Risou no Himo Seikatsu Vol 2 Chapter 4

Chapter 04: The confidential Message from the Twin Kingdom

One month later. Aura’s pregnancy turned out to be proper.

The Queen was pregnant. Naturally, these big news stirred the Carpa Palace up.

Moreover, influential nobles made a list of people from their own faction, who were currently breastfeeding a baby or had a big belly and were close to give birth, so they could be appointed as the wet nurse for the child of the Queen.

The inner palace was a shielded space and normally it was rarely influenced by the outside, but the news this time originated from it, so it couldn’t stay out of it. Due to that, Zenjirou, too, had no piece of mind in the last month and spent hectic days.

“Aw, there really is no useful information. What a flop.”

Ever since Aura told him about her possible pregnancy, he had looked through his whole data storage numerous times, so he knew that he wouldn’t find anything new now, but he couldn’t help checking again when he had free time. That was how much he regretted his insufficient preparation back in the days.

No use crying over spilt milk. Although he did understand it in his head, he couldn’t stop himself from grumbling.

Baby bottles, freezer Tupperware for breast milk and a few packs of milk powder just in case. Additionally, he also prepared a few sets of cute baby clothes and bought some books on child-rearing with titles such as “Papa’s guide to raising a child” or “What a father can do” at the bookstore.

“Raising the child aside, I unconsciously considered the birth not my business.”

Or more precisely, he actually lacked an awareness for possible dangers for the mother and child instead of considering the pregnancy or birth “none of his business”.

Nowadays, cases, where the mother’s life was in danger at birth, were rapidly decreasing in Japan.

However, even on modern Earth were developing countries without proper facilities or hygienic environments, where the mortality rate for mothers was still close to five percent. In other words, one out of twenty mothers died.

Needless to say, Aura had the best physicians in the country around her as the Queen and she herself was quite healthy and full of vitality and stamina. Doctor Michelle had assured that it was “extremely unlikely”, but Zenjirou still ended up imagining the worst case.

The medical technology in this world was several stages behind the one in modern Japan, but the “healing magic” from the Jilbell lineage was an exception.

However, even as the major power ruling over the western part of the South Continent, the Carpa Kingdom had hardly any chance to keep a person from the Jilbell lineage around for the whole time of the pregnancy.

Then he wanted at least to immediately call over someone from the pope lineage when Aura’s condition took a sudden turn for the worse. That was wishful thinking, since the fastest method of transport in this world was a raptorial dragon, but the Carpa Kingdom actually had an exceptional way to make that wishful thinking reality.

Zenjirou grumbled for the nth time.

However, Aura was currently the only one left, who could use the space-time magic.

“So it’s technically my role. I’ve to learn the space-time magic.”

However, he had only started to learn magic for a few month. It usually required an average of three years of training to be able to use magic.

It barely referred to reducing it to two years and ten months or two and a half years in very capable cases. With all due respect, it was impossible that Zenjirou would learn to use the space-time magic until Aura gave birth.

Turning off the computer with a click on the mouse, Zenjirou lightly slapped his cheeks to refresh his mood and stood up from the chair fitfully.

So far, Zenjirou had enjoyed a shut-in lifestyle under the nominal cover of preserving Aura’s power, but if it was to protect the lives of Aura and their child, he was prepared to accept a few inconveniences and leave the inner palace.

He might be able to get a slight idea about what troubles await him when he leaves the inner palace.

As Zenjirou mused about the future in front of the computer, he suddenly put a thought into words.

The point is, Zenjirou would just have to be careful and behave like a well-mannered doll.

Determined at heart in various ways, Zenjirou arranged the things he could and must do, in his head until it was time for his lesson with Octavia.

“…This is certainly not a pleasant feeling.”

She showed a symptom from the early stage of her pregnancy, namely “morning sickness”. When the words of Doctor Michelle could be trusted, the worst stage of the morning sickness would soon be over, but she could hardly wait for that day to arrive.

“Well, I guess it means that the fleeting impulse to throw up from a mental stimulation cannot be grouped together with the ongoing sick feeling from morning sickness.”

Still sitting on her chair, Aura raised her head from the vat, then glared up to Secretary Fabio, standing next to her, and replied with that.

In that way, Secretary Fabio’s existence was a godsend to her.

After she had safely given birth, she ought to somehow express her gratitude and make amends to him, but for now it should be alright to presume upon his loyalty for a bit.

She rinsed her mouth with water from a silver goblet, then spat it into the vat and comfortably leaned back into her chair in a somewhat calmer state.

The Queen refocused on her duties, whereat her secretary resumed the conversation without giving her any considerate words like “are you sure you do not want to rest a bit longer?”.

“Oh, that one.”

Originally it wouldn’t be strange for Aura to welcome an official envoy from the Twin Kingdom in the audience chamber herself, but as she was currently in poor physical health due to the pregnancy, she avoided public appearances as much as possible.

“Yes, here.”

“Mh? This crest belongs to the Sharrow Royal Family?”

However, it wasn’t unusual that the letter came directly from the Sharrow Royal Family, considering that they would actually process the rings, even if she had told her request to Princess Isabelle from the Jilbell Family.

“Hmm…”

“!?”

Aura had been on the point of jumping up from her chair, so her secretary, surprised on a rare occasion, swiftly acted to support her.

Aura replied with that to Secretary Fabio, but contrary to her words, the blood had drained from her face and her complexion now looked bluish black.

Before long, Aura finished reading the letter and took three deep breaths.

As Secretary Fabio had waited for the right time, he now called out to the Queen cautiously.

Unlike domestic “messages from small flying dragons”, this letter was a diplomatic document from one royalty to another. Fabio was nothing but a simple secretary, so he had no right to read such a document.

“It mainly contains what I already expected: Princess Isabelle’s gratitude about sending her off with my magic and the notification that my request for turning the rings into magic tool has been accepted.”

The content had agitated Queen Aura to such an extent. Even Fabio, whose trade mark was his iron mask-like poker face, started to sweat on the hands, which he had unconsciously squeezed into fists.

“A princess from the Sharrow Family? Including the branch family, there is quite a number of them, but I think the fifty-years old Princess Caroline is the oldest one from the direct descendants.”

“A hundred and fifty years ago…”

One hundred and fifty years ago. The erased existence of royalty. On top of that, a woman.

“Since it has completely been erased from the official records, this seems to be a rumour at best, but apparently the Princess, a direct descendent of the Sharrow Family, fell in love with a man she would never be allowed to marry in reality.

And as love sprouted between two people, who were never allowed to marry, they turned towards elopement before long. In the end, it says, they travelled to a ’new land, where no one would ever find them’.”

The secretary took a few deep breaths like Aura before. Indeed, this were certainly extremely bad news, which warranted an agitation.

“So the partner for the ‘prince, who eloped into a different world one hundred and fifty years ago’ in the myth of our Carpa Kingdom, was the Princess from the Sharrow Family. In other words, Zenjirou-sama has inherited both the Carpa bloodline and the Sharrow bloodline, I wonder?”

“Maybe? Maybe not? No one knows the truth. But it seems that the sender of this letter considers it to be true.”

In this world, being royalty equalled having a unique magic in its bloodline.

The royalty with their bloodline magic belonged to its country and amounted to its military strength if necessary. Now considering that it would fall into the hands of foreign royalty, it was understandable to lose your cool.

Aura shook her head amused in response to her secretary’s prudent argument.

With small flying dragons, the same message was sent a bunch of times and only one of them had to reach the destination. The downside was thus that the information could easily leak to an outsider. So when the aim was to stir things up through a rumour, there was no reason not to use the small flying dragons.

Upon the secretary’s bold suggestion, Aura awkwardly averted her gaze and answered.

On a rare occasion, her secretary was at a loss for words to her confession.

“It is all very well for you to talk. Back then, no one could have foreseen how precious that information is. Moreover, my husband had been sick at that point.”

Aura immediately defended Zenjirou, whereat her secretary coldly dismissed it with a sound argument. And after a bit of musing, he put the extremely unfavourable current state into words.

The secretary confirmed it now after all this time, whereupon Aura nodded while leaning against the backrest of her chair.

There was no precedent of a royalty having inherited two bloodline, so it couldn’t be said with certainty, but an established theory at the present time didn’t rule out the possibility that one person theoretically could use two bloodline magic. However, it required an amount of magic power twice as much as a royalty generally had, to make it possible.

Aura felt the gaze of her secretary on her stomach and unconsciously stroke it with the palm of right hand, answering him.

Unless their child became an abnormality that was born with an exceptional magic power and could use both “Space-Time Magic” and “Bestowal Magic” without any problems, it would never cause any troubles. And even the Twin Kingdom surely didn’t anticipate such an unrealistic event.

“Yes, I am of the same mind. However, it is a different matter altogether when Zenjirou-sama has a child with a concubine. The odds are that this child will manifest the blood of ‘Bestowal Magic’ instead of the blood of ‘Space-Time Magic’.”

The bloodline magic of royalty was a country’s best kept secret and if that were to leak to a different country, it was only natural that the members of the Sharrow Family would feel threatened. All the more in their case, since their bloodline magic was closely connected to their country’s defence and finances. If they were to lose their monopoly on magic tools, the Twin Kingdom’s earnings would plummet greatly, to put it charitably.

“For now, we can only soothe the Twin Kingdom by hinting at them that my husband will not take any concubines.”

Aura sighed in response to her secretary’s doubt and shook her head.

In fact, Aura herself might have resorted to that, if they weren‘t keeping track of Zenjirou. She knew how dangerous it was to anger the major power of the Twin Kingdom of Sharrow and Jilbell, but the prospect of having the “Bestowal Magic” in the own country was so attractive that she wanted to grasp at it against her better judgement.

“Indeed. If it had come to light before your pregnancy or after Zenjirou-sama had taken a concubine… To be honest, I do not even want to imagine it.”

If these news had come to light before Aura was pregnant with Zenjirou’s child, the Twin Kingdom might have demanded more forcefully that Zenjirou was to be handed over to them.

“Good grief. I would have never known about my husband’s lineage if not for this letter. If they are that afraid of fire, they should not have lit one in the first place.”

“Most likely, they ‘did not know that we do not know the truth’. Or more precisely, they ‘had no concrete proof that we do not know it’. Maybe they came to the conclusion that it would be too late to act if we should ever stumble over the fact by chance and all they did was watch from the sidelines?”

For a moment, Secretary Fabio looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t put it into words in the end.

“Yes, good.”
Aura nodded firm and had all forgotten about her morning sickness at some point.

At night of the same day.

I am sorry. It will become boisterous around you for a while, but I want to ask for your assistance.”

One hundred and fifty years ago, the prince of the Carpa Kingdom eloped with a woman into a different world and the chance was high that this woman was a princess from the Sharrow Royal Family.

Therefore, it was possible that his children would have an aptitude for the Bestowal Magic, although Zenjirou himself showed an obvious aptitude for the Space-Time Magic.

(Still, the Carpa blood of my child with Aura will apparently suppress the Sharrow blood, since her blood’s stronger than mine, so it won’t pose a problem)

The moment he tilted the glass, the ice inside bounced around with a clatter and a water drops sprang from it onto his face.

Zenjirou would usually never make such a childish blunder. Hearing about the secret of his birth must have agitated him more than he had thought.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It was only my face.”

Then he asked what weighted on his mind the most, what he wanted to know before anything else.

The wife showed a reassuring smile on the frank question of her husband, and shook her head decisively.

Zenjirou smiled bashful as he felt from her words that he made his wife be considerate to him unnecessarily.

It’s just that I was thinking that some nobles would take all kind of actions if my existences ever brings a drawback to the country from an objective point of view.”

“Hmm…”

She mused a while over the thought process of her husband, which was more rational and severe than she had expected, then slowly opened her mouth.

Right now, I may be carrying a heir in my stomach, but you are one of the very few people from the Carpa lineage. That fact will not change. The drawbacks you might cause with your presence pale in comparison to the drawbacks of losing you.”

At present, Zenjirou was undoubtedly a “hindrance” to the Sharrow Royal Family. The only one, who would profit from his disappearance, was none other than the Sharrow Family.

Of course it was possible that some people in both the Carpa Kingdom and Twin Kingdom would take no account of such a logical argument and hurried to get rid of Zenjirou, but nothing would get started if even that had to be considered. These kind of dangers, difficult to anticipate, could only be dealt with makeshift.

“Anyhow, the fact that you have inherited the Sharrow blood is a classified information, just like I told you earlier. In other words, you must not mentioned anything about it when you turn down a concubine. Do you understand?”

“Ehm, basically… I need a nominal ‘excuse’, different from the truth, to reject a concubine?”

“Indeed. But just like I told you before, it is rather unnatural for you to turn down a concubine in a political sense right now. To be honest, it will be quite difficult to come up with a reason that the nobles will accept.

“My selfishness? What do you mean?”

“You just have to proclaim the opinion you voiced when I told you about the concubine before, as it is. So, well… Like you do not want anyone to disturb our time alone. Or like you have your head full with the baby and cannot think about anything else…”

Zenjirou couldn’t hide his agitation either after hearing that. While he felt his own face getting hot, he replied flustered. Thinking back on it now, he said some really embarrassing stuff back then.

“…..”

An uneasy silence hung over the married couple even now that had made a child.

“G- Good. Since we cannot reveal your lineage, there is no logical excuse the nobles will accept. In that case, the easiest way is to forcefully push through an argument based on your emotions.

His wife lined up her knees and lowered her head a bit on top of the couch, whereupon Zenjirou stood up from the other couch wordlessly and sat down next to her on the same couch.

Now sitting next to her, Zenjirou took Aura’s left hand, which was folded in her lap, and said to her while peeking at her face from the side.

Besides… That hearsay is, in fact, the complete truth.”

Aura smiled softly while Zenjirou still held her left hand, and reached out her right hand for his face. Then,

she pointed that out.

“H- Hush! And here I tried my best to endure the shame and confessed…!”

“Sorry, my bad. I was just too happy about your devoted words, so I unconsciously ended up teasing you. Thank you. I will definitely repay you.”

“Nah, no need to. It’s me, who gets completely taken care of all the time anyway. When I think of it as an effort to preserve my current lifestyle, it isn’t worth mentioning.”

“Right. I am the Queen, so I cannot afford to have a bad reputation. I can make use of notorieties in regards to my cool-headedness in diplomacy or my sternness on the battlefield, but not so much about a bad reputation concerning love affairs.”

If either Zenjirou or Aura had to end up with the stigma of being “lost in love”, it was inevitable that it would be Zenjirou.

“Now I actually have a request myself, too. Forgive me as well for taking back by previous statement, but I would like to attend a bit more activity outside the inner palace. Would that be alright?”

He wanted to leave the inner palace. In itself that wasn’t anything unusual, but as his wish was all too different from his behaviour so far, Aura unintentionally assumed a caustic tone.

Zenjirou picked out the Queen’s biting tone quite well, but didn’t flinch from it and answered while keeping a soft tone.

Of course I’m aware that by doing so, brings the danger of nobles approaching me, but right now, I’m more worried about your health.”

Aura didn’t respond to the sincere words of her worried husband for a while.

“Mhm, I am happy about your offer, but it will bring you a lot of trouble, you know?”

“I’m prepared for that. Or so I say, actually it might be worse than I imagine.”

The Prince Consort would actively leave the inner palace. While it was a great chance for the ambitious people in the country, it seemed like a threat to the loyal retainers of Aura on the other hand.

Zenjirou made a slightly troubled face upon her answer and replied.

“Hmm…”

However, even though she came to know through their relationship until today that he had no evil intentions like stealing a march on her and taking power, it remained questionable if he had the necessary skills for conversations and negotiations to survive against the sly nobles without making any promises.

In her initial plan, Aura had intended to keep giving birth to children in “consecutive years”, but that option was quite unrealistic, learning from the current situation.

It undoubtedly would interfere with her duties.

At least it would be unrealistic to rule directly without a Marshal and a Prime Minister as she had done until now. However, Aura’s authority and influence would weaken in accordance with her diminishing burden when she appointed a Marshal and Prime Minister.

(Taking that into account, it would be meaningful to have an ally, whose personality I can trust, even if I cannot rely on his abilities)

“…..”

They gazed at each other at a close range for a while in silence. Before long, Aura then relaxed her expression and declared.

“Yes, I know. When ‘you decide’ that I’m causing trouble instead, then I’ll shut myself into the inner palace by ‘my own will’ again.”

Even if she was the Queen, she would end up ruining her reputation when she, as the wife, interfered with her husband’s free will. Zenjirou was thoroughly taught about the values of this country in regards to that.

“Yes, sorry for all the trouble. I am counting on you. Come to think of it, you are scheduled to meet Knight Otario Maldonado outside of the inner palace to accept his vow of loyalty. I shall have my loyal retainer Fabio accompany you on that occasion.”

“Well then, it is about time I retreat to the bedroom. It may be a bit earlier, but I have to increase my sleeping time, since I wake up in the middle of the night.”

Recently, she woke up in the middle of the night due to feeling sick, albeit not every night. But even without that, Doctor Michelle had told her to get as much sleep as possible.

“Huh? Already this late?”

“Okay, then let’s go to sleep.”

Aura informed him like that while docilely letting her husband lead her by the hand.

Zenjirou replied with that to her words.

Zenjirou usually hated it when they imposed onto his private space, but he couldn’t voice such a petty selfishness when it concerned the safety of his beloved wife.

“I see. Then we are going to bed together, I guess.”

“Yeah, we are.”

Chapter end