* * *
Unfortunately, the empress’s palace Giselle was aiming for had already blocked off everything even remotely nearby, so she couldn’t get close. Can’t be helped. I’ll just find the patch of grass that’s as close as possible to the maids’ usual route! They’d banned outsiders from entering the empress’s palace for now, but since it wasn’t an official confinement, there was no way they could cut her off from the outside world completely.
On a small lawn as close to the empress’s palace as she could get, Giselle spread out a picnic mat. As she unpacked the lunchbox Ivanka and the maids had prepared for her, she drawled. “Yawn. Giselle is ve~ry ve~ry incompetent. Might as well just take a nap.”
A vassal of the Kalinos family urged her on. “But why are you lying down here of all places? You came all the way to the imperial palace only to say you’re going to sleep?”
“Mmm. Giselle looooo~ves sleeping so much!” Giselle flopped down flat on her back. She was too lazy to move, so after rolling over maybe a quarter turn, she fumbled around next to the lunchbox and muttered, “Wait, you want a duchess with proper refinement… Hmmm, maybe Giselle should do something cultured like read?”
And then, on the cover of the book she picked up… There was a lurid ad blurb that read: <Duke Le Mo Gets Totally ‘Wrecked’ by a Passing Commoner Doctor!>
“W-W-What in the world? How can you read a gossip rag right in front of the imperial palace?!”
“What? It’s a bestseller, though?” Giselle crossed her legs and jerked her chin at them. “Giselle’s gonna read you something su~per fun. If you don’t listen, Giselle is gonna go tattle to the duke, okay?”
While they listened to her utterly uncultured way of talking, the Kalinos blood relatives started murmuring in dismay.
“Now she’s planning to cause a scene even here, in the imperial palace…”
“They say if a bowl leaks inside, it’ll leak on the outside too…”
Their worries only grew and grew without end, but Giselle just smiled like a clueless innocent who didn’t understand a thing. Then, all of a sudden, she murmured with a serious expression, “Come to think of it, this phrase ‘gets totally wrecked’ sounds so classy and beautiful.”
“Huff, good grief…”
“Ah, now that Giselle thinks about it, we can’t keep all this beauty to ourselves, can we?” Giselle beamed, then immediately turned her hawk-like eyes to scan the nearby maids with flowers in their hair as they walked past.
While the Kalinos relatives could only heave deep, weary sighs, wondering which poor maid was going to get caught in Giselle’s clutches this time, one maid in the distance, scurrying along in quick little steps, popped up on Giselle’s radar.
In a loud, thoroughly unrefined voice, she shouted, “Hey, kid. Get over here.”
“…Pardon? K-Kid?”
“Yup.”
Flustered, the maid hesitated, then edged closer to Giselle. The other maids with her also shot curious looks in her direction.
Giselle gently drew the maid in, fed her cake and fruit from the lunchbox, then raised her voice and declared, as if all of this had just been the setup to provoke attention. “Now then, it’s time to learn about the great Lady Wot’s life journey. Got it?”
Whether people’s faces were twisting up like they were about to rot clean off at this sudden, out-of-nowhere impromptu book club… Giselle only had eyes for one fan—no, one person. The maid wore a knot at her waist embroidered with the crest of the empress’s palace.
From that moment, Giselle’s praise for Wot began. She devoted a particularly long stretch to the part where Wot treated the illnesses of the people of ‘Signboard Village.’ After a good thirty minutes had passed, what remained was: Giselle, who had finished the entire book in a loud, ringing voice, clear enough for anyone nearby to hear. The Kalinos relatives, going pale as paper and collapsing while clutching the backs of their necks. And, lastly, the empress’s maid, sneaking puzzled glances at the book.
All Giselle had done was step out for a short walk, yet even the imperial palace had turned into a complete shitshow.
* * *
“Why are you so late?”
“T-That’s. Duchess Kalinos suddenly called me to a rea-reading gathering.”
“Hmm? Were you acquainted with the duchess?”
“It’s not that…”
As the maid hurriedly explained everything from beginning to end, confusion appeared on the empress’s face.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. You’re unwell, yet I dared to be distracted…”
“It’s alright. Being shut away together like this must be stifling. I gave you a little break, didn’t I? If the reading gathering was… enjoyable, then I’m glad.”
But in those thirty-odd minutes, the empress’s complexion had grown noticeably paler.
She’s such a good person… What am I supposed to do?
The empress was someone who sponsored street artists and took an active interest in commoners. Even now, with all contact with the outside world cut off, her position required her to keep an ear out for every social issue, so she had naturally heard her share of rumors. Thus, the maid, as if it were nothing special, began relaying gossip about Duchess Kalinos this time as well.
“So something like that… really happened?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I truly hate to say this, but she was terribly outrageous…”
“I see. I understand. Then, what’s that book?”
“The duchess kept urging me to read it and pressed it into my hands. She said this one was the talk of the capital, so I brought a copy…”
The empress accepted the book without much thought and, despite her pain and suffering, read it from beginning to end. It felt as if her once pure, spotless mind was being completely polluted…
In one part of the book she opened, there was a detailed account of Wot healing the people of Signboard Village. This seems similar to the illness I’m suffering from. For a moment, her brows knit ever so slightly.
“Duke Reshaniel said he would come tomorrow to heal me, didn’t he?”
“…Yes.”
Between Two’s unusual special treatment technique and Duke Reshaniel’s proven healing arts, which would be better?
The empress then shook her head inwardly. What on earth am I thinking? Of course, I should be treated by Duke Reshaniel.
According to Duke Reshaniel, she could be completely cured after three healing sessions. A healer whose divine power was said to be extraordinary was already helping her. There was no need to take a risk on a stranger. To clear her mind, she pushed herself upright.
“Is the emperor in a meeting?”
“Yes.”
“Since my health has improved, if only a little, I should devote myself to the inner palace affairs. Lead the way.”
* * *
Meanwhile, the atmosphere inside the regular imperial council chamber, where the emperor himself was present, was downright chilling. It was all because of the clash between Duke Kalinos and Duke Reshaniel, sparked by the proposed revisions to the civil code.
“An unmarried duke, submitting a bill to revise the marriage law.”
“Is there a problem with that?”
“I mean that this proposal for a concubine system is filthy.”
“It’s not meant for the general populace, but for the nomadic tribes that have been rapidly incorporated into the empire due to the recent instability in a neighboring principality. Their men die young, so they take multiple wives to continue the family line. Wouldn’t the empire’s system feel restrictive to them?”
“But you submitted the bill as a general law, didn’t you?”
“In any case, it’s a law for the socially vulnerable, nothing more.”
Neither man yielded so much as an inch. It was like watching black and white collide. The already weak-willed emperor struggled to mediate, if only so he wouldn’t faint.
“E-Everyone calm down… T-Then perhaps we should take a short recess for now.”
Amid all this, a few nobles wore puzzled expressions. Normally, in order not to be stuck facing Duke Kalinos for long, the emperor would mostly just accept his opinions in the council. Yet this time, strangely enough, he seemed to be watching Duke Reshaniel’s reaction instead. In fact, a few among them understood what weighed on the emperor’s mind.
With the empress ill, he has no choice but to watch Duke Reshaniel’s mood. Which meant that even if the man brought in an utterly absurd bill, the emperor was in a position where he at least had to nod along as if he were considering it.
Duke Reshaniel’s elegant wickedness did not end there. “For a time, we should push a bill to bring the private troops of the northern territories into the central security forces of the capital.”
“What are you playing at?”
“Immigrants are pouring in from other continents, and the capital’s public safety has become precarious. The North is peaceful at present, so bringing them here for a while won’t have any major impact.”
At first glance, his argument sounded reasonable. But to the members of the Kalinos family, who had yet to submit their report on the <Demon Seed>, his words struck like a bolt from the blue. If the law were enforced as Duke Reshaniel intended, the burden on the family’s private troops would become crushing.
Duke Kalinos turned his head to look at the emperor, who was deliberately avoiding his gaze. “Do you truly intend to support that absurd bill, Your Majesty?”
No matter how powerful the Kalinos family was, if the emperor exercised his legislative authority, there would be no way to oppose it. The members of the Kalinos looked at one another and swallowed their groans.
Through the crack of the open council doors, the empress, who had been calmly observing the situation, staggered. This is nonsense! She was anything but stupid.
Before Duke Kalinos, the emperor could barely muster any spirit. And yet, he had been someone who sought to embrace even the rough northerners of the empire with love. But now, he couldn’t cut down at once such a ridiculous bill about some concubine system, and another bill that would drag the northern private troops, who ought to be guarding the gaps in the monster frontier, into the empire’s security forces?
The bill was submitted by Duke Reshaniel’s side. Could it be that, in exchange for my survival, he struck some bargain with that man?
The empress’s gaze turned icy in an instant. If there had been an alternative, the emperor wouldn’t be getting dragged around like this… But… Wait, there’s an alternative. Her eyes widened in a flash.
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