The Little Heartthrob
Putting off a meeting with the excuse of a packed schedule, or claiming arrival would run late, was the sort of move you saw all the time when people were jockeying for the upper hand.
Once you pressed that button, the side that postponed the conversation held a slight edge over the one who had to wait.
Catherine’s failure to meet Margrave Hadrianus, however, had nothing whatsoever to do with that kind of power play.
Even among the upper crust, the Felwinter family was famously close-knit by blood; the previous head of house had no reason to play mind games with his own son—even if he had flung title and territory at the boy and fled the scene.
“Surely not—”
“Oh, it is nothing of the sort, Duke Atanitas.”
As Catherine’s eyes narrowed, the steward hastily explained himself, looking thoroughly put out. The chicken he was eating rather spoiled the solemn effect.
“My lord stepped down of his own accord once he saw how capable the current Duke is. He would never delay a meeting with an honored guest like yourself over something so petty as a contest of wills.”
“…Then the Margrave is not presently at the fortress?”
“You are as sharp as the rumors say.”
The steward’s face relaxed a fraction as he nodded.
“His Lordship the Margrave has gone out on a show-of-force reconnaissance himself, to investigate certain unexpected incidents that have arisen in the Highlands and beyond the mountains.”
“Unexpected incidents?”
“Undead.”
At that word Karem’s eyes met Gordon’s without thinking.
Undead, huh… that thing? Probably. Undead out of season.
“Sightings of undead appearing in autumn—neither spring nor summer—have been reported all across the Highlands and beyond the range. If Your Grace perhaps encountered something similar on your journey—”
“Ah, I rather suspected as much. Kid. Hand that over.”
Huh? Oh.
There was no subject, but the demand was perfectly clear. Karem fished a small leather pouch that clinked softly from inside his coat.
“Sir… Stark suppressed them, and these are the by-products recovered from bandits who had already turned into undead monsters… is that the right way to put it?”
“That’s right. Ordinary bandits who could never have survived wounds that severe dropped dead on the spot, then rose again right where they lay without the slightest warning.”
The ones whose heads had been separated, the testimony went, only managed to thrash about with the heads alone.
Wallace absently reached for the pouch, then stopped short. Karem wondered why, until he realized the steward’s gaze was flicking back and forth between the chicken and the bucket.
“Ah. You’re out of hands.”
“…Shall I lend you one?”
“Would you be so kind?”
“Chicken is serious business, after all.”
Formal speech to a personal steward (presumably)? And chicken? Why?
Still trailing a string of question marks, Karem tipped the contents of the pouch into his palm and held his arm out toward the elderly steward, who regarded him with an odd look. Wallace kept chewing chicken while his eyes settled on the small, opaque blue-black crystal shard resting on Karem’s hand—a magic stone.
“A magic stone. This will do nicely.”
“Hoh. You recognized it at a glance. Then the business beyond the mountains and in the Highlands—”
“You must have been caught up in the same anomaly.”
“But the Margrave himself isn’t even here. Is that all right?”
Her purpose in coming had been to lay the groundwork for business. The provisional contract was only provisional; the sudden absence of the man in charge on site, plus an unexpected crisis, was both a problem and a variable.
“Before he marched out, my lord delegated full authority to me until his return, so there is no difficulty. And—”
Wallace’s gaze slid sideways for a moment.
Unlike the chief magical advisor, the Baron of Bolton, and the house elf, Karem’s face—exposed to the open air—was growing steadily redder from the cold despite the oil he had rubbed on.
“Keeping you standing outside any longer would be discourteous. Allow me to show you inside at once.”
Eating chicken in front of guests isn’t discourteous, though?
Karem barely managed to choke back the thought that almost slipped out.
Even so, as the carriages and carts of the procession rolled toward the stables, as the servants, maids, and guards were led elsewhere, and as Wallace guided the party into the fortress itself, the chicken and the bucket holding it never once left the steward’s hands.
Questions still crowded every mind in the group.
So what in the world was that ridiculous business just now? And why is he sitting here eating a whole bucket of chicken?
Not long afterward, Karem learned the answer.
Karem had spent barely a year in Iceland, yet that had been more than enough time for him to dissect the region’s food culture down to the bone.
Iceland’s food culture could be summed up in a single word.
It was not simply “meat” or “greasy,” though.
Where on the continent was a love of meat unique to Iceland? Say that in a tavern and you would instantly start a genuine blood-spattering free-for-all involving people from every province of the Seophon Kingdom.
Greasy was the same story. Iceland, being cold, did favor rich food, but Berseingeto and certain regions of the Adobis New Kingdom were greasier still if anything. In the former, the foundation of every dish began with as much butter as the main ingredient itself; in the latter they didn’t just add oil and butter—they poured it in.
True, Icelandic dishes had grown richer of late and people’s waistlines had thickened accordingly, but comparison with those two nations was still a stretch.
So what was Iceland’s real signature trait?
Abundance.
Anyone born and raised in Iceland who had any age on them carried a deep, abiding grudge against hunger. It was the backlash against the day the famine of Iceland had simply… vanished.
There was even a joke that Iceland produced undead for three reasons only: starvation, freezing, or dying in a fight. Some people half-suspected the joke wasn’t a joke at all.
Then wheat (from the Adobis New Kingdom) began pouring in—enough to wipe out Iceland’s famine overnight. And the price? Nothing more than trees that made an already cold land colder and refused to burn properly—living air conditioners with zero practical use.
The dramatically improved food situation was more than enough to overturn, overnight, the food culture of an entire people who had been starving for generations, high and low alike.
Of course that abundance still looked pale beside Adobis, but still.
Every Icelander loved meat, preferred greasy cooking, and laid the table as lavishly as possible—and the farther north you went, the stronger that culture grew.
What did any of that have to do with chicken?
Chicken was “meat fried in oil.” Stack it high and the breading made the portion look enormous.
“So you’re telling me the whole Highlands is crazy for it right now?”
“I only walked around Present for a bit and it was obvious. Chicken, chicken, everywhere.”
“But then where are they even getting all that oil—”
“Isn’t it coming from the mage’s territory? That p-something.”
Gordon, who had wandered into Karem’s room, sat down at the table and reached into the wooden bucket heaped with chicken. The chicken was payment for the investigation request.
“That’s not what I asked them to look into, though.”
“Huh?”
“Why is everyone treating me like… how do I put this…”
For a second Karem’s breath caught. He couldn’t find the right words. Or rather, he remembered them perfectly well—he just felt too embarrassed to say them out loud.
Gordon paid him no mind and tore into a piece of steaming chicken with a sound of pure admiration.
“This one’s different somehow. Tender, and that spicy kick?”
“That’s because I marinated it in buttermilk with a bunch of spices—no, wait, that’s not the point.”
“Why they’re so polite and using formal speech?”
Gordon waved the half-eaten drumstick in the air. Karem pointed at him and snapped his fingers. That was exactly it.
“Yes! That. Precisely that.”
“Well, you’re getting special treatment—isn’t that a good thing? Look at you, kid. You’ve made it!”
“I asked for an investigation, and if that’s how you’re going to talk—”
“Ah—ahahaha! Joke! Just a joke! Can’t a man joke around?”
When Karem made a show of grabbing the bucket, Gordon snatched it protectively against his chest.
“The reason’s pretty simple, actually. And I get the feeling this is partly your fault.”
Crumbs raining down, Gordon took another huge bite and continued around the mouthful before Karem could speak.
“Mm. In the end, who was the first person to make this stuff?”
The answer was obvious. With a dubious look Karem pointed at himself; Gordon jiggled the chicken in confirmation.
“Right. The genius kid chef that every foodie in Coldon and Winterhome raves about. And the guy who invented this chicken thing, no less.”
“So I’m… famous here?”
“Exactly. Famous little chef.”
“Not just inside the fortress—across the Highlands too?”
Gordon, who had somehow already stripped every bone clean, accepted the empty bucket from Karem while the boy looked around the room he had been given. Even for Catherine’s personal attendant-slash-chef, it was far too fine.
The carpets and furniture, the soft bed and silk coverlet, the fabric of the curtains hanging at the windows… Karem had been pretending not to notice, but he could no longer look away.
This was a guest room for nobility.
“Honestly it’s a step down from the rooms the mage and I got, but even so—don’t you think this place is a bit much for you?”
“…Haa. I was trying to tell myself they just had rooms to spare.”
“It’s been days already. Just accept it.”
Gordon tossed a bone lightly into the bucket.
“Heartthrob.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Why? Wasn’t it the same back at Winterhome?”
“Is there really any comparison?”
Karem scowled and grumbled.
“At Winterhome people just walked up and talked to me. Here they keep sizing me up first and it makes everything so awkward.”
“Well of course—you’re a guest.”
“Of course?”
“Yeah. And your backing is no joke either.”
The point was simple enough. Curiosity about a celebrity, plus a patron too big to treat carelessly, plus the status of a visiting guest—naturally people hesitated to approach. There were a few exceptions, of course.
“Well, it’s only been a day. Things’ll start changing soon enough. But still—after looking so curious, the reason you locked yourself in your room couldn’t be…”
At the probing question Karem whipped his head aside, avoiding Gordon’s eyes. Gordon couldn’t hold back a snicker, scattering fried crumbs.
“You react like a girl at her first ball.”
“Yes, yes. Whatever you say is right.”
“No, think about it. You were the youngest sacrificial offerer at the Winter-Ascend festival, and you once provoked an entire crowd during a demonstration right in the middle of the square. Compared to that, this is nothing.”
“Hm.”
Put that way, it really was nothing. Karem had no choice but to concede the point. The looks he was getting, the treatment—weren’t they basically the same as what he received from Jigmeser and the cooks, the stewards and maids back at Winterhome proper?
The thought made his heart and mood settle at once. He really had been making a fuss over nothing.
“…The stares are still uncomfortable, though.”
“This kid is such a pain—”
“Being uncomfortable is not something I can help.”
“Just get used to it. Wasn’t Winterhome the same?”
“Over there I had… other things to worry about, I guess.”
Back then he had been busy mapping the kill-radius of a certain house elf who radiated murderous intent at the drop of a hat, while simultaneously trying to tame her with food.
Right on cue a knock sounded and Mary stepped into the room. When Karem nodded toward her, Gordon—who had already grasped how the Mage’s Tower operated in the short time since their arrival—made an “ah, that would do it” face.
“…? What on earth did you say that makes you take one look at me and just silently agree?”
Mary eyed the two of them with deep suspicion.