In Search of Alicia
Winter passed, and spring arrived.
Even so, they could not afford to let their guard down. Beyond the mountains, trouble never waited on the seasons. The same held true for Highland, the northernmost reaches of Iceland itself. And now it was spring—the season when the beasts and monsters that had survived the brutal winter, gaunt and hollow-bellied, stretched their limbs once more, turned on one another, and finally spilled over into the civilized world to fill their empty stomachs.
Afterglow Fortress, the kingdom’s shield against the wilderness, was meant to remain on a permanent wartime footing. Even after the sudden winter invasion by the undead and the Grizzly Beaver coalition, the fortress should have kept that posture and simply done its duty. This spring, however, was different.
Paradoxically, they had the invasion itself to thank.
As mentioned, the reason monsters and beasts ran wild in spring was largely to feed the hunger built up through the long winter. Put another way, if their bellies were already full, they had no reason to rampage. In an ordinary winter they would have been nursing the first stirrings of hunger and sleeping it off. Instead, they had enjoyed an all-you-can-eat buffet both inside and outside Afterglow Fortress and Present. Even rotting corpses would have been enough to send them lunging in to tear and devour—yet these corpses had been flash-frozen, preserved fresh and cold. And there were not just one or two of them, but thousands upon thousands. By the time spring came, their stomachs were stuffed to bursting.
For Afterglow Fortress, that was pure good fortune. No one could live forever on a knife-edge of tension. Richard, lord of the fortress, left only a bare minimum of sentries and a rotation crew chosen by lottery, and then scattered leave like confetti. Everyone except those the heavens had denied a vacation sang his praises.
Baston, however, could not laugh.
The fierce wind pouring down from beyond the mountains made the mustache of the man standing in the keep’s open yard twitch.
“You little bastard of a lord. You’re actually going on leave?”
“Of course I am.”
Even under his friend’s and subordinate’s blatant glare, Richard answered with perfect composure and ordered the laborers to load the carts.
“I’ve got to go deliver presents to my little cub of a granddaughter.”
“You crazy old man! If the man in charge walks off on leave, who’s supposed to take responsibility when something blows up?!”
“Jealous, are you?”
“Damn right I am!”
“Who held a sword to your throat and ordered you to draw a number?”
Richard gave Baston a deliberately smug smile.
“Then you should have drawn leave in the lottery.”
Unlike his usual unkempt stubble, left wild out of sheer laziness, his beard had been neatly trimmed short, and it curved into a grin wide enough to split. It wasn’t only the beard. The shoulder-length hair he normally let hang loose had been cut short and styled into sharp angles. He had even put on a fashionable dress uniform that had been hanging in the wardrobe for about a year, already a season out of style but still splendid.
“Shameless. Completely shameless. How old are you, you old fool, getting all worked up like this? A Margrave of the frontier, already dressed to the nines and stamping your feet to leave?”
“Oh-ho. Are you jealous right now?”
“What? Who is?!”
Baston’s smooth scalp flushed a deep red. The truth was, he did envy Richard. It wasn’t as if he had no grandchildren of his own. Baston wanted to see a grandson so adorable he could just eat him up. But he couldn’t. He had already said the reason himself. In the end, someone had to stay behind and take responsibility for the fortress.
“Listen here, yeah? I’m not even asking for that thick-skulled son of mine. When he was little he was the spitting image of me—already with those fierce eyebrows, sharp as a tack, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah. I know exactly how you feel.”
Richard crossed his arms in genuine sympathy. He hadn’t seen Alicia in two whole years. By the original plan he should have seen her last summer, but the catastrophe the autumn before last—when the mages Alfred had dispatched had been wiped out to the last man—had taken the entire season to clean up. Then autumn had come, and after that the undead legion of winter…
“But if you wanted to see your grandchild that badly, you should have drawn a winning lot. Why come crawling now with all this whining?”
“You damn bastard. Right now I—”
“Ah. A midlife crisis, is it?”
“……!!!”
Sparks flew in Baston’s eyes. His smooth head went past red and turned the furious crimson of an Explosion Fruit about to detonate, steam practically pouring off it. Looking a little sheepish, Richard climbed into the carriage.
“Yikes! Boys! Are the bags all loaded?”
“Don’t you worry, Boss. Everything’s packed. But what’s wrong with the vice-boss?”
“He’s acting like a brat because he couldn’t get leave at his age.”
Shameless talk. And of course a Sword Master—the pinnacle of aura users—could not possibly have failed to hear it.
Bang—! Crunch—
“You son of a bitch of a lord, what did you just—”
Whump!
Baston lunged at the carriage and ripped the door clean off. Richard kicked the enraged bald head away with a flowing, effortless motion and shouted,
“What are you waiting for? Move out!”
The entire procession saw it—coachman, servants, the escorts who weren’t even sure why they were there, and everyone else. They exchanged quick glances and shrugged. Frankly, it wasn’t their place to interfere. Having reached a silent consensus, the drivers and riders cracked their reins as one.
Leaving the furious Baston behind, Richard’s leave procession raced on without so much as a proper rest, day and night. The only times the column stopped were to swap out exhausted horses and snow-runners, and once more just before leaving Highland, when they replaced the carriage and cart runners with wheels. After three full days and nights of nothing but combat rations, Richard reached Coldon at a speed far greater than on any previous leave.
Naturally, Winterhome was thrown into chaos by the sudden visit of the Felwinter family’s highest elder, and the people were stunned.
“Oh, Robin.”
“Grandfather. It’s been a while.”
“Yes. But I don’t see Alicia. Normally she would have come running the moment she heard. The first and second grandsons too. Did I come too suddenly?”
“Alicia isn’t here.”
“What?”
“Everyone except Mother and me has gone to Kingsland.”
“Alicia isn’t here?”
Richard was just as shocked. He simply could not accept it. Why had he dumped everything on Baston and come all this way? And now the very reason for the trip—Alicia—wasn’t even here? As a grandfather, he refused to believe it. He had to see it with his own eyes.
The greenhouse. Corvus.
“It’s been a long time. Hm? The young lady left for Kingsland with His Grace.”
The kitchen. Jigmeser.
“They left several days ago already. If only you’d come a week earlier… Wait, it’s spring—are you even supposed to be here right now?”
The study. Iona.
“Margrave—no, Richard. Didn’t I already tell you? They left early to attend King Seophon’s Crystal Jubilee. Since you’re already here, why not rest and recover from the journey at leas—”
“No!”
Richard could not accept it. He had finally gotten leave, and he was not about to waste the time without even seeing his granddaughter’s face. And so he decided:
“In that case, I’ll catch up to the procession!”
“Pardon?”
A procession, by its nature, grew slower the larger it became. The logic was simple: if he started tracking it now, he would catch them before long.
“Richard, my friend, you can’t just leave like th—”
“Good to see you after so long. You’re even fatter than before—suits you. Well then, I’m off! Boys! Move out!”
“Richard, listen. At least go see Duchess Elizabeth’s fa— Wait! Come back this instant!”
After nothing more than a change of horses and snow-runners and a restock of spent supplies, Richard immediately ordered the column to pursue Alfred’s procession. Barely half a day had passed since his arrival in Coldon.
Alfred’s escort camp. Catherine’s tent.
Just as Iona was exhaling a sigh that seemed to gather every hardship in the world over the behavior of his old friend and former lord…
“…Nnnngh.”
Alicia was wrestling with a dilemma of equally earth-shaking seriousness. There was only one thing in the world that could make her fret this hard: cooking, food, something to eat. And the cause of her present anguish was exactly that.
Nestled in Poppins’s arms, Alicia turned to look at Karem.
“…Is it really not allowed to put Nutella on a jam donut?”
There was, in truth, no hard rule against it. But the decision was no longer his to make. With Catherine seated on his knee, Karem shot Poppins a look that clearly said, What am I supposed to do here?
“No, it is not.”
Poppins shook her head with absolute finality.
“You promised you would choose only one treat at a time, did you not?”
“But… but—”
Alicia was deadly serious.
“Karem said this is the last jar of Nutella…!”
The root of the entire problem went back several days after they had left Coldon, when Gordon and Flora had peeled away from the procession near the Barony of Bolton. The already scarce Amadeus fruit had begun vanishing at an alarming rate from the moment the two of them departed. Now that the column had stopped briefly to rest, the several jars of Nutella that had ridden in the supply carts were down to a single final jar—and that jar was about to be emptied as well.
“…Baroness Poppins.”
“I will say it once more. You may choose only one thing at a time.”
“Nnnnngh—”
Alicia knew perfectly well she was being unreasonable. One snack at a time. It was a lesson she had learned for herself after watching Godwin’s cheeks grow round and plump again. But I still want to spread Nutella on a jam donut…!
Reason and instinct collided inside her, producing a face far too grave for her age. Catherine closed the book she had been reading and set it down on the table with a soft thud.
“You’re still such a child. There’s an obvious solution.”
“Kitty? An obvious solution?”
“It’s Catherine, not Kitty.”
Catherine let out a sigh, but Alicia didn’t care about any of that. Just tell me the answer already.
“Instead of jam in the jam donut, make an Amadeus cream donut filled with Nutella. Problem solved.”
“…But the jam—”
“Stop being stubborn.”
“Nngh.”
The greed that wanted both jam and Amadeus. The awareness that she was being childish. The unyielding stares of Poppins and Catherine. Alicia’s head drooped in bleak resignation and finally nodded in surrender.
“Well then, since the menu is decided… would you mind getting down sometime soon?”
“Huh?”
Catherine turned her head and fixed him with one eye, as if to ask whether he was complaining. Of course Karem had no complaints. She was quietly warm and soft. But one important problem still remained.
“Mary’s punishment isn’t over yet, either.”
“Ah.”
“If you don’t plan to forgive her, then I’m the only one left who can cook, aren’t I? The other chefs will be busy with their own work.”
It was a fair point, so Catherine swept her hair back to hide her reddening ears and reluctantly rose from Karem’s lap.
“…Junior Karem. If my two masters wish to enjoy a leisurely sweet moment together, I would gladly accept it—”
“Oh, so you were hoping to get the punishment waived by offering to make Lady Catherine’s snack?”
“Exactly.”
“Not a chance.”
Karem clicked his tongue lightly and stood. The empty seat was immediately reclaimed by Catherine. Expressionless, fists clenched and trembling, Mary glared a hole through the back of Karem’s head as he strolled out of the tent with a light step.
“Alicia thinks Mary needs to work on her sense of tact.”
From Poppins’s arms, Alicia delivered the observation. Catherine silently agreed. After all, the one who had ruined the atmosphere was the tactless house elf. That punishment absolutely had to be served.