Putting Things in Order
"......"
Uriel rubbed the sleep from her eyes and glanced at the clock. It was three-forty in the morning. Perzen lay in the sickbed with an IV running into his arm, and to all appearances he was deep in sleep.
No. He was not sleeping peacefully. Even in the midst of it he seemed to answer pain, the corner of his eye faintly creased, a thin groan slipping from him now and again.
The door rattled.
"You've been sitting there like that all this while...?"
The physician who stepped inside looked at Uriel in surprise.
"Someone has to be here to call for help, in case something goes wrong."
"He is not hovering at death's door..."
The physician came to the bedside, drew a syringe, and mixed a painkiller into the fluid Perzen was receiving. A little later the tension left Perzen's face, and his breathing evened into something comparatively calm.
"You ought to close your eyes. Once day breaks you'll be tied up with the investigation for quite some time..."
"I'll manage on my own."
"Forgive me... An occupational habit. I overstepped my place."
He bowed at the waist and left the room.
Left alone, Uriel set a hand on the edge of the bed where Perzen lay, propped her chin upon it, and let out a sigh.
"Why would you go and do something so pointless..."
No. It wasn't pointless. Corrected properly, it was something that didn't suit him.
"Wh-what...! If you're awake, then say so!"
Out of the dark, half-lidded red eyes shone clear and fixed upon her, and Uriel flinched.
"Water."
"......"
A demand with every courtesy stripped away, nothing in it but the object itself. It ought to have annoyed her. Uriel only narrowed her eyes, glared at him a moment, and then rose without complaint, poured water into a glass, and brought it carefully to his lips.
He drank. Swallowed, and swallowed again.
"......"
There was something truly strange in the sight of that man, Perzen, lying meekly in bed and taking the water she fed him. She reached out and brushed aside the bangs stabbing at the corner of his eye. His red eyes creased at the brow as if to tell her not to fuss—
"What."
There was no corpse laid out for him to use, and both his arms were useless besides, so Uriel was not frightened in the least. She set her index finger on the furrowed brow and rubbed at it, forcibly smoothing the crease away.
"Cough...!"
"Ah!"
The glass had tipped in the process, and too much water ran into his mouth. He choked.
"Uri— cough! Uriel...!"
"S-sorry. It was a mistake. I'll wipe it up right away..."
Uriel shot to her feet, came back with a towel, and carefully dabbed the water that had soaked into the nape of his neck and his shirt.
"You cannot even manage the simple service of giving a man water..."
"I t-told you it was a mistake."
"To fail at a thing small enough to call trifling, and then offer a mistake as your excuse—do you not find yourself pathetic, when you stop to think?"
"For a man in pain, your mouth is in awfully good health...!"
"Is it because I cannot use my arms? You are talking back with unusual clarity today. Striking while the other is weak is only natural, I grant, and yet even a beast will not turn on the one that has shown it a kindness."
"Hmph..."
At his words Uriel pouted, swallowed what she might have said, and kept moving only the hand that held the towel.
"That will do. You should close your eyes beside me as well."
"...I was going to. You don't even seem to be groaning anymore."
She set the damp towel aside, rose, climbed onto the bed next to his, drew the blanket over herself, and lay down as if she meant to sleep in earnest. But after rustling about a few times, she turned her head quietly toward him and spoke.
"Hey."
"......"
"I'm not saying I'm ungrateful. But... why did you do something so unlike you? Have you decided, at this late hour, to turn over a new leaf or something?"
"You sound rather like the young lady of House Claudia."
"Lizzie asked you a question like that?"
"Uriel."
"What."
"How would you define a person changing?"
"A philosophical question, out of nowhere... I don't know about things like that."
"To begin with, there is the sort who simply stops doing what they have always done."
"You don't look like that sort..."
At her answer a faint smile touched Perzen's mouth.
"Yes. And so..."
"......"
"I go on doing what I have always done... and I am merely trying, as well, the things I never did. Ceasing what I have always done is, for me, impossible."
With that, his eyes slid shut. She understood it to mean she was not to speak to him any further, and she obediently turned her back—
"No, wait. Why is toying with me one of those things you never did?"
"......"
"Say something."
"......"
The words had sounded atmospheric, difficult, as if they meant something deep. Uriel could think of no reply and had been about to nod along as though she understood, until it struck her that the way he toyed with her was included among the things he had never done. Then they sounded like nothing but shamelessness dressed up to seem respectable.
In truth the teasing had been a quiet, gnawing stress on her. She had even dreamed of Perzen grinding his foot slowly into her breast while denouncing her as something cheap and vulgar. But he never answered, and at last Uriel gave up and sought sleep.
The night... deepened.
"......"
There had been a commotion outside even through the night, but now that morning had come I could see far more people hurrying about, cleaning up the previous day's affair.
"Professor Perzen."
"Has Her Highness the Princess summoned me?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Let us go."
With the imperial knight who had come for me, I stepped into a great tent raised for the occasion. Inside, the knights stood drawn up in disciplined ranks, and upon the seat of honor sat Her Highness, Princess Elizabeth.
"So you have come..."
"I greet Your Highness, Princess Elizabeth."
Unable to move either arm, I offered what courtesy I could.
"There is no need to stand on such formality. Your body... how does it fare?"
"You need not worry. It is inconvenient to move either arm, but I am a black mage, so..."
"Is that so..."
The click of heels. And again. Her Highness, Princess Elizabeth, rose from the high seat, came to stand before me, and bent deeply at the waist.
"......"
I had expected something of the sort, if only dimly. The damage to Education Hall B, where the commoners were housed, had been considerable, I was told, and yet among the children of the nobility there had not been a single loss of life. Even so, it was a fact that something seditious had taken place at the Imperial Academy, and it would be a stretch to call the matter cleanly resolved. There would be those eager to seize on it and drag the imperial house's dignity down. To forestall that, they had gone so far as to array the knights like this and have the princess bow her head before me.
A contest of strength over pulling their children out of the Academy might still be too ambiguous to force, but they could apply pressure along the lines of what, after an incident like this, anyone could trust in the imperial house enough to send their children there. And once they had compelled the imperial house into a public apology, interference aimed at shortening the required days of attendance, or the time until graduation, would be entirely within reach.
"Your Highness, you need not do this. I did only what a man who is your subject ought to do, and I was injured in the doing. Encouragement would be more proper than an apology."
The one injured was I alone, and I was the trueborn heir of Brutein besides. They had judged me the fitting person to receive an apology on everyone's behalf, and had moved at once. Arranged this way, unless I myself won the nobles over and pressed the imperial house, it would be awkward for any other noble to step forward. And well it should be. If the man who had suffered the greatest harm did not move, the whole picture would look strange, would it not? The one gripping a solid pretext was none other than myself.
The imperial house, for its part, must have held a firm belief that the heir of Brutein—even if they yielded him the pretext and took on the appearance of diminished dignity—would not turn his sword back upon them. Besides, if I, who had suffered the greatest harm, had received an apology of this measure from the imperial house, could the other nobles demand that it bend any further?
What has already gone downstream is gone. Wiser to go on playing the loyal subject.
In truth it was less a performance than simply not suppressing a gesture that still lived, quite naturally, inside Perzen's self, and letting it show as it was.
"Yes. Encouragement... If there is something you desire, speak."
"Please reduce the taxes upon my domain for one year."
In my heart I had wanted to name a higher figure, but considering Brutein's revenues, even a single year was, in truth, outrageous greed.
"Is that paltry thing all? I shall exempt them for three years instead."
"Pardon...?"
"Was it not Ruerug you meant?"
"......"
When I let my eyes drift quietly aside, Her Highness, Princess Elizabeth, seemed to realize that the domain I had spoken of first was Brutein.
"...I shall lay it before my father, that the taxes of Ruerug may be exempted for three years. Does that satisfy you?"
She had seen through it, and still Princess Elizabeth steadfastly named not Brutein, but Ruerug. Yes. Too much greed. That was what she meant. I acknowledged it. Even I had quietly thought it would be too much to win such a thing for nothing more than fractures in both arms.
Even so, I was not without a sense of loss.
"If I may be so bold, would you hear one request more?"
"I shall... hear it, for now."
"............"
I murmured it low, so that only Princess Elizabeth could hear.
"That is... all?"
"Yes."
So slight a thing it was embarrassing even to call it a request. Princess Elizabeth looked at me with a puzzled face, and then granted it cleanly all the same. At that I left the great temporary tent and followed the knights waiting outside, to give a detailed account of the night before.
And afterward... the investigator who appeared before my eyes, just as I had asked of Princess Elizabeth, was the eldest son of House Claudia—Loer.
"...and that is the whole of the matter, so far as I know it."
"Thank you for your cooperation. You may... withdraw."
After I had spent some thirty minutes explaining the previous night in detail, Loer said it flatly, setting in order the documents on which he had written it down. I could have left it at that and gone. Had that been my intent, I would never have asked Princess Elizabeth to name Loer as the investigator.
"Sir Loer."
"Yes."
"Is the life you have now a comparatively happy one?"
At the sudden private question Loer's brow twitched, but other knights were waiting outside, so he answered with nothing more than a slight dip of his head.
"Then remain content with the present."
"......"
"There is no need to learn a thing is precious only after you have lost it. Is there?"
"Leave."
"If you have been running with your eyes fixed only ahead and cannot feel it, turn and look back once. You have built more than you think."
"Count Luerg."
"Yes. Shall we try a supposition?"
Loer glared at me, an edge in his voice, and curled both hands into fists.
"If you fail to tear out my throat, and are defeated instead... I will not kill you. Not at the outset."
"......"
"I will cut away your limbs, pull your teeth, gouge out both your eyes... and leave you where you may die at any moment, should you go without care. A watch on you for all twenty-four hours, so that you cannot even take your own life."
The chair creaked. I settled my back against a seat comfortable past all comfort, in a posture one might fairly call insolent, and curled the corner of my mouth as if to bait him.
"Do that, and Lizzie—so strong in her love of family—would likely beg and plead that I let you live. Or else... she might ask me to kill you, so that you could sleep in peace."
Not Loer alone, if one were particular. There was also Lizzie's second brother, the second son of House Claudia.
"Of course... I would grant that plea. And for the price of it, I would take Lizzie in my arms. She is a child tormented by trauma at merely being alone with me, so she would tremble like an aspen and burst into tears."
"......"
"Her feet would be ruined as well, so she could not run, and she would be incapable of even a thread of resistance. She might piss herself in filth, just as she did then."
Blood vessels stood out in both of Loer's eyes, and from the fists he had clenched too hard, blood ran.
"It would not end with a single time, of course, so Lizzie might come to carry my child. And by then... I rather think she would have resigned herself. Can you bear a future of that kind?"
"......"
"You might kill yourself the instant you sensed defeat. But before that, have you the nerve to propose to your younger sister that the two of you go and die together? To the present head of House Claudia as well?"
"Ha..."
"Your thirst for revenge has faded a great deal. The very fact that you pick and choose your means is itself proof that, underneath, you wish to go on living the life you have now. Otherwise, in a chance this perfect, you would already have tried to kill me outright."
"Perzen."
Loer called to me in a bleak voice and rose.
"Afraid? You've grown terribly long-winded, unlike the old days. Don't waste your breath on pointless provocation. The reason I choose my means... is that you are not worth staking the whole of my family's lives upon."
"......"
"Do you want this finished quickly? Not a chance. A gentleman's revenge is not late even if it takes ten years. Live with unease in your arms—endlessly, and always."
He took up the documents and, for form's sake, dipped his head. Then he seized the handle in a bloodied hand, turned it, and left the room.
"......"
Left alone after that, I looked up at the ceiling and sank into thought. Unable to use either arm, in that feeble state... I had gone so far, for once, as to drag Lizzie into the provocation, and still he had not taken the bait.
Patience, if nothing else... that much I have to grant him.
Inwardly, I felt a pang of disappointment. Had I been able to take the hand of the enemy I had faced in the basement of the education hall... then not only the method of falling into Suspended Animation, but I might have forced a pretext and swept away every last thing that irritated me.
In any case...
Loer, it seemed, had no intention of stopping. Even so, I had no thought of growing anxious and running alongside him. Everything that runs on without stopping either breaks through the wall and goes on, or slams into it and destroys itself. There were only those two roads.
And so... I would become a solid wall.