BPOTWC Chapter 2

The King of Sapheris, who had said he'd leave for home right away, declared a one-day delay.

He claimed it was to give Princess Clarisse time to prepare. His true intent was probably otherwise.

There was no doubt he meant to give Duke Maximilian of Sheridan, who had taken it upon himself to protect her, time to reconsider that decision and steel himself to cut the child's throat.

That's just how it was, wasn't it.

Bothering to spare the brat, raising her to eighteen—only to kill her in the end...

Quentin Saintclair, Maximilian's aide, wasted no time trying to talk him out of it.

"Your Grace—you're actually taking that princess with you?"

"I am. And why do you look so miserable about it?"

"Because Your Grace only ever goes and does things without knowing a blessed thing about them! For one thing, adding another person to the household isn't a simple matter at all."

"Is that so?"

"Your Grace probably thought it was as simple as adding one more set of tableware to the table!"

At this, Maximilian seemed to have only just now considered the practical difficulties.

He mulled something over for a moment, then nodded slowly and answered.

"I see. I'll have another set of children's tableware purchased, then."

He picked up his pen and wrote "prepare tableware" on a blank sheet of paper.

"Good heavens! You hadn't even thought of that much?"

Quentin clutched his own head with both hands.

"Your Grace may have decided this out of a moment's pity, but it's the castle's staff who'll actually be the ones suffering for it!"

He took one more step toward Maximilian's desk.

Or, to be more precise, the desk that had belonged, until just yesterday, to the fallen kingdom's now-dead prince.

"From what I could tell, the princess can't be more than seven."

"No, she's nine."

Maximilian corrected the error, recalling the personal details of the Grezekaia royal family he'd seen in the documents.

But that didn't seem to be the important part. Quentin was still wailing.

"Seven, nine—makes no difference, cute's cute!"

He screamed and pulled a thoroughly miserable face.

"Think about it. A nine-year-old child, running around freely in the freezing north of Sheridan. Your Grace is bound to dress her in warm, fluffy fur clothing!"

"Understood. I'll see to it."

Maximilian wrote "warm fur clothing" beneath the line reading "tableware."

Thinking about it more, this too seemed necessary.

He'd heard that Grezekaia's winter was no different from Sheridan's autumn.

"Argh, if you do that, you'll surely grow attached!"

Attached? Maximilian murmured the word quietly to himself—it stirred some unfamiliar feeling in him—and tilted his head slightly.

He'd heard the word in literary works before, at least, so he understood well enough what kind of feeling it referred to.

A vile impulse that presses a man toward irrational choices. It was among the things Maximilian despised most. Every noble bore the duty to make the correct choice. Sparing the princess's life had only been an extension of that same principle.

He hadn't thought the child was cute, or pitiable, not even a little. That child, born into royalty, would already have enjoyed a great deal.

By contrast, the children of the Kingdom of Grezekaia he'd seen while marching to war had been starving, wasted down to skin and bone. Even the kingdom's soldiers had grown listless from hunger, and most had fled before the Sapheris army even arrived.

It had been an easy war, over in under a month, and little blood spilled. If anything, more people had likely been saved by the army's arrival than lost.

The people of this land had come close to praising the Sapheris army for sharing food with them.

And yet, was he supposed to pity the princess of such a rotten kingdom?

Out of the question.

Even if the person in question was only an ignorant child who knew nothing of her own country's circumstances.

Maximilian only hoped that Lysander—his half-brother, King of Sapheris—would not go on to break that precious law elsewhere.

The more a matter was tangled up with a foreign nation, the more important it was to handle it strictly within the bounds of established rule.

Unaware of any of this, Quentin's wailing continued.

"The people of Sheridan Castle have no immunity whatsoever to adorable children. That terrifying little princess is absolutely going to melt every last one of those cold northern hearts, win everyone's surrender, and conquer the whole place in the end!"

"What nonsense."

"Doesn't Your Grace read books at all? These days the popular ones are full of exactly this kind of story. Do you know why that kind of story is so popular?"

"I suppose it catches interest."

"No! Because anyone—anyone at all—gets disarmed completely by a child's cuteness! Children are cute! Children are precious! We want to protect them!"

"Well, that works out."

Maximilian nodded.

"As it happens, I was about to appoint her primary guardian. You'll do."

"……What? M—me?"

Quentin, who'd been shouting the whole time, froze with his mouth hanging open, then shook his head.

"Uh…… I, I can't do that."

"Didn't you say you'd read a great many childcare books?"

"Those were romantic childcare novels, not practical guides. It's completely different from the real thing."

"You said you wanted to protect her."

"That's—that comes later! Every child is adorable!"

"So, then. You'll take her on."

"No, thank you!"

He recoiled, taking several steps back in alarm.

"Raise a child, only to cut her head off at eighteen and hand it to His Majesty? Ugh, I can't do that."

"She is not a 'child I went to the trouble of raising."

Maximilian rebuked him in a stern voice.

"She's a prisoner of war. That is to say, a criminal."

"She's still just a child, no matter what you call her!"

"She is the king's seed. Her mere existence can be claimed as grounds to restore that kingdom."

"Then Your Grace—" Quentin said, pushing his silver-rimmed glasses back up his nose, "—means to raise the child with his own hands, then kill her himself when she turns eighteen?"

He'd said it as though the very idea were beyond horrifying, but Maximilian answered without a moment's hesitation.

"Yes."

That had been the entire point of taking her from the start.

To execute her, in accordance with the law as written.

"…Good God. You might as well just kill the princess now."

That won't do.

Just as Maximilian was about to answer this, a dull sound from the half-open doorway stopped the conversation cold.

The knights had brought Clarisse in.

The dull sound a moment ago had apparently come from the worn pouch the child was carrying, dropped to the floor.

"Ah—ah."

Clarisse froze for a moment, then hurried to snatch up the fallen pouch and hold it close, protectively.

What could be inside? Jewels, or coins?

Perhaps she'd thought such things would be necessary in an unfamiliar land.

The child fidgeted, glancing warily around the room, and when her eyes met Maximilian's, she startled and blurted out a plea.

"P—please, just let me live."

Had she heard them through the door? Her frail voice trembled.

"I'll live as quietly as if I were already dead."

It was not the kind of thing that ought to come from the mouth of a mere nine-year-old.

Unable to bear the horror of it, Quentin shook his head helplessly.

"I don't know anymore. Do as Your Grace pleases. I've given fair warning. This is a rotten thing to do, plain and simple."

He let out a heavy sigh and left the room along with the knights, leaving only the Duke and Clarisse behind.

"……."

The Duke looked down at the child, quietly and recalled the brief information he'd seen in the documents.

Clarisse Lennon Grezekaia.

The sole princess of Grezekaia.

She was known to be the daughter of one of the king's concubines—but when he'd checked the night before, there was no record whatsoever of who that woman had even been. Likely someone of extremely low birth.

The queen's faction, backed by their powerful families, had surely disposed of the birth mother, and the king had simply looked away.

And no doubt, so the child would never forget her place and dare talk back, they'd tamed her—the way you'd tame an animal—with that one word: bastard.

"……I."

Having finished this train of thought, the Duke spoke quietly.

He had no intention of offering some vague, comforting hope simply because the girl before him was young.

A mirage-like hope was better never given at all.

Rather than let her live happily only to plummet suddenly into despair, it would be kinder to steep her in despair from the very beginning, for the sake of what remained of her life.

"I'm going to kill you, Clarisse Lennon Grezekaia."

"……!"

A pale, deep terror bloomed at once across the child's face.

Likely from the sheer weight of the killing intent he carried.

The child kept fidgeting with the rattling pouch, her trembling lips parting.

Probably, she'd grovel to live again—"I want to live," just like before.

"W—when……?"

But what the child actually said was different from what he'd expected. He answered coldly.

"The day you turn eighteen."

This—surely this would bring despair.

……Or so he thought, but to his astonishment, deep relief began to bloom across Clarisse's face instead.

The girl took a step closer to him and asked, as though she couldn't quite believe it.

"R—really? I get to live…… all the way until I'm eighteen?"

Fortunate, at least, that she wasn't wailing or clinging stubbornly to a plea to live, but……

That she'd wear a face so full of hope—unthinkable.

"……Yes."

Puzzled, the Duke's answer came out a little slower than he'd intended.

Clarisse, seemingly relieved for the first time in earnest, swept one hand over the area near her heart.

"I thought Your Grace might change your mind, because of what that scary mister said before. I was really scared……"

"I do not break the law."

He declared this solemnly, and the child hugged her worn pouch close and smiled, a little bashfully.

Even Maximilian, who took little interest in other people, couldn't help but question this reaction.

Of course she'd be glad not to die immediately—but where in the world had she found such boundless joy and hope in a promise to kill her at eighteen?

Perhaps sensing his thoughts, the child cautiously offered an explanation.

"My brother said that once he took the throne, the very first thing he'd do would be to get rid of me."

The Duke was already well aware that the King of Grezekaia had been preparing to abdicate for health reasons.

But he hadn't known the young crown prince had been threatening his little sister this way.

Given the way the prince had behaved yesterday, though, it wasn't especially surprising.

"My brother told me, every single day, that he'd kill me before I turned twelve. But…… eighteen?"

The child seemed to feel a strange sort of feeling at this, her cheeks flushing pink as she pressed at the grimy pouch again and again.

The rattling sound came from within it, over and over.

"……I can't believe it. I'm so happy."

It was Maximilian who couldn't believe it.

"You are a good person, Your Grace."

He'd never expected to receive such a grand compliment for a promise to kill her by law when she turned eighteen.

The child was still smiling up at him, a bright expression without the slightest trace of suspicion or resentment.