The Hound That Wanted Out
After grumbling for a good long while, Arendt paused and touched his own lips. "Oh, forgive me. That wasn't something I should say to a marquis I've only just met." "Not at all. Think nothing of it. I can understand the sentiment, so I'll pretend I heard nothing." "......Thank you." When the young man muttered this with an embarrassed look after a brief hesitation, Marquis Lanford became certain that his instincts had been right all along. So even he finds it a burden. No matter how reckless and unruly a child he might be, there was no way he could be entirely indifferent to a situation where every eye in the room was fixed on him. Especially not when he was a green boy who had only recently entered the imperial palace. Arendt, still fiddling with the back of his neck, grumbled under his breath. "Honestly, it's rather stifling. I don't know what I did wrong." "But one must take responsibility for one's own actions. That is what it means to be an adult. You are, after all, a knight in your own right now." "An apprentice knight, technically." "And one who will be a full-fledged knight the moment your training period ends."
Marquis Lanford spoke sternly, as if lecturing a child, and the young knight gave a reluctant nod even as his face betrayed his displeasure. "That's true. I know full well I'm in no position to throw tantrums. I'm learning firsthand that you shouldn't carelessly start something you can't see through to the end." "It's enough that you know it now. Human beings learn by making mistakes — that is simply how it is." His voice softening with deliberate gentleness, the marquis slowly nodded. "It seems the way things have been running lately has been a bit much for you." "I consider it my duty. I bear some responsibility, after all. And more than anything, I'm not particularly eager to die just yet." Though he said it flatly, Arendt let his gaze slip subtly downward. Marquis Lanford read the meaning without difficulty. So that's it — it wasn't a naturally prickly temperament after all. Piled on top of it was the tangle of his current circumstances, which had apparently left him even more on edge than usual. Viewed that way, his coarse behavior at their first meeting was entirely understandable.
The marquis's tone grew gentler still. "Don't worry. His Highness the Crown Prince is a strict man, but he is not so cold-hearted as all that." "Do you truly believe that?" The cold reply came without a moment's hesitation. "I don't know what Your Lordship hopes to gain by poking at me, but I have nothing to say that you'd want to hear." The chilly face of the young knight, head now raised, could no longer fully swallow the anger seething beneath it. "Even holding this conversation with you right now is an enormous strain on me. Please leave. I simply do as I'm ordered, nothing more." "......Forgive me. You've had your share of troubles, I see." Marquis Lanford listened quietly to the stream of frost-bitten words and nodded calmly. Ordinarily, a young man would swagger about, shoulders squared with pride at having his abilities recognized. But this one had come within a hair's breadth of the executioner's block, and the crushing weight of never knowing when his life might end was the sort of pressure that would break even a battle-hardened old general. Perhaps it's all for the best. The Crown Prince, needing a convenient tool, had apparently bought up his life and wielded him as he pleased — but it seemed the honor had been too heavy a burden for this apprentice knight to carry. "I'm not saying this because I want your sympathy." "I know. But hearing you say such things, it's hard for an old man to keep his silence." At Arendt's bristling retort, the marquis spoke with genuine seriousness — and a flicker of surprise crossed the young man's eyes. Seizing that opening, the marquis continued slowly. "Besides, His Highness is hardly fond of me. Whatever I might report to him, nothing of it would ever come back to harm you."
For an instant, Arendt's expression went blank, as though he were turning the marquis's words over carefully in his mind. "So there's no need to guard yourself so. Cornering a young boy isn't the sort of thing a grown man ought to do, either." "......Forgive me." After a brief pause, Arendt muttered the words with an abashed air. The tension that had been bunched into his shoulders drained away, visibly. "Then let me ask you honestly. What is it you truly want? It doesn't seem to be glory or wealth." "Honestly? I'm tired of it all." Arendt thrust his hand deep into his pocket. "I'd love to walk away. But I still have things I must do." 'Walk away......' The marquis turned the short phrase over in his mind. Truthfully, he had never looked upon this young knight with a favorable eye until now. But berating a struggling youth who was already paying the price for his own mistakes was hardly the conduct of an adult, either. Having weighed the matter briefly, Marquis Lanford spoke slowly. "If that is truly your wish... I believe I may be able to help you." "I beg your pardon?" Arendt's head came up sharply. The moment he confirmed the hope written plainly across that youthful face, Marquis Lanford knew he had been right all along.
Arendt von Eckhart was the Crown Prince's puppet — or, at worst, his hunting dog, trained to carry back the kill and lay it at his master's feet without complaint. 'If someone must step forward and fight,' it would have to be someone of at least Commander Laios de Winfried's standing. Or one of the other knight order commanders. Not a green apprentice knight who knew nothing, trotting back and forth to deliver the Crown Prince his prey. Holding no power worth the name and all but disowned by his own house, Arendt — however capable — was nothing more than the Crown Prince's hound. A pitiful one, at that. 'If it hadn't been this boy who earned the merit, neither the Neumann Merchant Guild nor the mine would have slipped so cleanly out of His Highness's grasp.' What the imperial palace needed now was balance. It was true that those in power owed their loyalty to the Emperor — but among their duties was also the obligation to check the throne itself. The closer things came to outright emergency, the more vital that became. A wrong judgment from the royal family would set the whole empire ablaze. And if that happened, his own house would burn down with it. Marquis Lanford hardened his resolve and spoke with studied casualness. "If you have the resolve to give everything up, I can help you find your way back home. What do you say?"
This was the best path — the one that could save everyone. Facing the conflicted young man, the marquis allowed himself a satisfied smile. It took Arendt a long while to answer. "......I'll consider it." "Good. Shall we move somewhere more comfortable and talk further? You've borne a great deal of hardship, I imagine." The knight nodded silently. The marquis smiled in perfect contentment and set off, walking a step ahead. It was a fatal mistake. He never saw the wicked grin that bloomed across the face of the young man gazing at the back of his head.
"You. Change professions. Become a con artist." Cantares muttered this after listening in a daze for a long while. The Crown Prince's training grounds, which had all but turned into a secret meeting spot by now. By the time Arendt's report wound down, both Cantares and Laios had half lost track of reality. "So... you played the pity card?" "Pity card, he says. That's called acting, Your Highness." Arendt shrugged. "A struggling apprentice knight, his life mortgaged off, buffeted about at the Crown Prince's every whim, finally collapsing under the strain. A perfect fit, wouldn't you say?" "You mean a hyped-up menace who never listens to a single word he's told. Just look at your commander's face. At this rate his stomach's going to sprout a hole." It was enough to rot anyone's insides. His insubordinate little pain-in-the-neck of a subordinate was now out there running confidence games on nobles. "......I'm fine." "Declaring that while pulling out medicine bottles rather undermines your credibility, Sir Laios."
"Moving on." Cantares, watching wistfully as Laios silently knocked back his stomach medicine, turned his head again. "What? Why?" "That old man — is he close with my family?" "The House of Eckhart? I hear they exchange courtesies to some degree, but I couldn't say the details. I'd wager he's closer to Marquis Lanford than to me, though." "Hmm." Arendt made a vague noise and tilted his head. "What's the Count — my father, I mean — been up to these days?" "He's your father. Why are you asking me?" "We're not exactly a warm and fuzzy father-and-son pair. It's just that the marquis brought him up out of nowhere, and now I find myself curious." Cantares's brow creased slightly, but Arendt answered only with listless indifference. "He offered to persuade my father and help me return to the House of Eckhart. I merely said I'd think it over."
Talking with the marquis had brought back to mind a piece of backstory he'd long since forgotten. That he was the second son of the Count of Eckhart. The Eckhart family had barely appeared in the novel at all. As Arendt remembered it, after his execution there hadn't been so much as a passing mention of them. Which was why, before coming here, he had turned his room upside down searching it — on the off chance he might find some trace of the house. It had come to nothing. He'd pulled out every drawer and rifled through everything, and not a single item connected to the House of Eckhart turned up. Forget family portraits — there wasn't a single object bearing the family crest, not even one letter exchanged with the main house. It meant the ties had been severed a very long time ago. Cantares's mouth twisted wryly. "Well, to be fair, they didn't so much as show their noses while you were rotting in that cell. I suppose that was understandable at the time — nobody wants to get tangled up in treason." One careless move, and the entire family might have vanished along with him. But things were different now. And yet there had still been no contact whatsoever. "So they've decided to write off one son entirely, then?" "Your Highness!"
Laios cried out involuntarily at Cantares's mischievously blunt remark. But Arendt himself merely shrugged as if it were nothing. "It would seem that way, yes." "......Well, now that one scruffy little fox has stepped in, things might change. You know what kind of man Count Eckhart is better than I do, but..." Apparently displeased that his deliberately well-aimed jab had landed so flat, Cantares grimaced and went on. "Even a man who turns his back on a scoundrel of a son wouldn't turn his back on the profits that son might bring him. What do you think?" "If Your Highness says so, then I suppose it must be so." Astonishing words flew back and forth with the boy's own father sitting at the center of them. Laios looked as though he wanted to add something, but in the end he simply shut his mouth. Cantares, feigning ignorance, changed the subject entirely. "So what's the plan from here? Am I just meant to sit back and watch for a while?" "For now, yes. It isn't my turn yet, so Your Highness need only observe as well." The one who had to make the next move was neither Arendt nor the Crown Prince — it was Marquis Lanford. "I'm rather looking forward to it. Seeing how that one plays his hand." The words came out startlingly light. The youthful profile beside them gave nothing away — utterly, impenetrably indifferent, as if no thought could ever be read there at all.