The Bard (2)
Recar’s storytelling flowed like a clear mountain stream.
The moment one episode ended, he launched straight into the next without missing a beat.
Speaker and listeners alike ought to have been exhausted by now—yet everyone hung on his every word, bewitched by that silver tongue of his.
“And so the mage cried out, ‘Ohhh! So this is a portal to another dimension!’”
Sometimes he sang; sometimes he simply spun the tale.
Even Lowen, who had been watching Recar with open displeasure, found himself listening from a distance.
Honestly, it was entertaining.
The bard was an irritating sort, but there was no denying the pleasure of listening to Recar’s stories. Whenever he played the hero, his tone shifted, his inflection changed. The rise and fall of his voice according to each scene pulled the audience in and held them fast.
More than anything, the content itself was far more interesting than expected.
The old saying that a man remains a boy even after he grows up came unbidden to mind.
When the tale of the mage who crossed into another world drew to a close, Recar plucked the low strings of his lyre, lending the atmosphere a heavier weight.
“This next one is the tragic love story of the Beast Count who sought to protect a single woman. Blood flying every which way, flesh dropping left and right… Those of you with delicate constitutions, please take a step back and cover your ears.”
This time he issued a warning before he even began, announcing just how gory the story would be.
Yet the warning only sharpened everyone’s curiosity. Far from retreating, they all leaned forward with sparkling eyes and perked ears.
“Brave souls, one and all. Very well—let us begin. In a pool of blood, the entrails—”
The instant Recar uttered the opening line, Lowen doused the whole thing with cold water.
“Please refrain from overly cruel stories inside the cathedral.”
Lowen covered Ariel’s ears; she sat in the very front row, knees drawn up, completely absorbed.
“There are children present, and the Saintess as well.”
Recar stilled his hands on the strings, glanced around, and finally nodded.
“True enough… This particular tale doesn’t seem suited for a cathedral after all.”
Though he looked dejected at being unable to deliver the Beast Count’s love story, Recar understood. So he wasn’t a complete airhead after all.
A collective murmur of disappointment rose from the crowd.
The earlier stories had contained violence as well, but he had always softened the wording. This time the language had been far too explicit, so Lowen had cut it off at once.
Guts in a pool of blood right from the first sentence—hardly wholesome. And for Ariel, whose mind was as fragile as glass, such graphic tales would do nothing but harm.
I’ll protect my child myself.
“Bishop Lowen.”
Ariel tipped her head back to look up at him.
“It’s all right. It’s only a story.”
“Even so, it is a story that describes harming people in the most direct terms. Unsuitable for the Saintess’s ears.”
Ariel gazed up at him with wide, round eyes. She gently took hold of the hands covering her ears and drew them away.
“I learned something from what happened last time.”
The childlike curiosity that had filled her eyes was overlaid with quiet seriousness.
“Every life is precious and deserves love, of course—but to protect the good, destroying evil is sometimes unavoidable. A Saintess is meant to embrace everyone, yet if that very embrace causes innocent lives to be sacrificed… then I believe she has failed as a Saintess.”
She added in a voice so soft it was nearly inaudible:
“Especially when… you fail to protect what is precious…”
Until now she had believed that good and evil, human and monster—everything—should be gathered into the arms of love. But after Seria’s sharp rebuke, and after watching Lowen’s right arm shatter before her eyes under a monster’s attack, she had finally understood. Embracing all with love was theory, ideal, greed. And that greed could send innocent lives to a place from which they would never return.
“So I’ve come to think that harming someone isn’t something that must always be rejected. Ah—that doesn’t mean I’ll simply look the other way when people are hurt… It’s just… when you have to protect something precious… sometimes there’s no other choice… That’s what I mean.”
A small warmth stirred in Lowen’s chest.
Only the other day she had been talking about gently persuading the monsters with words. To see Ariel—whose head had once been nothing but a flower garden—grow like this filled him with quiet pride.
Perhaps this was how a parent felt when rejoicing over even the smallest step forward in their child.
“I’m proud of you, Saintess.”
Lowen met her eyes and smiled gently.
To celebrate her growth, he decided, he would bake cookies.
He told Recar he was free to continue, then turned toward the kitchen.
“Bishop Lowen…!”
The moment he made to leave, Ariel stretched out both hands and caught his sleeve.
“Yes? Was there something else?”
Ariel fretted her lips as though searching for the right words.
“Um… I’d like you to praise me a little more clearly.”
He had thought “I’m proud of you” was perfectly clear, yet her face said it was not enough.
Did she simply want more praise?
While he considered, Ariel—still clutching his sleeve—pushed her head forward.
“Please… stroke my hair.”
There was no particular reason. She simply wanted to feel his touch. Perhaps because every time he had stroked her head before, a warm, tingling satisfaction had bloomed in her chest.
“Ah.”
So that was what she meant by “clearer praise.”
Not words alone, but an action—like a hand on her hair—to show it.
That much was hardly an unreasonable request.
“I’m truly proud of you.”
Lowen gently stroked Ariel’s silver hair. It was as fine and soft as silk. In fact, every part of her body was soft to the touch.
…Ah.
An unnecessary thought had slipped in.
“Ehehe.”
Ariel looked up at him and beamed, thoroughly content.
Both of them had completely forgotten that every pair of eyes in the room was fixed on them.
The boys stared in open curiosity; the girls flushed pink. The village matrons cooed “Oh my, oh my” as they watched the young pair with fond smiles.
—Ding-a-ling♪
While everyone quietly observed the two of them, Recar struck up his lyre and dispelled the ticklish atmosphere.
“Rather than the Beast Count’s love story, a performance that suits this mood might be more fitting.”
At the beautiful sound of the lyre, Ariel finally realized they were being watched.
“Ah… Aaa… Th-that is…”
Color flooded her face from chin to forehead so quickly it almost seemed to pop with an audible pong of pure embarrassment.
“Hm? What mood are you talking about?”
Lowen, by contrast, remained utterly deadpan.
“One last piece, then please wrap things up. At this rate the sun will set.”
With that, he headed for the kitchen to bake the cookies.
Recar’s performance ended just as the early-summer sky turned pink.
“Thank you for listening.”
He placed his right hand over his heart and bowed to the audience.
Applause poured forth; one by one people rose from their seats. As they left the cathedral they chattered about whichever tale had impressed them most and drifted back toward the village.
“Thank you for the wonderful performance.”
Ariel, who had listened from first note to last, offered her own thanks.
“A performance worthy of the Saintess’s ears—oh my, I scarcely know where to put myself!”
Excellent drinking material had just fallen into his lap.
The story of meeting a Saintess at a quiet country cathedral where he had stopped for the night. The story of receiving praise for his music from that very Saintess. Even if she was no great musical authority, within the Empire she was more famous than any celebrated musician; spinning this tale would make the wine flow like water.
“One rather impertinent question, if this Recaaaaar may dare to ask?”
Ariel tilted her head.
“Yes? What is it?”
Recar whipped his head left and right, checking the surroundings exactly as he did before sharing a secret, then leaned in to whisper.
“……Aren’t you holding the Bishop in your heart?”
What sort of question was that? Ariel blinked.
“Holding him in my heart… means…?”
“To put it very simply: do you like him?”
She nodded without a second’s hesitation.
“Yes, I like him.”
At the Saintess’s frank reply, Recar caught the scent of a brand-new story; his fingers trembled with excitement. He wanted to pour this racing heart into music. If he played right now the strings would screech and squeal under wild, uncontrolled plucking.
A Saintess’s love story!
“Ohh…”
This was truly precious material. Love stories, after all, grew more thrilling the more complicated the relationship. Saintess and Bishop looked ordinary enough—yet the moment love entered the picture, everything became deliciously tangled.
“Ung?”
Ariel regarded Recar oddly as he puffed and snorted with barely contained glee.
“How much do you like him?”
“How much?”
“For example—more than the spring breeze that carries the scent of flowers, or more than the sky, or more than the earth.”
After a moment of careful thought, Ariel answered:
“I like him equally—just as much as I like all the faithful.”
“Ah……”
Recar drew a strange, wet breath.
He had seen it clearly: the Saintess smiling foolishly while the Bishop stroked her hair; the Saintess who had slipped into a private world of sweet atmosphere; the Saintess who blushed like a ripe apple the instant she felt every eye upon her.
Those were not ordinary feelings.
“Nothing more special than that?”
“Uung…… Special…”
Well, he was special. He was the guardian who looked after her, who took care of every little thing.
“Ah…”
There was something else special, too.
When she thought of Lowen and stroked between her legs, the excitement ran hotter than usual. She liked his scent so much she had buried her nose in his shirts and underthings, sniffing deeply. She had even tried this and that with bold abandon.
“There. Is. Something. Isn’t there?”
There was—but how could she possibly say it?
Ariel kept her gentle smile and shook her head firmly.
“No. Nothing special.”
Had he misread everything?
His story-antenna stood quivering and sharp, yet something felt off. Recar, who had been certain he had stumbled upon an extraordinary tale, let his shoulders droop in disappointment.
A bard’s duty forbade turning falsehoods into song—even when the material was as tempting as a Saintess and her Bishop in love. Recar had always insisted on composing only from things that had truly happened.
“Um… May I ask something this time?”
A question of her own had surfaced.
“How much does a bard know about the human heart?”
He almost corrected her—“Please call me Recaaaaar”—but the serious light in Ariel’s eyes made him answer in earnest.
“I couldn’t put a number to it, but enough to express it in many different ways.”
In truth, Ariel—who could read the emotions of others—understood human hearts far better than any wandering bard who merely met many people and heard many stories. Yet there was one heart she remained completely ignorant of: her own.
“When I think of someone, my body starts to tingle… My chest pounds as if something’s wrong, then suddenly feels tight and blocked… Sometimes my head floats up all light and airy. What is this feeling? I’ve never felt anything like it before, so I don’t understand it at all.”
Not recognizing so obvious an answer—Recar swallowed a soft “heh.”
“It’s love.”
“Love?”
“Yes. The symptoms that appear when you love someone.”
Ariel asked herself silently.
Do I love Bishop Lowen?
She did. Just as she loved all things, she loved Bishop Lowen as well.
But it was different.
She loved other people too, yet never had her heart hammered so hard she could hear it, never had her body tingled. Only when she thought of Lowen did sleep refuse to come, leaving her tossing and turning while her chest felt stuffed full and tight.
Was that love? It didn’t feel quite right…
Just as she opened her mouth to ask for a clearer explanation, Lowen emerged from the kitchen.
“Saintess, I’ve baked some cookies. Would you like a few?”
“Yes!”
The uneasy question still lingered. In the end she never found her answer; the savory scent of butter simply drew her away.
—Ding-a-ling♪
Left alone, Recar plucked his lyre.
“As expected… my hunch was right on the mark~”