Pen and Paper Translations

Marquis d’Albret lifted the teacup before him and slyly studied the Emperor seated across from him.

After moving to the reception room, the Emperor had done nothing but savor his tea in silence.

He could have been the first to speak, but the marquis held his tongue. He had little choice.

Only two days earlier, he had requested an audience over the matter of the male consort, been rebuked with: “Have you grown power-hungry and mean to make your son the empress?”

He fled the palace in near disgrace. Yet yesterday the Emperor had said something equally baffling: bring the second son; he would meet him.

The Emperor often hid his true intent. There was a reason people called him the “cunning fox.” All the harder, then, to grasp what he was plotting.

What’s more, the moment he arrived at the palace, he’d heard that the Emperor had spent the night with his consort.

Marquis d’Albret pictured the Emperor’s consort. He was not as vulgar as the marquis had assumed. Aside from a somewhat cold, sharp-tempered gaze, his face was so plain it hardly stuck in the memory.

‘And that’s the sort of person the Emperor keeps at his side?’

Impossible. This was the man who hadn’t batted an eye at the parade of dazzling beauties constantly around him.

And now from Toulon he had brought back someone of uncertain birth? There had to be some other reason….

Pretending to drink, the marquis lowered his eyes and pursed his lips in displeasure.

“Marquis, the tea is excellent this year. Thanks to you, my mouth has been well pleased of late.”

At last, after a long silence, Guien spoke. He ignored the marquis’s shifty, measuring eyes.

“Thank you, Your Majesty. We strive to ensure that the tribute sent to the imperial household is always the very best.”

The marquis’s expression changed at once.

“This year’s Mobéjeu harvest was especially good, so compared to prior years the flavor is deeper and richer!”

Ever the snake. Guien set down his cup and let his gaze drift to the other side.

“Is that so? Then the price should drop a bit. Last year the supply was short and the price rose, didn’t it?”

“The volume is about the same as last year. The flavor alone is improved. However, I have ordered that prices not rise. Naturally, that means we can collect that much more in taxes!”

“Spoken like a finance minister. I’ll trust you.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Guien watched, indifferent, as the marquis bowed as if honored.

House d’Albret manipulated the market by falsifying Mobéjou production volumes. Guien was not unaware.

In the precarious days when he was crown prince, he could turn a blind eye—up to a point—as payment for the help he had received.

But the problem was that the marquis kept reaching for more, using his amassed wealth and power.

More precisely, the problem was that it could become an obstacle to Guien.

“Not long ago a memorial arrived urging me to expel my consort.”

Those petitions all came from houses under Marquis d’Albret’s influence.

“It was for Your Majesty’s dignity.”

The marquis made no attempt to hide that he was openly backing the nobles loyal to him. That alone said much about how secure he felt.

“Perhaps. But he’s only a partner for my nights. Is there any need to fuss?”

“Even so, Your Majesty, it is troubling that we don’t know his origins. Of course, it may be needless fretting on my part. Pray don’t misunderstand.”

That was a reference to what the Emperor had said a few days ago. For all their talk of “concern,” what they truly wanted was to strip the consort from his side and install one of their own people.

‘Especially the empty position of empress, no doubt.’

Guien laughed inwardly.

“I will vouch for his status. You needn’t concern yourself, Marquis.”

The marquis recognized easily enough that the Emperor would hear no more on that subject.

Naturally, he himself was more interested in another matter. Now seemed the perfect moment to bring it up.

“Your Majesty, my second son is waiting to be received.”

The Emperor’s gaze lingered on the marquis for a moment, then shifted to the window. Beyond it, the garden glittered beautifully under the midday sun.

The marquis looked that way as well. He allowed himself a fleeting hope that the Emperor was searching for his son, but there was no such air about him.

Losing interest, the marquis turned his eyes first. His gaze met that of an attendant standing at the entrance to the reception room. The attendant owed Marquis d’Albret in many ways, and knew how to repay favors.

This time, too, the attendant had promised to do something the marquis would find pleasing.

Noticing the marquis’s look, the attendant dipped his head once. A smile flickered on the marquis’s lips and vanished.

“Then let’s meet him.”

At last the Emperor gave permission.

At that offhand remark, Marquis d’Albret’s face lit up.

“Yes, Your Majesty. I’ll have him brought in at once.”

“No. The day is fine. Let’s walk in the garden.”

The Emperor rose lightly. The marquis gladly stood as well.

Guien stepped out from the reception room terrace onto the lawn that joined the garden. Bathed in afternoon light, the scene was bright and lovely.

The fountain of three goddesses sending eight jets in different directions and the roses, lush even in summer, made a garden the palace was proud of.

Yet what came to Guien’s mind was Lev, dripping blood where he’d been pricked by a thorn and himself, alarmed, ordering the chief attendant to fetch the palace physician.

And then, only once the chief attendant had gone and Lev approached with his hand wrapped in a handkerchief, realizing he’d gotten agitated over nothing.

“How odd.”

Even in hindsight, it was unlike him. The attendant at his side would have handled it without being told.

“Pardon?”

The marquis looked at the Emperor, puzzled. Guien’s attention had already shifted elsewhere. The marquis’s gaze followed his.

A pale-faced attendant came racing toward them. Thanks to a senior attendant detaining him over a trivial matter, Marco had been late to go search for Lev.

“What is it?”

Seeing Marco dash toward the chief attendant, the Emperor’s voice cracked like a hand catching the scruff of a neck.

Thus confronted by a question from someone he’d never expected would speak to him, Marco jumped in place and thudded back down.

“Marco.”

Seeing him frozen like a rabbit before a predator, the chief attendant spoke his name, urging him to answer.

“S-Sir Lev… Sir Lev is nowhere to be found. He’s disappeared!”

Marco’s voice trembled.

“What are you saying? Explain clearly.”

The chief attendant’s eyes flared wide. Marco explained that he’d left Lev briefly to take care of something, that they’d agreed to meet at the water-lily garden, and that when he went there Lev was gone.

“I searched the area just in case, but I didn’t see him. Then I thought maybe he’d come back ahead of me, but no….”

So he’d gone again to the water-lily garden, still had not found Lev, and come to the chief attendant.

Watching the fretful attendant lay out the story, Guien turned to the chief attendant with a blank face.

“Chief attendant.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Search the gardens.”

There was not a trace of worry in his tone; it was calm. But the command to find the consort at once carried concern the chief attendant knew to hear.

“Yes.”

The chief attendant bowed at once and withdrew. Marco, looking stricken, hurried after him. As the two receded and the Emperor’s eyes followed, the marquis shifted his gaze aside.

There, the same attendant lifted the corner of his mouth in a brief smile. The signal meant that the tip he had given had worked.

The marquis’s eyes flashed, then smoothed as if nothing had happened.

He was just about to speak to the Emperor with a suitably concerned expression when—

“Marquis, where is your son?”

“Eh? Ah—yes, Your Majesty. Michel is walking in the Garden of Plenty.”

The Garden of Plenty lay west of the palace, built around a fountain of the goddess of abundance.

The palace boasted many themed gardens; this one, with its elegant, delicate beauty, was beloved by the many noble ladies who visited.

Guien set off in that direction.

“Let’s go.”

As the Emperor walked ahead, the marquis hastened after.

Before long they saw a young man standing before the fountain.

Sun-bright golden hair that glittered, clear green eyes, skin smooth and flawless, and fine, pretty features… He had a beauty that drew the eye.

Seeing the Emperor approach with Marquis d’Albret, the young man walked over with a smile.

“I greet the noble Emperor of the Antoine Empire. I am Michel, second son of House d’Albret.”

Guien regarded Michel d’Albret with cool eyes as he bowed with a movement both gentle and elegant.

“I hear only now that you’ve entered the capital. Had I known sooner, I wouldn’t have kept you waiting.”

His tone was detached yet considerate; Michel smiled sweetly and answered.

“Not at all, Your Majesty. I lost track of time walking the gardens.”

“Found something worth seeing?”

Guien cast his eyes around as if the thought had just struck him. In truth, this was the place the late empress, who had scorned and ultimately rejected him, had cultivated; it was a place of mingled feelings. Since his accession, he had never set foot here. That did not mean it stirred any particular sentiment now.

“They’re wonderful.”

Michel answered with a smile.

“Are they?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Even more charming than the rumors had led me to expect.”

His green eyes shone, not with empty flattery but with genuine delight.

‘So that’s what you like.’

The thought brought someone suddenly to mind: his own consort, lively as if doing the most delightful work in the world, tending plants without noticing how the sun had flushed his face.

Guien frowned at the face that kept popping up unbidden.

‘Where on earth did he go?’

Had he run off again? Thinking back, there was precedent. If Guien hadn’t personally gone to the lord’s castle that day, he might well have heard the news that Lev had fled.

‘When I get him back, he’ll need a firm lesson.’

While Guien smoothed his brow and gathered his thoughts, Lev had climbed the lookout platform at the center of the garden and was surveying the surroundings.

“Wow… incredible.”

He’d thought it was nothing but a tangle of maze-like paths, but from above the design was plain. The platform seemed intended for people like him who’d lost their way.

Amazingly, the maze garden was laid out in the shape of a star. Lev had reached the star’s center by following the wall. The way out was….

“There.”

After tracing the paths with his eyes, he spotted the exit. To his surprise, there was only one way out of this complicated place.

“No wonder no one finds it.”

When he scratched his head, a leaf came along on his fingers; it must have fallen into his hair while he walked along the wooden hedges. He was probably quite a sight now—blazing sun, hardly any shade, no rest, and he’d worked up a sweat.

“Anyway, let’s go.”

Steeling himself again, Lev came down from the platform. After wandering a few more turns, he realized he was getting close to the end.

“Yoo-hoo!”

Bursting out of the maze at last, Lev threw up a cheer—and froze. A group of people stood before him. One of them was, unmistakably, the Emperor.

As his eyes met Guien’s, Lev flushed. And yet, somehow, meeting the Emperor the instant he escaped that stifling maze made him a little happy.

‘Happy about what, exactly?’

Chiding himself, Lev watched Guien frown at the sight of his consort, a mess as if he’d been who-knows-where.

“What on earth is that state you’re in?”

“Ah….”

Lev blushed and rubbed his temple, fully aware of how he must look.

“And I ask you why you insist on going for walks!”

When he’d said he wanted to work, Guien had told them to give him a light task in the garden, and he’d gotten himself hurt. When he’d said he wanted a short stroll to digest, Guien had permitted it, and this was the result.

An irritable retort rose to his lips; then, as if too weary to bother, Guien flicked his hand.

“Take him away.”

The words were cold. Lev’s shoulders flinched. The chill in that tone felt like a stab somewhere near his heart.

‘What is this? Why does something so small ache?’

He bit the inside of his cheek and lowered his head.

“Sir Lev!”

Marco, who had been in a panic, rushed over the moment the Emperor gave the order.

“Ah, Marco.”

Lev answered the anxious-faced Marco and darted a look at the Emperor. Guien didn’t bother to hide his contempt. Neither did Marquis d’Albret, standing nearby. His sneering eyes even held a trace of disdain.

“Go.”

Guien jerked his chin toward the palace. No word of concern, no asking what had happened, just utterly cool.

Lev couldn’t even say he’d go in; he only bowed.

Just before he slipped past the group, he noticed a young man standing beside Marquis d’Albret.

The youth’s eyes were full of curiosity. Standing with the marquis, he was surely a noble.

‘Who is he?’

The question flared and died. Feeling the Emperor’s chilling gaze, Lev shrank and turned quickly away.

“Looks like he’s been rolling in the grass. Tsk, tsk. Vulgar creature.”

Marquis d’Albret murmured low enough for only the son beside him to hear.

“Who was that man earlier?”

“Someone you don’t need to know.”

The marquis cut him off. Yet Michel d’Albret couldn’t quite let go of his curiosity and watched the retreating back. Even that interest snapped away at the Emperor’s next words.

“There will be a banquet soon to celebrate my birthday. Don’t forget to attend.”

Michel’s eyes rounded at the unexpected remark.

“Is that a gathering I may attend?”

“Yes.”

The autumn banquet in particular was a debut stage for young lords and ladies of the nobility. The central nobility attended without fail. To be invited personally by the Emperor, Marquis d’Albret couldn’t help letting his expectations rise.

“I shall do so.”

Michel bowed, still smiling.

With the corners of his lips gently curved, his smile was as fair and lovely as a rose in full bloom. The marquis glanced at his son, inwardly delighted.

Common brown hair, brown eyes that looked hot-tempered, a lanky frame, unknown birth… The consort couldn’t compare.

He had already forgotten how the Emperor had summoned him the other day and flung accusations—hadn’t he meant to make his son empress, wasn’t he blinded by ambition—and revised his judgment at once.

“It seems His Majesty is interested in you.”

Returning to the carriage after their amiable stroll, the marquis could not hide his pleasure. The face that had been taut with suspicion and tension on the way to the palace had eased.

“I’m not so sure.”

But his son across from him replied coolly.

“Michel!”

The marquis’s right cheek twitched in displeasure.

“Father, we agreed. If I attend the birthday celebration, you’ll leave me be thereafter.”

Before the marquis could rebut, Michel nailed it down.

He had gone to meet the Emperor in the first place at his father’s suggestion—to get permission that he would no longer be dragged to the capital on flimsy pretexts and could focus on arranging gardens or even live elsewhere without interference.

“I said I would. But you must keep your end—if His Majesty summons you before the banquet, you will enter the palace.”

The marquis answered, irritable, as if he disliked even hearing it. Michel sighed and nodded.

To gain one thing, you gave another up. Even so, he prayed the Emperor would have no reason to call for him.

“Understood.”

Even at his meek reply, the marquis could not quite hide his sour mood. Yet he must have thought it better to coax than press further now, for he asked, in a gentler tone:

“And you—what did you think?”

“Pardon?”

“When you met His Majesty.”

Michel recalled the Emperor. A beauty so unreal it was frightening. His looks were already the talk of the empire, and seeing him in person made Michel think the rumors barely did him justice.

“Well, he was…”

But the cold eyes, so lofty as to look down on all, didn’t inspire much fondness.

Michel naturally remembered the man who had appeared out of nowhere.

‘Who could he be? From his clothes he looked like a noble.’

Despite the chilly, forbidding face, those brown eyes had wilted at the Emperor’s cutting words, and that drew his gaze.

With leaves in his hair and his head all mussed, as if he’d been wandering lost, he reminded Michel of a kitten who had stayed by his side, long ago and far away. Perhaps that was why he found himself interested.

“Get down.”

Before stepping out, the marquis looked back at the absent-minded Michel. What foolish face was he making now, lost in thought? How could he be so unlike his brother!

He instantly revised the lofty opinion he had held of his elder son at the palace as so much smarter and more capable than the Emperor’s consort.

He had little choice. Michel’s only interest was gardening. His talents, too, seemed to lie there alone. Naturally, that displeased the marquis.

‘Mooning over weeds and grass—tsk, tsk.’

Clicking his tongue, the marquis descended first. As Michel followed him out, the butler came hurrying up.

“I’ll go in.”

Michel flicked a glance at the butler and went off ahead. The marquis gestured for the butler to follow and set off.

He went to his study.

“What is it?”

The butler relayed what he had heard from an agent the marquis had planted to monitor the palace.

“The day after His Majesty spent the night with the consort, he ordered him to clean the garden. At table he behaved no differently than usual.”

Marquis d’Albret had heard of the night together as soon as he arrived, via the attendants. But making the consort clean the garden was news. He frowned.

“Ordered him to clean the garden? What does that mean? Explain in detail.”

The butler nodded quickly and laid out what he’d been told.

For some reason, the Emperor had watched his consort work in the garden for a long time. Yet when the consort injured himself, he hadn’t so much as blinked.

At lunch, too, when the consort struggled because of a bandaged finger, the Emperor coolly told the attendant to help and then watched, smirking.

“It seems His Majesty has little interest or affection for his consort.”

The marquis pictured the consort, dirty as if he’d been rolling somewhere, and the Emperor, who remained cold throughout.

Even that much made it clear. There was indeed some other reason the Emperor had taken a consort.

‘Talk of taking an empress arose, and he went to Toulon. Then he suddenly brought back a man, calling him his consort.’

His guess, it seemed, was not so far off the mark.

“But what’s with the garden-cleaning?”

That part he couldn’t make sense of. What could possibly be gained by ordering such a thing?

“Perhaps to put him in his place?”

The butler ventured cautiously.

“Impossible.”

If it were in the Emperor’s nature, he’d have said it outright; he wasn’t the type to torment someone with chores. There had to be another reason.

Perhaps it was a warning to him, not the consort: if he meant to place Michel at the Emperor’s side, he should be prepared for such treatment.

That would indeed be appalling—to order a precious young noble to clean gardens.

“No!”

The marquis blanched. Could the Emperor know his son’s hobby?

“No. Nonsense. Of course not.”

No matter how uncanny the Emperor’s intelligence network, that was a wild conjecture. Even within the family, the second son’s hobby was something they hushed up. The marquis shook his head.

Suddenly he scowled at what he saw past the window. Who knew when he’d slipped out—his second son was walking in the garden.

Not even a stroll; most likely off to do that useless “gardening” again.

“Tsk, tsk.”

The marquis’s right cheek twitched as his tongue clicked in displeasure.

“What is that wretch doing out there again? Bring him in at once!”

“Yes, my lord!”

The butler scurried out. The marquis glared at Michel, who had turned his head their way while speaking with the butler.

Useless, wandering about doing pointless things. What good was he?

“Well then. Better a man as empress.”

Failing that, it would be better if he became the Emperor’s acknowledged, official consort. If that happened, he could fund as much gardening as the boy wished.

Then the marquis could consolidate his power more firmly. He was sure there was no better way.