Meeting Sylvia Again (3)
"So what will it be? Will you die by my hand as you stand, or will you beg for your life?"
"And if I beg, you'll forgive me?"
"That I cannot say. I shall think on it once I have seen the depth of your sincerity."
"But I don't feel that what I did back then was wrong. Which means I have no reason to seek forgiveness."
"What did you say?"
The red creeping across Sylvia's face made it plain that her blood pressure was climbing by the second. Cloud, however, stood proud and unrepentant to the very last.
"How many times must I say it? You were the one who got hunted. I'm the one who spared your life—so why should I be the one apologizing?"
"Why, you insolent—!"
Sylvia hiked up her torn skirt and swiftly drew the dagger tucked between her inner thighs.
Just as the furious blade was about to fly for Cloud's throat, a deep, booming voice from behind brought her arm to a halt.
"Now, now! That's quite enough, both of you!"
Cloud and Sylvia turned their heads at the same time. The voice belonged to none other than Thor—his massive frame splendidly decked out in a tuxedo, planted squarely at the mouth of the alley and wearing a thoroughly easy smile.
"On such a fine day, dressed so beautifully—surely you don't intend to take a man's life in a shabby residential quarter, Lady Sylvia?"
Cloud's face lit up at the sight of him. Sylvia, by contrast, scowled, tears welling in her clear eyes as she spoke.
"I knew I'd seen that face somewhere—on the street, earlier."
"I was among the celebratory procession held in your honor, Lady Sylvia."
"And you're also the one who locked me in that cave."
"For that, I offer my sincerest apologies. Please forgive the rudeness I showed you then."
Uncharacteristic of his usual self, yet perfectly befitting the clothes he wore, Thor placed a hand over his chest and bowed with courtly courtesy to the lady.
"Forgive me for startling you with my sudden appearance, Lady Sylvia—and my apologies as well for the late introduction. I am called Thor Joffrey: a romanticist who sings of love and romance, and a mercenary who brings hope to those in dire straits. Heh heh."
Keeping her dagger trained on Cloud's throat, Sylvia glared at Thor and spoke.
"I can see that you and Cloud are close, but this is a matter between this man and me—ours alone to settle. Do not interfere. Step aside."
Thor answered calmly, his smile never fading.
"I have come to stop this fight."
"No one can stop this fight. Only this man and I can see it resolved."
"But I cannot stand by and watch my brother—the man to whom I owe my very life—be put to death."
Sylvia leveled her dagger at Thor.
"So you mean to fight me here and now, is that it?"
Thor lost none of his smile, answering in a calm, measured voice.
"I have no intention whatsoever of crossing blades with you, Lady Sylvia. To put it plainly, I have come only to stop this fight. What passed in days gone by between my beloved brother and your esteemed self, I of course know nothing. But if you will suffer a humble opinion from a man of small insight, there is a thought I would lay before you: a killing committed in the heat of anger leaves behind wounds that can never be undone, and a regret far heavier still. Can vengeance truly end with a murder? To my mind, there is another road—one that exacts a price dearer than death itself. I beg you to read my heart, and for your own sake as much as anyone's, to reconsider how you would dispose of my brother."
He spoke with such polished courtesy that it was hard to believe this was the same boisterous, unrestrained Thor. Even Cloud, watching quietly from the sidelines, was taken aback—so much so that he found himself thinking, now there is a truly admirable man. It seemed the life Thor had walked up to now had not been lived in vain.
A brief silence settled among the three of them.
Thor's counsel had pulled her back from the brink of blind rage, and reason seeped into her once more.
Sylvia shot Cloud a look sharp with lingering fury.
"Do you wish to live? Speak."
Perhaps, had he said he wanted to live, she meant to use that as her excuse to take a step back.
But Cloud sneered.
"Not particularly. If you're going to kill me, hurry up and do it."
Then, fixing Thor with a hard look, he added:
"Thor. If this woman kills me, don't interfere. I mean it."
There could be no mistaking the sincerity in it.
"Ha... unbelievable."
Thor let out an awkward laugh, at a loss.
A flicker of bewilderment crossed Sylvia's face.
"Do you mean that? Do you truly wish to die?"
"I do."
Sylvia bit her lip.
"You've been begging me to kill you this whole time... Why do you want to die so badly? Why have you never once asked me to spare you? If you begged my forgiveness, you might yet live."
Cloud shook his head, wearing an expression of pure incomprehension, and let out a long, deep sigh.
"You believe what I did back then was wrong. I don't. Which means you and I hold different convictions. And when that happens, one of the two has to die. In politics, have you ever once seen a man from a rival faction talked around to the other side? You can't reason with them, so in this day and age the thorn in your side is killed first and the questions come never. That is the politics of our time. The central nobles who rule this kingdom, with all the power they possess, choose assassination over negotiation because it is the easier road. Think it over too carefully and you're the only one who ends up exhausted. If you want your convictions to prevail, kill me. You'll live the rest of your life with an easier heart for it, too. You hold the initiative now, so the weaker party—me—gets killed. That is all there is to it."
The moment Cloud finished, Sylvia cried out, voice thick with tears, as though such thinking were beyond all sympathy.
"Don't speak of dying so lightly! If dying were as easy as all that, I would have died long ago! Right after you did that to me!"
Her voice lost its strength and trailed away.
"But...!"
At that very moment—
The voices of soldiers came rushing in from all around, frantically searching for the vanished Sylvia.
"Search over there!"
"If we fail to find Lady Sylvia by day's end, not one of us will escape the lord's wrath! Move!"
"Yes, sir!"
With matters having come this far, Sylvia let out a sigh and, as though surrendering, put away her dagger. Partly it was for the sake of the poor soldiers who would otherwise be dragged into the affair—and partly, too, because her body and mind, worn to the bone, had simply given out.
She bowed her head in thought for a moment, then raised her eyes to Thor.
"Your name was Thor, was it not?"
"It was, Lady Sylvia."
"Thor, in Cloud's stead, I would take from you a single pledge, sworn upon your honor."
Thor received her words with the utmost respect.
"Gladly. If it is a means of sparing my brother's life, I will swear anything upon my family's honor. What is this pledge?"
Leaving Thor to wait for her answer, she turned her head and fixed Cloud with an icy expression.
"Cloud. You will meet me here again at midnight tonight."
"Planning to kill me then?"
"The desire to kill you has left me."
"Then why meet at all? However many times we meet, ours will only ever be an exhausting connection."
Cloud scrunched his brows in that grating way of his. At the sight, a spark of anger kindled in Sylvia, and her features twisted into a scowl.
"I intend to leave you alive—and keep you at my side, tormenting you for the rest of your days."
"What? I must have misheard you just now."
"No, you heard me perfectly well. I shall pour every ounce of my strength into turning an incorrigible wretch like you into a proper human being. Steel yourself. I will tear apart every last one of your twisted ways of thinking and rebuild you, perfectly, into a man who thinks as a normal man should."
"Wow. I just heard something truly bone-chilling. Rebuild me... you say."
"WAHAHAHA! It's just like the old tale passed down by word of mouth—Ondal the Fool and Princess Pyeonggang!"
Thor threw his head back in a great roar of laughter.
"So I'm Ondal the Fool? The fool? Me? And she's the princess?"
"Silence, Cloud. Now that I have resolved not to kill you, you will take care never to run from me again."
Sylvia's gaze turned back to Thor.
"Thor, as you have heard—swear that you will answer for it, should Cloud fail to keep our midnight appointment with me."
"Is that all?"
"That is all. The soldiers would only get in the way now; I wish to speak with this man at my leisure, in the quiet of the night."
The moment the simple request left Sylvia's lips, Thor's face broke into a hearty grin.
"Gladly! Upon the honor of House Joffrey, I pledge myself to see that my brother keeps his appointment with Lady Sylvia! And should I fail this oath, then let this Thor Joffrey die upon the blade of Lady Sylvia—fair as a single blossom here before me! WAHAHAHA!"
After parting ways with Sylvia, Cloud's footsteps quickened. He, the man charged with tending the flock, had now been away from his post for over an hour. Anxious to get beyond the castle walls and back to his sheep a moment sooner, his heart grew impatient.
The moment the soldier guarding the eastern gate caught sight of Cloud, he came striding over with a look of exasperation.
"Hey! Where on earth have you been all this time?"
"Hm? Is something the matter?"
"Look over there. Go on, look."
The soldier pointed to the meadow beyond the walls. At the end of his finger, a lone soldier was frantically driving back the flock—scattered every which way along the road leading from the gate—waving both arms in a frenzy. And for some reason, Bark the sheepdog was nowhere in sight; only the sheep, strewn loose across the meadow.
"See? The flock's scattered and it's utter chaos. I was just debating whether to report it to the temple," he said urgently.
"And the dog that was watching them? You didn't see the dog?"
"The dog? Well, by the time we noticed, all we saw were the sheep—left abandoned and scattered."
Before the soldier had even finished, Cloud hurried out beyond the gate and made for the fence. The gate of the pen that had held the flock hung open. Surely Bark hadn't let himself out?
Just then, the sound of barking reached him from far away. It came from the woods—the same woods Cecile had entered that morning with the three elves. Without a moment's deliberation, Cloud broke into a run for the forest.