IYTTEPAAK Chapter 19

The imperial banquet is not normal. Not a social hall. A competition ground. A match field. An arena. And the proof of that came the instant you stepped through the door.

"Sixth in the order of imperial succession, Her Highness Princess Rosasia Trinite Magnalorde, entering with her personal knight."

Announcing an imperial name aloud, publicly, was ordinarily a breach of etiquette. But the herald called mine out at full volume all the same.

It was no different from a competitor entering an arena. A gladiator stepping into a coliseum.

"For what it's worth, that rank is just birth order. Doesn't mean much."

"I heard the real number is three."

"Yes. Order of favor."

The moment I set foot in the hall, someone was already waiting to greet me—a man with dull blond hair pulled back into a single knot, snake-eyed. Marquess Jaken Osbond.

"Take this, Your Highness."

A small velvet pouch was pressed into my hand. Inside were five pieces of metal, each about the size of a button—they looked like specially minted commemorative coins.

Looking around, I saw the ones who'd arrived ahead of me had already hung their own pouches from a waistline, a fan's edge, a little finger.

Osbond didn't explain what the coins inside were for. He offered nothing but the simplest of instructions.

"Enjoy the banquet as you please. It would serve you well to present your personal knight to the nobility—attractively, if you can manage it."

That much alone let me guess at the shape of the rules.

The Mad Emperor was nowhere in sight. As always, he would appear only once the banquet had ripened for an hour or two. That would be when the real competition began.

I walked past Osbond. As I crossed the carpeted path at the center of the hall, the nobility on either side observed their courtesies.

I glanced sideways at Regen and asked.

"Nervous?"

"I'm fine."

Every bit the beloved prince, the knight who'd commanded battlefields. He carried himself with composure even in a hall of this scale.

Murmurs drifted in from every direction.

"Did you see him? Insane. That face."

"Never mind his ability—he might be the best-looking of all the personal knights."

"So that's why Her Highness the Silver Bird turned Sir Domynick down all this time—her standards were simply too high!"

"Truly, the finest accessory there is."

There was no discretion whatsoever in the nobility's voices.

They couldn't comment on a princess's own appearance. But her possessions—her knight—they could gossip about that as loudly as they liked, and clearly meant to be heard doing it.

The processional had gone on long enough. At a suitable point I turned my steps and folded into the crowd enjoying the banquet.

Nobles closed in around Regen and me at once.

"I marveled the instant I saw you enter the hall, truly."

"Who could have guessed Her Highness's eye for beauty ran this fine."

"The knight's name, was it...... ah, Sir Regen?"

"My, his voice is as fine as his face."

Not every glance was friendly.

"A knight ought to have a fair few honors to his name. Sir Regen, what would you call your greatest feat in battle?"

"Ha, come now. A jest!"

"Ah—of course, the man was a prisoner of war. Ha ha!"

"Ha ha ha ha! This fellow's a bit of a scamp. Only teasing, Your Highness—pay it no mind."

I lifted one corner of my mouth into a smile and answered.

"And what, might I ask, is the greatest achievement of the two young lords speaking so freely?"

"Pardon?"

"Hands soft as maple leaves that have never once gripped a sword, so of course you've no feats to your name—third and fourth sons, idling like layabouts, no use to your houses at all—and is the nerve it took to insult me to my face the only medal your generation still hands out?"

"Y—Your Highness! What—what could you mean by such a thing! Insult, surely not."

"There, an insult a second time. My knight's honor is my own honor. Do you take me for foolish enough to hear a jab at Sir Regen's origins as a compliment?"

"......!"

The two young lords, realizing that anything further out of their mouths could only cost them more, broke into a cold sweat.

Up to that point, I'd have taken an apology and let it end there.

"You call a prisoner of war a prisoner of war. What else would you call him?"

A beauty draped in a seductive gown and heavy with jewels cut in.

The fifth imperial princess. Cehera.

She swept a hand through her dark green hair, chin tilted upward with practiced hauteur.

"Dress a black thing up as white and call it packaging, is that it? I can't stand it when people deny what's plainly true just to save face. If that's not hypocrisy, then what is?"

Naturally, a knight of sturdy build with iron-gray hair stood at Cehera's side, present as always.

The term "prisoner of war" was an attack on Jerome just as much as on Regen. But whatever it cost Jerome—whether his mouth trembled from that groveling smile of his or not—Cehera's mind carried no filter between it and her tongue.

"Sister Heera, have you come to speak in their defense?"

"Defense? Why on earth would I? I only came to say what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong."

"...... Ah, I see."

"Anyone here think I'm mistaken?"

"......"

"See? Not a soul. Everyone hates hypocrisy, just as I said."

I chose not to answer. The more childish the rhetoric grew, the more it would only cost her own reputation.

Let's see how far she takes it.

My resolve didn't last long. Cehera's gaze had already moved to Regen.

"Your knight looks awfully calm too, Sasha, for someone the word 'prisoner of war' shouldn't sit well with. Look at that face."

"......"

"That face...... really."

"......"

"...... He really is handsome, isn't he."

Cehera drifted toward Regen with a look almost bewitched, and only came back to herself with a start when Regen offered her a formal bow.

Bewitched—that had been exactly right, apparently. And seeming stung by her own pride at the realization, she forced her reddening face into a look of displeasure.

"Sir Regen, was it? Still shining bright as ever, that face of yours."

"My greetings to Her Highness the Princess of Early Summer. You flatter me."

"Though I do find myself a little suspicious."

"Of what, Your Highness?"

"That right eye of yours—is it truly injured? Or is the eyepatch just for looks?"

Cehera's hand reached toward Regen's eyepatch.

"Sister Cehera."

"......"

"If I were you, sister, I would not touch him."

Cehera flinched back at my warning and offered an excuse.

"No—I mean, it's not that I wanted to touch it, exactly, just—surely someone here doubts whether it's really hurt, isn't there? Wouldn't it be better to confirm it together?"

"......"

I didn't think her deserving of a response. And Cehera, as talkative people always do, couldn't bear the silence. She withdrew her hand and flared up in anger instead.

"Do you really have to embarrass your own sister over something so trivial? This is an insult, you know. Is it that you've finally got yourself a knight and want an excuse for a duel?"

"A duel."

"Yes!"

The provocative proposal drew a burst of eager exclamations from the onlookers.

It was obvious who'd put the idea into Cehera's head. Probably Jerome, boasting a week ago that he could beat Regen easily.

But the Regen of a week ago and the Regen of now were not the same man. Jerome seemed to have felt it too, judging by how he'd gone anxious and fretful even as Cehera issued her confident provocation—which struck me, privately, as almost funny.

"Heera. Sasha. It's the day of the competition. Don't waste your strength on quarrels."

Right on cue, arriving neither early nor late but at some deliberately ambiguous middle point as always, Sister Orlette came to mediate.

Given a convenient excuse, Cehera left first, playing the part of the one gracious enough to let it go—and just behind her, Sister Orlette clicked her tongue loudly, pointedly, at me, and walked off as well.

I moved in the opposite direction from Sister Orlette, but somehow we ended up meeting again elsewhere, backs to the same pillar.

We sipped our drinks and talked, each pretending to look elsewhere.

"Couldn't you have taken a sedative before coming?"

"...... Spare me the lecture."

"Catch your breath. You can't afford to make enemies at this banquet tonight."

Sister Orlette, too, seemed to have made a rough guess at the competition's rules.

"Your Highness...... I, I should like to pay my greetings......"

A cowed voice came from beside Sister Orlette. A knight with hair the pale brown of chocolate milk, and mild green eyes.

Sister Orlette took him under her wing.

"Ah, right. I should introduce him. This is my sixth—mistress of the Silver Bird chamber. Unlike how he looks, he's not one to hurt anybody."