What Do You Take Me For? (3)
I checked my gear.
Clothes chosen for freedom of movement and endurance against wear. The palette was dark throughout — the kind of colors that hid stains, dust, and blood rather than announcing them. I belted my prepared sword at my hip, and strapped a small hand axe, iron needles, and even iron scissors to my thigh alongside a secondary dagger. The auxiliary tools went into the pack alongside them.
My emergency funds had been steadily accumulating, so I wouldn't be worrying about money for a good while. I packed a recovery potion for emergencies and a wound powder for external injuries, and after checking the seals, added a few antidotes for toxic reactions as well.
Everything else…
Dried rations I would take from the storeroom. The pack itself kept to a bare minimum. But I knew the truth too well — the lighter the pack, the harsher the journey — and so Cariel went through the inspection with meticulous care.
A hood, a cloak, a windproof robe draped over all. And with the pack finally shouldered, the preparations were done.
Dozens of times in my head. No — I had run through this hundreds of times, thinking it over, revising, checking. Now that the moment had come to actually put it into practice, the feeling was ineffable. Just a little, my heart lifted. Though it faded almost at once.
Spare boots too…
If I could have brought a horse, packing would have been that much easier, but there was nothing to be done about that. Even if I somehow caught a wild horse later, there would be no saddle, and above all, running into a herd of wild horses inside the Empire was no simple feat. Capturing one, even less so.
Tap, tap.
Cariel tapped the toe of his ankle-high leather boots against the floor, then quietly swept his gaze around his room. A letter sat on the desk, but after a moment's deliberation he took it back without further thought.
The only luggage left now was the lute, wasn't it? That… he would grab on his way out. He looked toward the window, then turned away without lingering regret and stepped through the door.
"…Young master."
There stood Sylvia, holding a lamp.
"You're… going to the lady's place, aren't you? Right? Today of all days is an auspicious one, after all. And… I heard the news. You defeated Prince Alesius so magnificently, didn't you?"
There was some ambiguity in how that news had been phrased, but Cariel chose not to call it out.
"And so… now I…."
"Sylvia."
"……"
Ordinarily, a house of a count's standing could well have maintained dedicated maids and attendants without raising an eyebrow. But the Brendiar family — a house of new nobility, called rootless upstarts at its founding — had, for all its meteoric rise, no such foundation yet. And thanks to a mother of such plain habits, and a father with no love for ceremony or pomp, the household ran on the bare minimum of staff. Even that much was owed to the Emperor's personal attention; without it, they would have had no gardeners at all, gatekeeper included. The maids were hired hands, paid wages to lend their labor. And Sylvia… Sylvia was the girl Cariel himself had brought into the house so that she could be employed.
"……"
Yes. I had almost forgotten.
"Young… master?"
"I'm sorry."
"I beg your pardon?"
"…I've been a bad master. I snapped at you sometimes. Lost my temper with you."
At that, Sylvia's light-brown eyes went wide and she shook her head vigorously.
"N-no, never! That was, that was because I was clumsy and slow! I never read the room, and… a-and I can't take a hint…."
"It's all right."
I said it while stroking her black hair. "And still — because you were here, in this house, I could…."
What was I supposed to say? The words wouldn't come. There should have been some fitting sentence somewhere. The space where it should have been stayed empty. But I was grateful. That much was the truth.
"If only I… if only I had been someone capable, someone who could have solved even some of your troubles for you…."
"Enough. Don't blame yourself."
I held out the letter I'd been carrying. "My leave of absence from the Academy is nearly up, and I need to sort out some things in my own mind. So I'm leaving the Empire for a while."
"……"
She knew already. That I meant to walk out of this house without a word to my father or mother. Perhaps she had sensed for a long time that I had no lingering attachment here, that I'd meant to go. …I must have shown the signs often enough, after all.
"You… will come back, won't you?"
…Was it really that surprising to her? Had she thought I'd be gone forever? "……" Well. Fair enough. If I were not who I was now — certainly. I would have intended to leave forever. So that they could never find me. I'd likely have clawed my way to the very edge of the continent, however long it took.
Come to think of it… long ago, I had wanted to see the far side of the continent — the side no map depicted. The land beyond, past that edge. …Though for the life of me, I couldn't recall when exactly that had been.
"I will wait."
She stepped back a single pace and bowed her head, composed. And then, with eyes brimming over, she looked up at me and tried her hardest to smile.
"For the day I may serve you again."
"……"
Sylvia never once asked to come along, never said she wanted to follow. We both knew each other's circumstances far too well for that. With her ailing mother and her younger siblings to tend, there was no other choice she could make.
Resentment? Hardly. She was carrying out her role faithfully at an age when she should have been running wild with friends her own age, playing the spoiled child before her parents. Younger than I was, and yet — from the very first day I'd seen her, clumsy as she was, she had tried so hard.
"Is there… anything you'd like me to pass on?"
"Now that you mention it."
I thought about it for a moment. "I'll think about that later."
I would be leaving forever. But not now. Vanishing like a fugitive was no way to go about it. My leave of absence would end, and before long the Imperial Jousting Tournament would be held. Alesius would be there, no doubt, along with a whole gathering of my old acquaintances. The Hero, and the heirs of heroes. Every one of them a frontrunner for the crown.
"……"
And there — I would pour the ashes over it. Settle it beyond any doubt. So that there would be no coming back. So that even they… …could never welcome me again. Clean and final. …I would pour the ashes over it all.
Over the estate wall and toward the park.
"It's my son! My son!"
"Goodness! Is it true?"
"Merciful heavens!"
As though a festival had broken out in the dead of night, people poured from their homes, clamoring. With his ash-gray hood pulled low, Cariel retrieved the lute from a secluded corner of the park and quickened his pace once more.
"Blessings upon the Empire!"
"Rueld the Hero! Hurrah! Saintess Ermina! Hurrah!"
"His Imperial Majesty heard the news and is on his way to the Great Cathedral this very moment!"
"They say Lord Bariel has already gone ahead!"
……
It all sounded like talk from some other world. The Imperial Capital was vast, and the road long. As always, he ran a hand along a building wall, sprang to the rooftops, and vaulted out of the district at speed. An indifferent wind above, and below it the surging pageant of countless crowds. They rejoiced with all their hearts, offering their prayers and blessings.
And that scene… went on and on, all the way until he reached the Capital's walls.
"……"
He gave the patrols along the ramparts a cursory sweep, having already marked out from the tall rooftops the one place he was unlikely to be spotted. Then he dropped to the ground, sprinted, and scaled the wall as though running up its face itself. And straightaway — over the far side, throwing himself down in silence.
Mid-fall, something made him turn. The wall was receding, filling his view with its unshakable bulk. What grew gradually larger was, in the end, a barrier high and absolute — one he could never climb back over.
Whump!
Twisting his whole body in the descent, he landed safely on the ground — and pressed himself close against the base of the wall. Beyond the wall, naturally, patrols circulated too. He'd mapped out their rotation in advance, but only because he had studied it with care. Even so, there was no telling where else a watchful eye might glint. Keeping himself hidden in the shadows, away from any torchlight, he held his breath — then threw himself forward.
Beyond the wall. There was a reason he had chosen the dense forest as his exit point. The destination lay in the same direction… and it made detection less likely, for no good reason to pass up.
This stretch was, by design, patrolled externally as well, but it posed no particular problem. Out in the forest — out amid the woods — he was free. …Freer than any ordinary human could hope to be. He climbed straight up a tree, read the direction of the wind, moved with even his own scent dispersal in mind. Only once he was beyond a certain radius would he be clear of the patrols. Camping anywhere in this region was as good as begging to be caught. He hadn't come out on a picnic, after all.
Even this he did in stages, moving at a measured pace. The goal wasn't speed, but steadily clearing the zone. He was threading his way rapidly between the trees when something caught his eye.
Two horses, tied to a tree. And someone stroking them — someone just now looking up, and in that instant Cariel wondered if his eyes were deceiving him. He settled onto a branch and, taking no chances, turned his gaze toward the spot.
"……"
Someone in a fur-lined hood stood in the darkness, staring straight up at him. Then, as though by chance, the moon slipped out from behind the clouds, threading between the trees and scattering its light — with particular fondness, it seemed — on that one spot.
The red hood trimmed in white fur was drawn back. A wave of deep crimson billowed out, and beneath it — glinting sapphire-blue eyes, luminous as glass.
"Why…"
are you here? Of all people. …Of all moments.
"You have not waited long, I trust."
So then, for a little while—
"Come down and catch your breath, and let us talk."
Cariel Brendiar.
"Or — is it Baron Lutia, now?"
"……"
He could turn his back and vanish. That, too, was one choice among many.
"……"
But the simple fact that she had come out here to meet him in person — he could not bring himself to refuse the invitation.
When it came down to it, she had done nothing wrong. If there was any fault to be found, was it in having merely existed — in having tried her hardest, and called that trying a sin? No. That was wrong. A wrong thing to believe. All my needless emotional spending where she was concerned had, in the end, been nothing but the product of my own inferiority.
And so—
"Very well."
I climbed down from the tree and walked toward her. Moonlight had settled upon her and her alone, radiant and glittering. Elhermina Berk Enjul. My childhood friend of those early years. The second generation of the same Hero — the same hero. The heir to all of them. Yet you and I, how diametrically opposed we are.
She who received the moonlight was beautiful, unshakable, proud, and refined. So the world said. So the world judged. Into the chest of such a girl, they say, frozen steel had been set. That golden blood of hers. Those very veins. Perhaps even they had frozen over, cold as winter iron. And yet — everything this cold, composed girl put forward was kindness, and nobility, and sublime self-sacrifice.
What kind of landscape, I wonder, did the world etched into those blue eyes reflect?