IV. Chivalric Romance and the Bastards (4)
IV. Chivalric Romance and the Bastards (4)
Even though he had decided to help Sir Herman, there was nothing Keldric could do right away.
When the time came for Keldric to step in, Sir Herman would call on him.
Keldric decided to look around Bellam as planned.
Jorgen and the Ram Mercenary Company would be settling the contract separately, so the only person accompanying him would be Alisa.
"Artisan Street, was it?"
"I was thinking a shield would be good to have."
For any knight, a shield as well as a weapon could be considered the complete package.
A shield that could defend against attacks from all directions with just an outstretched arm was important not only for knights but for soldiers as well.
As it happened, Keldric had recently felt the importance of a shield while fighting the mounted bandits and the rock troll.
If he had had a shield, he could have responded more safely when his sword lost its edge.
Moreover, after seeing Sir Werner deflect the rock troll's attacks with his shield during that fight, he had realized just how reliable a shield was as a defensive tool.
Until now, Keldric had always broken through situations somehow with just a weapon and brute strength, but there was no telling when that might stop working.
"A shield, well... yes. The iron supply isn't steady yet, but there might still be a decent one left."
The smithies in Schaffendorf and Yalta had no proper shields.
Bellam had Artisan Street, but no one knew if there were any proper goods there either, because the iron supply had slowed.
Still, no territorial war had broken out in the area, so Keldric figured a few reasonably usable shields would be left.
"What do you think the price will be?"
"Do you want one for mercenaries to use, or one reinforced with iron and leather?"
"Something sturdy enough not to break if I use it."
"You would want an iron-and-leather-reinforced shield, then. You could probably buy a suitable one for about fifteen grasen silver coins. It could go as high as fifty."
Fifty grasen silver coins was worth a little less than two ducat gold coins.
Keldric shook his head with a slightly fed-up expression. Prices in the city were beyond what he had imagined.
'I can't exactly spend two gold coins here.'
The gold coins he had received from Hilmer were still plentiful.
The eight ducat gold coins he had carefully stored in a leather pouch filled Keldric's chest with a reassuring weight, with no risk of leaking away anywhere.
It helped that there had been no particular occasion to spend money on the way to Bellam, and that Sir Werner had given him a sidearm as well.
But burning two ducat gold coins on a shield was a different matter.
Keldric was not the sort of man who would breezily spend a quarter of his entire fortune on a shield.
"I'll have to buy a reasonably cheap one."
Even expensive things should only be so expensive; at this rate, a few fights would leave him broke.
Twenty grasen silver coins at most. He had no intention of spending more than that.
In truth, even that much pained Keldric to part with.
"Have you been to the market often?"
"A few times. The lamb coming in from Schaffendorf is cheap. And there's a lot of meat coming in from the nearby monasteries."
Keldric walked with Alisa, looking around.
The city market was complicated in various ways; he needed Alisa's guidance just to get around.
But Keldric did not dislike the bustling atmosphere.
The faces of the people buying and selling showed no particular unease or worry.
Though a few words of concern about the mounted bandit gang went back and forth—the rumor that they had been subjugated did not seem to have spread yet.
"Are you only buying a shield?"
"If there's a decent sidearm, I might think about it, but I don't particularly need one."
"Come to think of it, Sir Werner gave you a weapon as a gift, didn't he?"
Keldric silently drew the mace he wore at his waist.
The mace, with its dark sheen, was slightly cool to the touch because it was made of solid steel.
"It still feels awkward."
"It can't be helped. Nor is it strange for a knight to carry a weapon."
Keldric had arranged a room to stay in at the outer keep through Sir Herman's consideration, but he had brought along his sword and mace separately.
The idea was that, if he ever had a weapon custom-made at a smithy, having his original weapon on hand would make communication easier.
The idea was good.
Only, for Keldric, walking around carrying a weapon without armor still felt a little awkward.
Regardless, Alisa's gaze was fixed on the mace in Keldric's hand.
"It's a good weapon."
Alisa murmured as she scanned the mace.
She felt the intricately joined iron flanges, then her gaze lowered slightly as she examined the haft, which was likewise made of steel.
The cone-shaped pommel protruding at the end of the mace was there.
Having studied the pommel with particular care, Alisa pointed to it and spoke.
"Do you see this inscription?"
"An inscription?"
"Yes. Craftsmen who make good weapons usually engrave their name on them."
When Keldric inspected the pommel closely, sure enough, an inscription he hadn't been able to find before caught his eye.
A phrase had been engraved there.
It wasn't in the imperial tongue. It was a phrase engraved in a language one might use in the Papal State or the republics of the south.
While imperial nobles learned the imperial tongue, many also learned the language of the Papal State, which could be called the common language of this period.
Keldric, too, had laboriously learned it from Father Martin of Carlton village.
Rummaging through that memory, Keldric read the phrase engraved on the pommel.
'May it be done unto me according to Thy will.'
A phrase more suited to a Bible than a weapon. Keldric's brow furrowed slightly.
"Looks like a Scripture verse."
"Yes. But, this..."
Alisa rubbed her chin and sank deep into thought.
Keldric wondered whether a single Scripture verse was worth racking his brains over, but he walked on in silence for now.
Alisa's knowledge, gained from the Academia, was not to be underestimated. She seemed to have something on her mind and spoke while staring intently at the pommel.
"It's not anything particularly special."
"What do you mean?"
"Engraving Scripture verses on weapons or armor."
The knights and nobles of this period were steeped in religion.
It wasn't that religion had dissolved into the lives of knights and nobles; they had dissolved into religion.
Just as you cannot separate piss from water once you've urinated into a clear pool, the relationship between nobles and religion was so deep as to be inseparable.
Everyone wanted to receive God's love, and heaven was a posthumous super-popular tourist destination that people scrambled to reach.
As a result, engraving Scripture verses on weapons, armor, and even silver tableware was a fairly common practice.
"Wouldn't that mean there's no problem?"
If so, then there would be no problem with a Scripture verse being engraved on the weapon Sir Werner had handed over.
But to Keldric's eye, Alisa looked as though there was a problem, at least.
Her faintly twitching eyebrows said as much.
"Do you know when the last Holy Land Reconquest Campaign was organized?"
"Wasn't it well over twenty years ago?"
"To be exact, twenty-six years ago."
If it was twenty-six years ago, Keldric would have been swimming between Sir Volfen's loins.
No—perhaps he hadn't even existed at that time.
Keldric shook off the unpleasant imagination and nodded.
"I see. So?"
"At that time, His Holiness the Pope personally bestowed blessings on the weapons of several knights."
For some reason, Keldric felt a sense of unease.
Now that he took a closer look, even the mace's appearance looked somewhat solemn.
The plain, wholly unadorned solid iron mace had no conspicuous features aside from the many cross-shaped holes punched through its flanges.
The problem was that the one conspicuous feature happened to be the cross-shaped holes.
Keldric thought it couldn't be, but on the off chance, he asked cautiously.
"...You don't mean?"
"His Holiness blessed a total of seven weapons. Which means seven Scripture verses were engraved on those weapons."
"And among them was this phrase?"
"Yes. This seems to be one of the weapons blessed at that time. No, I'm almost certain."
Sir Werner had definitely said that it had become too much for him to wield, so he was handing it over to Keldric.
He had said it as casually as passing around leftover food to a neighbor, but it was certain that even Sir Werner's squire who had brought the mace had not known it was a weapon blessed by the Pope.
"Then, well... I shouldn't use it recklessly, I suppose?"
"No. Not particularly... It already shows quite a lot of signs of use, so I don't think you need to go out of your way to baby it. Though you should have it maintained often."
Being made of solid steel, the mace had not worn down easily.
However, there were scratches and slightly gouged parts here and there.
Having stared down the mace for a moment, Keldric soon shrugged his shoulders and tucked it back at his waist.
'Still, being careful won't hurt.'
Cosmetic scratches didn't matter, but the key was how well the mace could withstand Keldric's strength.
Keldric wanted to swing the mace around freely as he pleased, but now that the weapon had acquired considerable value, using it recklessly felt a bit off.
"I'll have to consider a sidearm as well."
His expenses would increase a little, but if there was a decent weapon, buying it wouldn't be a bad idea.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
All sorts of things lined Artisan Street in Bellam.
Though it was called Artisan Street in name, there were also places selling foodstuffs, and a few horse traders and spice merchants.
"Why is there a spice merchant here?"
"There are craftsmen who believe in superstitions as a rule."
If you were making ordinary farming tools, you didn't have to pour your heart and soul into them.
But if half the goods the Bellam craftsmen made were farming tools, the other half were arms to sell to mercenaries or present to knights and nobles.
There was no way the weapon- or armor-making process involved detailed science or complex principles.
Though it was an age where superstition and religion intertwined, the north, far from the central Empire, had a particularly strong tendency to believe in superstitions.
Most people thought that the fire, water, or oil used in forging weapons was imbued with sacred power, and there were even widespread attempts to scatter salt or spices during the tempering process to ward off the user's misfortune.
That was why a spice merchant had spread a mat on Artisan Street.
Keldric didn't know if that process had adverse effects on weapons, but since people had used them well enough all along, he figured there was no problem.
"Let's take a look around."
Artisan Street was less large and more elongated, circling around the castle.
Even if you divided the city into districts, having many merchants of the same type congregate in one place didn't help the merchants much.
The three smithies in Bellam were similar, and they were scattered here and there along Artisan Street that ringed the castle.
Keldric intended to visit all three smithies.
If he could also observe the weapon-making process while he was at it, that would be good; if not, he could just have a look around and return.
Walking side by side with Alisa, Keldric soon stopped in front of one smithy.
There were no weapons or armor laid out on a shop counter.
In the first place, smithies that had a proper shop didn't even have something like a shop counter.
If someone stole something, that alone would be a loss. No madman would brazenly display goods in front of medieval people perpetually starved for money.
As the sound of an apprentice hammering rang out from inside, Keldric slowly stepped into the smithy.
"Welco... w-whoa."
When the huge Keldric bent at the waist to open the door and enter, the man inside who had been wearing a listless expression stared at Keldric with round, wide eyes.
"Are you the craftsman here?"
"Er, yes? No, yes. That's right."
Keldric wasn't just large. The imperial tongue he spoke carried a noble's accent.
The craftsman, who sometimes dealt with knights, instantly saw through Keldric's identity and started groveling.
"I'd like to buy a shield."
"A shield, you say? Well..."
One odd thing was that the groveling craftsman's attitude held something suspicious.
The way he glanced sideways at Keldric clearly showed an intent to figure out who he was.
"W-we haven't gotten any iron in lately, so we don't have a shield fit for a knight, my lord."
"...Is that so?"
Though it was slightly bothersome, Keldric slowly nodded.
Since he had just come back from resolving the harm caused by the rock troll firsthand, he was inclined to understand if iron was short for the time being.
"Is there none here either?"
"Sorry. We're short on iron..."
But when Keldric visited the second, and then the third smithy and struck out each time without obtaining a shield, he unmistakably sensed something suspicious.
Refusing to even take a production order just because iron was short was somehow strange.
Even when Keldric offered to pay a little extra, the craftsmen waved their hands and refused outright.
Yet the sound of hammering iron was going strong from inside the smithies.
Keldric's brow twitched.
'...What's this, then?'
It looked as though the craftsmen were deliberately refusing to sell to Keldric.