003 — Perzen von Schweik Brutein

He had meant to take breakfast in the dining hall, but the cold would not allow it. He returned to his room instead, and there, before a fireplace he had fed with fresh wood, he and Euphemia sat down to a meal that wore the shape of domestic quiet.

"Listen well, Euphemia. Once I have handed matters over to Sebas, the man I brought with me, we will return to Brutein at once."

She said nothing.

"I am told that until now it has been you who killed the monsters coming down out of the Lutein Mountains. You need not trouble yourself over that."

"The Marquess House of Brutein has wealth enough to raise a mountain of gold. To bring a backward domain such as this up to a standard on which people can live will hardly be difficult."

Euphemia had been picking at her food, eating without really eating, and only listening. At that she lifted her head.

"You don't have to drag me along... You want to show your family the trophy you've taken. Is that it?"

Through Euphemia he could keep a measure of control over certain variables, and so he could not afford to let her far from his side if he could help it. Even if he never found the protagonist, Ciel Midford, there was every chance the man would one day come to Euphemia himself. With that in mind, he had not once spoken the protagonist's name in front of her, nor described any feature by which he might be known. If he seemed to have no interest at all, to pay the matter no mind, the other was more likely to grow careless.

In truth, Euphemia herself had looked at the protagonist as he swore to fight to the end and said as much.

"You are not my knight, so there is no need for you to die a dog's death here. If you mean to throw your life away for me, then become a knight and come find me."

She would not believe any such thing would truly come to pass. He was not the same. He believed those words would be realized exactly as spoken, because he remembered with perfect clarity how the novel had rendered the protagonist's heart in the moment he heard them—how the man, as if pushed from behind, had taken the help offered him and fled the domain.

That, of course, was the essential reason he meant to take Euphemia with him, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it was a strictly practical one, reached only by setting aside the fused self of Perzen.

"Hmm..."

He could not say any of it aloud. When his words trailed off, Euphemia answered him in a voice salted with self-mockery.

"So if you insist on taking me, it's because you mean to kill me cleanly on the road to Brutein and dress it up as an accident..."

"No such thing will happen. Be at ease."

From the moment Perzen's self had seeped into him, killing Euphemia had become all but impossible. This body liked her far more than he had ever imagined, and that—setting aside the essential reason ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of a moment ago—was the secondary cause for taking her along.

A severe obsessive compulsion, and only two things within its reach: possession, and symmetry.

If one had to be set above the other, symmetry held the higher place. Fearing he might feel that symmetrical compulsion toward the human body, Perzen had in fact spent his childhood deliberately ruining his own eyesight, and had kept at it ever since. Poor vision meant that so long as he held a certain distance, the world stayed blurred enough that he could not be sure whether a symmetry was true. And if the compulsion ever seized him over some part of a person's body, if the desire to correct it somehow began to boil, it might well end in murder. It had nearly come to that once.

So Perzen, poor eyesight or not, deliberately refused to bring his eyes into proper focus when he faced another person. The only things he could look upon in true ease were the sky, and a lake spreading in quiet ripples. Euphemia alone granted him the same comfort as those landscapes. Even so, to call the feeling love would have been a misuse of the word. If it had to be named, it was the regard one holds for a favorite possession of the highest order. That was why Perzen, armed with nothing more than the thinnest of pretexts, had fallen upon Ruerug, forced a marriage, and taken her into his arms. He had never wanted anything so trifling as an exchange of feelings.

"Then why on earth..."

But he could no longer go on standing in that place. No—more precisely, he had decided that he would not. Lee Seojin's self was far more ordinary than Perzen's, and there was fondness enough in him for her that now, with the two selves mingled, he ought to be capable of treating her more kindly.

Yes. He could treat her more kindly. And yet he could not begin to imagine what one was supposed to say, if one hoped to grow closer to a woman one had forced into marriage and then raped.

"I simply have no wish to be parted from you at the very start of our marriage."

That was the answer he managed after wringing his thoughts as hard as they would go. Euphemia frowned, and as if the words disgusted her, she clenched the knife in her hand.

"Put it down. If you kill me, you will have no choice but to be executed. The domain of Ruerug will be folded into imperial territory until it is granted to someone else, and whatever official they dispatch in the meantime will not tend this place with so much as a scrap of care."

"If you're that rational a man, then don't ever stand in front of me and shamelessly pretend to love me again. You have no right..."

He could grant the sense of what she said. Even so, his mood curdled past enduring, and he opened his mouth.

"You are a woman born and raised in Ruerug, and yet your head is unexpectedly full of flowers. Do you imagine that however hard you struggle, you could give this domain safety and ease equal to what it has now? The means may have been unpleasant. The result is the best that could be had."

She was silent.

"And if your dead father were still alive, do you suppose he would have refused me when I said I wanted you?"

The meal lost its savor. He finished what remained, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and rose, staring coldly down at Euphemia.

"Euphemia El Lorraine Ruerug. Be grateful for the fact that I have taken an interest in you. The right? The weight of the name Marquess House of Brutein is more than enough. I wonder what worth you imagine that person of yours to possess."

She said nothing.

"When rain falls on a barren desert, ought one not give thanks without suspicion? A bloodline that is not even pure, commoner blood mixed through it across generations. A mongrel. Nothing more."

Still she did not speak.

Set private feeling aside, and nothing he had said was wrong. Euphemia's shoulders trembled, and she bowed her head low.

Ah...

He had not meant to go that far. Why had he flown off the handle? Had it displeased him that Euphemia talked back? If he was this bad even after his self had mixed with that of an ordinary nobody, he had not the faintest sense of what a bastard the original temperament must have been.

In any case, the air was no longer one in which the two of them could remain. He rose quietly, opened the door, and stepped out into the corridor.

"Did you enjoy your breakfast, my lord?"

"I merely ate and rose ahead of her. When Euphemia gives a signal from within, call the maids and have them clear it away. And... tell the mercenaries in our employ to assemble in the manor's rear garden."

"Understood."

His business delivered, he passed Sebas and went on down the corridor. The sun had climbed, and the cold had drawn back a little. He drew his collar close and fumbled a single letter from his breast.

Might this have something to do with the next episode the author had planned?

The imperial seal was stamped upon it. Inside was a request that he be appointed professor of Black Magic at the Imperial Academy soon to be completed in the capital. The tone asked after his wishes, but a refusal would bring down a considerable penalty, and so it was in practice no different from a notice. Even House Brutein had no choice, as things stood, but to watch the mood of the reigning imperial house.

Perzen's memory was steeped in all manner of proof of how formidable the present throne's power was, but he hardly needed to turn any of it over. That an Academy should be founded under a feudal order was itself as good as proof ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the imperial house's standing. They might call it a place of learning for the children of nobles. In truth it was a means of holding those children hostage in the capital for years. A rather extreme comparison occurred to him. Suppose the only school in the world stood in America, and the people of every other country were compelled to enroll simply to obtain its diploma.

And would noble children, schooled from infancy by capable private tutors, even have anything new to learn? Far more likely that the place would cease to be a school and degenerate into a salon for the extending of connections. That, surely, was why the imperial house wished to name him—the second son of House Brutein—a professor. If a noble of that house stood as teacher, then even the sons and daughters of the haughtiest families would have no choice but to acknowledge him as such, and they would not slight him even by implication.

It says commoners may enroll as well, provided they have a sponsor... Might I come face to face with the protagonist there?

He did not know. He did not know, and yet even if they never met, the children of the nobility from every region would be gathering in one place. The information he wanted would not be difficult to obtain.

Snow crunched softly underfoot. He folded the letter with care, slipped it back against his breast, and came out into the rear garden. Treading the snow down as he went, he walked slowly toward the mercenaries drawn up in their lines.

Hah...

Loem, captain of the Refles Mercenary Company, frowned as he looked down at the green recruit shaking where he stood.

A long contract, come in from House Brutein. They were a house of immense wealth, and the pay was no small thing, so until yesterday his spirits had stayed high. From the moment he learned that the cold-weather gear they had been issued had been stolen and sold off, there was nothing in his head but the ache of how to put the matter right.

"C-Captain..."

"Shut your mouth."

The gear had been issued to them, which meant it was plainly the property of House Brutein. When the contract ended, everything but what had been damaged was to be returned intact. Had the fool sold only the single set that was to be his own, they might have let it pass in silence. He had been bold enough to lay hands on the spare stock, and that left them no such mercy. Loem still remembered, with perfect clarity, the look in the butler's eyes the night before—when they had been moving the gear into the storehouse, the count had failed to match, and the man had stared at them without a word.

"Captain. You really think House Brutein is going to fly into a rage because somebody sold off a few sets of cold-weather gear? I-I mean, sure, they're made from Silver-Mane Wolf hide, but..."

"Don't talk madness. Men of fortune spend on a grand scale. They are not the sort to throw money away as if it were nothing. And this touches their honor. If word gets out that commoners stole their goods and sold them, and they simply let it pass, the people around them will laugh."

This was a land where, save for summer, the cold of deep winter never let up. The contract's pay, though, had been considerable, and he had brought a handful of green mercenaries along with the thought of giving them a proper taste of real work. That had been a miscalculation.

"You lot still don't seem to understand how frightening a noble is. Watch closely this time, and learn."

Loem dragged a hand down his face and let out a breath. Just then he sensed someone at his back. He turned, saw Perzen coming toward them, and bent hastily at the waist.

"Why is this mercenary in such a state?"

"Well, that's..."

He set the matter out from beginning to end with a veteran's smoothness, and then held his tongue, waiting for an answer from Perzen, who gave him none.

Because Lee Seojin's self had joined with his, hesitation caught him by the ankle: even from a moral standpoint, was it right to kill a man, criminal though he was? But he would soon have to go down to the capital. He could not have the mercenaries growing lax and turning their hands to other mischief simply because their lord was away, and so he judged that making an example of the man, for the sake of discipline, would do no harm.

"Understood."

At his word the captain of the company drew his sword, stepped to the side of the mercenary whose face had gone bloodless, and lifted his arm.

"P-please, spare me! I—I have... I have a child! M-my wife is dead, so if I'm not there—!"

"Kill him."

"Please—!"

Whether the plea was true or false, he did not know. It might have been invented on the spot, a way of looking away from what was happening to him. Or there might truly be a child in some other domain, waiting with everything in him for a father to come home. A pity of sorts did rise. Stronger than the pity, though, was another thought: if there was no mother, then was it not cleaner, symmetrically, to have no father either? A tidier line.

The truth was that the seizures of his compulsion, being a disease of the mind, obeyed no absolute measure. When a symmetry was broken. When there was something he wished to possess. Sometimes the desire came on fierce, a thing he absolutely had to satisfy, and sometimes it was faint enough that he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could ignore it and pass on. This time it was the latter. Even so, he had already decided the man would die. Was it so wrong, then, to want the greater ease while he was at it?

Steel sheared.

The stroke bit in without pain. The head of the kneeling mercenary rolled to the ground and dyed the white snow red.

"Hm..."

He had taken a step back so the blood would not stain his clothes, and from there he looked at the cut face of the severed neck. It was not clean.

Not a level line. A slant. A diagonal.

"You."

"Yes! Command me!"

"Cut it again. No. I will draw the line myself. Have you a dagger? If you do, give it here."

The faces around him were puzzled by his reaction. He paid them no mind. He took the dagger and, where the blood still welled and pulsed from the cut, carefully drew a line across it with the point.

"Cut the neck once more, following this line."

No one moved.

"Do you not hear me?"

"N-no! I heard you!"

As if startled half out of his wits, the captain of the company blurted his answer in a booming voice, then took up his sword and cut once more along the line that had been drawn for him. No. Sliced was the better word.

"Dispose of the corpse yourselves."

"Yes..."

He looked upon the face of the neck, severed clean with not a line out of true, and the corner of his mouth twitched before he knew it. The mercenaries before him wore the eyes of men looking at a ghost. Growing accustomed to looks of that kind, he supposed, was simply the fate of the one who had taken this body of Perzen's for his own.