Though Different From Back Then
I hesitated for a moment at the sight of that beast of a minister who knew neither grace nor debt. But there was no taking it back now. I had already spoken with Mar and the rest of the family, and everyone had agreed it would be for the best.
And even I was reluctant to ask this favor of anyone else. No matter how thoroughly he possessed the personality of a wild animal, it had to be him—or no one at all.
...Thinking about it that way only made me more hesitant. Not the heart of a beast, but the personality of one.
Forget it.
I stopped thinking. It wasn't as though I had lived my life unaware of how colorful the Minister's character was.
"It's nothing strange, so just sit down and listen comfortably. It's not as if the two of us came only for one of us to go home alone."
"Would you believe that if it were you?"
His blunt question left me momentarily speechless.
If I suddenly received a dinner invitation from the Minister and he wore the look of a man who had something to say? Even if he insisted it wasn't anything odd, would I simply go, "Ah, I see," and let it slide?
Not a chance.
I conceded the point. If it had been me, I would have done the same—
"Still, I suppose a newlywed wouldn't say anything strange in front of his wife."
The Minister hammered me with a merciless fact, then smirked and folded his arms.
Damn old man. He was going to listen anyway, yet he still had to be difficult about it.
From the moment I received that sudden dinner invitation, I had guessed he wanted some kind of favor.
This was the same man who used to shout that sharing a table with his superior ruined his appetite. Even when we were both at the Ministry of Finance building, he would eat separately whenever he could manage it. And now he was inviting me to his precious mansion, where a newborn baby was waiting? That made no sense. I had known the bastard far too long to believe it was an ordinary invitation with nothing attached.
But while I could guess there was something, figuring out more than that proved difficult.
It's not as if he's the type who needs to ask me for favors.
Not that he was beneath me and therefore had no right to ask. Rather, he was my equal or better, so he had no reason to come begging to me.
Honestly, if that guy needed something, he could obtain it on his own or through the various connections he had tangled himself in. No matter that I was the Minister of Finance, that title was not nobler than a duke's.
What is it?
What the hell was it? What favor required arranging a place like this?
By this point I was starting to feel uneasy. Wasn't this the same man who had made me grab the back of my neck countless times since our days in the Audit Department? And now that he had become a minister (designate) on the same level as me, I dreaded how far beyond common sense—and into the realm of the truly horrific—his schemes might go.
Of course, if anyone asked whether I would take him back as a subordinate, I would refuse. Nothing was more petty than taking something away only to return it later.
"Well, you see."
Karl scratched the back of his head under my stare, cleared his throat lightly, and continued.
"Pedi will be receiving his baptism soon, and a baptism without a godfather feels a bit off. So I've been trying to choose a godfather for Pedi..."
The way he awkwardly looked this way and that was deeply irritating. As if he were the type to care about other people's opinions or possess a normal conscience—what was he doing now?
"Would you... take on the role of Pedi's godfather?"
"...Huh?"
At those following words, my body froze solid. It was true that even for him, this was not something he could say with complete confidence.
"I mean, honestly, Your Excellency is the only person I can make this request to. Asking His Grace the Duke of Victory is out of the question—I'm already the godfather to his granddaughter. And if I were going to entrust the role to family, there would be no need to appoint a godfather at all. Your Excellency has the right age and the right degree of acquaintance—"
Sensing my silence as a sign of refusal, Karl began to ramble.
Sorry, but I could barely hear him. After dropping a bomb like that, no matter how much he opened his mouth, how could the words register properly?
"Karl. Is that any way for someone making a request to behave?"
"Ah, yeah. Sorry."
I couldn't even watch the Countess scolding him with a smile. Ordinarily I would have mocked him for being completely under his wife's thumb.
I was confused. The fact that this man was talking about godfathers with me, the fact that I was truly feeling he had a child now—
"Please, Your Excellency. There's no one else I can trust but you."
—and the fact that this man was bowing his head to ask me a favor. All of it.
"You sure you want to leave it to me? You might regret it."
I barely collected myself and forced the words out as if nothing were wrong. Could he really entrust his first child's godfather role to someone like me, with whom he had traded every curse in the book and traded blows? Could he really trust a man like me?
"To be honest, I'm not the type to have a good influence on a kid."
"I know that well enough. I'm the kid who grew up under that bad influence, after all."
This bastard couldn't even stop with the one-liners at a time like this.
"But that's exactly why I'm entrusting it to you, Your Excellency. The Your Excellency I know may be a bit rough around the edges, but he always fulfills his duties."
The way he said such embarrassing words without changing his expression even once left me the one feeling embarrassed. Fulfills his duties? Had I been working with some other man this entire time?
"So I believe you'll fulfill this duty as well. We made a promise, after all."
But those words hit me like a blow to the back of the head.
A promise. A promise, he said.
He remembered it.
I had thought it was a memory only this old man still held onto.
"You little shit, that's not the same as the promise I remember."
I suppressed the surge of emotion and let out a short laugh.
"If it's just the two of us, there's no one else who can call us out on it."
And at that insane reply, I truly burst out laughing.
Yeah, you damn bastard. If you're going to go that far, I have to accept.
"Tell me when the baptism date is set."
Because that was the promise.
On the way back to the mansion with my wife.
"My lady."
"Yes, what is it?"
"There's a place I'd like to stop by for a moment. Would you mind going on ahead?"
At that, my wife stared at me intently, then smiled softly.
"It's all right if we're a little late today."
"Thank you, my lady."
Grateful for her consideration in not asking anything, I shared a light embrace and turned away. It was a bit ridiculous for the two of us to have come out only for my wife to return alone, but if I did not go see those guys now, I felt I would regret it.
Damn bastard. They say even an immature man changes once he marries and has a child. So why hadn't that sly, shameless man changed a bit even after having a kid?
"You lot should've seen the look on that guy's face."
I muttered as much when I finally arrived, alone and trudging, before the gravestones.
Gerard, Oliver, Drake, Walter, Idrid, Hecate. The ones I had been forced to send off without fulfilling my duties, contrary to what Karl had said. The cheeky bastards who had gone ahead of their senior.
"So I believe you'll fulfill this duty as well. We made a promise, after all."
And the ones who had shared the promise Karl had brought up.
"Still saying weird things, that one. Suddenly dredging up a promise from so long ago."
I brushed the fallen leaves from the gravestones and let out a laugh.
Those days of the northern campaign were still as vivid as if they had been yesterday. When those guys realized Karl and Hecate had become lovers, they had poured out all sorts of teasing and congratulations: get married the moment the war ends, three kids should be about right, make the wedding feast lavish, and so on.
"The first kid's godfather is definitely me."
I had chimed in with a line of my own amid it all.
"No, hang on. Do you want to ruin the kid's personality?"
"You little shit. A count is personally offering to be godfather and you're turning it down?"
"If it's my first child, that'll be the next Imperial Count. What's a regular count matter?"
At first Karl had fiercely objected, but the more he objected, the happier the five nearby became.
"Direct superior and godfather? Whoa, that's too good to pass up."
"If it were me, I'd invent a kid I don't have just to ask."
"Chief. If I have a kid too, can I ask you to be godfather?"
"Talk after you've at least held a girl's hand."
"Fuck."
As the mood gradually shifted toward "the first kid's godfather is definitely the Chief," Karl had grown visibly flustered. Even Hecate had seemed quietly pleased, so he could not hold out.
"In exchange, take those bastards' first kids as godsons or goddaughters too!"
"Pathetic, you bastard."
His last-ditch effort had been to throw out a group condition, as if he could not die alone.
Anyway, that was how it had been. Two of my direct subordinates were getting married, so I was going to be their child's godfather, and since it would not feel right if it was only one, I was going to serve as godfather for the others' children as well if they ever had any. In the end, except for Karl, they had all died and the promise had vanished.
Yes, it had definitely been a vanished promise. A promise left only as a faint memory.
I thought I was the only one... who still remembered.
With the hand that had been brushing away leaves, I caressed Hecate's gravestone.
He had been half-mad after Hecate died, and only now had he found new love and stood back up. I had not expected him to still remember a promise that let him reminisce about the past. I certainly had not expected him to be the one to bring it up first.
But we were beginning to share that old promise once more. Even if it was different from the original promise, even if the ones who had shared it were gone.
We'll just remember it anew, the two of us.
Anyway, it was still my subordinate's child.
It was still Karl's child.
"If you're watching, celebrate for us. This is how we're living."
I carefully lifted my head to look up at the sky. If I was speaking to those guys who were somewhere up there, I should at least raise my head.
Hm.
But before long, I lowered my head again.
Maybe it was because I was getting old, but I had grown embarrassingly quick to tears.
"Hey, Karl."
"Hm?"
"What was that promise you mentioned earlier?"
"Ah, that."
I smiled slightly at Mar, who was asking while cradling Pedi in her arms.
"A few years ago, His Excellency the Minister proposed it first. That if I had my first child, he would be the godfather. It seemed like he'd forgotten, so I brought it up first."
"That was an incredibly heavy promise."
"Right? He must be getting forgetful in his old age."
I snickered and carefully stroked Pedi's cheek.
As Mar said, that promise had been a heavy one. After all, it was a promise made with no fewer than eight counts gathered in one place.
Me as Imperial Count, the Minister as a regular count, and those guys as Ribnoman Counts—eight in total. Looking back now, it was truly a dazzling lineup.
"Well, the way he picked up on it the moment I said 'promise' means he hadn't completely forgotten."
"Hehe, maybe he was just pretending not to know because he was embarrassed?"
For a moment, the hand stroking Pedi stopped.
Embarrassed...?
Even if it was Mar saying it, that was hard to agree with.
That old man getting embarrassed in front of me? The odds of that were about the same as him crying stone-cold sober out on the street.
Damn.
I suddenly felt uneasy. What if he had really forgotten? Then had I been the only one who was sincere?
Thinking that made me feel terribly lonely.