What Is a Festival?
Some time had passed since they set out. By the time the risen sun began pouring down its full heat, the scenery around them had gradually transformed, and the paved road proper stretched out before them. It was then that Luke and Cariel, more or less by chance, found themselves riding side by side at the head of the column.
"Ten years ago—no, even five years ago—I couldn't have dreamed of a sight like this."
Luke did most of the talking. With his helm tucked under his arm and a relaxed smile on his face, there was even a hint of pride in the way he carried himself.
They climbed a hill, and the moment the view opened up on all sides, a plain spread out below them—a sea of purple, endless and boundless, like something painted on canvas.
A fragrant floral scent rode the wind and washed over them, pleasant and sweet. Along both sides of the wide, long paved road—broad enough for a dozen carriages to line up abreast—the purple waves stretched in a spectacle that had no equal.
If one widened one's view just a little further, small and large buildings and various structures could be glimpsed here and there across the fields. Here and there, faintly, someone had taken up a spot at the edge to paint. And beyond the purple expanse, at the outer fringe, dozens of sheep could be seen frolicking freely.
An open sky stretched above. Beneath it, a vast purple wave radiating vivid color stood out sharply against the warm sulfur-tinted sunlight. Even from a great distance, the lavender fields gave off an intoxicatingly intense fragrance—dense clusters of the herb, enough to make one's head swim.
It was a landscape he had heard described in passing during lectures at the academy on regional matters. He hadn't thought seeing it with his own eyes would make much difference.
But it was different. Different, indeed.
…Though it was hard to say exactly how.
Their destination was Berkhart, the imperial capital under the Emperor's direct rule. A place that, at a glance, seemed near yet was in truth far—a border once so utterly neglected that not even a line had been drawn there, back in the days when the Empire was not yet an Empire.
And now, the territory had become part of the Empire's embrace, home to one of the few branch lines of House Enjul: the Wiedenberk Marquisate. The Baroness Barony, of which this land formed a part, was precisely here.
There had been a time when the Baroness family was wrapped in all manner of notoriety, branded as the house that had turned its back on Saint Cariel. But by way of steady atonement, they had passionately and tirelessly proven their devotion to the Church and to the people. And so, three hundred years on, the Baroness family had come to be acknowledged as the masters of this entire region.
They shunned advancement into central politics, and though they lived near the imperial capital, they directed their loyalty strictly toward the Marquis of Wiedenberk and never let their gaze wander beyond. In them, one could see the very model of the faithful knight-noble.
And this had been proven beyond all doubt when the Demon King's army invaded.
"The damage from the Demon King's invasion was of course considerable, but the war ended all the same. What mattered most after that was restoring the ruined, devastated territories—turning them back into places fit to live in. Call it domestic administration, the business of running a household."
Now, if a knight were skilled at governance as well, he would be an all-purpose worker without equal. But the Baron of Baroness in those days had, at least in that respect, his shortcomings.
"The fortunate thing is that my elder brother had a talent for exactly this sort of thing."
Even during the war, he had been involved in logistics from the supply corps onward, and though he was hardly brilliant at administration… he had at least shown himself better than the Baron. In truth, however, his aptitude as a knight had fallen short, and from childhood he had been turned away and overlooked time and again.
For the head of the Baroness family, who held the guardianship of Saint Cariel's name to be both honor and sacred duty, and who had distinguished himself even on the field of war, such incompetence may well have been beyond all forgiveness.
"Still, it was a peaceful era. So this way of things exists too."
They descended into a road flanked on both sides by lavender fields stretching out without end. By this point it was no longer a mere fragrance—it was as if someone had dumped an entire bottle of perfume over the world, the scent so thick it made his head throb.
Even so, it wasn't an unpleasant feeling.
Only.
"There are an awful lot of bees."
"Every one of those little fellows is a citizen of ours."
It had been less than a few years since Baroness became famous across the Empire as a distribution hub for honey. Hadn't certain merchants from foreign lands secured the rights to distribute Baroness lavender honey and made themselves a fortune overnight?
"We've had a lot of rain this year, so the harvest's been pushed back. Thanks to that, it's overlapped with Saint Cariel's Feast Day, and everything's in full swing right now."
From above, the activity had been barely visible, but up close, far more people than he'd imagined were moving back and forth between the rows of lavender, deep in the harvest.
If the hum of flying bees could be heard even from atop the paved road, he worried faintly whether the din around the fields themselves might split his eardrums.
"Won't the bees sting us?"
"The way we get drunk on the flower scent, they're drunk on it too, too busy savoring it to think straight. So long as nobody pokes at them or provokes them, they go their way and we go ours. Everyone just tends to their own business."
The attitude of one who receives and welcomes even a mere insect into harmony, without ever clashing or colliding with it.
Did it mean grace?
Or did it mean composure?
Or was it strange of him to lose himself so deeply over something like this?
Cariel sank into thought.
Luke watched him quietly for a while, and then asked.
"So? Doesn't anything come to you—poetic inspiration, some melody? Among artists, I've often heard it said that this place gives them their ideas."
"I'm no bard. Not to that extent, anyway…"
"Who says a bard has to sing and recite verse and play instruments? If you want to, do it; if not, don't."
"……"
Truly, it was a remark that set a great many thoughts stirring.
It was nothing much, really.
But it had sounded like something, to Cariel.
He hadn't even known there was a thorn lodged in his chest—yet having come here, seeing and hearing all of this, he came to understand it all the more vividly. The fact that he had taken it as a matter of course, that thorn buried in his flesh, that he had accepted the pain as natural and simply endured it.
Had it, in truth, never been natural at all?
The smile of a young woman picking flowers, sweat beading on her brow. The sunlight pouring down over her. All of it was brilliant, bright, radiant. Even watching the bees dart to and fro, she showed no flinch, no shrinking fear—instead, she broke into an easy grin and blew a playful phoo! at them, even teasing them, utterly unshaken.
…Something Cariel had never once seen in his entire life. Not even imagined.
Such modest happiness, such contentment, such ease—it came wafting over him as if it might overflow.
They passed through the lavender fields, and passed them again, and crossed a handful of scattered villages. There was no fortification worth the name facing the outside—not even a mock outer wall raised for show, let alone an inner one.
A single church stood sharp and tall atop an especially verdant hill, crowning a small city below it.
This was the courtyard of the Baroness Barony.
Cariela had, at last, entered his sight.
There was still some time yet before the sun would set. Merely seeing it did not mean they had arrived.
And yet.
"We've made it."
Perhaps every human heart really is the same.
Beside him, Luke let out a breath—whether of relief, who could say—
"Right! Move, move! Pick up the pace! Home, boys! I'll have the whole tavern cleared out for us for the day! Run until you drop dead!"
It went without saying, but the soldiers' cheers rang out like a war cry across a battlefield.
"YEAAAH―!!"
…That amid that surging crowd of jubilant soldiers, the Saintess was shoulder-to-shoulder with them all, cheering along with the rest—well.
Cariel briefly debated whether he ought to have pretended not to see it.
Upon arriving, Luke hurried off to the lord's manor to deliver his report, and shoved the rest of the company bodily into the tavern. And so.
"And get this! A vicious wolf-monster, eyes blazing red, comes charging right at us! And this trembling kid just stands there shaking like a leaf! Then Ruel grabs him by the scruff, yanks him back, and deals with it all calm as you please! You think that's all? He plants a knee on the back of a bear-like monster, grips its shoulder, climbs right up, gets on its head and—shwick!—goes straight for the throat!"
When the young soldier clambered up onto the round table, waving his cup as he told the tale, the soldiers roared their Oooh! of approval.
It wasn't only the soldiers.
The townsfolk who had joined in began staring intently at the black-haired boy sitting in the corner, draining a wooden mug awkwardly—as if they might bore a hole clean through him.
"It was really that impressive, was it?"
At the words of a well-groomed middle-aged man with a handsome beard, the young soldier doubled down.
"This was before Sir Luke even arrived! Any later and we'd have had a whole pile of casualties on our hands!"
He had reached the village ahead of the column, dispatched by Luke's order to carry word of their coming, and had immediately been swept up in the commotion—narrowly escaping a serious disaster, a point he hammered home again and again.
Perhaps it was precisely because he knew all too well that this was, quite literally, one of the few kindnesses he could ever repay to Cariel.
"Well, if he says so."
"……"
It wasn't as though he'd done anything so grand, and having it narrated like this left him feeling nothing but sheepish.
Come to think of it, it had already been—counting today—exactly five days since he left the imperial capital.
Words needed time to travel, so setting aside that lag, he had pushed himself three days of near-continuous travel, cutting sleep to the bone. Each time he stole a nap, nightmares came; headaches, and seizures of pain that wracked his whole body like convulsions, meant he never truly slept properly anyway.
But the most serious matter was, once again, the anxiety.
The dread that he could be chased at any moment, seized at any moment—it fanned his restlessness relentlessly.
On the one hand, there was a vague trust that Elhermina would manage some measure of the fallout on his behalf. And beyond even that, the fear that she might disregard everything and come hunting for him in whatever fashion she pleased.
If they had truly resolved to hunt me down as a criminal.
He would never have made it this far.
But he still didn't know. Not yet.
"Why aren't you drinking? This is the good stuff."
Before his eyes, the woman called the Saintess was pouring golden liquid, row after row, into a mug the size of a washbasin.
And then gulping it all down greedily.
With her armor stripped off, she looked exactly as she had when he'd first laid eyes on her that morning.
"Kuhhh!"
…Could it really be that good?
"You knock back one mug and pass out—that's what makes it so good."
Just then, a man at the neighboring table leaned in, cheeks flushed crimson, entirely without ceremony.
"You never had a hangover, miss? Built not to get 'em, are you? Not a shred of fear in you! Maybe it's the build? More of a man than any man here! The face—I can't tell if it's pretty or not? Oh, right! Would 'cool' be the right word for it?"
"I'm human too, you know. Of course I get them. And by the way—calling a woman manly is an insult, didn't you know? I hear 'you're so cool' plenty, and that's an insult too! Arms too thin, legs too thick! Why are your abs so solid! And then, of all things, my chest somehow stimulates maternal instinct! Huh?!"
"Oh, so then why do you drink like there's no tomorrow? Good news or something?"
"Are you saying you skip the good stuff out of fear of a hangover, old man? Or did the missus make you promise to go pray at the church instead of drinking? Good news? Sure, there is! Isn't there, Ruel?"
"Ha! Say it like that and even this old man's got nothing to answer! Ruel? What's that? Some darkie from over there?"
Laughter burst up among the drinkers.
"……"
Cariel watched the spectacle, nursing nothing but water.
Then she thrust her own mug toward him, half like a challenge.
"Just one! One single mug—will you try it?"
"Losing my edge of vigilance wouldn't be… proper."
"Ooh, stiff as a board! What are you, a knight candidate or not? Wait—is that why you came all the way to Cariela timed to the Feast Day?"
…No, it wasn't.
He had intended to come here, yes—but it was only just now that he'd learned it happened to fall right before the feast.
For that matter, the whole village was already humming with festival preparations.
…It hadn't started as a festival, apparently, but over the years it had naturally grown into Cariela's own festival, equal parts feast day and celebration.
"Besides—did I ever tell you I was a knight candidate?"
"You handled a sword like a demon, and you put the weak before profit or loss, throwing yourself in front of them. With confidence like yours in your own skill, there was hardly any real danger to you—maybe all it cost you was a hand lent to someone. But for people who live without anything, even that smallest scrap of help becomes the salvation of a lifetime. And in the first place, refusing reward and standing by someone like it's only natural—that's not something just anyone can do."
"Is that so?"
It was true that he had helped because she asked him to.
All he could call it was luck.
He had had his suspicions, too.
Whether it was a pretense of asking for help, a trap to lure him in.
…He had really thought of everything back then, hadn't he.
In truth, it hadn't mattered either way. If help was needed, he would help; if they meant to deceive him, he would simply deal with it. That was all.
"The sun's still high in the sky and you're already dead tired?"
"……"
"Trouble sleeping?"
"Perhaps it's just that I'm not used to it yet."
He fudged it, roughly.
"Then how about this. Why don't you sleep with this big sister tonight? I could even teach you how to sleep with an easy mind."
A face flushed red.
And yet, curiously, a gaze with heat smoldering beneath it.
Alesia set her mug down and leaned her upper body toward him, half-sly, half-shameless, making the offer.
"A way to sleep well?"
Was there such a thing?
Cariel gave it a moment's thought.