Maydare Volume 3 Chapter 6 - The Bells of the Two Princes Ring I (Part 1)
We learn why Frey and Gilbert's relationship is so bad
I entered the royal palace for the first time in a month.
Since the alliance conference, there was no need or business for me to come to the palace. The Guardians were still forbidden from having any contact with Airi.
I was allowed into the palace and opened the door to the room where Frey was said to be confining himself.
As for Frey, he was lying on a huge royalty-approved bed, grinning as he flipped through a magazine with a lineup of beautiful actresses that were the talk of the town. Why would such a magazine be in the palace?
“What’s all this? I was worried and came to see you, but now I see you’re living in the lap of luxury.”
“Oh, Leader! What’s up~~”
Even when he noticed me, he responded lazily, still lying down on the bed.
“I heard that you and Prince Gilbert got into a fight, but you look like you’re doing fine from the looks of you.”
“Oi, oi, what are you talking about? He punched me in the face. What if he leaves a scar? I’ll never forgive that idiot brother.”
He was grinning at his magazine earlier, but now Frey seemed to have recalled his anger. He tossed the magazine to the side and turned his back to me. Was he a little kid…?
I sighed, picked up the magazine and sat on the edge of the bed.
“How did you two get into a fistfight in the first place?”
I asked casually. Frey kept his back to me and replied, “I had no choice. He was the one who came at me.”
“I’m sure you said something to rile Prince Gilbert up again.”
“As if! I just refused him because he was giving me high-handed orders to concentrate on my princely duties and get engaged to a princess from a neighboring country!”
“What…?”
I was a bit surprised. But when I thought about it, it was true that the princes of the Kingdom of Ruschia were recently in the midst of a rush for political engagements. Frey was the fifth prince of this kingdom, so it wasn’t surprising that there were talks of political marriages in these times.
“Come to think of it, didn’t you say you don’t have much authority as a prince? Are there any special restrictions on you?”
“Well, that’s the way it is. Seven years ago, I was stripped of all rights as a prince and banished from this palace. By order of the late High Consort, Lady Alicia.”
“The High Consort…?”
The High Consort, Lady Alicia. She was the fourth consort of the current king, but she was the most exalted of them all.
And, she was Prince Gilbert’s mother.
I’ve heard that she was a compassionate person who was loved by the people, but she died of illness a long time ago. Why would someone like that banish Frey…?
“So, Frey, are you just going to go back to the palace and accept the political marriage?”
“Hah?”
Frey slowly got up and sat cross-legged, his chin in his hands.
“I said I refused, didn’t I? But my idiot brother said, ‘You’re the only one left.’ So I told him, ‘But you’re still here, Brother.’”
I listened to Frey’s story silently, my eyes blinking.
“Brother kept avoiding the subject of political marriages lately because he’s in love with the Savior. Even though that idiot has been openly rejected by her.”
“Huh…? He got rejected?”
Wait a minute, this was the first I was hearing of it.
“It’s funny, isn’t it? He told the Savior that he wants her to be his consort, but she shot him down. What an idiot. He was courting a woman through a door. He doesn’t get women at all.”
“...”
“So, when I laughed and pointed that out to him, he punched me.”
“Well…of course he’d hit you.”
It was a well-known fact that Prince Gilbert was in love with Airi, but the fact that he asked her to marry him was a surprise to me. If Frey peeked in at that and sarcastically pointed it out, I could see why Prince Gilbert would want to hit him.
To begin with, Frey’s half-brother, Prince Gilbert, had just broken off his engagement to the noble lady Beatrice Asta, in order to pledge his loyalty to the Savior as a Guardian.
But, if Airi were to quit being the Savior, Prince Gilbert would no longer have to pledge his loyalty to her as her Guardian. He could marry another woman again. That must be why the impatient Prince Gilbert asked her to marry him, but sadly got rejected.
It was somewhat complicated, but that was how it was.
Frey said that Prince Gilbert was still in love with Airi even after getting rejected by her, and was trying to force the fifth prince, himself, to accept the political marriage that had come to Gilbert.
“Ugh, that asshole! He was the one who kept me away from the palace, but now he’s asking me to be aware of my status as prince! That idiot just thinks the world revolves around him, doesn’t he!”
Frey was getting irritated again, scratching his hair as he got heated up.
I put my fingers to my temples and groaned.
“I understand your point. Maybe you aren’t completely in the wrong.”
“...You understand me, Leader?”
Frey was gazing at me sideways with an indescribable glance.
Frey had no allies or backers in the palace. He must have been feeling helpless and miserable.
“Well, I’ve known you for some time now, and there’s some favoritism towards family going on here. Professor Ulysses asked me to come and see you.”
“What are you, my mom? …I’m so pathetic, aren’t I.”
As Frey scratched the back of his neck, he said something weak and somewhat unlike him.
Although he was not a no-good man, but a no-good prince, he somehow tickled my maternal instinct. Maybe this was the reason why older women adored him.
Well, I was a year younger than him, though.
“Hey, Frey. You said you were banished from the palace when you were a child, but what was the reason?”
There must be a reason why he had such a bad relationship with Prince Gilbert.
“I told you before. My mom did a lot of bad things at the palace.”
“I know that, but…I don’t understand why you and Prince Gilbert act so volatile against each other. Professor Ulysses is also your older brother, but he isn’t so hard on you.”
“No, no, Brother Ulysses is terrifying. Gilbert and I got chewed out so hard by him after our fight. Seriously, we were struck by real lightning.”
“Huh??”
I couldn’t imagine the mild-manner Professor Ulysses getting so angry. Real lightning…
Frey fell silent for a while, a sullen look on his face.
“Haa. I don’t know where to begin…”
And then, he sighed a long sigh as he swept his bangs back.
“My mother came from an orphanage.”
“Could that be the Royal Orphanage where the Team 3 kids lived?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Little by little, Frey began to talk about his mother’s personal history.
Her name was Lara.
Lara was a girl with no relations who grew up in an orphanage and worked there. She was also blessed by【Earth】, so she was loved by the earth and plants. Above all, she was blessed with beauty.
The king of Ruschia, who happened to be inspecting the capital, was surprised when he saw her walking along the walls, and fell in love with her beauty and liveliness. He received her as his fourth consort.
While there were some who were opposed to the woman’s rise from orphan to king’s consort, the people of Miladriede were elated.
She had always been reputed as a beautiful and kindhearted girl in town.
However, when Lara began to enjoy the king’s favor and a life of luxury, she slowly, gradually, began to go mad.
She was special. She crawled up to the top from the very bottom.
The king loved her more than anyone else―that was what she believed.
She had always been starving for love.
Those wishes might have come have out of their shells in a warped way.
Lara, thinking only of being loved by the king, abandoned the care of her own child early on, and only focused on improving her beauty.
But the king had four consorts, so Lara couldn’t be the only one who was specially loved.
Lara developed a distorted sense of inferiority towards the other consorts, who came from noble families, and began to see them as obstacles.
At that time, it was the High Consort Lady Alicia who took care of Frey in place of Lara. Yes, the mother of Prince Gilbert.
Lady Alicia was a proud and noble High Consort who was adored by the people.
It was said that until Prince Gilbert was born, she was having a hard time becoming pregnant with a child.
She didn’t take her noble status as the daughter of a duke or her position as High Consort lightly, and she fulfilled her role as the High Consort by working for the sake of the king and country, uniting the consorts, and caring for all the princes.
That was why it was Lady Alicia, holding the position of High Consort, who was always by the king’s side.
Lara gradually came to desire that “High Consort” position.
She became jealous of Lady Alicia, who was adored by everyone and relied upon by the king, who even gave her due respect.
She was the one who was most loved by the king.
Therefore, it was her who deserved to be next to the king―
Lara began to harass Lady Alicia.
She didn’t do it directly. She complained to the king that Lady Alicia was bullying her for her low status, made huge fusses, and tried to ruin her reputation.
In contrast, the prideful Lady Alicia continued to refute her calmly. The king, however, thought that Lara, who came from an orphanage, had fewer allies and often took her side.
It was said that because of this, Lady Alicia’s mental burdens piled up, and she fell ill and died.
Lara didn’t have a direct hand in it, but it was safe to say that it was her malice that drove Lady Alicia to her death.
The king mourned the death of Lady Alicia, and later banished Lara from the palace after her harassment and misdeeds came to light.
Evil Queen Lara. That was what they called her. She was now living a monitored life deep in the northern forests of the Kingdom of Ruschia.
“I can understand why Gilbert hates me. I’m just like Evil Queen Lara.”
Frey continued to speak in a hoarse voice.
“But I grew up without any love from Lara. She was just the mother who gave birth to me. I…I wished many times that Lady Alicia had been my real mother. I was sad when she died.”
Frey’s eyes were empty, staring blankly at someplace that wasn’t here.
Somewhere in the past, a point in time that created a distortion for him.
“Yeah… It was the day before Lady Alicia passed away from illness.”
“Frey?”
“Lady Alicia told me very clearly. …Leave the palace. There is no place for you here. I don’t want to see your face.”
“...”
Frey clenched his fists on top of his knees.
“Until then, even though I was the son of a woman she hated, Lady Alicia treated me just as affectionately as she treated Gilbert. But I guess she finally couldn’t take it anymore.”
Frey then smiled somewhat dryly and looked up, his hands behind his head.
“I was shocked when I found out she hated me. At any rate, I experienced my first heartbreak at age ten, you know? Lady Alicia was my first love.”
He said it in a way like he was poking fun at himself. When I looked tense, he said, “Hey, this is the part where you laugh.”
I couldn’t laugh.
Now I knew why Frey liked older women.
Rather than liking older women, he was still chasing after the image of his first love, Lady Alicia, who replaced his mother when he was a child.
“But nothing changed the fact that I was still Lara’s son. The king listened to Lady Alicia’s will, stripped me of all my privileges, and threw me out of the palace. I was handed off to one boarding school after the other, and then finally enrolled at Lune Ruschia. Ironically, I inherited the【Earth】blessing from my mother, so I had a little bit of a talent for magic. But I didn’t really give a damn about magic.”
“That’s why…you failed last year?”
No particular longing, enthusiasm, or attachment to magic.
Feeling like Lune Ruschia Magic School was a cage he was trapped in.
I knew this because I’ve spent a lot of time with Frey, but I’ve learned that if he took things seriously, he could do everything better than most people. He wasn’t some dropout who would fail a year. It was just as Professor Medite said before.
But the reason he was frivolous or careless in the important things was surely because the experience of being denied by the people he loved and being isolated as a child still cast a shadow over him.
Somewhere along the way, he had given up on life itself.
“Well, I didn’t have any motivation from the start. I thought that if I continued to repeat a year at Lune Ruschia, I would be able to live there just fine.”
“...What about now?”
I looked Frey straight in the eye and spoke again.
“Do you still hate school?”
“...”
Frey also glanced at me.
“Not really. I’m having a pretty good time now. I don’t really dislike the guys in Team 9.”
It seemed that he was speaking indifferently on purpose, like he was hiding his embarrassment. Hearing his words, I was unexpectedly relieved.
Although he was frivolous at times, Frey had certainly worked hard for the team in his own way this past year.
I nagged him into going to class, checked his papers, and helped him study for tests, but…
And then, as I was looking down, my sidelocks, which had been gathered at the back of my head in a half-up hairstyle, suddenly fell down in front of my eyes.
“!?”
For some reason, Frey was untying the ribbon that was tying my hair back, pulling it deftly from the side.
“W-What are you doing!?”
I was startled.
I looked up, pressing my hand against the back of my head and was surprised by Frey’s unexpected behavior.
“Oh, well, when there’s a ribbon fluttering next to me, I get an urge to untie it, you know?”
“Hah?”
Frey was smiling mischievously, but I didn’t understand.
Why was he playing with other people’s ribbons? What was so fun about that?
“...Good grief. Maybe I’m overthinking it. If you’re in the mood to tease people, then there’s no need to worry about you. Now, let’s return to Lune Ruschia.”
“Okay.”
Frey replied more earnestly than usual and got off the bed.
However, I wondered if the reason he looked depressed was because his original stooped back was even more bent.
I told him to straighten up and clapped him on the back.
“Tch. That hurt.”
He reacted like a delinquent son. Don’t click your tongue, I scolded.
He was a no-good man, but my boy wasn’t a bad kid at heart.
“Milady…?”
“Oh, Thor!”
When we left the room, we bumped into Thor in the hallway outside.
I was happy to see Thor at the palace. I hadn’t seen him since the night of the alliance conference.
Leaving Frey behind, I ran up to Thor.
“Thor, it’s been a long time! We haven’t seen each other much lately, so I’ve been wanting to see you.”
Thor wordlessly blinked in surprise.
Then slowly, he touched my hair.
“T-Thor!?”
“Milady…it’s rare for you to have your hair loose. What happened to your usual ribbon?”
“Ribbon? Ah!”
Thor looked past me at Frey.
He was looking at Frey, or rather, the black ribbon that Frey was holding in his hand.
“Oh, this~? I untied it while your lady was sitting defenselessly on my bed. I’m good at untying ribbons, you know~”
“Why are you acting so proud about untying a ribbon? Anyone can do that.”
I quipped at Frey, who was acting proud for some strange reason.
Thor, with a pasted-on smile on his face, briskly walked over to Frey and snatched my ribbon from his hand, and then briskly returned and went behind me.
“Thor?”
“Milady, please stay still.”
Then, he began to tie my hair. Just like he used to do when he was my knight.
His fingers were skillful, as though he still remembered how to do it. But for me, having my hair combed with the fingers of the person I liked was somewhat embarrassing.
It didn’t use to be a big deal. It didn’t use to be a big deal!
“T-T-Thank you, Thor!”
My face was probably bright red, so I thanked him with my head hanging down.
“No. You have beautiful red hair, so you must not make a mess of it. You’re the daughter of the O’Drielle house, after all.”
“Ah,” those words reminded me of something, and I turned around to look at Thor.
“Come to think of it, Thor, you’ve always said my hair was beautiful. You said only my hair was beautiful!”
“...”
Thor froze with the smile still on his face.
For some reason, Frey was holding back laughter behind him.
“Milady, you seemed to have completely recovered.”
At Thor’s abrupt change in topic, I said, “Huh?”
Oh, that’s right. The last time I saw Thor, I was so rattled and frightened by that blond man that I worried Thor a lot.
I had been so scared of him, but recently, with Airi threatening to quit being the Savior, Bishop Eska’s spartan coaching, and the hectic team assignment, that man’s presence had receded a bit in my mind. I might be trying to forget him on purpose.
“Oh, yes! I might be completely fine now! I’ve been busy with team assignments at school lately.”
“...I’m glad to hear that. It’s rare for you to be at the palace, isn’t it? What brings you here today? Or rather, why were you in His Highness Frey’s room?”
Thor asked, still with the same formal pasted-on smile.
What’s wrong with you, Thor? Your expression hasn’t changed at all like you’re wearing a mask.
“Ah, well, I came to see Frey. I heard he got into a fight with Prince Gilbert. Afterwards, he got sulky and refused to come to school, so Professor Ulysses asked me to take him back. What a difficult prince.”
“Oh…I see.”
Thor sighed, looking somewhat relieved.
Meanwhile, behind me, Frey started grumbling, “Let’s get out of here!” Good grief.
“See you, Thor. The prince seems to be in a bad mood.”
“...Ah.”
Thor made to stop me.
When I turned around, Thor was rummaging through the pockets of his knight’s uniform for some reason.
He took something out, took my hand, and place the thing in it.
“I’m giving this to you.”
Wondering what it was, I saw that it was candy wrapped in pretty yellow paper. This was probably the classic honey lemon candy sold around town.
“Huh, really? Thor, why are you carrying around honey lemon candies?”
“Oh, I lick them when I need sugar. The vice-commander…Sir Lionel hands them out a lot.”
“Heh, thanks. I’ll make some onigiri for you next time. Onigiri with dried apricot umeboshi.”
“Eh…?”
When I told him that, Thor’s eyes fluttered, and then he flushed a little and cleared his throat.
“Thank you. I’ll be waiting. …It’s been cold lately, so please take care of yourself, Milady.”
He put his hand on his chest and bowed his head, the very image of a fine young knight.
Thor was acting a little strange today.
I was worried about him because he tended to hide his injuries and illnesses. He was taking a break from Guardian work, but I wondered if he was tired because he was so busy with his knight duties…
“Oi, Leader, let’s get out of here. I don’t wanna stay in this place for even a second longer.”
“What’s with you? That’s not a line that should come from someone who’s been holed up in his room for all this time.”
Frey was strangely rushing me.
And then, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, even though he didn’t usually do that, and looked back at Thor. He was grinning.
Thor, on the other hand, had that pasted-on smile again.
Thor, by nature of being my former knight, was sensitive to any nasty bugs that might attach themselves to me. I was sure he was worried that I might take Frey’s jokes seriously.
It’s okay, it’s okay, Thor. I understand Frey’s jokes at the very least.
“Kuku…that guy is surprisingly jealous. And he looks very possessive.”
“Hey Frey, can you stop teasing Thor? I mean, you and he are probably the same age. But Thor is much more mature.”
“Eh, really?”
As I was brushing Frey’s hand off my shoulder, we were just about to enter a corridor in the palace.
“Ah…”
We could see the gardens from there, and we saw a familiar figure sitting on the edge of the fountain, his head drooping down.
It was Prince Gilbert. He looked very tired.
“...”
I didn’t have a very good impression of Prince Gilbert.
I was always being condemned by him.
However, by the looks of him, he too must have been trapped in his position and suffering from various complications.
While being born a prince offers a luxurious life, he had no freedom, and it was difficult to fulfill the smallest of personal wishes and desires.
Prince Gilbert did indeed love Airi.
There was no doubt that he wanted to protect her.
But if Airi was no longer the savior, he would have to make choices as a prince rather than a Guardian.
That was probably why he was the one who had the most unsettled position among us at the moment.
Yes ...
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