The Prince’s Medicine, the Knight’s Loyalty
Two days still remained before they reached Alzen, their destination, and though they had already been attacked by monsters more than once, they had arrived here unscathed, with no one injured.
Traveling with three priests, they had purified the corrupted land along the way and, standing on high mountain ridges to look out over the endless stretch of the land of death, had only strengthened the mission entrusted to them.
Of course, since Heston had taken charge mainly of the princess’s protection and command, he spent most of his time shooting arrows from in front of her or swinging his sword to deflect poisoned needles and the like that flew toward the princess.
For the past four years, if there was anyone Heston had made his first priority, it had been the person standing behind him. Protecting that back had mattered more to him than even hunting down monsters. Because of that, there was no weakness in his guard, but the princess, whose temper was less than pleasant, seemed irritated by the way he treated her like some fragile little child who couldn’t lift a finger for herself.
Once, she had forcibly dragged one of the monster’s tentacles that he had sent flying right up to her own face, burned it to ash, and then smiled brightly at Heston.
The flames that had licked and blazed so close to the princess’s nose had sounded like a warning aimed at Heston.
Don’t mistake her for Sylvia.
Heston thought she must be the sort of person who desperately wanted to assert her own existence. Then again, all royals were like that.
Still, even Heston—who remained indifferent to whatever the princess did—couldn’t help but say something when she proudly showed him that she had learned support magic from Sylvia.
“Why do you keep testing me?”
The princess looked openly disappointed, as though she had expected a far more interesting reaction from Heston than that limp answer. Then, with a clenched fist, she canceled the mana she had gathered.
“Well, who told you to abandon me on the night of your engagement ceremony?”
With that, she lifted one shoulder in a mockingly light shrug, looking exactly like a jealous fiancée trying to be cute. But Heston knew those words were really a jab at how weak he had been, so close to breaking his promise.
On the night of the engagement ceremony, there was no way the princess hadn’t known that, in the heat of his own burning passion, he had ordered them to find Sylvia.
If he had found Sylvia that night, he would probably have told her everything. But he had rescinded the order after only thirty minutes, telling them to search for her.
Thirty minutes.
Wasn’t that a very brief moment, one that could easily have swayed him? If he hadn’t been so insanely drunk, if the princess hadn’t disguised herself with Sylvia’s face and smiled like that, none of it would have happened.
“You wear your weakness far too plainly, Your Grace.”
Heston still remembered the words she had spoken when they first met. Back then, he had thought nothing of them. He had never wanted to live by hiding his weaknesses in the first place, and he had believed himself strong enough to protect them.
But in retrospect, that had been a truly arrogant thought.
Nodding along as his aide spread out a map and explained things to him, Heston pointed out a few necessary revisions and then cleaned the sword he had barely even drawn when the princess came up beside him with neat, measured steps. Shielding her eyes with one hand, she looked out toward the cluster of knights and said, “Look over there. Sir Summers and Miss Appleton. Don’t they seem terribly close?”
Heston had no interest in playing along with the princess’s obvious little game, but he had no choice but to lift his head and look. They did seem to be in sync. When Owen swung his sword, Sylvia cast reinforcement or defense support, and they adjusted the ratio as if testing their coordination while controlling their strength.
“To me, it looks like they’re training hard.”
“Oh? Even so?”
When Owen finally grew too tired to endure the seemingly endless training that had been going on for hours and hours, he flung his sword around with an exasperated look and then collapsed flat on his back. Shocked, Sylvia hurried over to him in quick little steps. She pulled at his hand, then went to the side of his head, managed to shove one shoulder only about ten centimeters off the ground, and finally grabbed his hair and gave it a rough shake.
“That’s some very amusing training.”
Chuckling softly, the princess turned to Heston as if to ask, And you?
Heston watched them with indifferent eyes, then focused on his own sword.
“Yes. It does look entertaining.”
He understood at least that much: this was how Sylvia acted around someone like that. But it didn’t make him feel threatened, nor did it stir any jealousy. Looking down at him, the princess muttered briefly, “I can’t tell whether you’re very good at acting, or whether you truly don’t care at all.”
Then she left as though she’d grown bored. Heston, thinking he was beginning to get a sense of what kind of person the princess was, diligently wiped down his sword, returned it to its scabbard, and fastened it to his waist.
He ran into Owen when he stopped by the riverbank to get some fresh air. Owen was sitting there carelessly, washing his face. Even as water seeped into the joints of his armor, he didn’t seem to care, his movements utterly rough and unguarded.
Seeing his long hair soaked through and clinging to the nape of his neck, Heston held out a handkerchief.
“Here.”
Only then did Owen seem to realize Heston was nearby, lifting his head to stare blankly at him.
You are, aren’t you? He didn’t even take the handkerchief, just studied Heston’s face in detail as if trying to pry him open, and then he placed a hand over the left side of his own chest and tilted his head. Heston, showing no reaction to Owen’s strange behavior, offered the handkerchief again.
“Ah.”
Only then did Owen take it, roughly rubbing the moisture from his face before shamelessly handing back the damp, ruined cloth. Heston, showing no sign of displeasure, folded it neatly and tucked it away again inside his coat.
“Why.”
Since Heston stood there silently, doing nothing until Owen finished brushing his hair back and shaking off the water, Owen had no choice but to ask. Heston waited until Owen’s hands were still, then handed him an envelope.
“Give this to Sylvia.”
It was medicine he had failed to deliver three days ago. Owen raised his eyes as if asking what it was.
“I heard she’s been feeling unwell for several days.”
“Wouldn’t she have taken something on her own?”
Something about the way he said it suggested, Why go to all this trouble? Heston found himself explaining without meaning to.
“She has a habit of enduring things. If no one looks after her, she just leaves herself alone.”
“Well, that sounds like a habit you taught her. Why should I bother doing the same?”
The answer was a little sharp around the edges. Heston looked at Owen, who seemed determined to keep speaking with that same crooked edge, and tilted his head as if he truly couldn’t understand why the man was being like this.
“I thought you’d already gone along with that sort of thing too.”
That night, when Owen had carried Sylvia on his back and taken her all the way to her room himself, he had seemed no less guilty of it—if anything, even more so.
Meanwhile, Owen, who had no idea what he was talking about, lifted one eyebrow and looked at Heston. He’d wondered if the man had always been this twisted in some corner of his personality.
“When have I ever taken care of her?”
“Fourteen times today alone.”
“You’re a creepy bastard. You sat there counting?”
Assuming it was a joke, Owen snorted and took the medicine. Heston nodded, relieved that he had accepted it.
“Thank you.”
“Why didn’t you give it to her yourself? Are you two avoiding each other lately? I haven’t seen you so much as wander near her.”
As if he’d been handed candy without fear, Owen opened the envelope, popped a small black pellet into his mouth, and chewed. Scratching the side of his forehead, Heston answered.
“She hates it. She mustn’t find out.”
The bitterness that had lingered in the medicine rolled across Owen’s mouth and down his throat. Maybe Heston himself didn’t care about things like this, but Sylvia looked like she’d be holding her head by the time it hit her. Thinking that, Owen shrugged.
It didn’t seem likely that the “she hates it” in question was Sylvia, the one who had looked so drained after not being able to see Heston’s face.
“The princess?”
“Yeah.”
Heston admitted it readily, and Owen’s mouth curved a little. He flipped the medicine pouch up into the air once and caught it.
“I thought so. It did seem that way.”
“What did?”
“She kept looking at Sylvia.”
“Sylvia?”
When had he started calling her by her given name? In the four years since Owen, as Heston’s friend, had practically worn a path through Lockwood Castle eating there often enough, Heston had always known him and Sylvia by only one set of names: Appleton and Summers.
Finding that strange, Heston asked again, but Owen, unaware that Heston was even paying attention to such details, went on casually.
“Yeah. But really, why would she need to do that? She wasn’t looking at you. Maybe she actually loves Sylvia and only got engaged to you for show.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“I’m joking.”
Heston’s serious answer amused him, and Owen gave a short laugh before patting Heston’s shoulder twice and turning away. Heston remained where he was, staring absently at the sunlight reflected on the river as if his mind had drifted off somewhere. Then, all at once, Owen stopped and asked without turning back.
“So why did you get engaged, then?”
It was a question no one had ever asked Heston so directly. Since he had never lied in this place, he gave the truth again instead of any rehearsed answer.
“Because I needed to.”
“Needed to? I thought you said it was because you loved her.”
“It’s not all that different.”
It was a cryptic answer, and a cryptic attitude. Owen looked at Heston’s face, which had always been impossible to read, and tilted his head. Even Sylvia, who supposedly spent nearly all her time with Heston, probably wouldn’t understand that answer either. So what was he saying— that the princess Catherine was necessary to him, and that he loved the princess Catherine?
It didn’t seem like it.
Watching Heston as he closed his eyes and seemed to feel the wind, Owen tucked the medicine pouch into his pocket and thought.
Was Heston asking him to deliver it because he wanted Owen to know he was worried about her, or was it really just medicine?
If it was the latter, then there was no need to go out of his way to deliver some digestive aid and a little stamina tonic now. Besides, the whole claim that she was sick had been a lie from the start. And if it was the former…
Turning the possibilities over in his head like dice, Owen suddenly remembered Sylvia’s face, red from drink, her fists clenched tight as she’d said it.
I’m getting out too. I will get out.
Right. Even if it was the former, throw it away.
More important than anything else was that a pitiful soul should escape its miserable fate. The unreadable bastard had probably eased his own conscience enough just by passing it along to Owen.
In the end, Owen tossed the medicine Heston had given him into a patch of overgrown brush somewhere. Most likely, only the forest animals benefited from the digestion aid and the restored stamina.
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