Cat and Mouse (1)
"So," Cloud drawled, "how does it feel to graduate from maidenhood?"
Sylvia could only weep. The pain of her first time was agony enough — but to have it stolen by a nameless vagrant, of all men, while her own body lay helpless in the grip of paralysis... She lay there crying, lips opening and closing soundlessly like a landed fish, wanting nothing in this world so much as to die.
"It hurts... it hurts, please...!"
"Just bear with it a little!"
Cloud moved with the mindless urgency of a beast, chasing nothing but his own release, and her anguish spilled out between the sobs. "Why... why did it have to be a man like this...!"
"You'd best not be planning to kill me once the paralysis wears off."
"Do not be absurd. I will kill you — I swear upon my name, I will kill you...!"
"And that is exactly why it's hopeless."
"H-how much longer do you intend to keep this up...?"
"Listen well," he went on, his voice suddenly cold and clear. "Now that your maidenhead is gone, you can never marry a noble. You know that, don't you?"
Nobles prized purity even more jealously than commoners did. They scrutinized a bride's maidenhood with merciless rigor — in an age when a political marriage undone by a bride discovered impure on her wedding night could set two great houses at war. Even when a noble bought a slave who caught his eye, her maidenhood was the first thing he weighed.
"I'm as good as your husband now. Kill me, and you live the rest of your days a widow. Understand?"
"Th-that is... I cannot accept... I will kill you...!"
Sylvia's face contorted. To be joined to the first man she had ever known — a drifting commoner, no less — hurt badly enough to make her want to die.
As his end drew near, Cloud tried slowing his pace to stretch the moment out, but before he knew it, he burst without restraint. "Whoa — here it comes!"
"No! Not inside—!"
"I'm your husband now, so it's perfectly fine!"
He spent himself deep inside her against her will, shuddering to the very last.
"Guess that's what being a first-timer gets you — no control. I thought I was holding out just fine, and then I just... went."
"No... no..."
Sylvia stared blankly at the ceiling of the cave, murmuring with hollow, lifeless eyes. She was twenty-four this year. Who could have imagined she would suffer such a misfortune right after graduating from the knight academy? Who could have known her road of flowers would turn to a path of thorns overnight?
The shock was more than she could bear, and at last she fainted.
"...It felt good, but I don't feel good about it."
When it was over, Cloud rose quietly and dressed. His body was weary, and a yawn escaped him. On Sylvia's sleeping face, the tracks of her tears still remained.
"Don't worry. I'll never show myself before you again."
He stood for a while, studying her face, then wiped the tears from her cheek with his hand. And then he kissed her lips. A soft, fragrant touch...
"I'll think of this as my first kiss. Which means you're the one who stole my first kiss. Let's call it even — one apiece."
Cloud tidied her rumpled clothes, threw another log on the campfire, and stepped out of the cave.
The white horse was tethered to a tree, dozing in a squat on the ground. He kicked its enormous rump as hard as he could.
"Ne-e-eigh! Snort-snort!"
"Guard your mistress well, nag. You were her first, after all — that's exactly how a scoundrel like me gets his chance."
With those parting words, Cloud melted away into the forest.
Before long, the deep darkness lifted, and dawn broke.
It was noon.
Cloud had thrown out his plan to head for Huan Village and decided to take the long way around. Going by way of Huan Village would have been at least twice as fast to Valois, his final destination, but to avoid crossing paths with Sylvia, he had no choice but to choose the longer road.
And before he knew it, he was standing at the entrance of a village called Eski, a place he had never once set foot in.
"I'm starving..."
The pointless detour had drained his strength, and he was ravenous. He hadn't had a proper meal in days, either. Body and mind alike were worn thin. The first thing he looked for was an inn — he needed lodging anyway, and a good hot meal would come with it.
But no matter how long he wandered the village, he never did find an inn.
"Damn it..."
Clutching his madly growling belly, Cloud grabbed an old man resting in the shade of a tree and struck up a conversation.
"Hey, gramps — is this a village with no inn?"
"Heh heh, where would you find such a thing in our village? A broke-down poor place like this?"
"What kind of talk is that? What village doesn't have an inn? Every village has an inn!"
Cloud couldn't make sense of it. An inn, though privately run, was a means of drawing outside money into a village — and where outside money flowed, villages prospered. That this place had none was beyond his understanding.
"There's no dungeon here, no monsters worth hunting, no local specialty, no scenic wonder — nothing but a dull little village, so outsiders stopped coming a long time ago. That's why the lodging trade never took root."
"Then what am I supposed to do? Sleep in the street?"
"Everything has its way, boy. From the old days, when a traveler came to our village, we'd invite them into a villager's home. It earned more than an inn ever did. Keh heh heh."
"So I just walk into any house, ask for food and they feed me, ask for a bed and they put me up?"
"No, no. Do you see that house waaay over there?"
The old man pointed a trembling hand at a house in the distance.
"Yeah, I see it."
"That's the village chief's house. Go ask there, and they'll tell you where you ought to spend the night."
"Aha, thanks."
"Keh heh, keh heh heh. Lucky you, young man."
"Lucky how?"
"Oh, there's a thing or two, all right. Keh heh heh."
Writing the old man off as senile, Cloud headed for the chief's house all the same. He knocked twice at the door, and a dignified bald man who looked to be in his fifties answered.
Cloud explained his circumstances and asked to stay the night.
"I see. In our village, we have a long-standing custom of lodging visitors in the homes of villagers. Please wait just a moment."
The chief went inside and returned with what looked like a ledger.
"This turn it's... hmm. The household of Kuluyi."
Directed to the home of a man named Kuluyi, Cloud hurried on his way.
"The village chief sent you? Very well. It's a humble place, but please, come in."
Kuluyi received him with genuine warmth.
Following him inside, Cloud found a woman who looked to be in her early forties standing in the main room. Kuluyi's wife. She bowed her head demurely in greeting.
"Hello. Our home is small, so I'm sure it will be uncomfortable, but we're glad to have you."
Once the greetings were done, Kuluyi showed Cloud to his room.
"Marde will be preparing dinner, so please wash up first. Do you have a change of clothes?"
"On the road, laundry is hard to manage, and I've nothing proper to change into. The only wearable clothes I own are the ones on my back."
"Then I'll set something out for you. It's my size, so it may be a bit large, but it's loose and comfortable enough to move in. Leave your laundry in the basket over there."
"Thank you."
He stripped off every stitch he wore and climbed into the wooden tub set in one corner of the room, and moments later Kuluyi came trotting in with a bucket in each hand, pouring in hot water. Curled up in the tub as the warmth rose around him, he felt wonderful with every fresh pour — days of accumulated fatigue seemed to melt away all at once.
"An immortal, that's what I am. No pleasure in the world compares. Ahh..."
They'd refused to take a single coin for food or lodging, either. It was heaven on earth.
He had just finished washing and was changing into the new clothes laid out on the bed when he heard a knock at the door. Cloud finished buttoning his shirt.
"Come in."
The door opened, and in walked Kuluyi's wife. In Cloud's eyes, her beauty fell short of Barbara's, but hers was a pretty face in its own right — and, as befitted a married woman, she had a full bust and a plump, inviting backside. These days, now that he'd finally begun learning the taste of women, the sight of those ample hips set his mouth watering.
But his lewd thoughts went only that far. For Cloud, appetite came first.
"Dinner is ready."
At her words, he scampered out of the room.
"Please, have a seat."
Perhaps because it was a poor village, the table was modestly set, with Kuluyi already seated. Cloud took the seat across from him — and Marde sat down at Cloud's left side.
It was a little strange. She sat closer to Cloud, the outsider, than to her own husband. But Cloud chalked it up to his imagination and set about wolfing down the food laid before him.
Perhaps it was because he was so ravenously hungry, but even a table with no meat in sight — nothing but bread and greens — tasted delicious. He didn't have a shred of presence of mind left for manners.
Amid the meal, Kuluyi struck up conversation, easy and natural.
"You mentioned earlier that you're traveling in search of a rare treasure. How long has it been since you began your adventure?"
"Let's see... about five years, give or take. It's been a rough life."
"If it isn't rude to ask — what is the treasure you seek?"
"Hmm... have you by any chance heard of the Black Dragon Fantagoras?"
"Of course I have. The Tyrant Dragon Fantagoras? There's not a soul in this world who doesn't know that name."
"I'm searching for Fantagoras's rare."
Cloud laid out his grand ambition with plenty of flourish.
"The... rare?"
"Fantagoras's rare holds gold and silver treasure enough to found dozens of kingdoms — and among it all, the thing I seek: the Tear of the Sun. The treasure I'm after is that very Tear of the Sun."
"Oho! The Tear of the Sun! I know it well — I've heard of it many a time. They say whoever obtains the Tear of the Sun gains a power mighty enough to shape the world as they please. It's the noble artifact the god himself once wore upon his wrist as a bracelet, is it not?"
"Th-that's right. Ahem."
The reaction was so enthusiastic it was almost overwhelming.
Through the whole meal, Kuluyi pried into Cloud's background with an insistence that bordered on interrogation, and every time, Cloud lied without a flicker of hesitation. By the time the conversation had run its course, he had somehow become the adopted son of a fallen noble house that had once been rooted in the royal capital.
And stranger than Kuluyi's interrogation was the attitude of his wife, Marde. All through the meal she waited on Cloud more attentively than on her own husband — and so, naturally, his eyes kept drifting her way.
'Why, though?'
Cloud was curious, but the drink Kuluyi kept pressing on him had him tipsy, and thinking hard felt like too much trouble.
After that troubled dinner, he returned quietly to his room. It wasn't that the meal had been enjoyable — he was mentally drained. Coming up with lie after lie, one on top of another, had taken a heavy toll.
Wanting nothing more than to give his worn-out brain a rest, he put out the light the moment he entered and dropped onto the bed.
How long had he slept?
A knock at the door woke him. At first he assumed it was Kuluyi and opened it — and to his astonishment, there stood Mrs. Marde in nothing but racy lingerie, smiling shyly.
"Cloud..."
"Wh-what is it, madam?"
"There's something I need to tell you."
Without waiting for his consent, she pushed herself into the room. Wary of her body brushing against his, Cloud found himself stepping back without thinking. The moment Marde was inside, she shut the door — and locked it.
"What about Kuluyi — why are you here...?"
Cloud couldn't make head or tail of it and just stared at her blankly.
"My husband is at a friend's house right now."
"Your husband isn't home — is it proper to come here dressed like that?"
"You needn't worry. My husband knows."
"Kuluyi knows about this?"
"Yes. This is something my husband wants as well."
"I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying at all."
"It's simple."
Marde hesitated, lips trembling, then said:
"...Cloud. I would like you to hold me tonight."