Chapter 3 – The King of Magic Archery and the Vanadis
Valentina received the report in her office after having finished breakfast and begun working on her official duties for around one koku. Adelaiyda’s army, which was supposed to head for Pardu, had actually appeared close to Silesia and was now requesting permission to swear their allegiance to Valentina.
Hearing those circumstances, the black-haired Vanadis couldn’t hide her surprise. Adelaiyda’s army consisted of lords who had joined together under the banner of making the girl, who currently held the fourth rank in the royal succession order, the next queen, but Chenbel and Eleck, who served as mediators of their allied forces and also as Adelaiyda’s guardians, had started to oppose each other merely three days after they had raised their army.
The reason for their animosity was a matter of form. Or in other words, they had different views on how Adelaiyda, whom both had elevated into being their leader, should be treated. Chenbel regarded the eleven-years-old girl as nothing more than a political tool to satisfy his own ambitions. On the other hand, Eleck favored Adelaiyda. Previously, he stood in contact with Adelaiyda’s father, Karl Rodina, and thus guilty consciousness might have also played a role here.
Both men had controlled the allied forces and headed for Pardu while slowly gaining more allies, but the hostility between both grew by the day. In the end, loud quarreling could be heard from Chenbel’s tent on the evening of the day when they were around two days’ march away from Pardu. Given that even screams were issued from the tent, soldiers rushed inside, just to find the two guardians collapsed on the carpet, bleeding. Chenbel had his forehead cracked open by a sword while another sword was stabbed in Eleck’s chest.
According to the report of a soldier, Chenbel had ridiculed Eleck for having a taste in little girls over his attitude towards Adelaiyda. Apparently Eleck had then drawn his blade in rage, but since both were dead at this point, no one knew the whole truth.
The ones being at a loss what to do were the lords and their soldiers who had lost both their unifying leaders. Adelaiyda’s army consisted of eleven lords and approximately 10,000 soldiers. However, among them was no one who could seize control over the whole army. Some definitely harbored intentions to do so, but they lacked the talent that would have been required to make the other lords agree.
After wasting a whole day on unproductive meetings, four lords left together with their 3,000 soldiers. The remaining lords decided to obey Valentina. They excused their actions by claiming that it had been Chenbel and Eleck who had blamed Ruslan while they had only joined the campaign out of animosity towards Eugene.
──So it’s because no one has been able to take over the leadership, huh? For them to be unable to come up with some better reason…
Valentina couldn’t help but snicker at their foolishness. Then again, it had been her who had given birth to Adelaiyda’s army which Chenbel and Eleck had commanded. Of course, she was well aware that both men had different views on Adelaiyda. She had considered the possibility of them bumping heads before attacking Pardu, but now that it had happened, she could only sigh at their uselessness.
On the other hand, this wasn’t the worst outcome among Valentina’s predictions either. Adelaiyda’s army was gone from the game field and she had obtained two thirds of its soldiers.
It was said that Adelaiyda had behaved herself submissively. But Valentina considered that to be inevitable. With the two guardians on whom she had depended gone, only adults with no sympathy for her situation remained around her.
──I should attack Pardu.
Valentina silently made this decision after having the civil official, who had reported to her, leave her office.
Ever since hearing reports about Arma Zirnitra having split its forces, with one part staying in Bydgauche and the other part moving south through the west, several days ago, Valentina had continuously pondered how she should move.
Defeat the forces in Bydgauche or defeat the forces which were currently marching south. Valentina believed that her enemies in Bydgauche wouldn’t attack the capital since they didn’t have the power to pull that off in the first place. The lords in the central and western north were supportive of Arma Zirnitra. Thus, if Valentina tried to attack Bydgauche, those lords would rush to Arma Zirnitra’s help. But, if Arma Zirnitra were to march on the capital, those lords would hesitate to assist them.
But, this didn’t apply to the southbound enemy forces. Valentina could clearly tell that they were aiming for Pardu. If they gathered up further soldiers in Leitmeritz and Olmutz, they might head for the capital. Thus Valentina had to crush them before they could increase their strength.
At this time, Valentina still didn’t know about Eugene’s death. But then again, it wouldn’t have changed any of her plans even if she had known.
“──Your Highness,” Valentina called out to Valery who was flipping through a book in a corner of her office.
Ten days had already passed since the young prince had started to read books here. At the start, the bureaucrats visiting the office had bowed at him while bewildered by his presence, but nowadays everyone had accepted the prince’s attendance as something very natural.
On the other hand, Valery never disturbed Valentina. He called out to her several times a day, but only when he couldn’t read certain words. Something of this level was no hindrance to Valentina’s work on governmental affairs.
Valentina herself didn’t understand whether she was trying to take care of the young prince as much as she could because Ruslan had asked her to do so, because she regarded this as an atonement towards Ruslan, or because she wanted to simulate some fake revival of her own childhood in this closed space. What she knew was that this type of exchange wasn’t unpleasant for her, nor did it cause her own ambitions to lose any of their drive.
Called by Valentina, the ten-years-old prince lifted his face from the book on his knees.
“What is it, Tina?”
Valentina left her seat and walked up to Valery.
“I feel like I should tell you without delay that I shall be gone from the royal palace in a few days. My attendants will take care of Your Highness’ needs until I return in a while.”
If it was just Osterode’s army, she could have departed today, if she felt like it. But, the same didn’t strike true for Adelaiyda’s army. Valentina had to reorganize its formation with her own hands. Plus, since some of the western lords had answered her call, it had become necessary for her to join up with them somewhere.
“Are you possibly going to war?”
Valentina was mildly surprised by Valery’s curt question. The young boy added with an apologetic look, “I heard several words which drew my curiosity…though it’s not like I planned on eavesdropping.”
“No, Your Highness, it is nothing you would need to worry about.”
Once Valentina shook her head, Valery’s cheeks relaxed in apparent relief. And then he said as if having suddenly hit upon something, “Tina, could you lend me a writing brush?”
When Valentina handed him a brush she had retrieved from her desk, the prince tore off one of the silver buttons attached to his sleeve. And then he wrote something on the button before giving it back to Valentina. Upon taking a look, Valentina saw that he had written a scrawly 『Good luckudáči』.
Valery said with a smug look on his face, “I saw this in the book I read yesterday.”
Valentina fixedly stared at the button, but then asked the prince with a smile, “Your Highness, do you like reading books?”
“Yeah. Thanks to you, Tina,” replied Valery with a carefree smile. “I understand a lot if I read books. Until now I didn’t know how I should put my own thoughts and feelings into words. I also didn’t know what many things were called. But, now I have comprehended many things. Only after they became tangible, I started to understand my own thoughts.”
Listening to Valery, Valentina’s eyes widened for an instant. The boy’s words, which he fervently spun so that they’d pass on his delight and excitement, allowed Valentina to realize something. Her own ambitions came into existence back in her childhood when she had read the tale of Asvarre’s Queen Zepheelia in her own mansion. Until then she hadn’t even known that queens existed in this world.
No, that’s wrong. My ambition took shape even earlier than that.
Having thin royal blood streaming through her veins and merely carrying the surname Estes as she had no more than a remote relation to the direct royal bloodline, Valentina’s environment consisted of nothing but a single, small house in the capital. Even in her early childhood, Valentina was able to assess her current situation and deem it as unacceptable. The tale then gave the vague dream nesting in Valentina a clear direction towards becoming a queen. But, the dream itself had taken shape within herself over a long time.
“…Tina?” The prince looked up to Valentina who had suddenly fallen silent.
At that moment, she tucked away that episode of her past in a corner of her mind and returned a smile at Valery.
“Thank you, Your Highness. I shall borrow some of your luck for a while then,” said Valentina, and then bowed respectfully at the young prince.
◎
The central town of Pardu, Litomysl, had a townscape crying countryside from every corner. Many of the houses were made out of wood, and only the main streets were paved with stones. Most of the wares offered at the stalls were fish, edible wild plants, berries, and nuts. Even Eugene’s mansion was plain and rustic.
“It’s definitely a nice place.”
And yet, Tigre liked what he saw when entering Litomysl. He felt that the ambiance closely resembled Celesta, the central town of Alsace, where he had grown up.
Then again, the current Litomysl emanated a heavy atmosphere, if one only looked outside the town. Countless tents were set up around the town with heavily armed soldiers patrolling the perimeter. Those were the soldiers of Leitmeritz and Olmutz which Elen and Mila had summoned. Up until today, more than 2,400 soldiers had gathered here.
As soon as they arrived in Litomysl, Lim immediately started to work on the organization of their joint army. Tigre, Elen, and Gaspal participated in Eugene’s funeral ceremony, but only Lim didn’t attend. Seeing how they didn’t know when Adelaiyda’s army would appear in Pardu, Lim immersed herself in her work, insisting that someone had to do it anyway.
Even late at night, Lim stared at maps while relying on the illumination of lamps inside Elen’s tent that had been erected outside the town. After finishing even Elen’s share of work and thus running out of things to do, she had tried to sleep, but couldn’t do so because of her high-strung emotions. Because of that she was now distracting herself by staring at maps and hypothesizing about various battlefields and enemy movements.
──We must protect Pardu at any cost.
It was at that moment when she heard a familiar voice outside the tent. At first Lim thought that she might have misheard, but since the voice called out to her once more, she answered, albeit being perplexed.
“I’m sorry about visiting at such a late hour, but please allow me to intrude upon you.”
The one entering was Tigre, just as she had expected.
“I thought you’d be staying the night at Lady Marina’s mansion.”
“I entrusted that part to Elen,” he replied and sat down on the carpet.
Once he took off his thick overcoat, two silver cups and a wine bottle came to light in his hand. He had apparently smuggled them underneath his coat.
“Want to keep me a bit company?”
“I have other things to do.”
Realizing that he had come here to console her, Lim’s face stiffened. Her voice was a lot more brusque than usual.
She tried to ask him to please leave her alone, but Tigre forestalled her, and said, “I wanted to hear about Lord Eugene from you.”
Lim was taken aback. After a short moment of silence, she asked Tigre, “…Did you hear something from Lady Eleonora?”
“She told me to help you forget your worries since she’d entertain Mrs. Marina and Alyssa for the two of us. I tried to come up with various ways to lift your mood on the way here, but to no avail,” Tigre revealed honestly without trying to hide anything while pouring wine into the two cups. “That’s why I changed my way of thinking. I’d like to hear what you know and have seen of Lord Eugene. I want to learn a lot more about that man. No, I feel I must know more about him.”
As the one who had inherited Eugene Shevarin’s will. He directly fixed his black eyes, which were filled with sincerity, on Lim.
Suddenly Lim breathed out. It can’t be helped, she thought while revealing a smile pregnant with an ample amount of sadness. It can’t be helped, allowed her to persuade herself. This is my duty. After all, I’m the only one who can talk about Eugene as I know him, and this man needs to know as much as possible about Eugene.
“Very well. What exactly do you wish to know about Lord Eugene?”
“Everything you know that you believe you can tell me. You don’t need to worry about talking in order or anything like that. Just throw everything you remember at me,” Tigre held out one cup to Lim while continuing, “I met Lord Eugene for the first time during this year’s Sun FestivalMaslenitsa. He said that he met Father…my father on several occasions and that he’d pray to the gods for my mother and father to rest in peace. He even gave me a few pointers about what King Viktor had told me.”
Lim nodded, accepting the cup.
“I understand. Then I’ll start from when Lady Eleonora and I met Lord Eugene for the first time, I suppose.”
Fragments of many scenes revived in Lim’s mind. Without being aware of it, a smile formed on her lips as she started to intermittently talk about their happy past.
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—————— End of Part 1 ——————
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