I. Where the Frost Lingers (1)
I. Where the Frost Lingers (1)
The mountain range stretching from the southwestern Empire to its northernmost reaches was like a great artery.
Following that long vein northward eventually brought one to its snow-white end.
The Empire's far north, a place where frost lingered year-round.
Hardy northerners lived there.
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Carlton Village in the northern Empire was the most remote of all the outlying villages.
Just outside the village, a mountain range rose as if to pierce the sky.
The sharply jutting peak sliced the wind.
The wind split around it and flowed away in two currents.
A great wind and a lesser wind.
Keldric vaguely thought the wind splitting in two resembled his own family, which was beginning to fracture.
"Huff, huff—!"
But he was merely the third son, and there was nothing Keldric could step forward and do about it.
Precisely because of that, Keldric was rather indifferent.
"Hoo...!"
The ragged breaths quieted. Keldric set the log, easily four times his own height, down on the ground.
The heavy log rolled along the ground with a thud.
It was a log no ordinary man could ever lift with bare hands.
Yet Keldric could easily manage two or three more besides.
Catching his breath after the strenuous exercise, Keldric looked up at the high peak once more.
The north wind still split against the mountain peak.
The greater wind was Keldric; the lesser was his family.
Thus, they were divided.
"Master Keldric."
Wiping sweat running down his jawline, Keldric turned his head at the sound of his name.
"So this is where you were."
A familiar household servant.
Faced with the man's bowing deference, Keldric nodded a little awkwardly.
Third son of the house that ruled this small village though he might be, Keldric was unmistakably a member of a noble family.
No doubt he deserved to be treated with respect by those beneath him, but Keldric could never stomach that sort of treatment.
It was partly the mindset of his previous life lingering on, and partly his own unassuming nature.
"Yakov. What is it?"
Yakov instinctively lowered his eyes at the sight of Keldric's muscular body, white steam wisping from it.
It felt as though he had come face-to-face with a mighty magical beast!
That was the feeling Yakov naturally experienced every time he faced Keldric.
"Sir Volfen bid me fetch you. I believe you must go to the manor house at once."
Keldric called to mind his father, Sir Volfen.
The head of House Bellaf, Sir Volfen Bellaf, had taken to his bed months ago as his illness worsened.
'He was hit by an arrow smeared with shit, wasn't he.'
It wouldn't be mere dung poison. He must have taken an arrow coated with something truly foul.
For all he knew, it no doubt hurt like hell.
Picturing Sir Volfen lying sick from a dung-smeared arrow, Keldric frowned and nodded.
"I'll go at once."
Keldric turned without hesitation. The cold wind swept over his robust frame.
Born with a sturdy constitution, Keldric did not feel the cold much.
But Yakov, who had little flesh on him, shivered from it. Yakov's worn shoes trod precariously on the snow.
Watching him, Keldric absently held out his own coat to Yakov.
"That cold?"
"Er... no. Thank you for your kindness."
"You're getting on in years, so you should take care in the cold. You're far too thin."
"This much is nothing. How could a man of the North let the cold make him tremble?"
For all that he said so, he looked quite cold. His trembling legs proved as much.
Yakov clearly did not want him to make an issue of it, so Keldric let the matter drop.
Northern men counted it a virtue never to yield to the cold.
Past the village of houses barely cobbled together from logs and moss, on a low, rounded hill beyond, stood the manor house.
Keldric and Yakov made their way briskly toward it.
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Should he call it a previous life, or a life in his original world?
Whatever he called it, Keldric had lived in twenty-first-century South Korea before somehow finding himself in a medieval world without knowing why.
It really was accurate to say he had been dropped there: his first experience of this world was brilliant light pouring down as he landed somewhere soft.
It did not take long for him to realize that he had been born as an infant in an unfamiliar medieval world, wrapped in clean swaddling cloth.
The new life he thus gained was as the third son of the small, humble House of Bellaf in the Empire's north.
It was hardly a position from which to expect a bright future.
His uncertain standing was troubling enough, but his father, Sir Volfen Bellaf, had always been deeply displeased with him as well.
Sir Volfen never went so far as to jab a finger at him or throw dishes, but Keldric could still take a hint.
Keldric had long since noticed the complicated distaste in Sir Volfen's eyes whenever his father looked at him.
As a child, Keldric had not understood why Sir Volfen could barely stand the sight of him.
But as he grew older and came to understand the private calculations of nobles, he could not help sighing.
To get to the point, Sir Volfen had wanted a daughter, not a son.
And a beautiful daughter at that.
The first and second sons born before Keldric were both healthy and sound.
Meanwhile, Sir Volfen's first wife, from whom he had long since given up expecting another child, finally became pregnant.
With more than enough sons to inherit the house, Sir Volfen must have prayed that his first wife's late pregnancy would produce a daughter who could secure ties with an influential family.
Since Sir Volfen's first wife, who bore Keldric, was quite beautiful in face, a pretty daughter who took after her mother would have been the best of all.
And the baby who chose that moment to pop out, utterly oblivious to the situation, was Keldric.
Not the lovely daughter Sir Volfen had wished for.
Knowing Sir Volfen's fearsome looks, Keldric badly wanted to tell him he should be grateful he had not gotten an ugly daughter instead, but...
Reality was unkind.
If he had let slip such a remark, he would have been beaten on the spot.
But if that alone had been the trouble, Sir Volfen likely would not have treated him so coldly. Misfortunes had struck in quick succession.
Keldric's mother had died the moment she gave birth to him.
'A child who devoured his own mother.'
In all ages and lands, a mother dying during or after childbirth was an omen of ill luck and misfortune. So it was shunned.
Of course, to Keldric it was an absurd business.
He had not been dropped into this squalid medieval fantasy world because he wanted to be.
If this was a fantasy world, could they not at least let him shoot off some magic?
That he at least escaped the label of bastard was a comfort, if he had to find one.
A father and two brothers, and a stepmother.
Each of them treated Keldric as a son or a brother after a fashion, but it was a childhood in which no one went out of their way to look after him.
His stepmother, Lady Bellaf, at least treated him decently enough as her stepson. The others were the problem.
Recalling how warmly Sir Volfen treated his firstborn, the likely heir, and the second son who was the spare, Keldric's childhood had not been a pleasant one.
Sir Volfen had taught Keldric swordsmanship, but at some point even that stopped, and he grew reluctant to see Keldric wield a sword at all.
Learning martial skills was a good thing for the son of a landed knight, but if his ability grew enough to threaten the eldest son's position, it could sow discord within the house.
'It was a shame, though.'
Keldric had already learned all the swordsmanship Sir Volfen taught, but a pity was a pity.
Keldric well knew that knowledge was power.
Had Sir Volfen truly taught him everything?
Was it certain there was nothing more to learn from Sir Volfen?
Such regrets left a bitter taste in his mouth.
But he could not very well whine to be taught more.
Keldric was the third son of a knightly house granted a small village as fief.
In his position, he would be lucky to inherit even a single sword.
Keldric had been born far too late to harbor ambitions for the family inheritance.
It was a simple but powerful reason, one that even Keldric himself accepted.
"It's Master Keldric."
"Been to the village outskirts again today, it seems?"
As Keldric walked on, lost in such thoughts, the villagers hauling firewood murmured among themselves behind him.
Their gazes followed Keldric until he disappeared into the manor house on the hill.
Every one of the villagers fell over themselves to bow their heads whenever they saw Keldric, and that was rather tiresome.
To a commoner or serf, a noble was always an awkward presence, yet at the same time one who must be treated as a superior.
Since Keldric did not exactly throw his weight around as a noble, he was somewhat better thought of than his second brother, at least.
"I am deeply sorry to say so, but I think we must hurry a little."
Yakov, following after Keldric, carefully spoke up.
Without any particular reply, Keldric quickened his pace.
Passing the village mill and climbing the hill road, Keldric and Yakov at last entered the manor house.
The bitter cold gave way to the merely chilly air inside.
"You have come."
Apart from Yakov, yet another servant had already come out to meet him.
It was proof that Keldric was not so low in the household that even the servants could ignore him.
After sending off Yakov, who bustled away somewhere, Keldric followed the servant into the mansion.
"This way, Master Keldric."
"Thank you, as always."
"Thank you for saying so."
The place the servant led Keldric to was the innermost room of the manor house.
A room with a great hearth, far more orderly than the others.
"You're late."
"Were you off moping at the mountains again?"
No sooner had Keldric stepped into the room than the criticism began, as though they had been waiting for him.
Needless to say, the source was his two half-brothers.
The firstborn of House Bellaf and the eldest of the three brothers, Hilmer.
And Hilmer's younger brother, Fritz, who was Keldric's second-eldest brother.
Both men glared sharply at Keldric, but Fritz's gaze was especially cutting.
But Keldric did not waver, and silently gave a slight bow.
"I'm sorry."
"Haven't I always said so? If you want to keep apart from us that badly, leave the family. I heard—"
"Enough. Come here at once. Father has something to say to you."
"Understood."
"And, Fritz. Don't scold Keldric too much. Your own conduct is not beyond reproach either."
"...Tch."
Fritz clicked his tongue in discontent, and Hilmer stepped aside.
Bowing his head briefly to Hilmer, Keldric could at last meet the master of this room.
"Kel... dric..."
An old man lay there like a living corpse, clearly gravely ill.
He was, precisely, the head of House Bellaf and a veteran knight of the North acknowledged for his martial prowess by Baron Yaven.
Sir Volfen Bellaf.
Keldric glanced around without making it obvious.
Sir Volfen's second wife, Lady Bellaf, the mother of Hilmer and Fritz, was nowhere to be seen.
She had likely shed a few tears, then could not bear it any longer and had left.
Keldric looked silently down at Sir Volfen, limp and utterly spent.
"...Father."
Sir Volfen Bellaf looked utterly drained of strength.
The muscles that had once covered his body had wasted away by nearly half, leaving him gaunt and deathly pale.
Sir Volfen's parched lips parted.
"Kel, Keldric..."
"Yes, Father. I'm listening."
"You, you are..."
Sir Volfen moved a trembling hand.
The hand looked gaunt and pitiful as a dried-up twig.
The hand that had always seemed so stern during Keldric's childhood now felt along his arm.
'...What is he doing? Why is he feeling up someone else's body?'
At first glance it seemed as though his flagging hands were clutching Keldric's arm with some effort, but Keldric, the one whose arm was seized, grasped at once what Sir Volfen was doing.
'Muscles?'
There was no mistaking the intent behind the hand probing Keldric's hard forearm: it was examining him.
It was as if he were appraising the body Keldric had steadily trained all this while.
After feeling Keldric's arm for a moment, Sir Volfen gave a phlegmy cough and raised a finger.
"A, a suit of armor... from the armory..."
"...Father?"
"A surcoat... dyed, with our family crest on it..."
Sir Volfen's words began to drag. Keldric ignored that and listened closely.
'I would lose out if I did not listen.'
It was not simply out of filial affection. He had realized that Sir Volfen's words concerned one of the few pieces of inheritance he would receive.
Sir Volfen had almost no life left. He could die at any moment.
"Hilmer...! Hilmer!"
Sir Volfen suddenly cried out as if in a convulsion.
Hilmer, who had been standing behind Keldric, fell hastily to his knees and grasped Sir Volfen's hand.
"I'm listening, Father."
"There'll be a warhorse in the stables... the ivory-colored one! The one with the blue saddle and harness!"
"You mean the one you bought not long ago? Yes. It'll be in the stables."
"Give it to Keldric! No questions, no arguments!"
"..."
Hilmer's brow twitched for an instant.
He gripped Sir Volfen's scarred hand without a word, then let out a faint sigh and nodded.
"Someone go tell the stablehands to ready the horse. The warhorse with the ivory coat and golden mane."
"Yes, Master Hilmer."
A servant left the bedchamber. Hilmer looked at Sir Volfen with eyes that seemed somewhat troubled.
"It shall be as you say. If you have more to say..."
"In the armory, there will be a sword and armor I prepared, and a surcoat already dyed... give those to Keldric as well!"
"Understood. Scribe, are you recording properly?"
"Yes, Master Hilmer."
"Father. Have you anything further?"
"And, and... you are to..."
As though his final flame had flared, Sir Volfen's voice, which had boomed like a train whistle, gradually faded.
And then Keldric saw it.
"Hilmer, you are to take charge of our house..."
For that one moment, Hilmer's eyes gleamed brighter than gold coins.
Hilmer's complexion, still clutching Sir Volfen's hand, brightened a little.
Fritz, meanwhile, still stood behind him like a wooden statue, staring at Sir Volfen with a rigid expression.
"And... Keldric."
Sir Volfen's eyes glittered as he looked at Keldric once more. Those eyes were fixed solely on Keldric.
"Yes, Father."
"Your eyes... are just like your mother's..."
"..."
"Are you planning... to leave this house... this family?"
Keldric's body stiffened, as if struck dead on the mark.
Sir Volfen's eyes, from which nearly all light had faded, shone with sudden clarity as they met Keldric's.
"I have one last request for you."
"Tell me."
"I beg of you, fulfill my long-cherished wish..."
"..."
"And I, I am..."
The light in Sir Volfen's eyes began slowly to go out.
The estate's scribe, who also served as its priest, hurriedly wrote the will on parchment.
"I am... sorry... Keldric, my son..."
Like a cold wind sweeping past, Sir Volfen's final breath faded away.
He had died from illness after being struck in battle by an arrow smeared with human waste.
It was the year Keldric turned eighteen.