RAMHM Chapter 140

The Saint's Investiture

The atmosphere in the council chamber was chaotic.

The council chamber was in disarray. Count Raelon, who had provided the venue, watched Second Prince Rhodness. Whether the nobles quarreled or not, Rhodness simply observed. That arrogant, heedless face—anger boiled up in him.

Any mention of marriage to the saint earned everyone a cold glance, so there was nothing left to discuss but the saint's investiture itself.

"In a few hours it will be the saint's investiture. Shouldn't Your Highness take a more active role, as a member of the imperial family?"

"His Imperial Majesty, Her Imperial Majesty, and even my own seat have already been arranged. What more would you have me do?"

"All manner of people are going to flood into the capital. Shouldn't Your Highness do something with the saint at the ceremony, so people can feel reassured?"

"Embrace my brother's widow and waltz with her, you mean."

The man who'd raised the question shut his mouth.

The entire meeting had gone on like this—the same demand, the same answer, over and over.

The Second Prince hadn't driven off the people who'd flocked to him claiming they would support him.

But there were moments when he watched them as if he might draw his sword and slit a throat at any time.

The aura of the Second Prince, who carried both infamy and renown in equal measure, was formidable.

The nobles in this room made a deliberate effort not to notice that energy.

Duke Castagna, who had still kept one foot leaning toward the Empress and Epero, had collapsed.

No footing, no justification—not anymore, not to cling to the Ninth Prince he had already abandoned.

The nobles who had taken Doris Castagna's word as gospel—her promise that "if I become Crown Princess again, I'll help turn the entire Crown Prince faction into the Second Prince's faction"—were burning with impatience.

If the unwavering glory Doris had promised never came to pass because she and Rhodness never came together, who could say they wouldn't be abandoned after having done nothing but help her?

The only way to control a Second Prince who had lived all his life like a wolf cut loose from its pack was to hang a collar around his neck—one named "Saint" Doris. Their insides burned, dried out, crackle-scorched with the thought.

"Your Highness, forgive my impertinence, but do you genuinely intend to enter the contest for the throne?"

"We find it difficult to gauge Your Highness's will."

"If His Imperial Majesty would only lend a more attentive ear to public sentiment, the position of Crown Prince could go at any time to His Imperial Highness Prince Epero—"

As a few who'd been holding back their grievances began to grumble, Rhodness turned his gaze toward them.

The complaining mouths shut at once.

Watching this, Count Raelon, beating his chest inwardly, spoke up.

"Your Highness, we have boarded the same ship. If you wish to make proper use of those of us who've gathered to support you, you must give us justification. These are people who have stood together all this time out of pride in serving His Imperial Highness Crown Prince Bardenaldo—Ronteaux's 'saint,' who was to be a wise and benevolent sovereign."

"That's correct. To support Your Highness as Crown Prince rather than His Imperial Highness Prince Epero, the legitimate son of the current Empress, we too need justification. The levirate law. If you heard the effort it took to revive that old statute, you would weep with gratitude."

Count Syscamythn added his weight to the argument.

"How moving. It brings me to tears, indeed."

Rhodness, looking nothing at all like a man so moved, answered with one corner of his mouth pulling up, and Count Raelon pressed a hand to his forehead.

'There's no getting through to him at all!'

After glaring at Rhodness for a long moment, Count Raelon let out a deep sigh and lowered his voice.

"I understand it leaves a bad taste. Who would want to share a bed and a marriage with his own brother's widow?"

At his words, Rhodness's eyebrow ticked up.

'There it is, there it is! Doris Castagna is the problem, just as I thought.'

Count Raelon rose from his seat and approached the head of the table, lowering himself further.

"Use her merely as a figurehead Crown Princess, exploit the saint's image, and once you've raised her to Empress, take as many imperial consorts as you like afterward. My own daughter Kanna is the foremost beauty in the capital, you know—"

"You. Didn't you once try to give your daughter to the Grand Duke of Trovika? Your Highness, my own daughter Irene is precisely the right candidate. She has experience serving the Crown Princess closely at hand, so the two of them would get along well."

Count Syscamythn refused to be outdone and threw his own weight in.

Starting from that remark, the atmosphere in the chamber grew heated all over again.

The voices of those eager to offer their daughters to their young, unmarried, and handsome lord grew steadily louder.

In the midst of it, Rhodness turned his gaze toward Vincento, who was quietly taking down the minutes.

"I'd like to discuss what's to be done about my lover, the Countess Acacia. She, too, will want a place at my side."

"Your Highness, the throne is within reach. A widow who's lost her husband is hardly a fitting subject for this meeting."

"Convenient. I was just beginning to tire of her."

Color rose to Count Raelon's face. A noble from the West, sitting farther off, spoke up with a sly tone.

"There can be no road to the throne without some blood spilled along the way. Shall I look into methods?"

"I'll think about it."

Rhodness answered indifferently, still trading glances with Vincento.

But his eyes, though lazily lidded, burned with sharp light, and Vincento grasped his intent at once.

'He's picking out the ones who pose a threat to the Countess Acacia.'

The title of saint's husband that Doris dangled before him—it hadn't even crossed his mind.

Thinking: how very like him, Vincento began writing down the names of those who were merrily chattering away about what ought to be done with the Countess Acacia.

An unprecedented flood of people had poured into the capital.

Epero and I wore the white formal robes worn by priests, hoods pulled up over white cloaks.

Even in the cold, the plazas and markets were packed with people. Past every inn, signs reading FULL were posted at the doors.

For something assembled in such haste, the gold ornaments placed throughout the streets were remarkably splendid and massive.

So grand that no one could have stolen them even if they'd wanted to.

According to Epero, this was the first time in his life he'd seen so many people gathered in the capital.

"The whole world's gone white. If snow falls right when the investiture starts, it would all look that much more like it was meant to be."

Epero, walking ahead of me, said this while idly tapping at the white drapery hung throughout the marketplace and residential streets.

"Don't talk to me."

"Wow, you still suspect me? It wasn't me who leaked the Novian thing, I told you! You think Brother didn't leave someone behind to watch the residence? Honestly, you're naive in the weirdest places sometimes."

"Didn't I tell you not to talk to me?"

"...I'm still your friend, right? Still—right?"

I hadn't gone out much beyond the imperial palace before, so I cut my eyes sideways at Epero, who looked rather pleased with himself.

I knew better than anyone how loose his mouth ran—and yet he kept playing dumb. It was infuriating. The aggravating kind.

"Be careful."

Epero glanced around at me sheepishly before pulling me out of the crowd's way.

"Prince Epero. Your hair—at least cover your hair. It's far too conspicuous."

"Are you introducing me? That kind of blond isn't even that rare in Ellaconia, you know."

Most blonds there had brown mixed in—pure gold like his was rare.

I idly smoothed my well-braided hair before pulling the hood of my robe-cloak down further.

I gave him a flat tap between the shoulder blades. It meant: less talk, keep moving.

"Treating a prince of the empire like some kind of attendant—I don't know what to call this. Just because Brother all but makes himself your attendant doesn't mean I'm the same, you know."

Grumbling the entire way, Epero and I soon arrived at the enormous platform set up in the capital's central plaza.

The street vendors had been cleared out, widening the square around the platform further.

So that the people who'd flooded into the capital could see clearly, Grand Prelate Telrn and Doris, soon to be raised to sainthood, would stand on that platform shortly.

For the ceremony beginning precisely at noon, an enormous tent had been pitched behind the platform, and priests had gathered inside.

Epero and I, dressed as priests, planned to blend in there and take part in the ceremony.

"You didn't tell Brother about the plan, did you? Look, you didn't tell me everything either, fine, I get it, my mouth runs a little loose too. But shouldn't you have told Brother, at least?"

"I don't think it's dangerous at all, but he thinks it's dangerous in itself for me to stand in front of people right now, given the timing."

"It is dangerous, isn't it? You already received poison like that from the person you used to serve, and you're still acting this calm about it?"

"If I just stay hidden out of fear of danger, what greater cause would I ever accomplish? Just as Rhoan has his own way of doing things, I have my own way of accomplishing my own cause. I'm not preparing all this only for Rhoan's sake—I'm doing it for myself, and for the people around me."

Epero seemed to lose his words for a moment, staring at me, then dug a hand under his cap and scratched roughly at his head.

"You know what? Sometimes you're... actually pretty cool."

I turned my gaze away from Epero's strange, fixed stare, toward where the crowd had begun murmuring.

BWOOOOOM—

The blast of the horn rang out loud enough to shake the ground.

"...It's starting."

It was the sound of the saint's investiture beginning—the ceremony that would swap out the protagonist.

The saint's investiture boasted a scale that rivaled the old coronation ceremonies for emperors.

The crowd packing the plaza cheered at the sight of the Emperor and Empress, seated in the places of honor atop the great platform.

It was an exceedingly rare thing to see members of the imperial family outside the palace walls.

Beside the Imperial couple sat Second Prince Rhodness, the center of the hottest rumors these days.

Though he sat at an indolent slant, the nobles gathered below the platform never stopped whispering at the sight of his commanding, handsome bearing.

"I heard people saying this isn't a saint's investiture—it's an engagement ceremony."

"Whaaat?"

"They say once Her Imperial Highness the Crown Princess becomes a saint, His Imperial Majesty will immediately announce the union of the saint and the Second Prince."

"Even with the levirate law revived, would the Second Prince really accept it?"

"To quiet the rumors about those ominous red eyes, he needs the saint's help. With the throne so close at hand, who would refuse that? Even if he says he doesn't want her, he can simply take whichever woman he fancies as an imperial consort afterward."

"Let's just hope it isn't that widow, the Countess Acacia."

"Surely not."

The gazes of the young noblewomen, thin sneers held at the corners of their mouths, all turned at once toward Rhodness.

His red eyes had seemed briefly lost—somewhere in the snow beginning to scatter, flake by flake. When those eyes turned toward them, the young noblewomen let out small, helpless sounds.

"I've seen him from a distance before, and his portrait countless times in gossip papers and newspapers, but—"

"Ominous or not, there's no doubt he's a man one would want to be held by, just once."

The Second Prince, who might yet become Crown Prince, was strikingly beautiful.

Beautiful enough that the word dangerous only made him more appealing to the young noblewomen.

They cast longing glances toward their parents, who were waiting for Doris's appearance.

Gazes no less full of desire than the young women's turned toward Rhodness, and toward the mouth of the Grand Prelate beginning his address.

An imperial heir with a weakness was, for the nobles, actually convenient.

Most of the Crown Prince faction's nobles had come too far to throw their support behind Epero now, in any case.

If they followed Doris, the Crown Prince's former wife, in supporting the Second Prince, and spread the legend of "the ominous red eyes" every time something went wrong, imperial authority would weaken little by little.

The corners of the senior Crown Prince faction nobles' mouths curled upward.

They did not see the Emperor quietly watching Rhodness—reading his face, tracking his every shift. And they certainly did not hear the trembling voice of Grand Prelate Telrn, who was watching Empress Grace, Canulla Winster, and Adrienne with that same anxious attention.

The moment Grand Prelate Telrn appeared atop the platform, the world around the platform went still.

And then.

Below the platform, Doris stood ready to ascend—dressed head to toe in a white so stark it seemed to blaze.