Volume 5 - CH 2.04

On the day after Dimitar and Valeria went into the royal villa with fictitious identities, the queen left Gloom in the early morning. Naturally, she wasn’t noticed by the town’s residents. It might be several days later that they’d learn of the queen’s return to Roma.

In accordance with the king’s instructions, they limited the number of people in the party as much as possible. There were only five maids to take personal care of the queen, and the rest were about ten men for carrying luggage. Adding Dimitar’s party, it was a party of about twenty people in all. A decent caravan was much bigger than their household, so from an outsider’s perspective, it most likely looked like a short trip of a moderately wealthy woman from somewhere.

「—Surely no one will think this is the queen’s party」

Surveying the party, which was taking a short break in the shade of the trees along the highway in the tranquil rural landscape, Valeria was nodding contentedly for some reason.

「We probably should be careful of thieves at the most… though there might not be any either」

The blueness of the sky and the whiteness of the flock of sheep, which was bleating on the green meadow that could be seen in the distance, drew a refreshing contrast. It seemed that the young girl, who was ignorant of the ways of the world, assumed that bad people wouldn’t appear often in such a peaceful place.

Coming and going on the highway right beside her were travellers heading towards Gloom, travellers leaving Gloom and merchants—in any case, the traffic was heavy. The ones that would do an act like attacking the party here would surely be thieves who were very pressed for money.

「—Don’t be too far away from the queen」

Dimitar whispered into the ear of Valeria, who was breathing deeply, and then called out to the party to have them begin preparations for departure.

Dimitar’s party, which had succeeded in establishing contact with the queen secretly, pretended to be people from the House of Saforcada, which was the distant relative on Almudena’s mother’s side of family, and were introduced to the people of the royal villa on that day.

At the same time, Duke Bermudez announced that the queen would return to Roma incognito, and that Dimitar’s party would take charge of being the party’s guards. That nobody raised any voice of objection to that in particular seemed to be because when Almudena returned home to Gloom from Roma, people along the route would come gathering no matter where they went because they had prepared an exaggerated procession and dealing with them had been difficult, but most importantly, it was due to a justifiable reason, which was to not trouble the convalescent queen.

At the very least, the people of the party were currently following Dimitar’s instructions. Although he thought he’d incur their ill feelings because he was young, the status of the queen’s distant relative seemed to have exhibit a tremendous effect to the ordinary people as expected.

Dimitar looked into the carriage that the queen and Valeria had got on.

「Queen-sama, may we depart?」

「I’ll leave everything to you. I’ll be having a chat with Her Eminence, after all」

「That’s fine, I guess. …Then, Your Eminence, I’ll leave Her Highness in your care」

「U, understood」

Perhaps she was trying to match the conversational exchange of Dimitar and the queen, Valeria straightened her back, put on airs and bowed slightly, which wasn’t like her. If her mood was always as calm as this, it’d be easy for Dimitar to do his job, but as long as it wasn’t a situation where an aristocrat was next to her, he probably couldn’t demand that of this girl.

The wagon that the maids had got on was lined up in the front, and the large wagon that was loaded with the male labour and luggage was lined up in the rear, in a way that the queen’s carriage was placed between them; Dimitar alone straddled a horse and was watching the whole party while moving to the front and rear of it. Realistically thinking, for Dimitar to be watchful by himself, a party of this extent was the limit.

Considering the queen’s physical condition, they should move as slowly as possible, and sleeping outdoors was out of the question. It was better to expect that it’d take five days or more to reach Roma.

Opening a map on horseback, Dimitar bit at a jerky. There probably wouldn’t be time for Dimitar to eat calmly in the future for a while.