A Letter Torn to Pieces

The meeting with Marquis Lanford had merely been the beginning.

After that, Arendt found himself constantly being summoned by the nobles.

Some, like Marquis Lanford, approached him slyly during patrols; others sent servants with invitations to share a cup of tea.

Arendt refused none of these requests, and Laios, for his part, saw no reason to rein in the man who wandered about as he pleased.

Naturally, the gazes directed at Arendt of the 3rd Knight Order, which had softened for a time, grew fierce once more. People had noticed that those he'd been meeting lately belonged to the faction opposed to the imperial family.

The one caught in the middle and driven to his wits' end was, of course, Arthur.

No one dared speak carelessly to Laios or Richt, and nobody actually wanted to strike up a conversation with Arendt, so the arrows of resentment naturally all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flew at Arthur.

Harassed by his seniors at every hour of the day, Arthur finally declared, half shoved out the door:

"Fine, I said fine! I'll keep an eye on him. So quit roasting me over the fire already!"

Honestly, Arthur couldn't help being concerned himself.

It wasn't that he suspected Arendt anew the way the other knights did, but there was clearly something the little bastard was scheming.

Waiting for his chance, Arthur probed him one morning in the training grounds, where the two of them happened to be alone, doing his best to sound casual.

"So what'd you talk about with Marquis Lanford?"

"Nothing much. Though from the look of it, I seemed to have caused some trouble for His Highness the Crown Prince, dragging him this way and that."

Arendt replied with a listless air, rolling his shoulders in circles.

"Dragging him? You? And not the other way around? Do you even have a conscience?"

"My conscience is alive and well, thank you. Well, I suppose that's how it looks to other people."

"I mean… fair enough."

Unless you'd experienced it firsthand, there was no imagining how a senior knight, a guild master, and even the Crown Prince himself all failed to keep that guy in line.

"What about the others?"

"Nobody said anything in particular."

"You've got a stomach of iron… I'd throw up if I so much as shared a single meal with those people."

Arthur grumbled with a sour expression, but Arendt only shrugged.

"It has its rewards. I pick up all sorts of things. There's plenty to learn."

"Rewards, you say?"

"Stay cooped up in the palace and there's plenty you miss out on, you know."

"Like what, for example?"

"Well… how high society operates, for one. For people who claim to be on the same side, they gossip about each other something fierce. Just sitting back and listening was pretty entertaining."

People who lived drunk on their own importance would spill their whole life story the moment you scratched their egos a little. There was no shortage of old-timers desperate to regale a young man with tales of their adventures.

More than half of what they spouted was self-congratulation, but there were a few genuinely useful tidbits mixed in.

Arthur's face twisted hard.

"You can't take this that lightly. Why do you think they keep calling you out? It's obvious they're trying to reel you in, so why do you keep flouncing around like a stray dog in heat?"

"I go because I know better, that's all. Who knows — maybe some crumbs will fall my way?"

"That's what you're going with? Right now there are dozens of people watching only you, looking for the smallest ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠excuse to pounce."

"So they can't take their eyes off me? Well, I am rather handsome."

"Argh, you—!"

Just as Arthur was about to explode, a presence stirred at the entrance to the training grounds.

Their conversation died a natural death.

"Sir Arendt? Are you there?"

"What now. What is it this time?"

There was Siton, craning up on his tiptoes and peering into the training grounds.

Arendt beckoned him closer with a wave of his hand.

Arthur, having missed his moment to blow up, clicked his tongue — tch — and scratched his head for no particular reason.

"Siton, was it? You've been showing up a lot lately. Switched shifts again?"

"Haha… yes, though I'm embarrassed to admit it."

Siton smiled bashfully at Arthur's question, then held out the letter he'd brought toward Arendt.

"Sir Arendt, I've brought you a letter!"

"You could have just left it in the barracks. Why haul it all the way here?"

"It was marked urgent, with instructions to deliver it to you personally, sir!"

Siton answered, his bright eyes sparkling.

Just as he said, the envelope bore a red URGENT stamp.

Arendt turned the letter over in his hands, examining it carefully front and back — then his eyes widened slightly.

"Huh?"

"What is it? …Huh?"

Arthur, peeking at the letter over Arendt's shoulder out of sheer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠curiosity, made an equally dumbstruck sound. He'd spotted the crest stamped clearly on the envelope — the coat of arms of the House of Eckhart.

"Wh-what? It's from your family?"

"Looks like it."

Arendt answered flatly as Arthur, blinking, asked in flustered surprise.

He broke the seal and unfolded the letter, and the faint scent of expensive ink teased the tip of his nose. The smooth, cream-tinted paper was, even at a glance, of the finest quality.

Arthur knew it was rude, but unable to resist his curiosity, he read the contents along with him.

And a moment later… Arthur's face contorted violently.

"What the hell is this? They leave you alone all this time and NOW they send this garbage?"

While the angry voice washed over him, Arendt simply blinked, expression blank.

The letter's contents were concise to the point of insult.

So that was the original setup for Arendt's character…

A pampered young lord raised in silk and gold in a wealthy noble house, despising commoners, eventually showing contempt even for Commander Laios, son of a fallen noble, and lording it over everyone however he pleased.

But apparently that hadn't been the whole of it.

Seems this Count fellow had a hand in ruining the kid's personality too.

Left to rot through life and death alike, and now, at long last, a single letter that read less like an invitation and more like a royal command. Even if his son had run wild and caused trouble beyond anyone's ability to manage, this was going too far.

So this is the card Marquis Lanford decided to play?

Arendt had roughly suspected as much ever since the man mentioned Count Eckhart.

Staring down at handwriting that carried not so much as a speck of familial affection, Arendt scratched at his bangs for no particular reason.

"Well, this is a nuisance."

"…Hey. What are you gonna do?"

Arthur asked carefully, watching him furtively.

Rather than answer, Arendt showed him.

Riiiip. Rip.

He tore the letter to shreds.

Arthur and Siton's jaws dropped open as they stared at the paper reduced, in an instant, to scraps no longer recognizable as a letter.

"Ah, ahh…"

"Hey, you lunatic! What the hell are you doing?!"

"Serves him right. I'm already busy to death, and he's sending ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me orders?"

Arthur, mid-tirade, went slack at the sound of Arendt's voice that followed. Thud.

Come to think of it, no one on earth could actually give that guy orders. Not the commander, not the Crown Prince — and it seemed even his own father made no real difference.

Arendt pressed the shredded letter into the hands of Siton, who was standing there dumbly.

"Here. Your reply."

"Y-yes? But…"

Siton, who had ended up clutching a fistful of paper scraps, wore a face on the verge of tears, but Arendt paid him no mind at all.

"Just throw it out. Or if you'd rather, stuff the pieces in a fresh envelope and send them to the House of Eckhart."

"Yeeees?!"

"Or spread a rumor. Tell people that Sir Arendt von Eckhart flew into a rage and tore up a letter sent by his own father, shredding it to ribbons."

And yet the expression on the face of the man claiming to have raged looked no different from usual. If anything, his calm face seemed to have cooled by a few degrees.

Siton, unable to go forward or back, practically fled the training grounds as if shoved from behind.

Arthur stared blankly after the boy's retreating back.

"This is gonna blow up all over again… Is this really okay? Seriously?"

"What else would be wrong with it? If he's got a problem, he can come here and say it himself."

Arendt shrugged with perfect composure and took a few steps back.

"Senior, since you're here anyway, how about a spar? I've been dragged all over the place lately — I haven't had a proper chance to loosen up."

"Haah… I swear, I will never understand you…"

Even as he heaved an enormous sigh, Arthur helplessly picked up a wooden sword and tossed it over to Arendt.

Shaky, yes — but all in all, it was a day not so very different from any other.

That afternoon, Arendt returned from a brief outing carrying a thick bundle of documents.

He shut himself straight in his room and, leaning back against the headboard of his bed, spread the papers open.

"Wasted half the day just finding the place."

He'd known that openly digging around about his father would only draw suspicious eyes, so he had gone through the information broker introduced by Guildmaster Neumann.

Worried someone might recognize him, he'd even gone to the trouble of pulling up a hood and swathing himself head to toe in a heavy cloak.

The reason he'd braved all that hassle was simple.

Because he might become a variable down the line.

Flipping open the file, Arendt gave it a rough skim. A simply sketched portrait filled the first page.

Don't look anything like me.

Unlike Arendt's fine, slender lines, the man had broad, solid shoulders. With reddish hair and gray eyes, he was a strikingly handsome man with bold features — and yet Arendt could hardly find a single trace of himself in that face.

The only things they might share, perhaps, were the cold impression and the stubborn set of a mouth pressed firmly shut.

The name was Spencer von Eckhart.

Title: Count.

He lived primarily on his own territory.

Because his lands sat directly along the route from the heart of the empire toward foreign soil, the Count had made a considerable fortune in the trade business.

Beneath that brief summary ran a long list of merchant guilds he was affiliated with, but Arendt simply skipped over them.

He had married young, but the Countess had died early, and apparently he had neither remarried nor shown interest in anything besides managing his domain since.

The eldest son had graduated from the academy and now worked at the Count's side, occasionally traveling to the capital in his father's stead.

So the one who came out to the palace was Arendt — in other words, me?

He seemed to have cultivated close ties with several nobles through trade dealings. With the imperial family, however, he'd clashed from time to time over import goods and trade routes, and the relationship was far from friendly.

Though not outright hostile, either.

And untangling the threads of the current imperial house and the nobility: the Emperor was still hale and whole, and there was exactly one heir to the throne — Cantares. The reason the nobles had splintered so badly despite that was the neutrality policy stubbornly maintained by both the previous emperor and the current one.

The empire had enjoyed continuous peace, and so it was hardly strange that the current emperor had left the nobles largely to their own devices. Until, one by one, their indulgence curdled into open abuse and problems began to surface.

That was when Cantares stepped forward.

When the Crown Prince suddenly seized power and began tightening the imperial authority, the nobles naturally pushed back.

And in the process, the factions split cleanly: those who styled themselves the Emperor's loyal vassals, and those who held their ground as watchers of — and rivals to — the imperial house.

Count Eckhart belongs to the latter.

Seen in that light, Arendt's entry into the imperial knight order carried a rather pointed significance.

Though, to be fair, there was nowhere better to sharpen a talent for swordsmanship than the imperial knight order, so maybe he was reading too much into it.

Arendt turned the problem over in his head for a moment — then shut the file with a decisive thump.

I'll find out soon enough.

There was no point in racking his brain now. Unless he saw it with his own eyes, everything remained mere speculation. First things first — he needed to grasp the situation precisely.

As he mulled it over, toying with the ends of his snow-white hair, the corner of Arendt's mouth curled up ever so slightly.

Still, in the unlikely worst case…

Sticking it to the hateful old man on behalf of his bratty little knight didn't sound like a bad way to spend an afternoon at all.