I’ve come to appreciate some art.
The exhibition is titled “Light and Shadow of the Leroy Royal Palace — Kings and Queens Who Shaped Early Modern Santeneri.”
The venue is the Palace of Light, Palais Lumiere, a ten-minute walk from Victory Square.
Open September 11, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
The highlight is that masterpiece, being shown in this country for the very first time!
Its title: “The Emperor’s Daughter.”
Today, we are honored by the presence of the Imperial ambassador to the Kingdom of Santeneri, representing our co-sponsor, the Empire.
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In other words, the venue is my house.
The Palace of Light, Palais Lumiere, has five grand halls, each one absolutely covered from wall to ceiling in enormous, overwhelming paintings.
I’m currently sitting in a large chair in one of them, a hall used for entertaining foreign dignitaries and receiving ambassadors.
The room is packed with the usual senior officials. I can spot a few people who brought their families too.
The Imperial ambassador advances respectfully toward me on the throne.
He is holding a painting covered with blue cloth in both hands.
“To His Majesty Grois XIII, ruler of ‘The Sole Kingdom on Earth, Protector of the Orthodox Faith,’ His Majesty Gergy V, King of Estburg and ruler of ‘The Realm Ruled by the Sovereign of Mankind, Granted Authority to Unite the Kings Beneath the Glory of the Orthodox Faith,’ presents this painting.”
I give a broad nod.
Once the ambassador confirms the gesture, he slowly removes the cloth.
A large painting, big enough to cover half his body, is revealed in full.
“This is the august likeness of Her Imperial Highness Princess Anneliese von Estburg, eldest daughter of His Majesty Gergy V, King of Estburg and rightful holder of the imperial throne of ‘The Realm Ruled by the Sovereign of Mankind, Granted Authority to Unite the Kings Beneath the Glory of the Orthodox Faith.’”
An impressed murmur sweeps through the hall.
They’re clearly too far away to see it properly from that angle, and yet everyone still sounds impressed.
Which means they aren’t cheering for the portrait itself.
They’re cheering for the fact that Santeneri and Estburg are bringing their generations-long hostility to an end.
To be perfectly honest, the painting is so far away that I can barely see it either.
The only thing I can make out is a mass of rich brown hair.
Following the procedure arranged in advance, the Imperial ambassador hands the portrait to a servant. The servant brings it over and holds it directly in front of me.
Anneliese von Estburg.
A sixteen-year-old girl with light-brown hair pinned up and the faintest smile on her face. Even through that smile, her tawny eyes give the impression of a strong will.
This probably isn’t the sort of thing I should be thinking about during a solemn ceremony, but... hmm. She has the feel of that earnest class-president type you see all the time in manga. Is this the pattern where she grows up into a hard-driving career woman like Mary?
Anyway, she’s cute.
It honestly makes sense that so many princesses are beautiful.
The Central Continent has the secondary-consort system, right? The difference between a secondary consort and a mistress is whether her children have succession rights. If a secondary consort’s child has a claim to the throne, then that child can become the next king—which means entering the main line of the Royal House. And the status requirements for becoming a secondary consort are considerably looser than they are for becoming the principal queen.
So all sorts of blood ends up entering the main royal line.
Basically, secondary consort is a position where, even if your social standing falls a little short, being an absolutely extraordinary beauty can make up the difference. First factor: royal bloodlines get mixed with the blood of all those extraordinary beauties.
Second: good health.
They never have to worry about nutrition, so they grow well. And they’re clean.
Oh, and yes, here on our Central Continent we absolutely have a bathing culture. In fact, everybody loves baths. We just didn’t have much of the religious baggage or epidemic-related superstition that weakened bathing customs in medieval Europe.
So princesses tend to be cute, and princes and kings tend to be handsome as well.
Men are a little different, though. If they’re too hot-blooded, they sometimes get carried away on a battlefield, charge in, and come back missing an eye or an ear.
“Ambassador. You have carried out your duty well. Princess Anneliese’s beauty seems scarcely of this world. I count myself fortunate indeed to be able to welcome the finest lady on the Central Continent as my principal queen. Please convey my regards to His Majesty the Emperor. After all—I am about to become His Majesty’s ‘son-in-law.’”
“On behalf of the Empire, allow me to offer my deepest thanks for Your Majesty’s gracious words. Princess Anneliese’s beauty is celebrated not only throughout Estburg, but across the Empire. Devout in the Orthodox Faith and kind of heart, she is the very ideal of a pure maiden. His Majesty the Emperor, her father, is also exceedingly pleased that Princess Anneliese, treasure of the Empire, will come to the side of a wise and vigorous king whose name resounds across the continent.”
Formal speech is hard.
In Japanese, you normally lower your own side with humble language, but that doesn’t work here in Santeneri. You have to elevate your own people while elevating the other side too.
“I am blessed twice over. First, because I shall become husband to the treasure of the Empire. Second, because I may serve as the beginning of a closer relationship between House Leroy and House Estburg. I could ask for no greater happiness. Ambassador—you have done well.”
The Estburg ambassador gives an elegant bow and leaves the hall. A servant carries Anneliese’s portrait around so everyone in attendance can see it.
The ceremony is finally over.
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Now we get to the real part.
News of my engagement to the princess will spread outward from Strois and take roughly a month to reach all of Santeneri.
I wonder what’ll happen.
The public reaction probably won’t be especially positive. The Empire has been our enemy for generations. Some people only think of it that way in the abstract, but there are also soldiers who have actually killed Imperial soldiers on the battlefield and had Imperial soldiers try to kill them.
And those soldiers have families.
Incidentally, Angran, the island kingdom across Santeneri’s Western Sea, is also a super-enemy.
Actually, we hardly have any countries that aren’t enemies.
Which is why Santeneri tends to be very particular about international marriages.
Pretty exclusionary, really.
Santeneri people think, “We are the center of the Central Continent.”
Educated people don’t say it out loud, but deep down they do look down on other countries a little.
The diplomatic language of the Central Continent is Santeneri, and Strois is the center of its culture, ideas, and fashion, so I suppose it’s only natural that people would convince themselves we’re number one.
We don’t have any system like this, but if approval-rating polls existed, the current administration—meaning me—would probably be seeing its numbers collapse right about now.
Like, “Oh, looks like a mass resignation is just around the corner.”
If I married someone like Zofi instead, my approval rating would go up.
“The king understands the value of Santeneri women!”
I can practically picture some middle-aged man saying that in an interview outside Shinbashi Station.
Red-faced, obviously.
And we pushed this peace treaty through knowing all of that.
Now that the continent’s two great powers have joined hands, Angran certainly won’t stay quiet. They’ll probably start aggressively egging Prozan on.
On the other hand, if Santeneri had joined forces with Prozan, Angran would have moved closer to Estburg instead.
No matter which way things go, that’s what they do.
That country practically stakes its life on stirring up the continent.
Sometimes I really do want to just attack Angran and wipe it out.
If you polled every king in Santeneri history for “country I hate most,” Angran would have a serious shot at first place.
Well, we can’t.
There’s an ocean in the way.
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Anyway, today we’re leaving the Palais Lumiere museum and taking a stroll through the adjoining gardens.
Museum, gardens, then a restaurant in the evening.
A slightly classy marriage-hunting date itinerary, maybe?
Fortunately, my own marriage has now been decided, so I won’t be going on any dates.
The man accompanying me through the gardens is the Lord of the Interior.
Clemens Ene en Pluville.
He is the head of House Pluville, a viscountal family descended from one of the military counts of the eastern Stour region.
The Stour region lies along the eastern border with the Empire, and the Imperial Kingdom of Stüburg is also considered part of the Stour region in the broader geographical sense.
“Stour” sounds a lot like “Strois,” doesn’t it?
I think I’ve explained before that Strois originally came from a contraction of Stour en Leroy.
And Stour en Leroy means “Leroy Castle.” Stour means “castle” in Santeneri.
So what does “Stour region” mean?
“Castle region.”
That whole area is covered in hilltop castles, fortresses, and things along those lines.
And if you’re wondering why they built so many of them...
Well, I imagine it was a pretty brutal place in the old days.
Clemens, whose family traces its origins back to one of those military counts, is a thin, tall man in his late forties with hollow cheeks. He has the atmosphere of someone who belongs in a gangster movie.
The Duke of Gaillure has the intimidating presence of a major-corporation president—the self-consciously high-powered kind.
Lord of the Interior Clemens has the intimidating presence of an intellectual gangster—the self-consciously high-powered kind.
Everywhere I look, people are intimidating.
“Pluville, how do things stand? Do you think the people will resist after all?”
“They will. This is a reversal of national policy on a grand scale. We cannot expect it to pass without disturbance.”
No room for misunderstanding there.
You made this decision knowing exactly what it meant, didn’t you?
That was the unspoken message.
“Have there been actual movements yet?”
“Arrests are made daily. However, we have not yet observed any organized activity. For now, it goes no further than people getting worked up in taverns. We cannot safely predict how matters will develop from here.”
The Lord of the Interior has an extremely broad portfolio.
Distribution, infrastructure, education and culture, local administration.
Basically, imagine Japan’s infrastructure ministry and education ministry rolled into one.
That last part, local administration, is a little harder to picture. In simple terms, it means supervising the people who actually handle administration around the country.
Something like magistrates governing shogunal territory in the Edo period.
The troublesome thing about Santeneri, though, is that government magistrates handle most administration even in noble domains up through the mid-sized ones.
The nobles who are theoretically supposed to govern their own lands are basically just landlords now. They all live in Strois and support themselves on the rent that comes in every month.
Their children become bureaucrats, soldiers, or scholars.
If they become bureaucrats, they might be posted to the provinces as magistrates.
It’s kind of interesting.
Another noble serves as magistrate over your domain while you go off and serve as magistrate over some other noble’s land.
Incidentally, bureaucratic, military, and academic careers aren’t monopolized by the nobility.
Commoners can enter them too.
Only the very top slice of commoners, though.
Oh, right. There’s one more thing under the Lord of the Interior’s jurisdiction.
The police.
Especially the secret police.
“If it remains nothing more than venting, that’s fine. But if someone gives it a coherent core, we’ll have a problem.”
“We know the whereabouts and movements of all the principal figures.”
“Any interference from Angran?”
“Naturally, that is possible. I would like to compile the current situation and brief Your Majesty properly. If you could spare me some time within the next few days.”
What scares us is the possibility that angry tavern talk gains an ideological backbone.
That it becomes organized.
Both the Lord of the Interior and I are watching for exactly that.
We wander along the garden paths while discussing such dangerous things.
Large trees stand here and there across the meticulously maintained lawns, serving as natural parasols that block the sunlight.
Beneath the irregular rows of those natural parasols beside the paths, well-dressed families and couples have spread cloths on the grass and are relaxing however they like.
This is my home.
But it’s also a national park.
So all kinds of people come here.
Nobles and commoners alike.
Getting into the buildings requires a complicated set of permissions.
The gardens, on the other hand, are relatively open.
Provided you’re well dressed.
Clothing is actually extremely important.
A proper appearance means, for a man, a high-quality coat and large-cloth necktie. For a woman, a casual dress in vivid dyed colors.
You might think it’s just clothing, but Santeneri has no cheap ready-made clothes. Wearing things like that is proof that you belong to the wealthy classes.
It’s like driving a current-model luxury car.
One without any weird modifications, obviously.
It proves you possess a certain amount of money.
And unlike a car, clothes are difficult to borrow from someone else.
Everything is custom-made.
There are rental-clothing shops with a range of sizes, but the rental fees are fairly expensive.
Same idea as renting a supercar for a few hours and paying 100,000 yen.
Probably even more expensive, actually.
I learned all of this from the Lord of the Interior, by the way.
So, in summary, if someone is dressed reasonably well, they can generally enter these gardens.
If their clothes don’t pass inspection, they don’t get in.
The king is surprisingly accessible.
“Why, Your Majesty! Good day!”
A couple who have spotted me call out from the shade of a distant tree.
“Good day!”
I call back loudly.
And that’s it.
They don’t come running over every single time.
If you only happen to pass me, it’s not that big a deal.
It’s when I personally summon someone, like Blague the other day, that things get difficult.
Then people become incredibly formal.
It’s the same in Japan, really.
Whether it’s a politician or a celebrity, if you’re only watching from a distance, you’re probably thinking, “Oh, wow. There they are.”
But if somebody suddenly tells you that you’re about to speak to them one-on-one, you’ll probably get pretty nervous.
Incidentally, opening these gardens to the public wasn’t one of my policies.
It’s been customary for about three generations now.
It comes from a strong ideology that the king is the “father” of the people of Santeneri.
And in practice, there’s almost no danger.
Even the commoners who come here belong to the upper crust.
You don’t normally get local thugs picking a fight with you in the lobby of an ultra-luxury hotel, right?
Same thing.
Security follows us at a slight distance anyway, so even if something did happen, we’d be fine.
Next time I have some free time, maybe I should interview the people relaxing in the shade.
“Does the government’s recently announced change in foreign policy make you uneasy?”
That would be in the newspaper the next day.
“Seventy Percent of Citizens Uneasy About Government Foreign Policy.”
Time for a mass resignation?