The Emperor and the Knightess

‘What if Pol never comes back? What will I do?’

Poliana promised him to return before she left. At the time, Lucius the First believed her, but now, he couldn’t get rid of the ominous feeling growing inside of him. Something didn’t feel right. He was missing something very important.

The auditor he sent to check up on Poliana sent him a report as soon as he returned to Yapa. The report was short and concise.

Nothing significant to note.

Lucius the First immediately summoned Momo. The emperor needed much more detail, but Momo had nothing more to say.

“There wasn’t anything special to that place.”

“But this doesn’t make sense.”

“I already sent you a detailed audit report.”

“All you said was ‘Nothing significant to note!’ That can’t be all!”

Momo was acting rebellious to the emperor’s annoyance. The state of Sitrin’s financial state wasn’t what the emperor wanted to know. Lucius the First was desperate to learn how Poliana was doing. There was a reason why the emperor sent Momo on this mission.

For some reason, Poliana and Momo got along very well from the beginning. Momo was already married with a child, which was why Lucius the First thought he could trust him with Poliana. In the past, Momo and Poliana used to gossip for hours at a time, so the emperor knew that they would chat excitedly when they are reunited.

But the report Momo made was too short and simple. It looked like a daily report the knights of the guards made.

“Nothing happened, your highness, so if you keep asking me if something happened… There is nothing I can tell you other than the fact that nothing happened…”

Momo was clearly being defiant to the emperor. Has he always been this brave and stubborn? Perhaps the fact that he lost his job as a scribe made him a little bitter towards the emperor. Momo refused to say a word about what he saw in Sitrin.

Lucius the First, feeling weak, asked Momo where he learned this bad habit of writing such a short and lazy report. Momo explained to the emperor what happened when they were in the southern region during the war.

After Lucius the First received the surrender from the southern kingdoms, every government official, especially the scribes, had to work day and night. The surrender papers were complicated and required a lot of attention, which meant that there weren’t enough royal scribes to shadow the emperor constantly to record Lucius the First’s day. In the end, the scribes had no choice but to ask the royal guards for a favor. There were always a number of guards staying by the emperor’s side, so it should not have been a difficult job. At the time, Poliana was the person given this duty. At first, she did her best to write in detail, but soon, she was too busy with her own work and became too lazy to make constant notes. In the end, she dumped the work to her second in command, who in turn, gave the job to his subordinate. As the job became passed around, the records became shorter and shorter.

When the scribes returned to their job, they saw pages after pages of “Nothing significant to note.” The scribes, especially Momo, never forgot this tragic and angry incident. From then on, the scribes made a point of using the sentence “Nothing significant to note” everywhere they could.

Soon, the scribes realized that this made their job so much easier. They still wrote many details for official documents, but on everything else, it became a common practice to write this sentence.

Momo said to the emperor, “The marquess is enjoying her vacation, spending much of her time in the hot springs to cure herself of chronic fatigue. She also is keeping herself very busy with the running of her land. Marquess Winter has never run her own land before, so she told me she is learning a lot lately. Other than that, she is making sure to spend most of her free time in the hot spring. She used to never listen when we told her to take care of herself, but now, she was complaining that she doesn’t feel like she used to. Cold wind makes her bones ache, so she told me she will return to Yapa when she feels better.”

“So what I want to know is when that would be.”

“Umm…”

Momo tried to remember how long it took his wife to return to her normal life after the birth of their child. If he remembered correctly, it took a very long time. Poliana, a woman who would need to work as a knight, would probably require even more time to recover.

Momo replied, “Maybe 3 years?”

“How can the head of a division be absent for 3 years?!”

“It’s not like she has anyone to protect in the lady’s quarters anyway.”

Momo remained calm while Lucius the First couldn’t hide his anxiety. He has been ignoring the official demand to get married as soon as the royal death period ended. At this point, the emperor could not imagine having a wife other than Poliana. He has been waiting for her return so desperately, yet it seemed that she had no plans to come back any time soon.

Things became even worse after Lucius the First had a bad dream last night. In his dream, he heard a puppy barking adorably. The emperor ran towards the sound and saw a puppy caught in a bush and crying.

‘Oh, he’s trapped.’

Lucius the First immediately got to work to cut the branches off, but before he could rescue the puppy, a giant alligator-dog creature attacked the puppy.

It was a nightmare.

After dismissing Momo, the emperor contemplated in despair. His friend Sir Ainno has been too busy to pay attention to him. Duke Luzo, after yelling his objection to the emperor’s marriage to Poliana, returned to Nanaba. Lucius the First had no one around him to listen to his worries.

Only

It would be going too far for him to place a permanent spy in Sitrin just to get information on Poliana. Besides, the Intelligence Unit was short on spies at the moment anyway. Unfortunately, this unit was still very unorganized.

It took all the members of the Intelligence Unit to gather information necessary for the security of this kingdom. It wouldn’t look right to send one of the spies to Sitrin. The knights would believe that the emperor was wary of Marquess Winter, or they might think that the emperor was trying to get rid of her. Such thoughts could turn into ugly rumors, which, in turn, might result in something very harmful.

Most of all, it didn’t feel right to hire a spy to check up on the woman he loved. It actually sounded rather criminal to do something like this.

‘If I do this, it would make me a stalker.’

Lucius the First had no choice but to trust Poliana and wait for her. As long as he allowed it, Poliana promised to remain his knightess.

And a proper knight always returned to his or her emperor.

Lucius the First was happy and sad at the same time that Poliana was his knight.