Chapter 41:
The Melancholy of Valiele
HER OFFICIAL NAME WAS PRINCESS VALIELE VON Anhalt, but we called her “Princess Val” for short. She looked dead within the villa of the Reckenbell manor. The lavish guest room had enough space for all of us corps members as Princess Val sank into her bed and refused to stand back up.
“Just kill me. I’d love to die, seriously,” Princess Val said.
She buried herself in the bed. It’s probably best if she removes her shoes, I thought.
“Please regain your cool, Princess Val. Oops, I mean, Princess Valiele,” I said.
“Excuse me? Did you just call me ‘Princess Val’?” Her Highness asked.
The corps shortened her name behind her back as a form of endearment. As a member of the corps, I, too, used the affectionate nickname, but I’d accidentally let it slip in front of the royal princess. She remained within her bed, face down, as she spoke to me.
“Your Highness, you need not be so glum,” I consoled. “Peace negotiations were successful.”
“Yeah. We successfully sacrificed Faust, all right,” Princess Val replied. “I haven’t done a single thing.”
Sir Faust von Polidoro, her advisor, hadn’t seemed to expect much in the way of negotiation skills from her anyway. He clearly had an idea of what was within her capabilities and what wasn’t, and he jumped to conclusions about her limits. Even if he stole precious roses from the garden of Queen Liesenlotte’s beloved late husband and offered his present in a room filled with high-ranking nobles of an enemy kingdom, he didn’t expect Princess Val to do much.
Crown Princess Anastasia or Duke Astarte would’ve internally berated him for his acts of idiocy but maintained their composure. Only Princess Val would lose her cool so genuinely and look truly panicked by her situation. In other words, Sir Polidoro had placed Princess Val in the role of a jester, and he’d acted with that in mind.
I wasn’t angry about that. It had been a necessary plan to melt Queen Catalina’s frozen heart and successfully make peace. Ultimately, I had no way of knowing how much of this had gone according to Sir Polidoro’s plan, unless he was willing to divulge that to me himself. But everything had gone smoothly for him, and he’d been successful in his endeavor. However…
“I don’t care if Mother scolds me later. That bit doesn’t matter,” Princess Val moaned. “I made Faust shoulder everything again.”
We’d had to sacrifice Sir Polidoro’s chastity in the process. The hero of Anhalt was unpopular in his own kingdom to the point where some nobles would heartlessly hurl insults at him. Even so, he probably didn’t get off on spreading his legs for some unknown woman whom he cared nothing about. He’d only spoken loudly and passionately in the throne room because of his heightened emotions; he was usually more modest and serious in his demeanor. He was twenty-two and still managed to protect his purity and virginity, after all.
Sure, he’d sleep with the queen of an enemy nation, but no one wanted to just become a sperm bank. Admittedly, he didn’t seem to hate the queen; in fact, he sympathized with her, for they came from similar circumstances. Even I, an idiot who’d barely received a proper education for a knight and joined Her Highness’s corps, could see that. Sir Polidoro had attained peace by sacrificing himself. There was no other way to describe it.
“Uh, will Faust’s reputation plummet because of this?” Princess Val wondered.
“It will, but that’s not all,” Zabine interjected. “The Anhaltish royal family’s reputation will also suffer.”
Our captain looked pale, and I couldn’t blame her. The man she’d fallen in love with would have to spread his legs for another woman. Still, it was quite normal in this world for a man to be shared by several women—I felt like she was overreacting to this turn of events. If all she wanted was his purity—that is, Sir Polidoro’s virginity—she just needed to sleep with him first.
“I guarantee that cruel fools will mock Sir Polidoro for his actions,” Zabine explained. “They’ll say ‘He isn’t popular in our nation, so he sold himself to an enemy kingdom,’ or the like. I’m quite sure that some idiots will be unable to mind their tongues.”
“If you find any such morons, report back to me immediately,” Princess Val ordered. “I’m certain that the royal family would grant me clemency even if I were to kill them on the spot. I don’t care if they’re ranked higher than you. Punch their faces until their teeth shatter.”
“I’ll do so with glee.”
Sir Polidoro was our comrade in arms—he’d supported us in our first battle and expressed his heartfelt grief over Hannah’s death. As Zabine had just said, we’d happily punish any idiots who dared to mock him. Any contempt displayed toward Sir Polidoro would be contempt aimed at us. I was certain that the crown princess’s corps who’d fought with him in the Campaign of Villendorf, and the duke’s army as well, would do the same. Both the crown princess and the duke would allow their subordinates to punish such morons. I believed that even Queen Liesenlotte would offer her approval.
“May I go on?” Zabine asked.
“Go ahead,” Princess Val replied. “I understand that some might see Faust as selling his body to an enemy nation, which would earn him some mockery. But then you mentioned that the royal family’s reputation would suffer as well, didn’t you?”
She remained lying face down on the bed and showed no signs of energy that would allow her to jump to her feet. Peace negotiations had been successful, but she’d sustained heavy damage in the process.
“You will also be judged by more upstanding nobles—those who don’t mock Sir Polidoro and genuinely acknowledge his hard work as the hero who saved Anhalt,” Zabine said. “While Sir Polidoro partially chose to sacrifice himself, it will now look as though the royal family forced him to shoulder full responsibility for negotiating peace.”
“Fair enough,” Princess Val groaned. “I didn’t do a single thing, after all.”
Zabine’s words only dealt an additional blow to the princess’s mind. Choose your words more carefully, you idiot, I thought. I could visibly see Her Highness’s body sinking deeper and deeper into the bed.
“Why didn’t the royal family raise a finger to act instead?” Zabine went on. “Can we just sit back while one of our citizens sells his chastity to the queen of an enemy nation? Is the Anhaltish royal family rewarding the hero, Sir Faust von Polidoro, for his splendid deeds? He may be a superhuman, but he’s a measly lord knight with only three hundred people on his land; yet the royal family pushed more work upon him beyond the terms of his conscription. Does the royal family have no shame? These feelings of dissatisfaction will be apparent among the lord knights who have conscription contracts with the royal family, along with Nobles of the Robe who have good sense. This situation makes no sense if one were to receive the goodwill of the royal family and serve them.”
Can’t you phrase it more delicately, Zabine? Sheesh.
“Right… Of course…” Princess Val muttered.
The royal fell completely silent and didn’t move a muscle. She only looked like a corpse to me. Instead of floating like a body in the water, Princess Val sank deeper still into her bed.
“What should I have done?” Princess Val muttered.
Her question wasn’t directed to anyone in particular, and none of us had an answer to offer. We hadn’t been by their side in the throne room and thus had no advice to give. Only Zabine, the captain of the corps, had tagged along with Her Highness, and the rest of us were only allowed to hang around at the entrance. If you knew that much, why didn’t you do something?
The thirteen of us corps cast our accusatory glares at Zabine. She noticed our gazes as her face turned red with anger, and she began to screech like a chimpanzee.
“Then could any of you have done anything else?!” she screamed. “The players in that negotiation were Queen Catalina and Sir Polidoro—no one else. I couldn’t just barge into their conversation!”
Well, yeah… But you become oddly smart and persuasive during emergencies. If that wasn’t the place to use your talents, then where is? I mulled over the situation. We’d managed to negotiate peace—no, to be precise, Villendorf had signed a peace treaty with the hero, Faust von Polidoro. That was the nucleus of the truth that would remain in the annals of history.