So You Want to Be Thrown Out?
So you want to be thrown out now, is that it?
Ludville let out a laugh, dumbfounded.
He had granted her a fortnight, yes, but he could take the words back whenever he pleased. Even so, barely a week of it remained. With a sigh, he answered every question Odelli put to him after that, docile as anything. It had the distinct air of a man setting a bowl down and telling her to eat, then be gone.
"I fail to see what changes if you know my condition. Do you mean to play physician now, as well?"
"If I must."
Odelli had never studied medicine in any formal sense, but she had taught herself a great deal, and her years working as a healer had left her with a fairly deep store of medical knowledge. She had Ludville's memories besides. Between the two, she could sketch the shape of his condition well enough.
Hm.
She had expected as much. It was, as expected, exceedingly grave. Lethargy, a failing appetite, disordered sleep, chronic insomnia, feelings gone blunt, a split between emotion and flesh, drug addiction, memory damaged by the drugs, and not even the barest instinct to preserve his own life...
It seems his very sense of self has collapsed...
He had no ordinary feeling for who he was, for what he was doing, or for what he was living by. No real sense that he was alive. He acted, and did not know why. There was no identity, and no purpose. And yet he could not even recognize, in himself, the simple fact that he wanted to die.
"By any chance... do you think of yourself as a man already dead?"
"Here we go again."
At Odelli's question, Ludville recoiled at once. Without another word he left the terrace and struck off somewhere without hesitation. Edwin, the aide waiting outside, startled and scrambled after him in a fluster.
Ludville cut suddenly across the corridor, went down the stairs, and turned straight toward the training grounds.
"...Your Grace. Are you running away?"
"Shut up."
"But my lady is still following behind us."
"I know."
Edwin stole a glance at Odelli, trailing after them without a word. Ludville had not quickened enough to shake her off entirely, nor slowed enough to let himself be caught. He simply went on, the distance held exact, neither closing nor widening.
Why do something so pointless? Edwin studied his lord's face. It did not seem like a thing done to mock her. If anything, Ludville did not appear to realize he was doing it at all.
"Is this that thing? The catch-me-if-you-can lovers are so fond of... If I've barged in without the sense to know better, do please say so."
It was, beyond any doubt, a tactless remark. The price of running his mouth so lightly came back down on him with considerable weight.
"Urk—"
Edwin collapsed to the floor with a groan, and Ludville passed him by without a scrap of mercy.
By then Odelli, coming up behind, was drawing steadily closer to the aide, who lay face-down and groaning.
"My lady..."
He called to her, desperate.
Odelli flicked a glance at the man sprawled on the ground, whimpering, and then—
She did not so much as break stride. She walked straight past.
"I'm sorry. My ability has no effect on external wounds. My strength is rather poor as well, so I couldn't even help you up."
"..."
"See the physician. Well, then. I'll be going."
And she left him with nothing but those words. She had no strength to help him, and she would not waste time on something meaningless. From her, every moment, came a hard will to move with perfect efficiency.
Edwin stared blankly in the direction where Ludville and Odelli had vanished, and one phrase came to him.
Two of a kind. Through and through...
The next morning, Odelli came into an important piece of information. After Ludville had exerted himself violently, he ate better than usual.
...Well. That was only natural.
A reasonable amount of exercise is good for the health.
It would stir the appetite, and once fatigue set in, sleep would come deeper. The knights' screams that had rung through the training yard yesterday still lingered in her ears like an echo, but...
...it had probably been excellent training. Probably.
At any rate, that was why she made no particular effort to stop him when he said it.
"Tomorrow we subjugate monsters, so remain quietly in the castle."
She let it pass even though his reason for riding out was the absurd claim that he had to stain his hands with blood at regular intervals.
Before the castle gate, the subjugation party had only just finished preparing to depart. The ranks were formed, the soldiers waiting in silence. Amid them Ludville, in armor, adjusted the strap at his shoulder once so his cloak would not slip, then stood before his horse. He rose into the saddle with a motion as smooth as when he wore ordinary clothes, and with a face utterly listless—no drive, no sense of duty, no presence at all—for all that he had spoken so chillingly of getting blood on his hands.
The moment he found Odelli drawing slowly toward the party, his expression changed.
She was on horseback, dressed in hunting clothes made for ease of movement.
Suspicion came first, then disbelief, and last of all a feeling that mostly leaked out as irritation welled up in him. Worry, to put a name to it.
"...Did you mistake this for me stepping out on a stroll, or an inspection?"
"No. You said you were going to subjugate monsters. And you told me to stay quietly in the castle today. I heard you perfectly well."
"..."
Ludville's lips twitched with a surge of anger. In the end he forced the feeling down and let out a long sigh. It displeased him immensely that her every action should toss him so sharply from one feeling to its opposite. All of it was calculated, no doubt. He had no desire to dance along as she intended.
"You heard me, and still you followed... Don't tell me you wanted to see me worry, and try to stop you."
"But this has crossed the line, my lady."
He said it without leaving her an opening, and then, his face gone perfectly grave, made it plain that he found nothing amusing in any of this.
Odelli, for her part, only looked up at the Ludville who had said such a thing, bewildered.
"Don't tell me you're worried?"
"You would ask me that—!"
He had been about to raise his voice, and only just managed to drag it back down. A moment later he spoke as if through his teeth, his tone sunk low enough to chill.
"You call that something fit to say?"
"I took down a thief, didn't I?"
"Setting a thief and a monster on the same level is proof enough. A flower raised in a greenhouse."
His manner of speaking grew steadily rougher.
"A monster is of an entirely different order from some mere vicious human."
She knew.
Odelli had never faced a monster herself, but through Ludville's memories she had seen the scene more times than she could count. A battlefield awash in blood and screams. And, at the very center of it, the eyes of a man swinging his sword in silence.
That was all the more reason she had to go.
"Of course I don't mean to face a monster myself. I'll keep to the very rear, or wherever is safest, and only stay still and watch."
"Why are you trying to follow in the first place? Stop acting like a child. In the middle of a subjugation I will have no attention to spare for protecting you."
A child...
It came to Odelli, all at once, that people believed her to be Cardel's beloved youngest daughter. She had never gone out of her way to correct that misunderstanding, so she could hardly call such treatment unreasonable.
"I have means enough to keep myself safe."
With a faint smile, Odelli reached out and rested her hand atop his head. Then, as if it were only the ordinary work of the day, she drew his headache off him once again.
"And you will need me, Your Grace. I am certain of it."
She made no effort at all to hide it. Whatever he did from here on, she meant to stand beside him, to hold him up, and to manage him.