At Excel’s manor in Lagoon City...
“Grandmother, please stop implying that you might be His Majesty’s mistress.”
It was the very day Excel had given her interview with ParSpo. Once the interviewer had left, Juna stepped out of the shadows where she had been watching and voiced her displeasure.
Excel hid her mouth behind her fan and gave a cheerful chuckle. “Oh, my. Juna, the reason I didn’t deny it outright was for your and His Majesty’s sakes, you realize?”
“Come again?”
“The people see me as a woman of many loves.”
“Because you are.”
“They think I’m inscrutable, a free spirit, a hedonist.”
“Which is also true.”
“They imagine it wouldn’t be strange if I took a liking to my granddaughter’s husband and laid hands on him for myself. That offends me a little, you know? I’ve never touched the husbands of my children or grandchildren. I’ve only ever shared a bed with the men I married.”
“...”
As Excel touched a hand to her chest and sighed, Juna’s face twisted into an awkward expression. She didn’t know what sort of look she should be wearing while listening to her grandmother talk about her history with men. It was a rare break in composure for Juna, who almost always wore a serene smile. Excel, unconcerned, carried on.
“If people believe I’m the so-called eighth queen, it prevents other, more dangerous rumors. Things may be peaceful now, but who knows if someone won’t try to exploit that opening in the future? By drawing their curiosity to myself, I’m shielding you from it.”
“I’m sure that’s one way of looking at it...”
Juna accepted part of Excel’s argument. But then she leaned forward slightly.
“So, how do you really feel?”
“All of your reactions when I pretend to be His Majesty’s secret mistress are just so funny.”
“Grandmother!”
Excel remained unabashed even as Juna scolded her. Despite her smile, Juna radiated an intensity that conjured the image of an intimidating statue looming behind her, arms crossed. Excel realized she might have teased her granddaughter a little too much.
“Now, now. Settle down. It’s true I’m acting as a shield for you, isn’t it?”
“...”
“And besides, isn’t it better for everyone if I draw the attention?”
Excel watched Juna closely as she spoke. Juna stayed silent for a moment, then let out a weary sigh. Apparently, Excel had a point. Excel sighed in relief.
“When it comes to His Majesty, you’re always so terrifying. You’re over thirty already, you know. Isn’t it about time you calmed down?”
“I’m still better than you, who hasn’t settled down even after living more than five hundred years.”
The grandmother and granddaughter stared each other down as they argued.
✦ ✦ ✦
Enough of that digression. If Excel was considered the leading candidate for the mysterious eighth queen, then her chief competitor was rumored to be one of the castle maids. There was historical precedent for kings and lords to take favorite maids as secondary partners. The rumors suggested this maid remained unacknowledged because she served one of the queens directly, and publicly elevating her might have angered them.
Incidentally, two famous maids—Serina, wife of Poncho Panacotta, and Carla, daughter of Castor and current captain of the Hiryuu—were excluded from the speculation. Serina was easily dismissed, as she was already married to one of Souma’s retainers. Carla, however, seemed a likelier target; as a former royal slave and a member of the House of Vargas, she had the right pedigree for rumors. Yet, given her family’s ties, it would have been far simpler to acknowledge her openly as a secondary queen rather than keep her a secret. Since that hadn’t happened, most agreed it wasn’t her either.
Thus, with Excel as the primary candidate and an unnamed maid as her rival, the third and most persistent rumor was that there was no eighth queen at all. The reason being that no matter how lecherous Souma was rumored to be, surely even he couldn’t manage to spend every night with a different queen.
Despite Souma having seven queens, there were no factional conflicts within the royal harem. Each queen energetically took the lead in her area of expertise. There were no whispers of cold relations either. The king and his queens, as well as the queens among themselves, all got along quite well.
Since it was unlikely that anyone was being left out of the nightly rotation, most assumed Souma spent seven nights a week with his queens. Thus, the “no eighth queen” faction insisted that on the rare remaining night, he simply rested. This theory was considered more plausible than the maid hypothesis, and many believed that if Excel wasn’t the eighth queen, this explanation was the truth. Still...it wasn’t all that exciting, and so it failed to capture much popular support.
As mentioned from the start, these were drunken ramblings. No one wanted a boring, sober answer.
Beyond the three main theories, wilder ones abounded—more a reflection of the speaker’s personal fetishes than reality. There was the claim that Souma had tried to make Tomoe, raised as everyone’s little sister, into the eighth queen, only for Ichiha to steal her away; the suggestion of a forbidden romance with the former queen, Elisha, who still appeared youthful despite being human; even whispers of homosexual affairs with Hakuya, Castor, or Ludwin. And so on, and so forth...
By that point, it was less gossip and more an airing of private fantasies, hardly worth listening to. The people who spouted such theories were usually well past tipsy, and drank themselves unconscious before reaching any conclusion.
Who was the eighth queen, really? Did she exist at all?
It would be some time yet before the world learned the answer.