I. Where the Frost Lingers (3)
I. Where the Frost Lingers (3)
Two days had passed since Sir Volfen's funeral.
The man who had ruled the house for so long was gone, and no amount of polite phrasing could call the mood of the next two days good.
As a husband he had been dependable, he had never been late paying his servants, and as master of the few slaves he had refrained from using the whip.
Now he had departed this world.
People would remember him as a man of unusual warmth for a knight.
That was not true for Keldric, but neither was he happy about the man's death.
He acknowledged that Sir Volfen had been faithful in every role except that of father.
Still, Sir Volfen had been Keldric's father.
The role of father could not simply be excluded.
Whether the others mourned or not, the two days after the funeral passed no differently from Keldric's usual routine.
Rising early in the morning, he went to the small chapel and offered prayers together with Father Martin, ate a hearty breakfast, then roughly packed provisions for the midday meal and headed toward the village outskirts.
At the edge of Carlton village, a tolerably maintained dirt road wound far into the distance, and to its right lay a path leading into the snowbound forest.
There, Keldric trained his body every day using logs of a suitable size or through bodyweight exercises.
'Couldn't skip training.'
Even in his former life, the gym was the one place he had gone without fail every weekday after work.
Modern exercise equipment did not exist here, but Keldric had been born with such extraordinary strength that he had learned to enjoy training without it.
"Hooo..."
A sigh escaped, and white steam rose steadily from Keldric's body.
Keldric wiped away the sweat with a hard, heavily calloused hand.
Then, by habit, he raised his head and looked up at the mountain range.
Two needle-sharp peaks immediately filled his view.
Relishing that sublime view, the sensation of icy air filling his lungs deep within with every breath was utterly exhilarating.
The chilly north wind quickly cooled his thoroughly warmed body.
Keldric's equally settled gaze eventually turned toward the edge of the village.
The snow-covered mountain range. Beneath it, roughly a hundred villagers lived huddled together.
Carlton was a small village, a world no wider than a frog's well.
But when he raised his head and looked up at the mountain range—
'So vast.'
The world was wide. Wide enough to embrace those colossal mountains.
Keldric wanted to venture out into that wide world.
An unseen future awaited at the end of that journey, but even that uncertainty would be part of the fun for Keldric.
Keldric gazed at the high mountain range for a long while.
Beyond the mountains lay an unknown land.
From the occasional stories told by woodcutters who climbed halfway up the mountains, the land beyond the range seemed wholly untouched by civilization.
Of course, Keldric's thinking was a little different.
Even if what lay beyond was a frozen wasteland covered in snow, if one traveled far enough, a strange and distinctive civilization likely existed.
'The Earth was round, after all.'
Even if this were not Earth, if it were a planet, it would be round.
Keldric's gaze left the mountain range and followed the dirt road leading away from the village.
A dirt road cutting straight across a wide open plain covered in snow.
Following that road a long way, passing through several larger villages, one could reach Bellam, the biggest city in the vicinity.
The peddlers who occasionally stopped by the village all invariably went back and forth along that dirt road.
And, several days from now, it was also the road Keldric would have to walk.
Keldric calmly studied the humble dirt road as though determined to burn it into his memory.
"Master Keldric!"
Keldric, who had been about to pull on his jacket, turned around at the familiar voice.
Yakov was dashing toward him, panting for breath.
"Yakov?"
"Huff... haah...!"
"Calm down, calm down. You'd best take slow, deep breaths."
Keldric waited patiently until Yakov recovered his breath.
Before long, Yakov finally caught his breath and spoke.
"I heard that in a few days, you are leaving the village."
"Hm. That's so."
"Then have you already chosen a squire to accompany you?"
Only then did Keldric understand the intent behind Yakov's question.
Yakov was a servant who had worked for the house continuously since Keldric was a small child.
To Yakov, whose face had grown deeply wrinkled, Keldric probably still looked young and green.
That Yakov had played the role of a second father to Keldric in his childhood was an undeniable fact.
A servant who had done the job of father better than his own blood father.
A dry chuckle escaped Keldric.
"Um, Master Keldric?"
"...Ah. I haven't chosen a squire to accompany me."
"Ah..."
Yakov, hearing Keldric's answer, let out a sigh thick with mixed emotions.
"You won't be taking a squire?"
Though he asked that, Yakov had already discerned Keldric's resolve.
Keldric had no intention of taking one of the household servants as his squire.
Otherwise, with only a few days left before he departed, there was no way he would still have failed to choose a squire.
A look of distress and disappointment he could not hide settled on Yakov's face.
Keldric gave a bitter smile and nodded at Yakov.
"Yes. I intend to leave alone, without a squire."
"...I understand."
An awkward atmosphere settled in.
Yakov roughly wiped his sweat, pulled on his jacket, and opened his mouth once more.
"Since you came all this way to find me, I suppose I should head back to the manor soon."
Judging by the position of the sun riding high in the sky, the time appeared close to noon.
For Keldric, with so few days now left to spend in this place, it would be one of the few remaining meals together with his family.
Keldric did not feel any particularly great affection for the people of House Bellaf, yet still, family was family.
In the harsh society of the Middle Ages, family—and especially, as nobles, a family sharing the same blood—was bound by far tighter ties than one might think.
Although he would leave the estate in only a few days, Keldric would still travel under the name of House Bellaf. There was no reason to skip the family meals and needlessly alienate them.
"Let us go back to the manor house. As it happens, I was just starting to get hungry."
"I will escort you."
Yakov obediently nodded at Keldric's words as he rubbed his stomach, but he could not erase the bitterness from his face.
Yakov soon took the lead, and Keldric followed him without complaint.
"Master Keldric."
"I'm listening."
"My family is far too humble to compare with yours, but we have served House Bellaf for three generations."
"...Hm."
Yakov's household had made serving House Bellaf its hereditary occupation.
That service had continued since Yakov's grandparents' generation, passed down to him, and would next pass to his son, who had just turned twelve.
Though they were commoners, families that had served a noble house for generations commanded considerable respect.
Yakov was a man of some influence within the fief.
It was a family trade that could not endure from generation to generation without strong pride—even if it could breed complacency.
For that reason, Yakov was sincerely loyal to House Bellaf.
It also meant Yakov cared for Keldric almost as dearly as he did his own son.
"Seeing you grow into such a fine man has brought me no greater joy, Master Keldric."
"Indeed."
"Sir Hilmer mentioned he would be inspecting the hunting grounds for a while, so I do not think I shall be able to see you off on the day. There is much I must prepare."
"If you must attend the eldest brother, it cannot be helped."
"...It has been a true honor to serve you all these years, Master Keldric."
His words were filled with genuine feeling.
Keldric recognized it and nodded solemnly.
"...Understood."
That ended the heartfelt exchange between two people who had shared eighteen years together.
Yakov flinched now and then in the chill wind, and Keldric walked silently toward the manor house.
The snow that had piled on the village fence melted, either turning to icicles or dripping to form puddles.
Winter was finally beginning to end. The blizzards that had raged throughout the season would soon cease.
It heralded the brief warmth this frozen northern land would soon enjoy.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
"Oh, Master Keldric!"
A rat-faced man approached Keldric with a sly grin.
Fresh from training, Keldric turned while white steam still rose from his clothes.
"Hm? You are..."
"Joseph of the Mormont Trading Company! Heh-heh... How have you been? You seem to have grown much thinner since I last saw you."
Joseph, the peddler of the Mormont Trading Company, rubbed his reddened hands together busily and bowed his head.
Behind Joseph were three or four mule-drawn carts, and standing around them were several mercenaries.
Scowling faces that seemed full of discontent at having come to such a backwoods mountain village, and the menacing weapons each man held in his hands.
'Gambesons. The better-equipped ones had leather armor, shields, and swords.'
They were all reasonably well equipped.
Gambesons were cheap yet provided a decent degree of protection, and the leather of their armor had been boiled in oil until it was so hard it was difficult to bend by hand.
Though Keldric, of course, could tear it apart without even putting in much effort.
Very few carried swords. Only two or so had falchions.
The rest mostly carried clubs or crudely-made short spears.
They posed no threat to Keldric, but were more than capable of menacing the villagers—and there were ten of them.
Keldric's brow twitched as his thoughts reached that point.
'There were too many of them.'
Joseph usually traveled with only four or five men; that he had brought ten this time was strange.
Keldric, who had been silently gazing at the mercenaries, sent Yakov, still standing vacantly beside him, back to the manor house.
"Go on back first. I'll exchange a few words and come along."
"Understood. Shall I bring Master Fritz?"
"Hm..."
Keldric turned his gaze back to Joseph and stared.
With the hulking, muscular form of Keldric staring fixedly at him, Joseph reflexively shrank back.
'Fuck. He looked bigger every time I saw him. Was he half ogre or something?'
Maintaining a smile regardless of what he was thinking was basic discipline for a merchant.
Joseph swallowed hard while Keldric continued to wonder.
'Joseph was here already? The roads shouldn't have been passable yet.'
Twice each year, immense blizzards swept across and buried the entire northern Empire.
When those blizzards struck, they divided the imperial heartland from the snowbound North like a border, making travel in either direction extraordinarily difficult.
The names Snow Barrier and the Empire's Eternal Frozen Soil had not been given for nothing.
That was also part of the reason why Keldric had delayed his departure from the house by about fifteen days.
Naturally, merchants avoided traveling into or out of the North during that period.
Yet Joseph was here, now.
"Was the journey here difficult?"
At Keldric's reasonable question, Joseph broke into a cold sweat and waved both hands dismissively.
"Oh, don't get me started. You know the mining village across the stream to the southwest? A rock troll took over its mine, so I had to make an enormous detour to get here, practically weeping tears of blood!"
Joseph's explanation made Keldric understand why he had hired more mercenaries than usual.
A rock troll. So it was a rock troll.
"That must have been serious."
"Of course it was!! If it weren't for those damned rock trolls! I misjudged the blizzard season on my last trip and barely made it through, and this time I nearly got trapped in the storm for good!"
"Count yourself lucky you didn't encounter one. If you dwell only on misfortune, more misfortune is bound to follow."
"Oh, what wise words! I will carve them deep into my heart!"
Joseph was prone to theatrics, and Keldric had little patience for blatant flattery.
"..."
In that instant, the bridge of Keldric's nose twitched slightly as he nodded toward the groveling Joseph.
But Joseph, still grinning and rubbing his hands together, failed to notice.
A change so discreet that even a merchant's sharp scrutiny could not catch it.
"...You really avoided the rock troll and made it here safely?"
Keldric tossed out the question lightly, in an offhand tone.
Joseph noticed nothing strange and merely nodded.
"Yes, yes! Of course! Had we encountered a rock troll, there is no way we could have arrived here safely! Likely the carts would have all been smashed to splinters, and this old body would have ended up the same."
"Then, that..."
"Pardon?"
"...No, it's nothing."
Joseph tilted his head briefly at Keldric's manner, but soon returned to a beaming expression.
"In that case, I should go set up my stall. Sir Volfen is..."
"You seem not to have heard yet. My father returned to God's side a few days ago."
"No, I had no idea... Then who is the current head of the house?"
"My eldest brother, obviously. You're asking the obvious."
"Ah, haha. That would be so! I must call him Sir Hilmer from now on then!"
"Hm."
Joseph continued asking after various matters, then said goodbye once Keldric had given him suitable answers.
It was time for him to begin trading.
"..."
Keldric kept his eyes fixed on the retreating forms of Joseph, who never lost his smiling face to the very end, and the loutish mercenaries, until they vanished from sight.
A slight wrinkle formed on the bridge of Keldric's nose. His nostrils flared once.
"...As I thought, it's the smell of blood."
His beastlike nose had reached a conclusion.