[R18] King's Domination

When the hall went dim, the second half started at once. No bell to mark the start, no buzzer, no voice to announce it. I came out on the stage and laid out at length my resolve for the clash.

I will do my best for love! That sort of thing, and it was embarrassing! Even if it were true, saying it in front of people is impossible, is it not? The fact that Her Majesty and the maids around me were praising it from mouth to mouth meant it must be ordinary. The guests in the seats below were clapping hard too.

Then at last it went into battle mode. And as planned, or rather, the duke who had struck a great pose was brought down splendidly by an arrow. He exited, easy and quick. The audience was a storm of abuse at the duke.

"Is it all right to pile that much abuse on the duke?"

I asked, just in case.

"It is inside the play. You may say anything to a person in the play. The setting is that they do not exist in reality."

"Haa..."

Her Majesty explained. Obvious if you say it that way, but they had brought an actor made to look like the real duke and matched him to actual deeds, so if the man himself saw it he would be chewing a bitter bug, would he not? Or would that man laugh it off?

Anyway the duke exited under a rainstorm of curses. After the play ended and he went outside, would that actor not get shouted at by the guests? Did people in this world understand that the role in the play and the person himself are different things? I worried a little.

Through the falling arrows I moved onto the roof with Rudolf and Lily. I thought magic would lift us, but ropes were tied to our bodies and we were hoisted... If the run continued, would they hire a mage and float us in the air?

On the roof, Agnes Eisleben herself appeared on a lift. Her face was a little stiff. Tension, maybe? Am I the only one who feels the word tension does not suit that person? And the two stagehands seemed to be those guards. Pitiful, really.

At the two ends of the roof set, I and Agnes took our places. We did not fight at once. First Agnes opened her mouth.

"I-I am..."

She bit it at once, and from the shock the line stopped. The stagehands on both sides of Agnes panicked. The audience held its breath and waited for Agnes’s next line. My stomach hurt...

"I-I am the daughter of the chieftain of the storied Eisleben tribe who live in the west, Agnes Eisleben! At the request of Count Keyhoff, to whom I owe a debt, I will aid Count Keyhoff!"

Ohh, it came out! Once the first word came, the lines ran smooth. Agnes has a surprisingly carrying voice. She is a warrior, so she can put voice from the gut. But it had become that she joined at Count Keyhoff’s request. "I join for money" could not be said, of course.

"I-I, no, I am said to be the finest with the bow in the clan after the chieftain. Following the clan’s custom I came to the royal capital to search for one stronger than I and take that person as husband! But I have yet to find one stronger than I! Now, Robbie Merry! Come challenge me, and show whether you are fit to be my husband!"

I looked at Her Majesty, startled. Her Majesty nodded, laughing. Meaning,

"That Lady Eisleben came to the royal capital to search for a husband. Is that true?"

"That is what I have heard."

Her Majesty affirmed it with a face that said of course.

"Then did I pass as a candidate in Lady Eisleben’s husband search?"

I was not glad. But Her Majesty smirked.

"That would be it."

She affirmed it, so,

"What..."

I only went silent... Take that person as a wife... That person who is flat even in temperament? And Her Majesty, who would not take my feeling (she might have been saying it knowing that), said lightly,

"Is she not a good girl with a clean temperament?"

What are you saying, mister rabbit... There is no way I can go in as a husband!

"There were people stronger than her."

Her Majesty added that, and I was relieved.

"But those people were all married. That is natural. They polish from childhood, and by the time they become first-rate in that path they are of a matching age, and a wife and children are ordinary. Rarely there were people who had mastered that path and were still single, but I heard they were far too strange, not people you could take back to the village."

Hearing Her Majesty go on, that would be so.

"Then does that person want to take me back to the tribe as a husband?"

"Yes. No mistake!"

Her Majesty stated it. Nooo. There are people who suit her far more than I do!! The world is wide!!

With no relation to the shout in my heart, the fight went on on the stage. I dodged the arrows Agnes shot like rain, knocked them down, and advanced. Her Majesty must have been on edge. The hand gripping mine put in force until it hurt. There was quite a bit of palm sweat too. At last one arrow stuck in my shoulder. I fell back. Supported by Lily, I looked at Agnes. Rudolf was barely stopping arrows. The arrows, by the way, were being held and moved by stagehands. Rudolf was weak and being pushed, and Lily showed no sign of fighting and focused on treating me. The relation between me and Lily was, as expected, master and maid, and there was no air at all that there was a bodily relation there... Obvious, but.

"Is it that kind of thing?"

The voice in my heart slipped out. Her Majesty gave a short laugh.

"Yes. A play is something different from the real thing."

I was told.

After Lily’s mysterious treatment I had somehow fully recovered, fought full of energy, at last closed on Agnes, and put the point of a sword at her throat.

"Lord Robbie Merry, I yield to your strength. My first loss since coming to the royal capital. My heart and body will all follow you."

Agnes broke down crying. I do not feel that person would say a thing like that. If she said it, it would come much cleaner.

And what did I say, taking that?

"There are surely people in this royal capital stronger than I. A person as beautiful as you, overflowing with a woman’s charm, noble, does not suit an unripe one like me! Please search for a still stronger person!"

For some reason I was shouting while holding both of Agnes’s hands. None of the words used to describe Agnes seemed to fit, I thought. I thought to ask Her Majesty what she thought, and somehow Her Majesty’s eyes were wet, and I could not ask. I looked at Anouk and the others and it was the same. For an instant Anouk’s eyes on me said do not get in the way at a good time!!

Sorry, I muttered inside, and watched in silence. Agnes was pouring out her love for me in a loud voice, but that was surely set as something the me on stage could not hear. Wait. Had Agnes been thinking the same thing on the real roof of House Kirchhoff? The me on stage was dense itself, but did that mean the real me was a lump of dense too?

A maid behind muttered, mixed with tears,

"Lady Eisleben, you poor thing..."

Her Majesty and Anouk agreed deeply. I could not see, but the other maid as well, I suppose.

I had done nothing, so what was this away feeling...