A Dragon Tutor? (2)
"Hmm... Speaking of such things to an outsider sits very uneasily with me, so I must beg a small pardon in advance."
"Oh, of course. Whatever you wish to say, I'm perfectly all right with it. Please, speak as freely as you like."
I offered the words as gently as I could, hoping to lighten the weight on him, and watched him through the taut quiet. Caid's eyes were unmistakably clear, and blue, and yet hesitation and a faint worry stirred within them. Whatever he meant to tell me was unlikely to be a light thing. It seemed far more probable that it carried a worry of his own, and confiding something like that in a complete stranger — in me — could hardly be easy.
Of course, he had already seen me at the audience ceremony the year he turned fifteen. But the Mircania of that day had not been me, and now I was hiding the fact that I was Mircania at all. We were acquaintances and strangers at once, a strangely delicate relationship, and into that quiet, after a brief struggle with himself, Caid began to speak.
"...I cannot tell whether it is because Grand Duchess Yurmel died so young, or because I myself have fallen short. But our son, for all that he observes the forms of courtesy, has grown far too cynical."
"That... I don't believe it is any failing on your part. Have you ever spoken with the young master about it?"
I asked on the chance that he had. Caid's expression turned strangely unreadable, and he took a sip of his tea.
"...I have tried to speak with him several times. I am not skilled at conversation, it seems, and none of those attempts came to anything successful."
"Mm... Then I think a lack of real conversation is the more likely cause. If talk never quite succeeds between two people, the distance between them only grows."
At my words Caid nodded, as if conceding the point, and quietly bit into a cookie.
"...So it would seem. You appear far more adept at conversation than I am, Miss Kana. Entrusting this to you strikes me as the far better course."
"...You flatter me."
I had only stated my thoughts plainly, as they came to me, and yet to be met with a response like this left me with a peculiar feeling. Perhaps the theories and ideas I had always taken for granted — things that were simply obvious in the modern world, obvious to me — might open an entirely new horizon in someone else's mind.
"Hah... I find myself thinking I have little talent for conversation. You would surely do better than I."
"Ahaha... Even so, everyone excels in a different field. You've made Kartz safer than any of its lords before you, haven't you? You're the shield of the North."
"Even that was never my strength alone, so it can hardly be called one man's achievement. That feat belongs to the northern guard, the knightly order, and the great guardian dragon of the North, all of them together."
Caid seemed to hold the guardian dragon and the northern knights in high regard, and he spoke as if honoring the uprightness of their character. Even in so small a remark I could see the man he was. He sat in a place where arrogance and aloof pride would have been his right, and yet he held humility as a virtue, and wished to pass that same bearing on to his son — to make the boy understand it. That, no doubt, was why he was seeking a tutor even now: to nudge Aiden's character, even a little, toward something gentler.
"And whatever you may make of me from all this, Miss Kana, I am not a particularly self-righteous man. Even if Aiden is my son, his life is his own."
While I quietly drank my tea, Caid did not wait for an answer. He went on, as if simply laying his thoughts before me.
"Still, I do not want my son to go astray. He is young yet, so his temperament does not stand out so sharply. But if things continue as they are, there is no telling what he may become."
"That is also why I am seeking a tutor now. I simply hope that Aiden will show kindness to those who come to him, rather than meeting them with a sharp edge."
In the end, Caid's purpose was a wish: that Aiden would not go through the world with his thorns raised, but grow into a warm person who treated all things gently. Everything he was doing was in service of that wish. And I was more than willing to see it fulfilled. I wanted the same thing — for Aiden to come to possess that gentleness — and so I nodded.
"If that is the wish behind your search for a tutor... then I will gladly do everything I can to help you realize it."
Of course, it was not yet certain that I would be hired. I was speaking under the assumption that I might be. For my own part, I did not want Aiden to become a sharp-edged person. I wanted to see, here in the real world, the Aiden I already knew.
"Ours has not been a long acquaintance, and I would not say we have spoken for any great length of time... and yet what you have shown me, Miss Kana, has been enough to earn my trust."
"...Thank you for seeing me in so kind a light. I hope I might walk my own path here as a tutor, and that I might be the one to fulfill Your Grace's wish. That is why this time has meant so much to me."
He smiled quietly at my words and nodded, and I waited for him to speak again. The clink of teacups and the soft rustle of cookies filled the space around me. Some two minutes had passed when a voice broke the brief silence.
"...Miss Kana. This interview is with my first applicant, and it is the first of its kind I have ever conducted, so my judgment may well be unpracticed. Even so, from everything you have shown me, I believe you are someone I can trust."
"...Is that so?"
At my question he nodded, unruffled, and looking at me once more, began to set out his decision.
"Yes. And so I would like you, Miss Kana, to become the tutor of Aiden Calinix, eldest son of House Calinix. If it is you, I believe you could teach my son what kindness is."
"Then what would my role be? As a tutor, and simply as one person to another."
Now that it was settled I would take the post, I wanted at least some sense of the work that lay ahead of me. I needed to take responsibility for what I was about to do, and I needed to understand the role I was accepting. Living as I did, always by a plan, I could hardly avoid a tangled mind. Still, even a simple sense of direction would be enough to set things in order.
"First, what I would ask of you is this: do whatever you can so that Aiden may grow kinder. And before all else, teach him the fundamentals of etiquette and proper conduct."
"Etiquette and proper conduct... that much I can teach without difficulty. Is there anything more you hope for?"
"Mm... It may be presumptuous of me to say so, but I sometimes wonder whether my son has come so close to going astray because my affection for him was lacking."
"...Mm. I don't see it that way... but sometimes I have to set my own opinion aside and listen to what is more real."
"And so I... ah, please do not misunderstand me. I would like Aiden to learn from you, as well, how to trust people, and how to lean on them."
In plainer terms, Caid seemed to hope that the distance opened by the affection he had failed to give — the portion of love one parent had never been able to offer — might be something Aiden could feel from me instead. I was not his true parent. Even so, if I cherished him sincerely and built a real closeness with him, I might, by that path, shape him into the gentle person he could become.
And now that this world had become real — real to me, and real to everyone in it — a small guilt stirred. For the sake of my own desire, and my own life, I would be remaking a person however I pleased. Aiden carried the possibility of becoming someone other than the boy I had known. What I was doing might erase the chance that he would grow into a character different from the Aiden I remembered.
But I had to live.
I wanted to survive, and so...
To the quiet question of whether I would, out of a little selfishness, fix the course of his life in this world, I nodded.
"Yes. If that is what you ask... I will do everything I can."
And Caid smiled and nodded — as if he had not caught the private meaning folded into my answer, or as if he meant to prick my conscience with it. It was plainly a gentle smile. Caid was not a man of soft features, and yet the smile felt strangely out of place on him. Even so, it could not change the resolve I had already made, and I nodded.
"Would today... be possible, starting at once? Room and board will be provided. I think it would be best if you made my son's acquaintance and spoke with him a little."
"Mm... Would that mean I stay here from now on?"
At my question Caid simply nodded, studying me as if to read my intent, and I nodded in return. Outsider or not, I had come here as a tutor. I trusted they would not treat me with any great discomfort, and I meant to show him that trust from this moment on, so that confidence between us might begin to grow.