Chapter 11
Chapter 11
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: Midnight in Rom
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"A month ago, you had me hauled in like luggage in a carriage at this hour, and now you're saying they won't let me in because it's late? What kind of cowardly nonsense is this!"
The guard at the imperial palace entrance had gone inside saying he'd check, but more than half an hour had passed with no sign of him. Danel muttered irritably under his breath.
"It's not exactly cowardly, is it?"
Jade and Danel stood beneath the emperor's bronze statue, some distance from the palace gates. With the palace right in front of them and the time being one in the morning, the middle of Rom felt eerily desolate instead, an ominous air hanging around them.
"Should I call it selfish, then?"
"So His Majesty summoned the priest in the dead of night just to discuss the Vesuo volcano?"
Jade asked.
"His Majesty often acts like an obedient child in my presence, but that day he was throwing a full tantrum. He had no choice! A dream where an angel tells him to retrieve the Holy Grail—he must have thought it was 'blasphemous' himself."
Jade asked, puzzled.
"This might be out of order now, but why consult you, Father Danel, on something so huge? The proper chain of command would be to call Cardinal Lorenzo."
"Because Cardinal Lorenzo belongs to the Rapal Priesthood. If the cardinal deemed that dream not an angel's prophecy but a devil's whisper, it would just give Pontiff Dionysius of Rotican an excuse to slander us. Of course, I told him the cardinal wasn't that vile, but even so, it was me who got summoned."
"By the time His Majesty called you to the palace, he'd already made up his mind, hadn't he?"
"He still phrased it as a 'request.'"
"Nice choice of words."
Jade emotionlessly gazed back at the palace. Even in the darkness, the lanterns and torches lit throughout made the palace walls shimmer golden. And at the far end of the palace fluttered a red flag.
"Then isn't it risky for us to come here like this? If the gate guards spot a priest from the Rom priesthood visiting at this hour, it's not like only one or two people will notice."
"You think so? Cardinal Pietro and I have often come to pray at dawn with no issues. The soldiers will assume the same this time."
"Aren't you being too lax? Anyway, if it's meant to be secret, he probably didn't promise any big reward."
"Since everything has to stay secret, he can't even offer a reward. Even if you die on the mission, you won't be declared a martyr."
Jade scratched his nose and looked up at the emperor's bronze statue.
"Got something against it?"
Danel asked.
"Something's bothering me."
"What?"
"I don't know. Anyway, Father Danel designated me as his companion, and His Majesty issued a pardon to grant that request?"
"That's what's bothering you?"
"No, not that..."
Jade frowned.
Just then, the guard reappeared from the direction of the gates.
"Father. Father Danel."
Danel and Jade approached the guard again.
"They say it's still no good."
The guard wiped sweat from his forehead as he spoke.
"Looks like His Majesty didn't mention granting me special privileges."
Danel chuckled dryly.
"Yes. The chamberlain said to go to St. Vesta's Cathedral. He'll come fetch you tomorrow."
"Got it."
Danel withdrew without protest. But Jade lingered, pointing at the red flags hanging here and there on the palace and asking the guard,
"Something happen in Rom?"
The soldier noticed the direction Jade was looking and nodded.
"You must not have been in Rom lately, Father? There've been murders—one after another, ten people dead. No culprit found yet."
"What kind of murders? Just stabbed with a knife? Or worse?"
"Definitely worse. All I know is the bodies were dismembered. Pieces scattered all over the place when they were found."
Jade nodded gravely. The guard shook his head and continued.
"I used to dismiss the clergy's talk of the end times, but these days with all that's happening, I'm starting to believe. This must be the work of some evil demon or witch. Be careful. The killings happen mostly at night."
Jade nodded and followed after Danel, who had gone ahead and was waiting.
"You seemed to guess it was dismemberments right away and started asking about it?"
"Red flags go up for plagues or barbarian invasions, right? Not just for ten deaths. But dismembered bodies in the streets? That'd warrant it."
"You think it's murders by the same method... not necessarily the same demon?"
"The Zerba murders must've been famous even in Rom. Could be a human copying them."
Seeing Danel waiting for him to continue, Jade asked,
"Why?"
"Tell me more. Wouldn't it be good to give the guards a hint to catch the killer?"
Jade shrugged.
"I may have eliminated Zerba's demon, but I didn't find it—it came to me. And luckily, it was one I could handle. If this killer's human, not demon, we can only pray we never cross paths."
"Pray? Didn't you say you don't pray?"
"Not every word means exactly what it says! Saying you're 'full to bursting' doesn't mean you're literally dying!"
"Don't take it so seriously."
"Who made me this way?"
Danel giggled like a child.
Jade buttoned his collar and said,
"Even Rom gets chilly at night."
"Bompai was warm."
"Where to now? To St. Vesta's like the guard said?"
"No choice. I'll drop you at the cathedral and swing by my place."
Danel started walking first.
"If you're going home, shouldn't I come along?"
"If the chamberlain's right, someone needs to wait at the cathedral, no? And no issue with me coming and going from my house, but someone else at this hour? People might get suspicious."
"Being watched?"
"Just being cautious."
"We always travel at night. We'll wake Bishop Davit if we go to the cathedral now."
"That's why we sneak in carefully. And really, what's the big deal waking an old man who doesn't sleep at dawn anyway?"
"One's too early to call 'dawn sleep.' Bishop Ducar was considerate."
"Bishop Ducar nags. Bishop Davit's fine. Worried? We could go to Caraculus instead. Ten-minute walk from here."
Caraculus was a popular public bathhouse in central Rom, visited by dozens daily. It stayed open at night for wanderers or drunks with nowhere else to go.
"No thanks."
Jade shook his head.
"You liked it plenty as a kid."
"Till I was ten. Until I saw a patient with skin disease—red spots all over, pus oozing from wounds—show up at Caraculus. I asked if someone like that shouldn't come to a public bath, and the doctor said soaking in the bathwater cures it. That's when I realized I'd been soaking in that same water all along. Haven't gone since."
"Hmm, guess that rules it out for me now too."
Rom's streets were paved with flat stones nearly everywhere. Roads starting here led near to Rotican, far to the Parens Kingdom, and even Litua and Luna.
If Danel hadn't insisted on Bompai, they could've ridden comfortably from Zerba. But Danel's route crossed Vesuo Mountain and muddy paths. Midway, the horse they'd tied to a tree got stolen.
Danel had offered a prayer that wasn't quite a prayer: "Lord, may the one who took our horse need it more than we do. Otherwise, what are we even doing?"
Having arrived after such hardship, both were still filthy and reeking. Even if the emperor summoned them now, they'd need to change first.
Suddenly Jade stopped walking.
"What is it?"
"I remembered."
"What?"
"What was bothering me."
"Sorry, kid. My memory's not sharp enough to pick up a conversation from five minutes ago like that. Spell it out."
"It's that His Majesty consulted you—no one else—about retrieving the Holy Grail."
"What's odd? He likes me, and I'm an old man who won't mind dying on the job. Good for secrecy."
"Doesn't add up. Sneaking to the Eastern Continent for the Grail with an old priest and the excommunicated young priest he picks? You're too famous for secrecy, Father Danel. And not fit physically. If I were emperor, I'd pick a royal knight or trusted retainer—secretive, skilled in swordplay, experienced."
At Jade's reasoning, Danel shut his mouth, eyes wide in surprise.
"But there was something more important than all that efficiency, something only you could do. That's why no consulting Cardinal Lorenzo. So your mission isn't retrieving the Grail. No reward, no martyrdom if you die—that fits too, right?"
"Right."
Danel admitted readily, continuing in a slightly annoyed tone.
"I planned to tell you once the journey started, but you're too quick. Honestly, it's annoying how sharp you are. Spilling every suspicion just makes enemies. Can't you play dumb sometimes?"
"Sorry. But as long as you're not the enemy, I don't care about others."
"That's exactly the attitude that makes enemies! You frustrating kid."
Danel thumped his chest and said,
"Since it came up, I have to tell you. From His Majesty's view, no choice. You know about the Grail?"
"It happened right after I entered the monastery, so just rumors. It was found on the Eastern Continent."
"That's already fuzzy. Three or four years ago? Anyway, too far, and Rotican hid it thoroughly. Rotican spent a full year verifying if it was real."
"His Majesty didn't know?"
"How could I tell you? It's what His Majesty shared. He mocked Rotican for uncharacteristic caution, hoping no sparks flew to the Empire, and stayed silent. Made an effort to pretend he hadn't heard."
"Sparks... Like how even quiet Zerba Monastery boiled over with that official statement?"
"Yeah. About two years ago now. Pontiff Dionysius of Rotican declared officially, 'God desires the Holy Grail!' His Majesty was furious at such an announcement without consulting the Empire's emperor—if retainers hadn't stopped him, he'd have led an army to burn Rotican. But once declared, he couldn't touch the pontiff."
Jade, raised in Rom, knew the delicate emperor-pontiff dynamic well.
"That would've sparked riots."
"Pontiff knew, that's why he did it. Emperor's non-response was his response."
"Lord Valtion showed no reaction to the Grail either."
"Not just Zerba. Lords and kings hit hard by the Holy Land Recovery War thirty years ago? Financial woes and eyeing the Rom Empire kept them from rash moves. So despite public fervor, nothing happened."
"Nothing on the Eastern Continent?"
"Hardly! Not sure if Grail-related, but three kingdoms there went to war. The one first said to find it? Royal brothers slaughtering each other."
"Oh, right. Rotican called it divine punishment on heathens for a holy relic."
"Event that bolstered the pontiff's claim. But Ben—no, His Majesty—didn't see it that way. If the Grail appeared here in the West, no guarantee it wouldn't happen again, right?"
Indeed, after Rotican's announcement, kings and denominations split into factions fighting: send armies for the Grail, or oppose.
"Anyway, amid months of debate in Rom, Eastern kingdoms lost hundreds of thousands to war, and the Grail vanished. His Majesty still didn't move, so Rotican couldn't wait and launched their own expedition."
Danel began sharing what Jade didn't know.
"First movers: Parens Kingdom. Their First Knight Order—Rapal-affiliated, most renowned and skilled, great in Holy Land Recovery War."
"Never heard that."
"Of course not. No official deployment. Report from spy His Majesty—Ben—planted. Sorry, slipping into first names from habit?"
"You two really just use names when alone?"
"Not quite... Anyway, not just Parens. Around same time, intel Glitten Kingdom's Round Table Knights departed somewhere. His Majesty was sure both sought the Grail."
"How'd His Majesty respond?"
"Silence! If they stirred trouble with Eastern kingdoms, he'd pull back—'Not led by Rom!' Same if they failed."
Danel took a deep breath in and out, as if what followed was the real story.
"His Majesty worried what if someone actually found it. Rotican relations already sour; improving with Parens and Glitten. If one brought back the Grail and it proved real? Who knows what catastrophe."
"No word of it found yet in my ears, so they failed?"
"Rumors and truth mix, just more chaos. No news if the knight orders died or lived. Not even if they reached East..."
"So Rotican belatedly banned Grail expeditions? Explains the sudden edict to the monastery."
"Demands escalating lately. Pontiff must've felt control slipping. Knight orders and priesthoods forming to go personally. Even a lone priest demanding divine protection via official palace request—who knows how many slipped away unreported?"
Zerba's monks insisted on retrieving the Grail. Jade questioned, "They took what wasn't ours—how's 'retrieving' make sense?" and got chased from debate.
Religious trials rampant over relics; monasteries claiming they had it. Witch sightings everywhere; demon-exorcist jobs hot.
Jade facing trial just for old Grail talk? Normal in this climate.
"With all that pressure, dreaming that and panicking at night makes sense. So His Majesty didn't order you to find and bring the Grail to Rom?"
"Right. That's why an old man like me, not some skilled loyal knight. If they find it and it's not holy... but a devil's thing..."
Danel checked surroundings again—empty—before whispering,
"...His Majesty ordered to destroy it."