A Chilling Breakfast Meeting (2)
The moment I heard the voice, I could practically smell the stench of a true bastard wafting through the air.
I slowly lifted my head.
The owner of the voice was a knight seated at the neighboring table, in the middle of his meal.
“Oh my, what was that?”
Catherine answered in my place.
The cloth bundle containing our food had already been swiftly hidden beneath the table.
Come to think of it, was this woman a thief or a pickpocket in her previous life?
As I entertained that perfectly reasonable suspicion, the knight who had spoken to us grinned and turned to his companions.
“See? Even a worthless imperial family member is still an imperial family member.”
He glanced sideways at us and tossed out a crude joke.
“Dragging two women around with him. The little brat must’ve already developed a taste for pleasure.”
“You really are nasty. Why say something like that while people are eating?”
His companion across the table simply laughed and shook his head.
“Oh dear, how pathetic. They look like they’d ruin anyone’s appetite, and their words do exactly that.”
“…Catherine.”
Before I could step in, Catherine had already dropped a bomb.
As expected, the knight shot up from his seat.
“What did you just say to me?”
“Oh my, was that out loud? I’m so sorry!”
Catherine made a big fuss, standing up and bowing deeply.
“Say that again. What did you just call us? That we look like we’d ruin your appetite?”
“Aigoo, I already apologized, didn’t I? You’re still holding onto that one little comment? Oh dear, for a grown man, your heart is awfully small!”
The knight’s face flushed red at Catherine’s words.
He raised his arm as if he were about to slap her.
“They say a squire takes after their master. Looks like this bitch takes after her master and has completely lost her—”
“That seems to apply to your side as well.”
“Hah? And who the hell are you?”
The knight scowled at me for suddenly cutting in.
“Aren’t you also someone who serves His Highness the Third Prince?”
I pointed at the hand he had raised into the air with my fork.
“Let me warn you in advance. I’d advise against spitting on your master’s face.”
The knight looked thoroughly insulted.
He twisted his lips in disbelief.
“Are you really lecturing me right now? Do you even know who I—”
“Do I need to? Even if I did, I doubt it would change what I have to say.”
“I am a guard knight for His Highness the Second Prince! You lot who’ve practically been demoted to that pathetic Third Prince’s Palace don’t even have the right to raise your heads in my presence!”
Hmm. A guard knight for the Second Prince.
So he must be the replacement for the knight whose arm I severed and whose position was stripped away.
Judging by how fearlessly he was acting out, it seemed he hadn’t heard exactly how his predecessor had ended up that way.
“Catherine, have you finished your meal?”
“Ah, yes. I’m done.”
“Then let’s get going. His Highness should be coming out soon.”
I deliberately ignored the knight and stood up. Catherine rose as well, following my lead.
The knight, who had just been completely disregarded by two women, turned from red to pitch black with rage.
“Hey! Stop right there!”
He shouted and came after me.
The moment his hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around—
Thud! Slap—
I drove my fist into his solar plexus, then slapped him hard across the cheek.
“Ugh!”
The knight made a gurgling sound and collapsed to the floor.
His companions jumped up in shock.
“What the—!”
“It seems you never learned the basic etiquette of not laying your hands on a woman without permission.”
I looked down at him and spoke in a low voice.
“And you call yourself a knight.”
“Krrgh—!”
The knight’s neck veins bulged as his lips twitched.
But he couldn’t utter another word.
A trickle of blood flowed from his mouth.
I thought I held back, but maybe I hit him too hard.
Well, his chest would probably hurt more than his cheek.
As I stared down at the knight with a pitying gaze, his companions who had rushed to help him shouted at me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?! How dare you lay a hand on one of Lord Lloyd’s knights…!”
“Is it acceptable for a knight to touch a stranger’s body without permission? Has the empire’s code of chivalry completely died out?”
I deliberately raised my voice, and every eye in the dining hall turned toward us.
“No matter how free the empire is regarding such matters, is it really acceptable for a man to carelessly touch an unmarried woman’s body?”
The servants and maids moving about the dining hall began whispering among themselves as they looked at the knights.
Every single gaze was filled with disgust and contempt.
“W-well… My apologies!”
In the end, the knight’s companions, faces burning with shame, carried him away and disappeared.
The dining hall, which had fallen deathly silent, grew noisy again once they were gone.
“Nanny, are you alright?”
Catherine fussed over me, checking to make sure I was unharmed.
“I’m fine.”
I brushed off the shoulder the knight had grabbed.
The more I thought about it, the more irritated I became.
Honestly, when will these imperial knights ever fix that disgusting habit of putting their hands on women?
“But what was that move you just did?”
“What move?”
“That thing earlier! The way you knocked his arm away and slapped him across the face!”
Catherine had already glued herself to my side and was chattering excitedly.
“Teach me that move too! The arm knock and the slap!”
“…If you hadn’t picked a fight with them first, none of this would have happened.”
“But they were being rude to His Highness!”
“Still, try to hold back next time. I’d rather avoid noisy incidents like today.”
“What? That doesn’t sound like something you should be saying, Nanny!”
As Catherine and I left the dining hall, I could hear the maids in the back eagerly spreading the gossip.
Thanks to that, the rumor that one of the Second Prince’s guard knights had been humiliated after harassing an imperial woman during the emperor’s breakfast meeting spread through the entire palace in the blink of an eye.
“Your Majesty!”
It was near the end of the imperial breakfast meeting.
A servant came running in with a desperate expression.
“Forgive me, but this is an urgent matter…”
He whispered something into the emperor’s ear.
Whatever it was, the emperor’s face hardened like stone.
“What a shame. We were finally having a pleasant breakfast together. I’m afraid we’ll have to end it here today.”
The emperor emptied his wine glass and rose from his seat.
“Your Majesty, what is the matter?”
“It seems the monsters are causing another commotion. Because of that, the nobles’ meeting will be moved up.”
“Then isn’t this a serious issue?”
“Do not worry, my empress. Monster appearances have become quite common lately.”
In response to the empress’s worried question, he waved his hand dismissively.
“Everyone, rise.”
At the emperor’s single command, everyone present stood up.
It was the moment the deadly breakfast meeting came to a close.
“Wait, a hunting competition all of a sudden?”
Catherine looked at me with a troubled expression.
The moment she heard the news Edwin had brought back from the breakfast meeting, she began pacing anxiously.
“His Highness Edwin doesn’t know how to shoot a bow, and he can’t even ride a horse. What are we going to do?”
“What can we do when His Majesty has commanded it? He ordered all the princes to participate. We can’t have His Highness Edwin be the only one absent.”
“Oh dear… This is a big problem.”
Catherine let out a deep sigh that seemed to empty her lungs.
“Why are you sighing?”
“Of course I’m sighing!”
She flopped down into a chair and pressed a hand to her forehead.
“If His Highness attends the hunting competition, at least a third of the Third Prince’s Palace security budget will fly away.”
“It’s just a hunting trip.”
I picked up one of the dried tropical fruits on the table and chewed on it noisily.
It was one of the supplies Catherine had secretly brought from the emperor’s palace.
“Is there really a reason to spend that much money?”
Catherine scolded me for eating with my bare hands and placed a small fork in my palm.
“I’ve heard that the hunting competitions hosted by the imperial family are on a completely different scale.”
The hunting competition held on imperial lands wasn’t limited to the imperial family—nobles participated as well.
“And this time, His Majesty specifically ordered all three princes to attend, right? That means plenty of nobles will join too.”
“And?”
“Hunting competitions are also occasions for displaying one’s wealth and prestige. The higher the noble’s status, the more they show up with the finest horses, the most luxurious riding attire, and the highest-quality bows and arrows.”
I finally understood what Catherine was getting at.
“How pointless. I thought it was supposed to be about hunting, not showing off.”
“Unfortunately, that’s exactly what it is. They show off everything, right down to what they hunt.”
Catherine threw her arms up in despair.
“Agh, what are we going to do?! His Highness doesn’t even have proper hunting clothes or decent weapons! If we have to get everything new, our budget is going to be so tight…”
She stopped mid-sentence and suddenly clapped her hands.
“That’s right! We do have a bow and arrows!”
“You mean the ones given as a gift by the King of Adamanth?”
“Yes! Those!”
That didn’t seem very suitable as a hunting bow, though.
Its appearance alone is far too eye-catching.
Ah, but since the whole point was to stand out, maybe it didn’t matter?
I continued chewing the dried fruit with a less-than-pleased expression.
“Haa, but the biggest problem still remains.”
Why were there so many problems?
I frowned at Catherine’s complaints.
“There’s another problem?”
“There are two huge problems left. One of them is…”
Catherine’s face crumpled like she was about to cry.
“We don’t have a horse!”
She flailed her arms, mimicking the motion of a running horse.
“Doesn’t the Third Prince’s Palace have its own carriage?”
“Carriage horses and hunting horses are completely different! And all the horses in the Third Prince’s Palace are basically just mules.”
In other words, they weren’t the kind of fine mounts suitable for showing off.
“Then we can just borrow one.”
“Absolutely not! Horses are a measure of wealth! If people find out His Highness rode a horse that someone else had been using, they’ll all laugh at him!”
Catherine clutched at her hair like she had lost her mind.
“You’re right. That can’t happen. It would be completely unacceptable for His Highness to ride a horse that belonged to someone else.”
“…Catherine.”
“Even a decent steed would cost at least one gold coin, two, three…”
She muttered to herself as if in a trance, only her fingers twitching.
Her pale face and frantic finger-counting looked so pitiful that I almost felt sorry for her.
She seemed ready to dig her own grave and climb into a coffin.
“Catherine, calm down.”
I grabbed both of her hands and lowered them.
“I’ll figure something out about the horse.”