The Knight Leaves the Stage (4)
…When had that been?
"Instructor, please don't trust that woman too much."
"Hm?"
"The woman you're working with. Don't trust her. No—you must not give her your heart at all. She is a loathsome woman who can do nothing but deceive people."
"What, did the two of you date in the future?"
"That's a horrible thing to say!"
"…If it isn't that, then why are you this angry?"
"Because you're saying something that gives me the creeps, Instructor!"
"It was a joke…."
"There are things you say, and things you don't!"
"All right. I'm sorry."
"…If you apologize that easily, where does that leave me?"
It had been around the time of the Brass Knight Order incident—advice from the dark-skinned one who had been working with him—and Lee Han, faced with those words, had answered like that. He didn't think he had taken it much to heart.
…Looking back, that was a shame.
I should have asked for the details.
If he had listened a little more closely then, he might have learned something more before it was too late.
But—
"Nothing's more foolish than clinging to what's already gone."
There was no habit Lee Han loathed more than turning regret over and over. With that low murmur, he shook the lingering attachment off.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Talking to myself. Mind your own business."
"How impious."
"Want me to show you something even more impious?"
"Hmm. Now I am curious."
"…You talk a good game."
He let out a long breath and dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. Isis watched him with a peculiar look in her eyes.
"Hmm. This is not what I expected."
"What's different?"
"Why are you not angry?"
"I'm plenty angry, so don't provoke me."
Lee Han spoke like a warning, brow furrowed, but she was unyielding.
"No. You are not that angry. Rather, you are cold past all reason."
"Maybe I got so angry I turned cold."
"No. You are not that sort. If you were angry, you would rage in earnest, raise your voice, and vent it regardless of station or sex. And yet I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you do not rage at me."
"…Good. At least you know what you did is worth a thorough scolding."
"I did not go so far as to say that."
It was a strange sight. By any reasonable measure, Lee Han had every right to be furious with Isis, and yet his voice held neither anger nor even sorrow. He was not trembling with the bile of betrayal, nor was he flat and empty. There was only the same cheek, the same ease, that he always showed when he spoke with her.
"I definitely took a bit of a hit. But I'm not boiling over or anything."
…Strangely enough, he admitted she was right.
It was a shocking story, no question. The royal grandson Arthur was not Isis's son—and even the string of incidents at this banquet had, in the end, moved exactly as those cult bastards had planned.
…And yet, knowing all of it, Lee Han had only been startled for a moment. He wasn't angry, not even to a degree that puzzled him. If any feeling was gathering in him at all, it was probably this.
"I think I'm hurt…."
Hurt that she hadn't told him beforehand. Was it strange of him, that the feeling should settle so oddly around his chest?
…Lee Han smiled bitterly.
"How much do you know of the royal house of Britannia?"
"I don't care about that sort of thing."
"Then learn it now. The royal house of Britannia—they are, in a sense, a bloodline that put down roots in the South even before Pendragon, the first royal house of the South. And they harbor a Mystery every bit as special as Pendragon's."
"I said I don't care…."
"Then what of this? In their desire to preserve what made them special, they reached a point where they could leave no descendants unless they mixed their affections among their own kin."
"!?"
"Yes. That seems to have caught your interest."
The royal house of Britannia. A house that had remained upon this land for an age even longer than Pendragon, they were said to have been a bloodline favored by Mystery in much the same way. A royal house that might, in some respects, have been more mysterious still than Pendragon. But had that very mystery turned to poison for them?
"Once they understood the specialness of their own blood, they came to harbor a twisted obsession—that this blood must never thin, generation after generation."
The royal house, it was said, had laid a curse upon itself. So that their blood might never, by any chance, pass outside, and so that the purity of that blood might never, under any circumstances, grow clouded.
"They can never mix with the blood of another. A foolish thing. However one looks at it, to leave a curse like that upon one's descendants…."
"……."
Because of it, the bloodline of Britannia could never bear a child, even if someone they loved appeared. And because of that, the queens and consorts of the house of Britannia were, every one of them, no better than ornaments. Made so that their secret might never leak out….
"Remarkable, is it not? To think a kingdom boasting some thousand years of history would harbor a secret of that kind."
"…How did you find that out, Sister?"
"I heard it. From the crown prince, who knew Britannia's secret better than anyone."
"The one they say is confined…?"
"Confined? Hardly. He is simply frail past all frailty, a living corpse who cannot even walk properly. He only lies upon his sickbed. Well—he cannot move, shut inside the iron cage that is that bed, so in a sense the word confined is not entirely wrong."
"……."
"For the record, I played no trick in this. It is merely the side effect of succeeding blood among kin."
To speak plainly, such a culture existed even among the nobility: succeed the blood among one's own kin, and thereby inherit the purity of the blood. …But the research of alchemists had shown that if kin went on succeeding one another generation after generation, it produced severe side effects, and the culture itself had been obsolete for several hundred years already.
"And yet who would have known? That there were still those carrying on that dead custom to this day—and that there would be a royal house living with the side effects to the very end."
An absurd thing. Isis muttered it as if jeering, then soon knit her brow.
"Only, because of those fools, my plans began to go awry."
Isis—the royal house of Pendragon—needed Britannia's blood. To settle the conflict born of the South's sudden unification, and to persuade a people who still gave the house of Britannia their unqualified support. …But faced with the fact that such persuasion was impossible, she—
"What can one do? One must use an expedient."
Ironic, perhaps. That she should have been so deeply versed in magic, alchemy, and shamanism—and that her depth in the study of Life, in particular, should have been anything but ordinary.
"I mixed my blood with his in the proper measure and carried out an artificial cultivation."
"So a homunculus?"
"Nonsense. Do not class it with those shoddy homunculi of the alchemists. I merely did not borrow a human womb. The child was unmistakably born through my genes and the other party's."
"…No matter how I listen, it still sounds a little…?"
"Tch! What use is there in debating the science of life with someone who doesn't even know it?"
"……."
The humanities knight shut his mouth, as if conceding to the science-track princess.
"Hmph. So long as you understand, that is enough. In any case, that child Arthur is my child. He was not born from my belly, yet he is without doubt a noble child who bears the blood of Pendragon and of Britannia. …However."
He was not a child the world would accept.
"I admit it. By the notions of the present, Arthur cannot be accepted. That is why I hid it. But…."
There are no eternal secrets in the world.
"Princess of Pendragon. Wicked woman who claims a false child is a child of Britannia. How long do you think you can keep that secret, you wretch?"
"It was not a face-to-face meeting with the Captain of the Brass Knight Order. Only the note he left sat there, stark and alone, in my office."
"……."
"The moment I saw it, I knew my plans would be thrown into disarray. So I resolved to break the board. To play a more reckless hand."
"……."
"That is all."
"…Hmm."
The end of a rather long tale. And at the same time, a secret that no one ought to know was carved into Lee Han's mind. The secret of the royal house of Britannia. What Isis had done.
The moment this comes out, she's finished.
Even in his past life, in an age when science had advanced, the ethics of life had been endlessly complicated. Even if artificial cultivation were possible, it was still a notion people were not ready to accept. …And in this age, where gods exist in truth and Mysteries and fairies walk the world, how much would a life be worth?
The moment it comes to light, it'd be a mercy if all it did was fuck her over.
The condemnation aimed at Isis would never stop. At the point where she had artificially brought forth a life—a life granted by God—scorn and contempt without number would pour down. The temples of the Light of Radiance, who believed that god bestowed life, and the whole of the continent besides: he could see, clear as day, the sharp criticism they would hurl. A true reverse scale. Nothing less than her weakness. Fatal, and venomous—
"Is that really all?"
Lee Han asked again, as if the wind had gone out of him.
"…What do you mean?"
"I'm asking if that's the only secret. Whether something that minor even counts as a weakness."
"Did you just call it minor?"
"Enormously minor. What kind of weakness is that…."
Having heard her out to the end, Lee Han snorted. Yes, what she had told him was certainly a shocking secret. If it came to light, the shock waves would be tremendous. But—
"It's a subtle thing to call your weakness, or your secret, Sister."
Lee Han knew. How capable she was, how brilliant. He had seen it more than once: always reinforcing her authority by outrageous means, turning even a crisis into an opportunity—the extraordinary figure of a veteran who reversed the field. …And so he did not take that for her secret, or for her weakness. It was minor. For her, nothing more than an obstacle she could fully overcome.
"Because if it's you, Sister, it's only natural you'd handle a minor thing like that one way or another."
"…Your faith is so excessive it becomes a burden."
"I only said what's actually there."
Lee Han found her groaning utterly ridiculous.
"I go so far as to tell you a grave secret, and you make a liar of me."
"If you don't want to reveal it, fine. I never thought you'd tell me willingly anyway. And it's not as if I'm dying to know the details."
"…Parallel lines, then."
"Until you lay your real feelings out, it'll stay that way."
He brushed the dirt from his trousers and stood, as if there was nothing more to be gained from talking.
"I'm going."
"Going where, do you mean?"
"You said exile, didn't you? Then I'd better get out of the country quickly."
"…The official papers have not arrived yet."
"I'm leaving either way. What good would it do me to receive something like that?"
"……I truly am hiding nothing."
"I'm sure you're not."
"……."
"…The two of us. We've been tied together quite a while, haven't we?"
Lee Han gazed at her steadily. A little more mature than when they had first met, and still beautiful.
"Sister, I'll let it go that you used me. No—rather than letting it go, I'm just not that angry."
"……."
"Probably because I know you. I owe you a few things, and there's the history between us, and… no. Strip away all the grand reasons, and you're the first friend I made in this world. That's why I'm forgiving you, I suppose."
"…A friend."
"Yes. A friend. And because I'm your friend, I know you aren't foolish enough to join hands with those strange bastards."
Yes. She was his friend. He didn't know how she felt about it, but Lee Han believed there was something like friendship between himself and Isis, and so he treated every problem as minor. Instead of raging, he simply faced her straight on. Someone might call Lee Han a fool for it, or find him frustrating. But so long as it wasn't a matter of her asking him to cosign and then running off—
I ought to forgive her once.
…As a matter of loyalty to his first friend.
"A special courtesy."
"…Impudent brat. Who decided who is whose friend?"
"So it was a one-sided friendship. That's a little disappointing."
Step. Step. Lee Han turned away, leaving her nothing but a wave. He did not look back. His stride held no hesitation.
"If our paths cross, we'll see each other again someday."
And at an unhurried pace, he vanished beneath her gaze.
"……."
She stared for a long time at the place where he had disappeared. Long after he was gone.
It was a strange thing. She, who hated wasting time more than anyone, was doing something this unproductive. She….
"Who—who are you calling a friend?"
At some moment she murmured it, quietly. Irritated. Displeased. She laid her feelings bare more passionately than ever, and at some moment her hand was trembling. As if she were truly wronged. As if she were genuinely furious.
"How can he be so oblivious…?"
She had felt it from their first meeting: he had no sense for these things. When he saved her, and even now, after more than three years of ties between them. As always, he didn't notice. No—it almost felt as if she were being toyed with. And well she might feel that way….
"Where is there friendship between a man and a woman—and you, of all people, say that…."
Her fingers clenched white.
He had seized her heart like this, and he would not let go. All she could do was clutch her own trembling hand.
How bitterly unfair it was….