There Are Bad Dogs in the World - 2
Looking back on my childhood, I couldn't deny that there had always been something strange about my mother. That was part of why I'd thought she didn't belong in House Taylor — she put family above the House, and people above honor.
If I was the one who had grown up under her influence, then Yuria, you might say, had taken after Father instead. Perhaps it was rebellion. I couldn't say whether affection ever truly mattered to her, but it was clear she had wanted Mother's attention. There were times she obeyed meekly enough, and it was equally true that her abuse of me grew far worse after Mother died. I can't see into a person's heart, so I don't know the exact reason, but I did wonder whether Mother's death was what twisted her character even more cruelly.
Yet thinking about it now, all of that was beside the point — she had been twisted from the very beginning, hadn't she? Yuria's madness was something planted inside her from the start. No one's fault; simply a thing that had always been decreed. The mistake began with trying to resent her in the first place.
It was true that my feelings toward her were ugly ones, but I meant to let them go now. I had no intention of letting private grudges ruin the work. Until I saw the end with my own eyes, I would have to remain, above all else, cold.
I stood alone before the gravestone for a while, then let out a small breath. By the time I came here again next year, everything would already be finished. All I could do was hope that things would unfold exactly as I intended.
I will be waiting somewhere out of the way. Somewhere quite high up, most likely.
When I unfolded Renald's latest letter, it described the place where he would be waiting. I took it to be the same spot where I had seen the willow last time — the alley on the high ground just below it, where buildings crowded together. Among them stood a wall set with the Taylor crest, and the moment I realized that was what he meant, I turned my steps toward it.
It had been a while since I last met with Renald. I had seen him before departing for the North, but I needed to confirm what sort of man he was now. Whether, as time passed, he would still follow me — or whether he was quietly laying plans to attach himself to Yuria instead. With a man of Renald's caliber, a single look in his eyes was enough to betray such things.
As I stepped into the alley, a figure caught my eye amid the deep shadows. The moment he spotted me, he bowed with practiced courtesy and spoke.
"You've come, Young Master."
Renald's face, the first I had seen of it in some time, had changed considerably. Should I say he seemed shrunken? Whatever hardships he had endured, he looked as though he had aged years in a matter of months. Even so, the fact that he had come this far meant I could trust him completely now.
Plenty could be read in Renald's eyes, and the most prominent of it all was faith in me — which was, frankly, surprising. I didn't know what thoughts he had harbored in my absence, but I doubted any of them would do me harm.
"It begins now, Young Master. Yuria Taylor has the Family Headship in her grasp."
"She can't do anything with it right away anyway. Did she put Father underground?"
"It does not appear he has been seriously mistreated. The Duke most likely knows how this will play out — that must be why he has raised no objection to the Interim Family Head."
Come to think of it, Father had known in advance that Yuria would make her move. At the very least, he would never allow his own body to come to harm. Which meant he was still safe and sound — and I had already confirmed that Yuria had succeeded to the post of Interim Family Head. With the ducal mansion under her control, there was no forcing my way inside. So what would I strike at? Naturally, the outskirts — the surrounding ground Yuria's reach had not yet fully stretched across.
"You've managed things nicely on your end, I see."
"Of course. With the Central Region held so tightly, the outlying districts are the only ground left to take, are they not?"
That was true enough. Given the luxury of time, we would have chosen to devour her influence slowly from the edges inward — but the plain fact was that we had no such time to spare. Renald had handled the groundwork for moving as quickly as possible remarkably well, and it would save us every hour we could get.
I would have liked to watch Yuria's movements a little longer, but I judged that the moment had come to start moving, piece by piece. If anything, staying idle might only embolden her to act more boldly, so it was better to keep her as wary of me as I could make her.
Either way, that required Arwen's help. I hadn't put her on surveillance for nothing — of anyone, Arwen was the one who could keep the closest, most invisible watch on Yuria's movements.
I waited a short while, and soon I felt the mana around us begin to stir. A woman emerged through the blurred wall of a building. The face of the woman disguised as a servant of the ducal mansion warped for an instant, then shifted, until a girl who looked barely more than a child poked her head out.
"There you are. Not coming by the general store today?"
"...My. So you had another ally all this time, Young Master."
"You'd know her as the alchemist J. I've had her keeping watch on Yuria."
Startled by Arwen's sudden appearance, Renald eventually stroked his chin carefully and nodded. He must have judged that anyone I entrusted with work was worth trusting. There was no need for the two of them to know each other in any detail. So long as I alone knew the name Arwen, that was enough — I called her J once more and asked after her latest findings.
"Yuria's movements?"
"Nothing you could call real action yet. She does visit the office where the Duke is being kept from time to time, and it seems the Family Head is inside. No scent of blood — if anything, I'd say he's adopted a submissive attitude."
Then, just as Renald had predicted, the Duke didn't appear to be offering much resistance to Yuria's words. Not that he was a man who would simply take this lying down without some countermeasure in hand — I couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking. I knew the man who was my father better than most, and he was certainly not one to hand over the Family Headship easily. Within the yoke of the name Taylor, he was more unyielding than anyone. There was a card being kept hidden. Yuria would be wary of it too, and I had been turning the thought over in my mind as well.
"For now, I suppose I'll start by paying visits to the nobles who've joined hands with Yuria, one by one. Any better ideas?"
"I doubt they would grant you an audience even if you asked. Do you intend to try?"
"There's no need to meet them and talk. Not necessarily."
At my faint smile, Arwen's eyes narrowed as she studied me. To correct myself: I didn't think a conversation needed to be conducted in words. What House Taylor had taught me was intimidation and scheming — was there any reason not to put them to use? In a situation like this, Adele's name was a rather fine instrument.
"Use my name however you see fit. If they won't fall in line, feel free to tell them I'll come down and make their lives difficult."
"...Isn't that telling me to throw it around far too carelessly?"
"If it helps you, that much is fine. Putting it to use is your affair. Wield it any way you please — just come up to the North afterward and tell me how it went."
She had given her permission herself. I could see no reason not to use it. It wasn't as though I lacked experience with intimidation; all that remained was to face them in person. What expressions would the nobles who had taken me on so confidently wear when they heard Adele's name?
Smiling faintly, I set off, Renald eyeing me with suspicion at my side. Arwen, who had been watching me doubtfully, fell in behind us. They looked as though they were giving serious thought to what I meant to do, but they would know soon enough. Though I couldn't say what they'd make of it when they did.
In the empty room, the only sound was the man's own breathing. It was not the breathing of old, and at its slightly thickened rasp, the Duke gave a small laugh. To think he would live to hear it said that he had succumbed to senility. Hearing such words from his own daughter was a curiously subtle feeling. He had raised his children for the House rather than out of love — was this, then, what his own father had felt?
The seat of Family Head was a hollow thing. The struggle was fierce only on the way up; once you had actually arrived, it offered none of the joy you had imagined. He had climbed to it over the corpses and blood of his own siblings. And because he knew that was a tradition destined to repeat for all eternity, perhaps he had, without realizing it, chosen to pour everything into a single child. How was he to have known that the son who had seemed utterly indifferent to the headship would come to covet the seat?
He knew that Yuria's behavior had its roots in Robert's change of heart.
"...I've grown old, it seems."
To be entangled in a trick this flimsy, of all things. Perhaps he had wavered, if only a little, at what Robert had said to him that day in the tavern. To think the boy he had never even expected anything of had fought his way this far up. The Robert of a year ago and the Robert of now could fairly be called two entirely different men. Had he lived all this while sharpening a blade inside his heart? For what?
The Duke believed it was because of the boy's mother. Serena Eugris. The woman who had married him, the woman who had borne Yuria and Robert. A child who took wholly after a woman who had never fit the House — and so he had been complacent, certain that Yuria would claim everything one day. In truth, events were flowing in precisely the opposite direction, and all he could do was chuckle at the absurdity of it.
"She must have thought that if she made a senile old man of me, the headship would fall into her lap."
The headship of House Taylor was a seat coveted by anyone who carried its blood. Did she truly believe he would never have anticipated a scheme this cheap? Ha. It was plain to see how little she thought of him. In the old days, he might simply have let it pass. But Yuria's recent course had proven a genuine disappointment, and what surfaced in his mind instead was the image of House Taylor with Robert at its head.
To think he would tear down, with his own two hands, the very House of Taylor that he had built. Did he truly believe that spouting such absurdities while demanding the seat of Family Head would actually get it handed to him? And yet... there was nothing he could not give. If the boy showed he had what it took to lead, then even if he razed everything Taylor owned to the ground, Robert would be amply qualified to stand at its head.
Whether he truly suited the role, only time would tell — but this jagged stone that had appeared so abruptly struck the Duke as rather intriguing. Just how far would the blade carried by the child so like Serena reach?
At the sight of his desk — where papers had always lain piled — now cleared away without a trace, the Duke smirked.
"Perhaps you were right after all."
He recalled the words of the woman they had called a strange one — the woman he had wed in a political marriage, yet given his heart to, however briefly. He thought of the child of his who so completely mirrored her, then laughed bitterly and squeezed his eyes shut.
"More than I ever imagined... he takes after you."
The Duke — Arthur Taylor — smiled faintly.
He had known perfectly well how Yuria treated Robert after Serena's death. The reason he had merely watched, all the same, was that he wished to see how Robert — so like Serena — would overcome it. Whether he would fail to endure and break in the end, or thrash about desperate for everyone's trust. Or else — whether, as Serena once had, he would attempt something no one could have conceived. Coincidence or not, it was Robert who was, in the end, acting just as his mother had.
And so he meant to watch a while longer. Until the day Robert came back to this place and told him to hand over the seat of Family Head. With a heart that was, in its own way, rather pleased.