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Chapters
Chapter
eBook %
Physical
王宮
?%
p. 5
舞踏
?%
p. 61
曙光
?%
p. 255
希望のロマンス
?%
p. 281
あとがき
?%
p. 312
Discussion Rules
Discussing anything is fine, be it about language questions, about the contents or about real historic events! Please state clearly which chapter (or roughly which percentage) you’re referring to, and please hide spoilers. Also, don’t forget the forum etiquette, of course.
Buying the Book
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The book mentions a lot of real (as far as we know ) historical figures and events. Here are some information resources on them. (Please be aware that if you want to go in 100% blind, these lists will contain some spoilers for you)
Please add Chapter, Page, if possible, when something is mentioned in the story.
Anyway, I’ve started working on this book! It appears to be a short story collection, so I’ll post my thoughts here like I do with other F&B short stories. First up: 王宮!
So this first story is set sometime after volume 10 and sometime before chapter 2 (or so) of volume 11. Kaito POV, and he’s wandering around El Escorial alone, thinking dark thoughts and comparing the palace to a grave. He’s not doing well mentally in addition to physically (especially after that poisoning), and his wandering thoughts are only interrupted by the arrival of Vicente, Philip II, Alonso, and a priest. He joins the group and, hearing of the King’s insomnia, offers to tell him a story that “his mother heard from a Portuguese man”.
The story is essentially a small fable about Philip II’s father, Charles the V, and how he realized after meeting and talking with a common farmer that the common people don’t really benefit from from kings away on wars constantly, how that influenced him going forward, and how the current Spanish king being at home was preferable. (Apparently Kaito heard all this in some form or fashion in history class, which makes me wonder if this “king and the peasant” tale is actually a thing?) Philip II enjoys the story, and tells Kaito he’d like to hear others in the future if he needs to relax to sleep. I’m hoping further short stories in the book are Kaito telling these tales to Philip II; I’d love an Arabian Nights-esque little setup!
Overall a pretty good story; it didn’t really cover much new ground (the beginning, with Kaito off moping by himself being the worst offender here), but the latter half I quite enjoyed. The next story, 舞踏, appears to be a whopping 194 pages long, so I’m quite excited to see what it will contain.
So if the next two stories are like these first two, this is looking like it should be a collection of short stories set during Kaito’s time in Spain, perhaps more specifically El Escorial. I don’t have any particular time period to pin this story beyond “after volume 10 and before v11c2” so far, and Kaito is our narrator again.
舞踏 starts off super promisingly: Kaito’s watching Leo sword train with パチェコ, as Leo’s been enrolled in a military academy adjacent to El Escorial through Alonso’s recommendation. (If anyone can find out if this academy is real, I’d love to know! I did some searching but didn’t immediately find anything.) Kaito’s a bit nervous about Leo being bullied, especially since he hasn’t had much experience with kids his own age.
Leo tells him he’s learning swordplay, horse-riding, musketry, and…dancing! The latter of which Leo doesn’t see a point in, and is also being excluded from practice by his teacher because he doesn’t have a partner. Kaito immediately gets mad, remembering his own days of being ostracized at school, and vows to help Leo learn to dance! They’re going to go straight to Alonso, have him teach Kaito the steps, and then Kaito will reach Leo. …Except that Leo slows him down and tells them they need Vicente to make the actual help request to Alonso, which Kaito isn’t happy about.
It’s looking like we’re going to have callbacks to 遊戯, which is awesome, and this part one alone is full of great LeoxKaito friendship vibes, so I’m mega excited to pull Alonso and Vicente into the mix.
Edit: I forgot to mention how impressive it was how fluently Kaito was speaking in Spanish in this scene as well, haha.
Read a little bit of 舞踏 ch. 2 tonight; I am going to be immensely disappointed if Kaito doesn’t step up to be Vicente’s dance practice partner. There is no other reason for the man to not know how to dance.
Kaito swapping between both Spanish with Alonso and apparently perfectly serviceable Spanish with Leo is always hilarious to see. I enjoy him saying あろんそ amd れお and such, haha; great way to show a thick accent.
Finishing 舞踏 ch. 2: They get started on the dance lessons, Alonso unfortunately being Vicente’s partner (there’s still time!!). Kaito is apparently having regular meetups with the king after the events of last story in order to tell him stories before bed. Vicente and the King learn a little bit about Kaito’s cross-dressing from the story 遊戯, though Kaito mentions that he and Geoffrey later had to help solve some incident with the Russian ambassador and one of Elizabeth’s lady attendants; I don’t remember that happening, so I wonder if it’s in another side story?
Anyway, Vicente is not enthusiastic about learning to dance at all, but Kaito rallies him, convincing him not to let Leo down.
舞踏, ch. 3: Finally, back to the dancing! Alonso’s brought in some musicians to play for them, and he and Kaito are ready to show Vicente and Leo what a pair of professional dancers can do! Kaito and Alonso have a great time; Alonso tries to get Vicente to consider dancing with Kaito, but that stick in the mud refuses. :< Ah well, I got an unexpectedly nice picture of Alonso and Kaito dancing, which I never anticipated.
舞踏, ch. 4: Kaito and Vicente are taking a walk in the monastery gardens, where they’re cultivating some new world crops, most notably tomatoes. Kaito’s pretty eager to chomp down on one, to Vicente’s horror; the tomato is known as “the devil’s apple”, apparently, and is suspected of being poisonous. (Note: this might be one of 松岡先生’s few slip-ups: apparently, the potato was historically known as the devil’s apple, not the tomato, but I don’t blame her for mixing those up.) Kaito, of course, happily ignores Vicente and eats one, causing Vicente to panic. Kaito manages to calm him down and has Vicente try one, and Vicente ends up liking them!
Then we’re off to see the king and continue Kaito’s story of shenanigans with Geoffrey in the English palace. But first, Alonso shows up to their little gathering, the king having invited him (Vicente is not pleased, haha). Alonso’s managed to convince the king to also oversee the top student dancer selection in order to try to make it more fair for Leo. Alonso’s also apparently got something else up his sleeve, but won’t divulge the details early.
舞踏, ch. 4: Now I’m wondering if I misread that kind of tale Kaito was going to tell, or if we’re simply not done with it yet. We go back to when the short story 遊戯 took place, Kaito dressing up as one of Elizabeth’s handmaidens, Geoffrey picking him out, etc. when he, Geoffrey, and Nigel are leaving the palace, they meet some guy who supposedly works for the Earl of Oxford named Bernard Harris.
The three gossip about the guy after they leave, and begin to speculate that that may have been a fake name, possibly to cover up him meeting a lady friend. The chapter ends here, and it looks like we might (briefly?) jump back to the present, so I hope we get back to the tale.
舞踏, ch. 5: Okay, we are indeed continuing with Kaito’s story, it’s just being chopped up over several nights.
One of Elizabeth’s handmaidens has gone missing since the night of the party, and the Queen asks Geoffrey to help look for her. Geoffrey manages to get Kaito added to the deal, and they decide to go to Kent to talk to the girl’s mother.
Kaito ends that night’s section there and everyone leaves for bed; the big dance is coming up, so Vicente’s pretty focused on practicing still in what little time there is left. Come oooon, dance with Kaito!
舞踏, ch. 6: This was a really short chapter! One of the nobles at the palace wants to interfere with the dance competition, probably to make sure Leo doesn’t win, so he sends the king a note saying not to worry, he’ll be helping out and they’re gonna move the competition up a day so the king doesn’t need to show up. Kaito pretty easily spots a way to turn the tide back in their favor and has Alonso point out to the king how this dude is telling him what to do. The king, of course, doesn’t take this likely, and finishes all his work double-time to make sure he can still attend.
So now we’re on to the final part of our story-within-a-story, where Kaito and Geoffrey attempt to hunt down Elizabeth’s missing handmaiden.
舞踏, ch. 7: Wait, what? That’s where the story ends? Okay, that really took me by surprise, haha; I guess I was under the impression that the stories in this book were less cohesive and more of a short story collection, but no, this pretty much means I need to be treating this as one cohesive book for record-keeping purposes. Hmmm…
Anyway, this whole chapter is Kaito and co. investigating the missing lady and the mysterious Lord Marston. I won’t recount all the details here, but it turns out he’s a childhood sweetheart of hers, and she essentially ran away to be with him. Kaito’s got a scheme cooked up to get Elizabeth to let the two marry, but the story ends right before we get to that. What an awkward place to end it…
Anyway, I suppose we’ll have to wrap up this storyline + the Spain dance storyline in the next story, 曙光, which was the original final story in this volume. The bunko release added one more, 希望のロマンス, so I’m quite curious on if/how it connects to the rest of the book.
曙光: WHAT. You’re telling me we’re not going to include the dance competition?! Why in the world not??? This is such a nice ending chapter otherwise; Kaito finishes his story, and he and the king take a walk and have a heart-to-heart. I loved the deeper look at Philip II here, and the ending sentences especially. I just don’t understand why we wouldn’t cover the dance competition. I want to see Kaito dance with Vicente.
One more story left in the (bunko) release of the book, still crossing my fingers…
) historical figures and events. Here are some information resources on them. (Please be aware that if you want to go in 100% blind, these lists will contain some spoilers for you)
Kaito immediately gets mad, remembering his own days of being ostracized at school, and vows to help Leo learn to dance! They’re going to go straight to Alonso, have him teach Kaito the steps, and then Kaito will reach Leo. …Except that Leo slows him down and tells them they need Vicente to make the actual help request to Alonso, which Kaito isn’t happy about. 
I enjoy him saying あろんそ amd れお and such, haha; great way to show a thick accent.
Kaito and Alonso have a great time; Alonso tries to get Vicente to consider dancing with Kaito, but that stick in the mud refuses. :< Ah well, I got an unexpectedly nice picture of Alonso and Kaito dancing, which I never anticipated.
What an awkward place to end it…