The Unattractive Princess' Marriage - Episode 11

“Your Highness, Sir Gardner said you can pick any flowers you like from the greenhouse. Why don’t we go together? Anna, you should come too.”

Gardner entered, smiling brightly as he spoke to Sophina, who was looking through documents at her desk.

(In Hydeland, a guard knight would never invite their lord to pick flowers… But it might be a good break.)

Sophina chuckled at herself for accepting an act that would be considered rude in her homeland, and she put down the pen in her hand.

Gardner, with his gentle brown eyes and hair, was also a witty and worldly conversationalist. Combined with his likable personality, he disarmed people around him. Sophina understood why when she heard from Feldric that he was the youngest son of one of the wealthiest merchants in Kazac.

“Perhaps the roses are already blooming in the greenhouse,” Anna said, smiling at Sophina.

Seeing no trace of the initial bewilderment or indignation she had shown towards Gardner and Zeerat, Sophina’s eyes softened even more.

“Your Highness! Hide me, I’m being chased…!”

The moment Henric, her guard and escort, opened the door, Zeerat rushed in.

“What did you do today?”

Last time, he broke a glass window playing hopscotch after being invited by noble children. Before that, he broke a tree branch by climbing it. Even before that, he dislocated the arm of a Royal Guard knight who was assaulting an elderly cleaner… Unlike the shrewd Gardner, Zeerat was always at the center of trouble. Because of this, when he was involved, words now spilled from Sophina’s mouth faster than she could think. For Sophina, who had been thoroughly trained to speak only after careful thought, this was unthinkable, yet strangely, she didn’t find it unpleasant.

“I’ll protect you, depending on the circumstances,” she said with a wry smile. Zeerat furrowed his brow and tilted his head.

“…Huh? Come to think of it, there shouldn’t be anything in particular that would get me caught…”

(“It’s not ‘there’s nothing to be angry about,’ that’s Zeerat’s honesty,” Sophina thought with a chuckle.)

Zeerat’s thoughts and feelings were always completely transparent on his face. Sophina always found that comforting about him.

“Hmph… Matt! I told you to wait! Th-this, this for Sophina-sama…”

Trailing Zeerat, a breathless palace chef arrived. Sophina remembered granting him an audience once, shortly after arriving in Kazac, when Folsun had brought him.

“T-this is Sophina-hidenka. M-my deepest apologies…”

Spotting Sophina through the open door, the chef hastily removed his hat and bowed respectfully to her. Seeing this, Sophina felt a nostalgic sense of “Ah, this is how it usually was” and chuckled softly. At that moment, her eyes fell upon what the chef held. It was a cake adorned with sugared lilac flowers in a glass case—a Shargi from Hydeland.

Zeerat smiled gently at the elderly chef, who was still bowing with ears bright red. “Ah, that’s right,” he said. “You praised the lunch from three days ago, didn’t you? When I told the chef, he said it was a Northern dish. So he thought, ‘Perhaps Her Highness is feeling nostalgic for her homeland.'”

(So he went to the trouble of making a traditional Hydeland confection…)

“…Thank you, Sages. Not just today. I look forward to your meals every day.”

The chef’s head shot up, his eyes wide. He pressed his lips together and bowed deeply to Sophina again.

“That’s good. I thought they finally found out about the silver knife from snack time earlier, the one I tried throwing and lost.”

Sophina let out another laugh, watching Zeerat being pulled away by the chef, whose face was red for a different reason. Zeerat’s extraordinarily handsome face was contorted with an expression of utter shame. Looking to her side, she saw Gardner and Anna laughing with her.

Four months had passed since Sophina came to the Kingdom of Kazac. Just as she had initially anticipated, Sophina was beginning to love this country, especially after going out into the city with her two guards.

That day, when she went into the city to inspect the orphanage, Sophina made her very first purchase with the pocket money Zeerat had given her: ice cream.

“Oh, you’re not from this country, are you? And you look like you’re from a good family,” the ice cream vendor chuckled at Sophina, who was at a loss for words. “Heh, well, then I’ll give you a bonus as a souvenir. It’s a good place here, isn’t it? And it’s easy to live in. I hope you like it too.” With that, the woman added so much ice cream that Sophina wondered if she could finish it all.

“Oh, you’re from Hydeland? Just like Prince Feldric’s consort. We have business dealings with them, and they complain a lot. They say we stole their kind princess,” said the proprietress of a clothing store, which Sophina had entered on Gardner’s suggestion to buy clothes to her own taste.

“Big sister, will you play with us? Let’s play house together.”

“Idiot, over there, we’re playing knights. There are real knights here! Big sister is pretty, so you can be the princess.”

“Mom and Dad died, but it’s okay. There are lots of kind people, and Miss Amira and the headmistress, and the butcher uncle, and Alice the fruit seller, everyone here, everyone I like. Oh, and you big sisters too!”

The young children at the orphanage, unaware of Sophina’s true identity, clung to her and smiled at her without inhibition.

“I want to help at the orphanage. So I have to study more arithmetic.”

“Knights! Because they’re cool, you know. When we get bullied in town, they always help us. I guess it’ll be hard, but… I’ll take the exam.”

“Big sister, aren’t you from Kazac? That picture is of our King and Prince. That one’s the Founding King.”

“The headmistress, like us, doesn’t have a mom or dad, but it was before the Founding King’s time, so all her friends died. That’s why we’re alive now, because of the King and princes. So we want to repay our gratitude!”

The slightly older children at the orphanage understood their circumstances, yet they didn’t lose hope.

Many of the people Sophina met in Kazac were good-natured and full of compassion for others. They were exactly as she had first perceived them on her wedding day, when they had warmly welcomed her as she emerged onto the balcony with a sigh. It might also be because they weren’t struggling to make ends meet. But the main reason was that everyone had hope for the future.

This wasn’t Hydeland, the place that Sophina, her mother, and her brother loved. Still, she wanted to do what she could for these people. When she came to think this way, it became a source of hope for Sophina herself. And when she considered that Feldric was one of the people supporting them, her aversion to him lessened. Just as her initial impression suggested, as a ruler, he was excellent, earnest, and kind, and in that regard, she sincerely respected him and learned a great deal from him.

Although there were still many things she wasn’t used to, she felt she had become a little more accustomed to palace life as well.

Though she had never said it aloud, a large part of this was due to the two guards dispatched from the Kazac Royal Knights—Gardner and Zeerat. Just as she had felt when she first met them, they were incredibly likable people. Ignoring Sophina’s efforts to maintain dignity and distance, and her bewilderment, they effortlessly entered the lonely daily lives of Sophina and her attendants.

They spoke and showed their thoughts and feelings directly on their faces. But it was always full of gentle compassion, without any strategizing. There were times when Sophina was perplexed by the many acts that would be impossible in Hydeland—to be frank, disrespectful behaviors—but whenever she thanked them or smiled, their faces lit up with joy. In the end, Sophina decided to convince herself that this was simply how Kazac knights were.

They were friendly with everyone working in the palace, regardless of their status, and simply by being with them, Sophina’s distance from those around her also shortened. The wall that the people around her had built against Sophina, who had been nothing but an outsider until they arrived, lowered with surprising speed. Perhaps because of this, the stiffness disappeared from Anna’s face, and she began to smile often. She said she had even made friends in this country. Sophina watched with true gratitude as the strength and shadows gradually left Anna, who had given up everything—her family and homeland—to follow her.

It was still the same now. In the greenhouse, where the three of them had come without Zeerat, Anna was happily choosing flowers to decorate the room with, scissors in hand. Gardner, meanwhile, was intently gazing at a beautiful, large red rose.

The vast glass greenhouse, with all its windows and doors open, was still filled with the scent of flowers. Drawn by it, Sophina picked a stem with many small white flowers on each of its finely branched twigs.

“You’re back. Did Chef Sages’ lecture end?”

“…It’s on hold for now. I said I had guard duty and ran away.”

“Too bad. Her Highness said we should have tea when you get back, but it doesn’t look like Matt can join.”

“Ugh, Her Highness’s homeland cake…”

Gardner, who had entered the greenhouse with a weary expression and laughed while talking to Zeerat, returned his gaze to the roses, narrowing his eyes.

“By the way, my friend, how about a rose for Prince Feldric? With thorns.”

“You’re serious about that, Henric.”

“It’s no good, after all?”

“Of course not. If the Prince were to get hurt by a thorn, dark miasma would erupt from it.”

“That’s no laughing matter…”

(Sophina thought, “That’s what you’re worried about…”) but she no longer had the energy to retort.

“By the way, my friend, they say in the East there’s a culture of using irises for warding off evil.”

“Alright, let’s go with that.”

The two of them were completely wary of Feldric, the Crown Prince, yet they didn’t act formally. And they never learned their lesson. Sophina was greatly surprised, and Anna initially blanched at their conversation, but since Feldric himself didn’t seem to mind (though he did torment them relentlessly, it must be said), she seemed to have given up.

“Here’s an idea, Your Highness, you should deliver it.”

“We’ll leave it to you.”

“…I understand your feelings very well, but wouldn’t that make it even more dangerous?”

They showed respect, but they were still informal with Sophina herself, and though bewildered, she couldn’t help but laugh along with them.

“Indeed. But as swordsmen, it’s also true that we want to strike back.”

“I agree from the bottom of my heart. But it’s probably time to shut up.”

The moment Zeerat shrugged his shoulders, Feldric himself, the very subject of their conversation, entered the greenhouse.