The Princess Who Wants a Friend (3)
Theorad did not answer. He only looked at Benelia in astonishment.
Then, without warning, he pressed a hand to her forehead.
Benelia glared at him. He paid her no mind, keeping his hand there for a moment before withdrawing it with a troubled expression.
“You don't seem to have a fever…”
“What?”
The familiarity of his gesture was irritating enough, but his implication was worse.
“Are you suggesting I'm out of my mind?”
“Please forgive me. You spoke as though you didn't recognize your own personal butler. I couldn't help worrying.”
“Then at least you're not the one who's lost his senses.”
“Ah. I suppose it must be the lingering effects of what happened earlier…”
Was he even listening?
Benelia narrowed her eyes.
“I meant you, not me.”
“Your Highness?”
The hurt confusion on his face gave her a headache. Benelia pressed a small hand to her forehead and tried to arrange her thoughts.
Theorad was standing right beside me when that assassin cast the illusion. He must have been caught in it as well.
They had been close enough for the spell to engulf them both.
The more troubling possibility was that Theorad no longer remembered who he really was. Like a dreamer who believed the dream was reality, he appeared perfectly convinced that he was Benelia's personal butler.
What a nuisance.
She sighed.
And now I've dragged someone else into a memory I never wanted to share.
He would probably forget most of it when the hallucination broke. That did little to make her feel better.
Benelia pushed away the covers. She was wearing a dress she remembered favoring as a child. Judging by that and the light outside, this was not a scene from the early morning.
“Viscount Theorad… No. Butler.”
His face brightened at once.
“Yes, Your Highness. What may I do for you?”
“…Right.”
His eager smile felt awkward and more than a little oppressive, but Benelia kept her expression steady. If he truly had been caught in the illusion, he hadn't chosen this role for her amusement.
“You mentioned the aftermath of an incident. What incident?”
“Your Highness… don't you remember?”
“Answer the question.”
Theorad bowed his head at her sharp look. Even in a child's body, she had lost none of her ability to command.
“Prince Leonhard treated Your Highness terribly. The Royal Guard came to your rescue just in time. Once you returned to your chamber, you washed, went to bed and fell asleep, exhausted from crying.”
“I see.”
Benelia understood which memory the assassin had chosen to reproduce.
The day my second brother tried to kill me.
Leonhard had put his hands around her throat, trying to strangle her. He had wanted to humiliate her and the people associated with her. Had the patrolling guards not noticed what was happening, she would have died.
The incident still haunted her dreams. The assassin had selected an effective wound.
Soon the Emperor will summon me to the council chamber.
The thought made her stomach turn.
While she pressed her lips together, Theorad took her small hand lightly.
“Your Highness, I've prepared the finest refreshments. You must be troubled. Perhaps something sweet will lift your spirits?”
He was speaking softly, plainly trying to comfort her.
Benelia gave him a cool look, then turned away with a huff.
“What's the point of eating food that exists only in an illusion? Help yourself.”
“…You mean I should eat alone?”
“Yes. I'm not interested.”
Theorad seemed to think for a moment, then nodded. He walked to a table by the window, sat down and lifted a teacup.
Slurp.
That was a dreadful way for a palace butler to drink tea.
Benelia shot him a disapproving glance. He didn't seem to notice.
“Ahh… Fine tea really is different. I never knew something could taste this good.”
He set the cup down and took up a croissant.
Crunch.
“Mmm!”
He closed his eyes in bliss.
“Crisp outside, soft inside… Why, it's like biting into a cloud. And this is without any cream. I wonder how much better it would be with some.”
He was speaking far too loudly to be talking to himself.
He's trying to tempt me like a sulking child.
Benelia's expression darkened.
Insolent man.
She might look six years old, but she was an adult who had passed her coming-of-age ceremony. More than that, she had commanded armies and earned distinction in the war of conquest against the orcs.
I've survived battles, plots and intrigues that would break an ordinary person. Does he seriously think I'll fall for such a simple trick?
She folded her arms and watched him.
Theorad spread cream over his croissant and took a generous bite.
“Mmm!”
He sounded even more delighted. His cheeks puffed out as he chewed, and the happiness on his face was almost ridiculous.
After swallowing, he picked up the last croissant. Instead of eating it immediately, he tore it open to display the flaky, soft interior.
“Oh, this looks wonderful. I can hardly imagine how good it will taste.”
“...”
“You're sure you don't want any?”
He gave her a mischievous smile.
It was as though he were warning her that once this last croissant was gone, there would be no more chances.
“If you really won't eat it, then…”
Her mouth watered in spite of herself.
As he raised the pastry toward his lips, Benelia lost her patience.
“I'll eat it!”
She merely wanted to find out why he thought it so delicious. That was all.
Putting pride aside, she climbed down from the bed and marched over to him.
Theorad spread cream over one side of the croissant and placed it in her hands. He smiled with the air of someone who had known exactly how this would end.
“Here you are, Your Highness.”
Benelia held the pastry with both hands and bit into a corner.
“Mmm…”
It was good. But certainly not good enough to justify his theatrical delight.
Realizing she'd been coaxed into eating, she looked up at him in outrage. He only laughed.
“You need to eat well to grow strong, Your Highness.”
“Impudent fellow. You tricked me.”
“But it really is delicious, so I didn't lie.”
He had an answer for everything.
Strangely, she didn't mind that as much as she expected.
When I was little…
The servants who surrounded Benelia had always treated her as a duty to be discharged. Rumors that she was born outside marriage made them reluctant to show affection, and those who might have shown kindness feared drawing Prince Leonhard's displeasure.
No attendant dared become close to her.
Young Benelia had lived in a luxurious palace, surrounded by people, and yet had scarcely known a moment of warmth.
She could never have had a butler like this one.
“…Yes. It is delicious.”
She gave him a small smile and took another bite.
She would have liked this quiet moment to last longer. But peace had never lasted long in the childhood she remembered.
Creak.
The door opened.
A lady-in-waiting stood beyond it, her expression heavy. She bowed with an air of guilt.
“Your Highness. His Majesty the Emperor requests your presence.”
The nightmare was beginning.
Benelia entered the council chamber, accompanied by Theorad and guided by the lady-in-waiting.
Conversation died as they came in.
Around a table that seemed impossibly high from her present height sat figures resembling members of the imperial family and their ministers.
Her memory of that day had been incomplete; she had kept her head lowered through much of it. In the hallucination, the faces of the ministers and even the Emperor were obscured by shadow.
“Benelia.”
The Emperor leaned forward from his seat at the head of the table.
Standing before him like an accused criminal, she forced herself to look up.
“Yes, Father.”
“Do you know what you did wrong?”
Wrong?
Leonhard had seized her by the throat. Leonhard had cast her aside and pushed her to the edge of death.
Yet her father was asking what she had done wrong.
Disgust turned her stomach.
“Are you saying it was my fault?”
What made it worse was the silence. Everyone present knew enough of the truth to understand how false his question was, yet no one dared speak.
The suffocating quiet made her shiver.
She had endured accusations like this often enough that some part of her had grown used to them, but her hands still shook and her breath came faster.
There was no one in the palace she could count on. Even knowing she was inside an illusion did not make that feeling less sickening.
Her teeth ground together. She clenched her fists.
“Benelia!”
The Emperor's voice thundered through the chamber.
“Everyone here knows you attacked Leonhard out of jealousy! Will you deny that your own resentment drove you to such wickedness?”
Lies.
It was a story made to preserve Leonhard's honor at the expense of a six-year-old child.
The injustice still made Benelia tremble, even though she knew the scene was a fabrication shaped from a memory.
But she also knew this hallucination could be escaped by enduring the encounter. There was little to be gained by arguing with figures that were not real.
She lowered her head.
“I was overcome by jealousy…”
There's nobody on my side here anyway.
Oddly enough, accepting that thought made the words easier to say.
“I dared commit an unforgivable act…”
The light seemed to leave her eyes. She spoke as mechanically as someone reciting a lesson.
“I acknowledge that I attacked Prince Leonhard—”
“You mustn't admit to that!”
The voice behind her made Benelia flinch.
She turned.
Theorad was looking at her sternly.
“It wasn't Your Highness's fault.”
His voice was startlingly gentle.
Before Benelia could find a reply, he stepped past her and faced the Emperor.
“Your Majesty! Why are you demanding that the princess confess to wrongdoing when she has done nothing wrong? Why do you violate the teachings of the God of Light?”
What an idiot.
It was reckless, foolish—almost painfully so.
I should have ordered him to stand back.
Benelia scolded him silently. Yet she could not keep a smile from reaching her lips.
For all his foolishness, she did not dislike this man who believed so completely in the role of her butler.
In the heart of her nightmare, he stood between her and the Emperor like a ray of light. From where she stood, his back looked impossibly broad.
Theorad Deharem.
You're the only one on my side here.