Uriel Wayne Dana Alfred
Uriel clenched her skirt tight enough to drive wrinkles through the beautiful dress.
It hurt, because the day from ten years ago seemed to be playing itself out all over again. No—it was not even a repetition. At least on that day, ten years past, they had looked each other in the face.
Perhaps that was why a grim premonition slid unbidden through her mind. Had Perzen struck some private bargain with Aslan County?
It would follow. The very reason he had thrust himself into this betrothal was to keep any further weight of power from settling on Aslan County. And if the two of them had negotiated so that nothing troublesome would remain...
Would Perzen, with Brutein blood in his veins, really go out of his way to take as a concubine a woman in whose veins Alfred blood ran?
Every answer that came back to that question was bleak. In truth, the extreme souring of her grandfather Coleone's temper was surely because he had foreseen precisely this.
"And besides..."
In that heavy air, the conditions Gerard began to lay out one after another—once he had fought the pressure down—were simply too good. As time passed, Uriel felt her suspicion harden into certainty. It was as if, apologizing for a rigged auction staged against House Alfred, he were setting down an inflated price.
No...
Would there be any reason to spend twice over in such a fashion?
She tried to soothe her unease with grounds that were, in their way, reasonable. But each time she did, the hand clenched in her skirt slowly lost its strength, as if it had no faith in her.
"To me... you look woman enough."
"Uriel. Next time, I shall take you with me."
Perzen's voice wavered at her ear. What traces he had left were nearly gone now, and Uriel groped after them with her fingers as she bit down on her lip.
Was this how a child felt, left at an orphanage? Believing, with all her heart, a parent's promise to come back once there was money enough—waiting and waiting, telling herself the only reason they had not yet come for her was that they had not yet earned enough... only to realize, in the end, that she had been thrown away completely.
You don't have to come for me...
The door still would not open. Gazing at it, Uriel murmured inwardly.
So... take me with you...
The hour was eight in the evening, and an auction with only a single bidder went on and on.
As if to announce that the banquet was over, the maids moved busily about, clearing the dishes from the great table one by one. All that remained was wine, and fruit already cut and dressed.
Gerard drank at his ease and looked at Coleone. He had already set forth everything he had prepared; now he had only to wait for word that the bid was his. An auction with a single bidder. The result was as good as decided.
"If you'll excuse me..."
"Where are you going?"
Gerard asked it with a smile, watching Uriel rise. He knew perfectly well that when a woman excused herself at a gathering such as this, it was to visit the lavatory—and still he put the question to her. The intent was open shame, an insult delivered to her face. When Coleone did not step in, Uriel held to her silence and took hold of the door handle.
Watching her go, Gerard entertained the thought of pressing her a little further. Then he judged that it would not be too late once they had returned together, and quietly bit into a slice of apple.
Beyond lay a dark corridor, lit by nothing but a thin fall of moonlight. Uriel walked it for a long while before she leaned, strengthless, against the wall.
"Ah..."
Then she looked out the window. Two carriages waited on the garden side of the mansion, and Uriel's obsidian eyes opened wide.
The crest cut into the carriage on the left was a blue hawk in flight. And the crest on the carriage to the right...
It was the Scales, emblem of balance.
Yes. The token of Brutein.
At the same moment, footsteps rang out beyond the silent corridor. The dark lay so thick that only an outline showed, like a figure hidden behind a curtain—and yet Uriel could carve it, clear, into her eyes. Uniform. Regular. Without a single break in the measure. Dignified. Gracious. The red eyes of a man walking toward her, eyes even the darkness could not swallow.
"Uriel."
At last, where the faint moonlight fell, he came to a stop before her and called her name in a low voice.
Uriel could not answer. She had too much she wanted to say, and so the words stuck fast in her throat.
"Why are you just standing here?"
She wanted to fling a mouthful of curses at him. She wanted to demand why he was so late.
"What's wrong with your lips?"
But in the end, what Uriel chose was this: to catch in her teeth the finger he laid, worried, against her mouth, and to let fall the tears she had held back through all her fear.
Fortunately—whether because the force of it had been measured—the finger caught between her trembling lips felt no pain, and Perzen looked down at her without a word. Then, ill-suited to the moment, as if setting a bottle to an infant's mouth, he brought the index finger of his other hand, his right, to her lips.
For an instant she was dumbfounded, and angry. Uriel set her teeth hard—but she did not want him hurt, and in the end she quietly closed her soft lips around him.
"Hhk...!"
Watching her, Perzen smiled faintly. As if to soothe her sobbing, he wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and drew her narrow waist into his arms.
"Ah..."
Only then could Uriel see them. Standing behind Perzen: the former heads of Brutein.
"Come."
At once he tightened the arm about her waist and stepped forward. The former heads of Brutein, held under his Enslavement, followed as a matter of course.
The hour was nine in the evening.
The door burst open, and Perzen had arrived.
As ever, he wore no particular ornament—only the insignia marking him an Apollyon-rank black mage, pinned at his tie—and in a neat black suit he stepped inside.
At the sight of him, Gerard ground his teeth. He had grown a degree more accustomed to the force of Coleone's presence, but the weight of Perzen, appearing after two hours, seemed to drive his head down. In truth every maid in the room had bowed of her own accord and smothered even the sound of her breath.
A stillness that quite literally stopped the breath. The world went quiet, as if to command them: listen well to the sound of his steps.
And Coleone, the only one free inside that pressure...
"Oh... ohh..."
His eyes flew wide, filled with a mad delight.
Six former heads of Brutein followed at Perzen's back. He knew every one of them. How could he not? Aside from the Bruteins themselves, those who knew their history best would be House Alfred.
The tenth head, Remiel von Graham Brutein. The thirteenth, Demière von Marck Brutein. The seventeenth, Royce von Senfels Brutein. The twenty-second, Belzer von Rüfenheim Brutein. The twenty-fifth, Javelin von Molit Brutein. The twenty-seventh, Bayern von Graham Brutein.
He had remembered that long history of Brutein only from portraits, won with difficulty, of them as they had been in life. To meet the things themselves at arm's length set Coleone's heart pounding in a way that did not suit his years.
And that, too, was what Perzen had intended. This was a kind of performance—that before the history of Brutein, he would accept the blood of Alfred. That alone would be enough. Whatever conditions Gerard might offer, Coleone would roll his eyes back in rapture and grant leave for Uriel to be taken. Perzen was certain of it: one hundred percent, with not so much as a tenth of a percent's room for error.
House Alfred itself was a house whose history ran on an endless parallel, steeped in inferiority toward Brutein. Coleone, in particular, was not merely severe in that regard. He was excessive. He had gone so far as to take for his wife a woman who resembled the younger sister of Perzen's grandfather—more precisely, of the forty-second head.
An ugly desire to mix Alfred into Brutein, even by such means. To prick at that desire, Perzen had appeared with the former heads of Brutein he currently held, bound in Enslavement.
"Sit."
"Mm..."
Coming to the table, Perzen seated Uriel at his side with perfect ease, and sat with her.
"...How shameless."
At the sight, Gerard forced the words out. A voice strained tight with spite seeped into Perzen's ear.
"Have you no sense that you are late?"
"I am not late. I only came at the appointed time."
Perzen answered him with a smile.
"The purpose was never the meal."
"I haven't the slightest intention of sharing a table. Don't delude yourself."
There was no subject to the sentence. It might have meant Gerard. It might, at the same time, have meant Coleone.
But unlike Gerard, who felt the insult, Coleone laughed. He was glad of it. Water and oil were being mixed, after all; it would have been strange if there were no repulsion. And so the more Perzen showed his aversion, the more pleasure Coleone took in it.
Above all, the former heads of Brutein, Enslaved under Autonomous Control. Every one of them seemed indifferent, and yet—following the memories of life drawn out through Feedback—wore a faint contempt. To Coleone it was nothing short of rapture. Let them look at him however they liked. This betrothal would be made, and a child would be born in whom the blood of Alfred and the blood of Brutein were mixed. Count the current head of Brutein—Jeremiah—and it came to fully forty-four generations. At the end of that long span, the wish would at last be fulfilled.
The moment Coleone clapped his hands, a maid at his side came to the center of the table and set down two sheets of pure white paper. Perzen had no difficulty guessing the intent. The terms of the contract would be settled here and now.
"Speak first. I shall listen."
Coleone leaned back at his ease and laced his fingers. Perzen met Uriel's eyes for a brief moment—she was watching him—and offered the first article. In truth there was nothing to agonize over. It was indispensable, if this betrothal was to be concluded.
"I will take Uriel Wayne Dana Alfred, second daughter of House Alfred, as my concubine, and thereafter relinquish custody of the first son she bears, leaving that right entirely to House Alfred."
Ah. What a pleasing resonance that was. To hear such words from one who carried Brutein blood—and who possessed the greatest talent of the age—sent a shiver of delight through Coleone. Had a recording device existed in this world, he would have recorded that statement and listened to it whenever he pleased.
"However, the child has the right to know who the birth father and the birth mother are. And when the child, or the parents, ask to meet, House Alfred may not refuse the request."
"I accept."
"Then the first article ends here."
It might well be harsh. But given the structure of House Alfred, which concentrated power upon a single person, Perzen did not think an wholly wretched end awaited that child.
"Now... the second article, I shall speak."
"When a child is born, if the mother's body and the child fall into danger at the same time, the child's life takes priority. Of course, this holds only when a physician has judged that saving the mother's body would leave her unable to conceive again."
Listening, Perzen frowned. That Coleone should go out of his way to call his own granddaughter a maternal body was the lesser offense. From the very tone of it, the naked handling of her as nothing but a broodmare was plain to feel—a coldness that would not care in the least whether she lived or died, so long as he obtained a child in whom Alfred blood and Brutein blood were mixed.
But Uriel smiled bitterly, as if long used to it. Within House Alfred, a woman's place had always been thus. And if it was a death for the sake of her own child... she thought she could give it gladly.
"I'll amend that."
"Ah..."
Perzen did not accept it quietly, and Coleone's brow twitched. Still, he had said amend, and so he waited for what followed. The situation itself was hardly a common one to begin with.
"The child's life will not be given priority at once. For as long as mother and child can endure, under a physician's judgment of that limit, I will open the third floor of the Netherworld and attempt contact with the Anomaly that mends bodily loss and wounds."
"There are few cases one might take as a measure of such a situation. The limit of time can hardly be called exact. Suppose you set it at three minutes, and both of them die before then—what do you mean to do?"
"I will bear the whole of the responsibility."
"Even if I tell you to lie with another woman of Alfred in her place?"
"If that is what you want."
"Then I have no particular objection. I shall accept."
The business had gone far too smoothly against the weight of the air, and it took Uriel a little time to take the result in and understand it. As well it might. Those words meant that even if he were made to lie with a woman of Alfred once more, he would still try to save both the child and her.
...
It was unfamiliar. Only a little. And so Uriel, without thinking, reached a hand beneath the table and touched Perzen's left. He took her hand without a word.
Warmth passed into her. Her right hand, held tight in his large one. Even now, handled as the house's broodmare, as an object, as a tool—Uriel was happy, in this moment.