What Cause Does a Knight Have to Fight? (11)
"…Ahem."
Everyone present was too stunned for anything but that awkward sound.
The only ones who truly knew these circumstances were Guinevere, Mordred's ally of long standing. At most, the Pendragon royal house and Galahad might have guessed at the rest. Even within the kingdom, then, only a tiny handful had ever grasped it—and now a complete stranger, met for the first time today, knew the whole of the secret. For a moment their heads simply went numb.
And yet.
"What's so hard about it? I can think of five more people around me who could've guessed the same thing."
"That would only mean the people around you are as extraordinary as you are…"
"First time in my life anyone's called me extraordinary. Anyway, the lot of you fuss like nobles. Typical."
"…Have nobles swindled you before? You pour out your disgust for them as easily as breathing."
"Enough chatter. I'll take it that my guess was right."
"…"
The man who had numbed their heads did not look bothered in the least. He was as matter-of-fact as someone who had answered a problem far too easy.
"Hah…"
Bold beyond belief. Even watching him sip his tea with that insolent ease, no one could find a word. Cain could only wonder where a specimen like this had suddenly sprung from.
What in the world happened out there, in the five years we were gone?
A knight they had neither seen nor heard of in all the time they had spent outside. At first he had honestly suspected the man might be Dire Wolf, or Black Lion, but a short exchange made it plain this was an entirely different person. All Cain had learned was that the man was a terribly strong warrior—and a sharp one.
They had not been speaking for even an hour or two, all told. Even so, Cain was certain. This man stood beneath neither himself nor his father. Not in martial strength, and not in anything else.
Which was precisely why.
Why?
He could not understand why the man was stepping forward for Mordred like this.
What does he stand to gain?
The strong did not move without a cause. Cain could not help but care what purpose was moving him.
It was then that the old knight spoke—no, the captain of the Hundred Ghost Shield Knights, Mordred's strongest knight—his face grave.
"…I understand your intent. That you are aiming for the Ghost King. That damned 'pest.'"
"But that will not do. This is our war. Mordred's war, and the task our ancestors left to us. We cannot hand it to another."
With every word a heavy presence poured forth in layers, solid as a tower. At a glance it was a knight's stubbornness, an old man's obstinacy, even a flash of the noble arrogance the man so despised. Everyone present understood at once.
This was consideration.
He's taken a liking to him.
Cain could see his father's thoughts clear as day. A man with neither Mordred blood nor even a birth in Wales, charging into a pit of hell on the rash courage of youth—and his father was worried for him. He did not want a brilliant young man, one with a future ahead of him, ruined by mere bravado. The words were entirely understandable.
Those who caught on turned their eyes on him as one. Gratitude was gratitude, but they could not let him take on the same curse they bore. The proper thing now was to turn him away—
"—Tell me where that rotten god is, and I'll give you the cookies the brat Louise made. For the record, the first cookies she's ever made in her life."
"…"
"As a bonus, there's a picture of her making them."
Thwack.
"…"
"…Father. What are you doing?"
"Ahem. A grandfather's heart, wanting to see the face of a granddaughter who's turned eight. What else?"
"…I am that child's father."
"And?"
"…"
"Then I'll yield the picture. Set the cookies down."
"Heh heh. Yield a little to an old man who wouldn't be strange if he died this year."
"Ha—! Don't talk nonsense. You're the sort who'll outlive me."
"…"
"…"
…What followed was the whiplash of a father-and-son quarrel.
"That little squirming thing grew this big?"
"Big? What's big about her. She's still tiny."
"Good heavens…"
"Look at those chubby cheeks."
"…The very image of her mother."
"She'll grow into a beauty. Well, she takes after Mordred's greatest beauty, so of course she will."
Unlike the pathetic adults still locked in their cold war, the others' eyes sparkled over the photograph Lee Han had handed them.
A late-born little sister. More than ten years lay between them, and the way her siblings looked at Louise was no different from looking at a child they had borne from their own hearts.
She's never getting married.
Nine brothers-in-law alone, and on top of them a father-in-law and a great-grandfather whose presence was terrifying. Whoever tried to take her away was already to be pitied.
"If anyone makes this child sad, then I, Felix, will tear his limbs apart!"
…And there was a cousin the size of a bear.
You'd have to bring an Aura User just to get permission to marry.
If you meant to survive those people, that is.
While he was turning over that thoroughly unfunny thought, the winner of the father-and-son fight was finally decided.
"You're still a long way off, boy."
"…Do you truly want to beat your own son that badly?"
"Heh heh."
The knight who had claimed the cookies paid the loser no mind at all. He stroked the cloth pouch that held them with extreme care, as if the slightest roughness might ruin it.
"That little thing has grown so big. So big…"
The cookies, taken all together, were nothing to look at. A child's first attempt in her life—clumsiness was inevitable. But he could say with certainty that even if mold bloomed across them, even if they were poisoned, these people would eat every last one, as if they were the most delicious cookies in the world.
"Thank you for such a splendid gift."
"I didn't just give it to you. Now you pay the price."
"…"
"You took it. You pay for it."
"…I know. But I am sorry. Precisely because I have received a gift this precious, I want all the more for you not to go to the 'pest.'"
"…"
"You are still young. Your road is long. And you were not born in Wales."
So he must not go. This war was theirs. It was not a war in which someone else should have to bleed.
"I'm not discriminating by where a person was born."
"Heh heh. It isn't that. It isn't…"
Ganok's murmur grew smaller and smaller, as if he were swallowing what he felt, as if he were hiding a heart that had surged up all at once.
"Because you are too good a man. That is why I am stopping you."
"…"
"You are our benefactor. A good man. And how could I fail to stop someone like that? You might die—!"
The others, whose Spirit Eye was still unripe, might not have known, but Ganok had heard from the ghosts what the man had done for Mordred. And that was a debt he could not dare repay even if he ground away every year he had left.
"Did you not save our poor granddaughter, in this worthless old man's place?"
He had heard it from the ghosts. How his granddaughter had been treated. How she had survived. How lonely she had been, and how wretched. How harsh the years that little thing had endured.
"Why blow it up like that? Any decent adult would've done the same."
"And yet you were the only one. The only adult who reached a hand out to that child."
"…It wasn't only me, exactly."
Lee Han let the words blur and turned his gaze past the tent.
"You think that kid really made it five years all on her own?"
"…?"
"I'm saying there were quite a few decent adults."
He glanced outside, at the knights and soldiers and servants still at their work.
"The families of the folks working out there helped her a great deal, in secret. That's why the kid's alive."
"…"
It was a simple story.
How does a three-year-old child, suddenly left to herself, survive for five years? Because her knack for survival was good? Because she was brighter than children her age? Those things could not be denied entirely, but they did not account for the greater part. Then what was the answer?
A knight's wife, who brought firewood and blankets on the cold days.
An old mother whose son was a soldier.
A fisherman who remembered his lord's grace.
For five years, steadily, whenever the child was truly in danger, there had been hands that helped her in secret. Because of them, she had been able to grow. It had looked as if everyone turned away and abandoned her, and yet whenever she was truly in danger there were people who stepped forward—so the child could still smile.
"You said you'd repay a debt? Don't repay me. Repay those people. I was only there for ten days. They looked after your family for five years."
"…"
"It's a relief. There are plenty of bad people. There are plenty of good ones, too."
"…So they did. Truly… so they did."
Ganok and the blood of Mordred reddened at the eyes. A gratitude too great for words welled up in their chests of its own accord.
Lee Han watched them quietly, then slowly turned his gaze on the margrave, whose face was twisting as if the tears might spill at any moment.
"Honestly, I wanted to hit you. No matter the reason—abandoning a kid that irresponsibly. How is that something a person does?"
"…"
"…But it didn't take long to figure out. The people who got close to that kid kept 'dying suddenly.' The steward you left as acting lord dropped dead of some chronic illness out of nowhere. The old man who watched her up close—no, the retired knight of your house—looked after her, and died of heart disease."
"…Sir Vain."
"Yeah. Vain, that was the name. The old man who watched the kid for a full three years."
He had learned this, too, in the course of his investigation. Those who cared for the child, or grew close to her, met with sudden accidents again and again—falling ill, or getting hurt over nothing at all. It could never be called coincidence. The reason the margrave had not been able to bring himself to place many people at her side was, perhaps—
"A curse. Stuck to that kid."
"…"
"So you stationed few people. To keep the victims as few as you could."
"…"
"…A dark-skinned fellow I know told me once. The only ones who can take in those bastards called gods are people with a special constitution. And the kid, probably…"
"'A vessel'…"
"…"
He clenched his teeth. His eyes looked as if they might weep blood at any moment.
"Yes. My daughter is a vessel the Land-god chose on a whim. A 'vessel,' to be used for a god's descent. And the people of the march are 'materials,' forced to become the foundation beneath that vessel."
His teeth ground together.
"Do you know what is worse still? We cannot flee this fate. No—even if we flee, so long as we were born in Wales, we cannot defy it. In other words…"
"…Because family, and friends, and lovers—all of them are hostages."