Kingdoms have no reason to refuse her request. She is not so valuable a piece that they cannot afford to lose her, and thanks to your set of magic tools, such a loss is unlikely in the first place. With their desire for more information on the Northern Continent, her request is perfect.”

“Yeah...that figures,” he replied, slumping even further back into the sofa. He’d had some idea of that. Naturally, it assumed that Aura’s estimation of their desire for such information was accurate. If it was, though, sending someone in was practically a requirement. “But why didn’t they make the request themselves?” Zenjirou asked in sudden realization.

They could have requested that Freya take an ambassador as part of the payment for the magic tools she had been given. She would have been unlikely to refuse them.

The queen’s expression sharpened slightly before she gave a cautious answer. “There are several possibilities, but I believe they see the Northern Continent’s influence as a threat. Therefore, while they want information, they likely do not want to do something so overt as sending an official ambassador.”

Lucretia’s request was a personal one. It let the Twin Kingdoms minimize their involvement. Above all else, she was going with Zenjirou, the prince consort of Capua. If her technical heritage wasn’t spread and she kept up her pretense of being a Broglie by blood, she could quite easily hide in his shadow.

“If only we had some way of turning her down...” Zenjirou complained, looking up at the ceiling.

“Unfortunately, she is here as a guest. If the princess grants her permission, we are in no position to gainsay her,” Aura said regretfully.

While her surprise at the request was plain to see, it was of benefit to her as well. They had learned much about both the Lulled Sea and the water purification tool, but Lucretia still knew more. Having someone familiar with magic tools on the ship’s maiden voyage with such things aboard was a big deal.

She also probably harbored some hopes of securing a trade deal with the Twin Kingdoms for the potential of more, in which case, directly taking someone to forge friendly ties with her father and brother would be perfect.

“So I should probably assume she’ll be on board. She’s going to try and start things, isn’t she?”

The “start” Zenjirou was referring to was in the sense of a man and woman. They would be on a trip that was nearly one hundred days in length one way. Being on the same ship, there was every possibility that Lucretia would work towards her aim of securing him.

“I would not be so sure. She is dedicated to her goal in her entirety. She may realize that it would be possible to earn your ire in such close proximity and therefore lose everything.”

“That’d mean she hasn’t given up on me at all. Considering my main goal, I’d rather she just stayed as out of the way as much as possible.”

Zenjirou’s primary goal on this trip to Uppasala was to convince Freya’s father—the king of the country—to allow him to marry the princess. It went without saying that asking for the hand of the country’s first princess while being nothing but a prince consort was a rather difficult prospect. Bringing someone else from another country who also wanted to be his concubine would almost certainly make things even more difficult.

“Still, I did promise,” he mused, bringing his right hand up to his face.

Around his wrist was a plain metal bangle. The Windhammer, a strong magic tool given to him by Princess Margarita of the Twin Kingdoms. It resulted in a momentary powerful tempest. It was strong enough that it could even push back a knight mounted on a dash drake.

He had tried it once in the inner palace’s gardens, but it had caused so much damage that he had wanted to apologize to the maids.

It wasn’t unlimited, of course, but it could be used in quick succession and was perhaps the best kind of magic tool for a rank amateur in physical combat like him.

“Princess Margarita. She is Lucretia’s older sister if I remember correctly,” Aura commented.

“Yeah.”

Margarita was considered to be on the same level as Francesco, and she had made a single request in exchange for giving him the Windhammer: to “be there” for her sister. Or to be more specific, to accept her invitations three times.

Of course, those invitations did not need to be deep things, just simple requests to spend time together and such. With that in mind, he could not bluntly turn Lucretia away.

He sighed. “Well, technically, it was a request to Princess Freya, but I’m counting that as the first invitation,” he complained.

Aura had started with a rueful smile, but her expression morphed into a serious one as she listened to him complain. “Zenjirou, are you so against Lucretia as a concubine?”

“What? I mean, I’m against having a concubine in general, not just Lucretia.”

The response was so fast that it was practically delivered instinctually. Aura’s face reverted to a half smile.

“I understand that. I still hope you will listen to my wishes for the country, though. You accepted Princess Freya, did you not? You even agreed to the dangerous trip between our continents for it. It is rather unfair for me to ask this of you, but are you fond of her?”

It was a horribly difficult question to answer, but she was asking it as the queen of the country, so he could not stay silent.

“Well, I guess so. She’s cute and not a bad person. She’s assertive but doesn’t try and get in too close. She’s also someone I can respect.”

From what he had heard, the Northern Continent was roughly as patriarchal as the Southern Continent. Freya had risen in that society to the position of a captain while still in her teens—even if it technically was a figurehead position—and even succeeded in an intercontinental crossing. That took willpower and courage, and it was a great achievement. That was more than enough for him to respect her.

Aura nodded in satisfaction. “In comparison, the more fundamental problem with Lucretia is that you hold no affection for her. Or so it seems. What of Princess Bona?”

At this point, it was nothing more than a possibility, but it was entirely feasible that he would need to take someone from the Twin Kingdoms as a matter of state. If Lucretia was just too incompatible with him, it would only serve to harm the country. While political marriages were a literal marriage of the politics between two countries, it was still a marriage involving a man and woman. Being such a marriage, if there were irreconcilable differences, it could fall apart.

If the man was willing to just keep his wife shut away within the inner palace until she died, then it wouldn’t cause any political harm. But Zenjirou was far from that type of man. Therefore, as the country’s queen, Aura needed to know his feelings. She needed to keep the possibility of the potentially necessary political marriage breaking down as low as possible.

Zenjirou took her question as seriously as it was asked, looking inside himself and considering everything with his eyes closed. “No. It’s relative, but I would say that Lucretia would be better.”

It was an unexpected response, and one of Aura’s eyebrows rose. “Really? It seemed to me that Princess Bona left a better impression on you.”

“Well, that’s true,” he admitted with a shrug. “I just don’t think she’d accept a political marriage to me, though. In comparison, affection aside, Lucretia’s as eager for it as can be. If I had to choose one of them, at least Lucretia is willing and we could find some common ground.”

There was a long pause. “I see,” Aura replied eventually, accepting what he had said.

However, she was internally nowhere near as calm. Her palms were clammy and her heart was beating much faster than normal. She remembered hearing a similar answer and thought process before.

It wouldn’t do any good to invite his displeasure by outright saying it, so she didn’t, but he sounded just like a girl of a royal or noble family with expectations from her family. In truth, he was picking the least harmful of the options given, without actually taking his own feelings into account. Choosing based on the prospect’s feelings towards him rather than vice versa. After all, that was safer.

It was how people who knew that they wouldn’t get the best result thought. Aura repeatedly clenched and unclenched her hands under the table, getting the blood flowing back to her fingers. Judging from the plain, self-deprecating smile on his face, Zenjirou likely hadn’t realized this. He had given up on his wife and superior actually giving him what he wanted.

Thinking back on things, when their opinions had clashed, it had almost always ended up with the shield of it being “for the country’s benefit” and Zenjirou capitulating.

“When I have given birth, I will start acting in earnest. The succession in the Twin Kingdoms will likely be over by next year, so I can negotiate in person with King Bruno once he has hung up his crown. I can feel out their intentions and what they want from an alliance, in treaties and in trade, before coming to a decision.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard. Whatever Princess Isabella says, childbirth is still a matter of life and death,” he warned her.

“I know. Thank you,” she replied as she met his look of earnest love, unable to shake the imagined future of that look changing someday.