Episode 18: Excessive Consideration (3)
The moment the pleasant sound of his voice carried the book titles to her ears, Hashana finally realized what Rsanda had been aiming for when she allowed Iskandel to stay.
“Oh my goodness…”
“So that’s what she meant when she said if I didn’t want my head ripped off, I should do exactly as it says.”
Iskandel ran the hand not holding a book down his own neck and gave an exaggerated shudder.
“I’m going to lose the precious purity I’ve so carefully preserved tonight.”
She looked back and forth between the joking man and the blatantly explicit books in his hand, then let out a faint, dying sigh and buried her face in her palm.
“Let’s see what it says.”
When Iskandel deliberately opened the book with a loud rustle, a muffled apology leaked from behind her hand, her voice shrinking to a mumble.
“Ugh… In Durgtah, there’s a custom where the saintess lives with a practice partner before her coming-of-age ceremony…”
“The saintesses in the Capital also have a coming-of-age ceremony, when they turn eighteen.”
“Really? Then why is it twenty in Durgtah?”
As she tilted her head in confusion, her eyes peeked out from between the fingers clamped tightly over her face.
When Iskandel met those clear eyes, he felt a strange sensation, as if something had lightly scraped the corner of his heart, and he quietly averted his gaze.
Unfortunately, his eyes landed on the book’s overly solemn preface.
‘Population growth is a critical issue directly linked to securing high-quality troops.
Therefore, this book has been written with the aim of proposing more reliable unions, with prosperity through reproduction as its ultimate goal.
Unlike previous approaches that pursued mechanical intercourse, the modern trend holds that it is precisely technical intercourse that…’
Words like reproduction, union, and intercourse swam before his eyes and scrambled his brain.
Iskandel hurriedly said the first thing that came to mind.
“…Who knows.
People do everything they’re going to do long before they officially become adults anyway, so whether it’s eighteen or twenty doesn’t seem to make much difference.”
“Ah… I haven’t done any of that on my own yet.
Hearing you say that makes me feel like I’m really far behind.”
“Karasvati has something she always says when she talks about dance and music.
That everyone has their own rhythm.”
“That’s what Karasvati says when she’s making fun of people who can’t carry a tune!”
Hashana lifted her face from her palm and wrinkled her nose again.
Iskandel, who had been feeling a twinge of anxiety that he might be the one who was far too late, smoothed over his unease with practiced ease, waggled the book in his hand, and leaned in close to her.
“If you know when she says it, that must mean you sing well, saintess…”
“…I’m not tone-deaf.”
“That’s what all the tone-deaf people say.”
Iskandel folded the corners of his eyes in a habitual smile, trying to ease both her tension and his own with silly jokes.
Unable to find anywhere to rest her gaze, Hashana forced herself to follow his lead and gave him a faint, awkward smile.
Then she quickly snatched the heavy book from his hand and flung it toward the desk.
“You don’t need to pay any attention to those books.
Regardless of Rsanda’s intentions, all I truly want is to protect you, Your Highness.”
“Well now.
I suppose we can set aside The First Step to a Safe Adulthood, but I see position number sixty-eight in One Hundred Recommended Techniques for Ecstatic Coupling, and I’d really like to try it at least once.
You could think of it as a form of cultural exchange—”
Before he could finish, Hashana caught sight of the bizarre illustration of a sexual position spread open right in front of her.
Horrified, she snatched the second book from his hands and hurled it onto the desk as well.
“I’m sorry, but I have absolutely no knowledge of this sort of topic, so I don’t think I can provide the kind of cultural exchange you want right away!”
“No, that’s not…”
“I do understand, in theory, that heroes are lustful, and that war is closely tied to arousal, so one must also be skilled at intercourse!
But I’ve been handling all the chores in the city by myself, so I’ve never had the time to do anything like that.”
“…Ah.”
“Truly.
I’ve always thought that instead of sweating over something like that, draining my stamina and wasting time, it would be better to get even a little more sleep.
But what must be done, must be done.
I will read those books thoroughly as soon as possible and equip myself with the necessary knowledge, so would it be all right if we postponed any… related discussions and exchanges until after I have?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and poured out her shortcomings as if she were emptying herself, then cautiously opened them again.
Panting slightly from her rush of words, she sought his agreement with her eyes, but Iskandel only gave her an awkward smile, his expression oddly strained.
“Um, Your Highness? Was I speaking too fast?”
In all his life, Iskandel had never once met anyone as earnest and proper as this.
He could only manage his habitual smile, his eyes crinkling, looking genuinely at a loss.
There was simply no way for him to explain, with words, to someone who had taken his low-grade joke as the opening to a serious exchange.
The best he could manage for the moment was a barely perceptible shake off his head.
Just then—
“Saintess! There are a ton of bugs on the enimu tree! They must have blown in from the sea again!”
By some miracle, two young acolytes came rushing in, calling for Hashana.
She snapped her head up as if their summons were a lifeline.
“Um, I—I need to go out and see to that.”
“Of course. We can continue when you get back.”
Unlike the flushed and flustered Hashana, Iskandel’s face smoothed over into a mask of calm in an instant, and he answered lightly.
His attitude, as if this were no big deal at all, helped her regain her composure, and she quickly rattled off instructions as she slowly backed away.
“If you rest, the acolytes will look after you in my stead.
We never know what whims Rsanda might have, so even if you feel stifled, please try not to leave the bedroom.”
“Don’t worry.
Go on.
I’ll rest quietly.”
He dipped his chin in a small nod to the woman who had already put a good distance between them in the blink of an eye.
Leaning against the doorframe and blinking, Hashana gave him an awkward little wave.
“I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”
The moment their painfully awkward farewell was over, she clenched the hand she had been waving and practically bolted out of sight.
Left alone, Iskandel twitched the corner of his mouth and sat down on the edge of the bed, which still held a faint trace of her scent.
‘Is she being sly, or is she really that innocent?’
He actually found it easier to deal with people who were pitch-black on the inside than with those whose guileless earnestness was almost troubling.
Unfortunately, his instincts were convinced that the Saintess of War was overwhelmingly the latter.
‘I’ve never dealt with this type before.
I might end up getting dragged in.’
He’d already felt his mind go completely blank from sheer embarrassment more than once.
Things that had never happened to him in the Capital.
A person he would never have even had the chance to meet there.
As he mentally jotted down those two short lines of evaluation next to the name Hashana, he rose to his feet and walked over to the desk. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“One Hundred Recommended Techniques for Ecstatic Coupling, huh.”
If his bodyguard—who lived for chances to tease him—ever saw this, he would have material to mock him with for the next ten years.
He would say that before trying a list of one hundred recommended techniques, His Highness should start with a beginner’s manual.
Clicking his tongue at the bizarre illustrations that looked exhausting just to glance at, Iskandel flipped the book over so it lay facedown, then ran his fingertips over the glossy leather cover.
‘For whatever reason, Rsanda seems to have heard only the rumors that I’m some man who can’t keep it in his pants and is expecting me to be the saintess’s practice partner…’
The problem was that his widely accepted reputation for promiscuity was false advertising.
He traced the corner of the thick book with his fingertip, pondering what to do, then finally let out a deep sigh and took his hand off it.
‘I can just dodge and talk my way around it like I always do in the Capital.
For now, I should send my first regards to that idiot brother of mine who is probably craning his neck waiting for news.’
Picking up a pen and paper from the neat desk, Iskandel pictured the crown prince’s face, pale and limp like boiled eggplant, and let a mischievous smile tug at his lips.
He had never intended to send the crown prince any accurate information.
Metaphors and hints were always open to interpretation.
If he scribbled down some vaguely plausible sentences and sent them off, the so-called scholars would inevitably fight over their differing interpretations of a text with no fixed answer.
‘I should write something so long and drawn-out it gives him goosebumps.’
‘To my dearest brother,’
‘From the beautiful castle of sand, with love and respect, Iskandel.’
As he carefully penned the conventional opening and closing lines, savoring each stroke while imagining the chaos that would unfold in the Imperial Palace, he suddenly frowned and shook his head.
‘I can’t finish this.
The right move is to ask the saintess if I may send greetings home, then write and dispatch it right in front of her.
No need to invite any pointless misunderstandings.’
He put the pen and paper back where they belonged and glanced down absently at the cloak Hashana had draped over him.
Her kindness was foolish to the point of absurdity, and he himself was just as foolish for feeling his heart tilt under the weight of that kindness.
A god who suspected him with absolute conviction, and he himself, trying to deceive her with the help of that very god’s creation.
From start to finish, the contrast was ridiculous.
‘After a life spent lying, setting people up, and stirring up fights for fun… here I am, acting like this one cloak is weighing on my conscience.
Pathetic.’
Disgusted with himself, Iskandel pulled out the pin fastening the cloak.
He had not the slightest ambition to secure a stronger foothold in the Imperial family.
All he wanted was to watch the crown prince twist himself into knots of jealousy and spite.
The crown prince who had pushed him into this would never have imagined it, but Iskandel had already achieved something no member of the Imperial line ever had.
His name would go down in history as the first Kanad to enter Durgtah without bloodshed.
‘In a few days, the new song composed by the delegation’s bard will spread from the mouths of wandering merchants.
When the crown prince hears it, he’ll throw a fit and roll around on the floor.’
Chuckling to himself at the thought that all the drinks and meals he had bought for bards over the years were finally paying off, he was still grinning when Hashana burst in, looking more solemn than he had ever seen her and covered in dirt.
“Your Highness, I need to apologize first. I’m sorry.”
Without preamble, she blurted out an apology, then grabbed the back of Iskandel’s neck where he sat at the desk.
And she pressed her lips deeply to his.