You Only Choose Dangerous Places
"You only choose the dangerous places to go, don't you?"
When I pretended not to notice him, Marquis Fred waved both hands high over his head.
"Hey! Why are you just walking off?!"
Even after I ignored him to the bitter end, the marquis came straight toward me.
"Yo! Daywin!"
In the end he closed to a distance I could no longer ignore. I shot him a look of pure inconvenience and shook my head left and right.
He'll find out eventually, but not now.
It would definitely get awkward.
Sitting right across from each other all the way south would make the entire trip a nightmare.
"Huh…? S-say something."
I flicked my eyes sideways to point at Veronica, then snapped them straight again, repeating the motion until he caught on.
"Ah. Ha."
Only then did he realize this was not a moment for hellos. Marquis Fred clapped his hands lightly with an "Oh!" of understanding. The way his face lit up with interest only made me more annoyed.
"I sure misjudged a peeeerson."
He added a ridiculous little rhythm to a perfectly ordinary sentence, humming like some middle-aged man as he gathered his bags.
"Haha, my apologies."
He clapped my shoulder in a jocular way as he passed. The look in his eyes clearly said Explain later.
"Let's go."
As Fred stepped off the train, a servant waiting on the platform took his luggage for him. The doors slid shut behind him.
Just like that, the marquis whipped up a storm on his own terms and strolled out of it.
"What was that just now?"
Veronica jerked her head up to look at me.
"What do you think? The man said he misjudged someone."
"Then why did he call you Daywin?"
"How should I know? Maybe the person he mistook me for has that name. What am I supposed to do about it?"
"No, that's weird."
"Yeah, weird name."
"That's not what I mean by weird. It's way too suspicious to be a coincidence. Because Daywin is my…"
"A name like 'Day'? Pretty strange. Maybe his brothers are named 'Month' and 'Year'? Haha."
I forced a laugh, but Veronica only stared at me, ice-cold.
"You're not listening to me, are you?"
"About the name Daywin. In the old characters it would mean 'one victory,' wouldn't it? That's strange too."
"What on earth are you talking about? Old characters? What does that even mean?"
"Beats me. First let's find our seats."
I handed her one of the two tickets.
"This is weird…"
She took the ticket without even looking at it and kept turning the puzzle over in her mind. She was so dazed she might as well have been receiving it straight into her palm.
"How can a coincidence like this even happen? You're hiding something from me…"
"He's just a lunatic. How long are you going to keep talking about this?"
I went hard at that point. I didn't care one bit that Marquis Fred had been turned into a lunatic. First I had to survive.
"Really? He looked familiar. And there was someone carrying his bags. Isn't he a noble?"
"Then he's a crazy noble."
Thump—
I found my seat and sat. She reluctantly took the one opposite me. Just like I'd thought earlier, the arrangement was painfully reminiscent of the times the two of us used to ride out on deliveries together.
"If you say so…"
She folded her arms and settled back against the seat. Around then the train began to move. When a conductor came through checking tickets, Veronica held hers out.
That was when it happened.
Out of the corner of my eye, beyond the window, Marquis Fred was watching me with a broad grin. As the train picked up speed he hurried along the platform to match it and pointed a finger at me. I couldn't hear a word through the glass, but his expression shouted, I did good, right? The creases around his eyes were practically yelling it.
I barely held back a laugh of my own, pointed my own finger right back at him, and matched the pose. Fred was still chuckling when—
"He really is a crazy old man… just like you said."
Veronica sighed at the sight.
"Why is he out there snickering all by himself…?"
"…That's why I told you he was a lunatic."
Sssshk—
I wiped the smile off my face and yanked the curtain shut as if the whole business were a nuisance.
As expected, the trip south took quite a while. Veronica and I talked a little along the way, but eventually both of us fell asleep.
Rumble—
The jolt of the train stopping made Veronica open her eyes a crack.
"Huh? Are we there?"
"No. Intermediate stop."
"Still a ways to go, then. You were already awake, though."
"According to the conductor we sit here for thirty minutes. If you need the lavatory, now's the time."
"I'm just going to sleep more."
"I'm going now."
I rose quietly and stepped into the corridor.
"Listen… I don't think this is something that needs saying, but…"
Veronica seemed to have misunderstood. I hadn't stood up for the lavatory. Another man was visible outside the window, so I had to leave in a hurry. I would have preferred to correct her about the lavatory, but catching up to him meant I had to go straight out.
This was, as I said, an intermediate stop—the last one before Grand Duke Oscar's territory. And the place Amelia's fiancé lived was the territory that butted right up against Grand Duke Oscar's from the north. Exactly here.
On top of that, I had realized something before we even left. Marquis Fred's servants had been ready and waiting before he ever stepped off the train. It was the same outside the window now. A swarm of attendants had gathered to greet one man. Which meant, just like the marquis, this man was almost certainly the lord of the domain.
"Does this damn train only have one route?"
Somehow they were all on it. Even the fiancé lived right by the station, of all things.
"Welcome home, Your Grace Duke Julian!"
Julian.
I had heard the name from Amelia, so my guess was correct. He was receiving a reception fit for a royal progress just for getting off a train. Julian stepped onto his own soil with the blank expression of someone long used to that kind of fuss from servants.
He had the refined good looks his name suggested, and for the head of a ducal house he looked remarkably young—early or mid-thirties at a guess. Still, far older than Amelia. A young, handsome duke. Amelia was now a serious candidate for the throne who had won over both the lords and the people, but the engagement itself had been arranged back when she had left no strong impression at all. Considering her standing in those days, Julian had been a rather suitable match—that was my honest assessment.
While his servants moved as one body unloading luggage from the train, Julian lit a pipe. In that interval I walked up beside him. I intended to speak with him first and get a sense of the man. I had told Amelia that anyone who tried to assassinate a princess deserved death, but I am not a bloodthirsty killer. If there was a way to settle this without taking a life, I was perfectly willing to take it.
"Good day."
"Who are you?"
I had barely begun to introduce myself when Julian asked the question with a face that made it clear he did not want to be disturbed.
"I am Daywin, knight to the Seventh Princess."
"Ah…!"
The moment the words left my mouth his expression smoothed out.
"Amelia's knight!"
The man who had scowled the instant I approached now switched, in a heartbeat, to open delight. And he had said Amelia, no less. Even for a fiancé they did not seem especially close, yet he tossed her name around as if to flaunt intimacy. For an ordinary person, simply speaking a princess's given name could be a crime—yet he did it as though advertising the engagement itself. Amelia, for her part, had said she only ever received one-sided gifts from him.
"I've heard a great deal about you. I've been wanting to meet you one of these days."
He tucked the pipe away and offered his hand. I took it and gave a light squeeze.
"I've only been able to follow your exploits in the papers, so meeting you in the flesh is quite something. Well then—where are you headed?"
I naturally could not answer that I had been invited by Grand Duke Oscar, or, better yet, that I had come to kill him if possible. The latter was out of the question for obvious reasons, and relations between the two ducal houses were unlikely to be warm. Riding the train had only confirmed it. The two territories were even closer than I had thought, yet the southern mines were monopolized by Grand Duke Oscar. I did not know how Oscar had secured that monopoly, but I doubted Julian had simply sat back and watched. Looked at the other way, of course, Julian was still holding onto power even without those mines.
"I'm on a mission."
So I left it at that safe vagueness.
"I see. An order from Amelia?"
"I can't speak of it at present."
"…You are aware, I trust, that I am her fiancé."
The unspoken and you still won't tell me? hung under the words.
"It is a matter of the utmost secrecy. I must ask for your understanding."
"…Is that so."
Julian swallowed his disappointment and turned his head.
"Well, I'm sure there are circumstances. Amelia is no ordinary person—she's a leading candidate for the succession."
To my surprise he stepped back a pace and nodded.
"Ah—if you have the time, why not come with me? As it happens I was hoping to host you. After all, you're the one who raised Amelia to her present height. You deserve it."
He even invited me to his residence.
"Today of all days, since I've returned, they'll have prepared a feast. Hahaha—you're in luck."
"I'm sorry. Today is impossible."
"…Because of that secret mission of yours?"
"Yes."
"What a shame…"
Clearly displeased, he put on the same sour face as before.
"Can't be helped. Ah—do you happen to know what Amelia likes?"
And then, out of nowhere, a personal question.
"What she likes? You mean her preferences?"
"Exactly. No matter what I give her she never seems pleased. And these are things I went to great trouble to obtain… I'm actually on my way back from securing another gift for her right now."
"A gift… you say."
"Why so quiet? What, is that classified too?"
"Not at all. I simply don't know the details myself."
Milk tea and hamburgers floated through my mind, but I did not bother saying them out loud.
"Hmm. Is that so."
He watched the servants struggling under enormous loads. So those were the gifts.
"Still, you—mission or not."
His eyes turned suddenly sharp as they fixed on me.
"Coming all the way down here is rather careless, isn't it?"
Careless?
"You can see it yourself, can't you? Think about it. If you're not there, who is supposed to protect Amelia?"
Whether because I had refused his invitation and his questions, or simply because he was already in a foul mood, the words began to pour out of him.
"You can't be unaware how subtle the intrigues of the royal court can be. I would have liked to see a little more sense of responsibility from a knight."
"……"
"If anything should happen to Amelia while you are here, I, as her fiancé, will have no choice but to hold you accountable."
…Hold me accountable.
"Amelia is worthy of the throne. And she is not alone. Consider my position as well."
"If you're that worried, you could always send soldiers. They would be a great help."
"No, no. You only choose the dangerous places to go, don't you? I can hardly send my men into that kind of mess."
"Yes, fair enough. But for escort duty, at least—"
"No matter how I look at it, your being here feels dangerous."
He cut me off and simply kept talking.
"Be more alert. Finish that secret mission or whatever it is and get back quickly. And this mission that brought you all the way out here—was it even Amelia's order? You're not harboring some other design, are you?"
Hm.
So that was it. Time to take stock.
Julian flaunted the fact that he was Amelia's fiancé, yet he had no intention of sending so much as a single soldier and was blatantly angling to ride her coattails. He was wasting time picking out gifts she would never accept, and the same man who had once tried to have her killed was now lecturing me that I needed to guard her even better because the situation had changed.
What a piece of work.
I could just kill him.