A Ridiculous Title
"Don't you find it rather ridiculous, Grand Duke?"
At those words, every gaze in the seats of honor turned upon us.
"Isn't that His Highness the Crown Prince?"
"Why is he with His Highness the Grand Duke…?"
"Since when…?"
One by one, the nobles around us sank to a knee in salute. The Crown Prince flicked a hand at the captain of the guard who had followed him, and the imperial guard began leading the nobles out of the box in turn.
The moment one of them moved toward Adelheid, her crimson eyes passed from me to the Crown Prince, and her hand closed around the sword at her hip. The captain stepped swiftly in front of his prince and drew on her. Their mana surged, each of them poised to tear into the other.
"Enough. Off you go."
Adelheid's eyes wavered.
"……Your Highness?"
"Wait in the banquet hall. It seems he has something to say."
She bit down on her lower lip, then left the seats of honor under the guard's escort. Watching her go, the Crown Prince smiled and continued.
"The tragedy of Ashford. The tale that set high society burning hottest of all, in the years the Grand Duke was away from the Empire."
"Is that so?"
He looked toward the dais, where Duke Ashford was offering a bouquet to his son. From the shape of the Duke's mouth, he seemed to be telling the boy how proud he was.
"Yes. The young lord of Ashford, one of the Five Pillars, turned his back on his house and went about under the name of Holy Knight Edward."
"The young lord of Ashford must be a devout man, then."
"One could see it that way."
Edward, taking the bouquet, wore an awkward smile.
"Or he might simply have run away from home."
"……It does look that way."
"But the Admiral of the South—no, Duke Ashford—could not, it seems, bring himself to give up on his son."
A thin, unpleasant smile touched the Crown Prince's mouth.
"A hero who won his merits in the west, and the title they hung on him is Dawn of the South…."
"……."
"Truly, don't you find it ridiculous?"
I thought of Duke Ashford as he had been only moments ago—the paradox of a man who feared me, and yet, for his son's sake, set a hand upon his sword in front of me.
"Paternal love is simply that sort of thing, I suppose."
"Paternal love… hardly a word one expects from the Grand Duke's mouth."
He tipped his glass, wet his throat, and went on.
"It is a twisted obsession. Learn what favor the Admiral begged of me, and you will not be able to call that paternal love."
"I wouldn't know."
"Well. The Grand Duke has never once been given a father's love in his life. Of course you wouldn't."
"Isn't that the same for Your Highness the Crown Prince?"
He set the wine glass down on the table and looked me straight in the eye.
"……You've changed."
"Have I?"
"Yes. I have never seen the Grand Duke speak so tamely."
His fingers drummed the table in a steady rhythm.
"Particularly in matters concerning the previous Grand Duke."
"The fault would lie in my own lack of virtue, I suppose."
"And is it not a sovereign's virtue to keep even an unvirtuous subject?"
His fingers stopped.
"The Empire has changed in the Grand Duke's absence."
"I imprisoned His Majesty the Emperor. It would be stranger if it had not."
"Yes. The vermin of the restoration faction raised their voices for a time, but now that the Grand Duke has returned, they will wither of their own accord."
Satisfied, he smiled and filled his glass once more.
"And now that you are back, ought the Empire not change again as well?"
"I hadn't realized Your Highness was a man who enjoyed speaking in riddles."
"Remain in this seat long enough, and even I have no choice but to change."
He turned the wine slowly in the glass, savoring the aroma. The maneuver was far too obvious.
"You can hardly be idle enough to have come for liquor this cheap. What is the point?"
"How wounding. The quality is poor, I grant you, but it hardly deserves to be called cheap."
"We are not the sort of pair who drink and make idle talk."
"And here I thought us rather close…."
He circulated his mana and shook the drink from his head.
"……Where has the Grand Duke been these past four years?"
"Nord…"
"Do not tell me you were in seclusion at Nordberg. I ask because I know where you were."
At a gesture, an aide brought a single document and set it in his hand.
"Most of the nobility may not know the truth. I do."
"The Intelligence Bureau."
"Yes. Capable to a fault—they even brought me your whereabouts without being ordered to."
"That is their work."
At my answer, his expression twisted.
"Revolting. Even now. That look in your eyes, as though you gaze down upon the world, and that serene face that cares for nothing."
"Did it seem that way?"
"At least to my eyes, it does."
He held the document out to me and went on.
"The final duty laid upon the Grand Duke of Nordberg. It was called the Pilgrimage, was it not?"
"……."
"Well. They dressed it up as a sublime rite for the sake of the Empire…. You would know the reality of it better than anyone."
"You've looked into it rather thoroughly."
I set the document down, and the aide swept it away at once. The Crown Prince watched him go, then continued.
"No Grand Duke who departed on the Pilgrimage has ever returned alive. The bodies were never confirmed, but they must all be counted dead…."
"And coming back alive is a problem?"
"Not in the least. If anything, it is worthy of praise."
He tilted his head and asked me.
"The question is how such a thing was possible."
"The process hardly matters."
"No. In this case, the process matters more."
He closed his eyes and let out a long breath.
"……A thousand years."
"A long time."
"In the thousand years since the Empire was founded, every Grand Duke of Nordberg who left a name in the histories has fallen before the Pilgrimage."
Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked at me.
"Until the exception called Keter von Nordberg appeared."
"It was chance."
At that, he let out a hollow laugh.
"Did you run, then? The way you cast this Empire aside four years ago, like a child throwing away a toy?"
The heated tone, the twisted face—an uncharacteristic collapse.
"An exaggeration. I have never possessed the Empire."
"In all this Empire, you are the only one who thinks so."
"My notoriety has led a great many people into that error."
I rose and asked him.
"So. Are you finished?"
A sharp, ringing crash. The wine glass flung from the Crown Prince's hand grazed my cheek and struck the wall.
"……Not so much as a flinch."
He knit his brow.
"……How did it come to this?"
"I don't believe I'm obliged to answer."
"Grand Duke…."
He looked up at me.
"You were a keen blade. The one and only absolute sword that cut down the previous Grand Duke and reached even His Majesty, my imperial father."
"You flatter me."
It had been nothing but luck, and the station of Grand Duke was all that had spared me any aftermath beyond the infamy. Those were not words that ought to have come from the mouth of a man who knew as much.
"……Why have you grown so dull? What happened in those four years, and what did you see at the end of the Pilgrimage?"
His eyes wavered.
"Do you want me to cut someone down again?"
"Hardly. The corpses you've already piled up—how many could possibly be left?"
"Then my role is finished."
I looked at the imperial guard that had come with him.
"There is no reason I should have to draw a sword again."
His gaze dropped to the empty place at my waist.
"……Is that why you didn't even bring one?"
"A sword I have no cause to use is only in the way."
"The Grand Duke's sword has not yet finished its work. Where it ends belongs entirely to the one who wields it."
"Sophistry. I have never offered my sword to Your Highness."
I turned my back on him and started for the entrance of the box. Behind me, the Crown Prince spoke in a low, commanding voice.
At that single utterance, the imperial guard moved to bar my way.
I turned and met his face.
"I still have need of you."
The violet eyes that marked the imperial bloodline were shining, stark and clear.
"Our deal is over. Your Highness the First Prince."
A single transaction. That was the whole of what bound us.
"You know that, don't you."
It was a fact neither of us could pretend otherwise.
"On the day Your Highness the First Prince became Crown Prince, I left the Empire according to the contract. That was all."
Even my departure had been settled from the beginning.
"From the start, that was all we were to each other."
"……A contract."
He asked it in a sunken voice.
"Then why have you returned to the Imperial Capital? You might have kept your silence in Nordberg for the rest of your life."
"I was never silent. Not once, from the very beginning."
The Empire I had vanished from had heaped a hundred meanings onto that silence. I knew it well enough; the reports had reached me more than once. Some called it an evasion of responsibility for imprisoning the Emperor. Others read it as preparation, beneath the surface, to swallow the Empire whole.
"The reason I did not come to the Imperial Capital even after the Pilgrimage was simply that I had no business here."
His expression darkened.
"……Then what, exactly, does the Grand Duke mean to do in the Capital?"
"Someone made a request of me."
I turned my head and looked to Adelheid, standing at one side of the banquet hall.
"Nothing more than that."