Episode 27 — A Knight Doesn't Want to Be Reinstated (5)
Set beside the royal houses of other nations, the bloodline of Pendragon's royal family was vanishingly thin.
Whether it was the dragon's blood in their veins, no one could say, but children came hard to them. Where the royalty of other kingdoms could count, at the least, on hundreds of kin and cadet branches, and sometimes on thousands, Pendragon's bloodline numbered ten souls in all. The comparison spoke for itself. Part of that scarcity, though, came of how strictly the house defined its own. Silver hair was the proof that one had received the Silver Dragon's blessing, and unless that proof could be shown, no one was permitted to bear the name Pendragon. Other royal houses might father children outside the marriage bed. Pendragon never could. And so, in a house where offspring were this precious, royal blood was always dear.
Perhaps that was why.
"If I think upon a knight's honor, then taking my own life would be unavoidable. And yet I bear the noble charge of preserving the blood of the royal house. A royal's duty, and a knight's honor. When those two weights are set upon the scale, how could I neglect the mission of the royal house? Therefore I cannot die!"
Lee Han said nothing.
"Thus, killing me can in no way be the righteous choice. Do not kill me, you lowborn!"
Still nothing.
"A-and I would ask you to stop threatening me with your fist as well..."
"...This little bastard is funny as hell."
He was begging for his life, and doing it with his chin up. It was infuriating, and the way he talked was practically asking for a fist, and at the same time it was funny. Arrogant, utterly without manners, and yet somehow not quite the sort of man you could bring yourself to hate. Was that the way to put it?
And so Lee Han passed a quiet sentence on the prince, who had nothing but his neck above the ground he was buried in.
"I'm not nice enough to spare the man who drew first."
Aren said nothing.
"Should've fixed that habit of yours. You have any idea how badly you startled my delicate little heart?"
Cold sweat ran down Aren's face, along with the ugly feeling that today might be the anniversary of his death.
"This doesn't look like something he's only done once or twice."
"Plenty of people picked fights with that bastard. More than one or two. And he holds a grudge like you wouldn't believe, so he's used to this sort of thing."
"...It's a wonder the ones he did it to never sent assassins."
"They sent plenty. The assassins all died, is all. And the ones who sent them ended up half-paralyzed. Can't even control their own bowels, I hear."
Jord said nothing.
He made himself a promise. Other people, maybe. That senior, never. He would not make an enemy of him. Not for anything.
Aren knew that saying so now would sound like an excuse. He had meant to threaten the man. He had never, not for a moment, meant to harm him.
"I-I only thought he was the usual sort of parasite, trying to cling to my sister— ah, no, to Her Highness the Crown Princess, the way they always do..."
"And why would you think that? Lee Han is a knight who received a proper invitation."
"B-because there was so much about him that didn't sit right! Demoted, and then in no time at all he makes a name for himself at the Academy...! Where would you find a man so suspicious?"
"To suspect him on that alone is a little..."
Jake was a pacifist beside Lee Han, and he had his share of respect for the royal house, but even he could not defend a case this thin. Aren saw Jake's face change and rushed on. If he failed to persuade this sane man, the monster with the shovel would bury him all over again.
"O-of course I didn't suspect him on that alone! I heard things! I tell you, I heard things!"
"Things?"
"Th-that he was a lawless man. That he looked down on the members without power and beat them whenever he pleased, and that even so he was desperate to tie himself to men of influence... that sort of thing."
Jake, listening, could hardly believe his ears. Lee Han, scorning the powerless, beating them at random, wagging his tail at the powerful?
Same name, different man?
That was the everyday behavior of the White Silver Lions' dime-a-dozen noble sons. It had nothing at all to do with Lee Han.
"And who was it that told you this?"
"...I cannot say. How could a man who is a knight sell out the name of a comrade!"
"...Then I'm afraid I can't help you either."
Jake's eyes slid sideways. What waited there was a beast, its gaze already murderous.
"Should I hit him another hundred times?"
"Please restrain yourself, Senior."
"Even like that, I doubt he'll open his—"
"Grr! I told you I cannot speak! How could I sell the names of Sir Baker and Sir Rieman! I absolutely will not!"
No one answered him.
"My lips are sealed! How could I possibly say that Sir Garmond spoke in much the same way...!"
"...Hm."
Jake felt roughly half his respect for royalty quietly leave him.
He really would have been better off keeping his mouth shut.
One thing, though, was clear.
He'll live a long time.
No sense to speak of, and a craven abundance of survival instinct. Jake had the distinct impression that this one was built to last.
"...What?"
Lee Han blinked at the explanation from the only friend he had in the knight order. He thought he must have misheard. He had not.
"Looks like the First Knight Order has decided you're a political enemy. Which is to say, the royalist faction has branded you a political rival. And the prince— sorry, the First Knight Captain— I think he was just used."
"A royal?"
"A royal with no power. And a major parachute hire on top of it. I doubt there are many people actually loyal to him."
"...Survival instinct's decent. Tact is complete garbage."
The world was fair, after all. Royal blood, a handsome face, and talent enough to make a knight—but it seemed to have confiscated tact and political sense from the prince in exchange. No wonder he was so easy to use.
Or is he just gullible and hot-blooded?
Either way, he had the fate of a man who ought to die young, and yet he clung so faithfully to his survival instinct that he would walk into crisis after crisis and still live a long time.
Genuinely entertaining idiot.
Lee Han decided the prince was too stupid to stay angry at, and put him out of his mind. In his place he asked the question that had been bothering him from the start.
"Why am I a political enemy...?"
The knight order had named him one. It didn't feel real. He had never touched them. He had never even taken an interest. So why, all of a sudden, was he supposed to answer to the title of political rival?
Jake met the question plainly.
"Because you stood out too much. I told you to ease off on the heroics."
He was saying, in short, that Lee Han had shown off.
"Ha... I could lose my mind."
Unlike the prince, Lee Han had some sense, and he understood his friend at once. What Jake meant was this: the White Silver Lions—no, the nobles of the palace—were wary of him. Why? Because he had accomplished too much, and he was rising entirely too well.
"Her Highness the Crown Princess summoning you was the finishing blow, but there were probably plenty of factions aiming at you before that. They just took this chance to take a poke."
"What did I even do?"
Lee Han was dumbfounded. He truly had done nothing. Even when there was merit to be had, he had hidden it and passed it off on other men, and he had lived the quietest knight's life he could manage. And now, because he had stacked a little credit, they were making him an enemy? What kind of bullshit was this?
"The problem was that you did nothing."
"?"
"Don't you get it? So long as you're in the White Silver Lions, you were supposed to choose. Support the royalists, or support the noble faction. You had to pick one of the two, and you picked neither. That's already more than enough to make them hate you, and on top of it your skill is outstanding. The nail that sticks out finally got the hammer."
"Goddamn it..."
"Yeah. It really is a goddamn mess. But what can you do? This is—"
The royal palace.
Jake gave a light shrug. Lee Han's eyes narrowed on their own. Marked because he had taken no one's side. What kind of moronic logic was that? If he did as he pleased, he would hunt every one of those knights down and beat them bloody.
"Endure it. Fighting them doesn't gain you much. If anything, those bastards want you to pick a fight. Anything to put a crack in your image."
Jake pressed him to hold back. He understood the anger. But this was a reputation hard won, and if Lee Han fought the knight order now, there was every chance that reputation would be rewritten as infamy. It was goodwill, a friend hoping his friend would not become infamous, hoping he would make the wise choice—
"I don't mind being infamous."
Jake had no answer.
"Baker and Rieman, was it? I'll start by wrecking those bastards."
"Ah..."
Only then did Jake remember. This man did not spare a thought for his own image, and he was the sort of beast who would leave everyone who came at him a complete cripple, station be damned. And he could already see how it would go.
There's no stopping him, is there...?
More than a few people would not be getting out of bed today.
"But, Princess!"
"You are to address me as Crown Princess."
"...Are those different?"
"...I cannot even count how many times I have explained this to you."
"Hehe, I'm sorry."
"...Haah. Very well."
Isis had been lenient with Layla Winter for a long time. She could hardly help it. There was not a scrap of cunning in the girl. If anything, Isis found it easier to deal with people who were sly and hid what they wanted. Facing someone as transparent and simple as Layla Winter was the harder task. A weakness, if it could even be called one. And so she could not quite bring herself to be angry, even when a woman who was only a maid misspoke. She was, in her own way, rather kind. If Isis had a single natural enemy in the world, it was surely the simple maid standing before her, the one whose braids suited her so well.
"What is it you wished to ask, that you called for me?"
"Hehe, it's nothing much... oh, what was I going to ask again?"
Isis waited.
"Oh, right! I just saw it and came. The knight was dragging your little brother off somewhere. Is that all right?"
"Little brother...? ...I see. You mean that dull thing."
One could ask how she forgot a brother so completely, but she remembered only those of excellent talent. She was not idle enough to spare attention even for a clown. Put the other way, she did remember the siblings who were excellent—because they were the ones whose throats she had cut, or whom she had shut away. Not drawing her interest was, in fact, the wise course.
"Hm. If he took that dull clown with him, then he must have had a reason. Indeed. Perhaps the clown was used, without even knowing he was being used."
"...?"
"...From time to time, I find myself wishing you were just a little wiser."
"Hehe."
"Haah..."
True to an insight sharp enough that one might suspect her of the Heavenly-Mile Eye, she produced, in a single breath, a guess that sat close to the truth.
The knight order must have egged the clown on.
It was obvious. The royal house's dignity was crawling on the floor, and so they had judged that they might toy with an Eighth Prince who had no claim on the succession and was, in practice, useless. Impudent wretches.
...What to do.
Tok. Tok.
Fingers so fine that the old praise—slender as jade—rose unbidden tapped against the teacup. To some eyes it would have seemed nothing more than an angel, or a fairy, sunk in lovely thought. Remember that people died whenever she fell to worrying like this, and the moment was anything but clean.
Thok.
"...Hmph. Now that I think of it, this is not a matter that requires worry."
There was no need for her to step forward. Of course not.
My sworn younger brother does not endure.
How would a great tiger abide the impudence of mangy dogs? Isis knew her sworn younger brother well.
And sure enough—
Knock, knock.
"Y-Your Highness! It is V-Verhen! I beg an audience, for I bear news that must be delivered at once. I pray you will forgive—"
"Enter. What matter brings the Head Chamberlain to my chambers at this late hour?"
"F-forgive me, Your Highness. It is n-nothing else, but... S-Sir Lee Han the knight is causing a disturbance as we speak. Because of this..."
"Not a disturbance. A duel, I should think."
"...Pardon?"
The Head Chamberlain had committed the irreverence of questioning her, but Isis decided to let it pass. Just for today. Was he not a rain in drought, putting a little life into a palace existence dull beyond bearing? She had resolved to be gracious, just for today.
"So. Has some problem arisen from the knights' legitimateduel?"
He did not answer at once.
Thirty-eight years of palace life. To have survived a royal court that was a demon's den was proof enough of ability, and the Head Chamberlain understood that Her Highness the Crown Princess had ordered him to cover this up. And so—
"...Ahem. Th-through a legitimate duel, a few injuries have occurred, but I-I do not believe there will be any great problem..."
He had realized he must, somehow, change this from an incident into a duel, and his hands would not stop shaking. Night duty, for the foreseeable future, was now a certainty. Isis was satisfied with the Head Chamberlain's wise answer, and she nodded.
"A regrettable affair. And how many were injured?"
"...Sixty-three from the First Knight Order. Seventy-two from the Second."
"The Second Knight Order?"
"They... they say they tried to stop it, and were pulled in themselves."
"Is that so. One hundred and thirty-five in all. Heheh. Quite the vigorous duel."
"...Your Highness."
This was not a matter to laugh away. Because of a single knight, one hundred and thirty-five of the White Silver Lion Knight Order's three hundred had been crushed. If word of it escaped, the scandal would be enormous. The Head Chamberlain's heart burned itself to cinders, but the pleasure on her face was plain, and all he could do was fret.
Then—
"Head Chamberlain."
"Yes, Your Highness!"
At her call he ducked his head on reflex, and hope rose in him. She was a woman of peerless royal talent. Surely she would grant him some brilliant plan for resolving a disaster of this size—
"The next time something this amusing occurs, you are to summon me at once. I very nearly missed a rare chance to watch."
He had no words.
"To have so little sense. Truly..."
"...Your Highness..."
Loyal Head Chamberlain Verhen was suddenly seized by the desire to retire.