5. Negotiations Fail When You Don’t Understand The Other Party (part 3)
Though it was late, Duke Martinez came looking for Arthur.
Arthur, who’d been lightly eating bread while catching up on a pile of documents at his desk, smiled brightly. This made the second angry visitor he’d received today.
“If you have an excuse, let’s hear it.”
“What do you mean by suddenly visiting?”
“Don’t play dumb, fatherless Arthur.”
Duke Martinez slammed Arthur’s table with his palm. Really, why did everyone think the desk was made for hitting?
Arthur smiled brightly. He’d committed so many acts requiring excuses—which one was he referring to?
“You clearly said she’d rejected the proposal but was staying in the annex.”
“I did.”
“Stop making that clueless face. Having that frustrating expression is enough with His Majesty!”
“I don’t understand why you’re angry. I never lied. Lady Marcella is staying in the annex.”
“But it’s not her choice—you knelt and begged her, threatened that you’d die if she left now, and finally used force to stop her from leaving even after she stepped on you.”
Arthur closed his eyes, exhaled slowly, then smiled brightly.
“Duke, you should change your spy mice.”
“Are you saying it’s not true?”
“I swear on my precious quill—I never knelt or threatened to die.”
“So being stepped on is true?”
“Please let that slide.”
Why bring up such depressing truths?
Arthur felt uncomfortable but didn’t deny it.
“Lady Marcella is more spirited than she appears. When I said she couldn’t leave, she stepped on me without hesitation and tried to go.”
When Arthur rubbed where he’d been stepped on, lost in memory, Duke Martinez laughed in disbelief.
“Arthur Digory, I don’t care if you—a man without blood, tears, or father—get stepped on by any woman.”
“I’m moved that Duke Martinez sees this Arthur Digory, who lacks blood, tears, father, and pride, so accurately.”
“So do whatever you want. I’m withdrawing from this affair.”
“Duke.”
Arthur rubbed his temples and frowned.
“I already have too much work and too many concerns—why are you adding to this? Lady Marcella didn’t step on you.”
“You don’t care how miserable you become in the process?”
“What’s wrong with acting a bit miserably? Do I look like someone with pride to you, Duke, being fatherless and all?”
At Arthur’s confident expression, Duke Martinez frowned.
“I’d rather struggle miserably to the end than regret things after it’s too late.”
“…You’ll never live long.”
“Then I won’t have time to regret my foolish choices, which would be fine too.”
Arthur knew Duke Martinez was looking at him like he was crazy.
“If there’s good news, Duke, it’s that Lady Marcella mercifully forbade proposals but couldn’t forbid confessions.”
Arthur stood up from his seat, setting down his quill entirely.
“So Duke, what you should do isn’t come to my office to slam desks and rage, but advise His Majesty on how to confess as a man of romance.”
“Arthur Digory, do you think I’d do such a thing?”
“Of course.”
Arthur smiled brightly at the glaring Duke Martinez.
“You can’t hide it even if you try, Duke. You’re intrigued.”
He didn’t need to come here this late at night to argue about something that wasn’t worth arguing about. Even if he was truly disgusted with Arthur’s behavior, he could have just ignored it.
“…”
“So what kind of woman is this Marcella Morris? To mercilessly step on fatherless Arthur and walk away—she’s no ordinary woman.”
“She’s perfectly ordinary.”
“Do ordinary ladies step on you and walk away?”
“At least she appears so on the surface.”
The knights guarding the corridor to the emperor’s bedchamber saw Arthur’s face and crossed their spears aside.
Arthur walked past them down the moonlit corridor.
“Duke, seeing Lady Marcella made me realize for the first time how frightening appearing ordinary can be.”
“Are you the type to find anything frightening?”
“You say strange things, Duke.”
Arthur finally reached the emperor’s bedchamber and looked back at Duke Martinez. When he knocked on the door twice, instead of Nell’s voice, a beast’s roar was heard.
“I’m human, so I feel fear.”
Marcella lay quietly in bed, staring at the ceiling.
“What am I doing here?”
Without doing anything, meals, tea, snacks, clothes, and shoes appeared. Everything came beautifully packaged and sent to Marcella.
Arthur Digory must have chosen them.
Marcella couldn’t be purely happy because she could faintly see Arthur Digory’s shameless smile behind these gifts. She felt like she was being threatened—that accepting these meant staying here that much longer.
But she couldn’t refuse them. When Marcella came here, she never dreamed she’d stay this long, so she had only the dress she was wearing.
Did Arthur Digory plan this from the beginning? Pushing me into that blizzard while planning to drive me to the brink of freezing to death?
The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous the idea that the emperor liked her became.
“Who drives someone they like into such danger?”
Yet Nell’s calm, confident face when he promised to confess a hundred times came to mind, making Marcella frown.
“This won’t do.”
She had too many thoughts to sleep.
Marcella got up and paced the room, then went to the window and sat on the recessed brick ledge.
“I wanted to see the palace so much…”
Long ago, when she was very young and still couldn’t accept being an Inferior, still thinking herself a mage, Marcella had a dream.
Ten years ago, magical beasts appeared on Morris Mountain, and Count Morris requested imperial support for subjugation.
The empire sent two imperial mages. Their robes with golden dragon head embroidery fluttering in the wind looked incredibly magnificent to young Marcella.
‘Sister, I’ll become an imperial mage too!’
Marcella had said, full of dreams. Her sister, Count Morris, looked at her young sister with a troubled expression and only smiled.
Really? Work hard, Marcella. You can do it!
She’d expected such an answer, so Marcella was greatly disappointed.
Adults would talk about how weak Marcella was, thinking the young girl couldn’t understand. But her sister always said Marcella was a spirited child who could do anything. This time was different.
‘If I become strong like them, I can help you before you have to go to Castleid asking for help!’
When Marcella complained, what had her sister said then? She’d apologized.
‘Could I become a mage like them too?’
Still, Marcella gathered courage. At the banquet Count Morris held to celebrate the successful beast subjugation, Marcella asked their heroes.
One mage laughed heartily. The other was a young mage still showing boyish features, who examined Marcella carefully and nodded.
‘Are you Count Morris’s younger sister?’
‘Yes!’
Marcella was happy that he recognized her as the sister of her wonderful sister—his pride and joy.
‘If you work hard, you could do it. But becoming an imperial mage requires more than ordinary effort. So…’
He said more, but Marcella was too excited by his words that she could do it to listen properly.
Overjoyed, she ran to her sister like Tela does now and chattered about how the mage had encouraged her.
What could she do—it was when she was about five. She couldn’t think that the mage was just being considerate not to disappoint a child.
Marcella swallowed her bitter feelings and stood up.
The tree planted in front of the annex swayed gently in the breeze.
The leaves shining in moonlight seemed to form waves.
“Marcella, you fool. You’re an Inferior. How could you become a mage? Much less an imperial mage!”
If Donner hadn’t told her, Marcella would have continued declaring her dream was to become an imperial mage well past age ten.
Not knowing that adults looked at her with pitying faces and whispered among themselves.
Marcella opened the window latch and raised the window. The summer night air was fresh.
The breeze that had been tickling the leaves passed over Marcella’s cheek. In the distance, sparkling palaces were visible.
The palaces blessed by the twin gods of moon and sun glittered beautifully.
Who lived in such places? The answer came without much thought.
Marcella recalled Nell’s face as he looked back at her by the pond with a slight smile. She’d thought he was a man who didn’t smile, but he smiled quite naturally.
Marcella leaned against the window and closed her eyes. The twinkling of the distant palace that had stood like a star in the night sky was no longer visible.
“The emperor lives among the stars.”
The emperor in that light, and I in this darkness.
Slowly opening her eyes, Marcella closed the window and went back to bed.
She’d stopped the delusion that she could become someone who could protect everyone when she was ten.
At first, she’d been angry and despairing at her powerlessness, but not anymore. She didn’t have time to mope about being unable to do anything. The time given to an Inferior was short anyway.
