Episode 3: He (2)
Maids in the manor were bustling about in a rare frenzy.
Even my usually leisurely wet nurse was hounding me with a frantic expression. “Young master! You need to get ready right away!”
“I know, I know. I’ve already told you five times, Wet Nurse.” “That’s because you keep dawdling! Ah, and don’t touch your hair!” “Ah, come on.”
My slightly rumpled hair was seized by her hands and neatly swept back into place all over again. It was, apparently, an important day.
I didn’t know whether time flowed differently for adults and children, like some twisted theory of relativity, but somehow years had already gone racing by. I was four now, and today was also the day my parents—my mother and father—were finally returning to the manor.
In other words, I had only just reached four years of age and was about to see my parents’ faces for the first time. To be honest, until today I had thought I was simply an orphan whom the maids called “young master” out of politeness.
Both in my old life and after being born again, I had always believed I was just the sort of person fate forgot—an orphan with no family luck at all. From the time I first came to my senses at two until I was nearly four, I had never once seen the faces of the people called my mother and father.
Even the maids’ and wet nurse’s words, I had assumed, were only meant to keep a child from being shocked. I had no idea that both of them were knights who had been away on the battlefield all this time and were only now coming home.
The Nirheim family was one of the knightly houses of the Empire of Aion. My father was Asher Nirheim, a marquis who had risen to his station on the strength of his military achievements alone after crushing the emperor’s enemies.
And my mother, I had been told, was a fellow knight who had ridden the battlefield alongside him. True to their reputation, the two of them had left on campaign even before I woke two years ago, and only now, after I had turned four, had they returned to the manor.
So this was a small banquet celebrating the safe return of the family head and the marchioness. I was told the victory procession had already been held in the imperial capital, and they were now on their way back to the manor.
Preparing for the banquet made me strangely excited. That was because they were family. My family, no less. It was the first family I had ever had.
Having been an orphan, I had never even once felt what it was like to have a mother and father before I died. And because I had believed I was an orphan in this world as well, the sudden existence of parents came to me like an unexpected gift.
So all that curiosity and anticipation was quickly drowned out by a voice echoing at the edge of my hearing. “If you marry me, then we’d be family too. So there’s no need to make it complicated.”
“…”
It was the same familiar hallucination as always. Even though two years had passed since I parted from you, I still thought of you every time I moved, every time I breathed.
Sometimes I saw your silhouette within the landscape; sometimes, just before sleep, I heard the sound of your laughter. Even with the excitement of finally having family, my thoughts still drifted back to you in the end.
So I let out a quiet sigh and, almost without thinking, messed up my hair again in an attempt to hold back the tears. It was a good day; crying on a day like this felt inappropriate somehow.
“No, Young Mastaaah!! Why would you mess up your hair again, honestly…!”
“Ah.”
Judging by the wet nurse’s scream, the one who was in trouble wasn’t me after all—it was her. And just like that, our tiny little banquet preparations came to an end.
Right on cue, my father and mother, the two stars of the victory procession, arrived, and the knight guarding the manor’s gate rang out in a booming voice:
His Excellency Marquis Asher Nirheim and Marchioness Eleanor Nirheim are entering!
The maids and the servants all lowered their heads and made way. Only the head maid, the head butler, Wet Nurse Sion, and I stepped forward to greet the two who would soon enter.
Thunk—creeeak.
The manor doors opened.
And at last, I faced my parents.
“…”
“Oh my, could that be my son?”
My father was silent, and my mother looked at me with widened eyes. And I… “Hic.”
I hiccuped with my eyes round as saucers. He was far too large to take in properly with the body of a mere four-year-old, and I shut my mouth the moment I saw my father’s build and gaze, the sort that looked as though he could kill a man with either.
On top of that, there were knights who looked like the family’s retainers packed tightly behind the two of them. “Asher, your face scared our son.” “You’ve grown a lot in two years.”
At the words of the woman who seemed to be my mother, the man answered like that, then reached out with his huge hand and patted my head. There was no way I would ever grow enough to match your height and build, not even if I kept growing for another decade.
“Good heavens. It feels like only yesterday you were wriggling around like a caterpillar, and now our son’s grown so much. Mm, if he gets just a little bigger, maybe he can even go out to the battlefield with Asher.”
“Hic… what?”
“Saying ‘what’ to your mother is a little cold, don’t you think? Ah, right. Head Maid, Head Butler, thank you both for working so hard on the banquet. And Sion, nothing’s happened in the meantime, right?”
My mother casually scooped me up in her arms, smiling as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I wanted to call it a warm embrace, but being crushed against hard, cold armor was anything but pleasant.
Rather, it started hurting where the armor pressed into me, but my mother seemed to have forgotten I was a child. Holding me in her arms, she smiled brightly and announced the start of the banquet.
Still. Even if my mind was that of a thirty-year-old, my body had only just turned four. Wasn’t the battlefield a little much already?
The mood of the banquet gradually warmed. Everyone smiled at the fact that both the family head and the mistress had returned safely, and at the long-missed bustle of the manor.
If there was one person who seemed unable to keep a proper expression on, as though finding the whole situation difficult, it was the wet nurse hanging from my mother’s side while I just stared blankly.
“W-Well… Marchioness Eleanor, I understand that you’re happy to be home, but the young master is still only four years old.”
That wasn’t me hanging limply off my mother’s side, but the wet nurse watching me do it. “Sion, don’t be so formal. You can just call me Eleanor like before. And our son said he’s having fun, didn’t you, Liam?”
“…, yes.”
“See? Our son says he likes it too~ Sion, don’t worry so much and have a drink for once.”
For the record, Liam was my name. Liam Nirheim. A new name I had always known, but never wanted to be called.
The maids and the wet nurse disliked hearing me addressed by name, so they called me “young master” and left the name out entirely, but that meant nothing to my mother.
At my mother’s easy laughter and shameless words, the wet nurse let out a quiet sigh. “Marchioness… this isn’t a battlefield. It’s the marquis’s manor. If we don’t at least preserve the dignity of the house, other people will start gossiping.”
“Oh, it’s fine. It’s only our own people here right now. And besides, so what if they gossip? A blade is fair to everyone, so once they’ve been stabbed, they all end up apologizing.”
Crazy.
“Ah, honestly! Eleanor, if you’re going to be a marchioness, you need to stop saying things like that!”
Apparently I wasn’t the only one with that thought. The wet nurse, who usually wore a gentle smile, spat out the words with an expression of pure disgust.
That had been a startlingly rude way of speaking. Yet my mother only burst into delighted laughter at it.
So that was why she had seemed far too casual even while calling me young master.
It wasn’t until not long after the banquet ended that I learned the wet nurse was one of the people who had rolled around in the battlefield with my mother. When I asked because that scene kept coming back to me, she lowered her head as if embarrassed and whispered that she had already forgotten all about those days.
My mother downed her drink in one go as though having nothing but fun, then beckoned my father over with a flick of her hand.
“Ahahaha! See? Isn’t it great to speak casually again after so long? And Asher, don’t stand off by yourself—come over and talk with us.”
“My lady, I still have a few people left to greet….”
“Asher, don’t talk nonsense.”
“…, it wouldn’t be bad to have a conversation after so long.”
At my mother’s one short command, my father carried his massive body over this way. It felt strangely mismatched with his build. Still, only after he came closer did my mother finally let me go.
The side of my body that had been pressed into armor let out a dull, stinging ache.
“Liam, does our son want to go over there and play with the maids?”
“Yes.”
“No, not yes.”
“…, okay.”
“You’re missing another word.”
Seriously, living was hard. I squeezed out the answer my mother wanted.
“Okay…, Mom.”
“That’s right, my son.”
The moment I was given permission, I bolted into the midst of the maids. If I stayed any longer, she looked like she might start training me with this four-year-old body of mine.
My mother, whom I was seeing for the first time in two years, was that kind of strange woman. My father might have made the stronger first impression, but I could tell within thirty minutes that my mother was the scarier one.
And yet, the fact that those two were my family made me laugh. Even if they seemed a little odd, I found myself growing fond of them for no good reason. They were the first family I had ever had.
And then, at the same time, the fact that those two were my family made me want to cry.
The hallucination kept whispering in my ear. “If you marry me, then we’d be family too. So there’s no need to make it complicated.”
The fact that I had family now kept making me remember everything you’d said. Amid the warm, lively, almost dazzling scene, I kept thinking of you over and over again.
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