Episode 8 — The Knight Has Acquired an Assistant Instructor (2)
The squire was a custom with a filthy reputation.
Why so filthy?
Simple. Because it was a custom whose unreason ran out past the horizon.
In the beginning it had been nothing more than a name free knights pinned on the disciples they took in. But who, in this age, would ever become a free knight's disciple? Free knights in name alone — in truth they were criminals, no different from street thugs. Country boys who didn't know that, naive lads out of farming villages, were forever falling headlong for the promise that some free knight would make them his student. And so a life of slavery began, squire in nothing but the word.
Cleaning, laundry, cooking — that went without saying. They had to earn money for the knight's pleasures, and sometimes even borrow from loan sharks to keep up his dignity. In the squire's own name, no less. Most who became squires ended as debtors. Most, of course, ran before the debts could bury them, but some could not run. A free knight was still a knight, and a thug has no qualms about killing a man.
That was why the free-knight system had been abolished. Even among villains, you would be hard-pressed to find a worse breed.
And yet, strangely, the squire system itself was never abolished. According to the nobles, the free knights were the ones at fault; the knights of the other great houses would never do such a thing.
Bullshit.
The knights of the great houses he had seen, and the squires those knights kept — treated as less than servants. Yes. He had watched them used as slaves more times than he could count. So whenever some ignorant little lamb came hoping to become a squire, he was glad to teach the boy a lesson. It isn't what you think.
And yet.
What does it mean when a brat who already knows all of that still says he'll be a squire?
One: he's insane. Two: he's a pervert who enjoys pain and hardship. Three: or both.
…Hmm. Difficult.
A difficult problem.
And so.
"…Where should I hit you?"
"Pardon?"
"Where do I have to hit you to fix you? Think it over seriously and tell me. Seems I broke something, so I'll gladly repair it."
Lee Han cracked his knuckles loose, ready to strike the back of the man's head or the front of it, whichever offered itself. If hitting him with a lectern yesterday had been the problem, then he only had to hit him some other way. He'd thrown the lectern on a curve. Maybe a slider this time?
Bad blood or not, the bastard belonged to the sword faculty. An instructor in name only he might be, but didn't he still have a duty to knock some sense into a student's skull?
If it doesn't take, it doesn't take.
Lee Han was glancing about for a rock of the right size when the man still on his knees spoke.
"Th-that's not it, sir. I—I think there's been a misunderstanding. I'm not insane!"
"Not insane, and you're still doing this? …Then isn't that worse?"
"Th-that's…"
Even he seemed to realize what a shabby excuse it was, and Damian's words dried up. Then:
"I—I think I misspoke."
In his haste he had blurted that he would become a squire without explaining a thing, so he had no right to complain about the treatment. Humbly granting that much, Damian added the rest.
"My father— ah, no. The head of the house commanded me. To attend Sir Rihan."
…Why?
Lee Han let the question show in his eyes and tilted his head.
He had heard a great many things. That the count had changed overnight. That the knight order, and the count's eldest son, who had once raised their voices against him, now lived as if on thin ice. That the elders themselves had stepped in to seize the house's discipline and set it right again. That the youngest young master, who had dragged the count's house through the mud, had at last been struck from the family register — no, from the house register. And that if he wanted to return to the house, he must first receive a certain knight's forgiveness.
Well. He had heard a great many things. In the end, though:
"If you want forgiveness, cut out that insolent tongue of yours. Otherwise, bring me the head of the knight who came at me. Do that much, and I'll forgive you."
"…"
"Pick whichever you like."
"…"
"Don't want to? Then don't. Get lost. Looking at your face is enough to turn my stomach."
Lee Han spat it with merciless contempt, as if he had known all along the boy could never do it.
And then.
"I—I'll cut it."
"…Cut what?"
"M-my tongue. I-if I do that, will you take me as your squire?"
"…"
"I'll take that as a yes."
In a flash Damian drew a pair of scissors from inside his clothes — who knew from when he had been carrying them. The blades were keen, and he brought them straight toward—
Thud!
"Gack!"
"Cut blind like that and you'll bleed to death. Trying to make a murderer out of me?"
"Gack—! Uuugh!"
Kicked full in the face, Damian writhed and somehow got his feet under him. Lee Han went on without a shred of apology.
"Tsk. Your house doesn't even teach you something this obvious?"
"…Who would teach me that."
Damian answered thickly. Blood had pooled in his mouth; he had managed to nick his tongue. Lee Han tossed him one of the low-grade potions he carried for emergencies.
"M-may I drink it?"
Damian caught the bottle in a daze, and Lee Han nodded.
"…Thank you."
A low-grade potion would not knit a tongue in one swallow. It would do for first aid, though, and the boy had learned Fighting Art. Leave him a week and he would recover on his own.
Watching him, Lee Han said:
"If you'd done that to tug on my pity, I'd have taken your head off your body even if it meant fighting the count. I'd have figured you were trying to mock me again."
"…Yes, sir."
Which was also to say he had saved the boy because the boy had truly meant to cut out his tongue.
"Why are you carrying scissors?"
"I thought you would demand some price of me, one way or another. I was prepared to give a finger, or an ear."
"You want it that badly?"
"If I can return to the house, it doesn't matter."
"…That so."
"Yes, sir."
A ridiculous bastard. Until a moment ago Lee Han had taken him for a thug who only knew how to run his mouth, and here the boy had a spine after all. Not a type he disliked.
But.
Doesn't mean I like the little shit.
Once you have come to dislike a man, it is a hard thing to look on him kindly again. And in the end this bastard had no sincere thought of begging forgiveness. He was only going this far to keep his place as a noble. So there was still no reason to think well of him.
Even so, Lee Han did not despise him. Even in some nothing village out in the country, people waged secret wars over a headman's seat that amounted to nothing at all. There were old men who hanged themselves the moment that seat was taken from them — men with money enough, lives that wanted for nothing. Losing power, then, was an agony above all else. Power was a frightening thing, and at the same time something a man like him ought never to step too close to.
Lee Han looked down at him in silence. Damian's pupils would not stop trembling. The tension had not left him.
"You can just go. You don't have to be a squire, or attend me. I'll forgive you."
"…"
"…Good. If you'd taken me at my word, I'd have gone to the count and told him never to forgive you."
"…Yes, sir."
The boy's face had gone especially pale. So he had been tempted. Even so, some lingering doubt had made him swallow it, and that was fortunate. A scrap of suspicion was what had barely kept him alive.
Lee Han felt the absurdity of him all over again, but he did not let the corner of his mouth rise. Instead he held up three fingers.
"Three years. Attend me for three years. Inside the Academy or out, when I need you, I'll call."
"Y-you won't take me as a squire?"
"I'm in no position to take a disciple. I'll take you as an assistant instructor instead. That ought to satisfy you, right? You wouldn't like being my squire anyway."
"…I won't deny it."
"I like the honesty. Follow me, Assistant. Class starts today, right now."
"Yes, sir!"
"Not sir. Call me Instructor. For three years I'm not using your name. Just Assistant."
"…Ngh."
"Answer."
"…Yes, Instructor."
"Good. At least you understand what you're told."
Lee Han turned his back. Damian, who had at last managed to catch hold of a lifeline, let out a deep sigh with a face on the verge of tears. And he thought, Ah… I want to go back to the entrance ceremony. I want to beat the living hell out of the me from back then.
The eyes of Damian Paulet — no, of the man who had just become Lee Han's assistant instructor — grew wetter by the moment, as if the road ahead were already pitch black.
And sure enough.
"Bring water and towels enough for eighty to drink their fill. And anything else you can tell we'll need. Use your head."
"Th-the money…"
"Drop my name and get the Academy to cover it. Or pay out of your own pocket."
"…"
"Got a complaint?"
"…No, damn it."
"One word too many, Assistant."
"…Hic."
In the end, Damian sobbed.
A few students were briefly thrown by the sight of Damian, but the interest died at once. Half of them had roughly worked out how things had come to this. The other half simply didn't care. They were busy enough with their own affairs, and Lee Han rather liked selfish students. It spared him a useless explanation.
Even so, as he casually took in their faces, he nodded to himself.
Every last one of them has the look of someone who won't listen worth a damn.
Someone had said physiognomy was a science. Lee Han was inclined to agree. Look at those faces — they reeked of the hopeless cases he had seen in the army. The will was written there plain: they would never obey quietly.
They don't like me, I suppose.
He understood. In their place, what would he think of an instructor demoted out of a knight order, a man who had already caused a scene at the entrance ceremony? Of course he wouldn't like him.
…But.
"First, before this instructor introduces himself and offers his greetings, I have a proposal for the students."
"…?"
"Any student who doubts this instructor's skill, draw your weapon this instant. I'll take on as many of you as you like. Ah, and for the record."
"……"
Steel rang from its sheaths.
"Excellent."
In the very next moment, half the students drew their weapons without a heartbeat of hesitation and turned the whole of their force upon Lee Han.
"Heh."
Yes. But.
They disliked him, and there was no reason he should like the ones who disliked him. More than anything, he had not the faintest desire to spend any thick, lingering time growing close to these bastards.
Quite the opposite.
Plenty of dolls. Perfect.
If his heart was full of anything, it was the urge to wring use out of them.
That morning, the sparring dummy had unfortunately met its end. Finding so very many "dolls" on hand to take its place, he felt a smile touch his mouth. Every one of them looked sturdier than the ragged dummy he had made himself.
Lee Han was pleased.