Even Death Cannot Absolve
Marquis Rothman sat locked in a prison cell under the thin pretense of temporary detention. Until the trial, he would not set so much as a single foot beyond those walls.
He sat vacant-eyed upon the bed, turning a single question over and over in his mind. How in the world had it come to this?
Everything had been going so well. He had monopolized the magic-tool market and piled up a fortune so vast it defied reason, and all that remained was to pile up still more. Then, in a single instant, the whole edifice had been overturned, and he had been driven to the brink.
As those thoughts ran on, the face of his worthless son drifted unbidden into his mind.
The Lichtenhaus boy had said it. That his son, Gasfield, had hired mercenaries to have him killed.
He had claimed the two affairs were entirely separate, but that could not have been the truth. He had merely been affecting the cold impartiality of an inspector.
Which meant that every last bit of this had happened because of that idiotic son of his.
The Marquis rose and approached the iron bars. Beyond them sat a man in a chair — Luten, the prison warden, and a friend of many years.
"Luten, bring me my son."
"You mean Gasfield?"
"Yes. I need to see him. Just once."
"I'll see what I can do."
Luten tugged his cap down and set off somewhere down the corridor.
It was that same evening when Marquis Rothman finally faced Gasfield. The young man appeared before the bars still wearing the uniform of the Imperial Inspectorate.
The Marquis spoke.
"Luten, could you open the bars for a moment? I give you my word I won't run."
"...I suppose I have no choice."
Old affection, perhaps. Luten took the ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the cell. Gasfield, who could hardly have failed to understand what that meant, stepped inside.
"Gasfield... did you truly lay a hand on Lichtenhaus?"
"...Yes."
"Why in the world...?"
"Because he arrested the nobles who were sponsoring the 3rd Division."
"You— you— you stupid little bastard—!"
Marquis Rothman swung his fist. It caught Gasfield square in the face, snapping his head to the side. The struck flesh began at once to swell an ugly red.
"Have you lost your mind?! You did something like that over that?"
"Adrian, that's enough. If you make a scene, the other guards may come."
"You good-for-nothing little thug—! I scraped together every last scrap of sense in that empty head of yours and stuffed you into the Inspectorate, and instead of being useful you ruin the entire house?!"
Even with Luten trying to hold him back, the fire in Marquis Rothman showed no sign of dying. A slap across the face was only the beginning. Fists followed, and then even kicks. Gasfield said nothing at all. He simply stood there and took the full weight of that fury.
And then it happened.
Gasfield seemed to shift — and Marquis Rothman's stream of curses died in his throat. A sword was in the young man's hand. Along its keenly honed edge, a line of red blood was already running.
"Because of the things you did, I had to suffer humiliation at that man's hands. I am ashamed beyond words that you are my father."
The blade, which had been buried in the Marquis's abdomen, was drawn free, and blood surged from the wound in a thick, sudden rush. Marquis Rothman staggered backward, caught his heel on the corner of the bed, and sat down hard.
"A-Adrian—!"
Luten, the warden, rushed in through the open bars. He glanced warily at Gasfield; the moment the sword slid back into its sheath, he hurried to the Marquis's side. He stripped off the clothes he was wearing and pressed them to the wound as a makeshift bandage, but the cut was far too deep. The bleeding showed no sign of stopping.
Meanwhile, Gasfield stepped out through the bars.
In the silence that settled over the prison, the only sound that remained was the echo of his footsteps.
I was in the 1st Division office, preparing for Marquis Rothman's trial, when Chief Albert returned from a meeting and called me over.
"Caenderic, I'm afraid the trial is going to be difficult to proceed with."
"Has pressure been brought to bear from somewhere?"
"No. Marquis Rothman is dead. Last night, Gasfield ran him through with a sword and fled, I'm told."
What in the world...
I had never imagined something like this would happen. I was so stunned I could barely form words.
"Could you tell me in more detail?"
"The warden on duty at the time, Luten, was an old friend of the Marquis. At the Marquis's request, he brought Gasfield all the way to the cell — and then opened the bars and let him inside."
That was, without question, the warden's failure. Bringing Gasfield there was one thing. Opening the cell was another matter entirely. Temporary detention or not, the man was no different from any other criminal.
"Marquis Rothman flew into a rage and beat Gasfield, and..."
"And Gasfield, unable to contain his own anger, stabbed him."
"Well. That's about the size of it."
If I had to guess, Gasfield had already decided he had nothing left behind him. I had sworn I would see him thrown into hell by any means necessary. If hell was where he was going anyway, he may as well do whatever he pleased.
I could not claim my own words had no share in what he had done. Even so, I felt not a shred of pity for Marquis Rothman. He was a criminal who would have paid for his crimes on the stand regardless. I was simply appalled that the two of them had turned on each other like this.
Could this really have been Gasfield acting on his own? Could Luminous, Chief of the 3rd Division, have been pulling the strings from behind?
The suspicion surfaced — and I pushed it into a far corner of my mind. There was no way to prove it. Not yet.
"We will proceed with Marquis Rothman's trial as planned."
"Even though he's dead?"
"Yes. Even if he is dead, his crimes are not erased."
The Marquis was gone, but the fortune he had amassed by unjust means remained. It was my duty to lay his crimes bare and see that wealth returned to its proper course. If death were enough to purchase a pardon, everyone would choose to die.
A few days later, Marquis Rothman's trial was convened. It was the first trial in the history of the Empire to be held after the death of the accused.
The spectators in attendance put their heads together and murmured. That such a thing must not be allowed. That a noble's death had been defiled. They draped themselves in hypocrisy, as though they were something more than what they were.
Which was precisely why they needed it driven into them.
The sins they had committed could not be washed away. Not even by death.
The judge presiding over this trial was Sturcken. True to the man who had delivered a fair verdict at Marquis Geneva's trial, his judgment this time was equally clean, equally unsparing.
The contents of the verdict were as follows.
On the charge of corruption in military procurement, the relevant contract is hereby cancelled, and eight-tenths of all assets held shall be confiscated.
On the charge of manufacturing and selling dangerous magic tools, thereby threatening the stability of the Empire, all magic-tool enterprise is hereby ordered to cease in full, and the accused is permanently barred from conducting business in the same industry hereafter.
In addition to the above, the Court recognizes the crime of fabricating and concealing an incident from approximately ten years prior, thereby casting a false and grievous charge upon another house.
The accused is hereby sentenced to fifty years' imprisonment, to be served at hard labor in the mines.
Further, Marquis Rothman is demoted to the rank of Baron, and all territories are reclaimed in full by the Imperial House.
It was a genuine pity that Marquis Rothman himself would never serve the sentence. Even so, taken as a whole, the verdict was more than satisfying. Sturcken may even have ruled a shade more boldly than usual. The man who would have had to bear it was no longer in the world, after all.
With the trial concluded, I made my way to a shadowed stretch of street on the outskirts of the capital — the same place that housed the hideout of the Dwinsen Mercenary Group.
In truth, before I had even begun preparing for this trial, I had given Dwinsen a job. I had told him to find the people who had put up posters about me during Marquis Geneva's trial.
"There you are."
I stepped down from the carriage, and Dwinsen came forward as though he had been waiting. He was not wearing the shabby clothes he usually favored. He was dressed neatly.
I looked at him with open surprise, and he let out a hearty laugh.
"Weren't you the one who told me to dress a little nicer? Even washed my hands clean this time."
"Do you require praise?"
"Oh, I'd like that. Go on — praise me a little."
"...Just show me the way."
"Figures. Not like a noble lord's mouth was ever much good for compliments anyway."
Dwinsen strode off, still laughing, and I let out a long breath and followed him.
The place we arrived at was not far from the mercenary group's hideout. Dwinsen stopped, pressed an ear to the door, then nodded to himself and stepped back.
"They'll open up in a second. Just wait a bit."
"What exactly are you about to—"
A thunderous crash split the air as Dwinsen drove his boot through the door. The shabby wooden panel shattered to pieces, opening a path inside. He looked at me with an expression of deep satisfaction, and I found myself shaking my head.
"...You'll be hanging a new door on your own coin later."
I said it to Dwinsen and stepped through.
The interior was every bit as shabby as the outside, though not so far gone that a person could not live there. I was taking in the room when I felt a presence and turned. A man stood there with a short dagger in his hand.
"W-who the hell are you?!"
"Caenderic de Lichtenhaus."
"C-Caenderic, as in..."
"That's right. The man on the posters you put up."
They had work to do. They were going to spread word far and wide that the magic tools produced by House Rothman were critically, dangerously defective.