Has the Break Really Been This Long? - 2
Quite apart from any suspicions of espionage, the guests were people whose status could not be taken lightly—a prince of another nation and a candidate for sainthood. With His Highness the Third Prince also remaining at the lord’s castle, my wife’s burden must have been beyond anything words could express.
Guests of that caliber had no business ever coming to the County of Tailglehen in the first place. Even if they did, they should have arrived only at the invitation of the territory’s master—myself. By forcing my wife to shoulder the weight and responsibility of hostess, I had left her under a strain that left me far from easy in my mind.
Fortunately, His Majesty had ordered that they be sent back at a suitable time. My wife would finally be able to rest easy.
“Send them… back, you say?”
“Yes. Holding such distinguished guests here any longer would be discourteous. They would be better off in the Imperial Capital than in a mere county.”
I delivered the news to her myself. Her eyes widened, startled by the sudden announcement.
“You have worked hard all this time, my lady.”
“Billy. Are Karl and Erich returning as well?”
“Of course. Erich is a companion to the guests, and Karl is busy with his duties.”
She nodded at the obvious answer. This was no ordinary post; the boy held the Audit Department and enjoyed the trust of both His Majesty the Emperor and His Highness the Crown Prince. Keeping him tied down in the territory until now already felt like an imposition.
Moreover, Count Horpfelt had only just been replaced two days ago. When a member of the Imperial Diet changed, the Audit Department inevitably moved. At this rate Karl ought to be packed off to the capital before the guests even finished packing their own bags.
“Karl should leave today, even if—”
“No.”
My wife cut me off.
I was a little surprised. A woman who prized noble dignity and decorum above all else had interrupted someone else’s words. She must have had her reasons, of course.
“Not yet. Not yet. I cannot send him back.”
“His Majesty and the Empire place great expectations on that boy. He is our son, but he is also a servant of the Empire. He must go where he is needed.”
“The place Karl needs to be is here.”
“My lady.”
Her rare stubbornness felt unfamiliar, yet the sharp light in her eyes reminded me of the woman I had married, and I found myself oddly glad to see it.
Still, there was no help for it. I could not let personal nostalgia make me neglect the affairs of the realm. I would simply have to persuade her carefully.
“I have only just found a girl who can be with Karl.”
That remark, however, I could not let pass.
“My lady, what do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. I have found a girl who suits Karl as a match.”
“Send them back at once.”
It seemed my wife had been busy with something strange while I was not looking. A match? What on earth was she talking about?
I shook my head firmly and tried to stop her. This was not something we had any right to interfere with.
I did not blame her. The fault was mine for failing to grasp what she was doing, and for never explaining things properly to her.
“Billy!”
Thinking it would be faster to speak to Karl myself, I turned to leave. My wife’s raised voice rang out, and something yanked at me.
I spun around at once and froze. Her face was flushed crimson, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as she glared at me.
“He can finally—finally laugh with that girl! Are you going to snatch my child away from me a second time!?”
“My lady, what are you—”
After that I could not get a proper word out, because she had seized me by the collar.
Only after I promised that the guests would leave in a few days and that Karl would leave with them was I released from her grip. His Majesty had said “at a suitable time,” after all—not “this very moment.”
“My lord.”
“I’m fine.”
On the way back to the office the head butler eyed me awkwardly. My appearance must indeed have been a sight.
“I will not yield this time! If you send Karl back without a word to me, I will return to my parents’ house myself!”
I had never known my wife could be so fierce. Even though I had left the army after becoming an Imperial Count, I had still seen combat as recently as two years ago. Being grabbed by the collar so one-sidedly should not have been possible.
I waved the butler off and stepped into the office.
A match, is it.
Something unexpected had arisen. Ever since I told her to handle the marriage talks as she saw fit, my wife had never once involved herself in Karl’s prospects. And now, suddenly, a match?
As if that boy had any room in his life to form one. He had already lost the person he held in his heart. He had already sent her away.
“Where did everything start to go wrong…”
I let out a long breath thick with frustration. The truth was I already knew. I knew perfectly well where the thread had begun to tangle. How could I not?
Four years ago, from the Great Subjugation War onward, something had twisted, and it had led us here.
“I hear the Audit Department is joining the war as well. The Fourth Division has arrived.”
“What nonsense is that? The Audit Department is supposed to handle domestic affairs.”
They were the Emperor’s sword, yet their charge was the interior of the Empire, not foreign lands. That was why I had placed my eldest son, Karl, in the Audit Department while I myself went to war. It was efficient, safe, and certain.
But the war took a strange turn, and the Audit Department was drawn into it. Karl, who had only just become a bureaucrat there, was sent north. It nearly drove me mad. What I wanted was a son who lived to serve the Empire—not a dead hero whose name would only grow after he was gone.
If someone had to die, it should have been the father. The previous generation sacrifices for the next; that is the way of the Crassius family. That was why I had placed the boy somewhere a little safer.
Thank the heavens he lived.
Whether the years of training had borne fruit or not, he not only survived until the war’s end but earned great distinction as well.
I had been right to train the children thoroughly. Right to train them without letting any emotion interfere.
I myself had grown up under my father’s disappointment. I had watched his expectations turn into disappointment, then anger, then indifference. The helplessness and self-loathing of those days had not been light.
So I never pressed the children with emotional weight. Through rigorous training free of deficiency I made certain they would not become failures like me. I never doubted that this was the path that would serve them best.
I simply never imagined they would have to prove it on a battlefield.
Thank the heavens he lived.
Truly, thank the heavens. The Audit Department had been a post meant to prove ability and loyalty, to gain experience. Who could have known that choice would return like this?
That was why I sent Erich not into office but to the Academy. If I had put him into the bureaucracy there was no guarantee the same thing that happened to Karl would not happen again. Gambling with a child’s life once was more than enough.
And if Erich too were to face war or anything like it, my wife would not be able to endure it. She had already fainted dead away upon hearing that Karl and I had gone to the front side by side.
At least Erich…
Karl and I had already rolled through the mud. Erich, at least, had to remain whole. And Erich, at least, must never meet the same tragedy Karl had.
Karl had found a match on a battlefield where anyone might die at any moment, and tragedy had followed. Erich, living at the Academy, would never face such a thing.
And my wife is meddling for no good reason.
The thought brought her words back to me. Karl’s match—this was not something we had any right to interfere with.
It was something the boy himself had to decide after shedding his own wounds. There must be no artificial hand in that process. The previous generation of Crassius are teachers who temper the next generation so they may walk forward on their own; they are never to become meddlers who interfere in their lives.
“He can finally laugh with that girl! Are you going to snatch my child away from me a second time!?”
Yet when I recalled my wife’s tearful cry, I found I had no heart to force the Crassius way upon her.
She bore the Crassius name now, but she had originally been of House Aras. Pushing the Crassius way too hard upon her would only create trouble.
She had already followed the Crassius method in raising the children. And that raising had ended once the children came of age. To demand more than that was greed.
Yes. From now on, we would do things the way she wished.
Once again I had been summoned by my mother. She had never called for me twice in a single day before.
What is it this time?
Mother preferred to keep quiet rather than waste words or gestures. If she called me out of the blue, there had to be a proper reason.
Still, calling me twice felt less efficient than calling me once and Erich once. Mother, do you have no interest in Erich at all?
The crime of being born the eldest, I suppose.
It felt rather like those holiday gatherings where every relative piles pressure on the eldest grandson about when he is getting married. As long as I remained single, Mother’s attention would never spill over to Erich.
Erich ought to be grateful. I cheer him on in a contest he has almost no chance of winning, and while the contest lasts I single-handedly draw all of Mother’s aggro. Where else will he find a brother like me?
If even after all this he still failed to end up with Luise, that would simply be the fate heaven had written for him.
“Mother.”
“You’re here. I’m sorry to call you again.”
“It’s all right. I had nothing to do anyway.”
In truth I had just been playing with documents alongside the head butler, but there was no need to mention that.
As I took my seat I noticed Mother’s eyes darting here and there. She looked somehow uneasy, almost restless.
I flicked a glance sideways. The head lady-in-waiting did not look particularly comfortable either. The subtle stiffness at the corners of her mouth suggested her mind was not at ease.
What is this about?
If she had looked like this on the first day we arrived at the territory I would have understood. Why now, all of a sudden?
“Karl.”
“Yes, Mother.”
After fussing with her teacup for a moment she finally spoke.
“I trust you will handle things well on your own, but you are past twenty now. Shouldn’t you at least be engaged?”
Ah. So that was the reason.
Even with Margeta sitting right beside her and applying pressure, I had refused to budge, so she had changed tactics and decided to speak directly.
Moments like this made me feel the sorrow of being the eldest son. If only I had had one older brother or sister above me.