So It Was True
"I'm sick to death of this."
Only after an endless stretch of tedious torment had he finally managed to steal away a moment for himself. He had forced smiles so many times that the corners of his mouth were on the verge of twitching.
"Everyone, it seemed, had words to spare. It was as though every creature on this continent who lived by its tongue alone had come swarming here."
"Will you have a cigar?"
The man, scowling darkly as he vented his grievances, held out a hand, and a freshly lit cigar was promptly set between his fingers. It was the finest grade his homeland produced.
"Hoo..." He drew a long, slow drag and swallowed the smoke.
"Now, at last, I feel like a living man again."
Only then did the rage and killing intent that had been boiling up inside him seem to settle, little by little.
"If you're weary, might I suggest winding down the rest of today's engagements?"
"And what if he arrives while I do?"
"...Is there truly any need to meet him again?"
"Bonz."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The middle-aged man who had presented the cigar bowed low at once at his lord's summons. To be called by name was, for him, an ill omen.
"Why do you suppose I came here?"
"That is..."
"What's so momentous about another country's emperor taking a wife that I should come all this way? Do I strike you as a man with that much leisure?"
The man's tone, coarse enough by nature, turned ferocious.
"Do I look so pitiful to you? Is that it — because I'm the emperor of a ruined nation, beaten in war?"
"Your Majesty, you misunderstand! I would never presume to mean anything of the sort—"
"You've been rather quiet lately, haven't you?"
"...!"
The man rose slowly to his feet. Was it his towering frame, or his murderous glare? The moment he stood, a crushing pressure filled the room.
"Y-Your Majesty! Spare me, I beg you!"
Count Bonz groveled flat against the floor, trembling like a leaf. He knew all too well that his lord could snap his neck with bare hands as easily as breaking a twig.
"I have no mind to kill you, either."
One could hardly go about murdering one's own subject on foreign soil. A fitting punishment would be punishment enough. With his one free hand — the one not holding the cigar — he seized Bonz by the nape of the neck.
"That's enough."
At that moment, a man who had been keeping quietly to a corner of the room stepped out through the shadows.
"Enough, Royan."
Long black hair, and eyes of an uncanny, shifting hue. As he drew near, the color of his irises caught the light and changed again and again. His skin was pale almost to the point of pallor — and perhaps because of it, his red lips stood out all the more vividly.
"This is no affair of yours, Vandine."
"Count Bonz, you had best withdraw now."
"I said stay out of this."
"Unless you would care to have your wounds dressed in a hostile nation's temple, you will listen to me, Count Bonz."
Caught between the commands of the two men, Count Bonz wavered this way and that — then at last chose the side that favored his own skin. He hastily righted himself and bolted from the room.
"Do you want to die? Didn't you hear me tell you to keep out of it?"
Firing back, Royan glared savagely at the man who was at once his lifelong companion and his bodyguard knight.
"You're one to talk. Didn't you hear me telling you to stop?"
"The one who gives orders here is me. Not you."
"So you are — as long as you don't lose your reason."
Vandine walked around to stand squarely before Royan and looked straight down at him. Royan was a tall man in his own right, but he was nothing beside Vandine. Meeting his friend's blade-cold stare without a flicker of intimidation, he brought to mind a black panther.
"..."
Perhaps it was the effect of that unshakable composure. The rage slowly drained from Royan's face.
"Damn it all."
He clamped the cigar between his teeth once more and flopped back onto the sofa.
"Don't loose your temper on the wrong targets. Do you have any idea how many eyes are watching you right now?"
"Spare me the lectures. I've been swallowing plenty as it is. Hoo—!"
Royan breathed out a plume of cigar smoke like a long sigh. Vandine studied his friend in silence for a moment, then spoke again.
"It's not as though I can't fathom what you feel. I am no different from you."
"I know. That's enough."
"As you are now, you cannot face him. Remember why you came here. Put the venting off for later — there will be time enough for it once we're home."
"There he goes with that damned nagging again."
Royan knew full well what followed when Vandine's lectures gathered steam. As if to shut it all out, he rolled over and turned his back.
"You haven't forgotten how the Godfather passed, have you?"
Royan's spine jolted where he lay. A single scene from that day rose in his mind like a painting, then faded: the disgraceful sight of himself wailing without restraint in a palace thick with the reek of blood. It was the reason he had come here today, too.
"...Bring Count Bonz back to me."
Royan, who had lain on the sofa like a dead man for a long while, abruptly sat up, his eyes gone cold. They were no longer the eyes of a child who had lost his father. They had returned to the gleam befitting the sovereign of a nation.
"Your Majesty. You called for me?"
A short while later, Count Bonz stepped inside. Fear was still written all over him, but he was doing his utmost to conceal his trembling.
"Tell Duke Randert that I would like to see him."
"You wish to meet him in private, then?"
"He never shows himself, so I have no choice but to call on him."
"That is... word has just come in that he has entered the banquet hall."
"Is that so? Hah. So he has finally deigned to grace us." The news was a welcome one.
"How... shall I send word to him?"
"No — on second thought, never mind. I shall go to him myself."
He wanted to engrave both the before and the after upon his memory. All the better, then, if it happened somewhere crowded. Only then could he laugh all the louder when the day came.
In that moment, he found himself aching to know what face the man would wear upon losing what was most precious to him.
The instant Duke Randert appeared at the wedding reception, every gaze in the hall converged upon him. In the Empire he was accounted a living legend, and abroad he was little different. The renown of the man who had drawn the curtain on the Ten-Year War had long since spread to every corner of the continent.
"I had heard the tales, of course, but this is truly astonishing. To think he has kept such youth to this day — magnificent!"
"You're telling me! Seen with one's own eyes, I still can scarcely believe it!"
"Good heavens — how can any man be so commanding!"
"I could simply stand here and gaze at him all night! If tonight would only stand still just as it is, I would ask for nothing more!"
The Duke's appearance, so at odds with his years, had always been the toast of every gathering. This occasion especially had drawn envoys from foreign lands in great numbers, and the gasps of those who had known him only by rumor and now beheld him in the flesh grew so loud they reached the Duke's own ears.
"You've come, Brother."
Liam, who had been busy building goodwill among the envoys of the various nations, begged their pardon for a moment and made his way to the Duke. Perhaps because the pair's looks made their seniority seem upended, the murmuring swelled louder. As ever, though, the two brothers paid it not the slightest heed.
"There you are. Have you had dinner?"
This younger brother of his was forever occupied standing in his stead, so the Duke's time-worn habit, whenever they met, was to ask first whether he had eaten when he should. To that unfailing question, Liam answered with a smile.
"Of course I have. And you, Brother?"
"I confess it hadn't crossed my mind."
"You'll be kept here a good while yet — will you be quite all right? I should think you ought to eat something now, even at this hour..."
Liam dropped his voice until only the Duke could hear it.
"Are there many who have business with me?"
"The timing is a touch awkward, I'm afraid?"
At his brother's answer, the Duke's brow creased faintly.
"Can you not simply deal with them all yourself?"
"I may be your brother, Brother, but I am not you — if you take my meaning. Most of them only wish to exchange a word or two with you in person. So do humor them a little."
Ceremonial as such encounters were, in the course of handling a thousand affairs they had a way of turning decisive. A fleeting exchange of courtesies with the right person had more than once unblocked matters that seemed hopelessly snarled. That, in the end, was the power Duke Randert possessed.
"Very well."
Permission granted, the nobles of every nation who had been hovering at the brothers' periphery now waited with bated breath for Liam's lips to part. Which country would he call upon first? Every antenna in the hall stood at full stretch.
"E-Emperor Royan!"
"Heavens! What's he come back for?"
It was then that the hall broke into fresh tumult. Emperor Royan, unseen this past while, reappeared in the banquet hall with his retinue at his back.
Of all the foreign missions in attendance, his was the only reigning emperor present in person. With the emperor of the host country occupied with savoring his honeymoon, the highest-ranking soul at the celebration — for now — was Emperor Royan.
At the sight of him walking straight for Duke Randert, some went rigid with alarm; some clapped a hand over their mouths to smother a gasp; some turned their backs outright. Every manner of reaction burst forth at once.
"Brother."
"Your Grace."
Liam called out to the Duke, and Sadad, attending nearby, did likewise. At the worry laced through their voices, the Duke gave a faint smile.
"Sooner or later, this was a collision that had to come. Today merely happens to be the day. Fall back."
With a placid expression, Duke Randert awaited the oncoming Emperor Royan.
"Duke Randert."
"Emperor Royan. Your Majesty."
Each speaking the other's name, the two men exchanged formal courtesies.
"I had not thought you would attend the reception. To meet you again like this — a pleasure."
"Now that the sun has set, I find myself craving a drink. Will you join me in one?"
It was the Duke who first proposed a change of place. The spot he indicated still lay within the celebration, yet it was quieter than here, at least.
"Why not?"
Emperor Royan consented readily — it was what he had wanted, too. For attending to one another without distraction, this was the better arrangement.
The sight of Duke Randert and Emperor Royan walking shoulder to shoulder was a striking one. Once they had been enemies — and more than enemies, the foe who had left his father a cripple. To see the two of them side by side, smiling, was uncanny and profoundly strange at once.
"So. How have you been faring? Your renown is such that news of you travels even to my homeland, but I would rather hear it from your own lips."
"Nothing out of the ordinary for me. I get by as I always have. And the Emperor Emeritus — is he keeping well?"
"...!"
In that instant, the color soured beneath Royan's flawlessly managed expression.
So it was true.