“Princess Luna! You can’t fill teacups to the brim like that!”
“Could you maybe worry about me first?” Lyle protested.
Aina scolded Luna while mopping up the spilled tea. Meanwhile, Cruyff stepped in and quietly replaced the drinks, leaving Lyle to dry off on his own.
“Would you mind telling me why the two of you are dressed like that and hanging around my house?” I asked.
“Of course; one moment, please,” Cruyff said. “Prince Lyle, where are you going? You still need to explain things to Master Tenma. Please stand behind me quietly.”
Lyle had tried to sneak out, but Cruyff had stopped him.
“The truth is, these two have been undergoing butler and maid training under Queen Maria’s orders. Of course it hasn’t been every day due to their respective responsibilities at school and work. Today just happened to be the day they were being tested. We were supposed to determine whether or not to extend their training.”
I didn’t know what these two had done to piss off the queen, but it must’ve been pretty bad. Either that or their past behavior had finally caught up to them.
“So how are they doing?”
“Atrociously,” Cruyff said without hesitation.
And judging by how hard the two of them took his answer, they’d clearly been confident they’d been doing well. Being told that the exact opposite was true really took the wind out of their sails.
“Well, poor performance aside, I will admit they worked hard. That much is a fact.”
They managed to smile hearing that from him, but...
“The final decision rests with Queen Maria, of course. I’ll simply be reporting the facts to her.”
Cruyff’s final words made that glimmer of hope vanish immediately. Luna’s and Lyle’s faces were now filled with despair.
“Looks like you’ve got your hands full,” I said. “Anyway, I understand. Now, putting that matter aside, I brought back some souvenirs. I wanted to hand them out.”
“But don’t you have something important to report to Queen Maria, Master Tenma?”
“Oh yeah. There is something like that.”
I did have something very important to share with the royal family—an incident that had happened while I had been dealing with the margrave’s request.
“I think it’s best if you deliver the message to Queen Maria personally. If you’re not too tired, I recommend going now. Her Majesty has surely been waiting to hear from you,” Cruyff said.
“All right. I’ll go get ready, then.”
I quickly explained the situation to Gramps and Jeanne. I told them to put on clean clothes, and I changed out of my own dirty outfit. I stuffed the souvenirs into my magic bag and then told Cruyff I was ready.
He was surprised to see Jeanne with me, but once I told him that she was involved in the matter I needed to report to the queen, he nodded in understanding.
“Tenma, I wanna go too!”
“Next time, Amur. I’m sure Queen Maria will want to hear your side of things too. But right now, Jeanne’s version comes first,” I told her.
“Ugh. Fine.” Amur reluctantly backed down.
Gramps, Jeanne, and I followed Cruyff to the carriage.
Aina wouldn’t be going to the castle today as she would be staying behind a bit longer to oversee Luna and Lyle’s training. I told her that Aura would be resting today and starting her duties again tomorrow. She nodded, even though she was obviously just itching to put Aura to work right away. I caught her glancing sideways at Aura’s joyful cheers more than once.
I saw Luna nearby, and she looked like she wanted to say something but couldn’t bring herself to step forward. That was probably because as a trainee maid, she had to mind her place.
“If it’s about earlier, Luna, don’t worry. I won’t mention your little slipup to the queen.”
After I tried to reassure her, she shook her head. Apparently, that wasn’t the issue.
“Huh? Oh, you mean the souvenirs! We brought back wyvern meat. The palace chefs should be cooking it up tomorrow,” I said.
“Really? That’s gre—er, I mean...” She looked excited for a second, but it seemed like that wasn’t what she wanted to talk about either.
Okay, this is turning into a blind guessing game.
Still, Cruyff was waiting on me, so all I could do was apologize and hop into the carriage.
Cruyff was driving while we sat inside.
“Master Merlin, Master Tenma, I see Kriss up ahead,” he said.
I leaned out the window. There Kriss was, standing with some guy. It looked like they were arguing.
“Should we ignore them?” Cruyff asked.
I smelled trouble, so I was ready to do just that. But then, Kriss turned around. Our eyes met.
“Cruyff, full speed ahead!” I yelled. “Dodge!”
“Unfortunately, that’s not possible. Kriss has already noticed us, and she’s heading this way.”
Even if we could outrun her in a straight line, we were still in the middle of the city. There wasn’t a lot of room for sharp turns, so she’d board the carriage in no time.
“Fine, just stop here,” I said. “She can at least walk over to us.”
Thirty seconds later, Kriss power walked right to the carriage.
“Kriss of the king’s guard, reporting back for duty!”
“Understood. Please resume your escort assignment.”
She saluted Cruyff and was about to board the carriage when...
“Kristina! I’m not finished talking to you!”
The man she was arguing with came rushing over. However...
“Did you not hear me when I said I was resuming my duties with the king’s guard?” she began. “The passenger in this carriage is a guest of the royal family! Interfering with a guard’s duty to protect that guest could be considered an act of disrespect towards the crown. Are you prepared for that? Also, my name is Kriss. Not Kristina! And while you may be a baronet, members of the king’s guard are granted nobility equivalent to a baron or higher directly from His Majesty. Do you know what that means?”
She had an icy look on her face, and her eyes were sharper than I’d ever seen. Honestly, if that guy had taken one more step forward, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had drawn her sword.
“Kriss, I’d like to get to the castle sometime today,” I said. “Queen Maria’s expecting us.”
“I’m sorry about that. Let’s go.”
Maybe it was me mentioning Queen Maria, or maybe the guy was just finally realizing how angry she was, but either way, he didn’t press her any further. However, with the way he glared at Kriss as he left, I could tell he wasn’t satisfied.
Kriss, on the other hand, acted like he no longer existed and calmly stepped into the carriage.
The moment the carriage started moving, Kriss was right back to her usual self.
“Thanks for saving me back there,” she said. “I was this close to murdering that guy. He just wouldn’t leave me alone! If you all hadn’t passed by, I might’ve actually gone through with it.”
“But who was that guy, Kriss? And what was with that whole Kristina thing?” I asked.
Kriss made a bitter face like she didn’t want to answer, but she probably felt obligated to since we’d bailed her out.
“He used to be my father. And Kristina was what they called me when I was a kid,” she said, glancing away. I recalled her having told us that she’d cut off ties to her family because they tried to use her for their own personal gain, but it seemed like reality was even worse than I’d imagined.