Ippolito, who was lying down at home taking a nap, ignored the commotion coming from the front door.
Looks like Ariadne has brought some more guests.
But the noise went on for a while. He got annoyed and ran out to the front door.
Neither Ariadne nor her silver chariot were seen. He was proudly scolding his servants.
“Hey, it’s broad daylight, let’s be quiet! Have you brought in some kind of royal family or something? What kind of fuss is this!”
At Ippolito's shout, the butler Nicolo looked at him with a stinging expression.
“My Lord, that is...”
“Have I come to a place where my father cannot come?”
Looks like Ariadne has brought some more guests.
But the noise went on for a while. He got annoyed and ran out to the front door.
Neither Ariadne nor her silver chariot were seen. He was proudly scolding his servants.
“Hey, it’s broad daylight, let’s be quiet! Have you brought in some kind of royal family or something? What kind of fuss is this!”
At Ippolito's shout, the butler Nicolo looked at him with a stinging expression.
“My Lord, that is...”
“Have I come to a place where my father cannot come?”
It was Cardinal de Mare who appeared from behind the carriage.
He looked unkempt, his face was half-cut, and his condition looked very bad all over. Ippolito cried out in surprise.
“Oh, Father!”
He shrugged his shoulders and made an excuse.
“If you’re coming, please let me know in advance...”
The Cardinal, who was already upset, immediately snapped.
“I have to report to you that I’m coming?!”
The Cardinal fired several shots at Ippolito, who was crouching down in pain.
“Looking at you, you must have slept until the sun rose and rolled out. You have no talents other than preparing food and drinks. And you are harassing the servants while meddling? Can’t you see your father? There is no place for me even in my own house!”
“Father, that’s not it...”
“If you have nothing to do, just carry the luggage! No, I don’t even want to see your face! Get out of here!”
He knew very well that Ippolito's labor productivity was low. Cardinal de Mare gestured irritably to his butler Niccolo.
“I’ll be upstairs, so you unpack my bags.”
“Yes, I understand. Is there anything valuable that I should be particularly careful about...”
The sparks also flew to the butler, Nicolo.
“Valuables? I didn’t take any valuables with me, so how could I have brought any back? If I had the ‘Pope’s Scepter’, I would have been in Trevero instead of here by now! Stop talking nonsense and just unpack my things! Don’t let anyone into my room!”
“Yes, I understand, sir!”
The Cardinal dragged his gaunt body up to the second floor with great difficulty.
Ippolito, who was struck by lightning, opened his eyes wide and stared blankly at the stairs.
***
After the Prince and Countess de Mare left alone to see the 'Hall of Stars', Sir Manfredi asked Sir Elko.
“Hey, Sir Elko. You’re not that strange in person, are you?”
Manfredi wanted to help Elko overcome his strange prejudice against Countess de Mare.
“She’s kind, polite, and not the kind of person you think she is.”
And Manfredi truly believed that Elko would agree with him.
Ariadne treated Elko with the utmost respect according to court etiquette, and the personal charm she exuded up close was immense.
'Anyone who sees it up close cannot help but fall in love with it!'
But Elko's reaction was terrifying.
“...Don’t ever do something like that again, Antonio de Manfredi.”
Sir Manfredi was taken aback by the informality of Sir Elko, who had always been polite to him.
“What, what?”
Sir Elko howled like a beast.
“Stop showing off in front of me! It’s disgusting!”
Sir Manfredi, who had just introduced someone and was struck by lightning, was so shocked that he flinched.
“What are you talking about all of a sudden, Sir Elko?”
“Shut up, shut up! Do you think I didn’t know that you were looking down on me like you were my superior!?”
Elko poured out all the resentment he had been building up on Manfredi.
Much of it was unfair to Manfredi.
“Do you think I didn’t notice those disgusting, pitiful stares!!! Since I can’t even wield a sword, am I okay with being treated like a useless commoner now? Stop treating me like a piece of trash!”
“Sir Elko, no, that’s not it...”
“Don’t touch me, you hypocrite!”
Elko slapped away Manfredi's hand that was trying to comfort him.
Then, he left the auditorium with thumping footsteps that could not hide his anger.
In Manfredi's sight, who had a terrified expression, he saw Sir Dino with his eyes wide open.
“Uh... Where did you see it from?”
“Almost from the beginning.”
“Why is that guy like that?”
Sir Dino shook his head.
“You were so nosy that you stepped in shit.”
“...I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”
It was a mistake, but the backlash against the mistake was too great. Elko should not have acted like that in the palace.
“You’re too innocent, that’s the problem.”
Sir Bernardino, who said such things, was in no position to blame others.
In any organization, someone who behaves like that would be trampled on by the higher-ups.
It doesn't have to be a knighthood, but any group with many people of the same sex would be appropriate.
'I should be the military leader.'
Sir Bernardino sighed. He would rather fight than fight like that with others. Just thinking about it gave him a headache.
Sir Manfredi asked Sir Dino cautiously.
“Why are he angry?”
It was useless curiosity.
“Do you even care about that? That’s why I said you’re the problem.”
“No, it’s not that I’m worried. I’m just curious because he suddenly did that.”
Sir Manfredi described the situation just before Elko suddenly exploded in anger.
“...Then suddenly it blew up, so it must have been because he saw Countess de Mare, right? Are he angry because I didn’t ask him to be friends?”
Sir Dino, a bachelor in his late forties, was surprisingly merciless in places like this.
No, although he had no achievements, he had been around the social circle for a long time and was an old man who had mastered even the ladies' calculations.
“You were the one who made the introduction. Do you think you could be so casual with Elko that you thought he was crazy?”
Sir Manfredi, the innocent bachelor, still looked as if he didn't understand.
“Yes? But she treated us well. She are also famous for her volunteer work at the relief center. That’s why I thought Countess de Mare didn’t care about status or rank...”
“Isn’t that something for the other person to decide, not for you?”
Sir Manfredi blinked as if he suddenly realized something.
“That’s true...”
Dino Sir sighed and taught.
“You gave Elko false hope. You thought, ‘You too can become this close to such a great person.’ But when Countess de Mare didn’t respond as Elko had hoped, didn’t Elko lose his mind?”
Sir Manfredi's eyes widened once again.
"Then it was my fault?"
“That’s right. You were wrong. Did you leave your friendship to me? What are you? You were bragging to Elko that you were close to that person but he couldn’t be close to her, and he was a nuisance to the Countess who only treated you with favor. You were wrong all around.”
Sir Manfredi muttered with a sad face.
“But if he's Elko, he's the Prince’s confidant, so there are a lot of people who want to be close to him.... Was it so bad to introduce him?”
There were as many people trying to approach the Prince's confidants and gain advantage through him as there were marble panels on the walls of the palace.
There were quite a few women who tried to change their situation by pushing through.
“Countess de Mare?”
Against Elko? That's like saying that Leo III needed money and was trying to show off to the Baron of Castiglione.
Sir Manfredi, realizing how absurd his remarks had been, quickly corrected himself.
“No, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Elko himself wants to get along! It could be that the people around the Prince want to speak well of her, so he can be nice to her.”
“If a woman is looking for that kind of thing, she is no longer a good woman.”
Sir Manfredi, who knew nothing of the old history and could not even dream that Sir Bernardino was now looking down on Countess de Mare with the heart of a father-in-law, was bewildered.
Why is it an issue here that Countess de Mare is a good woman?
Sir Dino clicked his tongue and left, leaving Manfredi in confusion.
“Anyway. Stop nagging me. Go do some work.”
“Nothing to do! The Prince’s training is on my schedule today!”
It was a misfortune that he had to buy it.
“Really? I need to order some saddlery for the Knights to use...”
“Hic! When the Prince comes out, I have to escort him, no, accompany him!”
“Are His Highness a Princess trapped in a tower?! Or is His Highness an idiot who can’t even find his way home? Stop talking nonsense and get in there and get to work!”
“Eek!”
***
Elko, out of sight of Sir Bernardino and Sir Manfredi, was left alone and cried.
Sir Dino was quick to realize that Elko had been expecting too much but had no idea how long that expectation had been going on.
It was an explosion of rage, almost a brutal one. He locked himself in his room in broad daylight and screamed incomprehensibly.
“That woman didn’t recognize me!!!”
He kicked the wall with his foot and roared again.
“That fucking bitch didn’t recognize me!!!”
At first, Elko tried to claim a moral victory by saying, 'That woman knows but is shy and is holding back.'
But no matter how much he did, he could tell whether the person in front of him really remembered him or was pretending not to know him.
When he met her at the convention center, her first gaze was that of a casual indifference toward a truly unfamiliar person.
“If that’s the case, then why on earth did you smile at me in that carriage!!!”
He remembered vividly the time when he had been ordered by Prince Alfonso to escort Ariadne de Mare when she was not a Countess but merely the illegitimate daughter of a Cardinal.
He remembered every color of the clothes she wore, even every strand of her hair.
“If this was going to happen, why were you and I alone in that carriage!!!”
That dog-like woman, she even smiled at me in that carriage we were in together!
What was even worse was the way he was treated like that, wagging his tail like a dog and appealing to others to know him.
If she remembered him, she would have suggested that they run away together, leaving behind all the things she had done.
If only he would accept it... But the cold gaze she was looking at...
“Ugh!!”
Elko trembled in agony. The only woman worthy of being called worthy had branded him with worthlessness.
But there was nothing he could do.
Helplessness. A sense of defeat, of being weak and insignificant. That empty void was filled with anger. He didn't realize that he was becoming a monster.
***
Ariadne entered the 'Room of the Stars' escorted by Alfonso. The shadow of the gray-haired man from earlier still lingered.
'His gaze... made me feel sick.'
It was not enough to simply say that she felt bad. The man who was scanning her body was used to it.
After became the director of Rambouillet Center, that is, after she began to be called a saint, there were few such men, but when she was a child growing up on the farm, it was easier to find a man who wasn't like that.
In her previous life, she had to suffer from those gazes for a little longer.
Before Cesare staged a coup and took control of the palace, it was common for people to easily see her and mess with her. This was because they saw Cesare as easy.
But Ariadne had never received such persistent gazes before. These were not the kind of gazes that were simply sexual or meant to be eye candy.
It was a more fundamental desire. She felt a kind of desire to possess something momentarily but completely, to chew it up and swallow it from head to toe.
If it's an obsession that comes from someone you love, you might consider it romantic.
But that gray-haired knight... I'm sorry, but she only knew him as Alfonso's subordinate.
She's never had a good time getting involved with someone who crosses the line like that.
“How about the hall?”
Alfonso, who had been watching Ariadne's profile, which seemed to be upset, spoke to her.
“It’s the ‘Room of the Stars.’ It’s a banquet hall reserved for the Crown Prince.”
When he was in the palace, he was too young to host banquets, and now that he had gained political standing, he was reluctant to use this hall actively because he was no longer the Crown Prince.
“I was just sleeping in the dust for a long time.”
There is only one heir to the throne, but it is entirely the King's will to hold out and not appoint a Crown Prince.
Alfonso had no intention of actively fighting with his father. As time went by, the throne would be his anyway, so there was no need to force it.
But he wanted to open this hall for Ariadne.
It was Bianca's hard-earned Guidata seat, and he wanted to give her everything good.
“...It’s beautiful.”
This was her first time here. Ariadne had never been here even when she lived in the palace in her previous life.
This is because Cesare used the King's palace as his own residence and kept the Prince's palace tightly locked.
It was a beautiful hall decorated on all sides with finely cut Bianco marble.
Alfonso took Ariadne's hand. Her hand, too, was as delicately beautiful as the marble work of the 'Hall of the Stars'.
“From here to there, the orchestra fills the space with its music.”
Alfonso drew a large line in the air with Ariadne's right hand, which he held in his left.
“The star of the party opens the door in the center and enters.”
Alfonso glanced at the door they had just entered.
“Just as we entered.”
In a huge hall where only the two of them remained, a man with a large, sturdy body like a tower was hiding a red glow under his sun-tanned skin.
Ariadne glanced around.
“...Your Highness.”
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