Chapter 277: What About the Queen’s Wager?

"Then, Your Grace the Duke of Vélez—how much did you bet on Lord Marie?"

The Queen’s smile was frightening. She already knew the Duke’s answer, yet she was making him say it anyway.

The Duke began to sweat in streams. Sweat dripped onto the floor.

"Th-that is..."

"What? I can’t hear you. Speak clearly or I cannot hear."

"Um... zero."

"Haa? Lately my ears have grown distant with age and I didn’t hear well. Once more, a little louder, if you please?"

The Queen pressed hard. Age? I thought she had recently grown younger.

"...Yes. Zero! It is zero..."

"Zero?!"

"Yes. Zero."

What was this barren conversation. Still, calling him "His Grace" felt like a waste; "His Grace-sama" fit him perfectly. Yes. He was far too disappointing.

And this Queen who said everything I wanted to say—what was she? Was she even human?

"Which means—Your Grace the Duke of Vélez! You served as Lord Marie’s patron, yet you did not bet on Lord Marie?"

"Yes... that is so."

"Why? You did not think he would win? You backed Lord Marie while intending from the start that he would lose!"

She struck the words down like a blow. The Duke seemed to shrink a full size. Even I started to feel sorry for him. Though in my case it was the so-called composure of a winner. If I had lost I would never have felt this way.

"Ha... at first of course I intended to win, but then I heard Count von Kirchhoff had support from the Knight Order, and even the head of the Magic Division had joined his forces... and at the very last I heard that Agnes Eisleben of the bow had joined as well, and I thought there was no way he could win..."

The Duke was almost crying. He had never imagined he would be held to account by the Queen in a place like this. I felt I was seeing for the first time the moment a person’s heart snapped pokin. I did not want to be interrogated by the Queen. Whether Marie Kingdom or Mainz Kingdom, why were the women who became queens this frightening? The Queen of Marie Kingdom at least had the cute side of wanting to go eat sweets. This Queen was simply terrifying!!

Perhaps even His Majesty pitied the Duke being grilled by the Queen; he offered a lifeline.

"My Queen, that is enough, is it not? The Duke regrets it as well. And we have strayed quite far from the main topic. Would you return to the original matter?"

He spoke mildly. A relieved air flowed through the room.

The Queen gave a kohon and composed her breath.

"Yes. The people who bet on Lord Marie were three. Only three! The Prime Minister came crying that as the bookmaker he was in trouble because no one would bet on Lord Marie, so I bet. Then I invited the Duchess and Anouk to bet as well. But no one else would, and if Lord Marie had lost the Prime Minister would have taken a huge loss. That man is surely in the midst of wild joy right now."

The Queen looked up into space as she spoke. What was she seeing?

"My Queen, how much did you bet?"

"Five hundred gold coins. Please laugh at a mere five hundred. Does Your Grace think a queen of a nation can only put up five hundred? Unlike a certain duke, I do not have that much money, so I bet everything I had saved over many years."

A note of scorn colored her voice.

"Five hundred... you bet? What did you say the odds were, Duke of Vélez?"

His Majesty’s eyes went round as he asked the Duke.

"F-f-fifty times."

"Five hundred gold coins at fifty times—how much does that become?"

His Majesty could surely calculate it himself; he was confirming. The steward standing beside him said, voice trembling:

"...Twenty-five thousand gold coins, I believe."

Had the color of the Queen’s eyes changed? Originally blue, but hadn’t they turned gold? Wasn’t the gleam strange?!

"That is so. Fully twenty-five thousand. Thanks to Lord Marie, five hundred gold coins became twenty-five thousand! Therefore giving Lord Marie five thousand is no problem at all, ohohoho—!!"

The Queen’s high laugh rang through the room.

When the Queen’s laughter subsided, His Majesty asked:

"My Queen. Besides you, how much did the others who bet on Ambassador Marie wager? Do you know?"

The Queen smiled sweetly.

"I do. My maid Anouk bet ten gold coins. She said she wagered every coin she had saved little by little until now. When she learned that ten gold coins had become five hundred she fainted, so I have her resting in another room."

His Majesty was honestly surprised.

"Hoh. Anouk did well to bet on Ambassador Marie."

"Yes. I recommended it. I told her Lord Marie would absolutely win—that he would win without fail."

The Queen stated it as fact. I pulled back a little. What grounds did she have to trust me that far? I was neither lover nor kept man. I was merely a medicine seller.

"And the other—the Duchess of Vélez—how much did she bet?"

At His Majesty’s question the Queen gave the Duke a single glare.

"Her Ladyship bet her meager fifty coins. That was apparently every coin she had managed to save. The husband of such a modest duchess wasted two thousand gold coins on a bet, yet the money his wife possessed was fifty gold coins."

She glared at the Duke with a wet, heavy look. The Duke shrank even further. Would his head touch the floor?

"Therefore, no matter how much I give Lord Marie, I will not allow anyone to complain. Ohohoho!"

Not one of the men in the room so much as coughed. The only one who could break this atmosphere was me.

"Your Majesty, thank you. I gratefully accept. With this I can repay the embassy’s debts cleanly."

I put feeling into it and bowed deeply. The Queen finally returned to normal mode and showed me a smile.

"That is good. Please come collect it tomorrow. I believe the Prime Minister will bring it tomorrow."

"Yes! Gladly!"

"But... will five thousand gold coins even fit in a carriage?"

The Queen looked around, but no one could answer. The steward said timidly:

"There is also the option of converting one hundred gold coins into one white-gold coin. In that case fifty white-gold coins would suffice."

But:

"Lord Marie, would that be all right? Ah, but if you will be going around paying back debts, it would be better to give it in gold coins. His Excellency the Prime Minister said some sixty thousand gold coins had gathered, after all."

At the words "sixty thousand gold coins" a hoooh—! leaked from everyone. They were all imagining the volume of sixty thousand gold coins.

Wait? Sixty thousand gold coins? If Count von Kirchhoff had won at 1.05 times, the bookmaker would have had to pay out an extra 1,500... The Queen’s 500, the Duchess’s 50, and Anouk’s 10 made only 560, right? Would the bookmaker cover the rest? A loss of 940? And because I won, the payout to the Queen and the others was 30,450. The remaining roughly 30,000 was pure profit? Was that right? Was this calculation correct? The amounts were too large; I couldn’t tell. And betting had all sorts of local rules depending on the region, so I didn’t know. Anyway, the only thing I understood was that the Prime Minister had made a huge profit.

The face I made while thinking must have looked vacant. The Queen smiled.

"Then tomorrow, load as much as will fit."

"Yes! Thank you very much!"

I bowed my head once more.

"My Queen, is that matter finished?"

His Majesty said. I thought we could end here and go home, but that was not the case.

"Ambassador Marie. That woman you brought with you is amazing. I hear she is Ambassador Marie’s maid. Your own strength was eye-opening, but that woman is amazing!"

His Majesty glanced at the steward beside him; the steward nodded magnanimously.

"Yes, exactly so."

What was amazing? I didn’t quite understand. The Queen seemed a little irritated.

"Has Your Majesty taken a liking to Lily?"

Had the Queen misunderstood?

Receiving the Queen’s words, His Majesty said:

"I see, that woman’s name is Lily. With a woman like that I thought she would be ideal to protect the Queen’s side. There cannot be anyone in this country with skill of that level."

Looking at the Queen’s face as he spoke, His Majesty said:

"Fufu, my Queen wears a puzzled face. By ’amazing’ I mean that swordsmanship. Is that not so, Knight Commander Lothar?"

Addressed, Commander Lothar said:

"That is so! She was amazing. I watched that woman from the beginning, but partway through it was as if she became a different person—her speed increased, and the way she used her body and handled the sword became faster and sharper! If those had been live blades there would have been a mountain of corpses. She wrapped her body in a blue light and went at the enemy and cut them down. How many people even perceived that movement?"

Hearing Lothar’s account, His Majesty was surprised even though he had been the one to raise the subject.

"That much?"

"Yes. Those who can grasp her true strength are rare. Your Majesty’s insight in pointing it out is as expected."

Oh-ho, Commander Lothar’s flattery was also as expected.

"However, Your Majesty. No matter how skilled Lily is, I cannot leave my escort to her."

The Queen put in a refusal.

"Hoh, why is that?"

When His Majesty looked puzzled:

"That woman is a woman Ambassador Marie brought from the Marie Kingdom."

"I see. Then it is impossible."

Foreigners could not be employed as the Queen’s escort; between the two of them Lily’s non-hiring was decided, and I was relieved.

"One last request."

His Majesty spoke to me slowly. A request from the head of the nation—what would it be? The classic development was offering a daughter in marriage. Or perhaps a fiendish proposal that he had grown tired of the Queen and wanted to exchange her for Lily? Thinking was free, mufufu. Ten days or so would be fine—? Wait. The Queen’s expression was a little frightening. Had my thoughts leaked? Reading a person’s thoughts was against the rules, I thought.

Anyway—

"What might it be? Is it something I can do?"

I intended the reply to be pleasant.

"No, it is nothing major. Today’s confrontation with Count von Kirchhoff was extremely interesting. Everyone here thinks the same, I am sure."

Everyone in the room nodded. Only the Queen was expressionless.

"Therefore—do this kind of confrontation again."

"Hah?"

"I am counting on you!"

While I was still stunned, the unofficial audience with His Majesty ended. The assignment remained.