The Knight Wore a Suit (1)
It was hardly a new thought, but he really did believe he had chosen well when he moved.
By the old rule of a mountain at your back and water at your front, this was prime land.
The view was fine, and there was even a modest little mountain behind the house. True, when he had first come looking he had worn out his shoes hunting the cheapest place he could find even in the Royal Capital, and the house he had ended up with sat in a spot as out of the way as a house could be. Getting to market meant a walk of more than a dozen miles, and once night fell the dark was thick enough that a ghost might have stepped out of it. But for a man untroubled by any of that, there was no better house to be had. He liked this land, proud home to a population of three people and one assistant instructor. If nothing else, it was peaceful past all reason.
Unlike out there.
Bzzz.
"Ah, thanks. If you need anything, just say so."
Bzz!
The honeybee neighbors who had moved in the day before were a courteous lot. The give-and-take between them was plain enough: he had knocked together a decent house for them in no time, and by way of thanks they brought him fruit from the forest and honey of their own making. They also fetched newspapers in from the city, just as they had now.
"Patrick, you did pay that runt properly for bringing it, yeah?"
Bzz.
"He wouldn't take it, so you shoved the money in his pocket and left? Good. You really are better than people."
Bzzzt!!
The bees told him that the kid he had met back in the empire, and brought all the way south with him, was settling into a place in the Royal Capital. With that, Lee Han unfolded the paper.
And sure enough.
"Well, now. Grim as it gets."
Ominous from the very first page. The calm before the storm. Or, to be precise, perhaps he ought to say the storm was already blowing. The question was whether anyone out there actually knew. That the thing raising this storm was, in truth, the rage of a father who had awakened to it....
That third son was a Half-Fiend. He had not been struck from a list. He had been struck from the world.
Not a sudden decline in health, Lee Han suspected. More likely a body worn to rags from far too much torture. And as it turned out, that one had been a collaborator too.
A duel? He had no idea when a public execution had started counting as a duel, but if that was how the world chose to see it, then a duel it was. The misfortune, of course, was that every man who had stepped into that "duel" had been cooperating with Loengrin, and the ones who had cut them down in a stroke were knights of the Blue-Green Unicorn with their faces only slightly altered. As for the unlucky accidents that kept following one after another, those were the work of the Shadows.
"...Sweeping the lot of them."
Lee Han, who knew the truth behind most of what the paper printed, could only click his tongue. This was why the world was difficult. Know a thing, and the world showed itself. Fail to know it, and it was this easy to be fooled.
Even so.
Lucky it's being handled quietly, in its way.
Left to his first impulse, Duke Blake had meant to raise an army. And why wouldn't he? Finding his own daughter after some twenty years was one thing. Learning that a pack of perverts had their sights on that daughter—what parent, faced with that, would not lose his mind? Lee Han himself would have felt the rage climb until it seemed his blood was running backward. In that sense, mad with anger or not, the duke was no fool.
He was a duke who kept his reason cold so that he might erase them more thoroughly still, and that attitude was the more frightening for it. Nothing was as terrifying as a man who only grew colder the higher his anger climbed.
Not a man I want for an enemy.
Lee Han shook his head and set the paper down. He had read nearly everything there was to read. Enough.
Bzzz?
"Hm? You want to read it? You can read, too?"
Bzzzt!
"Well, I'll be damned. You're better than the assistant instructor."
Bzzz.
The bees, shameless as if to say that was only obvious, carried the paper off to catch up on the world's affairs. Had the assistant instructor heard that outrageous remark—the same assistant instructor even now suffering at the academy in Lee Han's place—he would have reached for a hammer. No one present cared. Lee Han got to his feet.
Bzzz??
The bees had only just noticed, but they could tell that something about him was different from usual. They had no human feelings, yet they were as clever as people and had learned how the world turned, and so they could see the difference. It was nothing other than this.
Bzzz.
"Why do I look like this? Nothing special. I've got an important appointment today. That is..."
Cloth snapped, crisp and sharp. He was dressed to show off.
"I've got a date."
Nobles attending a banquet had a great deal to do. Women, especially, were run off their feet. The reason was simple.
"My lady, a bath first, if you please."
"Which perfumed oil will you wear?"
"We'll begin the massage."
"Your hair will need a little trimming as well."
"Jewels and the dress should be decided once you've tried them on. What we settled yesterday? Today may feel different from yesterday. Let's just have you try a light twelve."
"What sort of look would you like for the makeup?"
"Your hands and feet need tending. They're a wreck from your sword training!"
"Hungry, aren't you? You'll have to endure it. Water, too—hold back as much as you can. If you truly can't bear it, a little lemon is best. You understand?"
Say what anyone liked, the flowers of high society were its women. To an outsider the whole business might have looked like nonsense, but there were times when the more splendor and beauty one displayed, the higher one's house rose. There were even true cases of a young lady from an obscure family lifting her house's name by beauty alone, and reviving the economy of its lands besides—absurd, and yet that was society. The maids' excess was not so strange. If anything, what they were doing now was already greatly simplified.
"Ah, I'm truly upset. This was never meant to finish so quickly. It ought to take more than twelve hours."
"You're telling me. Dress her this plainly and tongues will wag. Honestly..."
"Can't be helped. This is the style our lady wants."
It was not even half the time ordinarily spent preparing a noble young lady. They could not hide their regret, and the regret only deepened when they remembered that Tristan had never had a daughter. This was the moment the young lady of Tristan would at last show herself, officially, to the kingdom's society for the first time.
And yet, for all the maids' sighing—
"This is comfortable for me. Oh, and I don't need a corset. I've trained enough that I can hold my figure without one."
The girl was firm, as if to say she would allow no more than this.
"B-but even so..."
"It would only get in the way. If you can pack a dagger, or a small wooden sword, please do. That would be better."
"...Why a dagger or a wooden sword, when you're going to a banquet..."
"Because a person ought to be able to protect her own body. It's the obvious preparation."
"...??"
Their young lady was far too different from other young ladies. It was a realization that struck them all over again, and the maids could not swallow their disappointment.
She'd be even lovelier if she let us dress her up.
She could even become the flower of society. Honestly...
She isn't even a knight yet, and she's stricter than most knights. Our lady.
More than half a year had already passed since she came to Tristan, and still she lived under a discipline she never relaxed. Looking at her, the maids felt tears might prick their eyes. It was not simply that she was the daughter of the lord they served, and so they waited on her with every care. Levi Jeanne d'Arc—that girl was unshakably solid, someone impressive even in the eyes of other women.
Jealousy?
See how she worked, and know the resolve with which she lived, and jealousy was something you could not even dream of. They knew that even if they themselves were suddenly made nobles and raised in station, they could never live as she did. She was, quite literally, worthy of respect: a young lady who could make even another woman fall for her.
...And so.
"My lady, it's time you went out."
"Thank you for telling me!"
"...Are you that happy?"
"Yes?"
"The smile hasn't left your lips all day..."
"......Ah."
"......"
They were maids who could not help a stab of jealousy at the fact that all of that admirable girl's affection was turned toward no one but today's partner.
"I... I don't know. I've never felt like this before..."
"......"
"Mmm. But one thing is certain."
Bright as a bud breaking open—
"I think I'm happy."
"......"
It was a fresh smile, like a bud formed in spring opening all at once into full bloom with the dew. Before a loveliness that could charm even them, the maids flushed.
And they understood. Even without dressing herself in splendor, the girl was already a flower. A flower more alive, and more beautiful, than any other.
They really do make too much of a fuss.
Even as the carriage carried her along, Levi felt awkward toward the maids who kept fussing at her side so that neither sweat nor makeup would slip. She was grateful for the care they took, but to her it all felt like nothing but a burden.
I suppose I really don't suit being a noble.
She could put on a full, frilled dress and wear jewels worth a fortune, and her essence would not change. The brand of the streets, and of those wretched years as a slave, did not disappear. The mark might have been taken from her skin, but the scar left in memory was not so easily gone.
It's a sorry thing to say to the marquis, but the moment I graduate, I'm going out on my own.
Fortunately, she owed Tristan no duty. She was not of their blood, and so there was no weight on her to bear a child or carry on the house. She was glad of that, truly, and she was searching for some other way to repay Marquis Tristan when—
Knock, knock.
"...?"
A knock came at the door, and the carriage was still moving. Levi and the maids blinked, but a moment later Levi let out a soft laugh at a presence she knew, and opened the door. Sure enough.
"—I came earlier than we agreed."
Color burst across the doorway.
"......Master, this is too much."
"What is? Oh, this? Just a light gift. It's my first disciple's debut in society. I ought to do at least this much."
"E-even so, it's too much..."
She scolded him as he appeared with thousands of hydrangeas heaped in his arms, and narrowed her eyes. She could not, however, hide the way her earlobes reddened.