[R18] King's Domination

The day after next after the play, it was decided I would go to Mainz Cathedral with the Duke and Duchess. Of course the Duke and Duchess’s carriage came to fetch me, and I rode with them.

Why I had been invited to Mainz Cathedral was not, of course, to show a man from the country the sights. My faith is thin, so I was full of doubt, but according to the Duchess a great High Priest from the Sophia Divine Kingdom was at Mainz Cathedral now, and if you visited the cathedral at this time you could receive a blessing in God’s place from the High Priest. Only, that was extremely rare, and not for just anyone.

What kind of person is a High Priest? I asked. (In fact I used more polite words.) He is one of several under His Holiness the Pope, next after the Pope. For a man like me, short on faith and force-fed the underside of religion in a place called Japan, I end up thinking he must be soaked in greed and gold. Thoughts that would surely send me to hell.

The Duke of Vélez, whom I had not seen in some time, had good color and energy. The worn-down look from that stretch was gone, and the groundless confidence from before seemed to have come back. I had been a little worried, so this was a relief.

Only, the revived Duke was loud even in the carriage. Once he knew I was short on knowledge of the faith, he laid out this and that lore. Thanks to that I gained knowledge of the Sophia Divine Kingdom, said to lie east of the Marie Kingdom, and learned that the cathedral in the Marie Kingdom also has a head priest sent from the Sophia Divine Kingdom at the top, gathering the Marie Kingdom’s faith. And the Sophia Divine Kingdom, the Marie Kingdom, and the Mainz Kingdom all hold to the Sophia faith and have set it as the state religion, but the Empire has a different religion as its state religion.

He also told me the beginning of the Sophia Divine Kingdom. Long ago a commoner named Sophia received a revelation from God one day and began to act as a prophet. She spread God’s words in various lands and worked miracles. She took persecution and religious oppression from the rulers of the time, still increased believers, little by little gained believers among nobles, and at last soaked into royalty and became the state religion.

The Sophia Divine Kingdom was founded on the land where Sophia received God’s revelation, by Sophia’s apostles (disciples?). Apostles went to each country, made churches, those became cathedrals, and became the great cathedrals of now. The size of the people’s faith shows in the size of the cathedral, and the cathedral I was taken to was truly fit to be called a great cathedral. It was a size you could not compare with the one in the Marie Kingdom. With a thing like this, the winter heating bill would be large, would it not? I thought that vulgar thing...

We were set down in the great square in front of the cathedral, and several long lines ran toward the cathedral. Looking well at the lines, people of various wealth were mixed in the rows. No. The line of people in clean clothes and the line of people in quite ragged clothes were separate.

"What are these lines?"

At my question an aide of the Duke said,

"Those are lines for people to offer their faith. It is a god-stone the High Priest brought from the Sophia Divine Kingdom, I hear. By touching that god-stone and offering faith you receive God’s grace. By Sophia’s revelation that rich and poor offer faith equally, the lines are divided into a line for nobles, a line for commoners who are wealthy, and a line for the poor."

He explained. Hearing that, not only I and the Duke and Duchess but a group of nobles lined up ahead seemed not to have known either, and they raised voices of

"Hoh!"

Noble houses, even standing in line, kept a fair distance, but this aide chanted it out so others could hear, and the people ahead heard it too. If the master is the master, the aide is the aide.

A noble ahead turned, looked at the Duke, and said,

"Is this not the Duke of Vélez? I hope you are in good spirits."

A greeting that was noble through and through. Unlike a certain light, flighty duke, this man looked to be in his forties and gave a heavy impression. His wife was behind him. Looking at it this way, first impression matters. Even a brat like me, I felt the first impression of a meeting would affect what came after.

"Ohh, Count Norfolk! To meet you in a place like this! It has been some time!"

The Duke walked over easy and greeted him. The man called Count Norfolk had his wife with him as well, so the wives greeted each other. So this is how the tops of noble houses greet, I thought, impressed, and then the Countess glanced at me. The Count must have taken me for an attendant of the Duke, and the Duke had no intention of introducing me from the start, so I was outside the mosquito net.

The time the Countess’s gaze stayed on me grew longer. Then she asked the Duchess something, the Duchess answered, and,

"My!"

she made a sound loud enough for the surroundings to hear. The nobles ahead and behind were standing quietly in line, so everyone looked at the Countess wondering what it was. Having gathered eyes, the Countess was checked by the Count, but after looking at me a while she seemed to decide and asked,

"Forgive me, are you Ambassador Robin Marie? Are you the person said to be the model for Robbie Merry on that stage?"

What a thing to ask.

Oops. There was someone here who had already seen the play? I did not know how to answer. I looked at the Duke and he had a sour face, but the Duchess was smiling. The Countess had asked, but she was asking on conviction, so I said,

"Yes. That is so. I am Robin Marie, eleventh prince of the Marie Kingdom, posted as ambassador from the Marie Kingdom. Please remember me."

I greeted her.