Chapter 45

"Why are you already in an uproar over this?"

With no one else around, Anne didn't bother filtering her tone.

"Family problems should be worked out inside the family! Don't drag the rest of us into it!"

Whether royal succession really counted as a family matter was another question, but Harold didn't have much to say to it either, and only shrugged.

And whether the matter was tied to the royal family or not, Anne would know more than Harold about what was going on inside the capital. She was with the watch, and even without that, Anne had always had an ear for that kind of talk.

"With no crown prince named yet, I knew there'd be trouble sooner or later. I just didn't expect this business to be tied to the succession."

"I don't know the details myself."

Anne narrowed her eyes. She was still visibly displeased.

"I'll bet. He told you?"

"Grisha? Something like that."

"Honestly. If he's made up his mind, he ought to just go for it. Why keep hemming and hawing?"

"...Don't say that in front of Grisha."

"Why would I ever be in a position to see Marquis Roys?"

Anne tilted her chin up shamelessly.

But Harold found himself tilting his head. Something in what Anne had said was quietly off.

"Anne."

"Yes?"

"Is that what you're upset about?"

"'Upset' is putting it too strongly."

Not off, exactly... more like something worth sitting with. It nagged at him.

Anne hadn't said Grisha Lambert was entertaining nonsense. Nor had she asked how he'd come to make such a stupid decision.

If Grisha heard it, of course he'd protest. He'd never once wanted to be king.

"Either way, better if he just got on with it instead of dragging half the country into it."

There it was again.

Harold blinked, and it clicked.

Anne hadn't said Grisha was making a fool of himself. She hadn't accused him of getting some absurd idea into his head somewhere and setting out to overturn the kingdom.

If anything, it was the opposite.

"..."

"What?"

"You..."

Harold hesitated a moment, then asked. There was no one within earshot at the moment, and outside of this place he wouldn't be able to bring it up at all.

"You'd be... all right with it? If Grisha did?"

Anne raised her eyebrows.

"You really are getting on in years, senior. It shows."

"...Where's that coming from?"

"The old you wouldn't have known how to dance around it like that."

"I can, when I set my mind to it."

"You just didn't set your mind to it."

He could hear her giggling. Harold didn't let it throw him off.

Anne clicked her tongue with plain displeasure, then spoke.

"The watch handles crime in the capital."

Harold's face said, why are you telling me the obvious.

"And it's not like the old days — noble or not, we don't cut anyone slack."

"And?"

"But arresting royalty is a different matter."

"..."

Harold hadn't come back to the capital often, but that didn't mean he was completely blind to what went on there.

And the Alharn royal family was very small right now, especially the royals actually residing in the capital. Officially, just four people: the King and Queen, and the two princes.

"They're... still running around like that?"

The two princes had been headaches from way back.

"Whatever His Majesty may be thinking privately, from the outside the eldest son is the likeliest heir. And there aren't many royals in line for the throne."

Anne shrugged.

"No one wants to cross a prince whose temperament all but guarantees revenge if he ever takes the throne."

Which meant no matter what he pulled, it got hushed up internally and dropped.

"There are people who'd rather His Majesty just made up his mind, and quickly."

"...You too?"

"Who's to say?"

Anne didn't answer, only chuckled and shrugged. But sometimes not answering a question was an answer of its own.

Harold didn't press further. Even with someone he trusted, there were times it was better not to go too deep. And unlike Anne, who was staying in the capital, Harold still hadn't made up his mind either way.

"What about the watch?"

Anne raised her eyebrows. Harold added hastily,

"You don't have to answer."

"It's not that, exactly... Are you asking because you're curious, senior, or...?"

"Or what?"

"Well... Marquis Roys might be curious about it?"

"...You think he's using me for that?"

"Fair point. If he were, that'd say some pretty grim things about his judgment."

Harold looked at Anne with an incredulous face.

He'd been letting her get away with a lot, and every so often she said something outrageous. Even so, it was better than the dark, dispirited version he'd first found on returning to the capital.

He knew as well as anyone that stress tended to bring out the jokes.

"I was only kidding."

Anne waved a hand.

She set upright a chair that had fallen over near the fireplace and sat on it. Made for a child, it was small even for Anne's frame.

"Without needing to use you, senior, that man would have slipped his own people in and be getting reports directly."

Squeezed into the small chair, Anne rested her chin on her hand.

"Who knows? Maybe he's even got one in my household."

Amused by her own joke, Anne laughed out loud.

Harold, who knew that was actually the case, couldn't laugh. Fortunately, Anne read his face the wrong way and started laughing again.

"I said I was joking. Ease up."

"Ha ha..."

"That man isn't the angel you seem to think he is, senior."

"No, that's not exactly what I..."

"He was raised sheltered and never did a day of hard work, sure, but you don't wear a ducal crest for nothing. Credit where it's due — he's formidable. Even if he's just standing there breathing..."

Anne's voice cut off.

"...I don't actually think he was just standing there breathing. It's just that the other side has been throwing its weight around so hard."

"The prince?"

"Honestly, the one who forced this whole thing into play is the prince. Something that wouldn't have been a contest at all..."

Seven years since her last visit to the capital. Anne hadn't cared much for the princes back then either. In truth, that had been the case since their academy days.

But she hadn't voiced it this openly. And back then she'd been at an age when you spoke more thoughtlessly than she did now. Well — a fair amount must have happened in the meantime.

"Just between us."

Anne stuck out her lip, like Harold's nephews.

"One of the higher-ups at the watch said this to me."

"Mm."

"That the watch has to stay neutral. Fine for me, since I've known you since we were kids, senior — but everyone knows you're close with Marquis Roys, so I should watch my step."

"That..."

Harold spoke haltingly. He wasn't sure it was the right thing to say.

"...I'm sorry?"

"It's nothing for you to be sorry about, senior. But it's... funny, in a way."

"..."

"The watch staying neutral isn't strange in itself, but the fact that we need to stay neutral means something."

"...?"

Reading the plain confusion on Harold's face, Anne gave a wry smile.

"If the succession were settled, there'd be no need to stay neutral. Because everyone would already know who the next king was."

"..."

"What I'm saying is, in practice the watch isn't backing the prince."

---

"You know, senior."

Just before they left the Bertholdt estate, after making sure once more that no watch officers were within earshot, Anne dropped every trace of humor and called out to Harold.

She hadn't worn this face while grumbling about the prince adding to the watch's workload, or venting about the King's refusal to name an heir and turning a family matter into a kingdom-wide one.

"Whether you want it or not, senior, if you stay in the capital, you'll get pulled into exactly the things you don't want to be pulled into."

Coming from Anne, that was an unusually kind warning.

Anne had always been one of the people who reminded Harold that inconvenience wasn't an excuse to duck a job.

"That's what you fought that professor at the academy about, isn't it. And you strong-armed the captain of the household guard right before graduation."

"That was young and reckless of me."

Harold found himself smiling at the memory. At the time it had only aggravated him, but looking back it had been kind of fun...

Snap!

Anne snapped her fingers in front of his face.

"What I mean is, you have Edgar and Edwin now, senior. I don't know exactly how all of this is going to play out, but if a foreign country is being brought into it, I know enough to know it's serious."

Harold could see where this was going.

He'd been hearing versions of it lately. He'd been chewing on it himself.

"Whether things go sideways... or, well, however you want to put 'work out.' Either way, if you never plan to come back to the capital again for the rest of your life, leave now."

Up to there, it was what Harold had expected.

But what followed was different.

"But whatever you do now, it doesn't only affect you, senior. Remember that. If you leave now, Edgar and Edwin won't be able to come back either."

"..."

"Unless Marquis Roys becomes king."

For the first time, Anne said the word out loud.

"Albrecht isn't around anymore. There's no one left to handle the things you don't want to do, senior."

"..."

"The boys said they didn't want to leave the capital, right? Then teach Edgar and Edwin that you don't always get to live the life you want. If that had been an option, Albrecht wouldn't be dead either."

Anne had no other family.

Having inherited her title young and been forced into adulthood before she was ready, his junior clapped Harold on the shoulder and grinned like a kid.

"That's as far as I'll go. And, um, I'm sorry if it was out of line. I just wanted you to think about it at least once."

Before Harold could reply, Anne quickly went on.

"Let me know when you're coming to the estate. I know it's ridiculous for me to be making arrangements around you visiting your own home, but I'll put on some extra watch."

"...Anne."

"About Adrien Renard too — you said you'd help, so I'll finish checking and get back to you. It won't take long. Tomorrow at the earliest, maybe."

That was the end of that. Barring some new emergency, they wouldn't be revisiting this topic again.

Harold nodded. But he asked Anne one last thing.

"Grisha's accident. Do you know what actually happened?"

"Ah, no. It's not my case. I've got the Bertholdt case, so as far as that goes..."

Anne gave an awkward smile.

"And naturally, that side of things is classified."

Harold paused briefly. Thinking about it, of course it was.

He clapped Anne on the shoulder and pushed the front gate open. The Bertholdt estate was still stuck in winter, but outside, at least, spring was in full swing.

Flowering branches swayed in the mild breeze.