What Happened at the Marquess's Estate (1)
Two days' travel to Marquis Lawrence's territory.
I set out with Hans and two knights.
Before departing, I spoke briefly with Violetta. I told her I would return with the Grand Duchy's honor restored. She objected at first, but as they say, no parent ever wins against their child. In the end, she let me go with nothing but a plea to come back safe.
I didn't tell Stella or Felix. I left at dawn, so they'd still be asleep.
I left the cleanup to Lucas, my steadfast shield.
"I'm counting on you, Lucas. Stella especially."
"…I will do my very best."
With forty years of butler experience behind him, he seemed to be foreseeing a hellish future ahead.
The fortress of Marquis Lawrence.
When the castle gates finally came into view after two days on the road, Hans spoke in a low voice.
"Young Master. You can still turn back."
"And what would turning back change?"
"…Nothing, my lord."
"Then relax. Don't be scared."
An administrator and six knights were waiting at the gates. I had sent an official letter of visit, so they couldn't ignore me — but this was hardly a welcoming party.
"I am Killian von Eberhardt, legitimate heir of the Eberhardt Grand Duchy."
I could see the administrator counting us. One, two, three, four.
Half an hour later, we were escorted not to an office, but to a dining hall.
The dining hall?
A long table had been set with two place settings. There was even wine.
So we're having a meal?
The doors opened, and Marquis Chester Lawrence entered.
Late forties. Less a nobleman than a battle-hardened knight, with the broad, imposing frame of a frontline soldier. But his eyes were another matter entirely — the sharp, appraising eyes of a merchant measuring what a man was worth.
"You've come a long way. Eat first."
A soft, almost coaxing tone toward the legitimate heir of a Grand Duchy.
Well, he could afford it. I was an heir who hadn't formally received my title yet. The eldest son of a Grand Duchy in decline, at that.
If I reacted, I'd lose.
"Thank you, Marquis."
I took my seat. Hans and the knights waited outside, as did the Marquis's own guards. Only the two of us sat at the table.
The Marquis poured the wine himself. For a host to pour a guest's wine was, by the strictest rules of etiquette, the height of courtesy.
Needless to say, there was no warmth in those hands.
"Drink."
"Thank you."
I took a sip. Even to my untrained palate, it was an exceptional wine.
"An excellent vintage."
"It was a favorite of the late Grand Duke Theodore."
Not what I expected.
"You knew my father?"
"Know him? We lived in the same era."
The Marquis poured wine into his own glass as he spoke.
"Theodore von Eberhardt. The Empire's strongest swordsman. The Emperor's friend, and the Shield of the North."
He took a sip and set the glass down.
"And to me, a wall I could never climb over, for as long as I lived."
Something complicated flickered across the Marquis's eyes. Neither hatred nor respect, but some tangle of the two.
"Let me be honest with you."
The Marquis cut into his meat. His knife work was practiced, effortless.
"I respected your father. And I hated him at the same time. As long as that man lived, House Lawrence would forever be second in the North. No matter how much money we made, no matter how far our territory spread — every single day, I had to watch it all become meaningless in front of a single sword. Do you understand what that feels like?"
The knife stopped on the plate.
"So when that man died, I grieved. Genuinely."
The Marquis looked straight at me.
"And at the same time, I thought it was an opportunity. That part is genuine too."
This man wasn't lying. He didn't bother hiding that sorrow and ambition coexisted in him.
Not some simple-minded, foolish noble. A man with his own logic, and thoroughly faithful to it.
"You're refreshingly candid."
"I'm sharing a meal with you to see whether you're a candid sort yourself."
The Marquis took another swallow of wine.
"You surprised me. The sheer nerve, barging into my castle with just four men."
"For the sake of my house, there is nothing I won't do."
"Kukuku… The man's blood, after all. I can't say I dislike that."
The Marquis's jaw worked as he chewed.
"I had a plan, you see. I'll have to scrap the whole thing now."
Changing the plan. Meaning that by coming here, I'd altered the course of the original story.
"So then. You're here to tell me to hand over Volph?"
There it was — the real business.
"Yes. Volph, former Chief Financial Officer of the Eberhardt Grand Duchy. It has been confirmed that he embezzled ducal funds and fled to this territory."
I drew the documents from my coat and laid them on the table. Copies of the ledgers, evidence of the shell trading company, Müller's written confession.
The Marquis looked down at the papers. He didn't touch them.
"And your basis for claiming Volph is on my lands?"
"The confession of an administrator he bribed. There is also testimony that even after Volph fled, he continued embezzling while filing reports to your house's officials."
The Marquis speared a piece of meat with his fork.
"And if this administrator of yours is lying?"
"I interrogated three of them separately. Their testimony matches."
"You didn't beat it out of them under torture?"
"Torture is inefficient. I don't use it."
The Marquis's eyes gleamed — and then he started laughing again.
"Kkuk. Inefficient. You're an amusing one."
He set down his knife and folded his arms.
"Fine. I'll admit it. Volph is here."
He admitted it outright. Faster than I'd expected.
But this wouldn't be the end of it.
"However."
There it is.
"Volph came to my territory of his own free will. He requested protection, and I merely granted it. Bribed? Conspiring? Whatever evidence you hold, what happens if Volph himself testifies that I fled on my own — the Marquess had nothing to do with it?"
There was the crack. Müller's confession alone couldn't prove direct orders from House Lawrence. If Volph kept his mouth shut, the whole thing collapsed into 'a treasurer ran off on personal business, and the Marquess accepted him in good faith.'
This man is sharp.
"Which is why I'm asking you to hand him over."
"Hand him over so you can manufacture whatever testimony suits you?"
The Marquis smiled, slow and easy.
"Killian von Eberhardt. Catching three rats in your own house — well done. But this is not your house."
Pressure, wrapped in silk.
I cut into my own meat, deliberately slowing the movement of my knife hand.
"Marquis. Let me be equally honest with you."
The Marquis's eyebrow twitched, almost imperceptibly.
"Hand over Volph, and this matter is handled as an internal affair of the Grand Duchy. The name of House Lawrence will never appear anywhere."
I set the knife down on the plate.
"Refuse, and identical documents arrive at the Imperial Court of Justice and the Imperial Palace. I sent them before I departed."
The Marquis's expression hardened. For the first time.
"An eighteen-year-old sending letters to the Imperial Palace?"
"The prerogative of a legitimate heir. Imperial Aristocratic Law, Article 12, Clause 3."
The same clause I'd used when carving up the envoy.
Of course, it was a bluff. The claim that I'd written to the Palace was a lie. The Marquis wouldn't take it at face value either — but the pressure would plant the seed: that I just might actually do it.
The Marquis lifted his wineglass. In the time it took to sip and set it down again, I could watch him rearrange his expression.
"If you play the fool like this, they promise you treasure. They promise you the world."
"I'm just a man who wants to live comfortably. And I'd rather talk things through first, if possible."
I meant it.
The Marquis burst out laughing. This time, it was a real laugh.
"Hahaha! Talk things through? The man who cut off an envoy's hands and tongue?"
A silence settled between us.
"Three days."
The Marquis rose from his seat.
"You'll want for nothing while you stay. Was the food good?"
"Excellent wine."
"Take it. I'll send you another bottle."
As the Marquis walked out of the dining hall, he stopped at the door.
"And one more thing."
He spoke without turning around.
"If Theodore were still alive, he'd have taught you the sword. A waste, that."
The door closed.
Alone at the table, I stared down into my wineglass.
This man had respected the Grand Duke even as he hated him, grieved his death even as he celebrated it. And now, feeding his dead rival's son, what was running through his mind?
A complicated human being.
I finished cutting the meat on my plate.
"…The food is good, though."
What would unfold inside the Marquess's estate, only time would tell.
The first night passed, unexpectedly, in peace.
The guest room was spacious and the bed was soft. Being treated this well deep in enemy territory was a strange feeling.
Still, poisoning a guest's pillow wasn't the Marquis's style, so I decided to sleep.
At that very moment, in the Grand Duchy.
Lucas stood in the corridor, looking up at the sky.
It was a quiet night. The moon was bright, the wind still, the manor at peace.
"Grandfather Lucas?"
A voice came from behind him.
"Where did big brother go?"
Stella stood there hugging a pillow. With Killian unseen for two days, the question was only natural.
Lucas had served the Grand Duchy for forty years and weathered countless crises. He had stayed calm through war, and held himself together at the Grand Duke's funeral.
And yet now, before a ten-year-old girl's question, his mouth would not open.
"The Young Master is… ah… out for the moment."
"Where?"
Before he could answer, Felix came down the stairs in his training clothes.
"Brother would never skip training. Lucas, where is he?"
Two pairs of eyes fixed on Lucas at the same moment.
Lucas sincerely believed, in that instant, that this place was more terrifying than the Marquess's estate.
"…The Young Master has gone to House Lawrence on urgent Grand Duchy business."
Felix's face went rigid.
"He went alone?"
"With Acting Knight Commander Hans and two knights—"
"Only four of them?"
Felix's voice echoed down the corridor. Stella took a beat longer to process what she'd heard.
"The Marquess's house? The place with the bad people?"
Before Lucas could open his mouth, Stella's eyes were brimming with tears.
"Big brother went to the bad people?!"
"My lady, it's an official visit, and a letter was sent to the Palace as well—"
Stella hurled her pillow to the floor.
"Why didn't he tell me he was going!"
Her face was on the verge of breaking into sobs.
Violetta came down the stairs. She must have heard the commotion. She looked at the children, grasped the situation at once, and turned her gaze to Lucas.
Lucas gave the smallest of nods.
Violetta gathered Stella into her arms.
"Stella, be good now. Your brother will be home soon."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Hhk…."
Violetta's voice was calm, but her arms were wrapped around the girl with all their strength.
The next morning, at the Lawrence estate.
There wasn't much to do in the Marquis's castle beyond holing up in my room or taking walks.
As I strolled through the immaculate gardens and courtyards, something out of place caught my eye.
Knights. Not maids.
Hans stood behind me, and three Lawrence knights barred the way ahead. The one in the middle was built like a mountain.
"Young Grand Duke, our envoy's arm still hasn't reattached, you know. Care to cross blades? I'd like to see just how rusty the North's sword has become."
What an absurd, juvenile provocation. One glance was enough to tell the Marquis had sent them.
"Can you take responsibility for those words?"
Hans moved to step in front of me, but I caught his shoulder and eased him aside.
"Hans. This one's mine."
Shing.
I drew my sword. The Grand Duke's blade.
The moment the steel cleared the scabbard, aura rose from it as naturally as breath.
Blue light rippled along the blade — and with it, the air of the courtyard began to turn cold.
All three knights stiffened at once.
There wasn't a noble in the Empire who didn't know the Eberhardt aura. Least of all the knights of House Lawrence.
"The Grand Duke of the North's… aura?"
The center knight's voice was trembling.
"You wanted to check if it was rusty, didn't you?"
I stepped forward. The knight raised his sword on pure instinct.
Fast. A man that size reacting that quickly — he'd be upper-tier even in Lawrence's service.
But the Eberhardt fundamental form gives you no opening to react to.
Clang!
First exchange. The knight's sword was knocked skyward.
Second exchange. His feet gave ground, his balance collapsing.
On the third, my blade stopped at the knight's throat.
Three exchanges was enough. Honestly, I could have ended it in two — but that would have advertised to House Lawrence that their vice-commander-class knight fell in two. The extra exchange was deliberate.
The courtyard fell silent.
The two knights behind him had frozen mid-draw, because Hans stood facing them, sword already bared.
"Not rusty, is it?"
I asked, lowering the blade from his throat.
The knight couldn't answer. Cold sweat ran down his jaw.
"Next time, I might not stop at your neck. So think twice before drawing steel on a guest."
I sheathed my sword.
Clap, clap, clap.
Applause drifted down over the courtyard.
The Marquis stood on the second-floor balcony, clapping with a leisurely smile.
Beside him stood a young woman who looked like his daughter.
Racking my memory of the original novel — that would be Claudia.
"Three exchanges, was it? If a vice-commander-class knight falls in three, that settles things."
The Marquis leaned his arms on the railing and looked down.
"Your father would have done it in one. But at your age, this is impressive."
So he'd been watching from the very start. That confirmed the knights' flimsy provocation had come on his orders — and in the end, he'd gotten what he wanted: a measure of my ability.
A test, in other words.
"Marquis. Isn't a guest's safety the host's responsibility?"
"My knight was disrespectful. I apologize."
But the Marquis's eyes were fixed somewhere other than on me.
On my sword.
On the faint blue afterglow still lingering on the blade.
Behind his eyes, some calculation I couldn't read was turning over and over.
"Come up. We have things to discuss."