The Festival (2)
Harad wore a look of bewilderment he rarely showed. Small wonder—it was the dead of night, the small hours before dawn. Grand Duke Elaine had barged in on him while he slept.
"Thorough bastard. Had your fun rolling around, then sent the woman home."
Seeing the bed occupied by one person only, Elaine knitted her brow. Apparently she had meant to catch him red-handed.
"Coming at this hour—what nonsense is this?"
"They say you've been shirking your duties and playing with women."
"And who would say such a thing?"
"Arika."
"Do you believe that woman, or do you believe me?"
"Arika."
……
Harad let out a sigh and rose from the bed. He wore nothing but his underclothes, and he didn't bother to cover up. It was proof that he took Elaine for a man. To Ellen's way of thinking, that was only natural. In reality, she, too, was deceiving Harad perfectly. For the same reason, Grand Duke Elaine did not tell him to put on clothes.
Ellen stared openly at the dream Harad's bare body. It was more solidly built than in reality, though scarred all over—which was a slight pity.
"As for the work I didn't do—there was none to do. Every time a subjugation comes around, I'm left with nothing, am I not?"
"You are my escort knight."
"You're the one who ordered me not to follow, Your Grace."
It seemed that Elaine, even after becoming Grand Duke, still rode out to subjugations in person.
"What do you mean, no work? It's piled on my desk like a mountain."
"That is Your Grace's work."
"And what would you have me do about it?"
……
Harad rubbed the bridge of his nose. The escort knight Harad had much the same temperament as the Harad of reality, but in the moments just after being roused from sleep, he seemed to find his temper nearly impossible to hold.
A light sleeper, perhaps? Ellen wondered.
"You're the one who told me to enjoy the festival."
"And enjoy it you did. With a woman."
"I did pankration with Gulen."
A sand ring had been prepared for the festival as well.
"Did you win?"
"Yes. Bare body, no aura."
The Harad of the dream seemed every bit as capable with his fists.
"And then at the revels you amused yourself with a woman."
"I did not. We spoke briefly, and I sent her on her way."
"Why."
"My face is known to all as Your Grace's escort—how could I live in dissipation?"
The corners of Grand Duke Elaine's mouth curled upward.
"What of it? A man may be dissipated now and then."
"Enough. Thanks to you, I haven't even the time to court anyone."
"But you think on it?"
"When Your Grace weds, I will think on it then."
"I have no intention of wedding."
"Then neither will I."
Harad replied. The corners of Grand Duke Elaine's mouth curled higher still. Only then did she seem at ease.
"Marriage aside—court someone now and then. What use is a man who reaches your age without a single experience to his name?"
To Ellen's ears, the words rang hollow.
"Why would I lack experience?"
"What?"
"Surely you don't think I've never once? Do you know how old I am?"
The face of Grand Duke Elaine, lips still curled upward, froze on the spot.
"As you know, I'm frightfully hot-blooded. Restraint comes far harder to me than to others."
"……It's true, then?"
"I'm quite something, I am."
Elaine swallowed hard.
"It was a joke. What are you so envious of?"
"……I never have."
"Surely not? Experience?"
"As if. I was likely several times more dissipated than you."
"You certainly look the part."
"……What?"
Grand Duke Elaine's face twisted fearsomely.
"Then never so much as hold a woman's hand for the rest of your life."
"That was the plan regardless."
"For life, I say. Hold one, and I will kill you."
"Then never hold one yourself, Your Grace. I will kill you if you do."
Insolent words, those.
"What an easy promise to keep."
But Grand Duke Elaine smirked.
The streets were lively, and they were plentiful. People crowded every corner, and food and amusements lined every way. For Shura, it was paradise. And for someone, it would be the opportunity of a lifetime. No environment suited a strike from behind like a packed street.
Why is no one coming?
Yet Harad's back stayed safe the whole festival through.
"Hey, Harad! Have a drink with us!"
"I'm fine. I don't care for drink."
The Liberation Magic Tower mage who should have come never showed; instead, it was only innocent knights making eyes at him.
Is it the knights keeping them away?
That couldn't be it. The Liberation Magic Tower of this era was unlikely to hold any intelligence on the Great Wall's knight orders. The knights guzzling liquor on the streets here and there wore plain clothes; to all appearances they were not knights but thugs.
Reining in the mages they sent north after the failure on the Great Plain, are they?
Or had some groundless rumor taken root that Serzilla, on account of Ceria, had formed ties of some kind with the Church? Either explanation was plausible. It seemed the Rebel Faction of the Liberation Magic Tower meant to lie low for the time being—or perhaps they were simply waiting for an opening.
Harad fiddled with the moon orb in his pocket.
Shall I take a wound, then?
If he suffered a serious injury, the mages hiding somewhere might just take the bait…… Even as the thought formed, Harad clicked his tongue. An overreaction. Chances to fill the moon orb were precious. The Rebel Faction's attention had already shifted to Harad; Kubel would long since have been erased from their minds. With Shura's safety secured, he had no reason left to act in haste.
"Big brother?"
Just then, Shura tugged at his clothes. She had been watching from far off, yet somehow she had picked Harad out of the crowd—thanks to her Origin, the Eye, no doubt.
A twinge of guilt, that.
He was hardly the age to be called big brother. Twenty now, admittedly—but still.
"Won't you play with us?"
"Ah. Let's play. Come along, then."
Ellen was not there. Harad felt a need to stand in for her, if only a little.
"Th-thank you……."
Kubel, who had vowed to give Shura four years' worth of festival in one go, was already looking haggard. A child's stamina was more than one father could bear alone.
"I'm fine."
"Papa, are you tired?"
Shura asked carefully. If he admitted it here, that precociously grown-up child would surely propose going home.
"I'm having fun—my body's just worn out. Shura, it's like being made to take a nap when you'd rather keep playing."
"Oh."
"Your papa has it worse than most. All that muscle makes the body heavy, you see."
Harad soothed her with practiced ease. For a man who had been tormented by the Elaine of his past life, it was easy work.
"So play with me until then, shall we?"
"Okay! Papa, you go take your nap!"
Shura abandoned Kubel with a face full of excitement. For this moment at least, the festival mattered more.
"I don't need sleep. I'm an adult. A short sit and I'll be right as rain."
"Even so, go take a nap!"
……
Hand in hand with Harad, Shura walked at a near run. Kubel trailed behind, wearing the face of a man who had lost his daughter.
"What's this place?"
"A filthy place. Let's move along quickly."
Harad covered Shura's eyes the moment she spotted the sand ring. It was where Northmen bared their chests and fought with nothing but their bodies—and where, in his past life, Harad had broken Gulen's elbow.
"Fight me, Harad!" someone bellowed from the ring.
As it happened, it was Gulen. Apparently, so long as magic was off the table, he fancied his chances.
"Mister Gulen wants to fight you, big brother."
At nineteen, Gulen was already an "uncle."
"The weaker the dog, the louder it barks. Shura, you're a Northerner too—remember that."
"Yes!"
Shura gave neither her mouth nor her body a moment's rest. She talked or ate, and all the while roamed without pause. And so, keeping Kubel's pledge in his stead—four years' worth of festival in a single day—she ran herself empty and dropped asleep around sundown.
"I'll carry her."
"I'm fine. Rest a while longer."
Harad gathered the sleeping Shura into his arms and went looking for a suitable stall. One was selling charcoal-grilled meat, with small tables and chairs set out nearby.
"Ellen would like this. We'll fill our bellies there."
It looked far tastier than the skewers Ellen had tossed aside the other day.
Kubel pulled out a chair for Harad and headed for the stall to place an order. The meat was par-cooked and finished over the coals, so it came quickly; he soon had his skewers and turned back toward their seats.
A woman was standing in front of Harad, Shura asleep in his arms.
"No mother about, I see."
"……Picking a fight, are we?"
Harad tilted his head. The woman laughed as though delighted.
A pale, healthy Northern beauty.
"I'm making a pass at you?"
She was flirting with Harad knowing full well he was a widower. At the sight, Kubel was struck anew by how handsome the man was. Not the Northern ideal of manhood, granted—but unless one's taste ran to hulking slabs of muscle, Harad was a man with charm to spare and then some. Enough that a stranger would volunteer herself as the child's mother.
"Unusual taste. Regrettably, the child isn't mine."
"All the better, then?"
The woman's tongue swept across her lips. To any observer, pure seduction.
"No need to feel pressured. It's a festival, after all. If it doesn't take, it ends there—and if it does……"
Her fingertips touched Harad's forearm. Her fingers crept lazily up his arm.
"My. Hard as a rock."
"Hard?! What the f—"
The voice came out of nowhere, and Kubel jolted a full foot off the ground. Ellen caught the skewers he dropped and bit into one.
"This is good. Order more."
Ellen's expression as she said it looked better than expected. It couldn't have been the skewer.
"I'll order a full round."
So Kubel beamed. At the edge of his vision, Ellen took the woman's hand.
"This man belongs to someone."
"That would be you?"
"Who knows."
At that, the woman vanished as though fleeing for her life. Ellen laughed without a sound at the reaction.
"I hear you swore never to hold a woman's hand your whole life. The you-in-the-dream, I mean."
"Did the Grand Duke say that?"
"She did. Said she'd kill you if you did."
"Now, that is a frightening thing to say."
Harad was smiling as he said it.
"Let's have a little talk, you and I."
"Gladly."
The mood was not a bad one. Kubel watched their retreating backs and beamed all the more.
Stimulus and dream speak the same language. And the week with Ceria had been a stimulating one indeed.
I'd expected a dream about the Church.
Elaine, it seemed, had dreamed something entirely off the mark.
Not that it makes no sense.
It was because of the festival, presumably. Stimuli accumulate. The stimulus of the festival had been laid atop the stimulus of Ceria, and so the memories bound to the festival had surfaced as the dream.
Or the festival had simply been the more stimulating of the two.
The latter was the likelier. Of many stimuli, the most stimulating would be the one to surface as a dream—every dream Elaine had dreamed thus far had worked that way.
"And here I thought you'd be busy."
Harad said it to Ellen's back.
"What business could I possibly have to be busy with?"
Ellen answered without turning. She was climbing the castle wall stairs.
"Then you might have played with Shura a little. She missed having you there."
"……I was a little busy. A little. Tomorrow I can play."
In truth, this surprised Harad more than Elaine's dream had. The Elaine of his past life had never once cleared her schedule like this for a festival. She had done nothing but work.
"What about you?"
"Hmm?"
"Will you also never hold a woman's hand, your whole life long? Like in the dream."
"That was the plan. A curious coincidence with the dream, isn't it."
Harad said it without a trace of humor. He hoped Ellen would not take it for a joke.
The dream must remain a dream.
"You were just about to take her hand."
"I was on the verge of refusing her."
"Why? She was quite the beauty."
"Was she? By looks alone, you're far prettier."
Ellen's foot faltered on the stairs. Only for a moment; then she climbed on. Her pace had slowed, though.
Her back drew near. She spoke as though whispering.
"Did you refuse her for being uglier than me?"
"That's not it."
"Then what? Because you belong to someone?"
"Hmm. That's not it either."
It had nothing to do with Elaine. The promise—hold a woman's hand and die—was meaningless here. Come to think of it, an unequal treaty, that. In any case, even without such a promise, Harad had no intention of dallying with women. Back then, that life alone had been enough.
"I'm likely even less interested in women than the me in that dream."
Now, more than ever, he had no such thoughts.
"You won't even hold your beloved's hand?"
"At least, not for now."
This time, too—make me fall for you.
Grand Duke Elaine's voice rose in his memory. That affection—Harad had never once examined it deeply. A Harad who had regressed could afford no such leisure. Time spent agonizing over a heart even its owner could not remember was better spent preparing for the future. Affection was a matter for later—much later. For when Elaine recovered her memories.
"Your beloved is to be pitied."
"Truthfully, the most pitiable one here is me."
Ellen tilted her head. The words meant nothing to her.
How long before she figured it out? At times, that frustrated Harad.
"Who is she? Your beloved."
"A secret."
Their steps had stopped some time ago. But Ellen did not turn around.
"The woman who hates heart devouring—that's her, isn't it?"
"Precisely."
"When, where, and how did you meet her?"
"A secret."
His heart wanted to tell her everything. But if he did, the constraint of regression would tear his heart apart. Ellen turned around. Their eyes met.
"You know it makes no sense even by your own account, right?"
"I do."
So Harad smiled, wide and bright. As if begging her to notice.
"Of course I do."
Iagar was a peaceful land without magic beasts. Even if Arika's information were wrong, there was no world in which Harad had ever devoured a heart. And yet a woman who despised Harad's heart devouring existed.
"But it's a secret."
Harad bore the secret of his regression. Ellen knew nothing of the regression, but she had at least grasped that he kept secrets.
"Secrets I'm meant to uncover for myself?"
That she had to be the one to uncover them—she knew that, too.
"If not through me, then through the Grand Duke? Is that why the Grand Duke dreams such dreams?"
Ellen murmured, sounding him out. Harad could not answer. The constraint was cinching tight around his heart.
So this is where it ends, then.
"It's all so vague. Almost like magic."
But…… Ellen had already sensed that something was off. The Harad of his past life had placed such hopes in Elaine. She could seem the most hopeless fool in the North, yet at times she was sharper than Harad himself.
"I understand now. Your beloved is a beloved in name only?"
"Precisely."
"And you haven't the slightest intention either."
"That's right."
Harad answered promptly. Any slower, and she might have worked herself up.
"So—why do you ask such things?"
Harad wanted to keep the thread going. He wanted to pull more of Ellen's thoughts into the open.
"I don't know."
"What?"
"I said I don't know."
……
The heat that had flared through his head like fire cooled in an instant.
"You're truly something, you know that?"
"……?"
Apparently Ellen's curiosity had wandered elsewhere.
"I'm asking if you've had much experience with women. You claimed plenty in the dream."
Fortunately, her curiosity had landed on the dream. Harad decided to be content with that. Achieving the purpose of his regression within half a year would indeed be greed.
"How would I have? I was shut up in my room the whole time."
But a woman who hated heart devouring existed. Ellen had clearly registered that dissonance.
"Have you ever loved someone?"
"No."
……
Ellen hopped down a step. She came level with Harad, and from there looked up at him.
"Truly, never?"
"And you?"
……
Ellen drew one long breath. Then answered as though spitting it out.
"I don't know."
"Hmm?"
"I said I don't know."
Ellen, uncharacteristically, looked faintly embarrassed. But she did not look away.
"And you?"
"Then I'll count myself as not knowing, either."
An answer buried alongside hers—a thoroughly wretched one. But Ellen smiled. A very beautiful smile.
……Perhaps even lovelier than the Elaine he'd seen before his regression.
"What a view. The festival, I mean."
Seen from the wall's stairs, the territory below would surely be a magnificent sight. But Ellen was looking at Harad.
"So it is."
So was Harad.
"Let's talk a little before we go down. Kubel is waiting."
"Let's."
Neither gaze moved. Each was fixed upon the other. Harad thought it the constraint—as though compelled by some outside force, he could not tear his eyes from Ellen's.
"You're a light sleeper?"
"A little?"
"If you fought Gulen bare-handed, you'd win?"
"Is that even a question."
"Holding back is much harder for you than for most?"
"I suppose."
"Can I hold your hand?"
……
"If this were the dream, you'd be dead by now."
"……Because it isn't a dream."
Because it isn't a dream.