When the Moonlit Night Ends (3)
The night before they left the Marquisate of Trevache.
A modest banquet was held under Marquis Edelmar’s name. It was not a gathering that drew nobles from outside; the hall was filled only with the marquis’s own people. The scale of the affair, however, was anything but modest.
Tables groaned under the weight of food, and brilliant lights flooded the hall. A space had been cleared for dancing. The troupe’s musicians struck up their instruments—violins singing, a piano answering—and the lively music filled every corner as the atmosphere began to warm. When the mood had fully caught fire, the marquis himself stepped out onto the banquet balcony.
Marquis Edelmar, his hair combed neatly back, swirled the glass in his hand and delivered the toast.
“To the two guests who have come to Trevache—cheers.”
The brief blessing finished, the music resumed, and one by one the guests drifted toward the center of the hall in search of partners. Sons and daughters of noble houses belonging to the Cambria Foundation, the marquis’s own retainers, and—
Is formal wear always this uncomfortable?
—Banquet clothes are just like that, I expect.
Najin was preparing to step into the hall himself. Fidgeting at the unaccustomed collar of a tailcoat he was wearing for the first time, he felt a hand settle on his shoulder. He turned to find Marquis Edelmar standing behind him.
“Tsk. The star of the stage cannot simply stand here. Is your lady not waiting for you?”
“...Pardon?”
The marquis clicked his tongue, gave Najin a light push between the shoulder blades, and, when the young man glanced back with a dazed expression, flashed him a wink—as if to say, do well.
What is even going on…
Everything felt alien: the atmosphere, the lights. Carrying that awkwardness with him, Najin started toward the center of the hall. The moment he did, he felt every gaze in the room turn toward him. Unable to understand why, he could only tilt his head.
…Of course he had no way of knowing.
Over the past few days the chase he and Dieta had staged had been packaged with the marquis’s influence and spread far and wide. The wider the tale traveled, the more weight it lent to their “justification.”
The story of a woman confined by a ducal house, and the man who had thrown himself alone into rescuing her. Dressed in romance, the tale had brushed past the ears of everyone gathered here at least once. Naturally, every eye found him.
Under that concentrated attention, Najin crossed the hall—toward Dieta, who, as the marquis had said, was surely waiting for him.
Music rang out brightly through the hall.
During this piece they would find partners; when the next began, the dancing would start. Dieta stood in a corner of the banquet, hands folded, absently stroking the back of one with the other.
Still so strange.
She had attended banquets before, yet no one had ever asked her to dance. That was only natural. Dieta was the discarded child of a ducal house; to request a dance with her was to volunteer as the next object of mockery.
So she had always watched from the edges. Not once had she stepped into the center of the hall. Not once had she stood as the shining lead of the stage. In her childhood she had gazed with longing at those who danced there.
All of that is ancient history now.
A thin smile touched Dieta’s lips.
Was she not already of age? She was twenty. For a woman of twenty to feel her heart pound at a ball like this—surely that was something to be embarrassed about.
Thump. Thump…
It was embarrassing. Thoroughly embarrassing.
Thump-thump-thump.
Why, then, did her heart insist on making so much noise? Swallowing dryly, Dieta looked out across the hall. Najin should be standing somewhere opposite; would he be able to find her? There were quite a few people—what if he simply could not see her…
She was entertaining such trivial thoughts when she noticed the guests searching for partners beginning, one after another, to stop in their tracks. Their gazes were gathering on a single point. Following them, she saw someone walking straight across the center of the hall.
Ash-gray hair tied neatly back. Eyes the color of sunset. And a tailcoat worn with careful elegance.
Only belatedly did Dieta realize the man was Najin; her eyes went wide. He looked so different from usual that she had failed to recognize him at a glance. He had always been rather handsome, but dressed like this the impression was something else entirely.
Tap.
Under the weight of every stare, Najin crossed the hall and came directly toward Dieta. The attention fixed on him naturally spilled over onto the woman he was approaching.
And then, at last—tap.
Najin stopped in front of her.
Exactly as Wulfhild had taught him through the day, he extended his hand with formal grace and inclined his waist and head in a shallow bow. The posture of a man requesting a dance.
“Would you grant me one dance?”
Dieta stared at him blankly for a moment, then smiled and nodded.
“Yes. Gladly.”
She took his hand.
Together they moved into the center of the hall. There could be no argument that the two of them were the protagonists of this evening’s banquet, and so the guests parted to make way of their own accord.
Where the light shone brightest.
Dieta came to a stop at the very heart of the hall.
The piece that had been playing drew to its close; a new one prepared to begin. In the brief hush between them, only the frantic beating of her own heart echoed in Dieta’s ears. Even that pounding was soon swallowed by the music that rose again.
What filled her hearing was the bright, lively melody.
What filled her sight was Najin, holding her hand.
Heat rose to her face, yet she let out a short breath and carefully took the first step. Neither she nor the man before her had ever properly learned to dance; it was bound to be a disaster. To keep from falling she would have to move with the utmost care…
That was what Dieta thought.
That was what she thought—until the slightly clumsy Najin simply “watched” the most brilliant dancing couple for a moment, and then, all at once, became skilled.
When the piece ended, it was time for rest.
At a tea table tucked into one corner of the banquet hall, Dieta sat perched on a chair, catching her breath, and stole a glance at Najin. At first he had matched her steps with the same awkwardness she felt… yet from a certain point he had begun to lead as though he had suddenly grasped the art of dancing. The change had been striking.
Was that even leading…?
He had corrected her posture by catching her at the waist, drawn her arm when it strayed, and when a movement went wrong he had twisted his own body to cover the flaw. Dieta had never properly danced before, yet after being guided this way and that by Najin she had finished the piece to a shower of applause from the surrounding guests.
Even the professional dancers were clicking their tongues in amazement, which meant the level had been rather high…
It was almost absurd. Dieta let out a dry laugh and spoke.
“Say, have you ever taken dance lessons?”
“I have not.”
“Really? That did not look like the work of someone who has danced once or twice.”
“Today was the first time.”
“...Truly?”
“Yes.”
Watching Najin nod, Dieta smiled. His first time. So that was how it was.
“I’m honored, then. To have been the first dance partner of a man who will one day become a Sword Master. That seems like quite the achievement.”
“...A Sword Master?”
“You said you would carve your own star, didn’t you? That you would climb to the highest place. Isn’t becoming a Sword Master the goal?”
At her question Najin laughed.
“Well, you are not wrong. Becoming a Sword Master is one of my goals.”
“It sounds as though there is more to it.”
“A Sword Master is a waypoint, not the destination.”
“A realm most people could spend a lifetime chasing and never reach—and you call it merely a process. Honestly…”
Even as she laughed, Dieta could not deny it. The man in front of her clearly possessed something special. He was the sort who looked toward heights ordinary people could not even imagine and simply ran.
“Not the destination, but a process…”
She turned the words over, then rested her chin on her hand and stared straight at Najin.
“Then perhaps I should start dreaming a little higher myself?”
“No harm in that. For example?”
“My original goal was to build a trading company vast enough to swallow the Arvenia Ducal House. To reach the peak as a merchant.”
And yet, Dieta murmured.
“If I look higher still… there is somewhere further to go.”
A tower built of gold coins.
Sitting atop that tower and gazing out, one could see there was still farther to climb. Once gold had carried you to the summit, the time came to scatter that gold and seize power.
“Shall I try becoming a pillar of the Empire?”
The words left her lightly.
Yet the goal itself was anything but light. What were the pillars of the Empire? They stood above even the dukes; above them sat only the emperor. Absolute powers who had been acknowledged by the throne, who sometimes purged even members of the imperial family, who bowed their heads to no one.
The very pillars that held the Empire aloft.
The five pillars known as the Empire’s Five Horns were the highest station any power-seeker could reach. In a certain sense they were ranks that could stand comparison with a Sword Master. Indeed, the Empire’s first pillar had been Sword Master Gerd, so the comparison was not empty.
“If you become a Sword Master,” Dieta said, smiling as she looked at Najin, “I think I would need to become at least one of the Empire’s Five Horns—so that I could face you as an equal.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s how it is.”
She leaned back in her chair and let out a contented breath.
“It’s still a distant story, but as you said—there’s no harm in dreaming big, is there?”
Well, that was that.
Having murmured as much, Dieta looked straight at him.
“I enjoyed today. It felt as though I had become the heroine of a fairy tale. I never expected to dance in the middle of the stage. It’s a strange feeling.”
Everything was strange.
Tomorrow she would have to return to being the serpent that swallows gold coins. There would be complicated matters to settle, and she would have to dig in her heels against the Arvenia Ducal House…
But at least for tonight she had been able to enjoy herself simply as Dieta.
At that thought she smiled, bright and easy—and felt a small pang of regret as well. Special times felt special precisely because one eventually had to return to the everyday.
Even so…
Dieta stole a glance at Najin.
Not everything would return to ordinary life. The feeling she held toward this man would not vanish. In front of him, at least, she believed she could always remain herself.
Thump-thump-thump.
This noisy, racing heart—this pounding—belonged entirely to her. And no one would take it from her. The serpent that swallowed gold coins never once let go of something that had caught its eye.
The long affair had at last drawn to a close. Under the marquis’s farewell, Najin and Dieta boarded the carriage bound for Cambria. The carriage cut smoothly through the wind and rolled forward.
What would follow was simple enough.
Once they returned to the city, Najin would dye his plaque red and take his seat, without shame, among the highest-ranked adventurers; Dieta would reclaim her place as head of the trading company. There had been no shortage of trouble and mishap, yet in the end the matter had been settled cleanly.
Everyone believed that without the slightest doubt.
What they had failed to anticipate was that the firstborn son of the Arvenia Ducal House was far more tenacious than expected—and that he had placed no faith in the rumors that had reached him.
“I challenge you to a duel.”
The moment they set foot back in the city, what greeted Najin and Dieta was Young Master Agesio and the line of knights arrayed behind him. Even after the order to return to the ducal house had been issued, Agesio had postponed his departure and waited for the two of them.
He could not accept it. That he had been struck a blow by Dieta, the discarded child; that every plan had come undone because of a single adventurer.
Even if one had to yield when the time came to yield, the dignity of a house that had been trampled had to be set right. That was Agesio’s thinking—and the wrong answer he chose. He did not know how to admit defeat, nor how to endure humiliation.
He had never been defeated.
He had never had to endure humiliation.
Of course, Najin was under no obligation to accept the duel the man had thrown down. There was no justification, no reason.
“You will not refuse a duel, will you? A man who dreams of knighthood yet will not accept an honorable challenge has no right to become a knight. Am I wrong?”
But—
“If you understand honor and pride.”
The moment Agesio tossed those words out so lightly, Najin found his justification. He found his reason.
“Then accept the du—”
Before the sentence could finish, Najin drew his sword. The blade scraped roughly free of its scabbard and gleamed with a cold, blue edge.
It was acceptance of the duel.
When one of the five knights started to step forward, Najin let out a short, dry laugh and gave the drawn blade a little flick. Having answered a cheap provocation, he sent an equally cheap provocation of his own toward the knights.
“Is there any need for you to come at me one by one?”
He flung the empty scabbard to the ground with a careless toss.
“I think the balance would be a little better if all five of you came at once.”