One Debt
"Ah! You know this one well enough yourself, don't you?"
"..Yes, but... what brings you here?"
"This fellow was prowling about the Tower, so I brought him along as I pleased. Hahaha!!"
"..Master, please don't do that..."
Being introduced without so much as a by-your-leave did not please me — but that he had drawn Isabella's attention was, more than anything, a mercy. '..The sooner I'm out of here, the better.'
Their banter was less master and disciple than father and daughter, and I turned to leave them to it —
"Ah!! And where might you be off to?"
Before I knew it, there was Prion with my wrist in his grip from behind, and Isabella watching the two of us with an awkward look on her face.
"..If it's the magic for making scrolls, I hardly think—"
"Hmm? No, no — I know quite well by now that you weren't the one making those scrolls."
"In that case, have you any business with me at all..?"
"Honestly — even if a man has changed a little, what need for such frost?! She is your fiancée and your classmate besides. Won't you even greet her?"
..Prion clearly knew nothing of what had passed between Isabella and me. If he had, the instincts of the Great Sage would not be this dull. Behind him, Isabella tugged at his sleeve with a troubled expression, as if begging him to stop, but he only smiled at her.
"Come now, Isabel? You must still greet him, mustn't you?"
"..Th..Master.."
"It's quite all right."
Leave it alone any longer and the girl would only feel worse, so I had no choice but to cut him off. "Something of an awkward matter passed between Lady Isabella and me. Exchanging greetings right away would be... difficult."
"W..was there, now? Did my disciple perhaps err first—"
"No. The mistake was mine, so there is no need for anyone to apologize."
At my words, Isabella's eyes flew wide, and she stared straight at me — her face having flushed red at some point she herself could not name.
'..Was that truly so surprising?' True, I bore her no particular goodwill. But neither was I so graceless as to speak ill of his disciple in front of the master I had seen in so long.
With farewells exchanged between Prion and Isabella, I left the room and was just turning toward the dormitory where Ella waited when—
"U..um!!"
At the sound of Isabella's voice behind me, I paused mid-step and turned.
"What is it, Lady Isabella."
"I..I..th..nnh.."
"If you have nothing to say, then I'll be on my way."
"I-I'm sowwy!!"
...?
"..Eek!"
An apology? From Lady Isabella — that proud, haughty creature? And from the way she winced, she seemed to have bitten her tongue mid-word; no sooner had she registered her own embarrassment than the red came flooding back into her face.
"..And what, precisely, is this apology for."
"F-for... for everything... for how coldly I have always treated you..."
"..."
'..Honestly, I hadn't expected an apology.' She knew nothing beyond magic — magic was, to all appearances, her very life — and she spared no thought for anything else. So I had assumed the attitude and the behavior she had shown me were things she had never cared to remember. Not that I could deny the apology came a little... no, a great deal late. But I had met more than my share of the shameless sort who, having done wrong, offered no apology at all and instead tried to turn the blame back upon their victim. And it had been a long time since I had written off the wrongs born of her arrogance as nothing more than a girl's folly. I could well afford to forgive her.
"..Honestly speaking, I would call this a little... no, a great deal late for an apology."
"..Th..that is... I'm so—"
"It's quite all right. It was long ago, after all — and you never did me any direct harm."
"E-even so!!"
"It's quite all right. But if it still sits ill with you, then set it down as a debt."
"A..a debt?"
"Well... you need only grant me a favor, one of these days."
"Th...that would be enough?"
"Yes."
A house of Renuiel's standing could supply any number of research materials I could never obtain on my own. Isabella looked as though she were deliberating — though it was a proposal that needed no deliberation whatsoever. What favor I might ask was an unknown to her. But she was the eldest daughter of a ducal house; nearly any favor could be arranged through her own means, and should one prove beyond even her, her master would move heaven and earth on her behalf. If so small a thing could wash away a lifetime's guilt, it was scarcely a bad bargain for her. Perhaps she arrived at the same arithmetic, for she abandoned her deliberation and spoke on with eyes full of confidence.
"I accept your proposal."
"Then that is how it shall be."
"..Are you truly content with just that?"
"Do you know what I intend to ask of you?"
"..Th..at..."
Judging by the flush creeping over her face as she faltered, I could roughly guess where her imagination had wandered. But I have lived rather more years than her imagination could reach. Not that such appetites had abandoned me — I simply had no wish to aim them at a minor. If anything, I could not stop the laugh that escaped me at her confidence in imagining such a thing at all.
"..What is so funny..."
"I have no interest in your body, my lady, so you may rest easy."
"...!"
"Now, if you'll excuse me."
From behind me came what sounded very much like a shriek — surely an auditory hallucination. A young woman who prized her dignity above all else would never raise her voice. So I told myself as I slowly pushed open the white door that announced the entrance to the White Magic Tower and stepped out into the light.
"Hmm? What is it?"
"..It's nothing, Master."
"Nothing, indeed. Every way I look, it's the face of a girl a thousand miles away, Isabel."
Her master was right. She had no confidence in her ability to think of anything else just now. A single man had shaken her thoughts to their foundations not moments before. A man named Jenison.
At first it had been guilt and self-reproach near to madness. Guilt at having done him so grave a wrong; self-loathing at having behaved precisely like the arrogant nobles she so despised. The two had wound together until she could not even meet his eyes properly.
Of course she had meant to apologize. But she had no intention of doing it here, in so slipshod a fashion — least of all in front of that man, her own master. He was, to any observer, overprotectiveness given human form, and at the same time a man whose power had earned him the name of monster. Were she to apologize on the spot and be refused, there was no chance her master would stand by and simply watch. With that in mind she had resolved to put the apology off until later, wishing only for this awkward stretch of time to pass as quickly as it could.
Yes — that was how it was supposed to go. If only he had not said that the offense was his.
'The mistake was mine, so there is no need for you to apologize.'
'The mistake was mine...'
'My mistake...'
Why? Why would he cover for my fault? He must hate me, too. Perhaps to the point of loathing. And yet — why?
With my master standing right there, had he only named my fault for what it was, he could have extracted something from me under the banner of an apology. The name of the Great Sage is no light thing — it would be harder to find a single worthless item among his possessions than a priceless one. I might even have won the chance to study his magical theory firsthand. Try as I might, I could not believe he had failed to weigh all of this. And yet — why? Why would he bury my fault beneath his own? Even when it could only blacken his own name further — was it some last ember of attachment he still held for me?
The moment her thoughts reached that point, she was ashamed to the edge of madness. That she had put off her apology — because she could not bear for her master to learn of her fault, because the eyes of others frightened her, because she feared a stain upon her honor — when she ought to have been kneeling before him that very instant, was shame enough to drive her out of her mind.
By the time she arrived at that thought and collected herself, he had already been gone from the room for some little while, and she had no choice but to hurry after him.
"Master!! I'll just step out for a moment."
"Er.. mm? Off you go, then."
Leaving behind her master — who was muttering some nonsense about puberty arriving late — she chased after him, and before she had gone far she managed to catch him.
Her first thought had been to apologize on the spot. But a girl who had never once apologized in her life could hardly be expected to manage it properly. The apology she stammered out, wrenching each word free with effort, came with a bitten tongue — nerves, perhaps — and, to crown it all, a hiccup. She wanted nothing so much as a mouse hole to crawl into and hide — but his next words, mild yet faintly edged, set her nerves taut all over again.
"..And what, precisely, is this apology for."
What is this apology for — was that not obvious? All those days I had treated him with cold contempt. The words I had spat out without a second thought must have left wounds on his heart that were anything but shallow. He might even loathe the very fact of having met me. So — all of it. Unless I apologized for everything I had done to him since the day we met, I doubted this guilt would ever fade.
He listened, seemed to weigh her words for a moment, and then opened his mouth. In the time it took him to speak, a thousand thoughts crossed her mind — from him refusing her forgiveness outright, to him demanding her body under the pretext of accepting the apology. For while the Jenison of today seemed a rather different creature, the man of old had carried the nickname of a lecher, after all.
The answer that finally came was one she could never have imagined. He said it was fine. That it was all long past, and that unlike the others she had never done him any direct harm — so he would forgive her. He had called it a rather late apology, yet somehow his very tone carried a trace of gratitude.
It made her feel wretched — that an apology carried through on so little courage as this should earn a man's thanks. Put another way, it meant that no one, not one person, had ever spoken with him like this, the two of them alone. Had he been trying, then, to shoulder some of the guilt that had only grown heavier? He had draped over her the pretext of a debt — and whether it was thanks to that or no, the guilt did feel a little lighter.
For a breath she worried what he might ask of her — some outrageous demand — but confidence soon followed: there was scarcely a favor she could not grant. And yet — was this still not enough? Could the wrongs she had committed against him be atoned for with only this? To the question she asked with that doubt upon her lips, he assented so readily, so cleanly, and made his unhurried way out of the Tower.
Of course, she did not feel that her atonement to him was complete with this alone. Because she herself could not allow it to be.
That day, inside the so-called Archive — the vault where the distilled research of the world's mages lay gathered — the Great Sage, idol of mages the world over, was studying how best to handle a daughter who had reached the age of puberty. And there was also one woman, turning over anything that might be of even the slightest help to him, who had resolved to grant his favor no matter what it took.
'..Come to think of it... is my figure... on the poor side?'
Along with that utterly trivial question.