Slighted (2)
Over the past week, Elaine had shown up at the drop of a hat — literally, truly, at the drop of a hat.
She who had sworn to live as she pleased seemed bent on proving it, shadowing Harad wherever he went.
"No dreams last night, I'm afraid. Let's at least go have breakfast," she would say, appearing at the annex every morning.
"Kubel's cooking astounds me no matter how many times I taste it. Come, lunch." She came at midday, and again at evening.
"Have a drink. It seems drinking makes for good dreams. Ah — do put in a word with Kubel about a midnight snack." She even came at night.
Or else she simply stayed with him from morning until night.
For Harad, it was a daily routine in which nothing had really changed. Elaine or Ellen — they were the same person in the end. There was no reason to refuse. It meant trust had deepened by just that much. It even stirred memories of his former life.
So what's the problem?
Across the table, Ellen's eyes were blazing. That furnace of rage, Harad could not fathom.
"Why on earth are you angry?"
"I told you. Why didn't you come out?"
Why hadn't he come out drinking. Last night, too, Elaine had emptied five bottles alone, and Harad had waited until she finished every last one.
"I drank with the Grand Duke. All week long."
"Exactly. You never drank with me."
Ah.
So that's the angle she's playing.
Only then did Harad begin to grasp it. From where he stood, one was as good as the other — but for Ellen, it wasn't.
Even if the anger was hollow, she had to show it like this. Whatever the truth of it, from Ellen's standpoint she had gone an entire week without seeing Harad.
"You do understand, surely. When the Grand Duke asks you to drink, how could I refuse?"
"Why not? You talk back to the Grand Duke all the time."
"……?"
"You should have refused and come out anyway."
It was surely an act — and yet the emotion he sensed from her felt terribly real.
Once she folded, wasn't she supposed to be done with it?
Ellen was carrying on like a genuinely furious person, not an actress.
"Ah — so it's this, is it."
Harad pointed at the Pater thrust through his belt. Come to think of it, they had never properly settled accounts. That was because the one he'd been meeting all this while was Elaine, not Ellen.
"What's that supposed to mean? That one's yours already. What do you think you've been carrying around all this time?"
Ellen was refreshingly direct. She was, at the same time, dogged.
Harad stroked his chin. "Fine. Let's sort this out. You're angry because I haven't been drinking with you. Am I right?"
"Yes."
"Is that truly all?"
"What else would there be?"
Ellen's eyes narrowed to slits.
"Nothing, then. Understood."
In truth, he understood nothing.
Why, though?
Harad turned his head — and met Kubel's eyes. Apologize, apologize, Kubel mouthed in silence.
"Sorry?"
"Kubel, out you go."
The words were barely out of her mouth before Ellen saw Kubel out the door. Only then did Harad learn that a body that size could move without a single sound.
"We agreed to meet on a schedule. Every day, if we could manage it."
"Didn't you say every day was too much?"
"I only said that at the start."
The chief reason was that Harad could tell mages apart at a glance. With him beside her, Ellen had no need to wonder whether a mage lurked somewhere close.
"Do you have any idea how irritated I've been?"
Meaning she had worn herself out being suspicious of everyone around her for the past week. To Harad's ears, it was an obvious lie. He would stake his life that Elaine had never had a spare moment for such things.
"My apologies."
"You're only apologizing because Kubel told you to."
"……"
"You are, aren't you?"
Ellen's gaze turned more murderous still. Avoiding it, Harad sank into thought.
First, he had to humor her. In this relationship, Harad was the one with more to lose. It had been that way ever since his regression.
Why was she irritated?
The wariness about her surroundings was a lie, but the irritation was real. Ellen was showing it right in front of him.
To keep anyone from suspecting she and Elaine were one and the same?
If so, that had been settled long ago. Harad had bitten down hard and never once tried to tie Elaine to Ellen. In Elaine's presence, he never so much as raised Ellen's name.
So what's the right answer?
There was bound to be an answer she wanted.
It's not Pater, she said. The apology was wrong too. Ah — does she mean I should stop seeing her when she's Elaine?
But Elaine was the one who kept coming to him.
"You must have had a grand time. Truly grand. The Grand Duke pouring your drinks for you."
"I did, I'll grant you. But the better company was you."
"What's that supposed to mean."
"It's the truth."
Harad was more at ease with Ellen than with Elaine. He and Elaine were not yet on terms where blunt words could pass between them.
Ah.
Only then did Harad understand. It was the same reason as his own. At bottom, it wasn't the drinking — it was the meeting.
So she, too, is more comfortable as Ellen.
What she couldn't say as Elaine, she could circle around to as Ellen. And that must have chafed at Ellen.
"If you like me better, then why didn't you ever come see me?"
"I meant to."
"But you didn't."
"I was afraid the Grand Duke would smack me."
"What kind of bullshit is that?"
Ellen's brow creased. Just now, the Ellen before him had been Elaine.
This is tricky.
But he had the hang of it now. Harad realized why his earlier apology had fallen flat: Kubel. It had carried no sincerity.
"I'm sorry."
Ellen's expression turned strange. She looked flustered in spite of herself — the face of someone who, with an apology actually in hand, could not for the life of her say why she deserved one. Or perhaps someone who didn't quite know why she had been angry in the first place.
"I made a mistake. Let it go just this once."
"……"
"It won't happen again."
"……And what about tonight, when the Grand Duke asks you to drink again?"
"Then I'll refuse."
Ellen's crossed arms came undone.
"Keep that up and you'll get smacked."
"Right. Well."
Ellen's mouth twitched. She looked delighted at the thought of being able to hit him with perfect legitimacy.
"In exchange, do tell her to swing gently."
"……I'll pass the message along."
She gave every sign of having cooled off. The slanted, guarded stance had come undone at some point, now squared toward Harad.
"I intend to follow the smoke from the watchtower. Not all the way — just a few paces."
"……Ha. Was that why you came to see me? To say that?"
Ellen crossed her arms again.
"And you were going to say it to the Grand Duke first, weren't you? You did go looking for the Grand Duke in the beginning."
Ellen seemed to have caught wind of what Harad had said to Kubel out there. Her ears were sharp.
"Ah, that it was not."
Harad said it with perfect confidence.
"This I meant to tell you."
"Why? Go with the Grand Duke you're so fond of."
"I told you — I like you better."
"……"
"I'm not nearly so close with the Grand Duke. How could I trust her with my front or my back?"
A mistake, Harad realized even as the words left him. A moment ago, when he had laid the blame on Elaine, Ellen had frowned. Because the two of them were the same person.
Harad had to take Ellen's side and Elaine's side at once.
"Ah — it's not that I distrust the Grand Duke……"
"You trust me more?"
"Precisely."
Contrary to expectation, Ellen's answer came out soft. She had been spitting mad just before.
What's different now?
In the North, trust was what mattered. Assault was simply everyday life.
If anything, "we're not close" should sting her worse than "I'm afraid she'll smack me."
Harad decided a win was a win and let it go. It seemed a puzzle beyond his solving.
"But it's no use, you know."
"Why?"
"You said you'd used up every last bead."
There was no longer any way to mend his body.
"Then I never had one to begin with."
"That's dangerous."
"No one cherishes my body more than I do. I've no intention of overreaching."
"……"
At that, Ellen fixed him with a long, level stare. Her expression was a strange one — displeased, somehow, and pleased at the same time.
It must be the danger. And yet she does want to go.
The watchtower's smoke ran all the way to the Second Wall. It was the most dangerous ground in the Boundary. One misstep, and Serzilla would lose its only heir.
"A few paces. If it feels wrong, I'll turn straight back."
Of course, that would never come to pass. Even if it did, Harad would see to it that it didn't. What mattered most to him was Elaine.
"……When are you going?"
"Tomorrow. Today, we drink."
"Fine."
As if she had never been angry at all, Ellen's mouth curled up at the corners.
So easy, and yet so difficult.
Then as now, Elaine was simply that kind of person.
He was in the annex manifesting flame when Kubel came to find him. It was around the time the evening glow set.
"Did things go smoothly, sir?"
Kubel's face was bright as he asked. No doubt thanks to Ellen's anger having cooled.
"Where's Ellen?"
"She's gone to collect Shura."
Come afternoon, Shura liked to run off and play in the alley where Ellen reigned as ringleader, and Ellen took charge of seeing her there and back.
"Thanks to you, it went well."
Kubel regarded Harad in silence. He seemed to want the details.
"Nothing much. She seems to have been hurt that we hadn't been able to meet."
Kubel nodded. Come to think of it, Kubel had already known the answer. That was why he had urged him to apologize.
"……Is that all it was?"
"Is there more?"
Harad tilted his head. "Ah — she must have been irritated as well. With me gone, Ellen had to stay endlessly wary of everyone around her."
Harad appended this to suit Kubel's view of things. To Kubel, Elaine and Ellen were two different people.
"I don't believe that's it."
But Kubel let out a sigh.
"I suspect what hurt Lady Ellen was that you never came looking for her, Harad."
"Isn't that what I just said?"
"It's a different thing."
Kubel spoke as though venturing a guess — not from any real uncertainty, but out of deference to Harad.
"Not that you couldn't meet her. That you never sought her out."
The two were similar, yet not the same.
"Have you also spoken of Lady Ellen to the Grand Duke?"
"No. I haven't."
Harad never raised it unprompted. There was no telling whether prodding at it might put Elaine on her guard.
"Then she was likely hurt by that as well."
Harad did not argue. It was a reason he could not explain to Kubel.
"Not meeting her would have meant nothing at all — if only you had gone looking for her, Harad."
Harad thought from Kubel's eye level. The view of a man who did not know Elaine and Ellen were one and the same.
"I see. That may well be it. From where he stands, I grew thick with the collateral branch, then snapped up the main line the moment it came close."
It could certainly have looked that way to Kubel.
"In your eyes, I must have seemed an opportunist."
"……"
Kubel's eyes went cold.
"Am I wrong?"
"Yes. You're wrong. I know full well you are not that kind of man, Harad."
"Then why look at me that way?"
"Lady Ellen is…… ah."
Kubel's head turned abruptly. The smoke he had scattered around the annex was stirring — Ellen and Shura had arrived.
"Go on, then. I have the gist of it."
"……"
"And tonight, too, the Grand Duke will ask you to drink, won't she?"
It went exactly as Ellen had foretold. The instant the sun sank, Elaine flung open the annex door. The hinges shrieked but did not break — proof that her anger had fully spent itself.
"What brings you here."
True to Ellen's warning, Harad was waiting for Elaine on the ground floor. Finding him there, Elaine broke into a beaming smile.
"Came for a drink. It's a rare bottle."
Elaine brandished a bottle bigger than her own head.
"My apologies, but I have a prior engagement."
"A prior engagement? With whom?"
Elaine's brow gathered, just slightly. The gesture was perfectly natural.
"I'm to drink with Ellen."
"Cancel it."
Elaine said it with deliberate severity.
"Tell her I came by myself, and she'll understand."
He could not give ground here. That was a trap.
"I refuse."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to."
"……"
Elaine's face hardened into stone. Harad braced to take the blow. He had asked in advance, so she would surely strike him gently. Still — Heavenly Might was Heavenly Might……
"Very well."
No blow came flying.
Elaine turned on her heel and left the annex grounds at a brisk stride.
"……?"
Harad waited a short while, then stepped out of the annex. The drinks were to be at the Footprint of the Snow Leopard — Ellen had settled that long ago. Ellen was the sort of person who needed a cigarette the moment she drank, and that was not something to be done in Kubel's annex, where Shura was.
"You're late."
"My apologies."
He had deliberately left her time to change, but Ellen was already waiting inside — not at the bar, but at a table tucked into a corner.
"Not the bar, for once?"
"I brought a rare bottle."
With that, Ellen lifted the bottle she'd hidden on the floor and set it on the table. A different drink from the one Elaine had carried over earlier.
"A rare bottle?"
"Yes. A liquor only Serzilla can drink."
Serzilla had savored its drink for generations. And there existed a liquor only Serzilla could drink.
"You can simply give that to me?"
"Of course it's on the sly. I'm giving it to you, and only you."
Ellen drew the cork with her index finger.
"Know that it's an honor."
Grinning like a little imp, Ellen poured. The brew was viciously strong — and sweet besides.
It was a drink from his memories.
"I give this to you and you alone. Know it as an honor."
The drink they had shared when Elaine first rose to the seat of Grand Duke.
"It is the drink I love best."
Harad looked at Ellen. Ellen tossed back a glass, chuckling, and Harad let his eyes rest on that face a little longer. It was the same face as the Elaine he had seen before the end, but the smile it held was still a different one.
"Is it a drink you love, then?"
"Hm? It's not quite that precious to me."
For some reason, that left him oddly deflated.
Harad stopped, glass at his lips. The aroma circling his mouth hung there, heavy.
Slighted? Him?
Why?