Your Highness, The Lady You’ve Abandoned IS the Saintess!

After baking the cookies, I promptly went to the church which takes roughly 40 minutes of horse travel. It may be a mere abrupt visit to a rural church, but they said that I must still require to be escorted nonetheless.

I feel remorseful for having the knights to follow my whims. Sir knights, do feel free to partake on the cookies.

Selma and I were accompanied by a handful of them to the church, but they stopped right at the entrance upon our arrival. Apparently, there will be some issues in having the royal knights walk around the church’s premises.

The churchyard was teeming with roses and their varied colors were truly a sight to behold.

As we passed through its arch of roses, we entered the majestically-walled church and was guided promptly to the inner building, which was likely due to the prior notice of our visit.

The church has a residential area where the clergymen lives, which is usually only accessible to the church’s affiliates, but because I am acquainted with Reverend Robert who manages the building, I was always allowed to pass through.

We were led to a corner room on the 2nd floor of the residential building, and inside was Rev. Robert who greeted me with a smile.

‘Hello there, Aileen. I heard you were chosen as the Saintess. Late as it may, congratulations.’

Reverend Robert is twenty-four years old much like my older brother. He has slightly quirky dark brown hair, which I had never seen grow past his shoulder. According to him, any longer would’ve made it difficult to comb it properly. His eyes, which shared the color of his hair, gently narrowed, and after beckoning me to sit on the sofa, he prepared me a tea himself.

Incidentally, Selma was not allowed to enter the office so she was left to wait on the hallway.

‘So, why the visit today?’

‘Oh, I baked cookies, sir!’

I produced a pouch of cookies from my pocket and handed it over to him, then refreshingly surveyed the entire room. Mhm, Firman does not seem to be here. I wonder where is he?

As I was doing that, Rev. Robert seemed to have seen through my intention and let out a laugh.

‘Sir Adler is not here. I sent him for a short business, but I think he should be returning anytime now.’

‘H-How did you know I was looking for Firman, sir?’

‘I could easily tell with you fidgeting around so much. You are now in a relationship with him, I hear?’

Oh, my dear Firman; he seems to have told Rev. Robert about us too.

Rev. Robert may look like an amiable person at one glance, but he has always loved to tease me in the past. He is a person you ought to never give any funny ideas.

‘I say Adler really beat me to it. I wished to apply as a lover too.’

‘Again, sir, with those jests of yours.’

‘Oh, I am serious though.’

Rev. Robert opened the pouch of cookies with a smile.

‘What blunder of a decision for his highness to make. He broke his engagement with you so that he could be with a saintess, but to think that you will be the one chosen in the end.’

Truly, no information escapes Rev. Robert’s ears. He sits in the remote countryside at a considerable distance from the capital, yet he speaks of everything like he saw it happen.

‘About that, sir. Was it really fine for someone like me to be chosen?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I do not have any spectacular capabilities to merit it. My healing prowess is not so potent either. The reason for my selection still eludes me, sir.’

When I further added that I don’t even know what saintesses are, Rev. Robert rose to his feet and took a single book out of his shelf and handed it to me.

‘All the details about saintesses are written here.’

Examining the book’s cover, I exhaled in puzzlement.

I know this book. I mean, it’s the story of the nation’s founding, something all of the Lambert Kingdom’s citizens know, even the children. Certainly, this book tells about the saintesses, but conversely speaking, there is no information to be found other than what is written here.

—Saintesses,

Eight hundred years have passed since a woman henceforth to be referred to as one has first made her appearance.

It was in the midst of warring times, and the Lambert Kingdom, which was then a smaller kingdom at that time, was in a desperate situation where it lay vulnerable to the invasions of its neighbors.

At such a time, a lone woman appeared, who by offering her prayers to the gods, protected the kingdom with her powerful barriers and brought healing to the injured. Such was the beginning of saintesses.

There was no telling in the book as to what happened to that saintess afterward, only that the precious orb she offers her prayers to was the one to chose her successor, and how that had continued up to the present.

‘Saintess helps the country just by being there. There is no need for you to think so deeply about it.’

So you say, Rev. Robert, but the selection would’ve made much more sense to me if I ought to have had a strong healing capability to be chosen for it, or maybe if I obtained any marvelous ability after, but nothing of sort has changed in me at all. Not only that, there are more candidates with stronger healing abilities than me too. Would it really be alright to just be there, which is to say, for me to idle around, and do nothing?

‘It’s alright. There is no war in this day and age, so there’s no need for you to specifically do anything.’ 

Seeing as though I’m not convinced, Rev. Robert, looking troubled, reiterates himself. I took a sip on the tea he personally prepared for me and furtively sighed.

I mean, it is not really in my character to say things like, I’m the saintess! I will pray for the kingdom’s peace!—or something like that, and quite frankly, I am not so much of the charitable kind as to travel around the country and pray for the peace of people whose faces I have never even met. In fact, I would feel bothered if I was required to do so, but neither would it be any better for me to not be expected of anything at all.

I was only planning to stay in the duchy until the fanfare cools down, then return to the capital, but now I wonder what I should do after that.

If Firman agrees with it, I could just promptly marry him and spend my days raising our future children while awaiting his day-to-day return. Leisurely growing old like that doesn’t seem so bad at all.

When I was still engaged to Maynard, I thought that ‘this person is a little amiss in the head, so I need to straighten myself as his queen,’ but Firman seems like a dependable man enough and broadminded too, so I don’t feel the same need to be firm in his care. The only thing that makes me a little regretful is the eighteen years’ worth of blood and tears I spent in my queen’s education.

Mhm, this is quite the strange inner conflict of wanting something that isn’t here. Maybe I will get used to it eventually, and soon it will trouble me no longer.

After having tea with Rev. Robert, I waited for Firman’s return to hand him the cookies, then went my way, agonizing myself on the way home.