Shouting Excuses (7)
—Then we hunt Biryuho…
—But if the people start to panic…
—If you can’t even calm your own citizens, what right do you have to call yourself a city lord…
No losses worth fearing while capturing her. No further damage after she was taken. In fact, seizing Biryuho would even end the yearly blight that left their lands parched. Who, under those circumstances, would still back down?
In the end the council drifted toward hunting Biryuho. The only fresh quarrel that rose in its place was whether to reveal the truth first—risking the people’s backlash—or strike first and explain later.
—At this rate we’ll never reach a decision. Why don’t we all cool our heads a little and resume afterward?
—Agreed. We still have contingency plans and relief measures left to thrash out.
—I’m for it as well. Honestly, I’ve needed the lavatory since the middle of the last argument…
Perhaps that was why the Lord of Ednium—who moments earlier had sworn he would spare no sacrifice—now wore a faintly dazed expression. Even so, he did not neglect the duty that was his alone.
“…Then we reconvene in thirty minutes. Does that suit everyone?”
—Very well.
—I have no objection.
—Thirty minutes it is, then.
He gathered the scattered opinions in a heartbeat and carved out a recess. At once a number of the distant lords deliberately severed their magical links—most of them, in fact. Judging by the mage who kept fretting about wasted mana, they simply couldn’t bear to squander any more.
—I hope you’ll visit our city someday.
Even the narrow-eyed lord winked at me once before vanishing. I wanted to seize him on the spot and demand a conversation; at the same time I wanted nothing of the sort. Contradiction distilled to its purest form.
—My lord.
In the interval only the people still present in the hall and the Young Lord of Camborer remained. Soundless longing and joy flared between the two of them, bright as forge-fire.
“…When I first heard the story from Leon, I believed it was hopeless. That the boy could not be saved—and that even if he could, a city lord must never choose that path.”
The lord gripped his own legs, the ones that could not walk without help. Thin hands clenched the wasted limbs that a single blanket had been hiding.
“Yet all of you tell me I need not make that choice.”
He did not keep staring at his legs for long. Instead he suddenly lifted his gaze to me. Distance kept his neck from snapping at the angle.
“That I need not abandon my son after all.”
I, too, was dragged free of the tangle of my own thoughts. Before a parent who had steeled himself to sacrifice his child and had now been given a slender chance to keep him, I could not dare let my mind wander elsewhere.
—My lord…
Fortunately he did not hold my eyes for long. Midway he shifted his gaze to the Young Lord of Camborer. The aged face blurred.
“But I cannot say my people will feel the same.”
The warmth vanished in an instant.
“I am sorry to say this to the boy and to Camborer’s Young Lord… yet our city is filled with those who dread nothing more than incurring Biryuho’s wrath.”
—Rumors of that sort circulate in our city as well.
“It is far beyond rumor.”
The lord glanced toward the windows. Thick curtains hung for security; nothing of the outside world could be seen.
“Ever since the great vines swallowed the forest right after the Great Demon was slain, the faith of our people has climbed until it nearly pierces the heavens.”
Even so, the murmurs still drifted faintly in. I still remembered the whispering crowds I had passed on the way up to the castle.
“Given time we could persuade them, of course. But… when would that day arrive? And until then, would Leon remain safe?”
He closed his eyes after speaking. “It is absurd for the man who forced the sacrifice to say such things,” he added. The face I had thought resolute may simply have been his private rite of mourning.
“What’s the problem? Once the land stops drying out, it’s good for everyone, isn’t it?”
“There will always be people who refuse to accept it.”
“So?”
“They’re worried about an uprising, that’s all…”
“Then crush them with force and be done with it.”
“That’s tyranny.”
“Berserk… even if the outcome is just, a wrong method robs the result of its light.”
“Berserk doesn’t understand. The words of the weak who lack even the will to fight are worthless.”
“No, what I mean is—”
“My lord.”
At that moment the man who had stood silent and straight-backed behind the lord opened his mouth. White beard, hair combed with severe neatness—he looked every inch the stern butler.
“Forgive the presumption, but may I speak?”
“I always listen to you.”
The lord answered lightly and glanced our way at the same time—whether seeking permission or simply reading the room, I could not tell.
“If it is a matter we may hear.”
Archmage’s reply suggested the latter. The butler bowed once and continued.
“Long ago you said that turning a blind eye to one person’s sacrifice for the peace of the many was never right.”
“That was—”
“We chose you as lord precisely because you were the sort of man who could say such a thing. And that heart has not changed.”
“That was before I sat in this chair. To demand blood of everyone even after taking the seat—”
“If the one Biryuho had taken had been any other citizen and not the Young Lord, would you have made the same choice you nearly made today?”
The lord’s mouth clamped shut. “Of course not…” The voice was thick with emotion forced down to its limit.
“I know you are harsh with yourself and with the Young Lord because of the previous lord’s deeds. Yet… once the people learn the truth, they will say, ‘There was no need for that.’ ”
The lord clenched his teeth and lowered his head.
“…So once again green hair has called for blood. Is that not so?”
“……!”
And somehow the arrow was flying toward us?
I had been concentrating on the exchange between butler and lord simply to keep useless thoughts at bay, and the sudden veer startled me. A sharp intake of breath behind me told me Dev had heard it too. At this distance he could hardly have missed it.
“S-Steward, that is—”
“The blood that sets a wrong thing right.”
“……?”
The butler gave a dry chuckle, then looked as if he had realized his mistake. His gaze landed on Dev, who had become an accidental excuse.
“My apologies. To a guest that must have sounded peculiar.”
“…No, it’s fine.”
“Please do not take offense. Blood was mentioned, yet this superstition is by no means an ill omen.”
The old man smiled kindly. The lord managed to raise his head and join in.
“…Indeed. Those words carry no malice. They are the signal flare of change and reform.”
It began very differently from a conversation I had once overheard.
This time Dev flinched and bowed his head.
“…Doesn’t it just mean that blood will flow?”
“No. It is nothing so simple.”
The lord shook his head slightly and began to speak in a quiet voice.
“It began… long ago, when we preserved a hollow peace by standing by while someone died.”
“…If you mean the story that someone assassinated the former lord, and that afterward his family massacred the innocent—I’ve heard that much.”
“Knowing that much will speed the telling.”
Whether he had mastered his feelings or not, the lord stroked the armrest of his chair and spoke in a flat murmur. It was a tale I had never heard—probably because I had stormed out of the restaurant that day and never found another chance to listen.
“After that day we understood that the true sin lay with us. That another’s suffering is never truly unrelated to our own, and that to tolerate evil is no different from colluding with it.”
Yet now I felt little urge to stop him.
“And so we took the green hair that symbolized the lord’s death as our emblem. Should green hair ever flutter among us again, it would be a warning that we had once more fallen silent before evil—and that blood must be shed to overturn it.”
“……!”
Perhaps I stayed silent because I judged the words would not wound Dev.
“Therefore the blood that green hair summons is righteous. It is equal to the weight of the courage that rises against injustice.”
Or perhaps because I knew any intervention of mine would be meaningless.
“In that sense, Hero, you and your companions have brought us great fortune. Not only did you remind me of what I had forgotten—you even reduced the blood that must be spilled.”
And yet why did I forget that truth and demand the boy’s sacrifice? The lord sighed.
“…My lord.”
Dev tugged his hood lower and mumbled.
“What is it?”
“You… don’t resent him?”
“Resent whom?”
“The one who… killed the lord.”
“Of course not.”
I could not see his expression.
“We have no right to resent him.”
It did not sound bad.
“But… a great many people died because of him… and he must have done it out of personal feeling…”
“The heart with which he rose is not important. Whether for survival or revenge, the root reason he finally drew his blade was that no one stopped the lord.”
If the assassination that truly lit the fuse of the massacre had been Dev’s, this alone would never fill every black hole in his chest…
“Had we checked the lord’s tyranny from the beginning, would that man ever have drawn steel? If the citizens who held the right had joined hands and restrained their lord, would the tragedy have occurred? By standing by we signaled, ‘It is permitted. We will keep silent.’ That was us—exactly as we nearly repeated the mistake today. Thus the blade was conceived by our original sin, and the slaughter that followed was our karma. We cannot condemn him.”
One shovelful. At least one shovelful of earth had been returned to that hole.
“Some ignorant folk still defend the dead former lord, and those who lost too much still harbor resentment even knowing it is wrong—but many who stood up that day think as I do. We do not resent the one who laid bare our original sin.”
That, without question, was not meaningless.
Mia, Young Lord of Camborer, gazed quietly at the places where the illusions had vanished—the spots where the Hero and her companions, the Lord of Ednium who had convened the council, and his butler had stood.
“Wow. Being a city lord is no joke either. Having to sacrifice your own son…”
“Because that’s the easiest path.”
Yohanna was not present; a Young Lord’s aide had no place at such a gathering. In her stead stood a mage who could hold a proper conversation. Mia leaned her head back against the chair with something close to ease.
“Isn’t it so? When I shed my own blood for others, I need only weigh my courage. But when someone else bleeds for me, the first thought that rises is how I must repay the weight of what they lost.”
“Well, true enough. Even goods cost money in this world—you can’t buy another’s blood and life for free. Still, that side has plenty of coin, doesn’t it?”
“Yet he is also a man of power. And in affairs like this, power is poison. One misstep and you’re branded a tyrant abusing authority.”
“You could just ignore them.”
“Most would. But Ednium once changed its lord by the citizens’ own hands. I doubt our present lord walks so carefully out of fear of that history… yet the history remains.”
“What a soft-hearted man. I wouldn’t live like that. It sounds exhausting.”
Mia blinked at the mage’s words. Exhausting? Yes, it was exhausting—to drive forward by nothing but one’s own moral compass without a guide. Constant self-examination and reflection were hard labor.
“But if the price of that hardship is the people outside those walls… isn’t it worth the effort?”
Still she did not regret it. She could not regret it.
“If he and I had not lived this way, those people—and his butler—would never have stepped forward first to shout on our behalf.”
How could she regret a life whose reward was even now ringing endlessly beyond these walls?
“Salot.”
“You called, my lady?”
Mia rang the bell for her attendant, then let her eyelids fall for a moment.
“There are moments when an answer faster than words already rests in your hand. That answer is the sword you grip.”
From the darkness beyond, a single shard of memory: her mother, graduate of Munmunt Knight Academy, a fully fledged knight, beckoned.
Mia’s eyes opened.
“Bring me Mother’s sword.”
“…At once!”
“No one knows where Biryuho makes her lair. Finding it will take days at the least. Before that I will join them—as the representative of this city.”
She lacked formal knighthood, yet she had still grasped a clear thread. Even if she could not join the actual subjugation, that much was true.
“Everyone has taken my side. I’m allowed this much greed, aren’t I, Mage?”
“…Asking me is pointless—I’m not from this city. Still… far from stopping you, I suspect they’ll all race after you in high spirits.”
If only she could look upon her beloved and upon the beast-spawn that had tried to steal him away, she would gladly go.
.
.
.
“Found you.”
[You…!]
“This time I will not let you slip away.”
Gladly she would watch that spirit-beast fall.