Anke's Dew
Rienner was mine. She had surrendered to me completely, in mind as well as body — and more than that, she adored me.
It was not merely the reward of pleasure I gave her that had broken her. It was that I was the man who could make her dreams come true.
Rienner was ambition given flesh, packed tight and wound to breaking. In that, she resembled Grea, whom I had claimed not long ago. The difference was the heat. Rienner burned hotter. She was a woman who would kill her own husband without a blink if power were the prize — and because she was that kind of woman, I needed to bind her to me all the more thoroughly.
I could not expect the pleasure of Power of Sex alone to keep her perfectly in hand. So I took her ambition itself and made it the controller by which I steered her. I showed her a future in which she would rule, and in the end she accepted the blueprint I had drawn.
"Ahh! Master…! I can feel it — your fierce ambition, your power! Nothing like that feeble ex-husband of mine…!"
Rienner Coulon was a woman starved for power. That a creature like her had spent decades holding her breath inside her own household was almost astonishing.
The man she needed was not a sage-king like Count Coulomb. She needed someone like me: greedy, stuffed with ambition, and thoroughly rotten. I had the capacity to give her everything her late husband had failed to provide.
"That's right. I am your wings. Now ride me, and soar into that sky."
"Nngyaaahhh! Send me to heaven!"
And, while I was at it, I was also the man who would sate her sexual hunger.
They say a woman's appetite only grows with age, and Rienner was no exception. Perhaps that unspent hunger had even played its part in how freely she had murdered her husband. Was it not one of a husband's essential duties to satisfy his wife's desire? Given Count Coulomb's temperament, I doubted he had ever put much effort into those obligatory bedroom campaigns.
At any rate, not long after Rienner had sworn her loyalty to me, guests arrived from House Wald. Rienner received them herself.
"Welcome…. No. I cannot quite bring myself to say it. This is not a happy occasion."
Her voice was ice, emptied of feeling — or rather, a voice that kept forcing down everything that wanted to burst out. She was playing the widow: a woman barely holding grief and fury in check after her husband's death. The performance was so complete that Viodelant Wald, sitting across from her, did not catch so much as a flicker of the lie.
She had, after all, spent decades already playing the virtuous wife of the house. She probably had an acting skill or two to show for it.
Rienner and Viodelant sat in the parlor of the lord's castle — the very parlor in which Count Coulomb had died not long ago.
The servants and maids had scrubbed the room clean, so no trace of the murder remained. For the record, I was watching every second of what happened inside through the Watching Eye.
"It is true we have rarely met over pleasant business. Even so, I never imagined we would be sitting down over something like this."
Viodelant said it without quite meeting Rienner's eyes.
He was a young man — early thirties, at a guess, a good twenty years younger than Count Valte. He had introduced himself as the Count's second younger brother. That the eldest younger brother had not come, and this one had, suggested a split inside their house. House Wald, it seemed, had been having a very loud week of its own.
"Our house will not look the other way. To do so would make us a laughingstock. House Wald must be held to the strictest account for what has occurred."
Rienner snapped it out with a look sharp enough to cut. Viodelant, apparently unused to this sort of exchange, listened with a face full of discomfort. Politically, he was still a green boy.
"Our house has not yet conducted its own investigation into this matter. It seems improper to rush to a conclusion based solely on your side's judgment."
"Hah! The investigation was not some private whim of ours. Investigators from the Magic Tower and the Mercenary Guild examined this incident as well. Every one of them reached the same conclusion."
"Well… if they wish to keep doing business on this land, they can hardly afford to offend House Coulon, can they?"
"Are you suggesting we bought the Magic Tower and the Mercenary Guild?"
"I am saying the possibility cannot be dismissed."
Viodelant did not yield a single inch. He might have been a green boy next to Rienner, but the power at his back was anything but small. An ordinary noble house would have flattened itself to the floor and begged for mercy. House Wald, however, commanded a force to rival House Coulon. They were likely the only family in this land who could sit in that parlor and speak so boldly.
"We have not come simply to deny the charges out of hand. We are here to investigate. I swear we will take full responsibility according to the results."
So saying, Viodelant turned his gaze toward the escort knight who had been standing at his side the entire time.
The giant of a knight, who had kept his post like a block of wood, drew a small glass vial from his coat. It was sealed with a cork and a wrapping of cloth. The glass was frosted, so the liquid inside could not be seen — but Rienner seemed to know exactly what it was.
"Anke's Dew. A treasure worth its weight in platinum."
"Far more reliable than any report from the Magic Tower or the Mercenary Guild. An item that can trace even the faintest killing intent left behind in a place."
"I had heard there is almost none of it in the Myles Kingdom. Is it genuine?"
"The genuine article, imported from a witch across the sea. If you doubt it, a simple demonstration will suffice."
The escort knight produced a small leather pouch. A frantic squeaking came from inside. A live mouse, by the sound of it.
The knight's eyes went wide as he crushed the pouch in one fist. A sharp squeak cut off, and red blood welled through the leather.
It was not the sort of performance one offered in front of a noblewoman. It was a contest of nerve, in its way.
Rienner, of course, did not take the bait of so crude a game. Her gaze was fixed not on the blood-soaked pouch but on the Anke's Dew.
"The more violent the killing intent, the clearer the memory left in a space, the more surely it can be read. Watch."
Viodelant pulled the cork and tipped the vial.
Anke's Dew was a black liquid that had nothing in common with its name. It looked like crude oil. He let a single drop fall onto the blood-soaked pouch.
Faint smoke rose from the spot where the dew had landed. The smoke gathered, sharpened, and took on a clear human shape — a figure of mist identical to the escort knight.
The mist-man crushed the pouch with his eyes wide, then scattered like smoke on the wind.
"It's genuine."
Rienner nodded. There was no room left for doubt.
Viodelant brushed off his hands and rose from his seat.
"Then we shall confirm it. The place where the murder occurred… or rather, where you claim it occurred. This parlor, is it?"
"Yes. In this parlor, Count Valte murdered my husband. He stabbed him in the back without mercy, with a sharp blade."
"Hmm. And how did my brother smuggle a sword in? Did he not surrender his weapons to enter the lord's castle, as Sir Pasilius here has done?"
"It appears he used some specialized magical device. When a madman has come to assassinate a lord inside his own castle, what wouldn't he attempt?"
"…… Then we shall use the Anke's Dew."
Viodelant tipped the vial. Several drops of Anke's Dew fell to the parlor floor. The liquid would track the most powerful killing intent that still clung to this space, and show it.
"A few drops aren't enough. The time that's passed, I suppose."
Rienner frowned as nothing happened.
"I shall apply a little more."
Viodelant sprinkled a further measure of Anke's Dew. As before, faint smoke began to seep up from the floor. He resealed the mouth of the vial.
"This is…"
The smoke rising from the floor split into several strands. Each strand became a person.
"That is…"
Pasilius, who had not spoken a single word until now, opened his mouth before he could stop himself. Viodelant, by contrast, went round-eyed and shut his.
The divided smoke resolved into Count Valte, Count Coulomb, and Count Valte's wife and daughter. Rienner sat in silence and watched it unfold.
"Brother…"
Count Valte swung his sword. Count Coulomb fled in an ugly scramble and took the blade in the back. His body went down like a bundle of straw, blood leaking from the hole punched through him. And Count Valte's madness did not end there.
"What in the…"
Viodelant could not finish the sentence. In the next instant, Count Valte turned his sword on his own wife and daughter.
There was not a shred of hesitation in the way he swung. The heads of Countess Valte and her daughter struck the floor. With that, the smoke scattered and was gone.
Viodelant could only blink those wide eyes, as if he could not believe what he had just seen. What Anke's Dew had shown him was a madman in the full grip of his frenzy.
With his master struck speechless, the escort knight Pasilius spoke instead.
"So it was as I thought."
"S-Sir Pasilius. 'As I thought' — does that mean you knew of this as well?"
"My lord despised his family. He never showed it outwardly, but I always believed that one day he would deal with them. That he would settle it in this fashion, however…. Even I did not imagine that."
Pasilius's voice was unnervingly calm.
"He was a clever man. I cannot fathom why he would commit an act so far beyond all common sense. There must have been something we do not know. I shall have to hear it from him myself. Countess. Where is my lord at this moment?"
Rienner pointed at the sky. Viodelant and Pasilius understood at once, and their eyes locked on her. Pasilius made no effort to hide the fury in his voice.
"Don't tell me…. You executed him?"
"Of course. The murder of a lord. A crime so grave that wiping out his entire family would still leave him with nothing to say in his defense. Surely you two are not unaware of that."
She was right. Treason is the worst of crimes in any culture, and it is punished with the highest penalty.
"Did the Anke's Dew you brought yourselves not confirm it? Count Valte killed my husband. He killed his own wife and daughter besides. We buried that last matter for the sake of his honor — but you have uncovered it yourselves."
"Even so, to carry out a sentence with no notice whatsoever…. It is highly suspicious."
Rienner's reply to Viodelant was ice.
"Do you truly believe you are in a position to say that?"
"Yes. The whole affair is strange. My brother's conduct is strange, and House Coulon's response is strange. If House Coulon were truly a one-sided victim, I cannot understand why you sat still for an entire week. It feels as though there is something behind this incident that we have not been shown."
"Ha! You are the ones whose family head was entangled in a catastrophe of this scale, and you did not arrive for a week."
"To our shame, there were internal circumstances within the house…. Well. In any case. For the moment, we cannot deny it. We have confirmed with certainty that my brother murdered Count Coulomb. As representative of House Wald, I offer our sincere apology for this unfortunate affair."
Viodelant bowed his head without further resistance. His face did not look particularly grief-stricken.
Count Valte and his daughter were dead. That meant power had moved. That this second younger brother had come here as the face of House Wald meant that, after a week of infighting, this one had taken the house in his grip. From his point of view, the whole incident was probably a windfall.
Stupid bastard. I had no intention of leaving House Wald alone.
"Our house will offer a formal apology shortly. And this matter was my brother's personal, arbitrary act. I state clearly that House Wald has no connection whatsoever to my brother's bizarre conduct."
Cutting off the tail. A natural gesture, from his position.
"Very well. I have understood House Wald's position clearly."
With that, Rienner dismissed the two of them. For now, this side of things had been wrapped up well enough.