“Lord Sigiswald, it is about time for letters to arrive from the Royal Academy. I shall go acquire them.”
I was in a meeting with the northern giebes when a scholar murmured into my ear, then made for the teleportation hall. It was the perfect time to depart, I thought, so I took the hand of my wife Nahelache and turned to address the room.
“It would seem that Dregarnuhr the Goddess of Time is weaving her threads with exceptional smoothness today.”
“Oh? Is it that time already?” one of the giebes asked.
“A scholar has requested our presence, so duty calls... Please, continue your pleasantries for as long as you desire.”
Leaving behind an attendant and scholar each, Nahelache and I said our farewells, smiling all the while, and started toward the archduke’s office. We had concluded the important part of our meeting, so we were no longer needed as long as there was an attendant present to host our guests and a scholar to record their conversations. Having to find the proper time to leave had not changed since my days as royalty.
“Lord Sigiswald, Lady Nahelache—please rest here until the letters from the Royal Academy arrive,” said my head attendant, who had moved to Korinthsdaum from the royal palace.
At last, Nahelache and I could relax. We were in the presence of people we knew, able to enjoy tea brewed to our own preferences rather than those of our guests.
“Ahh...” I sighed. “This is even more tiring than I expected. First, there was much ado about sending students to the Royal Academy. Now, I must hold regular events for winter socializing so that the nobles can gather intelligence.”
It was my first winter since the Archduke Conference that had seen me made Aub Korinthsdaum. It was with tremendous difficulty that I performed my archducal duties, which differed so greatly from my role as crown prince.
Gathering the disparate giebes and listening to their grievances was one of the more important jobs of an archducal couple, it seemed. As a prince, I had received my fair share of petitions from nobles, so I thought I was a reasonably capable listener, but the constant stream of meetings and guests had grown a little tiresome.
“This is your first winter as an archduke, Lord Sigiswald. One can hardly blame you for being overwhelmed,” Nahelache said. “For the royal family, winters were mostly uneventful aside from closing the royal palace and participating in the Interduchy Tournament and graduation ceremony.”
“Mostly uneventful,” were they? For two years, the Sovereignty spent its winters navigating the absolute chaos that Rozemyne caused.
I chose to hold my tongue and nodded in agreement. “It certainly is true that being an aub is nothing like life in the royal palace. If not for your experience in Hauchletzte’s archducal family, Nahelache, I do not know where I would be.”
Korinthsdaum was a duchy made up of deposed territories under the Sovereignty’s management. One could say it had more mana-rich land than Old Werkestock, which now fell under Father’s rule, but there were other factors to balance the scale. Father had three wives, while Adolphine’s forceful divorce left me with only Nahelache.
“My advice can only do so much,” my wife said. “Having an archducal family with only two adults is a death sentence for any duchy. If only Lady Adolphine had not been so quick to divorce you—or rather, if only Lady Eglantine and Aub Drewanchel had not given her self-serving demand their permission—the burden on you now would not be so great.”
“In other words, to supply Korinthsdaum with the mana it needs and establish relationships with other duchies, I will need to take two wives from the archducal families of top-ranking duchies...” I mused.
Nahelache nodded, heaving a tired sigh. She regretted that her work as a first wife kept her from spending time with our young son, who was just as upset about the sudden changes to his life and environment.
“Being from Hauchletzte, I cannot hope to support you on my own,” she continued. “I can only bemoan how lacking I am.”
Adolphine was a member of our neighboring greater duchy’s archducal family. Had we retained her support, all of our burdens would have been considerably lessened.
But before that, had Ferdinand not prattled on about the new Zent giving their name to Rozemyne, I would be in charge right now. In the first place, should Rozemyne not have valued my opinion as the crown prince above Ferdinand’s and given me the Grutrissheit without question?
The more I thought about the past, the more I realized that everyone had thought too little of my being the crown prince. It was unjust, through and through—but now that Eglantine had the Grutrissheit, I could only embrace my future as Aub Korinthsdaum.
“I married you with the intention of serving as your second wife, but that plan was thwarted when Adolphine took her leave,” Nahelache said. “The burden of being a first wife is too great for me to bear alone.”
By marrying the crown prince—me—Nahelache had secured Hauchletzte a higher place in the duchy rankings. Now that I was no longer part of the royal palace, I suspected its upward trajectory would reverse a tad, but that didn’t change the expectations placed on Nahelache as my first wife. She would need to socialize with top-ranking duchies, which was by no means a strength of hers.
“Once again, Lady Hannelore of Dunkelfelger—now the country’s top-ranked duchy—is your ideal first wife,” Nahelache remarked. “She is the daughter of an aub’s first wife, so even her mana alone would aid us greatly. And as she is a fifth-year, it would not take too long for an engagement to bear fruit.”
In truth, I had intended to propose an engagement to Hannelore during the last Archduke Conference. Drewanchel had stopped me, though, insisting that it would be unsightly to plan another marriage so soon after an unexpected divorce. They had insisted that I wait a year, leaving me unable to pursue Hannelore or anyone else.
I had indirectly expressed my intention to marry Hannelore to Dunkelfelger’s first wife, only to receive no response. Perhaps her lack of comprehension was to blame. It was none of my business, but I could not help but wonder if she truly was fit to serve as the first wife of the top-ranking duchy.