3 - The Third Day

Fortunately, my valet’s attitude didn’t change a bit, even after I laughed like an idiot on the way home from church. Thanks to that, I’ve changed my outlook, and fumbled around for a scheme that would let me live through today as well.

“So then the ten people listed in this letter are the ones you recommend?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I’d come to the royal palace today. This time it was nothing less than a response to a royal summons. It was about the letter I’d prepared on the day I regained my memories.

Since my valet had once been a slave, of course I couldn’t take him into the palace with me, so he was waiting in the carriage. Unfortunately, I’d had to climb the castle stairs alone.

I replied to the king’s question on one knee, with my hand on my chest. My chin was pulled in, and my gaze low, so that I might not insolently look at the exalted being of His Highness. Being down on one knee was proof of my submission. Putting my hand to my chest signified the offering up of my heart. When you’re an aristocrat, you know that every gesture holds meaning when you’re serving the king. It’s similar to one’s manners at church.

My polished behavior coupled with my incredible looks surely made for a fine show. Because my posture – leaning slightly forward with my back rounded – uses muscles I don’t normally use, my back cracks like mad afterwards every time I have an audience with the king. But I don’t have to stay in this position for hours. I’ll just have to endure for a little while.

“Mm-hm, I’m sure there won’t be any problem, you’re the one who selected them. I’ll have them start serving here at my palace early tomorrow. Tell them from me.”

“Understood, Your Highness.”

I respectfully accepted his commands.

I adore power, of course I can’t miss a step in front of the king. Thankfully, I acted the part of the obedient and loyal retainer, and the king swallowed it entirely.

“By the way, what about…”

“Ah, you mean…”

“That fiancé, Erik.”

That was quite a phrase, considering he really didn’t need to say it at all. Besides, he’s my fiancé, not that fiancé. As an expression turned on one’s own son, it was inappropriate. At the very least, the first prince is the first one in line for the throne. The crown prince.

“I hear he’s got a thing for a commoner.”

“Your Highness, I’m afraid I must apologize. I’m not sure where on earth you heard such things…”

“Huh, an interesting turn of phrase, isn’t it. It must be some kind of illness. He has you, after all, it would be a foolish mistake indeed.”

In the world of the game, after the conviction event, there’s an event where the king recognizes Ambrose. To put it another way, until the conviction event occured, Ambrose wasn’t very highly valued. As far as the king was concerned, the first prince had a fiancé – me – and Ambrose, whom the prince was wooing, must have got there through deceit. What a terrible bitch.

“I could more or less tolerate playing with fire, but if any further issues arise, I shall have to consider the line of succession.”

“Your Highness, that’s–“

Oi oi, what did that mean?

The fact that there even is a king hardly ever shows up in this game until the second half. After all, the main story is a romantic comedy, with plenty of the normal tropes. Assault, imprisonment, being drugged, they were all deeds prompted by love that had passed the bonds of reason, and caused whichever seme to turn yandere and make their choice of mistakes. Muddy politics and power struggles were kept off screen as much as possible.

So I had no way of knowing until it was said clearly and aloud. Perhaps the first prince’s position was more tenuous than I’d imagined?

“Hm, think of it as the ramblings of an old man, pay it no mind.”

“I’m sure Your Highness isn’t old enough to say that.”

I hadn’t paid it much mind, since it’s a BL game, but it was a little strange that the crown prince was betrothed to a man. The issue of succession had been raised even with the second prince.

So, we can assume there was some reason the first prince’s fiancé had to be a man. As I thought about it, a chill ran up my spine. If my assumption was correct, the king was keeping an unthinkable secret.

“That’s enough boring fantasies. You can go.”

The motions had been ingrained in me since birth, and so my movements were perfect, even as I sorted through my thoughts. With a glance at the king, who’s attitude wasn’t giving anything away, I left the palace behind.

“Isn’t that Lord Ulysses?”

“Prince Douglas.”

On the way back to the carriage, a familiar voice called out to me. The second prince, Douglas. He too was one of the game’s seme . He must have been coming back from the palace’s library, because he was carrying five massive volumes in his hands.

Douglas’s color palette was soft, with pale brown hair and inconspicuous green eyes. His facial features were gentle too, and gave an impression of an extremely tender man.

The first prince looked so flashy and gaudy that you’d never know they were brothers, to judge by their coloring. The king’s hair had darkened with age, but it was golden too, so it was probably more correct to say that Douglas didn’t look like the king.

But his facial features resembled his mother the queen closely, it was only the color of his hair that was the same as his father’s, so overall, he must have looked more like his mother.

The status of being the second prince, and a face that didn’t look like the king’s. Those two factors had robbed him of his self-confidence.

“Those look heavy, let me help you.”

“Oh, sorry to trouble you. My arm was just starting to go a bit numb. Thank you.”

He offered me the top three books off the stack. To hold five of these profoundly heavy books, his arms must have been numb indeed.

He thanked me smoothly, and I slapped him on the arm. I’d felt this since before I regained my memories, but Douglas was so modest, I had trouble thinking of him as a member of the royal family.

For one thing, a simple apology is impossible for a royal on the face of it. If he was going to carry his own books, fine I guess, but he carried them all the way to his room, by himself. And he didn’t find it unusual in the least for him to do so.

“It’s fine weather today, I thought I’d do some reading in the garden.”

“Uh, you don’t have a guard with you?” I said without thinking, my voice going hysterical.

“Oh I don’t need one. It’s just me.”

There was no way he didn’t need one.

Perhaps that attitude was because it had already been decided that the first prince would be the next king. He would never be king. And for that reason alone, he valued himself so little it was surprising.

This country always made the eldest child the crown prince, in order to avoid wasteful fights over the succession. A few of them weren’t quite right in the head, a few of them were ethically troubled, but birth order was prioritized over everything else. Abilities as a ruler weren’t sought out all that much.

If you’re wondering why, it’s because the king’s excellent retainers run the country as they please, and the king’s only job is to sit on the throne as a figurehead.

The first prince is no different, his talents as a ruler are what you would call “meh.” If Ambrose hadn’t started sticking to him like that, he most certainly would have ended up an easily manipulated puppet. But I understand his behavior, and the king relies heavily on me. One of the reasons I was chosen as the first prince’s fiancé, after all, is because I would make it even easier to manipulate him.

Ambrose’s gate crashing, indeed his entire existence, had to be like a sharp stick in the eye to the king, and his retainers too.

But still, the fact that the king was turning a blind eye to the first prince’s behavior was no doubt because Ambrose was a man. And being a commoner factored into it too, I’m sure.

Perhaps the king originally didn’t want the first prince to succeed him. But he couldn’t not put his eldest on the throne, so as a last resort, he chose a man as the prince’s fiancé. The second prince’s fiancé was a woman, so probably he intended to put their first male child in line for the throne.

The first prince might not have even been the king’s son.

I arrived at that conclusion because of the king’s attitude toward the first prince, and also because of his hairline, which I’d noticed earlier. The king and queen both had perfectly straight hairlines, but the first prince’s hairline formed a so-called widow’s peak.

The shape of the first prince’s hairline was a dominant trait, but neither of his parents had it, thus he wasn’t theirs.

Was he the queen’s bastard, or was there some other reason? The lack of information needed to form a hypothesis was overwhelming.

But if my idea was correct, there was a way to drag the first prince down from his position as crown prince. Was it really fair that I was the only one on the road to ruin?

And that was why I had to get the second prince’s fires lit, convince him to start thinking “that way.”

Douglas and I were future brothers-in-law. If things stayed the way they were, with me as the first prince’s fiancé, it probably would happen, too. That was the entire reason I hadn’t been dating, but I had made sure not to antagonize Douglas about any of his personality quirks.

At this juncture, however, I needed to make use of those quirks.

“Well then, with your leave, I’ll be your guard.”

“Hahah, you, Lord Ulysses? I seem to remember swords weren’t your specialty.”

That was true. As Douglas said, I have not even one scrap of talent with a blade. I had taken some practice swings once, but the sword slipped from my hand and I narrowly avoided slicing myself in two. I only escaped uninjured because a knight who was there at the time kicked the sword away. I haven’t touched a blade since. I do occasionally get the urge to take a few more practice swings, but perhaps because I told my valet the story of what happened that day, he always takes great pains to stop me.

“I’m utterly useless, is that what you’ve heard about me from Erik?”

“Oh, no. My brother hardly speaks of you, I heard it from my friend.”

“Your friend?”

“Yeah. One of Erik’s aides– Oh, you can’t tell anyone.”

Extravagant quantities of glass were used in the windows of the royal palace.

It was extremely clear, surprisingly of a quality that could go head to head with Japanese glass.

You could see out quite clearly through glass like that. Prompted by Douglas, I shifted my gaze, and spotted some knights in the midst of training.

“He’s the one at the very end of the first row.”

“Ah.”

This “he” that Douglas was talking about was someone I’d definitely met before. The day my engagement to the first prince was decided, I was summoned to the palace just as I was today, and so I made my way here.

On my way home, the training knights caught my interest, and I headed over.

They allowed me to hold a sword, and when I tried that practice swing, it danced high into the air. The knight who was there that day was the same man Douglas had pointed out. Which of course, the parties involved already knew.

Douglas had called him an aide, but as the first prince hated me, I’d had few opportunities to meet him. Beyond all that though, I simply wasn’t interested, so my memories of him were faint. Looking back though, I did feel like the knight that day had the same face as one of the aides who always served behind the first prince. It was a bit late, but… I did almost remember thinking when I first saw him that he was about the same age as the prince he was serving.

“It was just a little, I mean just a little, but I have always kind of hankered after the life of a knight.”

“What? You wanted to be a knight, Your Highness?”

Judging by his in-game looks, he’s highlighted as a gentle prince type of character. In the Douglas Route, Ambrose is charmed by his personality – calm and gentle, just like his embrace. I’m sure he heard good things, talking with the knights, and in short, heard the call to violence. But no matter how dignified you try to act, so long as you’re waving a blade around, the stench of blood remains unchanged.

I was a little surprised to hear the gentle Douglas say he’d hankered after that.

“It’ll be our secret? Protecting your loved ones with a single blade just cuts such a dashing figure, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Hm?”

My answer was a bit evasive, and Douglas stopped and looked back at me. After a bit of indecision, his expression clouded over.

“Oh, well, your father…”

I quietly nodded.

My father had died after being attacked by a knight.

Well, it was 100% my father’s fault. He’d been committing atrocious crimes, and that was the result, there was nothing else to say about it. I could understand that. The bond between parent and child was weak, but if I had to say, it felt closer to being an accomplice in the performance of a crime. Which was why I’d felt almost no sorrow.

Of course, I’d pretended to be sad on the surface, as befit the occasion.

More than that though, I’d taken over the title of duke earlier than planned, and so there were problems with inheriting the Addinson duchy. Originally, I’d been thinking to take in my half-brother at the church as an adopted son, but if I was going to be convicted, that wouldn’t be necessary. The Addinson house may just end up destroyed in Ulysses Addinson’s place.

“My Lord Douglas, my father was a villain. There’s no need for you to make that face.”

“No, but, he was your only family. Even if it is as you say… Grieving wouldn’t be a crime.”

The second prince, Douglas. You are just the person you were in the game.

Thoughtful, kind, compassionate, and above all that– hungry for affection.

I wonder if we wouldn’t be able to find things in common, were the circumstances entirely different. It seemed that my relationship with my father mirrored his relationship with the king.

“First, I must apologize, Your Highness.”

“What?”

I called out to one of the servants who occasionally passed by and asked them to take the books we’d been carrying to Douglas’s room. With our hands thus freed, I grabbed Douglas’s once again nimble arm and yanked him close.

“Uh, weren’t we going to the garden next?”

“That’s why I apologized! This way, Your Highness. Follow me!”

It was too bad for poor confused Douglas, but I more or less forced him to come along. If someone dared yank on the first prince’s arm, both the prince himself and everyone around him would go deadly silent.

But this was the second prince, Douglas. A gentle personality on top of low self-esteem. Surely he wouldn’t punish me.

When I turned my smile on him, Douglas flashed a bewildered expression, but didn’t resist.

My goal was a tower about 20 minutes from the royal palace by horse.

It was originally white, but it had been engulfed by ivy over the long years, and it’s existence had faded from memory.

The first prince had taken Ambrose here on their way home from their long-distance ride.

If you climb the spiral staircase, which is still fulfilling its function despite its deterioration, you can see not only the land around the castle, but the scenery far into the distance as well. The setting sun was peeking out from behind the mountains along the border, dying the entire region orange. The normally fresh green trees now seemed to have their fall colors on.

“Amazing, I didn’t even know this place existed.”

“Nobody uses it now, but I think it was built to be a lookout, back when there were skirmishes with neighboring countries. Look, you can see the border really well, huh?”

“Yeah, true.”

He was overwhelmed by the scenery, and my words didn’t seem to have reached his ears. Maybe it was because of that climb up the stairs, or perhaps it was because he was excited, but he was breathing rapidly. Entranced by the view, Douglas repeatedly voiced his admiration. I was out of breath too, but somehow got it back under control and stood by his side as he got lost in the scenery.

“His Highness Erik told me about this place.”

“Erik did? That doesn’t sound like him.”

“It’s hard to believe now, but before we got engaged, we were really close.”

That was actually true.

When my age was still in the single digits, the first prince held me very close indeed. He’s actually younger than me, so the expression “to hold me close” might be strange, but I, at least, was quite pleased with the arrangement. But when I was about 10, the relationship collapsed. The first prince’s attitude grew steadily colder, and eventually aggressive.

Even now, I still don’t know why. Of course I don’t care, but I still don’t know.

“His Highness wanted to show me something he treasured, and when he first happened upon it, he told me before anyone else.”

Erik had been so much cuter back then, compared to now. Golden hair and green eyes. He’d grown up to be quite manly, but at the time, his features were a bit feminine. And I used to be the taller one, although I’d been overtaken in the last few years.

I was a beautiful young man myself, so when we were together, we were often praised. People said we were like a painting. We had a good balance, gold and silver.

Contrary to his adorable appearance however, the first prince was overflowing with curiosity and wanted to go exploring all the time. He made me go with him constantly, and inwardly I thought it just a bother, but outwardly, I accompanied him with a smile. They say buttering up a prince takes time.

However girly he looked, the first prince was definitely a boy. He loved to go on secret expeditions, and he really hated when his guards came along. But the first prince was going to be the next king, he couldn’t be allowed to go unguarded. I remember well the way they looked, guarding him secretly from the shadows so they wouldn’t be discovered. Maybe you could say it was exactly as planned, but the first prince never even noticed they were there.

The prince discovered this place on one of those expeditions.

I’m impressed even now that he made it out this far as a child, but looking at it from my point of view as the one being dragged around at the time, I do remember wondering if I should just leave him and go back to the royal palace. My legs hurt and I was tired. I was miserable.

Still though, seeing the view from this tower did chase my exhaustion away.

That was the moment I realized that on that dawn when I became the first prince’s queen, I would come into possession of everything I could see from up here. Not to mention the accompanying power, status, and wealth. It was all supposed to be mine. But I quickly gave up on that idea, as the first prince’s attitude grew cold and aggressive with the lengthening years.

I kept up the appearance of trying to attract the prince’s attention, but in my heart, I never even wondered what I could do to get him interested in me. Instead, I considered how to live in what luxury as I could with my current title of Duke. Even in the position I already had, I was able to live a reasonably satisfying life.

“The view from up here is extraordinary, isn’t it My Lord Douglas.”

“Yeah, it’s so beautiful.”

“You can see everything from here. Well, even the things we can’t see will become His Highness’s one day. He’s going to become king of this country no matter what. That’s what’s been decided.”

Douglas’s shoulders flinched in response to the word King. The position Douglas could never have, no matter how much he wanted it. He was born after the first prince, and so for that reason alone, he wasn’t even allowed to hope for it.

The scenery up here really was wonderful. I saw this that day when I was young, and dreamed of the future.

If Ambrose hadn’t shown up, if I hadn’t lost the position I was supposed to have had.

— If I wasn’t convicted.

The dream I once had would have been realized.

“Surely it won’t be me there next to him, when he finally gets everything.”

I said, and Douglas lifted his head with a gasp. Looking a little confused, he squinted, trying to find the true meaning of my words.

“His Highness’s sweetheart– Do you know him?”

“I, um. Of course. …I don’t mean to say this in front of you, but he’s pretty famous in the palace.”

“You don’t have to pretend, it’s alright. I’ve already heard about what he’s done.”

I’m a high-ranking aristocrat, by rights I should never be accused of doing anything to a mere commoner. The class system in this country is just that seperate.

For example, suppose a commoner is run over by a carriage in which an aristocrat is riding. In this case, the fault would be said to lie with the commoner, and the aristocrat would not have to take responsibility for any crime. The life of a commoner is just that incidental.

Now compare, if I did anything to Ambrose, it was along the lines of making snide remarks as we passed by each other at the royal palace. It’s on the level of casually manipulating a noble who was already hostile towards him.

In this regard, perhaps his life and chastity were more or less in danger, but properly speaking, it’s nothing all that important.

And yet, the conviction event occurs wholly because Ambrose is beloved by the first prince.

If it weren’t Ambrose, but just some random commoner, things would never have gotten this far. It’s no wonder that I misunderstood the severity of the situation before I regained my memories.

I would be judged as a person with certain political influence, inherited from the king.

That’s why, as far as I’m concerned, the most inconvenient thing is that Ambrose was correctly pushing through the First Prince Erik Route.

Securing the first prince’s affection influenced whether the conviction event happened or not. On that point, he had fulfilled the conditions perfectly. That was the chief reason I didn’t think I could avoid the conviction event.

“But My Lord Douglas. Have I really done anything so outrageous to him?”

Douglas didn’t answer.

If this were the Douglas Route, the story might be different, but as far as he was concerned, Ambrose was his older brother’s lover, and his own ex-crush. His deep affection for Ambrose was something of the past. Now, it was likely no more than a slight pain in the chest at the bitter emotions of a failed love.

Nothing strong enough for him to repudiate his status in this country.

The only thing left for Douglas to consider was my standing.

Educated to be the king’s consort, living as the first prince’s fiancé. My standing stolen by some mere commoner.

The humiliation of it all still hadn’t left me, even after I’d regained my memories.

Was I supposed to forgive Ambrose’s robbery just because I’m the villain?

Absolutely not, there’s no way that would be the case.

“I heard His Highness fell for his bright and gentle demeanor. In fact, I’ve heard that you didn’t exactly hate him either, My Lord Douglas.”

“That’s a bit…”

“Yeah, it’s in the past. Listen, Your Highness, what is this kindness you and Prince Erik talk about?”

Ambrose was a bright, gentle protagonist with a strong heart that can withstand adversity. Something must form the foundation of that amiable nature. Neither of them understood the true meaning of it.

“Would you be able to give me some time tomorrow?”

If you can accept this, Douglas, I think you’ll be able to give up.

If not– please let me use it as best I can. Surely, I can use it well.