IV. Chivalric Romance and the Bastards (5)
IV. Chivalric Romance and the Bastards (5)
'No. That's not it.'
Keldric suppressed the surge of anger that had welled up in him before he knew it.
He had gotten a rather unpleasant response, but there seemed to be no benefit in losing his temper.
"If a shield won't work, how about a gauntlet?"
"A gauntlet, sir?"
"Yes. I intend to wear it on my left hand. Do you happen to have a gauntlet of similar size left?"
The craftsman hastily picked up a piece of wood about two hand-spans long.
If he was to look for stock as Keldric had said, it was only natural to at least measure Keldric's hand.
But the craftsman went straight into the storage where the goods were and, before long, came out with an awkward expression.
"I'm sorry, Sir Knight. We have no gauntlets left in stock either."
"...Then, could you repair a broken gauntlet?"
"I'm terribly sorry. That also won't be possible due to circumstances..."
The craftsman's answers went from bad to worse.
With the craftsman's attitude becoming more and more of a spectacle the longer the conversation continued, Keldric was so dumbfounded he could hardly believe it.
This wasn't an attitude of looking down on a knight. The craftsman was clearly avoiding Keldric as a person for some reason.
Keldric's expression instantly turned cold once his thoughts reached that point. He had been patient enough by now.
"Whoops."
Boom!
Keldric's bare fist struck the wall of the smithy.
It was a punch on which Keldric had moderated his strength as best he could, but powdered stone dust crumbled softly from the wall, which was dented in the exact shape of his fist.
The craftsman who had witnessed the scene before his eyes, the apprentices who had been hammering iron, and even Alisa, who had been standing a step behind Keldric.
Everyone in the smithy blinked and stared at the sight.
"There was a bug."
Keldric was the only one unaffected.
He brushed the stone fragments off his fist and brought his uninjured hand to his waist.
"Look here. What's your name?"
"P-pardon? Why do you suddenly ask my name..."
"I think I see another bug. Seems to be on your head."
The thick, sticky killing intent emanating from the large, vigorous knight was no joke.
When Keldric, his face hardened, glared and took half a step closer, the horrified craftsman retreated three or four steps.
Some knights, like Keldric or Sir Werner, were gentle and merciful, but by and large, knights were ferocious and fierce.
Had the knight present not been Keldric, the trembling craftsman's head would certainly have gone flying on the spot.
The authority to execute a domain resident belonged to the lord, but that was something to be invoked only after considering the circumstances.
No matter how important a craftsman in the city was, behavior that openly made a fool of a knight was the sort of thing for which dying on the spot would be unsurprising.
Keldric and the craftsman were separated by a single long wooden desk.
Thud!
Upon it, a cold piece of steel rose with a heavy sound. It was the mace that hung at Keldric's waist.
The craftsman's complexion paled instantly at the sight of the mace, which bore marks of use here and there.
Keldric had never once used it since receiving it as a gift, but in the eyes of the craftsman who handled all manner of arms, it looked like nothing other than a weapon that had smashed the skulls of countless enemy soldiers.
And it seemed clear that if he provoked the knight's temper further here, the mace would be soaked in hot blood.
"U-uhh... Martin! It's Martin!"
The craftsman, Martin, frightened out of his wits, shouted in a fluster.
Keldric's brow furrowed instantly at that.
Coincidentally, the craftsman's name was the same as Father Martin, the sole priest of Carlton Village.
It was very common for people with the same name to exist in this era. There was no reason to be surprised just because the craftsman before Keldric's eyes and Father Martin shared a name.
It was merely inwardly unpleasant that the name of the man he might beat to a pulp at any moment was the same as that of a person toward whom he bore a degree of goodwill.
"Right, Martin. Why do you refuse to sell me any goods?"
"I-it isn't that I refuse to sell them! Merely, because we haven't been able to bring in proper iron for a while―."
"Oh, is that so? Then would it not simply be a matter of making my goods once the iron has come in?"
"That is, I was worried that I would make a mistake while making a knight's goods amidst a complicated situation..."
It sounded plausible at first listen. It could have been that Martin was right.
Keldric was not a native of Bellam, and naturally, Martin, as a local, would be the one who knew the circumstances of Bellam well.
While he was in the thick of melting and refining iron, producing high-quality equipment for a knight would be no easy task.
If he had an apprentice skilled at the work, it would be much easier. But Keldric could not confirm even that.
To Keldric's eyes, however, all of that appeared to be nothing more than excuses.
'He should be making sense, at least.'
For a blacksmith making weapons, using the reason 'in case I make a mistake while making it' was nonsense.
If he failed while making a weapon, he could melt it down and try again; and if he made a mistake while making it again, he could just make it again. Was that not so?
The price the customer paid was set with that process in mind.
Keldric looked squarely into Martin's eyes.
Martin, on the contrary, could not meet Keldric's deeply sunken eyes and rolled his eyes this way and that, before they soon dropped entirely toward the floor.
It might have partly been that Keldric was frightening, but it did not seem to be merely because of the mace that twitched in Keldric's hand.
Keldric turned his head and looked back. Alisa, who stood behind him, nodded her head.
That Martin had committed rudeness was a fact, so it was clear that he should handle it as he saw fit.
But Keldric did not thrust his fist forward right away.
There was no reason for Martin not to sell goods, yet it was strange that he was holding out like this.
"That's not it. Would it be that the Artisans' Guild told you not to sell goods to me?"
At Keldric's question, Martin's body flinched violently.
Seeing that, Keldric unknowingly clenched his fist tight. His thinking had been correct.
"I don't know which guild you're in, but it's probably one of the places where blacksmiths gather. Is it not?"
"Th-that is..."
"You can keep quiet about it. Visiting them all one by one will be the end of it. Of course, at that time..."
Keldric lifted the mace that he had rested on the desk.
When he swung it lightly through the air just as it was, a vicious whoosh resonated through the space.
"To insult a knight's honor is a grave offense. All the more so when the insult is from a mere blacksmith."
The traitor within the city that Sir Herman had told him of was highly likely to belong to the City Council.
And the majority of those who belonged to the City Council were people from the trading companies and the artisans' guilds.
If the guild master of the guild to which Martin and the other craftsmen belonged was the traitor, then not selling goods to Keldric also made sense.
Though he hadn't known they would do it so openly, Keldric was fine with it either way.
"Oh! Sir Knight! I've done wrong!"
When Keldric gripped the mace and emitted killing intent, Martin prostrated himself on the spot and groveled on the floor.
'I'll die!'
There was a limit to how far a person's stubbornness could go; if he truly persisted, he would snap like that.
That was Martin's case. If he held out further, he would snap with a crack.
"It's not that I didn't want to sell to you, my lord! Please, just spare my life!"
"Why do you not sell me goods? Tell me the reason!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Keldric pressed him fiercely, but Martin, in the end, did not say the reason and only repeated that he was sorry.
"It is not your apology I want to hear. It is the reason I want to know."
"Th-the reason, sir? The reason, the reason is..."
"What, if you tell me, can you not do business going forward?"
"...!"
Martin's mouth finally closed tight.
Not even answering a knight's question was an act of rudeness, but at that moment, Martin did not have the composure to think of such things.
"Looks like I'm right."
He had struck the nail on the head.
Keldric's intuition was sharp. He had thought that the way Bellam's three smithies had stopped selling goods as though they had conspired was not purely due to a shortage of iron.
And that was the correct answer. Keldric hung the mace he was gripping back at his waist and forcibly pulled the groveling Martin to his feet.
"Did the guild master threaten you?"
"..."
"Even if that is the case, I will not hold you guilty. I'll ask again. Are you doing this because of the guild master?"
Martin's mouth remained closed to the very end.
Only that he nodded his head very minutely.
Keldric glanced toward the workshop behind Martin, where the apprentices were hammering.
One apprentice gripping a hammer had been glaring at Martin, and when his eyes met Keldric's, he started in surprise and began striking iron again.
"Martin."
"Y-yes!"
"Is there no rope or something of the sort?"
"Rope, sir? Why rope..."
"It's about time you quit this. Why not just hand it over when you're asked?"
Martin, who had been flinching, hurriedly brought a length of rope and placed it in Keldric's hand.
Keldric slung the rope over his shoulder and strode forward.
His steps were directed toward the interior of the workshop, from which hot air gusted intensely.
"U-uhh! Sir Knight! If you enter carelessly...!"
Before Martin could even stop him, Keldric was already searching for the apprentice with whom he had just made eye contact.
Among the apprentices, all uniformly smeared in sweat and watching Keldric with bewildered faces, only one averted his gaze, his complexion pale and drained.
It was the apprentice who had been glaring at Martin a moment ago.
Keldric approached him without hesitation. The apprentice's complexion grew even paler.
"Do you want to walk out on your own two feet? Or would you rather be dragged out by my hand?"
"Wh-what do you mean..."
"How dull."
Thwack!
Keldric's fist slammed into the apprentice's stomach. The sound of sucked-in breath echoed, and immediately after, the apprentice collapsed to the floor and began to vomit up everything he had eaten that day.
"Bleeegh...!"
Once only bile was coming from the fallen apprentice's mouth, Keldric bound the apprentice tightly with the rope and dragged him along.
When he came out of the workshop, Martin, his eyes round and wide, and Alisa, with a somewhat sickened expression, were there.
Keldric, who had been looking at Martin for a moment, spoke.
"Make a gauntlet and a shield that would be fine for my use. I will pay properly."
"Uh, that..."
"Don't make me say it twice."
"Yes! I will make them with all sincerity and devotion!"
Only then did Martin bring a ruler to Keldric's fist and arm and take his measurements.
After receiving a firm confirmation from Martin once more that he would make the goods, Keldric exited the smithy. Alisa, wearing a tired expression, followed behind him.
"You won't be looking around further, will you?"
"I should return to the castle."
Keldric looked at the castle of Bellam rising far in the distance.
He had come out to do a bit of market sightseeing, but by chance, he had ended up doing the work Sir Herman had requested.
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"You wretched scoundrel! Do you know whose honor you have trampled upon!"
Not long after Keldric had arrived at the castle, Sir Herman, having rushed out of the Outer Keep, beat down the apprentice Keldric had brought without even exchanging greetings.
The whip in his hand mercilessly lashed the apprentice's back. Each time, the apprentice only let out choked cries.
"Hoo..."
Sir Herman let out a sigh and finally lowered the whip from his hand. The whip, sent flying far off, was retrieved by servants who moved in a fluster.
The apprentice's state was wretched. His back, torn and gouged by the whip, was soaked in blood.
"Throw him in the underground dungeon! He is a man who has dared to challenge Sir Keldric's honor!"
After the blood-soaked apprentice was dragged away, practically carried by the servants, Sir Herman immediately looked at Keldric with a bright face.
"Sir! I believed in you!"
Keldric looked at Sir Herman, who had blood spattered on his face, somewhat sourly.
Though Sir Herman was reputed to be a decent knight, a knight was still a knight.
There was no way he would not grow angry at the covert disregard and insult to another knight's honor.
"It was a coincidence. I had merely meant to look around the city."
"Even if it was coincidence, it's a magnificent feat! It seems we're finally beginning to grasp a thread!"
A sense of displeasure settled in Keldric's chest.
He had intended to rest while touring the city until Sir Herman called for him, but it amounted to having done the work not even a day later.
Whether he knew that or not, Sir Herman merely smiled broadly, seized Keldric's hand, and shook it up and down repeatedly.
"I truly never thought the city's craftsmen would be in collusion. There was no disruption to the goods delivered to the soldiers, after all."
"What will you do now?"
"I intend to imprison that wretch of an apprentice and summon the guild master to hold him to account for this incident. A blacksmith or the like challenging a knight's honor—that simply won't do."
Keldric nodded. For all he knew, the apprentice who had been dragged along by Keldric's hand was unlikely to leave the castle in one piece.
But at the same time, a sense of puzzlement reared its head at the fact that things were going too smoothly.
'It's resolved this easily?'
Even if the fellow who had betrayed Baron Yaven was a guild master, it didn't seem like he would let a thread slip so clumsily and be caught.
Keldric watched Sir Herman's back, his shoulders quivering, his own feelings complicated.
His instincts were whispering that he had missed something.