The 2nd Knight Order (1)
"...It's not that I believe your word," Ellen added. "I'm apologizing because I got angry and left without a word, that's all."
"That's all I needed to hear."
Harad's smile deepened. Yes — that was the Elain he knew.
"A fine attitude."
"You're mocking me, aren't you?"
"Me? Why would I?"
Harad tilted his head.
"I still don't believe you, do I?"
"Nothing new about that. When have you ever taken my word at face value?"
Ellen's face went red.
Come to think of it, she could count on one hand the times she had swallowed Harad's word without a fight.
"Oh, I'm not complaining. Have I ever once been angry with you?"
"You were. In front of Kubel's house."
"I was?"
Harad tilted his head again.
That had been when Ellen demanded to know why he hadn't killed Kubel. Back then, Harad had told her to do exactly that.
"Your bar for anger sits low. How does that count as anger? You'd have to smash at least three tables for it to qualify."
...
"A joke. I truly have never been angry with you."
Harad had not the slightest intention of reshaping Elain to suit his own tastes.
"Don't lose your own center. Don't swallow another's word whole — lay your own judgment over it."
...
"There's nothing difficult about it. Keep doing as you always have. In the end, you are you."
Elain was, in the end, Elain.
One day, she would become the Elain Harad knew.
Harad and Ellen left the Inner Castle, and the gatekeeper bowed his head deep. He held the bow for quite a while — and it was owed to both of them: to Ellen of the collateral line, and to Harad the magician.
"Looks like a person could live here after all."
A discreet smile played on Ellen's lips at the sight. Harad was becoming a member of the Inner Castle.
"All thanks to my excellence."
"...Insufferable."
"What can I say? It's the truth."
Just as Elain was changing faster than she had in her past life, Harad was melting into Serzila faster, too.
"Nothing strange happen while we were apart?"
Ellen carried herself like someone reuniting after ten days.
"I hear you timed your free meals at Kubel's for exactly the hours I was away."
"...Says who?"
"Shura told me."
Harad was the one who had saved Kubel.
"...I asked her to keep that a secret."
"What could I do, when she likes me more?"
Ellen had grown close to Shura, yet Shura still favored Harad. No matter how many times Ellen asked, the girl would never say why.
"What's your secret?"
"My face?"
Ellen's face crumpled.
True or not, such things collapse the moment you claim them yourself.
"Call it a kind of kinship. Kubel and I stand in the same position, after all."
...
When a subject that sensitive surfaced, Ellen did not loose her tongue carelessly. They were not yet that kind of friends.
The Elain of the past life would have struck back head-on.
"I hear you've been out playing with the Young Duke?"
As a rule, the second thing out of a person's mouth was the real business. Ellen was no exception.
"'Playing' is an exaggeration."
It had been a kind of experiment. And it had yielded a meaningful result: the mastermind sent magicians only on the days Elain spent in Harad's company.
"I heard you drank together."
"That part's true."
"Did you enjoy it?"
Ellen asked like someone jealous.
"Not especially."
"Why not?"
"The Young Duke makes for dull company."
"...Is that so."
Ellen's eyebrows wriggled.
"Drinking with you is the better pleasure, I find."
This time it was the corner of her mouth that twitched.
The same person, really. He must be having a fine time, entertaining thoughts like that.
Nor had Harad tossed the words out as empty flattery.
Ellen and Elain. Measured against the Elain of the past life, both still fell some way short — but forced to choose, Ellen stood nearer.
Because that was her true nature.
The foul-tempered Elain — the one she became when the two of them were alone — was the more familiar to Harad. More than the iron-blooded Grand Duke of the official stage.
"The Young Duke is stiffer than I'd imagined."
"Well, the Young Duke has to be."
She dreamed of living exactly as she pleased; she simply could not yet bring herself to act on it.
"Can't be helped, I suppose."
Ellen said it just as Elain would have. There was nothing to pick at in that — Elain had already hammered the point home once: close or not, he knew everything about Ellen there was to know.
Anyone who found out would take her for a split personality.
Of course, she was only doing it to keep it hidden. But to Harad, who knew the truth, that was precisely what it looked like.
"Let me say it once more — I'm following you for the sole purpose of proving you wrong."
"I know."
Harad suspected the knights. Ellen meant to prove that suspicion false.
Their steps carried them into unfamiliar streets. Unfamiliar, at least, in this life — the 2nd Knight Order's building stood in the district opposite the one where he and Ellen usually met.
"You've never crossed paths with the 2nd Knight Order?"
"I've seen the 2nd Knight Commander. We're even on gift-sending terms, if you can believe it — though so far the giving has all been one way."
"Uh... hm."
Ellen's expression soured. She seemed to be recalling the magician's severed head that had once been laid on Harad's bed. She had thought it excessive even then; now that things had begun to change, it looked more excessive still.
"Don't worry yourself. There's no feeling in it."
"I did hear about that — from the Young Duke."
Vague, all of it.
Back then, too, Harad had answered Elain in just that way.
"And what's so vague about it?"
"Everything feels vague to me, I'm afraid. Serzila is still unfamiliar ground to me."
Harad flashed a smile.
"That's why it's such a comfort having you around."
"Talk's cheap."
Ellen answered flatly.
"So — what kind of place is the 2nd Knight Order?"
"Serzila doesn't sort its knights into specialized postings. The 6th Knight Order excepted."
Every order was much the same in temperament and in strength. They were, in the end, warriors of the North and loyal swords of Serzila.
"So the 2nd Knight Commander is the problem."
"For you, yes."
First Knight Commander Toremote had nothing singular about him beyond his martial might — and granted, for a knight that might was the one quality that mattered most, but still. In temperament, Toremote was no different from any other knight.
"The 2nd Knight Commander is an outsider who came to Serzila fourteen years ago."
Cassion, though, was another matter. He loathed magicians with a passion — because he had lost his family to them.
"Revenge was his reason. Serzila is the land that lies closest to the Outer Realm."
It was second only to the Church as a place where magicians could be killed. That was why Cassion became a Serzilan knight.
"If killing magicians were all he wanted, drifting across the continent would have been easier. Trailing in the Church's wake, say."
"There are few proper magicians out on the continent."
Cassion wanted to kill strong magicians.
"That sounds like a northerner to me."
"Which is probably why he settled in so easily."
The outsider Cassion wore his learning openly, yet something in him resembled the northerners all the same. That was why he melted into Serzila so quickly — his skill was exceptional besides, and within two years he had risen to a commander's seat. A finished article, his strength fully formed.
That was how Ellen described him. Cassion had been a Sword Master even before he came to Serzila.
"The 2nd Knight Commander is the only Sword Master who can enter the Boundary — thanks to a rare trait of his aura."
"Did it pay off?"
"Under the current commanders, the 2nd Knight Order has killed more Outer Realm magicians than any other order."
To be precise, Cassion himself was the knight who had killed the most Outer Realm magicians. Unlike the other orders, he joined every one of the 2nd Order's search missions — and the magicians he had slain, Ellen added, surely numbered in the dozens.
Dozens.
As Gulen had once said, Outer Realm magicians rarely came sniffing at the Great Wall. Even out on the search routes, the odds of meeting one were slim — at least in this era.
The Red Tower, most likely.
The masterless tower stood against the Outer Realm's push south. And yet Cassion had already killed dozens of Outer Realm magicians. The 2nd Knight Order had witnessed it, and there was proof besides — every magician he killed, Cassion sent to the Inner Castle, head and all, as though delivering a gift.
"Impressive."
"Isn't it."
Ellen squared her shoulders as though the praise had been hers.
"You said he was an outsider. Where from?"
"No idea."
...
"It's not that I don't know because I'm some connected appointee — no one knows. What does it matter anyway?"
When it took on knights, Serzila never asked where they came from. A condemned criminal would do; a wanted fugitive, even. All it demanded was strength and loyalty.
"All the more impressive, then."
He had known all this, and still Harad marveled anew. What was truly remarkable was that nothing had gone wrong yet.
"No trouble so far?"
"Because it's Serzila."
Mostly there was none — and when there was, it counted for nothing. Serzila was the idol of the North, a ducal house that even the Empire and the Church stepped carefully around. Arrogant, in that way — and possessed of the power to afford its arrogance.
"What sort of man is the 2nd Knight Commander?"
"...What have you heard so far?"
"I'm asking what you think. Not the version everyone knows."
Ellen smoothed the crease between her brows and answered without pause. She had no need to weigh it.
"Strong. Remarkable. Few knights in Serzila give themselves to it the way he does."
Mighty in arms, towering in devotion — in a few strokes, Ellen had summed up the man called Cassion.
"And unyielding. Where Serzila is concerned, he makes no exceptions — and he's not shy about admonishing his superiors, either."
Ellen's face tightened a little. Even for Young Duke Elain, Cassion had been a trying man — but the kind of loyal sword you couldn't bring yourself to hate.
"It won't be easy, I imagine. You and he are oil and water."
"I was thinking much the same."
The 2nd Knight Order's building came into view.
The Inner Castle stood at the north end of the territory, for the Outer Realm and the Boundary lay to the north. For the same reason the knights' quarters clustered northward as well, and the buildings the orders took turns using during their yearly rest periods were plain things, raised of unornamented white stone. In that, at least, they were true to the North.
This was where the 2nd Knight Order, currently on its rest period, reported for duty. Rest period did not mean idle feasting. The 2nd Order was busy when it was busy, and the busyness was mostly training — truthfully, there was little else to do, for the territory's peacekeeping belonged to the watch. No one stood guard before the building; there was no need to post sentries where knights gathered. The entrance stood shut, but unlocked.
"Shall I open it?"
"That's quite all right. I doubt His Grace the Grand Duke would wish it."
Harad had ended up learning that Ellen was of Serzila's collateral line. If she took the lead, then whatever followed would cease to be Harad's ability and become the collateral branch's instead.
So Harad opened the door without hesitation.
The interior resembled a tavern; every northerner loved their drink. Not that they drank from midday. They were knights, after all.
"No one about."
Harad felt signs of life clustered at the back of the building. The training yard. When he pushed open the rear door that led to it, a wave of sultry heat rolled over him — sweat and body-heat rising off knights at work.
The yard was vast. Swinging swords, sparring, conditioning muscle, running — dozens of knights at such labor.
"Pleasure to meet you all. Harad's the name."
So Harad addressed them. His voice carried no great volume, yet it seemed to reach every ear. The yard, until then full of battle cries and grunts, went silent. The knights' bodies stopped as one, and their eyes moved with them — dozens of pairs fixing on Harad.
"A magician."
Every face twisted at once. It was worse than it had been with the 1st Knight Order.
"Come back another time. The Commander is away on leave."
A knight came forward as he said it — bare to the waist, slabbed with muscle, scarred past counting. Harad held his stare, and the knight spoke again.
"Horn. Vice Commander. You've heard it — now clear off."
The turf-guarding was something to behold. Even the 1st Order hadn't told him to get lost the moment they set eyes on him.
The 2nd Commander's influence, no doubt.
The 2nd Order seemed to hate magicians that much more. It hardly mattered — a knight was a knight, in the end. In his past life, Harad had been on decent terms with every one of the orders.
"Understood, Horn. I'll carry that answer to His Grace exactly as given."
"What?"
"That since the 2nd Knight Commander is away, the order will have to wait for next time."
Horn's face twisted.
"His Grace will understand, I'm sure. It's the sort of business that resolves itself once the Young Duke weathers a few more of those trifling assassination attempts."
"...!"
Horn's fists trembled violently. He looked one breath away from swinging one.
"Well — had you not been knights, I'd have phrased that rather differently."
As he spoke, Harad shed his coat and passed it to Ellen, drawing something from within it: a glove he had brought along when they left the Inner Castle.
"But you are knights."
Harad flung the glove. It smacked against Horn's cheek and dropped to the ground.
"If I win, everyone under you follows my word — until the one who tried to assassinate the Young Duke is caught."
...
Horn stared at the glove on the ground, then lifted his head. He glared at Harad — and his expression was nothing like it had been before. His face was flushed, fired through with something new.
"You're on!"
Just like that, knights were easy.
Knights were.