The Branch Thrown Far
"Arf! Arf!"
"Planning to fall behind again?"
"Coming, I'm coming!"
Whenever Sadad dawdled even a little, Jasper—somehow sensing it—would bark ahead of him. Then Duke Randert would chide him, and the jewel hounds would come bounding and yipping toward Sadad.
"What am I even doing out here in this rain?"
His timing couldn't have been worse. Of all the moments to need that book—why did it have to cost him this misery? He cursed his past self.
"You do seem to complain more these days."
"I simply detest the rain, my lord."
"Then you should have brought an umbrella."
"You came empty-handed yourself, Your Grace. How could I possibly be the only one sheltered?"
"When did you ever care about that?"
At Duke Randert's challenge, Sadad pulled a face of deep injustice—but the Duke had already finished speaking and was walking on ahead.
"Arf! Arf!"
The jewel hounds tugged at Sadad's trouser legs, urging him to hurry up.
"Ugh, you wretched little things!"
However much he grumbled aloud, Sadad's gaze as he looked down at the pups stayed soft the whole while. When he quickened his pace, they bounded faster too, as though thrilled by it.
"How is Derek doing?"
They had been walking in silence for some time. As if to console Sadad, the downpour had slackened somewhat. Duke Randert, who had been watching the pups frolic with quiet fondness, asked abruptly.
"Not so different from usual. He takes his meals properly, and mostly spends his days reading, or doing simple exercises—push-ups, pull-ups, that sort of thing."
"And Liam? Still nothing?"
"No, well..."
Derek had been convicted through the investigation of smuggling minerals out and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. His crime—secretly embezzling Hamilton's specialty goods for private profit—should have drawn a far heavier penalty, but his years of service had been weighed, and the sentence reduced to two years.
Since Derek's imprisonment, Liam had not visited him once. Whether it stemmed from a sense of betrayal toward his son, or guilt at failing as a parent who should have watched over him properly, the Duke could not say.
He knew only that his younger brother's heart was uneasy, and so Duke Randert's own mood was none too bright either.
"It seems he needs more time."
There was nothing the Duke could do for him. The rift between father and son was something only time could mend. It was a regrettable truth, but the Duke knew from long experience that no amount of outside help could force it.
"By the way, what will you do about Hayes?"
"...What about Hayes?"
"Why bother asking? That girl will follow whatever order Your Grace gives. Is it that you haven't decided yet?"
Silence served as his answer. At the Duke's uncharacteristically lukewarm attitude, Sadad hesitated a moment before pressing again.
"Is it the Crown Prince that worries you?"
"The imperial capital to Carrington is a very long road. There's no telling what might happen."
"Hayes is not the only knight in the Full Moon Order."
"I know."
"Ian is stationed in Carrington, is he not? It needn't be Hayes at all—escorting the Crown Prince would pose no problem whatsoever."
"You don't want Hayes to go, do you?"
"Isn't that only natural? What else could it mean, singling Hayes out like that? Frankly, my lord, the Crown Prince has badly disappointed me this time."
The Emperor had allowed his son, Crown Prince Lindemann, to visit Carrington on one condition: the backing of the Full Moon Knights. Unwilling to trust his own imperial knights, the Emperor had made a special request of Duke Randert.
It was not a demand for the entire order—only a request for a detachment. But attached to it was an official letter stipulating that Hayes must be among those chosen.
On its face, the letter cited her defeat of Commander Yeager at the imperial party and her widely admired skill. Sadad didn't believe a word of it.
He had known for a long time that the Crown Prince carried feelings for Hayes. He had already witnessed the man making advances toward her more than once, even at the Emperor's wedding. Nothing disgusted Sadad more than someone wielding power to order people about at will.
"The heart, by its nature, does not bend to our commands."
"Are you defending the Crown Prince right now?"
"Do I seem to be?"
"Yes! Enormously!"
"...Surely not. No, that can't be it?"
"What do you mean, my lord?"
At the Duke's sudden question, Sadad's eyes went wide.
"I only thought that rather harsh of you."
"Harsh? How so?"
"Why work yourself into such a lather over something that isn't your affair? Hayes herself is behaving exactly as always, yet here you are. Strange. Could it be that you, of all people, are—"
"What! Are you saying I'm in love with that girl?"
Sadad's mouth hung open. It was not the face of a man flustered. It was the face of a man profoundly, magnificently dumbfounded.
"Never mind, then."
"To misunderstand my concern for a junior colleague so thoroughly—now I'm the one who's disappointed in you, Your Grace."
"So it's my turn to be let down, is it?"
Sadad had now put the word disappointed in his mouth twice in a single day. Duke Randert gave a soft snort, snapped a twig from a nearby branch, and hurled it into the distance.
"Arf!"
"Arf-arf-arf!"
Jasper and the pups immediately went tearing after it, each determined to be the one to fetch it.
"I understand how you feel. Hayes is someone I hold dear as well."
"Then why even consider sending her?"
"I never said I was sending her."
"Isn't that why you're agonizing over it? If you truly had no intention, you'd have refused long ago."
Sadad had not served Duke Randert for only a year or two. He had already predicted, more or less, how this would end.
"I will respect Hayes's own wishes."
"You know that girl would follow any order Your Grace gives. Are you telling me you don't know Hayes by now?"
"I don't believe I'm the one who's misjudged her."
"Pardon?"
"I told her to decide within the week, so we'll have our answer soon enough. And this time I shall throw it farther!"
It was Jasper who had fetched the twig back. The Duke took it from the pup's jaws and threw it again, harder and farther than before. The hounds went racing off once more, barking up a storm.
"Why don't you simply go yourself, Your Grace?"
"...Me?"
"Yes. Isn't the Academy where the young lord studies? Surely you're curious. You've seen Carrington, but never the Academy itself, have you?"
"That much is true."
How could Duke Randert not be curious? In every single day he had spent apart from Bayul, not one had passed without wondering how the boy was faring.
"I hear outsiders may attend the autumn festival. Seize the chance to see the young lord again, escort the Crown Prince there safely—three birds with one stone, wouldn't you say?"
"Only for those who receive an invitation."
"An invitation?"
"So Jane tells me. If one wishes to attend the autumn festival, one must have an invitation."
"Surely that applies only to ordinary folk. You can't mean to say you'd be turned away for lack of an invitation?"
Who, after all, was Duke Randert?
The man who had ended the Ten-Year War that had stained the continent red with blood—the living legend of the empire. To him, an invitation was nothing more than a scrap of paper. He was a being who could go anywhere he pleased, papers or no.
Sadad stared at his lord with unfeigned astonishment.
"As it happens, I'm waiting."
"...Waiting for an invitation?"
"One never knows."
"Forgive me, but... that sounds very much as though you're waiting for the young lord's invitation."
"You heard correctly. If the boy doesn't invite me himself, there's no point in going."
"I heard the Crown Prince intends to ask the young lord to serve as his official attendant. Would he even have the presence of mind to send an invitation?"
"If he hasn't forgotten his father, he'll send one, won't he?"
Sadad ventured a prediction: if the invitation failed to arrive, his lord was going to take it very hard indeed.
Perhaps I should write the young lord a secret letter.
Whether he ought to do such a thing for his lord's peace of mind or not, Sadad found himself plunged, for one long moment, into grave deliberation.
"On another matter—any word from the Dwyer Empire?"
"No, not yet."
"How long has it been since Emperor Royan reached his capital?"
"About ten days, I'd say."
"You're certain the entire diplomatic delegation has returned?"
"The count checked out."
"Order continued surveillance. Have them match every single face."
The Dwyat delegation had arrived bristling with masters. The odds that one of them had been left behind as a spy were considerable. They could not afford to take their eyes off it for an instant.
"Jasper! That's enough—time to come in!"
Duke Randert abruptly called back Jasper's family, who were romping in the brush.
"They look like they're having the time of their lives. Let them play a while longer—why head back so soon?"
"And yet a moment ago you complained about coming down at all."
The Duke tilted his chin toward the rise behind Sadad.
"Something's happened."
Sadad's senses caught nothing—no sound, no presence. But if Duke Randert said so, then so it was. His lord had never once been wrong.
And sure enough.
A short while later, at the end of the ridge, a knight of the Full Moon Order could be seen running at full tilt. The urgency was palpable even from this distance. Naturally, a crease formed between the Duke's brows.
"What brings you all the way out here?"
The man who arrived was one of Sadad's own subordinates, a knight he had trained personally as his adjutant. He still had half a day's duties ahead of him—so why had he come? It was a genuine puzzle.
"An urgent report has arrived from the Dwyer Empire."
"Who sent it?"
"Black Cat."
Black Cat was a spy Duke Randert had planted personally within the Dwyer Empire. A card held in reserve against emergencies, under strict orders to stay dormant unless absolutely necessary. The omen did not sit well.
"What did it say?"
"It says that Prince Barachel is dead."
"We already know that."
"...However—it says he died by his own hand."
"What? He took his own life?"
Duke Randert could not help but startle. He had privately suspected some secret lurking behind the man's death—but nowhere in any of his suspicions had suicide ever appeared.
"Is that truly certain? Prince Barachel genuinely killed himself?"
Sadad, too, found it hard to believe, and pressed the knight again.
"See for yourself, my lord."
The rain had kept the written report from being brought. Duke Randert and Sadad exchanged a look and hurried down toward the main keep. In the west, an enormous bank of black clouds was gathering.