Answer Me, Please

The soldier walked down a long hallway. Huge circular columns lined both sides of the hallway. The spiral patterns carved along the white marble columns and the semicircular ceiling indicated that the building was in the typical style of the Lisa Kingdom.

The soldier spotted a maid passing through the hallway and asked, “Do you happen to know where the Duke is right now?”

The maid recalled that the Duke had left the city gates early this morning. If she was right, he wasn’t due back until tomorrow.

“The Duke rode out of town today. He’s staying overnight at Lord Flennen’s house, so he won’t be back today.”

“Is that so?”

The soldier looked at the letter in his hand, somewhat perplexed. “I have a letter to deliver to the Duke, and I don’t know what to do with it.”

A little while ago, a messenger from the Basque tribe found him at the city gate. He handed him a letter and asked him to deliver it to the Duke. He said there was no time, so hurry up.

As he pondered this, a deep voice suddenly rang out from behind him.

“What’s going on?”

The soldier recognized the voice’s owner and quickly dropped to one knee.

“Your Highness the Grand Duke.”

Standing there was the man who owned the Grand Duchy of Hezen. At the age of 50, he was still healthy, fit, and full of energy.

Hence, many questioned the announcement that he, who had handed over the title of Duke to his son, would soon hand over the title of Grand Duke as well. As usually titles are handed over en masse before death.

Some speculated that the reason was that his son, Duke Iselle Scallion, was about to marry. The idea was that he was stepping down early to give his daughter-in-law, a woman of great status, the title of Grand Duchess that she deserved.

“Did you say this was a letter for Iselle?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“The Basque tribe.”

The Basque tribe is one of the tribes that are friendly to the Lisaa Kingdom and has often interacted with Hezen. But this was the first time they had made direct contact with his son and not with him.

“The Basque tribe? Why would they come to Iselle?”

When the Grand Duke held out his hand, the soldier immediately handed him the letter. The man who brought the letter had repeatedly requested that it be delivered only to the Duke, but it was unavoidable under the circumstances. The matter would now be dealt with under the Grand Duke’s authority.

There was no writing on the outside of the envelope. As the Grand Duke tore open the envelope and took out the letter, he soon realized that something else was inside. A moment later, a bracelet encrusted with emeralds emerged from the envelope.

It was a familiar item to his eyes. The Grand Duchy of Hezen had long been famous for its high-quality emeralds. This bracelet had been ordered and handmade in the Grand Duke’s residence as a gift for someone.

For Rosetta Villard Lisa, the second princess of the Lisa Kingdom and soon to be the Grand Duchess.

He hastily opened the letter, his eyes wide with surprise as he read the words on it.

“Your Highness?”

“Where is the one who brought this letter?” he asked urgently, folding the letter and turning to the soldier.

“He is now waiting outside the gates.”

“Show him to my office at once, and you will have no further part in this affair, but return to your post.”

“Yes.”

Back in his office, the Grand Duke stared at the letter on his desk, deep in thought. If what it said was true, this was no ordinary matter. No, it was the kind of thing that would turn the entire country upside down.

Soon the door opened and the messenger entered. The messenger was somewhat taken aback to see an aging middle-aged man sitting before him. He immediately realized that this was not the Duke, the recipient of the letter. The messenger bowed and made a curtsy.

“Greetings to Your Highness the Grand Duke.”

“You say you were sent by the Basques?”

“Yes, to be more precise, Lady Rosie, the daughter of the chief of the tribe, and a knight by the name of Allen sent me here.”

The Grand Duke held up the letter to him. “Then is everything written here true? That Princess Rosetta has been kidnapped by the Quat tribe?”

The messenger bit his lip in response, his face full of despair.

“I asked if it was all true.”

The letter had been written by Allen, Princess Rosetta’s escort, and it detailed how the princess had been kidnapped by the Quat, a tribe at enmity with the Basques. Allen asked Iselle to come personally with an army to rescue the princess.

But then came the strange part. At the end of the letter was a request to keep all of this a secret, to keep it from the Kingdom of Lisa and from anyone else.

“You would not inform me of such an important matter, let alone the Kingdom of Lisa. What is your reasoning?”

The Grand Duke said in a much softer voice, “Princess Rosetta is also very important to me. My son is away from the castle and cannot help you right now, but there’s not much time left. So perhaps I should help you. From the content of the letter, it sounds like it’s urgent, and I think we should hurry up.”

Finally, the messenger’s mouth opened with difficulty. “I do not know the details of the matter. All I know is that, unlike my lady, the chieftain is opposed to rescuing the princess.”

“The chieftain is against it? Why?”

The Basque tribe had long been closely tied to the Kingdom of Lisa, and the current chieftain was so active in the Kingdom that he could be considered a puppet of Lisa’s. It was hard to believe that he would refuse to do what would do the most good for the Kingdom.

“Is there a reason why the chieftain did that?”

“Actually, the chieftain was very rude at first, not knowing the princess’s identity, so…”

It all made sense now. The Basque chieftain was ambitious and greedy, but he was basically not a very good judge of character. Perhaps he had done a great wrong by not recognizing the princess and then made a foolish decision to cover his tracks.

“Alright, I’ll have a word with you soon, just wait outside.”

The messenger bowed quickly. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

After the messenger left the room, the first thing the Grand Duke thought of was summoning Iselle to the castle. He was about to send someone to the Flennen estate as soon as possible when his wife, the Grand Duchess, entered the room.

“Honey.”

Now in her middle years, the Grand Duchess was a beautiful woman who still retained the beauty of her youth, especially her shining silver hair and beautiful violet eyes, which she had passed on to her son.

“My lord, I have heard all the conversations outside. May I read the letter?”

The Grand Duke handed her the letter. After reading it quickly, she asked, “What do you intend to do about this now?”

The Grand Duke sighed softly. “I suppose the first thing to do is to summon Iselle, who is outside, and rescue the princess as soon as possible, as requested in the letter.”

“I don’t think it’s a matter to be decided in such a hurry.”

“Or perhaps there is another way?”

“Your Highness, perhaps this presents us with a chance.”

“A chance?”

The Grand Duchess hesitated for a moment, then made up her mind and said, “Your Grace, you’ve always regretted Iselle’s betrothal, don’t you?”

The Grand Duke gulped in surprise at her sudden words. She was right. For the Grand Duke, the betrothal was a happy but somewhat disappointing outcome, for the picture he had hoped for most was that his son would marry Princess Tanit, the crown princess, not Rosetta, the second princess.

At this time, there is one prince and two princesses in the Kingdom of Lisa. The royal couple gave birth to the first princess, followed by the prince the next year. After that, there was no news for a while, and then the youngest princess was born.

She was like the jewel of the royal family. Because she had been ill for some time, the royal couple showered the youngest princess with extraordinary affection.

Despite being so precious, Princess Rosetta had little standing in the Kingdom. By nature, the Lisa royal family is meritocratic. The throne is unconditionally passed down to the firstborn, regardless of gender, but it is possible to be anything but a king.

Prince Arman, for example, was recognized for his exceptional swordsmanship and was made deputy leader of the Kingdom’s First Order of Knights at a young age.

Princess Rosetta, on the other hand, never had the opportunity to showcase her talents, as she was often bedridden from a young age. There is nothing special about her except for her pretty face and kind heart, which the bards praised.

The first princess, Tanit, on the other hand, was to be given everything according to the principle of the right of firstborn. A shining crown, power, and special abilities that only the heir to the Kingdom of Lisa could possess.

The Grand Duke had long ago sent his young son to the Lisa Kingdom, secretly hoping that his son would find a match for the first princess. If so, he would be the next king of the divine Kingdom of Lisa.

But life doesn’t always work out the way you think. One day, his son declared his desire to marry the youngest princess, Rosetta, rather than the eldest, Tanit. He had no choice but to accept, for Iselle was more than happy to be the husband of the youngest princess. That’s how the betrothal was decided.

“Honey, what do you mean by a chance?”

The Grand Duchess lifted the corner of her lips at the repeated question.

“It means that it is to our advantage to have Princess Rosetta disappear as she is.”