Intelligence and scouting reports had arrived, saying that as the Kingdom’s north grew weaker, the unruly forces in the north and enemy nations had immediately begun to move.
“As expected.”
“If that is the case, should you not reconsider summoning the northern nobles?”
“It does not matter. It would be all right to summon even more of them.”
There was one command of the late King’s that I had disobeyed.
It was his command to pull ten thousand northern troops away and seize the royal capital.
But the troops I had withdrawn from the north amounted only to fifteen hundred cavalry, two thousand heavily armored infantrymen, and two thousand reserve troops. The reserve troops were not even in the royal capital.
The reserve troops were stationed at a narrow pass in the Central Mountain Range linking the Royal Domain, the north, and the east, keeping the enemy forces of the north, the rebel forces of the east, and the Duke of the East’s soldiers in check.
Even while the Duke of the East visited as an honored guest, they remained there.
“What? Then will that not leave the north even more weakened?”
“It seems that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has an interest in military matters as well. Do not worry. I left the lords who had to guard the vital points behind.”
Stationing ten thousand Northern Army troops in the royal capital would certainly be effective in preparing for a rebellion by the Duke of the East or the Lion Unit.
But this meant leaving the northern land border unguarded. The northeastern region, where only grand duchies lay, was acceptable, but the northwest, which bordered the Empire, could not be abandoned.
“Though the places you left empty could not be helped...”
“The Martial God has temporarily taken the throne. They will understand what that means.”
“Hmm.”
He understood.
The new regime and the new Queen needed something to show all the nobles and people why they had taken charge of this country.
***
“I-I, the Queen! Shall inherit the will of the former kings who have protected this country and the Holy Land!”
“You must raise your voice a little more, Your Majesty.”
“I-I-I-I!”
“You must not draw it out like that. Now, repeat after this bishop. Put some force into your diaphragm and go, ‘Ah, mah! Mah-mah-mah-mah.’”
Though Her Majesty snickered at the Archbishop’s earnestness waning by the moment, she soon followed his lead.
Diaphragmatic breathing was important.
“Hah, Your Majesty, that will not do. A little more.”
“M-mah, mah-mah-mah-mah!”
I came because a harsh racket loud enough to disturb the floors above and below was coming from Her Majesty’s office, only to find her doing this.
The speech and declaration Her Majesty would give at the coronation needed to carry authority. Naturally.
But Her Majesty, who had a delicate voice, could not produce a decisive note.
She was somehow scraping her throat raw to make a majestic voice, but she could not sustain it for long.
“Your throat may become hoarse, so please swallow a raw egg and rest a while.”
“Ah, no, how far am I supposed to raise my voice?”
“Until the Cathedral of the Messiah’s Chief Disciple’s Ascension is washed away by Your Majesty’s voice.”
“Huh?!”
Her Majesty’s face was full of bewilderment, but she continued looking over the script all the same.
While the Archbishop attempted to rest in his own way, I called him aside.
“Grand Duke, you have come.”
“Her Majesty is working hard. Do not overdo it. No one in the world expects that much volume from someone of Her Majesty’s size.”
“Well, that is true enough. But there is another problem, Grand Duke. Hah, what a situation.”
“What is the problem?”
“The crown... The Crown Bestowal Ceremony is the heart of a coronation.”
Ah, that was a problem.
“What Countess Dvari was doing in the small office was not merely her own amusement. I had suspected as much.”
Near the small office where Her Majesty was rehearsing for the coronation, Countess Dvari was deep in thought with the maids.
She had called over a young maid and was tying her hair this way and that, attaching ornaments, and doing all manner of things.
Her Majesty was busy with practice, so Countess Dvari had brought in a girl whose head was a similar size and was practicing how to make a ‘hairstyle that would keep the crown from slipping.’
“Is not the heart of a coronation the bestowal of the crown? But if Her Majesty wears this crown, she will certainly become a laughingstock. The Countess is laboring over it.”
The crown was large enough, and the Queen’s head circumference small enough, to make even the Archbishop who would place it upon her worry.
Nor could that authoritative crown be replaced.
‘Was it truly that bad?’
Still, I thought a hairstyle ought to be enough to cover it somehow, so I did not quite understand these people’s concerns.
When I had tied Her Majesty’s hair into two buns, the crown had rested securely for a time.
No matter how large the crown was, could one not braid the hair, wrap it around and around, make Her Majesty’s hair into something like a chalice, then set the crown on top?
The Archbishop and Countess Dvari were worrying over something strange, so I tossed out an idea, wondering whether they had not thought of wigs or the like.
“Would a chapel veil not work? This is a ceremony signifying that God recognizes the Queen.”
Since it was a rite held inside a cathedral, the noblewomen would probably enter wearing chapel veils to watch the coronation.
I asked whether Her Majesty could not do the same.
“Something must be placed underneath to support it, and if we did that, any chapel veil would make her look like one of the pagan women’s headscarves. You know the kind, do you not? The ones that leave only the eyes visible and wrap the head all around...”
That did seem to be true.
But could we not simply insist that she was not a pagan woman?
Had any man ever stripped off a pagan woman’s headscarf?
“Then could we not bind her hair up or give her a full wig to make up the hair? Her head would be somewhat heavy, but...”
“Hmm. How about you speak to the Countess about that, Lord Protector?”
“Me?”
“I cannot go, can I?”
Ah, a clergyman had to observe propriety between men and women.
The Archbishop looked troubled, so I went with him to Countess Dvari.
She was only through one door, so it was not far.
When I recommended that Her Majesty wear a chapel veil and a wig...
“That will not do!”
Countess Dvari objected.
“Countess?”
“Her Majesty cannot possibly wear the hairstyle of the women who sell their smiles in the street!”
“Is that so?”
The customs of the north and the Royal Domain differed.
Her hair could be braided, bound, and wrapped around, but they said that would make her look like a barbarian woman warrior and would not do.
They also strongly opposed raising her hair with a wig and using hairpins, saying that it would make her look not like a dignified noble, but like a street woman.
“That is right. A woman’s hair is a symbol of desire, so no matter how it is adorned, it does not suit a coronation held in a cathedral, much less in the Holy Land.”
The Archbishop added the doctrine of chapel veils to Countess Dvari’s words, giving her argument more justification.
‘That man had not said much a moment ago...’
Bewildered, I added another word.
“Nuns who preserve their chastity for God do not shave their heads bald.”
“How can nuns and Your Majesty be the same? Is it not absurd for the Queen to imitate the hair of a tavern whore who must play at coquettishness? The world will laugh.”
The Archbishop and Countess Dvari joined forces, determined somehow to make Her Majesty’s hair dignified and allow the crown to fit, while avoiding both the impression of hair-dressing women and barbarians.
The young maid had her hair pulled once more by the Countess’s hands, as her hair was tied and untied in astonishing ponytails over and over.
‘They really make life hard for themselves.’
The Kingdom might need a stylist and a hairdresser.
At last, Countess Dvari created a hairstyle that looked unadorned while lifting the hair well enough that the crown seemed likely to rest upon it.
She crossed the doorway and cried directly to Her Majesty.
“Your Majesty, Your Majestyyyy!”
“Ah!? No, why?!”
After the Countess ran out, I spoke once more to the Archbishop.
“Does that look dignified to you?”
“In principle, we tend not to permit anything that resorts to artifice. But to that extent...”
“Your Majesty, stay still for a moment.”
“Nooooo?!”
Her Majesty did not look pleased to be dragged away, but she herself had been stubborn about the crown, and I supported that.
I was going to leave them be, but...
“Dvariiii, why is this happening? It looks so strange!”
“Can I not just have this hairstyle? Why does that make me a street woman? And are street women not subjects too!?”
“It keeps slipping off! If this happens, will I look like the Archbishop when he takes off his hat?!”
“Eeeek?! Am I really going to end up with the Archbishop’s hair?!”
What was that woman doing with Her Majesty?
It was not proper to enter where women were doing one another’s hair, but I stepped into the small office.
Of course, the old-fashioned Archbishop might have said something about stepping into a room where only women were present, but Her Majesty had unexpectedly brought up ‘the Archbishop’s hair,’ so...
“God.”
He had closed his eyes and was praying, veins standing out on his egglike head, which gave me an opening.
Even a servant of God who had practiced for so long had a complex about his hair.
“Countess.”
“Yes, Lord Protector. What is—”
“L-Lord Protector?! Ah, ah, aaaaaah.”
Seeing that I had come, the Queen crouched down while clutching her hair and tried to avoid me.
No matter how I looked at it, she seemed embarrassed by her current hairstyle.
“Let Her Majesty wear the hairstyle she wishes.”
“What?”
“Does royal authority depend merely on how one handles hair? Her Majesty possesses dignity even as she is, so stop resorting to tricks with her hair.”
“But, Grand Duke, this is women’s business. And it is necessary for the coronation...”
“Countess, I have been treated as Her Majesty’s father. Therefore, I may intervene whenever anything troubles Her Majesty. Stop now.”
“Ah, ah, I beg your pardon, Your Grace.”
Once I spoke firmly, Countess Dvari also reddened and stepped back.
Other than being close to Her Majesty, she had neither power, an official position, nor any authority.
“B-but... the Countess did her very best at what she was trying to do, so I hope you will not scold her too much, Grand Duke.”
“If the Countess causes Her Majesty distress as well, she should consider the fear of incurring this servant’s anger.”
“Distress... Um. It is only that the Countess and I do not agree.”
“What do you disagree about?”
Opinions could differ over the Queen’s politics, but people could not quarrel over the Queen’s hairstyle.
Hair was part of a person’s body, and should not the owner decide over their own body, whether that person was the Queen or not?
There could be no authority that could impose hair regulations upon a queen.
“I want to wear this hairstyle when I support the crown!”
Her Majesty personally gathered her hair into the double-bun style that I had first made for her when I told her to support the crown.
“This suits the crown well enough, and it is convenient for supporting it. I think it would be better to appear at the coronation like this. Do you not agree?”
Since it was a hairstyle I had made for her, I had no particular reason to oppose it.
But Countess Dvari could not help adding one regretful remark...
“Oh, you truly look far too much like a child.”
“I am a child, so I will just do it. Ah, Grand Duke?”
“No. Of course not.”
I hid my smile.
She was a child, so she would simply do it.
Even such childish logic was something a king ought to be able to use.
***
“Those damned eyes, eyes, eyes!”
A frail young girl was being beaten mercilessly.
Yet apart from the beating, her clothes and hair were formally arranged.
Normally, a beating like this was a method far removed from people of high status.
But the woman doing the beating also wore neatly arranged blond hair and formal attire.
In other words, fierce emotions and rage that did not suit refinement or decorum were continuing.
The woman, whose eyes were lovely yet venomous, began to change her method of attack, perhaps because she was even more enraged that the child—whose lovely eyes resembled her own exactly, though the blood crust on her lips had not even dried and even her tears had run dry—no longer reacted to mere ‘beatings.’
Not long ago, she had a maid give the child a puppy, let her play with it, then trampled it to death before her eyes several days later.
The seemingly emotionless child had been unable to endure it then and shed tears. The woman had been greatly pleased.
“Your Grace the Grand Duchess, even so, she is your daughter...”
An adult who was pleased when a child hurt.
No, beyond an adult, a mother.
How could she do that to a child she had borne herself?
Even the noble-born maids in the chambers of the Grand Duchess, the imperial princess, tried to stop her every time.
Each time, this Grand Duchess did not take out her rage on the maids. Instead, she smiled faintly and calmly said,
“Well, she is my former husband’s daughter. If I cherish this child, will I truly receive care from my present husband?”
She would offer such a reason and let the matter pass, with words that raised the question of whether she would truly not inflict this abuse if she had a child with her current husband.
Every maid here belonged, as she said, to her current husband’s people, so they could not refute those words.
“And those eyes are too... Do not look at me, Princess. I told you not to stare.”
The child had once been closer to her wet nurse, but from the time that wet nurse’s breasts and head had been cut off and hung up, she no longer smiled at the woman called her mother.
She merely stared at her.
Each time, the woman picked a fight over those eyes that she could not simply pluck out.
The child simply stopped thinking.
Would it not be better to simply die than to suffer?