“Um… was the problem in that conflict ultimately about who would take the throne?” Aisha raised her hand and asked.
Excel shook her head. “We think that was only a secondary factor. The first and foremost cause must have been the former king’s policy of rapid expansion.”
“His expansionism?” Aisha asked.
“Yes. In the time of the king before the last one, our country launched a number of foreign wars that greatly expanded our territory. Meanwhile, the expanded territory sowed the seeds of conflict within the country. The occupier and the occupied; the conquerors and the conquered; the killers and the relatives of those killed… It gave birth to a lot of confrontational relationships like that. There were interventions by other countries that had lost land, too.”
“…Well, my old man had it out for you all pretty bad,” Roroa, the former Princess of Amidonia, said with a shrug.
It was a bit of a relief that she said that like it had nothing to do with her. The Principality of Amidonia had used corrupt nobles to interfere in our affairs a number of times. What they’d done had caused a lot of trouble for me, but it was really just reaping what we had sown.
I was grateful that Roroa, as an Amidonian princess, was taking the stance that it didn’t matter to her. If Roroa, who looked up to me as her “big sister,” ended up resenting me because of a dispute between our countries… I’d be sad about that.
Excel nodded and continued. “Those seeds of discord need to be slowly removed, but the rapid expansion didn’t allow for that.”
Eventually, the old king had died, and the lingering seeds of discord had germinated into the succession crisis. If the people they hated supported one royal, people would back another opposing horse in the race. That was how the dispute over the succession had turned into a proxy war for all of the discord in the kingdom.
“That was why it turned into such a quagmire.” Excel sighed sadly then looked straight at us. “Fortunately, His Majesty Souma’s reign is not so dangerous as that of that predecessor of his. The reason that the country is unshaken even after absorbing Amidonia is that he has worked diligently to create a solid enough base to prevent that. He is not as glamorous as the first king, but rated on the stability of his reign alone, he is the best king this country has ever had. That’s why, even once His Majesty Souma is no longer on the throne, there won’t be an ugly succession war like that one.”
That was Excel’s appraisal of Souma’s reign. Yeah. I agreed with her.
I might think the way he reigned was too roundabout at times, but he was carefully and cautiously moving this country forward. If you considered that he’d been summoned as a hero, I didn’t think there’d ever been such a plain and ordinary hero before. Even so, Souma made me feel secure. Though he himself was weak, he made me feel like I was being protected by something big.
Excel banged on the blackboard. “That said, we mustn’t get complacent! It must never be forgotten that if there are cracks between king and queen, or even between queen and queen, there will be those who appear to take advantage of them. For the sake of the country, you must build a harmonious relationship between husband and wife, and a harmonious household. To help you do that, I will have you take my ‘Bridal Training Course.’”
I could more or less accept what she was forcefully saying. But what was this “Bridal Training Course” that she kept on leading up to?
“Um… why are you the one lecturing us anyway, Duchess Walter?” I asked.
Excel giggled and gave me a confident smile. “I don’t look it, but I’ve been alive for five hundred years. I’ve fallen for my share of gentlemen in that time, but death has always been the only thing that could separate us. I’ve always made sure to have at least one child with each of them, too.”
That was… Okay, yeah, that might be kind of amazing. Now that she mentioned it, Excel only looked like she was in her mid-twenties, but she was a woman who had experienced childbirth. She even had granddaughters like Juna, after all.
Excel puffed up her ample bosom with pride. “I will teach all of you how, as queens… no, as women… to stay with the man you love until death do you part. How you should act as a wife; the way gentlemen think; and everything from how to support your husband, to ways to perform your nightly ‘duties’ in the bedroom in a way that makes your marital relations go more smoothly.”
N-Nightly duties…
The moment we heard those words come up, we all gave pretty blatant reactions. We all must have imagined times we’d be in that sort of situation with Souma.
Roroa was blushing with a wry smile, while Juna’s cheeks turned pink and she covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wandering. Aisha, meanwhile, had a goofy, happy look on her face, so it was obvious what she was thinking about.
…I could feel my own cheeks burning, too.
When she saw our reactions, Excel coughed politely. “I believe I will have you all start learning about such things now. I already have His Majesty Souma taking individual lessons with me, after all.”
The moment she said that, Juna looked as shocked as I felt.
Some weeks ago, Souma had taken Juna with him and left the royal capital. That was when Excel had drugged Juna, and when she was alone with Souma, she had… well… she had given him some lessons on what men and women get up to at night. I was the only one Juna had told about that. I’d been keeping it a secret from Aisha and Roroa. That was because if they found out, they were bound to cause a scene.
Juna had asked me, as the one who had been with Souma the longest, to subtly ask him what had happened during the time they were together.
“Um, princess…” Juna leaned in and whispered in my ear so that Aisha and Roroa couldn’t hear. “So… what did His Majesty say about that time?”
“The thing is, Souma says he doesn’t remember it,” I whispered back.
“He doesn’t remember?”
“Yeah. He remembers taking lectures about, um… h-how babies are made, but everything after that is a blur.”
When I had asked him about that day, Souma had tilted his head to the side and said:
“I remember everything about the super embarrassing lecture she gave me, but… I don’t remember a thing after that. No, it’s not so much that I don’t remember, but that my mind is refusing to let me recall it, maybe?…Honestly, what did happen then? I know I was embarrassed by the lessons, and I was feeling really parched… Excel gave me a drink and… It’s no good, I can’t remember anything after that…. No, I feel like it’s best that I don’t remember.”
Souma had tried to squeeze out what he could remember of it, but in the end, he’d seemed to come up empty. It didn’t feel like he was hiding something from me or trying to dodge the issue, though. He seemed like he had truly lost his memory, or sealed it away.
Just what in the world happened to Souma after his classroom lesson? I wondered about that…
“Now, in marriage, as in war, intel is key,” Excel lectured. “Once you know what your partner thinks of you, how they look at you, you can begin to get a feel for how you should act. If you can catch them off guard, and show them a gap between their impression of you and how you act in a way that isn’t displeasing, that can help keep things from getting boring. Know your partner, know what they look at, and your marriage will never be in danger.”
Aisha raised her hand. “You are right, I do wonder what His Majesty thinks of me. But His Majesty is not here, and if we called him, do you think he would be willing to come?”