A Sailboat on a Sea of White Clouds
The next morning, in the underground training hall of Hotel Edfolk Kaipol, Yulia and Rachel met early to go over the match from the day before.
“So, Yulia. How did it feel, actually using your body yesterday?”
“It still feels like I’m wearing clothes that don’t belong to me, but it was certainly fun. I think I understand why Young Master Blow used to fight like that, all that running around.”
“And the magic? Was it any use? Casting while you move can’t have been easy.”
Yulia stretched, smiling as she answered.
“There were definitely moments when my focus slipped. More than when I’m standing still.”
“That girl you fought yesterday, the one with the sky-blue twin-tails — she moves pretty well, though.”
“Yes, I imagine she does. Manager Cindy said she can stay up night after night and never once get a nosebleed.”
“Well, next to her, Herbena’s on the softer side. Drag it into a battle of stamina and you might be all right.”
“I hope so.”
“You will be. Once your breath is up in your throat, even a mind that was turning smoothly stops turning at all.”
Yulia nodded in agreement, rolling her shoulders loose before she asked, “So the weapons you said you’d lend me — are they coming today?”
“Yeah. Sophia should be bringing them now.”
“I am curious what they look like…”
“Feel free to look forward to it.”
After their first training session, Rachel had chosen two weapons to suit her. One was a light longsword. The other was a thing that could not possibly have belonged beside Yulia. It sat so badly with that soft impression of hers that the mere imagining of it had Rachel bursting into laughter.
“Hahaha. It really won’t suit you.”
“You said the same thing last time. You didn’t tell them to bring it just to tease me, I hope.”
“It’s a duel. Do you think I’ve lost my mind? Hahaha, honestly! I want to see it as soon as I can. I’m dying to know how Blow reacts, too!”
“Haah.”
While Yulia sighed, Rachel, looking as if she might die of amusement, needled her a little further.
“Anyway, you confirmed you’re allowed to use a weapon in the duel, right?”
“Yes. I asked the teachers yesterday. They said it doesn’t matter, so long as it isn’t something that amplifies magic.”
“Is there a precedent?”
“There doesn’t seem to be one, of course. Instructor Mnevoir spent ages digging through the rulebook herself.”
“Then doesn’t that mean it isn’t allowed?”
“They said only things tied to mana are forbidden — scrolls and the like. For this tournament, at least, using one shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Still, at Academia you end up fighting knight cadets too, so in principle it makes sense that weapons are permitted.”
The two of them loosened up. Yulia caught sight of Rachel with beads of sweat already gathered on her brow from nothing more than stretching, and a small smile touched her mouth.
“It reminds me of noble school. Swordsmanship class wasn’t so bad.”
“Yeah? I do remember you weren’t half bad at it.”
“There wasn’t the pressure to excel the way there is with magic, so I could stand to take it. Moving my body seemed to clear my head, too.”
“The Imperial Capital Magic School still has something like that in the students’ morning classes, I’d bet. The idea being that sooner or later they’ll have to work with knights.”
“Really? That’s very practical. Our curriculum does lean rather heavily toward magical research.”
Rachel turned the words over, then tilted her head and asked, “Hey. Why did you come to school in Caipol, anyway?”
“……”
“There’s no way the Imperial Capital Magic School rejected you.”
“It’s just… the hotel is over here, too.”
Yulia’s tone had the sound of an excuse. Rachel rolled her eyes toward her and found her biting down softly on her lower lip.
…I’ll have to make that bastard Blow ask her.
She was just about to change the subject and clear the air when a knock rang through the training hall.
“Who is it?”
“My lady, it is Marchen. Lady Sophia has arrived.”
“Ah, yes. Please have her come in.”
The door opened, and Sophia came through with several others, carrying the weapons Yulia was to use. Seeing them for the first time, Yulia stared as if she could not quite believe they were right. Rachel grinned at her, the smile saying plainly that this was the one.
Some three hours after Yulia began her training with Rachel, Blow sat across from Deschamps in a restaurant on the outskirts of Caipol, offering him every courtesy he had.
“Did I keep you waiting long?”
“No. Not long.”
“I see. Sit.”
Only after watching him take his seat did Jane and Blow carefully take their own. Deschamps murmured something in Marchen’s ear, then turned his gaze to Blow and asked, gently, “Have you ordered?”
“Yes. I reserved a course in advance.”
“Did you. From what I saw, this is quite a well-known house.”
“I took as much care as I could. I asked Marchen, as well.”
“Did you? Well done. Our Marchen is a fine one, isn’t she. Does her work well.”
“Yes. I’ve seen her coming and going a few times lately, and she handles things in the proper order.”
“To be praised even by you — Marchen must have done her work very well indeed.”
At that, Marchen bowed to the two of them. Deschamps wet his throat with water, then leaned toward Blow.
“So, Blow Deblique. What business brings you to me?”
“Last time, you said we ought to share a meal. I heard you meant to leave once the semifinals were over, so I thought today might be the only time.”
“Yes. That’s why I said my goodbyes to Yulia this morning, as well.”
As he spoke, something like sorrow seemed to settle over Deschamps’s face. Blow swallowed against a dry throat and brought out the words he had already decided to say.
“If I may be so bold — might you stay and watch through the finals? They’re tomorrow, after all.”
“I promised Yulia. I said I would leave once the semifinals ended.”
“Even so, would you consider it just once more?”
For an instant Deschamps’s eyes turned hard. Seeing it, Blow fought to keep his composure, telling himself there was no way the man would actually kill him.
“Tomorrow’s final will not be easy. Of every duel Senior Yulia has fought so far, this one is likely to be the hardest.”
“I know that. Her opponent is that girl Herbena, your right hand, is she not?”
“Ah. You saw that far. I’m honored.”
“She has a tremendous raw gem in her, Blow Deblique. Looking at her was like looking at my old colleagues.”
“I’ll be sure to pass those words to Herbena. She’ll be very pleased.”
“She left that strong an impression, yes. But what does my remaining have to do with your right hand dueling Yulia tomorrow?”
He asked it as if genuinely puzzled, and Blow answered with care.
“It has everything to do with it.”
“How so?”
“Senior Yulia is going to need somewhere to lean. During the match, and after it.”
“Have you perhaps failed to notice?”
“May I ask what you mean?”
A helpless sigh escaped Deschamps.
“That things are awkward between Yulia and me. I was grateful, the day we first met, that you seemed to care.”
“I only sensed it vaguely then. Later I heard a little of what she went through as a child.”
“Then this should be simpler. As you have seen, Yulia finds me difficult. And I, too, find Yulia difficult.”
“Even so…”
“Thank you for your concern. Even without me, Yulia will have friends like you. I can leave with an easy mind.”
That Deschamps and Yulia were awkward with each other was something most of the capital’s nobles already knew, quietly, among themselves. Deschamps, deciding there was nothing to hide, tried to speak as if it did not matter. The bitterness sunk deep in his voice was not a thing that could be cut away.
…That ought to be enough. He’ll let it rest now.
Deschamps was just lifting the oyster from his plate when Blow said something entirely other than what he had expected.
“But no one, myself included, can become Senior Yulia’s family. I believe there is a great difference between a relationship you can reach only by crossing through someone else, and one that requires no such crossing.”
“……”
“And after the duel, I intend to ask Senior Yulia to share a meal with you, Marquis.”
“She won’t like that.”
“Even so, she’ll listen to me.”
Blow’s voice was straight as a staff, full of certainty, and to Deschamps that certainty felt only natural. If the young man asked Yulia to pluck him a star, she would give the request serious thought. Because his daughter looked at Blow with the very eyes with which he had once looked at Karen.
What struck him as strange was that Blow Deblique, seated there before him, seemed to be troubling himself over the distance between Yulia and her father.
“It seems our state does not sit well with you. Yulia and I.”
“If I am to be entirely honest, it does not.”
“That is a remarkably insolent way of thinking.”
The air froze. Jane did her best to hide the tremor in her hands. But Blow, judging the die already cast, did not so much as change his expression, and he spoke in a clear voice.
“Marquis, I am collaborating with none other than the eldest daughter of House Edfolk.”
“You are.”
“Which means a great many people will take my movements for the will of you and Grand Duchess Karen.”
“That is true.”
“And Senior Yulia, in truth, receives the full support of the house. The hotel was originally yours as well. After she graduates, Lady Yulia will begin to use the Edfolk name in earnest, and then our affairs will overlap in all sorts of ways. When that time comes, I believe the communication between you will need to be smoother.”
“So in your eyes, it does not look smooth now?”
“No. You yourself just called it awkward, did you not?”
From the conversation, Deschamps could understand why Blow was straining to mend things between him and Yulia. What the young man was saying now, however, was almost more than he could bear to hear. Blow, who still had the down of youth on his cheeks, was prodding and digging at the weakest place in him. For a moment a displeasure rose thick enough that he wanted to smash the table and walk out into the open air.
Even so, Deschamps could not do it. Even if Blow drove the point in deeper still, he knew he never would. Because alongside the displeasure there had risen a thread of hope that the handsome young man seated before him might loosen, even a little, the knot between him and Yulia.
Displeasure and expectation. In the whirl of those two feelings, which could not exist together, Deschamps struggled to find his calm. The silence that effort bought lasted until the venison steaks set before them had vanished without a trace.
A long while passed. Deschamps smoothed his beard and spoke with a sigh.
“What do you intend to do if Yulia refuses to dine with me?”
“Then, for the first time, she and I will have a clash of opinion. Our voices will probably rise.”
“And if that sours things entirely and causes trouble for the business?”
“Senior Yulia is not that sort of person.”
Blow’s voice was full of certainty. Jane, who had been sitting beside him as if dead, nodded at those words as if she agreed.
…How can that boy speak with such confidence? It has been nearly twenty years since I first looked upon Yulia, and she is still such a difficult child…
While he hesitated, Blow rose from his seat, bent at the waist in a deep bow, and said, “If you will grant me your permission just this once, I will do everything in my power.”
“No matter how I think on it, I cannot see why you should go so far.”
“No. I must. I spoke only of business, but I have a personal reason as well.”
“A personal reason…?”
“Yes. When I look at you, Marquis, someone keeps coming to mind. Someone who was very precious to me.”
In Deschamps, Blow was seeing Grandpa laid over the man before him — that way Grandpa had of doing kindness upon kindness and still only apologizing. The moment the two images overlapped, Blow could not ignore it. He did not think he should.
Deschamps looked into eyes that shone like stars, and in his heart the displeasure had already scattered without a trace. Expectation alone filled that broad heart of his.
If he could sit over a cup of tea with Yulia the way other people did, share a meal now and then, trade even the smallest worries…
If he could only be allowed that ordinary thing…
Afraid that opening his mouth would let him come undone, Deschamps was carefully choosing his words when a fresh-cream cake was set before him as dessert, striking for the vivid red of its strawberries.
Startled at the sight of it, he asked the server who had brought it, his voice unsteady, “It’s November. Strawberries…?”
“The restaurant is using the preservation magic you developed, Marquis!”
“I see…”
Hearing the answer, Deschamps did not touch the cake. He only gazed at it, long and quiet. Unable to leave it be, Blow spoke to him with care.
“If it isn’t to your liking, I’ll ask them to change the dessert.”
“No. It’s all right.”
With that he picked up his fork, and Blow and Jane, too, quietly brought a strawberry from the cake to their mouths. Deschamps’s tightened voice reached them.
“Yulia used to love them so.”
“Ah. She did?”
“Yes. She loved how the cream looked just like clouds. She said the strawberries were like sailboats floating on a sea of those clouds…”
“……”
“Yulia loved every kind of cake. Cheesecake, pound cake, and the fresh-fruit cakes with all sorts of fruit in them…”
He was listing them one by one, a smile on his lips, when a tear dropped suddenly from his eye.
“Marquis…”
“Haha. Is it because I’ve grown old? Dear me…”
For a long while after that he covered his mouth with a hand and gathered himself, and only then, in a voice still thick, did he manage to speak.
“I am more grateful for your words than I can say, but it will not be easy. You said you heard about her childhood?”
“Yes. I heard what happened before the young lady came to our magic school.”
“Then have you ever heard why Yulia came here, to Caipol?”
Blow looked toward Jane, but she only shook her head, as lost as he was. He had just drawn breath to answer with care when Deschamps’s mouth opened first.