“Thank you for inviting me,” I replied. “I’ve really been looking forward to this honey from the southern region you mentioned.”
“Hehe! That makes me happy. I pray that it’s to your liking.”
We smiled, exchanged greetings, and headed to a table that had been prepared in the courtyard.
Lucian drew the chair back for me to have a seat. Lady Fillia and I chatted for a while, but I was still having a hard time getting a good read on her. She was responding to me properly, but to be frank, that was all she was doing. It was impossible to dig deeper into what kind of person she was or how she felt about being a candidate for queen.
On the surface alone, she was a prim, proper, beautiful young lady—no one could say a bad word about her. However, the title of queen candidate wasn’t something an innocent girl like that could obtain so easily. I continued to make conversation as I watched Lady Fillia closely, waiting to catch a glimpse of her character.
“Hehe. I see. In that case, could I ask you to share your recommended shops and sweets throughout the royal capital?” I asked. “I’ve only been here a bit over a year, and I’m sure there’s plenty of nice places I haven’t visited yet.”
I made sure to emphasize the words “a bit over a year.” Still, she had no reaction. I’d spent the entire time trying to naturally bring up being “the temporary queen” that “only had a year left and was already halfway done.” But it went entirely ignored.
It was as if Lady Fillia had no intention of sharing her true thoughts with me at all. She kept a sweet smile on her face and responded only with careful answers.
This is irritating.
We finally had a chance to talk just the two of us, and I clearly wasn’t getting anywhere with a surface-level conversation. I decided to take the next step forward.
“I see. Those all sound like lovely shops,” I said, thanking her after she politely listed her recommendations. “I believe you lived in the royal capital when you were younger, right, Lady Fillia? Is that why you know so much about it?”
“Yes, perhaps that’s it. My father had yet to inherit his title at that point in time, so we spent most of our time in the royal capital instead of my family’s territory,” she said. “I quite enjoyed my time in the lively city whenever Father brought me there.”
“I’m sure your father was a man of good tastes as well. I can tell when I look at you. Are you still close with him now?” I inquired.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to speak as much these days. He lives in the family territory and isn’t very fond of writing letters.” Her eyebrows lowered slightly as she smiled.
It seemed the rumors were true. She wasn’t in very frequent contact with her father—a duke like my own father. One would think that he would be extremely curious about his daughter’s life since she moved to the castle to become a candidate for queen. Her every action could determine the fate of her family and their territory, after all.
Lady Fillia would also need to be in some sort of correspondence with her father if she planned to use his authority for her own benefit.
Despite all this, she told me they were rarely in contact.
I didn’t know if that was true or not, but I could guess why she might have revealed such a thing to me.
“My father and I don’t see things the same way.” I doubted she would reveal such a weakness to me, so perhaps it was something else. “I’m not so eager to claim the title of queen that I’m willing to keep up frequent correspondence with him.”
Lady Fillia had always been in the weakest position of all four candidates, and without her father’s full support, it would be impossible for her to be named the next queen.
She had two good reasons for falling behind the rest of the candidates.
The first was her being tripped up by the customs of this country. The previous king, King Glenreed’s father, had also done as was customary and gathered one queen candidate from each of the four regions of Wolfvarte. He selected one of these noblewomen to marry, making her his first queen. This previous first queen hailed from the dukedom in the southern region, just as Lady Fillia did.
Selecting two queens from the same region across successive generations would displease noble families from the other regions. So long as there were no other circumstances at play, it was customary to choose a candidate from one of the other three regions in the next generation.
The second reason was the crimes of the first queen.
The official story was that she had passed away in a landslide. But the truth was that she lost her life when she attempted to murder the third queen, King Glenreed’s mother. This was essentially accepted as truth amongst the nobility.
…It was actually a bit more complicated than that, but that was a story for another time.
The duke of the southern region at that time was the queen’s older brother, and her crimes forced him to renounce his title—a title inherited by Lady Fillia’s father next.
That was how it ended on paper, but in truth, Lady Fillia’s family went through internal disputes about who would take the title. This family quarrel resulted in their dukedom being weakened once it was all said and done.
It was entirely possible that Lady Fillia spent her childhood in the royal capital to avoid interference or even assassination at the hands of a relative. She came from the same region as the former queen, and her family’s power wasn’t what it once was. This left Lady Fillia at a disadvantage against the other candidates, but maybe she hadn’t completely given up hope either.
I processed all this information while Lady Fillia had to leave her seat for a moment.
She would have to implement some sort of backup plan if she accepted that she had no chance of being selected as the next queen.
Marrying the king wasn’t the only means of gaining political influence.
If she knew she wasn’t going to be queen, she could work with the other candidates to be granted a favorable position once one of them married King Glenreed. It wasn’t much more than riding the victor’s coattails, but even still, Lady Fillia seemed to be maintaining only the bare minimum of relationships with the rest of them.