Hortensia (2024)

Hortensia (オルタンシア, Orutanshia) is a Sovereignty archnoble formerly of Klassenberg and the first wife of the Sovereignty Knight's Order Commander Raublut.^[2] She has recently been assigned to the Royal Academy Library.^[4]

Hortensia appears to be in her forties and has light-blue hair.^[4]

Hortensia shows the same kind of gentle demeanor as Eglantine, and according to Solange, is a true bookworm likely to get along very well with Rozemyne.^[4]

Hortensia was originally born in Klassenberg, but managed to be recruited into the Sovereignty, where she became a scholar retainer to the king's second son Prince Waldifried. Her duties were mainly to care for the governmental documents and the bookshelves in the prince's villa, giving her a familiarity with several of the kind of magic tools employed by actual libraries. At the time, Hortensia was entirely devoted to her job and considered marriage inconsequential.
Only days after the king's death, the villa of the second prince was visited by his older brother, but instead of a friendly visit, the first prince slaughtered Waldifried and his entire family, sparing only the retainers and servants and sparking off the civil war.
The loss of her master also saw Hortensia lose her sole purpose, and she didn't see a reason to live anymore. The at the time Aub Klassenberg introduced her to the third prince. She became his retainer and was charged with cleaning out the villa of her former master, but soon after, the third prince died too, only days after he defeated and killed the first prince, and Hortensia came to serve the fifth prince Trauerqual.

With the two leaders of the civil war faction dead, their followers congregated behind the two remaining princes. Those of the second and third prince rally behind the fifth prince. To strenghten the bonds between the newly assembled retainers, Aub Klassenberg suggested that Hortensia and Raublut marry, which they both accepted out of duty. Hortensia has no feelings toward her husband, but at the time was just glad to be given another duty to fill the void that the death of her former master left in her.

To her frustration, she was never able to give Raublut a child, and thus felt she failed her duty as a wife. When she was asked to become a librarian at the Royal Academy, she was greatly relieved and happy to finally have a duty she could fulfill to royal family and her husband. She arrived at the Royal Academy two days before the start of classes in Rozemyne's third year at the Royal Academy.^[3] Her duties, apart from being a librarian, are to unlock the closed-stack archive only accessible to archnoble librarians, so the royal family can look for clues to find the lost original transcription of the Grutrissheit, to take ownership of the magic tools Schwartz and Weiss for the Sovereignty, and to keep a close eye on Lady Rozemyne, to see how loyal she is to the crown.

Part 5 Volume 1

On her initial tour of the library, she tells Solange about her tragic past, but reassures her that not all her memories are sad, which Solange returns in kind.When she learns that only a guardian of knowledge can get the key to enter the room in which the previous archnoble librarians stored the keys to the closed-stack archive, she decides to become a guardian too.

As instructed by Solagne, she inscribes the words of the ancient contract on the base of Mestionora's statue. When she completes this, the words float away from the base and are sucked into the part of the statue that resembles the Grutrissheit. A moment later, a key appears out of thin air and drops onto the socket of the statue. Solange urges her to pick it up, and when Hortensia does so, the key is absorbed into her body like a divine will.^[3]

She is able to meet with Lady Rozemyne on the first day of classes and gets registered with the pair of shumils, but is only a secondary master for the time being. Only when the amount of her mana inside the pair surpasses that of Rozemyne, will she become the primary master, but since Solange filled them up from a feystone with Rozemyne's mana the day before Hortensia arrived, this will take some time.

When Solange suggests to once again hold a tea party for bookworms this year and explains what it is, she is happy to join.^[4]

Ultimately, it is Princess Eglantine, who hosts the bookworm tea party in her and Prince Anastasius' royal villa. At the party, Hannelore tries to apologize for accidentally becoming the master of Schwartz and Weiss for a short time, but Anastasius tells her to not worry, since the fault lies with the library for not informing her. To this, Hortensia explains that she never expected the students to come to the library often enough for it to matter so early in the year, and thus was too slow to inform Hannelore on time. Rozemyne wonders how this could happen in the first place, and the new librarian explains that she had to prioritize other magic tools over the shumil, which Anastasius points out was at the request of the royal family. Since the matter involves the members of the library committee, she further explains to the students that she was tasked with taking ownership of the three archnoble librarian keys to enter the restricted archive they opened, but after dyeing the second key, she found that she had lost ownership of the first. To enable the royal family to enter the archive, they request that Rozemyne and Hannelore also take ownership of one key each, and to not overburden them, the mana supply for the shumil would be done only by Hortensia, Solange, and Hildebrand.

Hildebrand is rather sullen about being left out, but Rozemyne is only too eager to accept this. She is disappointed to be forbidden from entering the archive itself, but is promised that she'll be allowed to read any document and book found inside that is deemed safe for her to read.^[5]

Part 5 Volume 7

In the next summer, she is summoned back home by her husband between and hasn't returned to the Royal Academy library since, not even when the new semester begins. At the time she sent word that she doubted she'd return to the library "any time soon" and has fallen completely out of contact since then. It is only from her husband that the academy is informed of her falling ill and being unable to perform her duties this year.^[6]

Part 5 Volume 9

It is later revealed that Raublut killed Hortensia, when she became a risk to his plans. He uses her death as an excuse to gain entry to her room in the library under the excuse of retrieving her belongings and uses her feystone to open the door.^[1]

Attendants

• Edelina - The retainer chosen by Hortensia to take along to the Royal Academy, where she is allowed only a single retainer at a time, when she starts working at the Royal Academy Library.^[3]
• Dirmira - A long serving attendant and close friend, she takes along as her royal academy attendant, once the official term is over.^[7]

• Following the flower theme naming of Klassenberg females, Hortensia means hydrangea in French and German.