The Silver-Tongued Duke (1)
The pirate island had held no shortage of slaves. Gathered all in one place, they made up more than enough hands to crew a ship.
But we could hardly set sail for Sirakos as we were. The flag flying from our mast was a pirate's, and there were two convicted criminals standing on our deck.
"The moment we're caught, the two of us hang from the gallows. Raghas's own bounty runs past two hundred thousand bhat. A sum worth gambling a life on, I'd say."
"Leave it to me."
I changed Loki's and Raghas's faces with illusion arts. Since I was at it, I reshaped the vessel itself into a perfectly ordinary merchantman, and — just to be safe — wreathed the hull in a skin of fog as well.
The two of them steered the ship deftly through the mist. Their awakened gifts — command over wind and water — surpassed even mine, at least where the business of sailing was concerned.
While the ship made for the port of Sirakos, I passed the hours in the cabin with Uld. She refused to set foot up on deck.
"The sea… I'm not used to it," Uld offered, by way of excuse.
"Why?"
"My seasickness is terrible."
A Grand Master, seasick?
Hard as it was to believe, she was showing every textbook symptom — yawning, breaking out in cold sweat, eyes that couldn't hold themselves open.
It might even have been something of the mind rather than the body. There was no making sense of a woman who had touched the very summit of the martial arts suffering a ruined sense of balance.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be letting you see me like this, Lord Iden……"
"You're my fiancée. I'd say I've earned the right to know every face you have."
Uld opened her mouth as though to say something. She hesitated a long while before her voice finally came.
"People whisper, you know. They say the only reason Lord Iden chose me was that you needed strength to fight the demons. That the day I get hurt — the day I show weakness — I'll be thrown away, and……"
……
I had to think carefully about what to say in return.
A political marriage is a contract — its benefits last only as long as the bond does. That's why the man who married for a family's name trades partners the moment the family falls.
By that logic, since I had married her for her strength, wasn't I obliged to trade her in for another woman the day she weakened?
But if our bond truly rested on her power alone, there would have been no reason to bother with the formality of marriage at all. A simple oath of loyalty would have served just as well.
"I've heard the gossip too. Every time the betrothal was postponed, they said they'd known it would come to this. That I'd obviously tired of you — as if the heir to a ducal house could ever truly bind himself to a commoner."
"And I doubted it a hundred times, a thousand times myself."
Uld smiled.
"Plenty of people told me it wasn't too late even now. That everyone would understand if I cast you aside. That I should choose my destined match anew — from a proper family, this time."
Lucian had been among the people who said it.
"But……"
I had to look deep into my own heart before the next words would come.
"…a thought struck me, all at once. If I was ever going to love someone, then that person could never be allowed to die before I did."
I had made a conscious effort never to love anyone. My master had passed on, I wasn't long for this world myself, and everyone else was simply too fragile.
And then, for the first time, I found a being who might be stronger than I was. From that moment on, I suppose I had left every possibility open.
"Then I'll simply have to live a long, long time, won't I?"
"I already chose you, Uld."
Uld laughed out loud. It was nothing like her smile of moments before — this laughter came straight from happiness. She looked so beautiful doing it that I fumbled for a change of subject to cover my own fluster.
"So, about that technique you used to cut the ship clean in two. Could you teach me that one as well?"
"Of course," she answered, glowing with pride. "Just as soon as you've perfectly mastered Soul Pierce."
……She really does turn razor-sharp the moment swords come up.
At last the ship dropped anchor in the port of Sirakos. The people we had rescued bid us farewell on the docks, and to make up for all they had endured, I pressed generous purses of parting money into their hands.
The money I handed out had come straight from the pirates' stronghold. Winning hearts with someone else's gold is the easiest thing in the world.
"Thank you! I'll never forget this kindness as long as I live!"
"Forget it. Go on as if none of this ever happened."
I never told them who I was. Nothing good could come of word spreading that I had come here at all. Besides, no one would have believed a tale of the Duke of Esterzy appearing in the middle of the Western Ocean anyway.
The moment I stepped off the ship, I went looking for Lucian first. He was staying at the priciest hotel in Sirakos; we had kept in touch through our respective courier bureaus.
"You've arrived earlier than expected."
Lucian lay sprawled on a sunbed in shorts and an open shirt, lazily sipping a cocktail of tropical fruit.
"My lord gets kidnapped by pirates, and you weren't worried in the slightest, I see?"
"On the contrary, I was quite worried — for the pirates' wellbeing."
Lucian turned his gaze on Loki and Raghas.
"Unless my eyes deceive me, aren't these the very ringleader and his accomplice who carried you off, Lord Iden?"
"They are. Go on, say your hellos. From today on, you'll all be working together — for me."
"Loki. My apologies for the other day."
"Raghas. Let's get along fine."
"There's nothing to apologize to me for. Thanks to you gentlemen so diligently plundering the Empire's merchant fleet, my trading company grew as large as it did."
Lucian's smile turned oily. He had always traded overland, so it was no more than the truth that his path had never once crossed theirs.
"Where are Groll and Mariella?"
"They stepped out for a while. First time home in years, apparently — they seem to have plenty of places to visit."
A sightseeing trip for two, then. Or perhaps off to see relatives. Well… more power to them, Groll and Mariella. The two of them never even got to enjoy a proper honeymoon.
Together we moved to Lucian's room, where bottles of liquor and stacks of documents lay strewn across the table in disarray.
"The situation here is turning out even worse than we anticipated. Blacksteel wood has soared to twenty times its usual market price."
Blacksteel was a rare, premium timber produced only in our duchy. Gathering its seeds and planting them elsewhere made no difference; blacksteel simply would not grow. In truth, 'blacksteel' had never been the name of any particular species.
Its precise meaning was 'wood that had hardened, steeped in demonic energy.' Lands beyond Esterzy territory shared no border with the Demonic Realm, so sowing its seeds there was pointless from the start.
Now the imperial court had cut off the export route for this superb timber — and poor Sirakos alone was left bleeding for it.
"At twenty times the price, the stuff must cost more than gold."
"It nearly does."
The documents were crammed with other material worth holding back as bargaining chips. Among them was a dossier on Birgir II, King of Sirakos.
Birgir II had been born beneath three elder brothers. To win the throne, he had butchered them with his own hands, then had their blood poured into a goblet and drunk it down.
Hence the name they gave him: Bloodthirsty.
On that anecdote alone, the man sounded like a lunatic. Judged purely on his ability as a sovereign, however, opinion split down the middle. He had raised the Kingdom of Sirakos into the mightiest naval power on the western continent, and he had held his throne against the Pelion Emperor himself.
And if a ruler's first virtue is keeping his people warm and well-fed, then he was a sage king beyond any argument.
I had two objectives: sell blacksteel wood to this madman, and in exchange buy up grain to feed the people of my territory.
"An imperial ambassador is permanently resident at the Sirakos royal court. Because of that, I couldn't request a formal audience. In its place, however, I believe I can arrange an unofficial meeting with the king."
"And what kind of unofficial route would that be?"
"The bounty awarding ceremony."
"A bounty?"
"A bounty?!"
The two pirates went rigid, their heads snapping around in unison. Lucian answered their stares with a smile.
"The Sirakos crown calls pirates with the largest bounties Grand Pirates and keeps them under special management, does it not? The original plan was to hand over Lord Groll — but since Lord Iden has brought not one but two promising pirates with him……"
"You can't possibly mean to sell us off for money?"
Loki and Raghas reeled in shock.
"Only for a little while. Once our purpose is achieved, we'll pull you right back out."
Loki and Raghas let their breath go at last. They could hardly help trembling with dread — if they were taken here, this story ended at the gallows.
"Next, the survey of Oradium market trends——"
Lucian was just carrying on with his briefing when Groll and Mariella returned. In a matter of days the pair had changed beyond recognition. Groll's transformation above all was startling: the man who had looked as though the storms of a lifetime had beaten him single-handedly now ambled about like a tourist come to holiday in the sunny south.
"Well, well — if it isn't Duke Iden."
"Put some soul into that greeting."
"Well, we knew you'd come out of it fine, didn't we? The man who melted a frozen sea — you think a rabble of common pirates could do him harm?"
I introduced Groll to Loki and Raghas. The moment they learned who he was, they were thunderstruck all over again — more so than when they'd learned mine.
"This man is the captain of the Dead Man's March?"
"The captain? Am I dreamin', or what?"
"Look at you, doing rather well for yourself."
"'Rather well' doesn't begin to cover it. He's a living legend of piracy. Next to him, the rest of us are shrimp paddling in a whale's wake."
"Shrimp? You're a King of the Seas yourself, in your own way."
Loki turned bright red.
"That name was never mine to begin with. If anyone deserves to be called the King of the Seas, it is Lord Groll."
"Haha, all ancient history now."
Groll's pride was soaring somewhere past the clouds. Mariella, a step behind him, simply went on smiling to herself.
Lucian walked the newly returned couple through the whole plan again. He had just reached the part about selling off Loki and Raghas to secure a meeting with the King of Sirakos—
"I'll join in as well."
Groll raised his hand.
"No offense meant to these two, but there's no guarantee the king will show his face for the likes of them alone, is there? It's only right that I go along."
"Will you truly be all right with that?"
"Mariella and I talked a great deal on the voyage here. I've found I don't want to go on hiding. One way or another, I want to put an end to the grudge between me and this country."
"One wrong step and you'll be hanging three of your own men from the gallows."
"And if it goes well, the Western Ocean will be yours, my lord."
Groll laughed, bold as brass.
"Lost your appetite?"
Birgir asked. Across the table sat a blond man who looked a great deal like him. A lavish feast sat untouched before the man, who had spent ten minutes doing nothing but toying with his fork.
"Or are you simply ignoring me?"
……
Birgir barely managed to swallow the urge to slit the man's throat where he sat. The man was his younger brother, Nergi. He hadn't always been like this. In his day, Nergi had been a capable Awoken and a naval admiral with a brilliant career ahead of him.
Mariella Ibelurin.
The sickness of the heart had taken root in his brother the day the woman called the Blue Pearl of Sirakos fled aboard a pirate ship.
"Pathetic fool. Half the world is made of women."
Birgir washed the irritation from his throat with wine. What else could he do? He could hardly kill the only brother he had left.
"Your Majesty."
The meal had settled into its customary silence when the Minister of the Interior hurried over and bowed his head.
"What is it?"
"Urgent word from the harbor, sire. A man called Nayden — an imperial noble — has captured the 'King of the Seas,' Loki. He has lodged a formal claim on the bounty with the crown."
"The King of the Seas?"
Birgir cast back through his memory.
Bounty or no, Loki had never struck him as much of a threat. Loki wouldn't so much as glance at another nation's merchantmen — he obsessed over raiding the Empire's ships alone. There were even jokes going round that he was the ghost of the fallen Kingdom of Alkaraz.
"Well, that worked out nicely. Have a commendation plaque struck for the man and sent over. And see that he knows how grateful I am."
The Minister lingered, as though he had further business. He did not withdraw; instead, he stole sidelong glances at Nergi.
"What? If you've something to say, say it plainly."
Pressed by Birgir, the Minister bowed lower still.
"I beg your pardon, sire. The truth is — the captain of the Dead Man's March was captured together with the King of the Seas—"
The Minister never got to finish. Nergi lurched up so violently he toppled the table. With sauce smeared thick across his face, he glared at the Minister and spoke.
"Where is that bastard."
The Minister's Adam's apple slid up and down. Nergi pressed him again, his voice dripping years of pent-up resentment.
"I said — where."