Elfrieden Historical Idiom Lessons: Number 3
“Attack a Castle with a Battleship”
Type: Figure of Speech
Meaning: Doing a thing that no one had ever thought of before.
Origin: During the One Week War, when King Souma attacked the rebellious Castor’s castle, he employed the unusual strategy of using a battleship on land to win.
Synonyms: “Copernican Revolution,” “Egg of Columbus”
Chapter 7: Sacrifice the Plum Tree to Preserve the Peach Tree
— 1st Day, 10th Month, 1,546th Year, Continental Calendar — Red Dragon City.
It was the morning following the battle where wyverns had flown through the skies and battleship cannons had roared.
Liscia and I were eating breakfast with Castor’s daughter Carla in the governmental affairs office at Red Dragon Castle.
Aisha stood behind the exhausted Carla, her hand ready on the hilt of her great sword, as if to say, “If you make any suspicious moves, I am prepared to cut you down at any time.”
It occurred to me that Aisha was still my “self-proclaimed bodyguard.” Given her accomplishments in the battle for Red Dragon City, I thought it might not be a bad idea to formally create a title like Captain of the King’s Personal Guard for her.
…Well, it could wait until after the war.
Having captured Castor Vargas and taken control of the Air Force, we were staying in Red Dragon City while we waited for the Air Force to gather. Right now, Hakuya, who had arrived after the battle, and Tolman must have been busy calling up those who had yet to respond and organizing those who had already gathered.
I’d had Castor shipped back to the capital along with a number of rebellious wyvern cavalry.
They would have only gotten in the way if we had brought them all with us, and Castor was wearing the slave collar. That collar had a spell attached that would make it tighten if he did anything untoward, and in the worst case would decapitate him. As long as he wore that slave collar, no one would try to seize him during the transfer.
Incidentally, Castor’s daughter Carla was the only one I’d had stay here, and I was keeping her close at hand. That was because I figured having a visible hostage would help to nip any unwanted resistance from the Air Force in the bud. I had a slave collar on her, too, and Aisha was keeping a watchful eye on her from behind, so she probably wouldn’t be able to do anything she shouldn’t.
I didn’t know if it was because of that, but her violent temperament from yesterday was all but gone, and Carla was resolutely silent. To make up for her taciturn friend, Liscia was being even more talkative than usual.
“Carla may not look it, but she’s actually the caring type,” she said. “She has a lot of integrity, so no matter how much she dislikes something, she’ll always help out when she’s asked. I think she’s a great girl.”
I said nothing.
Everything she said was all about selling me on Carla’s virtues. She had been talking about nothing but Carla’s many charms as a woman for a while now.
We were sitting in the office of the man who had been the enemy commander until yesterday, eating boxed meals we had brought from Parnam (this having been enemy territory up until yesterday, I was being careful not to get poisoned), while my fiancée and future primary queen recommended that I take the daughter of an enemy general, who was now wearing a slave collar and sitting next to us, as a secondary queen. It was quite a bizarre scene.
By the way, to explain the difference between primary and secondary queens, in this country primary queens were those whose children had the right of succession, while those who did not were known as secondary queens.
It was possible to have any number of primary or secondary queens (ranking within the two categories would be expressed as 1st X Queen, 2nd X Queen… and so on), however, in order to become a primary queen, a woman had to be born to the gentry, nobility, or higher.
Conversely, any person of any class could become a secondary queen. If one didn’t care about appearances, even a slave could be made into a secondary queen.
“O-Oh, and you know what?” Liscia went on. “When Carla strips down, she’s got a killer body. Maybe you can’t tell when she has armor on, but she’s way more stacked than I am. Dragonewts are long-lived, too, so she’ll always be young.”
“What are you saying, Liscia?!” Carla suddenly burst out.
It seemed that once Liscia started spilling the details on her proportions, even Carla wasn’t going to be able to stay quiet. And yet, Liscia snapped back at her, even angrier than Carla was.
“Carla, just be quiet! Hey, Souma, Carla’s an attractive woman…”
“…Liscia,” I said that in a somewhat stern tone, making Liscia inhale sharply and then go quiet. When I saw that worried look on her face… it hurt my heart. I didn’t want to make her look like that. I scratched the back of my head vigorously. “Liscia, I can see what you’re thinking. But have you properly considered the risks?”
She went silent.
No primary queen would ask her king to take a secondary queen. Yet Liscia, the 1st Primary Queen, was eagerly suggesting that I take Carla as my secondary queen, because she was trying with all her heart to save her.
The officers and soldiers of the Air Force who had followed Castor were under suspicion of participating in the rebellion, regardless of whether they had taken part in the battle or not. But of course it wouldn’t be possible to punish all of them as rebels, and so, formally, I was going to have to treat them as “having only acted under the orders of the General of the Air Force, Castor, and a number of high ranking officers,” under the condition that they come under the command of the Forbidden Army.
Because of that, Castor would have to bear responsibility.
As Castor’s daughter, and having taken part in the fighting herself, it was seen as a certainty that Carla would face the same judgment as her father when the war was over. As things stood, their execution seemed inevitable.
Because Liscia thought that, she was trying to push Carla into the royal harem.
In this country, the king had a lot of power. In principle, there was supposed to be an independent judiciary, but if the king exercised his powers, it was possible to shield a criminal from prosecution. Liscia was trying to convince me to like Carla so that I would work to keep her from going on trial. But that… was not something that should be done lightly.
“Where might is master, justice is servant,” I said. “If a king doesn’t uphold the law, the people the law protects will lose their respect for that king. If we don’t act logically, we ourselves will pay the price for it later. You must understand that, right, Liscia?”
“Well, yes… But…”
Of course, I was sure Liscia knew that. Still, she couldn’t let her friend go without saying something. Honestly… being a king was such an unpleasant role.
“Still, I…” Liscia began.
“Liscia, there’s no need to beg for my life,” Carla said as Liscia was still searching for the words. “You sent letters again and again, asking us to pledge our allegiance, yet we chose to refuse. I followed my father knowing this could happen if we lost. I’m only getting what I deserve. I consider myself to be a warrior. Now that it has come to this, I will not regret losing my life.”
Carla seemed to have already come to terms with her fate. I felt like I could understand why she and Liscia were so close. Her personality was similar to Liscia’s, earnest and stubbornly unyielding once she made up her mind. That was why all I could do was sigh.