And so, Brunhild officially became Sigurd’s queen.
After becoming queen, she immediately told her husband, “I would like to help with your duties.”
“What are you talking about? A queen’s job is to spend her time in leisure.”
“I was a village girl. Relaxing just makes me feel restless. Besides, I want to fill the hole Richard left.”
Richard had been Sigurd’s greatest retainer. Though Sigurd had immediately assigned a new vassal, he was not as competent as Richard. She wanted to help her husband out during a frustrating time.
“I have to work hard now that he’s gone.”
Sigurd accepted Brunhild’s offer.
She began to help the king. She managed wonderfully but still did not meet his expectations.
Whenever a retainer made a mistake, he would scold them mercilessly— and that held true even with his own wife. So during the day, their relationship was less like that of a king and queen and more like that of a king and retainer.
But Brunhild’s spirits weren’t dampened by his criticism. She encouraged herself, telling herself that Richard would have done better. Even when she was rebuked, she proved herself to her husband with results that made up for it.
Sigurd and Brunhild began to smile at one another when their eyes met during work.
Richard’s death had brought them closer together.
One night in the bedroom, Sigurd addressed Brunhild. He was sitting on the bed.
“The grave is almost complete.”
He meant the grave for Brunhild’s family. He had taken time out of his busy schedule whenever he could to work on building the grave he’d promised.
“Have you made sure to keep it simple?”
“Since you wanted that, yes. Though I still feel it should be decorated more extravagantly.”
“Making it fancier isn’t going to communicate more acknowledgment.”
Sigurd adequately conveyed his acknowledgement by remembering to erect a gravestone in the first place.
“…I still can’t feel like you’re my brother. Even you building the grave now feels different from how you acted before.”
“…I see.”
“But I’ve come to feel that’s all right. I’ve decided to stop trying to see you as you were and look at how you are now. So I’m sorry for always comparing you to your past self.”
“I see,” Sigurd said. “It was indeed unpleasant, being compared with the brother you loved…but things are different now.”
“They are?”
“I feel like I want to do brotherly things for you.”
Brunhild found herself smiling. “Oh dear. But I was just thinking that today I would stop calling you ‘Brother’ and start calling you ‘Sigurd.’”
“It would just be confusing for you to change how you address me now.”
“Perhaps so.”
Brunhild approached Sigurd and sat next to him. “Richard was the one who taught me I shouldn’t try to look at you as you were.”
The air between them became heavier. Three months had passed since Richard’s death.
“I hope they find his body soon,” she said.
Sigurd gave a quiet nod. “…I should have asked why he was trying to kill me.” He continued, “I’d like to see him one more time—even as a corpse.”
Brunhild examined his face. “Brother…won’t you cry?” She would shed tears when she remembered Richard’s death. But not once had she seen Sigurd weep. “I’m sure you must behave as a king in front of others, but you can let your feelings out with me.” Sometimes at night, she would see Sigurd get these terribly pained looks. “Crying might take some weight off your shoulders.”
“I will do no such thing.”
“Why not…?”
“It’s not befitting of a king.”
“When we’re alone—”
“I’m grateful for your sympathy. But this is about my convictions. I won’t do anything that would bring shame to Richard.”
At times like this, Brunhild felt frustrated that she was a woman.
It seemed like she was unable to understand an element of Sigurd and Richard’s friendship because she was not a man.
So when it came to this, nothing she said was of any use—no matter how much she wanted to support him.
“…If you insist, then there’s no changing your mind.” Brunhild ended the subject of Richard there.
She gazed fixedly at Sigurd. He looked melancholy—surely because she had spoken of Richard.
“Brother…” She brought her delicate fingers to Sigurd’s lips, then lightly stroked them before pressing her own to them.
She felt she was vulgar.
It felt pathetic and frustrating that this sort of crude consolation was all she could offer to the one she loved.
Sigurd accepted her comfort. But the melancholy on his face did not disappear entirely.
Three months had passed since the wedding ceremony, and the foreigner’s plan to assassinate Sigurd was progressing apace.
At first, the foreigner thought he would attack Sigurd while he was outside the castle. But that would be too difficult; the king had become highly wary of assassination. Not only had he nearly been killed once, but he also hadn’t managed to retrieve the weapon that Richard had at the time: the Healing Blade. The king now went out on far fewer occasions, and when he did, he only told those who were closest to him.
That left the foreigner with one option: infiltrating the castle to kill Sigurd.
It took three months to prepare. He worked out a means for this by buying off some knights. He ascertained which knights seemed bribable and arranged for the necessary funds. Following that, a whole three months passed as he was waiting for the moment when all the knights under his influence would be on watch.
But tonight, all the conditions had been met.
The foreigner dug up Richard’s body. He had treated his corpse to prevent decay, then hidden it in a graveyard by the church. It was a filthy place, where the bodies of those with no relatives were buried practically like garbage. Even the knights who’d been ordered to search for Richard’s body had avoided this graveyard.
The foreigner sprinkled the magic powder on Richard’s body, and Richard became an animated corpse once more.
But since three months had passed, his body was now at its limits. Even though he had been treated with sophisticated decay prevention measures from the foreigner’s country, parts of his body were falling off at this point, and a nasty smell wafted off him. By dawn, he would be rotting.
Heedless of his own state, when Richard awoke, he cried, “Brunhild…!”
His memories ended with the wedding ceremony. His head was full of thoughts of saving his sister.
The foreigner explained the situation to him. The fact that it had been three months since the wedding ceremony just about made Richard lose his mind, but he somehow restrained himself.
The foreigner said to Richard, “You want to save your sister from the king, don’t you?”
“I do…”
“Then tonight is your last chance. Your body won’t hold up until morning. Work with me.”