To the North - 1
Eeeeeeee—
She clapped her hands over her ears against the shrill ringing that screamed through them. Broken teacups and plates lay strewn in every direction, and for a long moment she simply stared at the blood running warm over her own fingers.
The palm she had cut to seal her oath felt nothing at all — no pain, not the slightest sting. What throbbed, in truth, was her own chest, stained through with shame, and at that Yuria gave a small laugh and slid her sword back into its sheath.
"Y-Young Matriarch..."
...Ah. Come to think of it, she hadn't been alone.
Yuria's gaze turned to the maid collapsed on the floor. She had planted the woman there to keep watch on him, and she couldn't even manage that one thing properly. Surveillance only had meaning so long as it went undetected — if he had seen through it long ago, then hadn't the woman failed at the single duty she'd been given?
After a moment's deliberation, Yuria rang the bell sitting on the table. The maids who hurried in froze at the sight of it, and to them she gave her order.
"Clean this up. And that as well."
"...Pardon?"
"Clean it up. Bury it somewhere out of the way — or divide it up and be done with it."
The maid could only stand there, dazed by an answer that had flowed out as smoothly as water — until hands seized her arms, and only then did she understand that this was the verdict on her own fate. What was it they said, that when a person is frightened enough, even words fail them? Ignoring the hollow stare fixed on her, Yuria glanced about the room and settled into a chair. The maid was dragged away, wailing the whole while.
She heard none of it. Every sound was buried beneath the ringing in her ears; she merely stared into the empty air with a face carved from nothing at all.
The fury of moments ago had vanished without a trace. She had briefly lost her reason to the eruption of emotion — but that was all it had been. The sight of composure reclaimed in an instant was chilling to behold, yet to Yuria it was an old, familiar reflex. Hiding what she felt had never been difficult. As if she would ever bare her rage, her passions, to just anyone.
A short sigh escaped her, and she rubbed at the space between her brows. Only when the wailing maid had been dragged out of sight did the ringing in her ears seem to fade along with her.
And the thought that took root in her mind was, as ever, Robert Taylor. She had let the last affair pass because he was her younger brother — but she could no longer stand idle and watch him strut about as though the world already belonged to him. Had he truly asked whether she lacked the confidence? Ha. Yuria snorted, and a disbelieving laugh slipped out of her. She was already the Young Matriarch; if she set her mind to becoming the family head, there was nothing that could stop her. Whether he went north or south, nothing would change. She had lived her entire life for this house, and if it served that end, she would not hesitate to stain her own hands with blood — and he had chosen that moment to provoke her. Let him crow all he liked about winning the imperial family's favor; believing it would alter anything was a fool's arithmetic.
...Until the family head leaves a will, everyone holds the right.
Recalling the old maxim of House Taylor, Yuria smiled faintly. Depending on the moment, depending on the circumstance — there were even ways to turn that creed to her own use and claim the family head's seat before anyone else. A will, was it. At the thought of her father, Yuria's expression hardened, cold and set. He had lived for the family, because that was what he'd been taught from boyhood. She had learned the same lesson first — through the very 'instruction' she would one day visit upon Robert — and the purpose she had carried through it all was simple: to become the family head.
Anyone who stood in her way would not be left in peace. Even if it were family. So long as the house endured, what did family matter? Thinking it, Yuria smiled a cold smile. The eyes that had gleamed with a frost-bound light soon emptied, their gleam dimming into blank, hollow vacancy.
The autumn I had expected to stretch on and on came to an end, and winter arrived on a north wind. It was the season when crimson leaves touched the earth and withered away, when nothing but bare, skeletal trees shivered against the cold. And yet I could call it the most important season of all — this winter would decide the greater part of this life of mine.
The first destination was the North. Even lingering, I doubted it would take more than a month, two at the outside. At the very latest I would have to return before the year turned and make for the South — only then could I time everything properly. I swallowed a sigh as I recalled the message Adrian had sent a few days before. Apparently, once we were in the South, the two of us would most likely be moving together. She had been delighted, calling it a relief; I, for my part, found myself wondering whether delight was the proper response. Time was running short. What I needed was even a little more room to move on my own — and if it came to it, slipping away alone in the small hours would serve me better.
"One month in the South."
One month, not counting the travel between there and here. With the added goal of finding and securing information on the relics within that span, I would have to move urgently.
All information concerning the relics was held under the tight control of the imperial family and the Church. But the relics sleeping in the South lay beyond the Church's reach entirely, and what little was known of them was thin to begin with — unless one had direct lines to the palace or the clergy, they were devilishly hard to find. That I had obtained the Moonstone at all could only be called a stroke of heaven's fortune. Of course, I had already uncovered a fair amount through Arwen, and I would ask her to keep digging while I was in the North, so that part could wait. What demanded my attention now was purely and simply how to conduct myself in the North.
Attaching myself to their company would be easy enough. I had fought at their side any number of times before, and Adele had always been generous with the people who pleased her. No — the problem was how to warn her about the treason. If she had already sensed something rotten, it would be one thing; if she hadn't, I was genuinely afraid of how she might come to look at me. That Adele would be framed for treason was inevitable. If I could stop it and turn her to my side, I could pull the North — a full third of this empire — into my camp. Optimistic, perhaps. But I believed I could stop it. The Adele Egret I knew would never simply let my words slide past her.
What if I had warned her more forcefully, back then? Not a passing surely not tossed over my shoulder, but a true warning that it was a matter of life and death? Might the news I heard have been of the Crown Prince's death, instead of Adele's? ...But it was a supposition without meaning. What mattered was this life, this one — so with a single bitter laugh, I checked the sword at my hip.
I had commissioned it from a blacksmith with instructions to forge it strong enough to withstand a respectable amount of magic. It was nothing like as fine as the blade I'd borrowed from Adele last time, but at this grade I could put it to decent use. I was still turning it over, examining it from every angle, when Renald came hurrying up, having loaded the last of my things into the carriage. He looked distinctly puzzled by the sight of me carrying a sword.
Which was only natural. The man had never once seen me so much as grip a blade, so no doubt he figured that even for self-defense, some other means would serve me better.
"I hardly think there will be any occasion for you to use a sword, Young Master. Are you not on your way to meet Lady Adele?"
"That may well be. But who's to say the occasion to draw one won't arise?"
"The North that Lady Adele keeps is hardly a dangerous place, sir. Do look after yourself on the road."
"...Mm. Just see that you haven't forgotten what I told you to do."
At that, the look in Renald's eyes deepened into something far graver. The role he was to play in my absence was a simple one: to watch Yuria's every movement, in case she went off the rails. Not constant shadowing — merely reporting to me if anything suspicious occurred — but the Yuria of now was all too likely to veer somewhere badly twisted. If anything, I thought it better if she moved in exactly that direction. It would make her self-destruction that much easier; since she was going to ruin herself regardless, I rather hoped she'd commit to it wholeheartedly.
Renald had become the one person in the ducal mansion I could trust. I had watched him steadily, and he had done nothing to give offense; that was judgment enough that he would remain reliable from here on. I tapped him lightly on the shoulder and spoke quietly.
"I'm trusting you. While I'm gone, it falls to you to handle things well."
"...Understood, Young Master."
Renald drew a long breath and nodded, his eyes carrying a new note of resolve. There was no harm in letting a man know he was trusted once in a while — and if it made his work that much cleaner, then nothing about it could possibly redound badly on me. As I stepped up into the carriage, Renald bowed with full formality. I smiled faintly at the sight, then turned my face forward.
The wind that scattered my hair was cold. For some time yet, I would be living at its source. But the thought troubled me not at all — the North was the place where I had lived with the greatest ease of mind. The wind blew. The carriage clattered into motion and began to run against the wind. Soon, surely, my eyes would fill with the white of snow-covered plains: the country of savage wolves, the ground where countless barbarians had bled. That pure-white hell was, to me, the warmest place there was — and my eyes, alive at last with something like color, closed slowly, deeply. My mind, for its part, had already arrived in the North.
"From this moment, an alert on the order of wartime is declared."
It had been only a short while since the letter arrived announcing that Robert Taylor was coming to the North. Lotos had seized the window of the Grand Duchess's absence and summoned the defense forces — a thing possible only because, with Adele away, he held the highest authority in the territory. At the news that an alert bordering on wartime had been declared, the soldiers began to murmur among themselves. An alert, with the barbarian subjugation barely weeks away? No one had so much as brushed their borders. While they puzzled over it, Lotos spoke.
"You will all have heard the news that Lord Robert Taylor is coming to the North. And I trust you have also heard that our Grand Duchess is preparing to go out and meet him in person."
"D-did you say meet him? In person?"
A stir ran through the ranks at those words, and Lotos raised a hand until the soldiers settled. Of course they were astonished — he himself had gone blank for a moment at the news that the Grand Duchess intended to go out personally. But his post demanded that he reach a judgment faster than any man present. Lotos pressed his fingers to his temple, and his eyes narrowed. He had suspected for some time that the relationship between Robert and the Grand Duchess was no ordinary thing. Whatever circumstances had first thrown them together, Adele was not a woman who let her anger go easily — and yet she had said she liked him, more than once. She had even worried over him. For the Grand Duchess to worry over a man... well. The conclusion rather drew itself. Swallowing a sigh, Lotos swept his gaze across the assembled soldiers. They seemed to grasp the gravity of the matter now, for every face present wore an expression grave to the utmost.
"Do you begin to understand why I called this situation urgent?"
"Sir, yes, sir!"
At the roar of assent, Lotos nodded with a satisfied smile. It could hardly be called wartime, but they could not afford even the smallest discourtesy toward the guest coming to this North. If the Grand Duchess took exception and ordered one of them out alone against the barbarians, refusal might mean crossing blades with her directly. From her days leading the mercenary band, Adele's strength had been reckoned something outside all common sense — the girl who had snapped a troll's neck with her bare hands, whose band had grown to seize the North, win recognition, and rise at last to the seat of Archduke. No one in these ranks would slight her after a march like that. And so each man nursed his own private thoughts about the man called Robert Taylor.
Then, when a brief silence had settled, one soldier ventured carefully:
"Might we... take it that he is to become Her Excellency's beloved?"
"...Yes. I rather thought that would be the question."
His expression was faintly somber at first, then settled into gravity as Lotos faced forward and gave his answer. "That is what I believe. It appears... the Grand Duchess intends to take a beloved before long. So you would all do well to mind your conduct from here on."
A sharp intake of breath — the soldiers, winded, broke into a fresh stir all over again, though Lotos was thinking it was about time. The Grand Duchess would soon turn four-and-twenty; at that age, taking a beloved was nothing strange. But her circumstances had always been so unforgiving that she had never once formed a bond with a man. The ones who drew near her tended to leave with their throats opened — if anything, it was simply a marvel that her tie to this man Robert had endured as long as it had.
And so Lotos thought: Robert, too, most likely did not think ill of the Grand Duchess. The man concealed a great deal, to be sure — but set that aside, and everything else about him looked nothing short of exemplary. He thought back to the sword-light he had witnessed the night before. And to Adele's gaze, staring blankly after him. Lotos smirked to himself. Love, of all things, had a habit of blooming before its bearer ever noticed. His own wife had come to him through just such a meeting — so perhaps the Grand Duchess, too, had finally arrived at that season of life.
A sudden breeze brushed Lotos's cheek. The wind here was always cold; was it only his fancy that it felt unusually warm today? Gazing out over the troops drawn up in formation, Lotos at last began his explanation of how they were to move hereafter. It was an account of Adele's beloved — the one thing in all the North that Adele alone did not know...