V. O, Glory of the Tournament! (6)
V. O, Glory of the Tournament! (6)
Despite the intensity with which it unfolded, the duel's outcome was not easily decided.
"Hah! Haaah...!"
"Ughh..."
Keldric looked down at the two utterly exhausted knights with a disgruntled air.
Both had charged in as though ready to kill each other, but after rolling around in the mud wearing heavy armor, all the fight seemed to have drained right out of them.
"Come on, both of you, get up."
"I—I can still fight."
"Fight? You can't even stand properly."
Keldric hauled the two knights up from where they lay sprawled in the mud.
Lifting two knights clad in metal armor with one hand each was a stretch, so Keldric had to use both hands to carefully raise them one at a time.
"You're a sight, both of you."
"Ahem! Combat wrestling is like that. Don't think of it as dirty."
"Oh, sure."
They called it combat wrestling, but as far as Keldric was concerned, it was just a brawl.
Mud splattered off Sir Henri and Sir Alan as they finally managed to rise.
"The smell... ahem."
The innkeeper had apparently buried horse dung under the mud, and an unbearable stench began to creep from both knights' armor.
Keldric covered his nose and discreetly turned his head. Sir Henri and Sir Alan coughed awkwardly in response.
Their armor was filthy beyond belief. Both wore chain mail of interlocking links, just like Keldric, and every single one of those tiny steel rings was now clogged with mud.
The attendants who saw Sir Henri's condition broke into miserable expressions at once. Sir Alan's squire turned absolutely pale, looking at his master with trembling eyes.
"The contest..."
With their helms off, Sir Henri and Sir Alan's faces showed no major wounds.
They were simply bruised all over from hitting each other with wild abandon.
Keldric looked from one face to the other, split lips and purple bruises and all. Neither had an appearance that allowed him to raise a hand and declare a winner.
"...How about calling it a draw?"
"Sir Keldric! What do you mean? I beat that Britas hog to a pulp!"
"Sir! Strip the armor off this idiotic Frankish knight right now! I guarantee piss is still leaking out of his nethers!"
"No, even if we strip him, there won't be much difference..."
Both men spat furiously as they refused to accept Keldric's judgment.
It was understandable. Sir Henri had failed to secure a victory that would uphold the honor of his house, and Sir Alan, whose own honor had been the first to be insulted by Sir Henri, had likewise failed to win.
Unable to withstand the nagging of two knights who, physically, were grown men, Keldric ultimately ordered that Sir Henri and Sir Alan's armor be stripped.
The attendants and Sir Alan's squire rushed over and began removing the armor.
Before long, both knights stood in their undergarments, the drawers called braies.
"Hmm..."
"..."
"You two hardly look different, do you?"
Of course, this did nothing to change the outcome. It only made Sir Henri and Sir Alan even more awkward.
Thighs, calves, shins, chests, and shoulders—
Not a single spot from head to toe had been spared a bruise. Though the particular locations varied, the overall picture was more or less identical.
"We'll call it a draw. Any further objections?"
"Even so—"
"Of course, I'm merely issuing a judgment as a witness. If you cannot accept it... well, I'll feel as though my own honor is being slighted."
As Keldric quietly toyed with his mace, Sir Henri and Sir Alan averted their eyes, their defiant expressions slightly cowed.
The fight this time had been a little undignified, but both men, born fundamentally for combat, knew that Keldric's extraordinary bulk alone meant he was beyond them.
"W-well, if Sir Keldric says so..."
"We'll follow your word, Sir."
Watching the two thoroughly deflated knights gather up their clothes and begin pulling them back on, Keldric let out a low sigh.
'It had been entertaining, though...'
They had fought well with weapons at first, but later both had tripped on the mud, fallen over, rolled around, and chaos had ensued.
That was far too undignified to be called a duel between knights. Forbidding any spectators apart from those directly involved had been a masterstroke.
If every guest staying at the inn had watched this duel, Keldric might have been spared, but Sir Henri and Sir Alan would surely have become laughingstocks.
Keldric prodded the ground, a thorough mix of hay and mud, with his finger.
The soft mud yielded and accepted his fingertip with hardly any resistance.
The choice of arena had been a considerable blunder.
It would have been better to fight on hard, firm ground, but unlike the North, where the earth remained frozen all year, Bogenberg's ground grew soft and sludgy as the snows melted around this time of year.
Thanks to that, an area that normally should have remained trouble-free even for such antics had become a morass of mud.
"Ahem! Sir Keldric."
At some point, Sir Henri, now dressed in a doublet and hose as his ordinary attire, approached Keldric.
It was only natural; his armor was caked in mud and impossible to wear. Keldric appraised him with a bemused air.
"Are you all right?"
"Perfectly fine! No need to worry!"
Considering he said that, the area around his heavily bruised cheekbone looked anything but fine.
No matter how good his helm was, when people threw punches wearing steel gauntlets, the soft flesh underneath was never going to emerge unscathed.
"So why start trouble for nothing? You just ended up getting hit."
"Start trouble for nothing! Sir! This was a matter of the gravest importance for my House Candillon!"
"Ah, right. Over bread and wine, yes?"
Some bread and wine served at the banquet had been called tasteless. They had felt insulted.
What an utterly medieval reason. Keldric clapped the slightly sullen Sir Henri on the shoulder several times.
"Will your attendants clean the armor themselves?"
"Of course. I told them to clean it thoroughly so it doesn't rust."
Sir Henri's attendants alone would suffer for this. They would have to meticulously pick every fleck of mud out of those tightly woven chain-mail rings.
Not a single shred of guilt could be found on Sir Henri's expression as he handed out that hellish task.
Keldric stared a little disdainfully at the back of Sir Henri's head as the man walked in ahead.
"Let's head back inside now, shall we?"
"Yes. Let's."
Thus, the impromptu honorable duel between the two knights met an ambiguous end, with neither a winner nor a loser.
The whole sordid affair that had played out in the rear yard of the Wind Rose Inn came to a close in a somewhat hollow manner.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
The moment the morning sun rose, the first thing Keldric did was exercise, naturally.
He had scouted out a patch of reasonably firm ground, just in front of where Sir Henri and Sir Alan had waged their petty duel the day before.
'I'd rested too much lately.'
Exercise was best maintained consistently.
Keldric's body might possess uncommon strength, but he believed that blindly trusting that strength to always be there would come back to bite him hard someday.
Amid sweat pouring down like rain, Keldric wiped his face with a piece of yellow linen cloth he had brought along.
Indeed, unlike the North, where a biting wind blew without pause, Bogenberg's moderately cool climate was a little harsh on Keldric.
It was the fate of a Northerner.
He had been born and raised in the Land of Bitter Cold where the snow did not melt year-round, and his body, adapted to that climate, was hardy against the cold but weak against the heat.
"Sir Keldric."
"Hoo... Hm?"
Keldric finished exercising, wiped his sweat, and turned his head to find Alisa standing there, fully prepared to go out.
Alisa's eyes traveled once over Keldric's upper body, coolly bared. As befitted his tall frame, Keldric's muscled body was enormous.
Having stared blankly for a moment, Alisa discreetly averted her gaze.
No matter how much she had traveled among rough-and-tumble mercenaries, she was still a maiden, on account of her ruined noble birth.
Only Keldric, who knew none of this, approached Alisa without any hesitation.
"...It's nothing in particular, only that I'll be busy for a few days starting today."
"Ah, I see. You mentioned you had things to look into?"
"Y-yes. There's something... ahem... I need to investigate."
"That's a bit of a shame, but since you said that was your purpose for coming here in the first place... I understand. How long will it take?"
"It shouldn't be long. At the very latest, I'll be finished before you leave Bogenberg, Sir."
"Hm? Before I leave?"
"Yes. Is there a problem...?"
Keldric scratched his chin, a surprised look on his face. That reaction, more than anything, was what surprised Alisa.
"Even after your personal business, you were planning to travel with me?"
"...Ah, well."
For a moment, Alisa was tongue-tied and closed her mouth.
Huh? Why did I take traveling with this knight for granted?
She was clearly journeying with a far more important purpose in her heart, and yet somehow, beyond that, she had naturally inserted Keldric into the rest of her itinerary.
Truth be told, that was a little shameless.
It essentially looked like she intended to travel around comfortably by leaning on Keldric's reliable martial strength.
The moment she realized that, the tips of Alisa's ears flushed a little red.
"I would have to consider the circumstances later, but... would it be considered an imposition?"
"No. It's not that. If a capable wizard like yourself were to accompany me, I'd be grateful, actually."
"C-capable..."
"In any case, understood. I suppose I'll head to Artisan Street today and have a look around."
Separate from Alisa's slight fluster, Keldric was starting to view this opportunity to roam alone as an important one.
The current situation was a bit unusual, but there were bound to be many future occasions when Keldric would have to travel by himself.
As a wizard, Alisa was knowledgeable in many areas thanks to her studies at the academy, but Keldric obviously wouldn't have that kind of assistance if he were traveling alone.
He had spent the past eighteen years in the rural backwater of Carlton Village, so it was about the right age to start learning the ways of the world.
In a sense, you could call it standing on his own two feet.
'I'd need to get used to prices, general common sense, and experience... Experience mattered most.'
Traveling with Alisa might allow him to pick up bits of information here and there, but he would never gain the wisdom that came from personal experience.
Keldric needed that. Even more so when he thought about the future.
What was fortunate, at least, was that Alisa seemed willing to continue the journey with him even after Bogenberg.
Even for Keldric, keen as he was to try standing alone, having Alisa by his side was reassuring.
It felt rather like walking around with a high-performance electronic dictionary.
"I don't know what this personal matter of yours is, but I hope you reap a good harvest from it."
"Thank you."
After seeing Alisa off, Keldric freshened up briefly. Dressed lightly in only his everyday clothes, he mounted Boreas and rode out of the inn.
The sky was fiercely clear.
It was a sight occasionally seen even in the North, though it grew rare during summer and winter, when the blizzards raged at their worst.
Boreas, having fully recovered his strength overnight, snorted and began to walk with a lively, buoyant gait.
Keldric intended to go directly to Artisan Street. If he found a decent weapon, he would buy it; if not, he could simply proceed to the tournament without one.
'I probably wouldn't need to use it anyway...'
Even as he guided Boreas slowly along, Keldric absently stroked the mace at his waist.
Surely, he wouldn't need to swing a weapon in a large city like this... but then again, one never knew.