The marquis houses of the continent were arriving at the de Bosch estate one by one.
We were the last marquis-ranked house or above to arrive at the de Bosch estate.
The gathering place was an imperial villa nestled among dense trees.
Leo had briefed me on this villa.
Apparently, a villa that had originally sat unused had been expanded with new construction.
The hasty expansion meant there were unfinished sections here and there.
Yet its exterior was magnificent, befitting an imperial annexe.
"Grand Duke of the North, Your Highness, and Marquis von Barth, Your Excellency, are arriving!"
A guard spotted our carriage and banner and called out. From inside the rattling carriage, I surveyed the scene outside.
Carriages stood lined up like a carriage park, each bearing its house crest on the side panel. So that's what a procession looks like.
I suddenly remembered something I had neglected to do back at the Barth estate. The carriage drew to a halt before the main gate of the villa.
Guards stood in formation along a red carpet that had been laid out.
"Well then."
"Oh my."
Daniela spoke with a trace of surprise. But she composed her expression almost immediately, adjusting it to suit her station. That's the Grand Duchess for you. No question about it.
I could have made myself and Daniela the centerpiece of this procession, but I had reconsidered. There was someone else who deserved to be the main figure in this entrance.
"Father-in-law, please walk ahead. We will follow behind."
"I — truly?"
"This is a place where one fights with propriety, is it not? And please, speak to me without formality."
"Ah, very well. Then I shall go first. S-son-in-law, Grand Duke?"
"Just call me whatever feels natural."
Son-in-law Grand Duke? If he's a Grand Duke, he's a Grand Duke. If he's a son-in-law, he's a son-in-law.
Marquis Roland stepped slowly out of the carriage. The tension was plain in his back as he descended.
When he set one foot, then two, onto the red carpet and began to walk forward, Daniela and I fell into step alongside him.
Music swelled, and the guards snapped to salute.
Daniela and I trod the red carpet at a measured pace. Leo, too, began following two steps behind us.
"May I move a little closer?"
"Of course. Naturally."
Daniela pressed herself against my side. Marquis Roland reached the door first, and the doorman pulled it open.
We slowed our pace further. Marquis Roland did not step inside; he waited for Daniela and me.
When at last Daniela and I reached the door, we entered the villa together with Marquis Roland. As the doors closed, the music faded quietly away.
Everyone who was coming must have already arrived.
But the contest of wills was only just beginning. Marquis Roland was visibly tense, and Daniela's hands trembled faintly — quite unlike how she had been inside the carriage.
There's no need to be that nervous.
"Which way should we go?"
"Your Highness, Grand Duke. Please follow us."
I addressed the servant first. Marquis Roland ended up falling in on my left. The irony.
On my left, Marquis Roland. On my right, Daniela with her arm linked through mine. It rather felt as though I'd been taken into custody by House Barth.
In reality, it was they who had been taken by me.
The rooms of the villa. Lavish décor, and dozens of golden lion statues.
"Needlessly gaudy."
"I — I heard the Crown Prince had them brought from the imperial palace."
"That fool. Understood."
At the far end of the villa's main hall, in the seat of highest honor, sat a lean, wiry man. I recognized that insufferable face.
A face I had wanted to forget but could not. Above all else, it was a face handsome enough to make even a man take notice.
If the people of the North embodied ruggedness and unrestrained vitality, the Crown Prince looked like the very archetype of refinement and elegance.
Standing beside him was the young lady of House de Bosch.
When we reached the far end of the hall, Marquis Roland was the first to kneel.
"What do you think you are doing?"
What do I think I'm doing? I was looking at the Crown Prince seated before me. Daniela glanced back and forth between me and the Crown Prince. Reading the room, no doubt.
Marquis Roland was the one left in the most awkward position of all.
Every so often he lifted his head, looking at me, then at the Crown Prince.
"It has been a while."
"What? It — it has been a while? Your manner is utterly without courtesy!"
"Did you not receive word?"
I received it. I had assumed the imperial family knew that an agreement had been drawn up between the imperial house and the North. Perhaps the Crown Prince had not been informed.
Let us consider the hierarchy of noble titles. If duke is the highest rank, below it descend marquis, count, viscount, and baron in that order.
The Crown Prince certainly held a position above the other nobles.
The agreement with the Emperor takes effect the moment I sign it. And it had been quite some time since I signed.
"Who holds the highest seat in this room?"
"What is this creature babbling about? Bow your head before your betters at once!"
Because the matter was complicated, it was possible the Crown Prince simply could not follow. The final point reached through the agreement with the Emperor.
The North's status is to be treated as that of an independent state, and its master, Wintergard, becomes the sovereign of a grand duchy.
In lieu of repaying nearly fifteen years of subsidies outright, an expression of intent to repay through indirect means.
But the moment independence is invoked and a grand duchy is named, the relationship with the Crown Prince becomes delicate.
The Emperor himself might not particularly mind.
Does the Crown Prince rank higher? Or does the sovereign of the Northern Grand Duchy?
It is a subject ripe for controversy.
"Leo. What are you waiting for?"
"Shall I have him removed?"
"Show that fool a lesson — no. I will go myself."
I walked up the steps with Daniela, step by deliberate step. I could see the fool seated in the high chair growing flustered.
With each step I climbed, the Crown Prince jabbed a finger at us and shouted.
"Stop them! At once!"
"Who dares bar the path of His Highness, Grand Duke of Wintergard!"
The guards rushed to move forward, but Leo's thunderous voice froze every one of them in place.
That hurt my ears. Don't shout like that right behind me.
The guards were a problem as well. When the Crown Prince gives an order, they should at least make a show of advancing, come closer.
That would create a proper standoff. The guards looked bewildered.
"I will give you all a lesson. Listen carefully."
"W-who do you think you are, lecturing whom!"
"Are you aware that the North has acquired a new status?"
The Crown Prince was avoiding my eyes, looking instead at the de Bosch girl standing behind me.
She appeared to know nothing of it either.
Was that not proof enough that communication within the imperial house had broken down entirely?
The Crown Prince is the one who will succeed the Emperor. Yet he has no real foothold in the Empire's affairs or its politics,
and the Emperor does not seem to regard the Crown Prince as particularly important.
In any case, the question of who holds the highest seat in this room is straightforward enough.
Who is the sovereign of an independent state?
What mattered was sovereignty and statehood.
"The North has declared independence as a grand duchy. The formal ceremonies and pageantry have yet to take place, but the North is now the Northern Grand Duchy. That is what I am saying."
"I — I have never heard such a thing. But what manner of insolence is this? Even so, the title granted by His Majesty the Emperor—"
"And what rights does that give you?"
The Crown Prince fell silent.
I placed my foot on the chair — between the Crown Prince's legs. I did not step on anything, of course, but I rested my hand on the back of the chair and looked down at him as though I were crushing him beneath my gaze.
"Your Highness, the Crown Prince—!"
"Stay where you are. The Grand Duke of the North is speaking."
"What did you say? Daniela. You!"
"You mustn't call her simply Daniela. It should be Her Grace, Grand Duchess Daniela."
A contest of wills was in full swing right beside me as well.
What mattered was sovereignty. Even if the Crown Prince raised objections later, there was nothing to be done about it. The relationship between a grand duchy and an empire is inherently ambiguous.
When two parties hold equivalent noble rank, determining who takes the seat of honor requires weighing several factors.
The one I placed foremost was this:
whether the sovereign authority of the territory one governs belongs, in principle, to the empire — or not.
And I, at this moment, was not merely the ruler of the North. I was the sovereign of an independent grand duchy. The master of a realm with its own sovereignty stands
at the same level as the Crown Prince.
"I have now become the sovereign of a grand duchy. How, then, could I possibly rank below you?"
"That — that is—"
"Surely you understand. If we stand at the same level, then between you and me, the one who should occupy the seat of honor is me."
"You speak nonsense. I am—"
"I know. Crown Prince. But I am the duke who governs a grand duchy — the position of an independent sovereign is only a step below the Emperor himself."
"I received no such notification."
That said, it does not mean the insolence on display here can simply be forgiven.
There is, in fact, the most traditional method of all for settling the question of who takes the high seat.
"Shall we duel? If you wish it, I will oblige."
"A duel!"
The most traditional — and the most decisive — method of settling the matter.
Come to think of it, this would not be the first duel, either.
I glanced sideways. The duel at the academy. The one that had brought humiliation upon Daniela.
"What say you? Settling it here and now would not be a bad thing."
"Ha! Very well. I accept that duel!"
The Crown Prince shot to his feet.
Everyone standing nearby began to look alarmed. The de Bosch girl, and Daniela as well.
But the most alarmed of all was, perhaps,
Marquis Roland — still kneeling on the floor.