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Chapter 61
Davitte lifted his gaze from the table where it had dropped.
The Grand Duchess had persuaded her maternal grandfather, the King of Levanteia, to stop the invasion of Pardon Island?
Could this man’s words really be true?
The Grand Duchess had once praised Moreno as an incorruptible official and had even attached him to Davitte as a tutor in finance. Judging from Moreno’s usual words and conduct, the chances that his claim was false were extremely low. In any case, Davitte could always confirm it directly with the Grand Duchess later.
“Since becoming the lord of Blansk, the young lady has changed a great deal. To be perfectly honest, before that she was a spoiled and frivolous noblewoman who lived only for her own self-satisfaction.”
“Is that so.”
“After setting foot on this land devastated by the flames of war, she began to feel ashamed that her family, through war, had risen to a power rivaling the royal house. When she once suggested giving up the arms trade, her mother, Her Highness the Princess, gave her a severe scolding.”
“…I did not know this.”
Davitte replied. For some reason his throat tightened, and his mouth went dry and parched.
The House of Rasantia had originally prospered through mining, and after inventing the explosive called Rasantium, it had entered its golden age.
The Grand Duchess was the rightful heir of that house. The daughter of the legitimate princess, holding wealth and honor in one hand. From her background to her bloodline, her abilities, there was nothing to find fault with.
By any objective measure, she was extraordinary. No one would have thought it strange if she had continued to live spoiled by her own brilliance. And yet, she was someone who knew shame.
Princess of Levanteia’s royal line. Viscountess of Rasant. Baroness of Blansk. And Grand Duchess of Dvorka.
She carried no fewer than four titles. Davitte easily guessed which one felt the most meager to her: the last one, Grand Duchess of Dvorka.
“Yes. Since the young lady does not speak of it, it is only natural you did not know.”
Moreno added with a sigh-tinged smile:
“Your Grace owes your very life to our lady.”
The claim was somewhat exaggerated.
No one could say for certain whether it was truly her persuasion that moved the King of Levanteia. But the very fact that she had personally taken action struck Davitte with a stinging shock.
The Grand Duchess had tried to protect Pardon Island—long before she ever knew of his existence.
Had she not stepped forward, even Pardon Island might have been reduced to flames.
If that had happened… neither Melania nor I could have survived.
Davitte remained silent for a long time.
Moreno, looking at his subdued lord, spoke again with a note of triumph.
“Therefore, as a vassal of the Ducal House of Rasantia, I will beg three things of Your Grace.”
“Speak.”
“First, fulfill your duties as her husband. They say you are still young and inexperienced, but the ducal line cannot wait forever for an heir. If you dislike watching other men make eyes at her, then you must act quickly.”
Moreno’s advice pricked at Davitte’s sense of crisis.
He clenched his hands to steady his faltering composure, veins bulging on the backs of his hands.
He wanted to protest—that it wasn’t that he didn’t desire her. It was only that he was overwhelmed by unfamiliar emotions he had never experienced before, and so he hesitated.
But he understood clearly enough that this was no different from immaturity.
“…The next?”
So he urged Moreno to continue.
“Do not become her weakness. You must be mindful of your conduct. You, being a sovereign yourself, should know this well: a husband’s weakness becomes the wife’s weakness in equal measure.”
It was a warning that such incidents as today’s must not happen again.
Davitte nodded heavily. He never wished for the Grand Duchess to be forced into conflict again with the Crown Prince, Governor of Dvorka.
“And lastly, I beg of you—preserve the trust between husband and wife.”
With solemn insistence, Moreno added in a low voice:
“By chance, this old man is very good at detecting lies.”
“…”
“As for the two hundred thousand rebels—I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it. Blansk has a well-established banking system. Sir Kiril may be temporary, but he is an assigned knight of the lord’s castle, so he can obtain that much as a loan.”
With eyes full of suspicion, Moreno stared at the young and strikingly handsome prince.
Davitte did not yet know.
That during his absence, the people who had rifled through his study from top to bottom were the finance officers under Moreno.
Even the heartfelt letters in his final drawer had all been read by them.
Davitte left the treasurer’s office and closed the door.
Across the hall, he caught sight of a familiar figure. A blond man, red-faced with drink, staggered down the corridor. From the direction, it seemed he had just come out of Commander Lobad’s office.
What was his name again—Mikel? Miguel? Davitte hadn’t known he was close enough to the Grand Duchess’s knight commander to be sharing drinks.
“Well, well, if it isn’t our gorgeous little prince.”
Perhaps because he wasn’t in uniform, the man looked far more disheveled than usual. To Davitte’s eyes he resembled a common thug—someone he never wished to see near the Grand Duchess.
But did he have the right to interfere?
Davitte bit his lip.
“Hey, you—tarnish Alisa’s name just one more time, and I won’t let it slide. Got it? If you’re supposed to be a ruler, then keep your subjects in line. Huh?”
The man—Mikel—staggered up to him and grabbed at his collar.
Davitte’s expression twisted in disgust. This was a man he never wanted to encounter in such a state.
“If you’re a husband… and you’re not going to do anything in that far-too-grand place, then at least don’t be a burden. Hm?”
With his flushed face, the man growled at him. Davitte briefly imagined planting his fist right in the middle of that face. With him so drunk, it would be easy enough to subdue him.
Whap.
Davitte roughly tore his clothes free from the man’s grip. He had no desire to scuffle. After all, wasn’t this someone the Grand Duchess valued? If he acted on impulse and knocked the man down, she would only turn colder toward him.
And there was nothing wrong in what this unpleasant drunkard had said. Davitte sat in a position far too lofty, and instead of helping her, he was only weighing her down.
If he slipped further… wouldn’t she truly cast him aside without a second thought?
A chill of danger ran down his spine.
“Can’t use the official budget? Well, that’s fine. I can find us a house on my own. I’ll need one anyway if I ever mean to marry later.”
That afternoon, Kiril went into the city of Blansk to visit the bank.
It was to take out a loan for a house and to hire mercenaries from the guild. Since Davitte had no identity token, he couldn’t borrow from the bank himself.
In truth, it wasn’t just the lack of an identity token—whenever he went out, knights would follow him, and that was the bigger problem.
Kiril asked that the borrowed amount be divided into monthly installments and deducted from his pay raise. Davitte promised to do so. Salaries for retainers were at least within his discretion.
A few hours later, Kiril entered the study. Anxiously pacing, Davitte hurried over to him.
“How did it go?”
“As I’m officially a knight, they’ll give me a loan equal to the price of a house if I bring them a temporary contract. But when I tried to borrow extra for the mercenary guild, they said it was over the loan limit.”
As Davitte’s face drained of color, Kiril hastily added:
“But there was some good news, Your Grace.”
“…What kind of good news?”
“The bank clerk told me—here in Blansk there’s a pawnshop that lends money to people in dire straits.”
“A pawnshop? Isn’t that the kind of place where you leave items as collateral?”
Davitte frowned. There had been pawnshops even on Pardon Island. They usually dealt with small sums, and they weren’t the sort of financial institutions one could really trust.
“Yes. Apparently there’s a popular tavern in the southern district, and in its basement is a pawnshop. If you go there and lay out your situation, they’ll lend you the money you need at low interest. Even hundreds of thousands of rebels, they say, without hesitation. But there’s one important condition.”
“What condition?”
“If you lie to the pawnbroker, somehow the report goes straight to the garrison police, and they’ll immediately haul you in. Some even say they hire detectives to verify the truth of debtors’ claims.”
“…”
“Every scammer who tried to borrow with lies has been punished and exiled. Now, only those truly in need go there. And you can’t borrow on someone else’s behalf. The person who needs the money has to go in person.”
A strange sort of pawnshop indeed. Lending out vast sums at low interest, yet immune to lies.
Davitte rubbed at his jaw, unsettled. He had never heard of a pawnshop handling such enormous sums. And in a small city like this? As large-scale as a bank?
“Then I must go myself?”
“Oh, come now, Your Grace. You can’t seriously walk into a shady place like that. Couldn’t I go for you? It’s not as if we’d be lying…”
“Didn’t you just say lies get reported? If you were exiled, what then?”
Davitte pointed out. Kiril was being far too casual about it.
This was clearly no ordinary pawnshop. If they investigated debtors’ stories and punished them, then they must be tied to some organization. Did the Grand Duchess know of this place’s existence?
“Well, hiring mercenaries isn’t a lie, right? If you just tell me your reasons for bringing them, I can explain it persuasively.”
Kiril’s curiosity about Davitte’s secrets was undiminished.
“…No. Only I can explain my own circumstances.”
“Good grief. You’re as tight-lipped as ever.”
Kiril muttered, dissatisfied. Even back when Davitte had been a knight, he’d never talked about himself. Some comrades had thought he was just being haughty because of his royal blood.
Kiril himself had once thought so too, until he’d trained and fought beside him, rolling in the dirt, trading blows with sword and fist. Then he concluded: this strikingly handsome prince wasn’t aloof—he was simply painfully introverted.
“There’s another problem.”
“What is it, Your Grace?”
“I have nothing to leave as collateral at a pawnshop.”
His voice was as dark and damp as moss creeping through stone.
“Ha! Don’t be ridiculous. Weren’t you the one I helped carry an entire chest of wedding jewels for?”
Davitte shook his head sternly.
Those jewels had been a gift the Grand Duchess herself had carefully entrusted to him—a symbol of the political marriage between two nations.
“They’re not just jewels. They’re wedding jewels. I cannot simply hand them to someone else.”
“…But you could always redeem them afterward. Raise the interest a bit, add a no-sale clause.”
Still, Davitte could not bring himself to agree.
Those jewels were the only valuables he had. And as Moreno had said, he wanted to keep faith with the Grand Duchess.
But…
His sister’s safety hung by a thread.
Right now, what mattered most to Davitte was what was happening on Pardon Island. Queen Elizabeta would have no qualms about shoving Melania into some earl’s bed before she was even of age.
His chest felt blocked by something black and suffocating. Davitte clutched at his heart with a groan, almost gasping for breath.
Nothing was going the way he wanted.
A bronzed hand fell firmly on the back of his own. It was Kiril’s.
“Your Grace, if you want to bring her here this badly, she must be very precious to you.”
Kiril looked at him meaningfully. Since he was even putting his name on the line to find a house, he wanted to know just who would be living there.
After a long hesitation, Davitte replied:
“…She’s a child I must take responsibility for and protect.”
“Ah, a cousin then, Your Grace? Not on your father’s side, I suppose—your mother’s?”
Kiril’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.
Davitte felt uncomfortable with the question. But he did not leave it unanswered.
“Something like that.”
Born of the same parents, technically she was his second-degree kin. He just didn’t want to call it anything closer.
“Well, that’s reassuring then.”
Relieved, Kiril clapped his hands together with a broad smile.
“Jewels are things, but people are people. First bring your sister here safely—then we can redeem the jewels later.”
