Prediction, and Result (2)
"Pardon? When you say you'd like a match, do you mean a duel? But—"
"Take up a weapon, Swen."
She cut me off, fixing me with a sharp look.
I had things I wanted to say, but it was clear none of them would get through. So I did as ordered and drew a rapier.
"Ready?"
"…Yes."
"We begin."
With that, she offered a bow of impeccable, elegant formality—and then—
Shhk!
She closed the distance at a speed the eye could barely track.
I somehow managed to slip past the tip of her rapier as it thrust toward me.
"W-wait a moment! My lord, please just give me a sec—"
Shhk! Shhk!
Before I could even attempt a counter, several more strikes came in rapid succession—and then—
…I crumpled.
When I came back to myself, the tip of her blade was hovering just short of my abdomen. My knees had given out without my noticing, and I went down hard.
This time I hadn't even been able to dodge. The first evasion had been pure luck; my dynamic vision simply couldn't keep up with her movement.
"…"
I studied Serpina carefully as she stood there in silence.
No killing intent… that I could feel.
So this really was nothing more than a mock duel.
Then why on earth was she doing this all of a sudden?
"…I lose."
"Giving up, are you?"
"Clinging to an opponent I have absolutely no chance of beating isn't my style."
One fact was now crystal clear.
My Martial score was absurdly low.
Watching Serpina move just now only drove the point home again: I had zero talent in this department. If Irene hadn't been at my side, I would have found myself in genuinely dangerous situations more often than I cared to admit.
"…Very well. Thank you for indulging me."
"Matching you for a bout is no trouble, but… may I ask why you suddenly decided to do this?"
At my question she stared straight into my face, then asked in a flat, dry tone:
"And what do you suppose the reason is?"
What did I think the reason was?
I ran the question through my head as a test—and the only answer that came back was unknown.
Questions with little connection to affairs of state were beyond prediction. There was no way for me to read what was going on inside her.
She didn't wait for my reply. She spoke as if tossing the words away.
"…Diversion."
Diversion, she said.
It didn't look like anything of the sort, but I could tell she had no intention of explaining further.
"Ah… so the reason you summoned me was for this 'diversion'?"
"Follow me and you'll find out."
She hung her weapon back on the wall and started walking. I stood there blankly watching her go until she glanced back over her shoulder.
"What are you doing? You're not following."
"Ah… I'll be right there."
Hearing that, she turned forward again and took the lead.
Serpina's generous hips swayed from side to side in a way that once more rattled my field of vision, but I shook off the carnal distraction and fell into step behind her.
We climbed a flight of stairs and arrived at a certain room.
Inside stood a massive table, and at its center sat a game board and pieces I knew all too well.
A board of black and white squares, and atop it a set of pieces so familiar they almost hurt to look at…
It was a chessboard.
"This is…?"
"Swen. I found myself wanting a match with you."
A one-on-one duel a moment ago, and now chess?
I had no idea what she was thinking—but if one's lord said jump, a retainer jumped. That was the duty of a military man, wasn't it?
"You know the rules, I trust?"
"I know the basics. But I'm not confident at chess. I've barely played, so I'm a little worried I won't be able to give you a proper game."
"All the better. Then you need not fear being wounded by me."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You were never going to win anyway. If you hide behind 'I've never played,' at least your pride takes no damage, does it?"
Serpina said it with a playful little laugh—kuhuhu.
This woman…
Her transparent provocation stirred a competitive spark in me despite myself. I knew the basic rules and a handful of openings at a surface level, and for some reason a baseless confidence began to rise—surely I wouldn't be crushed one-sidedly.
"Well, I'll do my best regardless."
"Come, then, Swen."
And so, out of nowhere, I sat down to play chess with her.
And then—
"…"
"You seem to have nowhere left to place a piece, Swen. What will you do?"
Faced with a position where every move was a blunder, I raised the white flag yet again.
That made five consecutive losses to her.
Was this the gulf in class between us? When a defeat was this thoroughly one-sided, the mind oddly went clean and quiet.
"I lose."
"From the midgame on, you made quite a number of poor moves."
"I don't even know which of my moves were the blunders."
I said it with a hollow little laugh.
She studied me for a long moment again, then rose from her seat.
"You've worked hard dancing to my tune today."
"Not at all. Is that everything?"
At my words, a smile of genuine amusement touched her face once more.
"Do you wish to spend still more time with me, then?"
The ease with which she tossed out a line like that made me wonder if Serpina enjoyed joking more than I'd expected.
Well. Time for a little social maneuvering.
"Of course I do. For a retainer, few things are as great an honor as sharing time with one's lord."
"Then allow me one piece of advice. If you truly wish to take root in my heart, you would do well to stop saying only what sounds pleasant."
She said it, but there was no real weight behind the words. If it was a light remark, there was no need for me to hang meaning on it either.
"I'll keep that in mind."
"…"
Serpina rose slowly from her chair.
Then, gazing out the annex window, she spoke.
"I have just sent a conscription notice to Amir Castle."
"…"
"I intend to take your counsel and fortify our defenses. I mean to prepare against an assault by the Aesius Army."
So she was going to listen to my opinion after all?
I still wondered whether she really needed to tell me this, but for the moment I kept silent and waited for her to continue.
And before long—
She looked at me with the expression of an absolute sovereign and asked:
"I will ask you. Swen—do you still believe the Aesius Army will attack?"
"…"
I had been dragged to this annex, made to play along with her inexplicable diversions. And now, after saying she would accept the opinion I had offered despite its 'insufficient grounds,' she was asking whether I still thought the same.
I couldn't be certain, but it occurred to me that this might be some kind of test on her part.
In that case, what should I say?
That the Aesius Army would come up the river and strike?
Honestly, that had been nothing more than a single hypothesis reverse-engineered from the absolute result that leaving the troops garrisoned at Amir Castle was the most efficient course.
It had simply sounded plausible enough once I put it into words, so I had said it.
But.
Even I had no idea where this 'infallibly correct prediction' was headed. How could I claim one-hundred-percent certainty that things would unfold that way?
Perhaps she thought… that I was hiding something.
If the chess and the one-on-one duel had been her way of gauging my abilities, that wouldn't be strange at all.
I didn't know exactly what she was thinking.
But if she truly believed I was a man concealing something—then I needed to make use of that misconception.
"My lord."
I bowed my head and roughly wove together a sentence that sounded suitably impressive.
"Nothing in this world can be decided in haste. All of us are travelers forever navigating toward the highest probability, adjusting our course moment by moment. And in that process, there inevitably come instants when one must see what cannot be seen. Even what is plainly visible has moments when it falls outside one's field of view. I believe that is my answer."
"Moments when one must see what cannot be seen?"
"Yes."
One must see the invisible.
It was a sentence that, in its way, described my own predicament—having to somehow track processes I could not see.
The claim that what was plainly visible sometimes fell outside one's field of view was a metaphor for the simple truth that I know the result, but I don't know the rest of the content.
I wasn't trying to drop a hint about my ability so much as plant a deep impression with words that merely sounded profound.
In short:
Since I was in no position to offer grounds she would find convincing, my goal was to package it as plausibly as possible.
The conclusion was already fixed. The coming future would turn my plating into the real thing; all I had to do was leave a few plausible traces lying around.
I did wonder what I'd say if she asked what on earth that meant—but fortunately she seemed to find it somewhat persuasive, and simply sank into thought without answering.
She looked as if she were desperately trying to parse the meaning of my words.
—If she knew that what I was actually thinking was nothing more profound than Serpina's profile looks beautiful when she's lost in thought, what kind of reaction would she have?
"…That is your answer, then?"
"It is."
"I see."
Serpina thought a while longer, then answered, and at last extended her hand to me.
"Today was enjoyable. I hope you will indulge me again."
For her, who had essentially carried out a one-sided massacre of civilians, it may well have been fun. I hadn't found it particularly entertaining.
Still… this, too, was social life, wasn't it?
"Call on me whenever you wish."
I took her hand and smiled lightly.
At the very least, I thought I had gotten through this moment well enough.
After Swen had gone.
Alone in the annex, Serpina sat in her chair and sank into thought.
…He doesn't look like someone with the ability to read the future.
When they had dueled with rapiers, his movements had in no way suggested he was reading her attacks. It was safe to conclude there was no magic that let him foresee what would happen.
You could tell by watching a body move. Whether a person was concealing an ability, or whether they simply lacked talent.
At least in that one-on-one duel, Swen's performance had been closer to the latter.
Then was he someone who excelled at tactics?
That, too, was not the case.
Chess was a game, and at the same time a kind of light examination by which one could roughly gauge an individual's tactical skill. That people with a strong tactical bent tended to play chess well was common knowledge across the continent.
Swen had occasionally produced surprising moves, but the connectivity between one move and the next had been weak. It felt less like he was painting a grand design and more like he was simply choosing the best move available in each moment.
In other words—this, too, was better judged as him genuinely doing his utmost, rather than concealing an ability.
His answer to the final question was the same.
He had offered only vague talk, as if nothing solid enough to support strong conviction stood behind it.
…Bluff?
And yet.
No matter how she turned it over, it did not feel like bluffing.
Serpina had a reasonably good eye for people. She could usually tell without difficulty who was putting on airs.
In Swen's conviction… there was a sense of grounds of some kind. Something like a belief that things would inevitably turn out that way clung to it.
If that had been nothing but bluster, she would have been justified in saying she had lived her entire life wrong for failing to see through it.
One must see what cannot be seen… is it.
Serpina lingered a long while longer in the annex, murmuring to herself the words Swen had spoken.
For the first time, she could not help but admit that her heart was being powerfully drawn toward an opinion she had not fully understood.