The Archducal Couple Returns
Several days had passed since I concluded my meeting with the Plantin Company and returned to the castle. Angelica was called outside Wilfried’s room while he and I were taking our afternoon lessons, then promptly returned to say something to Rihyarda and Oswald.
“Lady Rozemyne, Lord Wilfried—Aub Ehrenfest shall be returning quite soon,” Rihyarda announced. “Let us go and greet him.”
Despite having heard what she said loud and clear, I simply continued reading and gave a half-hearted, “Okaaay.”
“Father and Mother are back?!” Wilfried exclaimed excitedly as Rihyarda snatched the history book out of my hands with a fear-inducing smile.
“Studying can continue when we return. Come with us, milady.”
At Rihyarda’s prompting, Wilfried and I made our way to the teleporter room. The knights standing guard opened the door to let us inside once we arrived.
No sooner had we entered than the teleportation circle began to shine. The complex patterns of the magic circle appeared, and a second later, Sylvester, Florencia, and Karstedt were standing atop it. Wilfried immediately rushed over to welcome them back.
“We’re home, Wilfried, Rozemyne. Did you keep working diligently?” Florencia asked.
“Of course, Mother. We completed every Mana Replenishment. Right, Rozemyne?”
“Right. Wilfried worked hard to get used to moving all that mana every day.”
“I see. I’m very proud of you both. I couldn’t ask for better children,” Florencia said, stepping forward with a kind smile on her face. It seemed that they needed to leave the room quickly, since the scholars would soon be coming in behind them.
I left Florencia with Wilfried, who had a bunch he wanted to tell her, and instead went over to Karstedt. He was rotating his arm in an attempt to stretch his shoulder.
“Welcome home, Father.”
His eyes widened in surprise for a moment, then crinkled in a soft smile as he looked down at me. “It’s good to see you well, Rozemyne. How have things been?”
But before I could even respond, Sylvester poked my cheek out of nowhere. He looked exhausted—his eyes were hollow, and his face had a ghastly pallor to it.
“I-Is something the matter, Sylvester?” I asked with a tilt of my head.
His expression went unchanged, and he continued poking my cheek with his dead fish-like eyes until I eventually figured out what he wanted.
“...P-Pooey?”
“This is all your fault,” he said. He stopped poking my cheek at that point, but I still had no idea what was going on. What did he want from me? I looked up, blinking in bemusement, when he abruptly flicked my forehead with his pointer finger.
“Ow!”
“We need to talk about the temple. Come to my office at fifth bell.”
“...Okay.”
I rubbed my stinging forehead as I said my goodbyes, then left with Wilfried to return to our lessons. We continued studying until fifth bell, which rang while I was partway through reading.
“You’re going to see Father, Rozemyne? I’ll be drinking tea with Mother and our younger siblings,” Wilfried replied, seeming overjoyed at finally getting to spend time with his parents again. He packed his things away almost immediately after the bell rang and dashed out the room to the main building.
I had business with Sylvester, so I climbed into my Pandabus and headed to his office. Almost everyone was used to seeing Lessy by now, so barely anyone gave me any shocked glances as he pattered by.
“Aub Ehrenfest, Lady Rozemyne has arrived,” announced a guard.
“Let her in.”
I entered the room to find attendants preparing tea and scholars sorting through paperwork they had brought back with them. Once I had taken the seat offered to me, Sylvester cleared the room of everyone except Karstedt, his guard knight.
“Wait elsewhere until I summon you all again. Only Karstedt is to stay.”
“As you wish.”
The scholars stopped working at once, exiting alongside the attendants like a wave receding from the shore.
Only once everyone had gone and their footsteps could no longer be heard did Sylvester let out a slow sigh. He dropped his majestic archduke act almost immediately and plopped his head against the table.
“This is all your fault, Rozemyne.”
I understood this was a side that he only showed to his family, but I still wasn’t really sure how to react. What had I done? What exactly was my fault? I had no idea, and when I looked to Karstedt for help, he simply nodded in support of Sylvester.
“A lot happened,” Karstedt said.
“Um, okay. Sylvester, what was it about the temple that you wished to discuss?”
He raised his head slightly, just enough to look at me without lifting it off the table, and glared at me resentfully with his dark-green eyes. “So you told my older sister about the death of my uncle, huh?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re really going to play dumb?”
“Sorry, but I really don’t.”
Sylvester narrowed his eyes further, as though my words had just confirmed something he suspected. I decided to try to extrapolate what I could from his accusation.
“Well, I know that your uncle is the former High Bishop, but I don’t know who your older sister is. I’ve only ever been told about her in passing. She was married to Florencia’s older brother, the archduke of Frenbeltag to the west, right? Is that who you’re talking about?”
“No. That’s the younger of my older sisters. I’m talking about my oldest older sister,” Sylvester replied, waving his hand. “She was married off to Ahrensbach down south.”
“Well, I certainly haven’t heard of her. I don’t even know your exact number of siblings.”
I was so clearly disengaged with this whole discussion that Sylvester found it necessary to pull himself up and start rapping his fingers against the table in frustration. “My sister said that the new High Bishop informed her. Surely you remember telling her about this last winter.”
“The temple received many letters directed to the old High Bishop, and we replied to them all saying that he had passed on. Maybe one of those was from— Oh, wait, did she send that magic letter?! I wrote a reply after the Dedication Ritual, and it turned straight into a bird and flew away! It really took me by surprise,” I said, recalling the magic letter from way back when.
“That’s it!” Sylvester declared, pointing a sharp finger my way. His face shone with excitement at us finally understanding one another, but it was short-lived; a few seconds later, he slumped his shoulders back down. “Right, right... You don’t know about my older sister. Well, my uncle loved to dote on her, and it turns out they stayed in contact even after she got married. During the entire Archduke Conference, she kept calling me cruel for not telling her about his death for almost a whole year.”
It seemed that Sylvester was so exhausted because his older sister had antagonized him about this during the entire conference. And then it hit me.
“Wait, is this perhaps the much older sister that everyone thought would be the previous archduke’s successor before you were born? She hated that you stole the position from her, and your father had her married to another duchy since he predicted Ehrenfest would know no peace otherwise, right?”
“Yeah. Where’d you learn all that?”
Well, I guess she wasn’t Bezewanst’s secret lover after all. It’s a good thing I didn’t spread any rumors about that; the letters were just a niece complaining to her uncle, not long-distance lovers sending each other romantic messages.
“There were letters about it in a box that Bezewanst kept hidden. They must have been really close to keep in touch even after she moved to another duchy.”
“My older sister takes after my mother in many ways, so she ended up my uncle’s favorite.”
And it seemed that his sister had really given him hell for not disclosing Bezewanst’s death himself, with her instead having to hear the news from the temple. Sylvester was the archduke, so while he likely had his reasons for keeping silent given that crimes were involved, he still hadn’t done what was expected of him. As far as I was concerned, he was hardly in a position to complain about her being bitter.
“Anyway, point being—she’ll be coming at the end of summer to visit my uncle’s grave. She also said that she wanted to meet and thank you for informing her about his death.”
“Okay. It’s nice that she’d go through the effort to thank me like that. She must be a genuine, earnest woman.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sylvester replied, shaking his head. “If she figures out that you’re the reason my uncle got caught in the first place, you’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll antagonize you so relentlessly that her words’ll be like daggers piercing through your heart. I’m going to keep as quiet as I can about the details surrounding Bezewanst’s arrest, but my sister’s own information network in Ehrenfest is still alive and well. All it’ll take is one noble telling her the truth and you’ll be stuck suffering alongside me.”
“Bwuh?!”
“Just consider yourself lucky she can’t stay here forever. My sister holds a mean grudge. Wrong her once and she’ll never let you forget it.”
It turned out that she wasn’t a kind person at all. In fact, she was quite the opposite—hateful and apparently a pain to deal with. The blood drained from my face as I thought about having to put up with her too, which made Sylvester give a nasty grin. Misery loves company, and now I would need to endure the torment with him.
“Ahrensbach, the duchy my sister was married off to, ranks higher than Ehrenfest, so ticking her off could cause diplomatic problems. Be careful not to make this an even bigger mess than it already is.”
Nooooo... This has turned into such a big deal somehow.
I slumped my shoulders in despair and stood up, assuming that this was the end of our conversation. But Sylvester gestured for me to sit back down.
“We’re not done yet. I want to use this year’s Starbind Ceremony to bring Ferdinand back into noble society. What’re your thoughts on this as the High Bishop?”
“Well, I think it’s a good idea if you want the temple to collapse overnight,” I replied honestly, causing Karstedt to burst out laughing.
Sylvester, in contrast, cradled his head. “That’s not what I meant. You’ve been the High Bishop for a year now, so you know that the Central District has seen an increase in its harvest. Right now, the entire duchy lacks mana, which means both citizens and nobles alike want to see those with archduke blood running through their veins working for the sake of the duchy.”
That sounded like nothing more than a convenient excuse to me, but I nodded in agreement anyway.
“Not to mention it’s been a year since Mother was arrested; there’s no longer anyone who would complain about Ferdinand coming back from the temple. I’m thinking about having him return to noble society, then formally assigning him to the position of High Priest, similarly to what I did with you.”
It was a move with solid political justification, and I had no complaints so long as Ferdinand would be continuing his work as High Priest. But I glared at Sylvester anyway.
“You just want to do that so you can work Ferdinand to the bone in the castle as well, don’t you? I would be quite unhappy with you stealing away his time right now. He hasn’t finished raising his successors yet.”
Nobody had mentioned returning Ferdinand to noble society when Veronica was arrested, so it seemed to me that this was only coming up now because I had gotten him to focus on his work in the temple, rather than frequenting the castle to help there.
Sylvester faltered at my distrustful accusation. “It’s certainly true that there aren’t many members of the archducal family who can work in the castle right now, and his help would be much appreciated.”
“Sylvester...”
“But, more importantly, I don’t want to leave Ferdinand as he is now.” Sylvester lowered his eyes. “Do you know why Ferdinand is in the temple?” he asked quietly.
I had heard scraps of information from Elvira, Karstedt, Bezewanst, and Ferdinand himself, but nobody had given me the exact details.
“Based on what I’ve been told, I’d say that you sent him there to protect him from your antagonizing mother. But I don’t know much more than that.”
“That’s good guesswork,” Sylvester replied, nodding with a bitter frown. It was at this point that Karstedt filled me in a little more.
“Veronica was always harsh on Ferdinand, but toward the end of the former archduke’s lifespan, her malice for him became so great that it put his very life at risk. She was convinced that he wished for the archduke’s death and was aiming to secure the position for himself.”
Talk about being delusional. Why would Ferdinand ever want such a tedious job when he’d spent his entire life being told not only to live for the archduke’s sake, but that useless people had no reason to be alive? Especially when this mindset was so deeply ingrained into him that he refused to show any signs of weakness at all, forcing himself to drink potions just to keep going.
“Ferdinand is the son of a mistress, not a proper wife, and since Mother refused to adopt him, he legally couldn’t become the archduke. The position would only go to him if every other member of the archducal family died. Mother knew that, but even so, she antagonized him more with each passing day, becoming crueler and crueler before our eyes. This didn’t change even after Father died and I became the archduke. I told Ferdinand to flee to the temple just to get him away from her.”
It seemed there had been a period of unrest after Sylvester took the position, and he didn’t want there to be any overt problems right away. His assumption had been that, once he was settled in as the archduke, his mother’s persecution complex would calm down. But instead, she began ferociously opposing any attempt to get Ferdinand back to the castle.
“I never intended for Ferdinand to stay in the temple as long as he has,” Sylvester concluded.
“...I understand where you’re coming from, but right now, Ferdinand is having the time of his life raising his successors, and he uses far fewer potions than he used to. His health is improving dramatically, and I don’t believe changing his environment would be for the best right now,” I replied. All my progress would be undone if Sylvester started working him to death in the castle again.
Karstedt chuckled to himself as I resisted giving up Ferdinand. “When you put it like that, it’s hard to tell which of you is the guardian here.”
“Yep. It almost sounds like she’s his mother,” Sylvester smirked, before quickly hiding his mouth behind his hand and glaring at me. “Rozemyne, even looking at this from the angle of Ferdinand being your guardian in the temple, it’d be better for him to return to noble society. Not to mention once he’s assigned to the position of High Priest as my brother rather than as a blue priest, he’ll be able to visit the temple with scholars and his guard knight retainers, just like you. Won’t that make his work there even easier?”
Among Ferdinand’s retainers were Eckhart and Justus. I could remember Eckhart bemoaning his inability to serve as his guard in the temple, given that Ferdinand had moved there of his own volition rather than being assigned there like I had been.
“I’ll discuss this with Ferdinand, but ultimately, I think his opinion should take priority here,” I said firmly.
“...Right.”
With the conversation now actually over, I exited the room. The castle was brimming with life, full of scholars busily moving around due to the return of everyone the archducal couple had brought with them to the Archduke Conference. And with them back, my job here was done; I could return to the temple without spending my days worrying about performing Mana Replenishment. The spring coming of age ceremony was fast approaching, and from there, summer baptism would be right around the corner.
The next day, I visited Ferdinand after returning to the temple. We naturally entered his hidden room to discuss this matter, so as to not send the other priests into a panic.
I could tell that Ferdinand now had much more time on his hands, given that there were rows of vials containing strange liquids on his desk and research papers spread out all over the place. It seemed he was making good progress on researching magic tools, a subject of great interest to him.
After moving aside some documents, I sat on the same bench I always did. Ferdinand took out his chair and sat down as well, and once we made eye contact, he prompted me to begin.
“What did you and Sylvester discuss?”
“It seems he would like to return you to noble society,” I began, going on to give him the gist of what Sylvester and I had spoken about.
Ferdinand sighed. “Is he still torn up over that? What a pain.”
“I think he’s right, though. There are a lot of advantages to doing this.”
“And many detriments that I am sure he deemed it best not to mention,” Ferdinand said with a bitter smile before furrowing his brow a little and tapping his temple. I could imagine that most people in the temple would be overjoyed at the opportunity to return to noble society, but Ferdinand seemed to find this more of an inconvenience than anything else.
Sensing his unwillingness, I clenched my fists in determination. “What do you want to do? If you’d rather stay here, I’ll tell Sylvester not to bother.”
“There is no need for that. You stand only to gain from this so long as I secure a promise that my position as High Priest will not change, and you should consider it wise not to protest the decisions of an archduke unless the situation truly demands it. Furthermore, as Sylvester said, I will be better served by having more men to aid me. And perhaps most importantly of all, Eckhart and Justus are earning what is rather pointless ire for remaining by my side, and returning to noble society would restore their honor.”
I couldn’t find it in myself to interrupt Ferdinand as he dryly listed off every benefit to his return. When he was done, I pursed my lips and glared at him; he was speaking entirely as though this didn’t concern him. Who cared how much it benefited Eckhart, Justus, or me? This was his life we were talking about here.
“I’m not asking how your return will serve others. I’m asking what you want to do, Ferdinand.”
He widened his eyes as if stunned by my words, blinked a few times, then slowly shook his head. “Regardless of whether or not I return to noble society, I will be called to the castle to help with paperwork. Thus, it is best for me to choose whichever option provides the most benefits to everyone else.”
I was asking to hear what he wanted to do, not what he thought the best course of action was, but it was hard to imagine Ferdinand budging here. If he was set on making the decision that brought the most overall advantages, then I would just have to respect that.
“It seems that Sylvester will announce your return to the nobles gathered for the Starbind Ceremony. You’ll return to noble society, be reassigned to the position of High Priest at his orders, and then formally become my guardian,” I said.
Ferdinand nodded along with my explanation, but when I mentioned him becoming my guardian, he raised an eyebrow and gave an amused smirk. “Your guardian, hm...? Perhaps I spoke too soon.”
“And what exactly do you mean by that? Is being my guardian such a huge detriment that it outweighs all those benefits you were talking about?” I asked, shooting him a steely glare.
Ferdinand scoffed, his golden eyes narrowing in amusement. “That is exactly correct—you do nothing but introduce unpredictable problem after unpredictable problem. Serving as Sylvester’s aide is already equally as difficult as being your guardian.”
As much as it annoyed me, I really couldn’t argue with that.
...Still, to think Ferdinand considers me as much of a troublemaker as Sylvester. This is the first time I’m hearing about this. I’m kinda offended that he thinks I’m on the same level as someone who pokes peoples’ cheeks at random to make them say “pooey.”
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