Baron Doston (Part One)
A month had passed since the Viscount of Bayorn’s funeral. Piel’s whereabouts remained a complete mystery, and the atmosphere within House Bayorn was restless both within and without.
That was not to say any conspicuous change had taken place inside the Bayorn territory itself. Ah—if one insisted on naming something, there was exactly one matter of note.
The beautiful Viscountess had become a widow.
They did not show it openly, but the retainers of any standing had begun to look at her with greedy eyes. The existence of a son who doted on his mother to excess was an irritation, true—yet in the end Kael was only her son, not her husband.
And so, if a man could only win her heart and become her match, becoming the widowed lady’s husband was not impossible.
Even so, it would have been improper to start flirting outright with a woman who had just lost her husband. The wolves therefore preened themselves as best they could and prowled about the Viscountess’s vicinity with half loyalty and half lust.
Of course, the proper thing was to guard the chastity of one’s late lord’s consort for the rest of her days—if only in the symbolic sense that included a servant’s fidelity.
But to the eyes of those hot-blooded barbarians, the Viscountess was still young and beautiful. To leave such a lovely woman alone simply because she was a widow seemed a terrible waste.
She had the flaw of an unsettled mind, but that was hardly what they wanted from her. What they wanted was to taste the broad flare of her hips and the plump white flesh hidden beneath the fall of her skirts.
Among the retainers, the man who stood out as the obvious candidate for the Viscountess’s next husband was plain enough.
The leader of the Huscarls—Baron Parchen Doston. He was a married man, of course, but if the Viscountess became his, he was the sort who would cast aside his lawful wife without a second thought. To the barbarians, the girl called Mandarin was a treasure worth that much and more.
That Baron Doston was the finest bridegroom available, however, held true only on the premise that Darin never left the Bayorn territory. If she stepped beyond the castle walls and went to the Imperial Capital, far higher nobles would form a line for her.
The retainers did not know that their new lord had already declared, in the capital, that he would take his own mother as his wife. And so they simply watched the vermilion-haired girl with hungry patience, praying only that this woman would never leave Bayorn lands.
In any case, Baron Doston did not return to Bayorn Castle until a full month after the funeral.
I was delayed filling the place of the fallen Viscount and suppressing the remaining demons.
That was the answer he gave when the angry Viscountess scolded him for coming back so late. Whether it was the truth, only the Huscarls under his command would know. The Viscount of Bayorn was already gone from this world; there was no one left to ask.
The Huscarls were an elite force of only two hundred men, and for long ages they had been the guardians of the Viscount’s house. In the end, however, it was always House Doston that had raised and trained the Huscarls—so the man they truly served was the head of the Doston line.
Thus they gave their loyalty less to the young lord than to Baron Doston, with whom they had walked the battlefield side by side. That was also why Darin had been unable to press the Huscarls who had returned ahead of him.
The day after his return, Darin—who had shut herself away in the annex—gathered her wits and went out for the first time in a long while.
I have to pull myself together, if no one else will.
Her son, who had taken every internal and external affair upon himself, had set the investigation into her husband aside. Whether it was because he was too busy, or because he did not regard the man as his father, she could not tell.
Even so, as the Viscountess who had been that man’s partner, she could not simply stand by forever. From Darin’s position, she had to learn how her husband had met his end, no matter what it took.
When she had formed a small investigative party with the steward, her closest aide, they had made little progress. That left her no choice but to wring the truth from Baron Doston, who had been at her husband’s side.
“Parchen.”
“Ah—good morning, my lady.”
“…Could you spare me a moment?”
“Of course.”
The red-haired barbarian—not quite as massive as her son, but still powerfully built—inclined his head. At over two meters tall his presence was no small thing, yet he was a man who had served this vermilion-haired lady for many years. Such a favorable manner was only natural.
He simply accepted her proposal, thinking that what was bound to come had come at last.
Darin led him to a secluded reception room. The room lay inside the residence, where only she and a handful of servants were present.
One might have said a woman without a husband was far too unguarded—but this was the heart of Bayorn territory, and in the building next door her son was in residence. More than that, Baron Doston had long been Darin’s friend. Until she married, he had been a decent man who treated her with respect, always calling her “my lady.”
“Welcome back to Bayorn.”
“Thank you.”
Darin sat on the sofa in the private chamber and steeped dried orange peels into tea. Even now she did not forget to receive him with modest courtesy. Until she became the Viscount’s wife, after all, his rank had been higher than hers.
A pale, graceful hand offered the Baron a cup. Baron Doston—Parchen—gazed at it as if entranced. The woman he faced after half a year was still beautiful.
“Forgive me, but I’ll ask you straight out.”
Only the Baron, however, was lost in old memories. Impatient Darin meant to cut straight to the point.
“As you wish.”
It was a little disappointing, but more or less what he had expected. He knew she had never loved the Viscount as a man—yet she had loved him as family.
“How did my husband come to that end? You always rode out on campaign with him. You must know.”
Somehow it felt as though he were the villain under interrogation. The Baron allowed himself a thin smile. Even in death, that man still pushed him aside and left him in second place.
“Of course I know. Though I did not personally witness the moment the former Viscount closed his eyes.”
Darin’s eyes narrowed sharply. It grated on her that a man who had been one of his closest retainers would call her late lord “the former Viscount.” But a month had already passed since he closed his eyes; the words were not wrong.
“…I see. Then will you tell me?”
Even if she had her grievances, he was the only witness who could unravel this affair. The vermilion-haired girl smothered her temper as best she could and asked again, calmly.
“Well…”
But the Baron trailed off in a suddenly disagreeable tone. His gaze drifted slowly—not to her face, but to the hollow of her breasts, and then to her slightly disheveled hair. Having lost both daughter and husband, she no longer kept herself as neatly as before. Calling her a widow somehow made her look easier, too.
“If one looks at it carefully, the man to whom I swore my loyalty is the Viscount of Bayorn, is he not?”
“And so?”
Darin tilted her head, unable to parse the intent of the question. She thought only this: What of it? Just answer what you’re asked.
“His Lordship has passed. So the Dowager is no longer the ‘Viscountess,’ is she?”
“…What?”
“Am I wrong? The woman who will be called Viscountess now will be the consort of Young Master Kael, who has become the new head of the house.”
“…?”
Darin, failing at first to catch his meaning, wore a blank look for a moment—then flushed crimson. She had understood what he intended.
“You’re saying I’m no longer the Viscountess, so you have no duty to report this to me?”
“As expected, my lady is quick to understand.”
Leaving aside the insolence of his manner, there was nothing factually wrong in what the Baron had said. A noblewoman who lost her husband did, in truth, step one pace back from the center of power. But she was also a lady whose mere existence still commanded the loyalty of countless retainers. To dismiss her like this was absurd.
And my lady? He did not seem to regard her as a married woman at all—nor even as a widow. That form of address was the respectful title he had used when she was still a maiden; now it felt like nothing but mockery.
“Parchen, are you playing games with me right now? What does any of that matter? You were my husband’s old friend!”
The Baron slowly stroked his beard. An old friend—yes, there had been a time like that. Until that man snatched away the girl Parchen had marked for himself. As a vassal, he had not even been able to protest properly; he had only bowed his head.
“I understand what you mean. I am not saying I will refuse to investigate the death of my former lord. I am saying that you, my lady, should step back one pace.”
Darin’s brow furrowed deeply. The person who needed to grasp the truth of this matter more than anyone was none other than herself, who had been the Viscountess. To start citing procedure and custom now—what exactly was he trying to do…?
“Then if I bring my son, you’ll cooperate with the investigation?”
At that, one might have expected a nod—yet the Baron still looked at Darin with a strange expression. A chill ran through her. It felt as though this man wanted something from her.
“Hm. That is difficult to answer with certainty. The Huscarls as a body, myself included, have served House Bayorn for long years—but we are an independent institution. It may be a long while yet before we swear complete loyalty to the new head of the house.”
By birth he was a barbarian, yet before this vermilion-haired girl he had always been a gentleman. But with Darin widowed, it was no longer possible for him to behave like the gentleman of old.
“At this rate, it seems we will have no choice but to conduct our own investigation separately. Ah—how tragic, that the people of Bayorn cannot work together and must each go their own way…”
Unwilling, perhaps, to let go of a chance so hard-won, the Baron sipped his tea and continued in a sly tone.
“And even if I myself were willing, the other two hundred may think differently. Hahaha! Rather awkward, wouldn’t you say?”
To an outsider, a man who commanded a mere two hundred soldiers might have looked arrogant—but those two hundred were none other than the Huscarls. Each one was a monster capable of crushing ten fully armored heavy infantry in an instant.
Factor in the Baron’s own martial power at the level of a Master Knight, and they amounted to fully a third of Bayorn’s total military strength. Even the head of the house could not treat them carelessly.
“…Why are you doing this to me? You’re like a completely different person from half a year ago.”
That, however, was the external reality; it had little to do with what Darin felt. To her, Baron Doston had always been a man of somewhat rough temper—but familiar, and warm. She could not understand this uncooperative turn.
The red-haired man licked the last drop from his cup and lifted his eyes. In that look he was no different from a beast that had fixed on its prey.
“Because there is something I want from you, my lady.”
“And what on earth is that…?”
Sensing that this was his moment, the gaze he turned on the woman grew thickly sticky.
“My lady—rather than lose your husband and waste away forgotten in the annex…”
Tap. Tap. The thick fingers drumming on the table stilled.
“How would you like to become the wife of a Huscarl?”
The red beast bared its teeth.