Incomplete - 1
I could say nothing in the face of the family head’s bombshell declaration. By every scrap of common sense and experience I possessed, the family head belonged among those who—however startled by this bestowal of a title—ought to have been glad.
Of course, during the last winter break while I stayed in the fief, I had confirmed that he was not quite so coldly rational as I had assumed; that he showed a warmer side toward Mother, and other unexpected traits. Even so, this particular remark could not be dismissed with a simple “unexpected.”
For nearly three hundred years the family had served as the Imperial Household’s faithful limbs—an Imperial Count house. The Count of Tailglehen had not been among the original Imperial Counts appointed by Emperor Eimanka the Great, yet he had still been named an Imperial Count under that emperor’s son, Eimanka II: a lineage of long and loyal service.
“You have already fulfilled devotion and duty more than enough. No one may demand any further sacrifice of you.”
And that loyal retainer had just spoken words that discouraged loyalty—to the very heir who was meant to succeed him as Imperial Count.
What is this?
I was thrown into confusion. I had never once imagined something like this might happen. Was he testing me? Had he received an order to check whether I harbored any discontent?
Neither the Emperor nor the family head was the sort of amateur who would probe so bluntly and openly—yet the chance that he was testing me still seemed higher than the chance that he was genuinely discouraging loyalty.
“There’s no need to overthink it. I’m speaking as family head to my heir.”
Perhaps noticing my turmoil, the family head said it quietly.
No—hearing that only drove me further up the wall. So it wasn’t a test; he meant it?
“…I’m grateful for the words, but I do not regard it as sacrifice. As a noble of the Empire, is it not an honor to answer His Majesty’s call and take the field?”
In the end, after turning it over and over, I produced a thoroughly ordinary, ceremonial reply. When you have no idea what to say, the safe answer is the obvious one.
“No. It is sacrifice.”
Yet the family head seemed determined; he detonated another bomb.
“The Audit Department, which ought to oversee domestic affairs, headed north. You—who are nothing more than a bureaucrat, not a knight—swung a sword on the front lines. You killed a rebel against Heaven who had threatened the Empire and the Mandate. If that is not sacrifice, then what is?”
Having spoken, he closed his eyes in silence. At the same time his brow knit faintly, as though he were dredging up a memory he would rather leave buried.
“The Crassius family has always been loyal. Our ancestors strove to repay the Imperial Household’s grace, and that repayment always bore fruit. No one ever neglected duty or devotion.”
I knew that. Was that history of loyalty not the very thing the family head had always taken pride in, the thing he had forever impressed upon Erich and me?
Which only made it harder to understand. Why would the family head who had always cried “loyalty, loyalty, still greater loyalty” now turn around like this?
“And you and I likewise did our utmost. The Crassius family has repaid the Imperial Household more than we ever received.”
At that resolute statement I shut my mouth again.
Karl’s expression was thick with bewilderment. I understood. The words I had just spoken stood in direct contradiction to the mindset I had drilled into Karl and Erich all this time.
Yet they were words I had to say. Rather than send this boy—who was only just beginning to regain his footing—back onto a battlefield, it was right that I reverse my own teachings.
It was loyalty born of necessity.
From the beginning the relationship between the Imperial Household and the Imperial Count houses had begun as a contract. In the early days of the founding, the Imperial Household needed direct vassals to shore up an extremely unstable imperial authority; the founders of the Imperial Count houses—many of them common-born—took the Imperial hand for the sake of a foothold in politics. That was the start of three hundred years of loyalty.
Of course by the present day both the Imperial Household and the Imperial Counts stood on firm ground, so the Imperial Household had no reason to cast the Counts aside, nor the Counts any reason to break free. On the contrary, unilaterally severing a relationship that had lasted three centuries would earn them the reputation, among other houses, of “an untrustworthy partner who would discard even a three-hundred-year bond.”
Thus the bond between Imperial Household and Imperial Count was a contract, yet a firm one; firm, yet still a contract. They stayed together because parting would cost them both, because loyalty brought advantage.
It is not a relationship I will continue at the price of abandoning you.
I wanted to say it, yet I could not bring myself to open my mouth. What face did a father who had been of no help his entire life have to utter such words?
I had no right to voice concern for Karl. I could only point out the answer he ought to choose.
“So there is no need to overreach. If you simply decline the title, His Majesty will not force you to move.”
Half of it was wishful thinking, yet the other half still held real possibility.
His Majesty had already stretched himself somewhat for the sake of opening this war. If Karl—an administrative official of high rank—refused the title itself under a plausible pretext, His Majesty would find it awkward to take further measures.
In that case the Crassius family would have to fill Karl’s absence, but that much I would gladly do. Rather than shove my son into war, it was right to expend the family’s strength.
“You’re no longer alone, either.”
After a brief hesitation I added it carefully.
Yes—Karl was no longer alone. In the last war he had lost comrades, lost a lover, and been left alone; yet fortunately he had been able to form new bonds. He had begun, little by little, to set down the wounds he had carried by himself.
I could not send that boy back into the hell where he had lost everything. It was something I could not do to him, nor to the new ties he had forged.
“Family Head.”
Karl, who had kept his silence, finally opened his mouth at my words.
Yet it was not a particularly good sign. The emotion that appeared on Karl’s face was neither confusion nor bewilderment, but something else.
“I am grateful for the advice.”
A resolve that could never have shown if he had simply decided to follow my proposal.
“I know that our ancestors repaid the Imperial Household’s grace splendidly. I believe neither you, Family Head, nor I myself fell short.”
I nearly sighed. On the surface he was agreeing with me, yet very few nobles led with the main point. The present agreement was nothing more than a ceremonial concession for the other party’s face before he stated his own will.
“Therefore your words that we need make no further sacrifice may well be correct—yet I sincerely do not regard it as sacrifice.”
Exactly like this, right now.
“I must go north not for devotion or duty, but for myself. There is a knot there that I must untie with my own hands.”
“Must you go in person? His Majesty does not take this northern expedition lightly in the least. Countless soldiers will march north; valiant knights and mages will stand at their head. The rebel who styles himself Khan will ultimately fall before the Empire’s blade.”
I tried once more to persuade him. If Karl refused and I simply said “very well” and let it pass, I would never have opened my mouth at all. I was reversing every teaching I had given until now precisely because I was determined to pull him free.
Moreover this northern expedition was not so shoddily prepared that Karl’s absence would create any difficulty. His Majesty would once again appoint the Duke of Victory as commander of the expeditionary force and would mobilize innumerable marshals and corps commanders. In sheer scale it would not be lacking even compared to the previous war.
That vast expeditionary army would advance with or without Karl. Of that I was certain.
“I know. Since His Majesty has personally declared the conquest of the north, loyal nobles will unite as one and follow. Even if I do not go, the Empire will be fully capable of victory.”
“Then why—”
“Because a victory without me is meaningless.”
At that resolute answer my body stiffened for a moment.
A victory without himself was meaningless? Did he want to inscribe his name upon a historical moment? He was not a child with that sort of hunger for glory. Or was it lingering confidence that he alone could topple the north? No—that was not it either.
“I must end with my own hands the catastrophe I failed to finish three years ago—the one that claimed countless sacrifices yet still remained incomplete. That is the duty I must perform, I who failed even to die alone.”
These were no ordinary words. Words I still could not understand. Why would this boy—who had all but ended that war—speak of duty?
And that he had failed to die alone—what in the world did that—
…It hasn’t even begun to heal, has it.
I understood belatedly. I understood what heart Karl carried when he wished to take the field.
“It is not your fault.”
When I said so, Karl’s eyes widened—as though he had heard something unexpected.
“It was a sorrowful affair. Truly a tragedy. But it is certainly not something for which you must bear guilt.”
Karl was silent a moment, then offered a faint smile and said quietly:
“That is what I think.”
An answer that left me unable to guarantee how deeply the rot inside him had spread.
I stared blankly at the place where the family head had been.
I was a little—no, a great deal—surprised. I had never imagined I would hear such words from him.
“And you and I likewise did our utmost. The Crassius family has repaid the Imperial Household more than we ever received.”
“You’re no longer alone, either.”
“It is not your fault.”
Ha.
I felt a hollow laugh rising. Having felt the family head’s sincerity so keenly, how could I remain unmoved?
I had always thought of him as a man who placed the family’s prosperity, loyalty toward the Imperial Household, and the glory of the Empire above all else. Because of the memories this body carried, and because the family head I had seen after possessing it was so similar to those memories, I had naturally assumed as much. I had felt neither the urge nor the need to check whether I might be mistaken.
I had simply decided from the outset that the family head was that sort of person. And because I was not true family to begin with, I had thought I need not care what disposition he possessed.
Did I simply want to think of it that way?
In truth the prejudice that the family head was cold and unfeeling had already been shattered last winter. A man who willingly turned into a treasure goblin over gifts from his prospective daughters-in-law, who went fishing behind his wife’s back and got thoroughly fleeced for it—how could anyone call such a person mechanical?
Perhaps I could have noticed even at last year’s memorial gathering. Back then, when he had advised Erich not to rush ahead but to train with composure. If I had thought more deeply at the time, I might have grasped the family head’s true feelings long ago.
But I had not. I had covered my own eyes and closed my heart. I had made no effort to learn more about him.
Because if the family head were a good person, then I would be the bastard who stole a son from a good father.
I had lacked the courage to reach that conclusion. Now I had arrived at a place where I could no longer deny it.
“It was a sorrowful affair. Truly a tragedy. But it is certainly not something for which you must bear guilt.”
“I’m going crazy.”
As the family head’s words rose again in my mind, I muttered to myself.
At any rate, hearing such things from my biological father made my heart go weak for no good reason. I couldn’t afford that.
…Maybe I should get some air.
With a sigh I rose from my seat.
Before heading north, there was a place I absolutely had to visit.