Chapter 30
IV.
By the time the two finally left the inn, it was already well past noon.
Since the place they had stayed was the village closest to the capital, it hadn’t been long after mounting their horses when Violet and Aldrick reached the city gates leading into the capital.
Looking up at the tall and thick walls that surrounded the capital’s borders, Violet felt slightly daunted.
Having only ever lived in small cities and countryside villages, the capital felt overwhelmingly vast to her.
Even the large cities they had passed through on the journey with Aldrick had exhausted her with their sheer size. So she couldn’t even begin to imagine how enormous and bustling the royal capital would be.
After having their identities checked by the city guards at the gates, Violet entered the capital and looked around with wide, astonished eyes.
“Aldrick, have you ever been to Mallo before?”
“Only during dispatch ceremonies. And briefly when returning. Then I went straight back to Saint-Lour.”
“The capital really is different… It’s so big, I can’t even grasp how big.”
The streets of the capital were paved with smooth stones throughout, with no distinction between the areas where commoners lived and the main roads.
In most rural territories, only the area around the lord’s castle would be paved like this, and in many cases, the roads were simply dirt.
Violet marveled at every little thing.
And then she suddenly wondered. Where would she and Aldrick be staying here in the capital?
“Aldrick, are we staying at an inn here too?”
“No. We’re staying at a colleague’s house here in the capital. Just until the investiture ceremony is over. You remember the witness from our wedding?”
“Oh, that person.”
She couldn’t recall his face, but she remembered his presence. He had certainly seemed to be a knight like Aldrick.
“He has a house in the capital?”
“Yeah. He’s from the central nobility. You can just call him Lambert. Count Simon Lambert.”
“Central nobility?”
“Yeah.”
Violet was a bit taken aback. Visiting a noble’s mansion in the capital right after arriving—it was too sudden.
It seemed her young husband still didn’t quite know how to distinguish the importance and priority of things.
“You should’ve told me if that was the plan from the start!”
Violet spoke as if ready to swat Aldrick on the back.
Nobles who lived in the capital—the central nobility—were considered the truest of the noble class.
Only families with wealth, power, and long-standing traditions were permitted to reside in the capital.
To think such a high-ranking noble was simply called a colleague and had even served as the witness to their rather miserable wedding… Violet felt a bit dumbfounded.
And just look at the state they were in now.
“I don’t even have a proper dress. And you don’t look much better either.”
“He’s someone who rolled around the battlefield with me, and he’s not the type to fuss over formalities. That guy owes me at least five lives.”
But Violet’s expression didn’t ease easily. Seeing her like that, Aldrick added another thing to soothe her.
“Let’s figure out how to get some clothes before the ceremony. The Count really is a close friend of mine, so you don’t need to worry too much.”
Hearing the word friend eased her mind just a little, but the feeling of being overwhelmed didn’t go away so easily.
Was she just scared because it was all so sudden?
She had only heard rumors, but Violet knew just how proud and strict with etiquette capital nobles were known to be.
She couldn’t help but worry. Would such people look down on or ridicule her and Aldrick, who had come from the countryside?
Violet decided to think as positively as she could.
‘Right, I’m the daughter of a barony too.’
…Well, even if I’m illegitimate.
‘Still, at least half of me has noble blood.’
Even if I did grow up in terrifying poverty… Ugh…
…All completely useless facts.
Violet wasn’t normally the type to care too much about other people’s eyes. But arriving in such a grand and splendid capital made a creeping sense of inferiority rise up inside her.
By the time they arrived at Count Lambert’s mansion, Violet had just barely regained a bit of her usual cheerfulness.
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