“Yes, Your Majesty,” a corps member replied.
The member shoved a bit of tablecloth into the woman’s mouth and resumed slamming her face onto the table. I kept my smile plastered on my face as I cast a sweeping glance at the other bureaucrats who were at the table. After I gazed at everyone present, my eyes settled upon a certain noble.
“What is the meaning of this?” my gaze implied. I said not a word as I silently cornered the noble. I could practically hear her internally screaming that she was just getting caught in the crossfire of this incident, but I ignored it all and demanded an answer.
“She’s a newcomer,” the noble explained. “She knows not that Crown Princess Anastasia and Duke Astarte favor Sir Polidoro.”
“While that in and of itself is an issue, that’s not all, is it?” I asked.
“No, Your Majesty. If my memory serves, the reason she’s here with us today is because her mother failed to negotiate peace with Villendorf. Her mother took responsibility for her ineptitude and allowed her daughter to take charge of the household.”
Precisely. This puny newcomer was allowed to be present at this important meeting for one reason, and one reason only. Her mother had failed to negotiate peace, and I’d thought that her family would like to see this ordeal through to the end. This lady was permitted to be here purely as a token of my benevolence.
Your mother screwed up, only for Sir Polidoro to sell his body and clean up after you. And now you dare say that you’re glad that this matter ended and everything is resolved? What the hell are you saying? What kind of goddamn mental gymnastics do you need to do? A person with any sense at all would have first praised Sir Polidoro for his feats and then pleaded that I reward him handsomely for his deed.
Yet she had the gall to insult his appearance. Was she so lost in her own delusions? Despite my smile, my heart trembled with rage.
“I shall ask everyone here. Feel free to answer,” I said. “Are the younger generation all insulting Sir Polidoro to such a horrible degree? Or am I expecting too much from my subjects? Are you all simply fools who know no better? Do none of you have the right to live as you silently sit around in this meeting today?”
“You’ve got it all wrong!” a noble cried. “Your Majesty, I ask that you don’t misunderstand. At least in my household, I’ve told everyone that Sir Polidoro is the hero of our nation who saved us from the savage clutches of Villendorf. I’ve taught all my daughters as much—if any of them dared to even throw a single insulting word at the knight, I wouldn’t mind if you beheaded her on the spot, Your Majesty. In fact, I would take the initiative and behead her first.”
“Then why, pray tell, did this nonsense just occur?”
This is a serious discussion. I won’t allow you to lie or weasel your way out of this. I flashed a smile and quietly exerted my pressure over the room.
“However, though it genuinely pains me to say, it is true that there are newcomers like her who question how a man like him can be a hero with his unsightly appearance,” the noble added. “Those who insult him are not few in number.”
“Is that sentiment shared only among the Nobles of the Robe?” I inquired.
“I believe so. All the feudal lords who honor the fief protection contract with Anhalt are frankly dissatisfied with how Sir Polidoro is being treated.”
I much preferred their mindset to that of this foolish lady in front of me who’d dared to vocalize her stupidity. I glanced at my corps, and the sound of the newcomer’s face banging against the table ceased. Fresh blood covered the tablecloth, and fragments of chipped teeth were scattered everywhere.
“Was her mother competent?” I asked.
“Without a doubt, Your Majesty,” a corps member replied. “It was Crown Princess Anastasia who chose that woman to negotiate with Villendorf—she was skilled in negotiation and in combat. Her talents were splendid; when she failed to negotiate peace, she personally took responsibility for her faults. Out of shame at being unable to fulfill her role, she acted on her own initiative and had her daughter succeed her household. Her noble actions make her splendor clear.”
“Then this newcomer is simply too stupid to understand her mother’s words, it seems. I was considering crushing her household entirely, but very well. I don’t wish to see her face ever again. Take her away.”
Her face was dyed scarlet from her blood, and she’d passed out from the pain. Two of my corps members carried her out of the room.
“Tell her household to choose a new successor,” I ordered. “And let them know that I never want to see the face of this foolish woman ever again. Let them know that should this incident be repeated, their house will burn to the ground within a day, and their entire family shall be wiped off the face of this world.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” my corps member replied.
As they headed out the door, I turned to everyone else in the room. My smile still remained etched on my face.
“You should once again engrave into your minds that Sir Polidoro is to be lauded as a hero who saved our kingdom,” I said. “He is also the one who negotiated peace. The next person who dares to insult him, be they a page boy of relation to you, shall be beheaded on the spot. You have my express permission to do so.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the remaining nobles said.
They trembled under my gaze. I didn’t expect anyone near me to be so bafflingly stupid, but it was better to be safe than sorry. It was essential that I hammered this mindset into the heads of relatives and subjects. No one wanted their household to be crushed simply due to the misfortune of being associated with the wrong person. As I watched the fear permeate throughout the room, I was relieved to see that I had handled the matter correctly. My smile faded as I reverted to my usual expressionless and brazen demeanor.
“But Your Majesty,” a noble said.
“What?” I asked.
The elderly noble, a prominent figure of our kingdom, tried to offer a word of advice.
“What shall we do to reward Sir Polidoro?” she inquired. “A half-baked reward will cause the lords, Nobles of the Robe, and any with decent intelligence to question the kingdom itself. The daughter of a useless noble cannot possibly be suitable for Sir Polidoro’s wife. And we must consider the knight’s feelings as well.”
“I know,” I replied.
I had to switch gears. At once, a name popped into my mind.
“Valiele,” I muttered.
Anyone—literally any idiot could’ve immediately thought of her name. Valiele had already abandoned her claim to the throne. Some people of Anastasia’s faction wished to shove Valiele into a monastery, but neither Anastasia nor I wished to do that anymore. There was no denying that Valiele was my precious, adorable daughter, and Anastasia had finally realized that she had a younger sister. I’d planned on giving her a small plot of land from the royal territory and letting her live the remainder of her life in tranquil peace. If she visited me every now and then to show me her kids, that would be good enough.
“That’s a very good plan,” an elderly noble said.
It was in response to my daughter’s name, and the noble seemed to have understood my plans. Valiele would marry into Sir Polidoro’s family. Since she would have to take Faust’s household name, she would lead a new life as Valiele von Polidoro. However, I wasn’t sure if Anastasia and Astarte would sit back and allow that to happen.
Furthermore, it would seem like the royal family had accepted a noble of low standing into their ranks. Anastasia and Astarte’s plan of making Sir Polidoro their paramour was already pushing the limits. Since Faust von Polidoro was a hero from the Campaign of Villendorf, we could force him into the role of Anastasia’s paramour when she claimed the throne, but this was clearly starting to cross a line.
While he’d negotiated peace with Villendorf this time around—an exceptional feat—I still wasn’t sure if the royal princess could marry such a low-ranking subject. I struggled to come up with a firm answer, especially since another pressing issue loomed over my head.
“Valiele’s the last person I want to hand him over to,” I mumbled.
“Pardon?” a noble asked.
“Forget it.”
Valiele was my precious daughter, but she was also the girl who would sleep in the same bed as my late husband, Robert. Since she was a young child, she’d snuck into our bed and clung to him as she fell asleep. Frankly, I was jealous. She was my adorable child, but I couldn’t understand why she clung to him—I should’ve been in her position holding my husband. And Sir Polidoro resembled Robert very closely. I didn’t want my man to be taken away by her once more.
“I shall retract what I declared,” I said. “Please, give me some time to think about this situation.”
I didn’t have to reach a decision right this instant. I had to respect my daughter’s wishes, and Faust’s as well. His bloodline had persisted for generations, and if royal blood entered his household, he could rebuild the relationships with noble society that were once lost when his late beloved mother, Marianne, was lord of the house. There were numerous benefits to this deal, and I couldn’t see him declining the offer, but I still wanted to know what his desires were, just in case. I continued to make excuses to myself as I delayed judgment over Sir Polidoro’s wife.