240 - Secret Talk
Christoph, who had hidden sake in the secret door, only performed the ritual seriously at the very beginning. The rest of the time he spent chatting with me nonstop. Thorough as ever, the secret door contained not just alcohol and snacks but even a Reversi board, making him not all that different from Alfred. While playing Reversi, he begged me to talk about Japan.
...Not that I know all that much myself, you know?
Within the scope of what I understood, I told him about Japan as he asked. Perhaps because he was a ruler, what interested Christoph most were things like political systems, flood control, and road networks. There was no way I, who had merely been a commoner, could speak in detail about such things. All I could offer was what I'd learned in school. But even so, Christoph seemed to find it fascinating. He said that since the fundamental ways of thinking and systems were different, even surface-level talk provided good stimulation.
...Though he was pretty appalled about Japanese politicians, I have to say.
I only knew what I'd seen on TV broadcasts of the Diet, but I told him about the backbiting, the shouting matches, the sleeping lawmakers and so on. When I recounted everything I could remember, Christoph looked disgusted and said, "Are those truly the representatives the people chose?" Democracy and elections were wonderful experiments, he said, but they were not the ultimate system.
...He was still shocked about there being no class system, I think.
There were people who misunderstood due to wealth gaps, and a few exceptions, but Japan had no class system. At least, not in the era when I was alive.
Around the time the day was about to change, Christoph began tidying up. He gathered the snacks we'd spread out, folded up the Reversi board, and put the lids back on the sake bottles.
"...We've barely done anything but chat, but is the ritual going to be okay?"
"I performed the ritual properly at the start."
"Eh? But I heard it was supposed to take until around midnight..."
"Well, once you become king, opportunities to stretch your legs without worrying about others' eyes are few and far between."
"Ah, I see. So the ritual was just that first part, and after that you were simply enjoying some time alone."
The ritual didn't actually continue until midnight. It was simply that successive kings savored their alone time until just before midnight. Alfred had told me not to disturb Christoph's ritual, but he probably didn't know the reality. If he did, I felt like he would have said something like, "You can come out right away when the ritual ends." This place, being underground where the ritual was held, was cold.
"By the way, we've been using the Spirit's Seat as a table, but is that all right?"
"It's exactly the right height, so it should be fine."
Judging by its name, it seemed like an object with significance, but today we had been using it as a table the whole time. Or perhaps more like a bench. We spread snacks and the Reversi board on it, sat down, and just kept chatting.
...I think if you cleared away all the snacks, it would probably be a mysterious crystal.
During the ritual, the Spirit's Seat had certainly had an imposing presence. A massive crystal, enshrined in the center of the dim underground temple, illuminated from both sides by torches. True to its name as a seat, the Spirit's Seat had a surface wider than a bench, but it was crystal all the same. Crystals decorated its surface like blooming flowers, and it existed there with a solemnity befitting the name Spirit's Seat.
...The cheesecake kind of ruined all that, though.
Whether he'd just gathered things kids would like, there was an awful lot of sweets. He kept telling me to eat this, try that, having me taste one after another, so I didn't manage to finish a single one.
"There are so many leftovers... What will you do with them?"
I implied that I'd hate to see them thrown away. It was Christoph who had made me try one after another. If they were untouched, I thought he could take them back and give them to the maids or servants, but since each had been picked at, that would be difficult.
"Hmm, shall I have you take them home?"
He pulled out several wrapped sweets, saying I must have liked these and those. The ones Christoph selected were indeed the ones I'd said were delicious.
...He sure remembers well.
He told me the names of the shops too, but unfortunately I couldn't remember all of them. My memory isn't that good. It's hard to remember everything perfectly after hearing it just once.
"I don't have sleeves or pockets, so I can't take them home."
Since I was wearing an old-fashioned garment without sleeves, if I wanted to bring sweets back, I would have to carry them in both arms. I would have been fine with that, but Christoph would be in trouble. He couldn't very well let the knights and Alfred waiting outside the door find out that he'd hidden food in the secret door and been slacking off on his royal duties under the pretense of a ritual for hours.
"You could put them inside your clothes."
Christoph gestured by widening his collar and pointed inside his garments. My clothes had no sleeves, but I was wearing a sash belt. If I put them inside my clothes, the belt would hold them and serve as a bag.
"...Hiding sweets inside my clothes? I'm really not that gluttonous, you know?"
"But you will do it, won't you? Here, I think you liked this one too."
"Thank you very much."
Making excuses that I wasn't that gluttonous, but since he'd kindly suggested it, I slipped the wrapped sweets inside my clothes. It distorted the shape of my outfit a bit, but I was a child who'd been wearing it for hours. It was bound to get rumpled anyway.
...Maybe I was too greedy? The packages are prickling my skin a little.
I tucked my favorites and his recommendations into my clothes, and packed the rest back into the secret door. Apparently, the things put back into the secret door would be retrieved later by someone.
...So even if I didn't force myself to take them, they wouldn't have gone to waste?
"...Well then, shall we head back above ground?"
As I was worrying about the sweet packages pricking my skin, Christoph smiled wryly and offered me his hand. Since coming to the capital, it was often someone other than Leonardo who escorted me.
"I'm sure you understand, but this stays between us, all right?"
"I understand. I won't tell anyone that Christoph-sama's ritual actually finishes in less than an hour and he spends the rest of the time leisurely enjoying his sake."
I added that if asked about the source of the sweets, I might answer, at which point he corrected the information about the source. He told me to say I received the sweets not from King Christoph, but from a person named Chris.
...With such an obvious alias, there's no way even Leonyaldo-san would believe I didn't get them from Christoph-sama.
I thought so, but I gave my assent anyway, and with Christoph tightening his expression, we left the underground temple under his escort. When the door opened at Christoph's signal, Leonardo was waiting on the other side as promised.
"I'm back."
"Welcome back, Tina."
The escort was handed off from Christoph's hand to Leonardo's, and he simply said one word of thanks for my hard work. A hand was placed on my shoulder and I was turned back toward Christoph, where I met the eyes of Christoph wearing his king face.
...Ah, right. I probably should have thanked Christoph-sama before saying "I'm back" to Leonyaldo-san.
The order based on social standing still hadn't fully sunk in for me. I had simply been relieved to see Leonardo's face for the first time in half a day and prioritized him, but even I understood that was bad form in front of the king.
"Um... Thank you very much for escorting me this far. For today's long ritual duties..."
"No need for greetings. The Spirit's Favored Child must be tired from the long duties as well. Go back to the detached palace for today and rest well."
I tried to ornament my words to say "thank you for your long hard work," but the lie of "long" caught in my throat no matter what. Christoph's response to that was truly masterful. While appearing to show concern for me, he cut me off and urged me to withdraw. I gratefully took him up on that.
...Though normally, I think I shouldn't leave until the king leaves, right?
But since the king himself had expressed concern for my health and told me to "withdraw," there would be no problem leaving like this. I was simply obediently following Christoph's words.
"...Tina, you smell faintly sweet?"
When I got into the carriage Alfred had arranged, Leonardo brought his nose close to me. He sniffed, making a curious gesture, and tilted his head.
"Are you hungry, Leonyaldo Big Brother?"
"Yeah, I suppose so. Come to think of it, I've been standing in front of that door the whole time... I haven't eaten anything since morning."
Having said he would wait in front of the door, it seemed Leonardo really had waited there the entire time. And if I had to add, he'd been standing the whole time too. I'd never heard of a guard standing in the corridor casually sitting in a chair.
...I'm sorry. While Leonyaldo-san stood there without food or drink waiting for me, I was sitting on the Spirit's Seat with Christoph-sama, eating as many sweets and cakes as I wanted and having fun!
This was an emergency. My guard (Leonardo) was hungry and might not have strength if something happened.
"It's a secret, okay?"
"Huh?"
Ignoring Leonardo's blink, I reached into my clothes. I'd stuffed so many sweets that my skin prickled, so my fingers touched a wrapped package without even searching.
"...The orange one is baked sweets. I'll give it to hungry Leonyaldo Big Brother."
"Ah, that's nice of you, but... Why are sweets coming out of your clothes?"
He asked if I'd brought them from the detached palace, and I answered that I'd said it was a secret. I think from that alone, he roughly understood. Leonardo's face became one of utter bewilderment, as if he wanted to hold his head.
"I should share some with Aaron and Giselle too."
Giselle was on the driver's seat, so I could just open the small window, but Aaron was on horseback running alongside the carriage. As I started worrying about it being hard to hand over during travel, Leonardo stopped me, saying the two of them had taken turns eating and weren't as hungry as he was. Because Leonardo had made a promise to me, he hadn't moved from in front of the door, but the other two had properly taken breaks as part of their guard duty.
"...Then I won't give them any, but I'll give Leonyaldo Big Brother one more."
"I'm glad you're sharing, but... Really, where did you... no, more importantly, why from inside your clothes...?"
"It's a secret, but I received them from a person named Chris."
The idea of hiding them in my clothes and carrying them was also that person named Chris's suggestion. When I told him that, Leonardo held his head and said, "You got pretty close with this person named Chris." Christoph had told me to say "a person named Chris," but the alias wasn't exactly subtle. Who I'd gotten the sweets from was painfully obvious.
"The person named Chris who performed the ritual was quite dashing."
He tried to invite me to become his adopted daughter, but I declined. I added that too. I thought about what else I should report to my guardian, being careful not to mention the reality of the ritual, and told him only the things that seemed safe to talk about. The bombshell about Dietfried and the First Prince was probably better left untouched.
"I said it's fine for me to read Japanese, but I made sure to tell him I don't want to be separated from Leo."
"I see."
"In exchange, I also said I'd think about becoming independent and coming to the capital once I turn twenty."
"...I see."
The slight pause in his response bothered me, but there was nothing to be done. The age of adulthood in this world was fifteen, five years earlier than in Japan. Even if I relied on my brother for five more years until twenty, I should think about becoming properly independent after that. If I always clung to Leonardo as his little sister, he really would never get a bride.
At the word "independent," Leonardo visibly became depressed, so I kept the rest of the conversation to safe topics. Mostly my impressions of the sweets I'd eaten today. I suppose bringing up such topics made me seem gluttonous, but when I thought about safe conversation topics, all I could come up with was weather and food.
...Maybe I should ask Hermine-sensei to teach me conversational skills next time.