The crown prince burst into laughter the moment he saw me. Seriously, what was so funny? He laughed for a good while, only calming down after I’d polished off all of his snacks.
"There’s quite a splendid heroic ballad making the rounds among the common folk, you know."
"That ridiculous ballad has been making my life miserable."
If it merely sang of my prowess in battle, I could have laughed it off. But the fourth part tied me to the princess of Bavaria, and that put me in an awkward spot. Rumors balloon in the blink of an eye.
Those damned street minstrels had embellished the story to suit the public’s taste, and I never imagined it would twist into a tale of valor about rescuing a princess kidnapped by a black knight.
The crown prince’s mischievous smile grated on my nerves.
I’m dying of embarrassment here, and you’re enjoying this way too much, aren’t you?
"Thanks to that, the tense atmosphere has loosened up considerably, and the city has regained its energy."
"From a mere heroic ballad? That’s strange in its own right."
"It’s not the only reason, of course, but it’s true that the ballad played the biggest part."
I felt dizzy at the thought of my face being known everywhere for a while. The funny thing was, I was the only one making a fuss about the ballad. Far from denying it, the Bavarian princess had gone so far as to invite the street minstrels to perform.
"To the citizens of Radensdorf, I’m a knight of the occupying army. Why do they like me so much?"
"I’ve given it some thought, and I’d say it’s thanks to your reputation."
For one, I had become the knight who represented Beren, a byword for righteous knighthood. Serve in enough battles and infamy inevitably attaches itself to a knight, but I had none of that.
If anything, my image was that of a guardian who forbade plundering and slaughter and protected the people of occupied lands. Everything I had done out of simple compassion had come back to me as goodwill.
"That’s absurd. Do you know how many have died by my hand?"
"Killing enemies in battle is a legitimate act. My point is that you are a knight fully worthy of respect."
The crown prince seemed determined to gild my reputation.
Or was he teasing me? Either way, it left me thoroughly embarrassed.
"Bear with it for now. We’re profiting from your exploits, after all."
"And in exchange, Hilda might beat me to death."
"Hahaha, Hilda is a very generous soul. She’ll understand."
Easy for him to say when it wasn’t his problem.
In the end, I reluctantly accepted it.
Everywhere I went, citizens sang the heroic ballad with bright smiles. For the people of the occupied territory, it seemed to be a small joy that soothed their hard days. As for the crown prince, he looked thrilled to have found something to tease me about after so long.
"In two days, it will all be over. There won’t be much occasion to wander around like this for a while."
"You’ll be returning to your proper duties as crown prince."
"What will you do once the civil war ends?"
"I plan to hole up in my fief and devote myself to my wife and to governing my lands."
I’d amassed plenty of points and money. What I needed to do now wasn’t foreign campaigns but internal affairs, growing my domain. Feuzen might be a small village, but its growth potential was limitless.
"I don’t know what reward my royal father will bestow upon you, but you can look forward to it."
"I’ve racked up so many achievements that even I can’t remember exactly what I did."
"Heh heh heh, and that’s exactly why the nobles have taken it upon themselves to go hunting for merit."
Apparently, nobles short on military merit were resorting to every trick imaginable to pad their records before the grand duke arrived. If they were going to scramble like this at the last minute, they should have put in the effort from the start. Did they think cramming now would conjure up merit out of thin air?
"I heard from Count Euz that you have your eye on the Baschurten territory as well. Is that true?"
"I’m merely cooperating. Honestly, I’m not expecting much."
"I imagine my royal father could easily hand it over as a reward."
"Even receiving it would be a problem. Leben and Ladwig have been all but destroyed."
That’s what I said, but a fief doesn’t become worthless just because it’s been destroyed. In terms of future value, it would absolutely be worth securing as territory. Still, snatching it up eagerly wouldn’t have looked good, would it?
So I was simply signaling that I had no designs on that land.
The crown prince, however, seemed to take my meaning differently.
"Your problem is that you lack ambition."
"Me? I’m plenty ambitious."
"I mean you aren’t greedy. And you’ve earned merit to match. I’ll report everything to my royal father in detail so that you receive the greatest possible reward, so don’t worry."
"I’d be grateful if you did."
My achievements were so unrivaled that a detailed report hardly seemed necessary, but I appreciated the crown prince taking special care on my behalf. Among the princes, I was already being accepted as one of their own.
Judging purely by merit, receiving a title and a fief was a foregone conclusion. And of all the lands out there, the one I wanted most was Rosenheim, the royal demesne that Feuzen belonged to.
But as they say, don’t count your chickens before they hatch, so I held my tongue.
After all the laughing and chatting, the crown prince spoke in earnest.
"Capturing Antonio alive instead of killing him was well done. Thanks to your level-headed judgment, we’ve learned the details of the cozy relationship between Bavaria and the Duke of Radensdorf."
"So suppressing my emotions paid off. Though if I’d had my way, I would have gouged out both his eyes."
"The marquis said he didn’t want you to take revenge, didn’t he?"
Grandfather had said that since he himself had tortured many people to death in his youth, this was simply his comeuppance. But the way I saw it, he’d said he didn’t want revenge because there was a great deal of information to be extracted from Antonio.
He probably meant for me to take the practical gain.
Antonio was more than just the captain of the guard. He was the closest of the duke’s confidants, privy to most of the pivotal secrets, and the very man who had carried out the duke’s schemes. His information would tighten the noose around the duke even further.
"What do you intend to do with the Bavarian princess?"
"That’s for my royal father to decide. Diplomacy isn’t my jurisdiction."
"Perhaps he’ll pick the Bavarian princess as your marriage partner instead of Lily."
"That’s impossible. Besides, the princess is nominally Louis’s fiancée."
"You know His Highness the grand duke’s temperament, and you’re still so sure?"
The crown prince froze for a moment.
"Surely not. Even my royal father wouldn’t go that far."
Even as he said it, anxiety crept across his face. Because it wasn’t entirely impossible. This poor lamb, smitten with the girl in white, now found himself worrying about things getting tangled up that way.
Hmm, I’d only said it to tease him, but to think he’d take the bait like this. The grand duke had brought in Lily to launder the bloodline; there was no way he’d take a princess from the hostile Wittelsbach family as a daughter-in-law.
But I didn’t say so.
Consider it payback for teasing me about the ballad.
"My lord! Please, a moment of your time!"
"Hm? And you are?"
I had finished my audience with the crown prince and was about to head back when someone stopped me.
He was the elderly attendant who served Prince Louis. I’d seen him once before. Meeting Prince Louis made me uneasy, so I refused at first. But the attendant clung to me, pleading desperately.
Attendant or not, he was a noble in service to royalty, and coldly brushing him off didn’t sit right with me, so in the end I answered the summons. Had I known what it was really about, I would have run without looking back.
"Thank you for accepting an invitation from a royal who’s lost his backing."
"Your attendant is a persistent one. More importantly, how is your health?"
"I’ll hold out until my royal father arrives."
Prince Louis greeted me with a cynical smile. By the crown prince’s order, Louis had been released from house arrest. Even after being freed, he found his daily life unchanged; the only difference was that he could now receive visitors.
Of course, no one had requested to visit him.
Just as he said, no noble bothered with a royal who’d lost his backing.
"That heroic ballad drifts in from outside all day long. At least I haven’t been bored."
"Are you aware that in that ballad, the princess and I are portrayed as lovers?"
"I am. I daresay it was the hardest I’ve laughed in my entire life."
Still as nasty as ever, I see.
Louis was the sort of man who’d inherited only the grand duke’s worst traits.
Thank goodness he at least had a sense of responsibility.
"How about telling your fiancée to publicly deny the ballad?"
"You want me to rein her in? Now that is truly absurd."
Louis, the very man promised in marriage to the Bavarian princess, had not the slightest interest in her. Perhaps that was the root cause of all the embellishment. The hero who saved a princess sacrificed to a political marriage, as it were.
"The princess is a woman who prefers noble banquets to me."
"Hmm, I did hear rumors that she attends banquets often."
"Attends? She practically lives in the banquet halls."
The Bavarian princess had rapidly become the toast of high society.
The crown prince was preparing a victory banquet, but he hadn’t forbidden the nobles from holding their own festivities, so the Bavarian princess received invitations left and right. Her aim was surely to build connections with the Beren nobility.
But there were also rumors that several nobles were ardently courting her. Absurdly enough, thanks to my heroic ballad, the Bavarian princess had come to be known as a pitiable, noble princess in need of protection.
It’s a mindset hard to grasp from a modern perspective, but in chivalric culture, passionate devotion to a noble lady was treated as a virtue. They call it spiritual love—adoration from afar.
And the greatest stage for that spiritual love is the tournament.