Chapter 21
The pilgrimage was an enormous undertaking beyond imagination.
“Whoa, whoa.”
Alros, commander of the Imperial First Order of Knights, leading the procession, calmed his red steed.
In the middle of the formation was the carriage Blanc would ride in, while at the rear, the mages led by Fulcare, along with the commander and knights of the Third Order of Knights, held their respective positions.
Ordinary soldiers were stationed at intervals throughout the formation to fill the gaps in the procession.
There were more than a hundred escorts alone.
Including the servants and other workers, the total easily exceeded five hundred.
They would reduce the number of people while stopping at major strongholds, but it was still unquestionably a massive undertaking.
“…Was it really this large?”
Vieta blinked several times. This was not her first escort mission, but she had only ever escorted merchants and minor nobles, so she had never expected it to be this enormous.
While she was still looking around uncertainly, Vieta received help from the guides and went to the information desk, where she was given an identification badge with a blue stripe.
With that, she had effectively acquired the status of a maid belonging to the Ministry of Magic.
“Change into the issued maid uniform and wait at the waiting area over there.”
The place the official pointed to was crowded with maids wearing white aprons over black dresses.
Vieta changed clothes in a temporary partition, then went to the waiting area and hid herself among the maids.
“…Should I give up even now?”
It took an hour to distribute the identification badges at the departure point, and another hour was spent waiting for her turn to change in a partition.
After being jostled for two hours in a crowd like a swarm of ants, a sigh escaped Vieta’s lips.
Her biggest problem was the strange impulse that made her want to work whenever she had no work, yet want to become unemployed the moment she actually started working again.
***
Vieta racked her brains, trying to figure out how to smooth over the situation that had arisen.
She had definitely been waiting for departure with the other maids, but Fulcare had suddenly appeared and was selecting maids to attend directly to the mages during the journey.
“You’ll be the last.”
The maid Fulcare pointed to was Vieta.
“Wait! Chief, please choose me!! I can do a good job!”
As Vieta followed Fulcare’s instructions and stepped forward, she suddenly realized that her body was tilting.
The red-haired maid standing beside her had dashed forward and shoved her.
While Vieta regained her balance to keep from falling, the red-haired maid had already reached Fulcare and was introducing herself.
“My name is Adrienne Ar Pin de Gramaldi, the second daughter of Viscount Gramaldi.”
“…And?”
Fulcare’s voice was as cold as could be, but the maid standing before him was not intimidated in the least.
“I have come here to serve you for the rest of my life.”
“…What does that mean?”
Faced with a situation she could see with her own eyes yet still could not believe, Vieta gaped.
In other words, this maid had joined the pilgrimage to see Fulcare and was declaring before everyone that she would attend to him.
To publicly say that one was in love with a man was one of the most shameful things a noble young lady could do.
Wasn’t there even a custom at banquets that female nobles could not speak to male nobles first?
Yet this maid had endured all that shame and stepped forward.
“I took the liberty of stepping forward because, unlike the other maids, I can use magic, and I was educated by my mother from a young age. I am confident that I can serve you well.”
As Adrienne had said, even her simple posture was clearly different from the other maids’.
Moreover, as though trying to prove that she was a mage, she even demonstrated magic in front of Fulcare.
Even then, Fulcare’s reaction was icy.
“As you say, your mother seems to have educated you well. However, I don’t think I have any need for you.”
“Are you saying I’m inferior to a commoner without a shred of refinement!”
When Adrienne raised her voice while pointing at Vieta, every eye around them turned toward her.
All she had done was stand there quietly, and yet she had to suffer this humiliation.
Vieta felt humiliated, as though she were a monkey in a cage.
“Ha….”
Fulcare seemed to be in a bad mood as well.
The maid had stepped forward confidently with ambitions of her own, but Fulcare had effectively been challenged in front of everyone else.
It was intolerable for the daughter of a lowly viscount’s family to tarnish the honor of an archmage.
“Please calm down, Chief. Since she has gone this far, would it be all right if I took her as my personal maid?”
Perhaps sensing what Fulcare was thinking, one of the mages waiting behind Fulcare hurriedly intervened.
“You may go now. And you were Adrienne, was it? You and the others, follow me.”
“But….”
Adrienne stared at Fulcare and showed no intention of moving. The mage then delivered a final ultimatum.
“I will not tolerate any further insolence.”
Even as she followed the white-bearded mage, Adrienne did not take her eyes off Fulcare.
*
Vieta was following Fulcare toward the carriage assigned to the maids from the Ministry of Magic.
“Are you all right? You should’ve just left her alone. It would’ve been fine for me to stay in the back.”
The route to the carriage was complicated, but thanks to the soundproof magic circle Fulcare had set up, Vieta was able to speak with Fulcare fairly comfortably.
“Don’t worry about it. Besides, they didn’t call you here to do odd jobs in the first place. Is the captain all right?”
Fulcare sighed and swept their hair back.
Though they were always verbally at each other’s throats, Vieta was someone Fulcare cherished and revered as the captain, both then and now.
She was the person who had saved the Empire, yet had been forcibly stripped of even her own name because of her pact with the goddess.
Vieta was so pitiful that merely keeping her close and cherishing her never felt like enough.
How could anyone make someone like that do menial work, much less have her wait on them?
“Well, it did annoy me a little, but I’m really fine. It’s the kind of thing that could happen anywhere, right?”
Vieta tried her best to cheer Fulcare up. For all their bickering, Fulcare was closer to her than any of her other companions.
When Vieta had been cast onto the continent of Rodina and was in an unstable state, Fulcare had been the one to hold her up so she would not collapse.
“I’ll make sure nothing like this happens again. I’m sorry I put you through that for no reason.”
“If you really want to make it up to me, you know Mama Restaurant, right?”
Despite Vieta’s repeated assurances that she was fine, Fulcare’s face remained stiff, so she made an OK sign with her thumb and index finger toward Fulcare.
“Got it. I’ll buy you a ton.”
Only then did Fulcare relax and smile faintly.
***
“She’s leaving.”
In a remote corridor of the palace that no one ever visited, the Empress watched the procession moving in the distance.
At the center of the procession was a golden carriage. Though the Empress had sworn over and over that she would never collapse again, the instant she saw that carriage, she grabbed the wall and sank to the floor.
Her only son had been clever and kind.
Whenever the Emperor shared a bed with another woman, he would stay up all night chatting with his mother, who suffered in silence.
Whenever the favored consort caused her distress, he would always come to her carrying her favorite sweets.
As the eldest daughter of a ducal family, and at times as the Empress, whenever she wanted to cast aside the burdens she had to bear, she endured by looking at her only son, Gabin.
But that son had died.
He had clearly been killed by the detestable favored consort, yet his death had been made to look like an accidental fall.
The murderer’s child was now leaving in the carriage.
The enemy’s child was riding away in the carriage her son should have ridden in, as though it were hers.
“I told you that I was happy as long as my children were by my side.”
“Aaaah….”
The Empress clutched her throat with both hands and let out a groan of agony, as though an invisible rope were strangling her.
Her heart was torn to shreds, and tears once again overflowed from eyes that had never had time to dry.
“Your Majesty….”
The maid helped the Empress, who had collapsed on the floor. Her own wrinkled eyes were also brimming with tears she could not wipe away.
“Harowa, did Gabin truly die? Is he really dead?”
The Empress’s voice trembled wildly, laden with tears.
"Where did Gabin go? Where is my son? Oh, Gabin! My son couldn’t be dead!"
The Empress called out for her son again and again, but no answer came back.
She hated that fact so much it made her shudder.
“Harowa, I will not back down like this. I will avenge my son!”
Casting aside the dignity of an Empress, she sat on the floor and wept for a long while before clenching her teeth.
“Your maid Harowa will follow you, Your Majesty. This time, I will never fail!”
The sobs of the Empress and Harowa welled up to fill the quiet corridor.