Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [317]
The story had piqued Mitsuru’s interest, and he fully intended to get to the bottom of this Sigdora thing when he traveled north.
Adju Lupa was a card-carrying member of Sigdora, Mitsuru was certain. And he was no mere operative but one of its leaders. Yes, the emperor had welcomed Mitsuru to his city, most likely an honest gesture, but that did not mean he was not wary of his guest. Especially now that the emperor had him waiting. It made perfect sense to deploy a skilled and trusted man to shadow him during his stay.
“The lady requests your presence in the gazebo of the Garden of Victory for some afternoon tea, should it please you,” Adju Lupa announced politely.
The lady of whom he spoke was the eldest daughter of the emperor. Should nothing unfortunate occur, once the current emperor passed away, she would ascend to the throne as Gama Agrilius VIII, the first female emperor in the north.
But Mitsuru knew that her path to the throne would not be an easy one. The residents of the Crystal Palace were nothing if not talkative. Rumors and whispered secrets were as common as mice in a manger. And the worst of the gossips were easily manipulated—few seemed to realize that the locks on their mouths were loose, nor how important the treasures they let slip between the lips actually were.
“Thank you. I shall gladly accept her ladyship’s offer,” Mitsuru replied. He put on a long woven robe that reached to his ankles and made his way across the Crystal Palace grounds.
The Crystal Palace was surrounded by several lush green gardens. Each of them had been arranged in a different fashion, and each had its own name. The majority of them were built to commemorate the births of important members of the Imperial Family over the years, these being given names of unclear provenance, such as the Garden of Origins, or Garden of the Spring of Service.
The Garden of Victory had been built three hundred years before when Gama Agrilius I established his unified empire after a protracted political struggle that spanned the entire northern continent. The garden was built on top of a platform that once supported heavyweight artillery. Wood and bricks from a historic fort had been used to build a memorial gazebo. This structure stood in the garden but still maintained its fierce, martial appearance.
Despite its wartime history and severe architecture, Lady Zophie was fond of this garden above all others. This was no less than the fourth time he had received an invitation to tea at this gazebo.
Most of the greenery in the Garden of Victory was shrubbery resistant to the wind and cold typical of the north. Like the other gardens in the Crystal Palace, it was rather drab. There were some high points, such as the former empress’s personal gardens, and the rose garden known as the Garden of Revelations. Yet, for some reason, Lady Zophie appeared to favor this desolate corner. Mitsuru remained baffled as to why.
Furthermore, the Garden of Victory was in perhaps the farthest spot from the Crystal Palace one could go without leaving the grounds. Mitsuru rode out on an animal called a paho, which was similar to a pony in the real world. The lady’s preferred mode of transport, on the other hand, was a contraption that looked much like a rickshaw. It occurred to Mitsuru that perhaps Zophie’s fondness for this garden was not actually for the garden itself but for her rickshaw—arranging meetings out here was little more than an excuse to go for a ride.
Or perhaps it’s that she has a fondness for the fellow who pulls the rickshaw?
The servant in question was a ruddy-faced lad without rank or title—he wasn’t even a soldier, let alone an Imperial Guard. He was not allowed to wear arms or armor of any sort, only a simple tunic that bore the crest of the sun, the symbol of the Empire. After delivering his lady to the Garden of Victory, he