[Episode 46] - A Marriage with Love and a Marriage without Love
“The Prince’s Visit,” a sub-event from the game’s summer period.
In the game Snow White, these sub-events were “branching points” that changed the princess’s ending depending on how they concluded. Snow White was a game where the princess’s ending was determined by the overlap of such branching points.
If, during this “Prince’s Visit,” the princess became engaged to the neighboring country’s “Third Prince,” then the Third Prince, who had no right of succession over there, would come to our country as a “live-in son-in-law,” becoming an NPC who supported the princess.
If the arranged meeting with the prince ended in failure, then without any particular incident, the neighboring country’s delegation would simply leave our country, and that would be the end of it. The next opportunity for an engagement would arise when the princess entered the “academy.”
It had only been a simple little “sub-event” like that...
In the game, things like diplomacy and politics were glossed over so casually that I never paid them much attention, but now that it had become reality, the matter was so complicated and difficult that I felt as though I might lose my mind.
“How many meetings have we had over this one issue...?”
Two months had passed since I first received the report from the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Lately, I had not even been sleeping properly. My eyes had gone red from preparing to receive the delegation, and the dark circles beneath them had sunk all the way to my cheeks. I was somehow continuing with the preparations, but it was by no means easy.
And what was making this difficult situation even more difficult was none other than...
“...Titania. Let us talk for a moment. Hm?”
“......Hmph!”
The princess, who was thoroughly angry.
The moment I told the princess that she would soon have an arranged meeting, she shrieked at me, calling me a liar, and afterward she neither came to see me nor tried to speak to me at all.
As if she did not even want to exchange a word with me, the princess snorted, “Hmph!” at my call, whipped her head away, and went straight into her room.
At the sight of her clearly avoiding me, all I could do was look at her and sigh. If there was one fortunate thing, it was that she did not lock her door and declare she would shut herself in as she had in the past, but...
For two whole months, the princess avoided me, and my heart ached. Even when I tried calling Ainsel to ask how the princess had been doing lately, Ainsel, perhaps following the princess’s lead in avoiding me, gave no answer no matter how I called.
“So now you like Titania better than me, is that it...? Ha... Seriously, you ungrateful mirror. Who was it that struggled so hard to treat you, huh...?”
Even grumbling as I tapped on Ainsel’s main body did no good. Only “my face,” irritated and annoyed, was reflected in the mirror; Ainsel, who was by the princess’s side, no longer seemed to have any intention of returning even to its main body.
If I could have followed my heart, I would have barged into the princess’s room that very moment and at least spoken with her, but I did not have the time for that right now. I looked at the stacks of documents placed on my bed and let out a sigh.
Today was the day I was to discuss the “Third Prince” with the Queen Dowager.
After dawdling for a while, I rose from the bed, picked up the documents, and headed out of the room. I could only hope that these documents, prepared together with Vinchaud and the other ministers, would please the Queen Dowager...
*
Knock, knock—
“Enter.”
“Excuse me, Your Majesty.”
After bowing my head politely, I entered the Queen Dowager’s office. Perhaps she had been taking a brief rest, for the Queen Dowager took a sip of the tea a maid had served her, then glanced at me with a sidelong look.
“I hear you fought with Titania.”
“That was less a fight than...”
The Queen Dowager gestured lightly at me, as if to say she already knew everything, so I should stop making excuses and hand over the documents. At that gesture, I smiled awkwardly and passed the envelope of documents to her.
The Queen Dowager glanced over the documents, then tossed them onto the desk with a thud, as though she had no interest in them. Seeing her read so perfunctorily through documents that the ministers and I had worked so hard to prepare, my lips jutted out without my realizing it.
The Queen Dowager looked at my protruding lips and gave a soft snort of laughter.
“You are paying far too much attention to the ‘Third Prince’ they sent without any great meaning.”
At the Queen Dowager’s words, “without any great meaning,” I nodded slightly. The Third Prince, who had no right of succession. The reason the other country had included the Third Prince in the delegation likely truly did not hold any great meaning.
After all, they had not sent the first or second prince, who possessed rights to the throne, but the third, who had none. That meant they had little interest in whether or not the Third Prince succeeded in becoming engaged to the princess.
During the meetings, the ministers had unanimously cursed the neighboring country, saying that they must have sent the Third Prince because it would be good if it worked out, and no loss if it did not. How dare they approach an arranged meeting with the princess with that sort of thinking, they had said.
“If it had been the old me, I would have first made the engagement happen. No matter how unimpressive the Third Prince over there may be, it would still be an engagement between nations. An ambiguous engagement like this is easy to break off as well, so it would have been convenient to at least get a foot in the door...”
The Queen Dowager, who had been staring blankly at her teacup, raised her head and looked at me. Lowering the corners of her eyes slightly, she looked at me with a weary expression and smiled.
“But now, I do not know what the correct answer is.”
“......”
“Queen, do you believe ‘love’ is necessary in a royal marriage?”
The Queen Dowager glanced up at me and asked. Was “love” necessary in a royal marriage? Upon hearing that question, I could understand what sort of feelings had made the Queen Dowager ask me this.
“I married without ‘love’ and remain in this place, while my child, who married for ‘love,’ is no longer here. If one looks only at the results, I find myself wondering whether royal marriages have any need for something like ‘love’ at all.”
“...Then do you believe the princess should marry without love as well?”
“...If I were to speak as someone who married without love and remains here...”
The Queen Dowager looked at me with a bitter smile.
“I cannot say that my life was happy.”
As if looking back on her own life, the Queen Dowager lifted her head and let out a sigh. Then she blinked several times and breathed out a long sigh, as long as the life she had lived.
“I, just like you, have always wanted Titania to be happy. I do not want to see my dear granddaughter looking sorrowful anymore. The sight of her crying like that was enough when she was little...”
Had the princess’s arranged meeting reminded the Queen Dowager of her past?
The Queen Dowager had married the late king through what people commonly called a “betrothal” arranged by their parents. I did not know how the late king had felt, but for her, there had been no love in that marriage itself, nor any affection.
She had simply married him because she had been engaged to him.
No matter how much time passed, she said she could find no such thing as “love” in that process. And so, telling her own child at least to “love,” to marry someone they liked, she had given her permission. But the result had been not merely disastrous, but wretched.
That must be why the Queen Dowager said this.
That she did not know what the right answer was.
Though her own life and her child’s life had made different choices, both outcomes had been poor. The Queen Dowager seemed at a loss as to what choice she should make for the sake of her beloved granddaughter.
I was the same as the Queen Dowager.
If making this choice had been part of a game...
I would surely have thought, “This is for the princess’s sake. This choice will allow the princess to reach a better ending,” and made the engagement between the Third Prince and the princess happen without a trace of doubt.
“But... what I’m doing now isn’t a game.”
I must not make the princess’s engagement happen as I pleased. And for some reason, the thought of the princess becoming engaged did not sit well with me. Thinking of the daughter I had raised with love becoming engaged to some clueless fool...
I, too, smiled bitterly and looked at the Queen Dowager.
“Then shall we leave this matter to Titania? In any case, this arranged meeting is not one that would cause much trouble even if it were canceled. Even if the meeting were called off, the other side would not be able to say anything.”
“...Why not simply say you have no intention of engaging her?”
The Queen Dowager frowned as she looked at me, but there was laughter in her voice. I also chuckled and answered her.
“That is for Titania to choose. No matter what choice Titania makes, I intend to respect it. Even if she truly says she wishes to be engaged.”
“...Yes, though I do not think that will happen. Is not the reason Titania is fighting with you right now precisely because of the ‘arranged meeting’?”
“To call it fighting is...”
“Yes, rather than a fight, I suppose it is simply that you alone are being hated. Did you know? A few days ago, Titania came to see me and played with me. It seems you did not know?”
“Pardon?”
When I asked in surprise at something I was hearing for the first time, the Queen Dowager looked at me with a sly, irritating smile. So Titania had come to see the Queen Dowager without my knowing, and the two of them had played here together? Without me knowing?
“She said that then. That she never wanted to see you again. She was so very angry, puffing out her cheeks and whining to me that she did not even want to look at your face.”
“......Truly?”
“Why would I lie to you about that? The princess climbed onto my lap and grumbled the entire day. She said that after reducing her snacks, you were now trying to abandon her in another country.”
“Abandon her...?”
As I stood there in shock, unable to say anything, the Queen Dowager clicked her tongue at me as if I were pathetic and glared at me. Then she waved her hand sharply, urging me to hurry and leave the room.
“What are you doing, not going at once? It will soon be time for the princess to sleep.”
“...Then I shall take my leave first.”
Leaving the Queen Dowager behind, I hurried out of the room and headed for the princess’s chamber. I had only told the princess that she would have an arranged meeting; never in my dreams had I imagined that those words alone would make her think “I was going to abandon her.”
“Who on earth said I was going to abandon you...!”
For some reason, irritation boiled up inside me, and with quick steps I nearly ran toward the princess’s room. I wanted to see her face at once and shout that she must never think such a thing again, but...
“Titania. Please, let us talk for a moment. Hm? I’m begging you, please...”
“......”
No matter how long I waited in front of her room, no matter how much I tried to meet her, the princess would not see me. Seeing her constantly avoid me and disappear from before my eyes as though running away made emotion well up in my chest.
I wondered who on earth she took after, being so stubborn. To the point that I truly thought she must have the blood of someone who sat in the corner of a room and never listened to a word anyone else said, the princess stubbornly avoided me and ran away.
And so... perhaps I had grown a little tired of the princess, who simply would not listen to me no matter what I did. I ended up thinking that the princess must need time as well.
The princess must need a little time to sort out her thoughts.
I was busy preparing for the delegation too.
If just a little time passed, the princess would listen to me.
Attaching reasons like that, I ended up thinking that I should step away from the princess for a while. No, they were not reasons, but excuses and justifications.
The justification that it could not be helped because the princess would not meet me.
The excuse that it could not be helped because I was busy preparing for the delegation.
Using such excuses and justifications as cover, I distanced myself from the princess for a while. Even though I knew better than anyone that a lack of communication was the most dangerous thing.
And so, it was only natural that I would regret it.
After this, I would regret it in this way. I should have spoken with the princess then, no matter what it took.
Thus, time passed helplessly by, and morning dawned on the day the delegation was to arrive.