Don't Cry. Don't Cry. — 2
It was the morning of a one-day weekend.
I was resting in my lodgings when one of the attendants came to say my escort had arrived, and called me down to the reception room on the ground floor.
A black-haired girl was sitting there, a rare sight in this place. I took the seat across from her.
"Hello."
"Hey. So you're Bell? The one I'm supposed to guard, then?"
She was remarkably cheerful. Young for an escort, it seemed to me, but if she was meant to enter the Royal Academy alongside me, that wasn't so strange.
"I was told someone like that would be coming. Do you start today?"
"Mm-hm. That's right."
As she said it, she held out a sheet of paper. I took it and read. By the king's command, she was to serve as my escort. The term was this year. And the name—
"Meriwether Ollet?"
"Mm, I'd really rather you skipped the stiff name, if you can. Call me Mali."
I nodded. I had expected an escort to be a rigid sort of person. She didn't seem to be one. The northerners Kanna knew wore the title of knight, though barbarian warrior would have suited them better, and the knights Aurora knew were the sort who patrolled the castle with stiff faces.
"Will you be following me the whole time?"
"Scope of duties — next page!"
I turned the sheet over, and the scope of her work was indeed written there. She was to stay with me nearly all day. An escort's post, and harsher than I had expected: not a single day off, and no rotation either. Meriwether, straight through.
Perhaps the royal house wasn't trying to control me so much as putting the witch first. I can make a person into a Harvester and cure them only once. If the witch cast the curse a second time, there would be little I could do — so rather than move against me, they meant to take the witch first.
There was even a chance she wasn't a knight at all. They had said someone would guard me. They had never said who.
"Yes. I've confirmed it."
At that, Meriwether stared straight at me. I waited, wondering what was strange about it, and at last she spoke.
"Uh, that's all? Not very cute. Yeah. All right. If that's the kind of person you are, nothing to be done. I'll just have to bring the energy myself! Looking forward to working with you, Bell."
She said it with a bright smile. The words were cheerful enough, but a faint hostility clung to one side of her face. The expression was excellently acted. The feeling underneath could still be read. The king must have warned her to be careful — that I was a monster.
I had no intention of doing anything wicked where it could be seen, so it was fine. I had already finished everything I was able to do. People can't stay wary for long. Wariness is tiring, and dull, and a nuisance, isn't it?
"Yes. I look forward to working with you as well, Meriwether."
"I told you to call me Mali."
That day, an escort was posted at my side.
The next day was a weekday.
I rose as I always did, washed, changed, ate, and left for school. The only difference was that Meriwether followed from the moment I set out. She wore clothes much like mine, but she was a good deal taller than I was, and the impression was different. The trouble, surely, was that I looked far too young.
I didn't know her real age, but walking to school together like this, she passed for a student. Was she enrolling as one? A transfer would stand out far too much, wouldn't it?
Thinking that, I went into the classroom. I sat, and Meriwether sat down beside me.
Strange.
A student no one had ever seen was sitting right there, and not one person showed her any interest. On the first day Victoria and I arrived, no one had spoken to us, yet every eye had turned our way. Set against that, the absence of glances now was uncanny. No one so much as looked oddly at Meriwether lounging at ease in her seat. By Kanna's memories, that alone should have been enough to draw frowns.
Then Victoria came into the classroom.
"Hey, Bell. And you — ah, sorry. What was your name again?"
She sat down beside me and asked Meriwether her name, for all the world as if they were that ambiguous sort of acquaintances: familiar enough, but not quite familiar enough for a name to stick.
"I'm Mali. You're Victoria, right?"
"Yeah. That's me. Huh, why did I forget? Call me Tori, too."
Victoria accepted it without a shred of doubt and nodded. Some art that twisted perception, then. Perhaps she wasn't a knight at all, but someone from intelligence — that sort.
Aurora knew nothing of it. Kanna knew such a thing existed, but had never seen its substance. This one might well be from that side. If she could slip in anywhere and be felt as someone already known, intelligence work would certainly be convenient.
I had thought magic in this world had advanced only along engineering lines, yet a technique like this had advanced as well. I didn't even need to look through Daegon's memories. Yasle's held a memory of this kind of art, and since it was something a person could do, it couldn't be all that extraordinary.
"You two close?"
"Yeah. Super close."
And so the two of them talked, with me seated between them.
"From what I saw at the house, you just sit there quiet, with nothing to do. Don't you get bored?"
Yesterday afternoon and evening, then. We hadn't really spoken, but she had spent most of that time watching me — sitting perfectly still — with a strange look on her face.
"Really? She wasn't like that at our house. She cleaned, she cooked, she was closer with Mom than I was, even. And every morning she'd come wake me, telling me to get out of bed early. Ugh. If it's break, she could at least leave me alone."
So that had been a considerable grievance. Beatrice was an extremely brisk sort, and she had disliked Victoria sleeping late just because it was vacation.
"Ahaha, I know that one. I love sprawling out and sleeping on my days off, too. But that's a very different Bell from the one staying where she lives now, isn't it?"
"How different are we talking?"
I could understand becoming the subject of the conversation. I would have liked them to stop holding it over my head, with me planted in the middle.
"This kid. From noon yesterday all the way to night, she sat in a chair in the exact same posture, and the moment it was bedtime she went straight to sleep. Awfully like a doll."
At Meriwether's words, Victoria looked at me with worry.
"Is it hard, there?"
"No. I don't do it because there's no need for me to work. If I took on that sort of work myself, the people employed in that house would be put in a difficult position."
I could read at least that much. It was a place meant for attending people of high rank, and they were extremely strict about such things. Even when someone like me came in — someone with no rank at all — there was a pride that kept their work theirs and mine mine. No need to take that from them and earn ill will for nothing.
"Taking pride in one's work is a good thing. It's what I want from the people who make a contract with me."
Pride gained that way begins, before anyone notices, to waver, and falls into arrogance. The skill grows obsolete. Only people the age has left behind remain. And then they learn to exploit others, because it is comfortable, and because it is easy.
Look at the artisan system. It isn't a bad thing in itself. To pass a craft down properly, to have those below develop it further and carry it on — that is good. But the one who teaches holds the power, and the one who learns is made weak. That is not good. It becomes a simple thing to exploit them, and to cast them off whenever one wishes.
Doing it openly would offend their own particular ethics. There are many ways not to do it openly. Give them only a little too much — a quantity they could never possibly manage — and wear at them in the mind, demanding to know why they can't do even this. Human cleverness shines brightest at moments like these. Best of all is to drive them into taking their own lives.
Only when malice of that kind exists can I obtain warmth with ease. No need to dirty my own hands. I can feign ignorance, and say that I only gave them power.
"Yeah, there Bell goes again. She's scary when she gets like this~"
Victoria snickered and pointed at me. A false charge, that. I was the frightening one, was I?
"Why scary? I like it too. Isn't it good to take pride in your work?"
At Meriwether's question, Victoria stared at her.
"What?"
"Mm. Nothing. It's a pleasant thing to say, I'll give you that. She affirms me completely. Tells me to do whatever I want. Only—"
"Only?"
Victoria broke off and sank into thought. Meriwether pressed her, curious, and I looked at Victoria, curious myself. Victoria folded her arms, set her thoughts in order, and spoke.
"Bell would affirm me no matter what I did. Right?"
"Yes. That's right."
She knew me well. It would be fine if Victoria did bad things. Even if she took supernatural power and ruled over people, I would cheer her on.
"Because there's no discernment in it. Bell. In that sense, she isn't quite human."
"Ah, then I don't really like that. Honestly, that just means she doesn't care."
They were certainly free with their words, and me sitting right between them. Gossip behind my back? No. Said to my face, this was just bullying.
Victoria looked frankly incredulous.
"Doesn't care? Her?"
"I mean, if it's fine no matter what someone becomes, doesn't that mean it doesn't matter either way? That's indifference."
"That's not what I mean. It's more like — what do you call it? An endless breadth of embrace? A fierce gravity? There's something like that."
Little by little, I understood.
Meriwether Ollet. Not a knight — someone from intelligence. I was fairly sure of it. Guarding was guarding, and at the same time she was gathering information on me. Suppose this strange warping of perception was aimed at me as well. From her point of view, I ought to feel no suspicion about the conversation happening now. And she had the pretext of being an escort, so even if she were caught, she could wave it off as duty. Clever, Your Majesty.
He had seemed to know something about me, so placing a person like this wasn't strange in itself. A little blatant, perhaps, though she seemed to have some special item. For now, I would pretend to be taken in. She hadn't asked me directly, so I wasn't the one in the wrong. All I had done was embrace them, even when I was suspicious. If they asked why I never pointed it out, I could say I had thought it was their culture.
Hehe.
"Isn't it indifference? She never drops the formal speech, and she calls you Victoria, not Tori."
At that, Victoria's eyes came to me.
"I'm not happy about it either. But the moment I bring it up—"
"It's a mental illness."
"—this is what I get."
Meriwether's face asked whether I was serious. So I nodded.
"That's a bit... underhanded."
"That's what I'm saying."
Victoria and Meriwether. Getting along didn't look as if it would be a problem. I was a little uneasy about what would become of the friendship once this perception-warping art disappeared, but.
Mmm.
They would sort it out on their own, no doubt.
Soon the teacher came in, called the roll, and began the lesson. Meriwether's name had appeared on the register at some point. Truly frightening, the kingdom's intelligence service.
I would have to be careful.