Risou no Himo Seikatsu - Volume 13 - Chapter 3.5

Intermission 2 — A Temporary Return

When Zenjirou opened his eyes after the teleportation out of the forest, it was to a dark room. There were no windows. Instead, the room was lit with a brazier.

It was a familiar room to him, and the sweltering heat of the furs and leathers covering him was not due to the fire. The room itself—no, the continent—was just that hot.

“Welcome back, Sir Zenjirou.”

“We are glad to see your safe return.”

Zenjirou raised his hand in greeting to the surprised guards and spoke.

“This is a brief return. I shall be heading back tomorrow. Given the visit’s unofficial nature, I would appreciate you only informing Her Majesty. I will be heading to the inner palace immediately.”

“Understood.”

This was the royal palace of Capua. While Zenjirou was in the midst of his trial, he had temporarily returned home.

It had been a while since he had been in the inner palace, and it truly felt like a homecoming to him. The first thing he did as he stepped into the living room was relieve himself of his pack, take off his shoes, and then strip.

“Man, that was hot and heavy. It’s always heavy, but that was shockingly hot.”

On his return from the deserted island, he had been wearing his usual clothing and hadn’t truly noticed the change in climate. This time, though, he was wearing furs and leathers suitable for the deep forest and snow. Even the rainy season—which was relatively cool for Capuans—felt stiflingly hot compared to the forests of Uppasala.

The guards must have sent word because the maids were waiting in the room and gathered his discarded clothing before folding it up neatly.

“Welcome home, Sir Zenjirou,” Amanda said to him.

“Thank you,” he replied.

He had rather missed her unruffled, perfect adherence to etiquette—even in the face of a sudden return from him. Clad in only his T-shirt and boxers, he felt the urge to just lie back on the sofa and rest his eyes. Although he was moderating his pace, the dozen or so days of trekking through the forest and nightly meetings with the movers and shakers in Uppasala meant that the mental exhaustion he hadn’t noticed until now had suddenly come surging forth. Still, he couldn’t just sleep now. There was something important he had to see to as soon as possible.

Zenjirou shook his head to shake off his sleepiness and retrieved the camera and music player from his pack, both of which were getting uncomfortably close to being out of power. The camera in particular already showed a low battery light.

That was the biggest reason he needed to return. He had gotten far more accustomed to using the spell while on this journey, but outside of his “base” of the stone room in Capua, he still needed the images from the camera to do it well. Given his daily commute via teleportation in Uppasala, the camera was an almost literal lifeline for him.

“That’s sorted,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief as he saw their charging indicators light up. He didn’t need to worry now and collapsed back onto the sofa.

“Her Majesty has business and will be unable to return for a while. The baths can be ready for you to use first, so would you prefer to use them now?” Amanda asked kindly.

Zenjirou shuddered slightly in remembrance. While his skin was flushed with heat and sweat, he was still chilled to the bone. It was a characteristic symptom of working physically hard for an extended period in the cold. The inner chill wouldn’t fade easily, even when you returned to the warmth. The quickest way to alleviate it was with a bath.

“Yeah, I’ll head in as soon as they’re ready.”

“Understood,” Amanda replied with a bow before leaving the room.

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Later, Zenjirou spent some time enjoying a proper bath rather than a sauna. The chill had lifted from his bones and he had cleaned his hair and body of all the sweat and grime using the liquid soap the merchants had continued to improve.

It would still take longer for his wife to be back despite his long bath, so Zenjirou used the time to visit his beloved children, Carlos Zenkichi and Juana Yoshino.

He’d been overly excited and set the both of them off crying. The wet nurses had scolded him for it, but the time he spent with them was fulfilling enough that he thought almost nothing of it.

After enjoying the time with his children, Zenjirou was almost half asleep in the living room. The door suddenly opened slightly more forcefully than usual.

“Zenjirou, you truly are back!”

His wife’s voice—having been absent from his life for so long—brought him straight back to wakefulness.

“Yeah, I am,” he replied. “Well, it’ll only be the one night and then I’ll have to head off again in the morning.”

Zenjirou rose from the sofa as he spoke and closed the distance to his wife as she strode quickly towards him. Their embrace wasn’t prompted by either one of them, but both of them moved into it at once. Zenjirou felt the love—equal in magnitude but different in type to when he had held Zenkichi and Yoshino—in the warmth and softness of the embrace. The same love he had felt daily while he was in the inner palace.

“I’m back,” he repeated.

“Welcome home.”

The two of them continued their embrace for a while. A long, deep embrace to press themselves together as much as possible.

“I knew you were safe from the maid and Prince Eric, but holding you like this truly puts me at ease.”

“Me too; it finally feels like things are back to normal.”

They would have stayed as they were for the rest of the day. However, royalty could not prioritize their emotions over matters of state, even when in private.

The two of them reluctantly parted and took seats on opposite sofas. They spent the next while exchanging the information they had in private. Zenjirou had been on the Northern Continent while Aura had been unable to leave the palace, so he had nine times as much information as her, but Aura had new things to tell him as well.

“I see, so Prince Eric found a kindred spirit in Marshal Pujol. It makes sense now I hear it,” he mused.

He had been nervous about the emotional disconnect between the two of them when he sent Eric to Capua, but he was glad the man had managed to build somewhat positive relationships with the marshal and queen.

“Indeed. He has also approved of Princess Freya’s marriage. You had not mentioned that it was her who started things in public. That would have settled it immediately,” Aura chuckled.

“I honestly hadn’t thought about it. Either way, King Gustav needed to give his permission,” he replied, scratching at his head. In retrospect, it was not a surprising idea. For better or worse, this world was very patriarchal, whichever continent you were on. It was easy to imagine the harm a woman making such a proposal with no preparation could have caused. It was something he should keep in mind.

“Still, to think how accomplished I felt getting a favorable answer from him, and he is not even the next king... I feel rather duped,” Aura commented with a rueful smile.

Eric had introduced himself as the country’s first prince rather than their crown prince. The soul of language made it easy to forget, given how easy it made conversing with foreigners, but a difference in culture could lead to the same words having different nuances. Or sometimes there was not a word that matched between the two languages. It was like “duke” being a title of royalty in Capua, but also being assigned to the heads of the four tribes in the Twin Kingdoms.

Hence Aura’s assumption that the difference in title from Eric’s introduction was a quirk of the translation process. Instead, it was her mistake.

“I must say that our cultures seem fundamentally different if a country is willing to accept a foreign prince as their king. I had heard about some of the differences from Princess Freya, but the sheer breadth of those differences could become a pitfall.”

“That’s true,” Zenjirou agreed. He also offered a warning: “Still, the royal families of the northern countries being animistic is similar to us, so it’s the better solution.”

“You mentioned the Noble’s Commonwealth of Złota Wolność? They technically have a king, do they not?”

“They do. You should assume it’s completely different from the kind of king you’re thinking of. The king and royal family both have practically no overall power. The Sejm are the actual rulers.”

There were also the facts that the king was elected, each of the nobility had a single vote, and the Senat administered the election, and while it was called an “election,” only the person other countries would call the crown prince could stand, so it was more of a vote of confidence. The specifics like that could wait, though.

He was only back for a single night, so Zenjirou had decided that giving all of that information without a proper explanation would do more harm than good.

“That country is on the brink of large-scale war with ‘knights.’ Are these knights a country as well?”

“Yeah, their official name is The North Dragon Claw Knight Order. There’s a religious order on the Northern Continent with a lot of influence just called ‘the church,’ and they’re from its claw faction. It was originally established to ‘maintain public order in the northern reaches of the continent with lesser teachings.’ The northern countries—including Uppasala—see them as natural enemies because of that. I don’t know the exact technicalities, but they have the land, money, and military force of a country, so it’s probably fine to consider them a country in their own right.”

He had not been able to learn about either the commonwealth or the knights in enough detail to explain the minutiae of either country.

“Very well. We will leave the details until you are back from dealing with the matter at hand. Regardless, the both of them are strong powers or influences on the Northern Continent in their own right. Both are about to clash in open warfare, but do we know when?” she asked with a harsh look on her face.

Zenjirou shook his head in answer to her question. “I don’t know the particulars around that either, but if what Princess Anna said while we were there is true, the Husaria’s scouting spotted the knights moving at the border. That was roughly thirty days ago.”

Her face turned sour at that. “Well...I have to preface this by saying it is entirely based on my own experience, but war could break out at any moment in that situation. Will the fighting truly not reach Uppasala?”

“That’ll be fine. It’s a rough explanation, but the knights are to the north of the commonwealth, and Uppasala is even farther north. There are sheer, snow-covered mountains between their territories, though. So much so that you gain significant accolades even crossing them in the middle of summer.” As he spoke, Zenjirou took a ballpoint and sketched out a map on a sheet of drake parchment on the table to explain it.

“And the ocean will not be an issue?”

“It would be putting everything on the line. The knights haven’t focused on naval expansion, so they don’t have the forces to split like that. Even if they did, the capital is at least a day away from the coast by ship over the Mater Lake. It sounds like it isn’t realistic that the capital would fall under attack.”

“Hmm.”

Thereafter, Aura asked how long it took to reach Logfort from Pomorskie, how long the land route was between Pomorskie and Tannenwald, and other such things. Once she had a complete picture of the distances involved, she agreed that Uppasala did seem like it would be unscathed.

Relieved, she said, “While it may be unfair for me to say considering that I sent you there, please escape as soon as things seem dangerous. If it comes to it, do not hesitate to use the teleportation magic tool. Understood?”

“Yeah, I will,” he said, smiling to put her at ease. “Once the devices are finished charging, I’ll copy everything onto the computer. You should be able to get a picture of the Northern Continent and particularly the commonwealth’s strength. Personally, I think there’s a decent level of risk there. We don’t have the time for that now, though, so let’s get back to talking about Uppasala.”

Information on the Northern Continent was important, but the concubine agreement and the trade deal that came with it were still the most important things. The queen had no objections and nodded, urging him to continue.

“With Prince Eric no longer leading the opposition, the actual agreements probably won’t be an issue. Even if I have to turn tail and run with the Rite of Age, I should manage. So the next topic I have will be after that, but Prince Yngvi—while he isn’t the crown prince, he will be the next king—has said that he would welcome a concubine from Capua.”

“Oh, that is worth considering,” Aura said, an eyebrow rising.

With Capua taking their first princess as a concubine, it made Yngvi doing the same much more equitable—even if he remained the second prince rather than becoming king.

“Prince Yngvi is Princess Freya’s younger twin, no?”

“Yeah, though he calls himself the older of them. He looks almost identical to her. He’s fairly similar in temperament as well. My first impression of him was that he’s an oddity for royalty but not a bad person. Princess Freya has said the same thing, so it should be fairly accurate.”

“Then that puts me somewhat at ease. I had heard the Northern Continent had a tendency to look down on the Southern Continent. It would need to be someone with a large amount of integrity to be able to marry into such a culture. Otherwise, even a political marriage would be at risk.”

A political marriage was exactly what the name implied. Both a political act and a marriage. While it would never happen if it wasn’t for the politics involved, it could also fall apart depending on the man and woman involved.

“So you’re interested?” Zenjirou asked.

“Depending on their conditions and our desires. I am sure Marshal Pujol would happily offer Fatima...”

“Yeah, that’s not a good idea, though, is it?”

Aura nodded in agreement. “It would not even be worth considering. Fatima Guillén has the same mother as Pujol Guillén and carries an equal amount of the royal bloodline.”

She was not someone they could allow to leave the country. While the possibility was extremely low, it was feasible that a descendant of hers could someday manifest the latent space-time magic in their bloodline.

“In that respect, I suppose Mirella from the Márquez family would be the same?”

“No, she is from a branch family by blood. While she might have some of the Márquez family’s blood, her link to the royal family’s is tenuous. She would be suitable. Whatever else, though, their actual abilities, disposition, and willingness would be more important than their ostensible policies with this, though. It would be marrying not just across borders, but across into another continent entirely. It cannot be forced.”

That wasn’t something she was saying out of emotional consideration. It was simply that if the first inroads into friendly relations in the form of the marriage ended in disaster, Aura felt it would be better to not bother in the first place.

“That makes Princess Freya all the more impressive,” Zenjirou commented.

“Indeed, she certainly possesses more than the normal level of courage and initiative.”

In that respect, perhaps it was overstating things to call her pushing for the concubine arrangement entirely due to her own selfishness. Capua would be a completely alien land to the Uppasalan noblewomen. There was no one more familiar with it than Freya to marry into the land.

“For the time being, we will consider Prince Yngvi to be the most likely to succeed the throne. We will also take into account his interest in a concubine from our lands. I will ensure that the diplomat we send as your replacement is aware of those matters. Is there anything else you should report now?”

Zenjirou considered things for a moment before slapping a hand on his leg. “Right. An old smith called Völundr sought me out and asked me to bring him here. Princess Freya was present as well and she was overjoyed, while Skaji was shocked. It sounds like Völundr is like Skaji’s name, something that’s bestowed on a particularly skilled smith.”

“Oh? That certainly sounds worth celebrating, though I fear what lurks underneath the situation.” Looking a gift horse in the mouth like this was perhaps the obvious reaction for the ruler of a nation.

“Well, even if he doesn’t have any ulterior motives himself, I imagine the king will want some recompense for parting with him.”

“If he is so valued, then we will need to negotiate. The bigger issue would be his ability to teach rather than his skill as a smith. If they have such a person, I would do much to get them.”

Skill not translating into teaching ability was the same no matter what world you were in. A single master smith would not increase the overall production of iron tools by much, and their own offerings would cease after a decade or so if they were old. The most important thing was that the advanced techniques he had could spread and take root in the kingdom.

“Either way, things are going fairly well overall. Still, it looks like I’ll be coming back after the marriage ceremony, so it’ll probably be later than we planned.”

The queen felt a twinge in her chest as he spoke of the marriage ceremony happening abroad. None of that showed on her face, though. It was for her that he was taking a concubine and had risked his life on both the sea voyage and this current rite. She felt far too ashamed of all of that to show any sign of the discomfort it caused her.

“I will be waiting,” she said instead, offering a composed smile.