The Eccentrics of Winterhome (1)
Once Catherine finished her meal, it was Mary's turn.
Mary had been repeatedly scooping pasta and sauce into her own bowl and emptying it; when she had greedily polished off every last scrap of what remained, she gathered up all the dishes and left the office.
Catherine and Karem vacated the office as well. Master and servant headed for the main keep of Winterhome together with Gordon.
"By the way, didn't you say there was a mountain of work piled up?"
Gordon tipped his head and looked down at Catherine on his right. He still clearly remembered the stacks of documents that had towered like peaks and hills, packing the Highest Magic Advisor's office without a single gap.
"Ugh, just thinking about how many papers there are makes my skin crawl. How do those high-and-mighty types get through that much work every single day?"
"Well, that mess in the office is because I've opened up so many projects lately."
"How do you end up with that much work in a single year?"
"Yeah. Normally it's a lot smaller than that."
"Fair enough. If you had to clear that pile every day—ugh. Gives me the creeps just imagining it."
Catherine turned with a look that said Look at this guy and gave Gordon's side a couple of light pats.
"And this is work that's waiting for you, too."
"Me?"
"That's right. By next spring you'll be buried under a mountain of parchment yourself."
"Why?"
"Isn't it obvious? While the lord of the territory was gone, the papers have been stacking up in a corner of Winterhome, just waiting for their rightful owner to show up."
You're dead. Catherine muttered with a short snort of laughter.
"Besides, you said the territory was devastated, didn't you?"
Catherine herself had never imagined that the Grizzly Beaver pack, shattered in the opening clash at the Blackwood lumber mill, would somehow make it all the way to Bolton territory.
"Territory inspection, facility status checks and classification, the budgets and resource lists those require—plus all the little problems on top of that. I'd say it'll come to about half the parchment mountain I faced last year?"
"What? Lady Atanitas? Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration?"
"Well, fine. Half of that, then."
"I'm finished."
Karem looked up at Gordon and clapped his palms together once, offering a silent prayer for the man's soul. No matter how he looked at it, that man did not seem like someone who would ever get along with paperwork.
"Hey—whatever that gesture is, are you already praying for a living man's soul? What the hell?"
"Have you ever seen Lady Atanitas at work?"
"Saw it once. No wonder she's a grand mage."
Gordon stuck out his tongue and waved a hand. He had thought she spent her days playing around and doing research; turns out her work speed was simply insane and she just saved it all up for later.
"Wait a second. If she processes work that fast, then what were the forests and mountains of documents on the table?"
At last Gordon began to grasp the situation. Catherine delivered the sentence.
"For reference, from last autumn until early spring I had no choice but to pull all-nighters and overtime."
"And there was a stretch of about four nights in a row without sleep, right?"
"Whoa. I've pulled all-nighters for research for about four days myself, but past that I couldn't keep my head straight."
"She said she would rest a little and then slept the entire day."
Karem chimed in with Catherine's words, dredging up memories that were not exactly fond. With every additional detail, Gordon's face grew paler.
Catherine did not speak lightly. The same went for her attendant Karem, whom Gordon had watched all this time.
No way—I have to handle that much work? Hell, the only parchment I've ever touched is a handful of request forms and a monster encyclopedia!
Gordon was simply not friends with anything called "paper." Yet he had seen any number of nobles up close and knew their culture. Just then a servant passed within his line of sight. Catherine beckoned the man over.
"Baron Bolton wishes an audience with Young Master Godwin. Do you know where he might be?"
"At this hour he should be in the family's private training hall inside the main keep."
The Highest Magic Advisor and the Baron of Bolton. Caught off guard by the summons of such high personages, the servant hastily straightened his clothes and answered with a smile.
"Hm? There's a private training hall inside the keep as well as the outdoor drill ground?"
"Yes. It is not for full-scale training—more a place to loosen the body lightly during the workday."
"The castle is large enough to have a place like that, I suppose."
But Gordon, the one who actually needed to meet Young Master Godwin, was realizing something else. If he could not finish the work alone, he could simply hire people to dump it on. That would leave the hiring itself, yet Gordon felt not the slightest worry. He already had a career professional on hand: a fallen-noble former bookkeeper, the steward Robelio. Once he tossed the work over, the man would hire the necessary help on his own, wouldn't he?
While Gordon was lost in thoughts of foisting future work onto someone else, Karem grabbed hold of his belt and followed the servant and Catherine.
"Is it common to have a training hall inside the castle as well as outdoors?"
"I cannot speak for other lords' castles, but Winterhome has always been so vast that a training hall was prepared long ago for knights who have no time to visit the outdoor grounds."
"True enough. Knights are the sort who get antsy if they don't move their bodies for even a single day."
Knights, the living symbols of martial power. Simply charging the enemy and sticking a sword in them was the business of landless knights drawing a salary from their liege; those who held their own territory and manor lived differently. Having land to rule meant, in the end, having to wrestle with parchment. Even when they left their fiefs to stay at Winterhome, certain documents still required the knight's personal attention, and it was not rare for a man to be buried under a mountain of paper for long stretches without moving his body. The inner-keep training hall existed for those knights, and the family's private hall was for the members of House Felwinter themselves.
"This must be the training hall."
"Shall I announce you?"
"If you would."
The moment the servant brought word that they might enter, the party stepped straight into the hall. Though it lay inside the castle, the doorless space was generously proportioned, floored with hard stone, and racks of practice weapons stood along the walls and floor.
"Atanitas. Karem. And Sir Stark as well."
Unlike his attendant Victor, Godwin lay spread-eagled on the floor; he raised a limp arm toward his guests.
"Young Master. That is undignified. Please stand and receive them properly."
"My arms and legs have no strength—how am I supposed to stand?"
"Forgive us. Lady Atanitas, Sir, and Karem. The young master was simply loosening his body before proper exercise."
Sprawled bonelessly on the floor, soaked in sweat, he certainly looked the part. One had to wonder just how brutal a warm-up must have been to leave him looking like a strand of seaweed washed ashore.
"What on earth did he do for a warm-up to end up like that?"
"Oh, nothing special. Just some light jumping jacks and running."
"Enough to leave him drenched in sweat?"
"The price of yielding to temptation."
"Temptation?"
"Pfft. He ate two whole fried chickens. He should have shown a little restraint."
Victor gave a short, incredulous laugh. Ah—so that was it. Karem understood the entire situation in an instant.
Godwin, still trembling where he lay, lifted his head with an expression of deadly seriousness.
"But I have no regrets whatsoever...!"
"Well, you do know the price has to be paid with your body, Young Master."
"It was worth every bit of the cost."
"So he says."
Victor lightly brushed aside Catherine's dubious look.
"So then, Lady Atanitas and Baron Bolton—what brings the two of you here?"
"Ah, nothing much. This fellow here felt too guilty about loafing around until spring, so he's poking about looking for something to do."
"...Excuse me?"
This time the dubious look came from the other side; Gordon clapped a hand to his forehead without thinking.
"Could you at least dress it up with some decent-sounding words?"
"Hmm. Not really my style."
"Even if it isn't your style—"
"I talk the same way to my liege lord."
"Shouldn't that at least get some packaging?!"
Karem caught the startled Gordon by the arm and shook his head.
"Don't bother trying to stop her. She's worse than I am."
"At least she uses honorifics and polite speech with the Duke and Duchess. With everyone else it's hopeless."
"And that's allowed?"
"Nothing's gone wrong so far, so..."
Probably? Karem shrugged. Gordon stared at him with a look of pure disbelief, then shook his head hard and turned to Victor. I didn't hear any of that.
"So, about Young Master Godwin's sword—"
"...I accept."
"—smanship instructor—Young Master?"
"Excellent. We start right now!"
Godwin's body, which had been lying like a corpse, sprang upright as if life had suddenly returned to it.
"Young Master, you shouldn't agree so hastily without even knowing what proposal—"
"Come on, once the sentence got that far it was obvious."
"Even so, one should hear a person out to the end—"
"Sir Churchill, who used to be the swordsmanship instructor, already ran off to the subjugation force complaining that teaching was not his calling. Now a Sword Master is offering to take the post—of course this side welcomes it with open arms."
"Haa. Then let us at least compromise on a temporary appointment until Sir Churchill returns. After all, the official instructor is still Sir Churchill."
"That would keep any awkward talk from cropping up later."
"If the man himself is fine with it, then that is how we shall do it."
The conversation raced ahead; before anyone quite realized it, Gordon had left Catherine and Karem behind and formed a little sword-obsessed circle with Victor and the similarly named Godwin.
Karem, however, latched onto a different part of the exchange.
"...Giant Churchill was whose swordsmanship instructor?"
Unbidden, Karem pictured the man who had been the very incarnation of rugged masculinity—or, to put it another way, the living embodiment of the word "brute."
'You dare try to force your opinion on me with only this much persuasive power!!!!!'
'Sitting in a territory scribbling on parchment is not my calling.'
'Monsters! I'll tear your throats out! What color is your blood?!'
'We'll have to buy time. Fine! Shout the cry of victory!'
The man who leapt like a cannonball and hit with the same force. The strength to lift a charging heavy cavalryman with bare hands and smash him into the ground. The appetite that single-handedly devoured an entire Fool's Golden Loaf meant for a whole squad of fools.
"That... ahem. That gentleman was whose sword instructor?"
"Well, it's news to me too. Even if he is an eccentric among eccentrics who threw away a title because scribbling on parchment was too much trouble and only cares about brawling—he is still a Sword Master."
"So his skill is solid regardless of the antics?"
"And the reason he joined the subjugation force...?"
"Officially he was appointed overall commander of the force by the lord's order, but—"
Hearing Godwin's words, Catherine and Karem both understood exactly what must have happened at the time. Among all the assorted people in the rescue force, if the man who was supposed to be overall commander abandoned the chain of command and charged into the fray for the sole purpose of a fight that spilled blood and sweat, you did not need to see him to know exactly what sort of specimen he was.
The real puzzle was that if such a man had been inside the castle, some kind of uproar should have broken out—yet no particular talk had ever come out of the place...
While master and servant were lost in the same question, someone approached.
"Ahem. Forgive the interruption, Highest Magic Advisor."
"Hm? Ah. The servant from a moment ago."
It was the same servant who had guided Catherine and her party to the training hall earlier.
"His Grace the Duke of Iceland wishes to see the Highest Magic Advisor."
"Hmm? When should I present myself?"
"He asks to see you at once."
"At once?"
Catherine tilted her head slightly. No appointment, and he wanted to meet right now? Between magic tools, magical counsel, cold-weather potions, the progress of the vanilla venture, and more—there were honestly too many possibilities for her to guess which one it was.
"I will go immediately."
"Yes. I shall escort you to the office."
"Kid. Come with me. As for the mercenary..."
Catherine glanced toward the three men in the training hall. Gordon had already formed an even tighter circle with Victor and Godwin, deep in discussion of Godwin's training regimen.
"Leave him."
"Yes, ma'am."
Karem followed Catherine out of the training hall, leaving the three men behind.
"Lady Atanitas."
"What is it, kid?"
"Gordon has a title now. Shouldn't we change how we address him?"
"When every last drop of mercenary has been wrung out of him."
"Hmm."
Karem knew by pure instinct that that day was still a long way off.