The Betrothal Tournament (3)
The turnout rivaled even the entrance exam for the knightly order. The remarkable part was that the exam had drawn such crowds because it accepted non-awakened applicants as well — this tournament, by contrast, was open to the awakened alone.
Four thousand and forty-three awakened women of marriageable age...
Did they all want to be Grand Duchess that badly?
A life of presiding over parties, seated at the head table of banquets, fanning oneself with elegant grace, and whiling away the hours in idle chatter with the noble ladies. If that was the life they were imagining, they were in for a bitter disappointment.
Still, if the single finest of some four thousand awakened could be culled from the field, I'd call this tournament a success.
"The preliminaries will run over three days. From them we'll select thirty-two to advance to the finals. The finals will be fought as a single-elimination tournament, held at the Gray Arena."
I had no real need to sit through the preliminaries myself, but as the host — and the main prize — the least I could do was put in an appearance.
"Let's go."
Formal dress over my shoulders, I strode out of my office.
Whatever my intentions, the people of the territory had evidently embraced the tournament as a festival of their own.
Saint Rochand was a saint of the very highest order, and the feast of Saint Rochand had been a public holiday and festival season from the start.
It was festival season to begin with, my own popularity wasn't bad — frankly, it was overwhelming — and with word that a prospective mistress of the house was joining the ducal family, the people were beside themselves with excitement.
I shouldered through the swelling crowds and arrived at the Gray Arena. Its stands held roughly ten thousand seats, standing room included. Even for mere preliminaries rather than the finals, every one of those seats was full.
"Lord Iden, you've come."
Lucian had the VIP box all to himself. Like a peacock preening, he swept his flamboyant sleeve aside and offered me a seat.
"It hasn't begun yet. Sit, and take the measure of the bride candidates."
"I hadn't realized the head of the Gray Trading Company was idle enough to spend his afternoons watching matches."
"Can you blame me, with your lordship's reign being so peaceful?"
"Your flattery gains a layer every year."
"Sign the marriage register, and you'll learn what real flattery sounds like."
Lucian laughed, playful as ever. I settled in beside him and surveyed the grounds. Dozens of dueling rings filled the center of the arena, each staffed with its own officials to oversee the bouts.
Word of my arrival must have spread, for the roar of the crowd swelled in an instant. Among the competitors, more than a few waved my way or bowed their heads.
I waved back, then turned to Lucian.
"Any notion which of them takes the crown?"
Lucian's eye was uncannily sharp in all things. I half believed he could pick the winner out of the four-thousand-strong field.
"Couldn't say. Too many variables. I don't care for uncertain wagers."
"Rich words, from the man who turned his back on the great houses and sank his entire fortune into me."
"Investing in you, my lord, was the surest wager I have made in my life."
"Your flattery really has thickened, Lucian."
Lucian burst out laughing.
"Though I have laid money on one lovely young lady. A certain Elisa Leonora. Her odds sit somewhere around thirty to one, so she's counted a very strong contender."
Elisa Leonora.
The name rang a bell. Not yet twenty-two, and already being floated as a candidate for the Seven Pillars.
Her awakened gift: the Blade of Night.
A power that wielded a sword no one could see. Kalman's blade at least had the decency to show itself; this one didn't even bother — somehow even more shameless.
"Well, there she is now."
Lucian nodded toward a ring where a bout was in full swing.
"Lady Elisa is on the left."
Elisa was a girl with a steely cast to her face, her light-purple hair cropped short. And she truly held no sword.
"Begin!"
The match was decided in a heartbeat. The moment her arm shot out, a sword wound bloomed across her opponent's shoulder.
"Halt!"
The referee called the bout at once, and a priest hurried in to work holy magic. Mending a wound like that between one blink and the next — that was the dignity of Solitas on display.
"What do you think?"
"Odds in the thirties sound about right."
She hadn't won on the strength of her gift alone. Skewering the shoulder with that precision, before her opponent could so much as react — that was technique, honed to a razor's edge.
"Her breeding is fine as well. The Marquisate of Leonora has put down deep roots in the capital's politics for generations. Her rank matches yours, and the family carries no scandal."
"To think the daughter of a house that powerful in the capital would find her way to this tucked-away corner of the world."
"However mighty a house may be in the capital, it remains the Emperor's puppet. Esterzy territory, on the other hand, is the beast of the frontier — the strongest military power of any single domain in the Empire. Any knight worth her sword would find that intriguing."
Lucian leaned in and dropped his voice.
"In fact, that is exactly why His Majesty keeps such a wary eye on you. There are rumors he is none too pleased about your succession to the title — and others that he means to offer Lady Thalia a seat among the Seven Pillars to draw her to the capital."
I snorted.
"Let him try. I won't be turning the other cheek either."
I needed no more proof of the Emperor's grudge than Mabel herself. They made a great show of demanding her for trial, I handed her over — and two years on, trial or no trial, she was still tucked at my hip.
I made ready to take my leave. The preliminaries were, after all, preliminaries. Not one bout had caught my interest.
"Waaaah—!"
Just then a tremendous roar went up from the stands to my left, and my eyes swung to that ring of their own accord.
The bout had just been decided. I'd missed the decisive moment, but one thing was certain: one combatant had subdued her opponent without so much as a hair out of place.
The victor was a girl with black bobbed hair swept back and tied, clad in ornamental armor that mixed plate with a dress.
Across her shoulder she carried a greatsword as long as she was tall. The dainty armor and the massive blade together made for a discordance beyond words.
"That would be Uld," Lucian said.
"I suppose you could call her a contender too... Her odds must be three hundred to one. She lacks Lady Elisa's renown, but she does have a third-class merit award from the Battle of Andrassy to her name."
If she'd taken a merit award at Andrassy, our paths must have crossed at some point. But third-class honors had gone to far too many recipients, and two years had smudged her face from my memory.
"And her family?"
"Commoners."
Lucian's reply was clipped.
"Marrying a commoner would mean hurdles beyond counting, my lord."
"Which is why you keep telling me to sign the register?"
I rose from my seat, laughing.
"See you at the finals."
Three days vanished in the blink of an eye. On finals day, scalped tickets must have changed hands by the thousands — how was I so sure? Same arena, yet somehow packed even tighter with people than before.
Beneath that enormous throng, thirty-two finalists — culled and culled again — took the stage.
"Lady Elisa, you can do it!"
"Lady Yuran, victory must be yours!"
The cheering war was already in full roar. In a matter of days these women had become the talk of the territory, each with a fandom to her name, and the betting pools had apparently swollen to monstrous size.
Before the finals began, I rose to deliver my address. The arena, until that moment a cauldron of excitement, went quiet as the grave the instant I stood.
"Citizens!"
A lion's roar, like peals of thunder, shook the entire arena.
"You are about to learn which of the warriors gathered here bears the fiercest will and the finest skill. Which of them will stand as the sword and shield of the North!"
I looked down at the competitors. Most couldn't hold themselves upright, buckling under the force threaded through my voice.
"Warriors! Show us your prowess, and regret nothing!"
Hard as it may be to believe, this was a message of courtship.
After better than two years of playing father, I had reached a single conclusion: short of finding another person like me, this was never going to work. So that was why Father had never managed to look after his family.
Hence the deliberately grand phrasing — so that no one could later claim she'd been swindled into a sham of a marriage.
"Lucian, don't laugh."
Lucian was laughing hard enough to sob.
"Not at all. I was only thinking what a fine decision it had been to join hands with you, my lord."
"Right? Where else would you find a noble like me? I stage the whole spectacle, and the gate receipts even cover the arena rental."
Dooong—!
The drumroll pealed the tournament open. The thirty-two competitors bowed as one and descended from the stage; once the brackets were drawn, they would climb back up two at a time to fight.
The bouts began shortly after.
Events ran exactly as Lucian had foreseen. In the bracket split into Groups One and Two, Group One became a one-woman stage for Elisa Leonora, the Blade of Night.
"...I lost."
Few could last even a single exchange against her — martial dominance, pure and simple.
Group Two, though, ran a stranger course. The one sweeping it clean was Uld, the commoner.
Uld was not as overwhelming as Elisa — but she showed no sign of strain, either. She crossed blades mechanically a few times, then used precisely as much technique as it took, the flat of her sword, to put her opponent down. She never showed her whole hand, so there was no telling where her limits lay.
"How unexpected."
Lucian cocked his head.
"I never dreamed Uld would make such a showing. With skill like that, word of her should have spread ages ago."
A third-class merit award couldn't begin to measure her — not when knights and noble daughters of the first renown were being knocked out one after another.
In the end, Elisa swept Group One and Uld swept Group Two.
The crowd was in an uproar over the staggering upset. Lucian, meanwhile, stared down at the rings with the grimmest face imaginable.
"Did you bet heavy?"
"I only laid a few thousand bat on it for fun, but Adras must be nursing a splitting headache."
Lucian smiled slyly.
"But wouldn't the one truly in a bind be you, my lord? If Uld wins as she is, and then asks for your hand in holy matrimony... you would find yourself wed to a commoner of unknown origins."
"Everyone who's made my life miserable so far had a perfectly well-documented pedigree."
I meant Mabel and Chris. Vitten and Thalia, whose origins couldn't have been murkier, had turned out to be my staunchest backers instead.
At last, the final stage was set. The light-purple-haired girl, Elisa, ascended first. Leveling her invisible sword at Uld, she spoke.
"I won't go easy on you."
Neither of them had taken so much as a scratch on the road to the final. Both were such overwhelming talents that even I couldn't call the outcome.
"...Please."
Uld extended her sword and settled into an opening stance. Not once, in any round before this, had she taken a proper sword stance.
And yet something about that stance felt strangely familiar.
I shot to my feet.
"...My lord?" Lucian asked, startled.
There was no mistaking it. That was the Crimson Blade.
The swordsmanship of Caroi, maverick of the demon race.