The White-Haired Count
Count Franz Wallenstein.
Count Franz Wallenstein had come all the way to the academy himself to drag his disobedient son back into line.
In the past he would not have spared the boy a second thought. Lately, though, the way Louis had been carrying himself was decent enough that Franz had begun to take an interest.
When the Count stepped onto the academy grounds he paused, glancing around, and for a moment he was lost in memory. They were not especially fond memories.
He himself had once been a student of Helon Academy, as befitting an imperial noble. Strictly speaking, however, he was no graduate.
In his cadet days he had been a talent even the professors kept an eye on. Outstanding skill. The backing of being heir to one of the Empire’s three great ducal houses. Handsome features anyone would acknowledge. It was harder not to be popular; among the cadets scrambling to build connections early, friends had come naturally.
To anyone looking he had been the perfect model student.
Then an impossibly heavy trial crashed down on him.
News of the treason of the then Duke Wallenstein—Franz’s own father. A plot that supposedly included an attempt to assassinate the Emperor.
Of course the Franz of those days had refused to believe it. But belief changed nothing; there was nothing he could do. By the time the word reached him, Duke Wallenstein had already been arrested on charges of treason. Franz had heard nothing beforehand, known nothing. He tried at least to see his father; the Imperial family forbade even that.
Evidence of the alleged treason kept surfacing. Franz believed none of it.
In those days there were friends who stood by him. The ones who had approached him only after seeing the Wallenstein name all abandoned him the moment the family was dragged into the scandal. But the friends who had drawn close to Franz the man—those friends decided to help him to the end.
Moved, Franz began investigating the case alongside them. He had even been ready to quit the academy entirely. He was that sincere. Yet they gained little. Treason against the Imperial family was far too grave and far too dangerous for mere academy cadets to touch.
First their own parents, then the Imperial family itself, sent warnings to everyone helping Franz. The warning that reached Franz personally was darker still: continue and he would be treated as an accomplice and arrested as well. A threat, pure and simple.
Franz answered it with a sneer. He ignored the Imperial family’s words and tried to prove his father’s innocence. He was not even given time.
As if someone had arranged every piece in advance, Duke Wallenstein’s guilt was declared certain and the sentence was carried out with suspicious speed. The punishment handed down was death. Most of the family’s lands and wealth were confiscated. The ducal title itself was stripped down to a mere countship.
Those who believed the Duke truly guilty prattled that the Imperial family had shown mercy because Wallenstein had been one of the three great houses. To Franz, who still believed in his father’s innocence, every one of them deserved to die.
At least, immediately before the execution, they allowed the Duke a final meeting with his family. Seeing the man who had been tortured into a wreck, Franz’s mother fainted on the spot. She never woke again.
The Duke seemed to have last words for his son, but he was barely able to speak. The only thing Franz clearly understood was the claim of innocence. He never forgot the look in his father’s eyes.
The execution was swift. The family fortune was largely seized. Most of the retainers abandoned the house and fled. His mother was dead. From that day Franz’s black hair turned pure white from the shock.
The Imperial family demanded the academy expel him. For reasons unknown, the headmaster refused. Even so, Franz never returned to classes. There was no one else left to take over the family.
Having dropped out and gone home, two thoughts remained to him: clear his father’s name, and take revenge on everyone who had reduced the house to this ruin. Whom, exactly, he did not yet know. The Imperial family that had ordered the execution. The other two of the three great ducal houses—the Epsilt Duchy and the Luryke Duchy—that had aided the attack on Wallenstein. The swarm of imperial nobles who had clamored for the family’s total extinction. Which of them had framed the Duke?
He did not know. More than once he had considered simply killing them all and dying himself; reality made it impossible. As the years passed his goal blurred—whether he still wanted vindication or simply blood. Only one thing stayed certain: the treason charge had been a frame-up. His father’s final words were carved deep into his mind.
The entire Empire accepted Duke Wallenstein’s guilt as fact. Franz did not care. For revenge he first needed power. At that moment House Wallenstein—the former duchy, now a countship—stood on the brink of collapse. Yet Franz, by sheer ability, clawed the family back from the edge. Even then they were barely recognizable as nobility.
Around that time he managed to marry. No sane noble daughter in the Empire would willingly wed the son of an executed traitor. Precisely because of that stain, however, a few people hunting for status elevation made their move. A count and a commoner. Under ordinary circumstances it could never have happened; because he was a traitor’s son, it did. The bride was the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Franz intended to rebuild the house with her family’s money; they intended to buy a count’s title even if the house was tainted. There was no love between them—the purest political marriage imaginable. The alliance at least let them look the part of nobles again. They were still poor.
The woman showed Franz no particular affection. Consequently, when she died not long after giving birth to Louis, he felt little grief. He felt little affection for Louis either. The boy’s delinquent nature had not bothered him. But when Louis heard the story of his grandfather and still failed to burn with rage—when, after Franz told him again and again that he must stake everything on clearing the name and taking revenge, the boy only answered, “Do I really have to?”—Franz gave up on his son completely.
So when Louis collapsed from illness roughly two years earlier, Franz paid it almost no mind. Live or die, it was not his concern.
That had been the truth.
Yet after the illness passed and Louis rose again, he seemed an entirely different person. The delinquent temperament was gone. He had grown sharper, more capable; Franz even caught him training alone. Interest stirred once more.
When Franz again raised the subject of the late Duke Wallenstein, Louis answered that he would clear the false charge and restore the family’s honor. Only then did Franz acknowledge the boy as his son.
The Louis before the collapse and the Louis after it were like two different people. Even if he truly were a different person, Franz found he did not particularly care. This son suited him better than the previous one. The thought would have horrified most people; to a man whose heart had long since worn thin, it was nothing worth fretting over.
While he was still looking around the grounds, a staff member spotted him and hurried over. Franz wore no cadet uniform, yet his youthful, almost boyish face made the employee mistake him for a student.
Whoa… the clothes are worn, but they’re really high-class. Which family’s cadet is he?
The staff member approached and asked, “Is something the matter, cadet?”
The Count regarded him as though inspecting something bizarre, then finally spoke.
“I am Count Franz Wallenstein. I have come to see my son. Guide me.”
The employee’s face drained of color. Not a cadet—a parent? And Count Wallenstein, no less? He began escorting the man with frantic haste.
“My lord, why on earth are we going to a funeral? You normally can’t stand the Ansbergs.”
“That’s exactly why we’re going.”
“Excuse me…?”
What kind of nonsense was that?
The Count spoke again.
“A count of the Empire is dead. We ought to go and at least leave some congratulatory money.”
“…You mean condolence money.”
“Whatever. Think of it as successor training.”
For some reason a faint unease settled over me. I had not known him long, yet everything I had felt so far told me that Count Franz Wallenstein—Louis Wallenstein’s father—was a man slightly unhinged.
Correction. Not slightly. Thoroughly unreliable.
I ventured a careful warning.
“Ah… my lord. Even so, it is a funeral. You won’t cause a scene, will you?”
With this man it seemed entirely possible. If he pulled something like that, the Wallenstein name would plummet without so much as a parachute. Truth be told, in our present state the house barely had any honor left to lose—but I reminded myself that even the bottom has a lower bottom.
I cast a distinctly uneasy look at the silent Count Wallenstein, then fell into step behind him.