Cassandra
Cassandra
Eugene had finished most of what was necessary to rule as the preeminent noble of Sicily.
He had secured the powerful Apostolic Council as an ally and established himself as master of the cities.
He had taken the surrounding nobles as vassals, slain the island's ancient enemy the Hydra, and afterward hosted a grand banquet at the Wandering Castle to proclaim his authority to the world.
Only one achievement now remained untried.
The New Year's Festival held in Sicily at the beginning of each year. One might call it an indigenous rite praying for fortune and a bountiful harvest to grace the island.
Since the comital house that had overseen it until last year had vanished, the duty fell from this year onward to the bishop-count who had taken their place.
Yet there was a problem.
-Lord Viscount. We simply do not have the capacity to carry out this year's festival.
The priests dispatched to Sicily were overwhelmed. They had fought one major battle after another, and forming relationships with the native nobles was proving difficult as well.
Eugene, of course, shared the common ground of being both a fellow noble and a knight, and the prestige he had earned on the battlefield meant the nobles had come to him bowing of their own accord.
-Our brothers of the knight order have fallen and been injured in such numbers that even maintaining public order is beyond us. Might Your Lordship be prevailed upon to officiate this year's festival in our stead?
-How could I feign ignorance of your hardship? Leave it all to me, and focus your efforts on restoring the situation.
Eugene had no reason to refuse. After all, it would further solidify his authority as the island's great lord.
-Humble though it is, we have prepared support supplies and laborers, and we would be grateful if you would accept them.
-Thank you! Lord Viscount is a true brother of the faith!
Having accepted the duty with alacrity, Eugene went to visit Cassandra.
"And so, I have been charged with acting in that role this year. I would be grateful for your assistance."
He was in the middle of subcontracting the subcontract to the beautiful young lady before him.
"Hmm."
Cassandra folded her arms defensively.
"You are asking me to perform the shrine maiden's dance that prays for the island's good fortune, yes?"
"As quick to grasp things as ever."
True to her deep interest in politics, she had a firm understanding of the situation.
"A tradition that began in the distant past when the island's volcano erupted. They believed the disaster of that time was caused by the wrath of the gods."
Natural disasters were the flail of the gods. Many still believed that now, but in ancient times it had been even more pronounced.
Offering sacrifices or holding festivals to placate that wrath was a universal culture. Taken to more extreme lengths, it led to human sacrifice — casting people into the sea or burning them alive.
"I heard it was a rite of communion with the gods, performed on behalf of the island."
"It sounds grand, but it is nothing much. The prettiest young woman on the island dresses up finely and dances upon a platform before the crowd."
"But I am told volunteers are never in short supply each year."
"Because the position itself confers great honor."
From dancing girls of famous troupes to the noble daughters of the island, applicants abounded. Simply having been the shrine maiden of the New Year's Festival was enough to be considered the foremost bride of the year.
"I heard letters arrived from several noble houses."
"Where did you even hear that..."
"I am someone who tasted court life from childhood, am I not? When ordinary children looked up at a bird in the sky and simply delighted in it, I used to check first whether its ankle had a letter bound to it."
Court life was a place where a single letter coming and going could mean someone's death or downfall. True to the Cassandra who had been forged there, she always kept her ears pricked for this kind of information.
"You are right. The bribes they sent, asking me to use their daughters — you would not believe it. But my own honor is at stake, so I cannot simply use anyone, can I?"
Eugene recalled the memory of sifting through the letters with his clerks.
-One hundred million credits? They are burning a hundred million just to dance once on a stage? What sort of place is the Monsen family?
At a sum that brooked no comparison with the bribes offered by other noble houses, Eugene's eyes had wavered.
-They are renowned as wealthy even on the island. There is a salt mine in their domain. It seems they were in a hurry, as the marriageable age of their only daughter is pressing.
-Ah, I see. In that case, I shall select the young lady of the Monsen family...
-Hold a moment! You must not, Lord Viscount!
The clerks had desperately talked Eugene out of accepting on the spot.
-The daughter of Monsen is problematic.
-Why? Pay the face no mind. I was told that the notion that the most beautiful woman must serve as shrine maiden is merely a dead phrase. It can be compensated for with makeup and adornment, after all.
-It is not that. That is to say, well.
The troubled clerks had bowed their heads.
-The young lady of Monsen is rather... ample in stature. There was an incident at a formal function where the chair she sat upon shattered. Also, while riding, her horse once strained its back...
-Enough.
There were also problems that makeup and adornment could not solve.
Digging further through the letters, no house had offered a sum or conditions that were particularly enticing. They were full of talk of marriage alliances that brought Eugene little benefit.
And so, he had decided simply to choose a candidate from among the household of the Wandering Castle.
"Does Varda-nim have no interest?"
"You already know the answer, yet you ask?"
"Fufufu."
Cassandra smiled brightly, flush with a sense of victory.
-I-if I performed the rite, I would disgrace the name of House Meyer.
A considerable number of the vassals had voiced in unison that this weighty responsibility should be entrusted to Varda, but she herself had firmly declined.
"Varda-nim has two left feet. It was the same when she was active in Roman. At banquets she would accept nobles' toasts and speeches of blessing, but she absolutely refused to dance."
"I know that. Because she was the same with me."
Varda always granted Eugene's wishes with the utmost sincerity.
-I wish to hear a song.
-As you desire.
When the two of them — or the three of them with Homi — walked together and he entreated her for a song, she always answered with a heavenly melody.
The same held true when they passed clothing shops in villages and cities.
-This garment would truly suit you.
-Red likely suits me poorly. It seems overly flamboyant, as well.
-I wish to see it. Ah! Put away your purse. Naturally, I must be the one to buy it.
But upon just one matter, she had been immovable.
-It is a simple dance.
-I... have no talent for dance.
-It truly is nothing at all. You place both hands behind your head and sway your body once to the left and once to the right. That is all. There! Watch Homi doing it over there. Quite easy, is it not?
-...
She had even refused that simple a dance. Now that he thought back on it, perhaps the issue had been something other than the dance's difficulty.
"As far as I know, there is no candidate more fitting than you."
"Ceremonial rites are indeed the field in which I am most confident in the world."
Cassandra was a woman overflowing with ambition. Thus, she never rested in her studies, either.
Cassandra had not been content with her position as commander of the special-warfare rangers. She had studied witchcraft as well and achieved remarkable results. Talent alone wasn't enough for that; it took an almost obsessive sense of purpose—specifically, the desire to stand at the center of political ceremonies like this one.
"The tribe people spoke in one voice. They said there is nothing so special as Cassandra's dance."
"My dance is no mere bodily movement, you see."
Cassandra smiled playfully and bent her waist. She extended her hand toward Eugene like a gentleman asking for a dance at a ball.
Her decadent smile, her fluttering movements, the swaying of her ears. All of it was wreathed in a magical power that drew in the human soul.
"It is magic and art, unfurled with mystery wrapped about the body."
"Pursuing the mystic in politics. I have never seen or heard of such a thing."
"Ahem! Ceremonial rites, if you please. Rites."
All who pursued the mystic had their own fields of expertise. Without being deeply immersed in a single element, one could not reach the domain of magic in the first place.
Just as with Eugene's Eucharist, Varda's forest magic, Marbas's summoning art, and Homi's word spirit.
And the mystery that Cassandra pursued was ceremonial rites. True to her nature, even the mystic was a tool for chasing power.
"That aside, you really are a wicked man, Castle Lord."
"Why all of a sudden?"
"When we discussed displaying the Hydra's skeleton, you ultimately sided with Varda-nim."
"I was sorry about that."
Better, perhaps, to simply hold a flower in each hand. It was impossible to straddle the conflicting opinions of two women with one leg on each side.
"You cast me aside so coldly, and now that you need me, you come asking for my help."
Cassandra wore a sorrowful expression and bearing. Her grace was such that one might have wondered if she had ever truly been so pitiable a woman.
"I have no intention of forcing you. If you wish to decline, speak freely."
Eugene had a conscience, after all. Having sided with Varda just days before, he had no intention of compelling her into such a grand ceremony.
If it came to it, he would turn to Chieftain Alessa... That was his Plan B.
"It is fine, so please do force me."
"Pardon?"
"I had no need of you before, but now I do. Therefore, serve me. Command me so."
Seeing Eugene's crumpled expression, Cassandra giggled.
"How could I refuse a request from the Castle Lord? From the moment I expected you to seek me out, I had already planned to accept. But once I actually saw your face..."
"Seeing it?"
Cassandra touched her own lips with her index and middle fingers.
"I found myself wishing to receive a domineering command. To be cast aside only to be picked up again, decked in flowers, and set upon the stage. The mere imagining is thrilling."
"...It seems to me your character is far worse than mine."
"Ahahahaha!"
And so the shrine maiden of the Sicily New Year's Festival was decided.
The date was a few days hence, the day of the full moon. It was the season when the body of a dark elf receiving the moon's blessing grew most beautiful and mysterious.
* * *
On the promised day, a great altar and a stage were erected before the volcano near Kitania City.
"A far greater crowd than last year."
The guild masters of Kitania marveled at the five-figure crowd.
"This New Year's Festival is special, is it not? Even we ourselves are all in attendance."
"It is the event of a new power. Naturally, we must show our faces."
Nobles who wanted friendly relations with House Meyer, nobles who wanted connections with those nobles, and all of their escorts and servants besides.
When a single noble moved, the entourage that followed numbered in the dozens at minimum, and at times in the hundreds.
"But why are so many mercenaries here? If you seek work, you should be heading west or north. The viscount has pacified this region, so there is nothing to do here."
"It is not solely money that mercenaries are mad for. If you think about it, it is women who were truly..."
One of the guild masters tapped his own ears with both hands.
"Rumors of the shrine maiden who will dance have already spread far and wide. If she was specially chosen among those beauties, how extraordinary she must be."
An elf maiden dancing in shrine maiden robes at a human rite—there was no way mercenaries would miss a spectacle like that.
By the time dusk fell, the crowd reached its peak. It was the optimal timing, with the sun still illuminating the world as the power of the full moon began to imbue the air.
"The shrine maiden of the year approaches! Please welcome her with applause!"
Cassandra stepped before the tens of thousands gathered. Her skin, bright even among dark elves, cast a subtle moonlight sheen as it greeted the full moon.
Blending with the shrine maiden's robe embroidered in delicate gold thread, it created a fantastical sight.
When the sacred flame upon the altar was lit and the musicians began to play, the main event of the New Year's Festival commenced.
Cassandra's dance was passionate yet restrained, flowing with grace yet weighted with dignity.
Values that could not normally coexist, like fire and water. Under the movement of her body, they achieved harmony.
Step, step.
The delicate bare feet Cassandra stepped with were as gentle as a noble lady's gait. Yet the destructive force of a warhorse charging across a battlefield could also be felt.
Her fingers, moving without pause, evoked the work of the goddess said to have embroidered stars across the primordial night sky.
It took only a single minute for the murmuring of tens of thousands to vanish and for silence to descend. All who attended the festival lost their souls to the beautiful dance upon the stage.
Jingle, jingle.
The bells that had been adorning Cassandra's wrists and ankles began to chime with a clear ring.
'I wondered if they were empty bells, since they did not ring even once while she danced.'
Eugene was impressed. It seemed a minor detail, but such tricks of the craft were what made the difference in perfection.
Clink.
The sound of the bells, carrying mystery, disregarded distance and coiled into the ears of all who watched.
The dance grew ever more intense. Under the full moon, Cassandra's body was brimming with lunar essence.
Each gesture of her hands and each step of her feet created spiritual reverberations that shook the souls of the crowd. Like reeds before the wind, their bodies swayed left and right.
It was not from excitement, but because their souls were bound by Cassandra's dance. The flesh is ever swayed by the state of the soul.
Eugene's face, which had at first simply watched with interest, gradually hardened.
"Marbas-nim, this is..."
"This is your first time seeing it, yes? This is Cassandra's true power."
Marbas, who had returned after successfully stabilizing Phileremo, stroked his beard.
Even if he had not finished his work, he might well have rushed here regardless. For it was a precious spectacle that a mage could never afford to miss.
"Her rite is not simply a matter of cloaking a dance in magic to enchant people."
It was not only the crowd that responded to Cassandra's dance.
The very flow of the sea visible beyond Kitania City shifted strangely. Within it, fish fluttered and leaped upward, as though promising a bountiful year.
In the distant fields and mountains, beasts cried out as if in answer. As if wolves and bears were pledging in their own tongue that they would not attack the people.
"She enchants people through the rite, then converts the hearts of the enchanted into power to summon greater miracles. This is Cassandra's true mystery."
"Is it a phenomenon similar to creating a god?"
"As I have said repeatedly, never mention that in front of others. The faith of men coalescing to become a god. In earlier times, it would be a claim that got one branded a heretic and sent to the stake."
Marbas, having glanced around, gave a small nod.
"Of course, I agree with your thinking on the matter. There is likely no more fitting explanation."
"Like invoking a disposable god and faith to work a miracle, then discarding it."
"...Please, lower your voice. Your opinions are fascinating, but my heart pounds just listening!"
Marbas lowered his posture further and once again scanned the surroundings.
"Do not worry. The priests are too busy administering the county to have leisure to attend such an event. And I am not such a fool as to speak these words to just anyone, am I?"
"In any case, the reason Cassandra is spoken of as the next chieftain. You have properly understood it today, yes?"
"Quite properly."
At some point, a sweet fragrance had begun to seep into Eugene's nostrils. The magic dance, which had grown even more intense, now came to possess physical force in the form of scent.
Since this was a fragrance born of magic, no matter how much one inhaled, no acclimatization would likely occur.
'I, too, must reflect.'
The influence Cassandra held within the tribe. Eugene had considered it to stem from her noble bloodline.
But having seen today, he felt he must revise that thought. Her standing as a powerful next chieftain was won entirely by Cassandra's own power.
"Great Mother! May your breath envelop this island, and may your grace seep into us all!"
Cassandra bowed toward the volcano.
Afterward, when she rose, took up the sacred flame, and faced the people from the dais, she had become a special being, spiritually linked to the island and illuminating the world.
Even farmers and fishermen who knew nothing of magic dared not meet her eyes. Knights offering military salutes and nobles removing their hats to pay respect could be seen here and there.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
At Eugene's signal, the bells in the spire of Kitania City rang out.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Even that intense peal of bells took a long while to rouse the crowd whose souls were captivated by the stage.
It was the completion of a New Year's Festival that would be spoken of among the islanders for eternity.
"Rex, there was something I have been curious about for some time..."
"Ask anything."
"The Black Hand Tribe is a matriarchal society. Most influential chieftains are women as well. So why is your title sub-chieftain?"
Having seen the New Year's Festival, Eugene was now certain. It seemed a distant prospect for Rex to rise as the next chieftain.
He respected Rex as a friend and warrior, but in the end, Rex was no more than a single warrior.
By contrast, the power Cassandra possessed could not be replaced by any amount of martial might or wealth. It was, in the truest sense, an asymmetrical authority.
"I wondered when you would bring that up. Indeed, the effects of the New Year's Festival are immediate."
Rex laughed as if he had expected it.
"Do not consider it in terms of a successor, but understand it as a concept of roles. If the chieftain decides the overall major and minor affairs within the clan, then someone is needed to operate outside the clan."
"Activity outside the clan mostly means using force, I take it?"
"Yes. And in doing so, various situations of negotiation with external powers arise. At such times, one needs a title at least equivalent to sub-chieftain to carry authority at the bargaining table. Even if it means demanding a ransom, one can receive at least a coin more. Ah, but of course, I wield greater authority than most past sub-chieftains."
Rex did not possess only leadership over warriors and martial prowess. The fact that he was a powerful blood relative whose mother was the former chieftain would also have played a significant role.
* * *
Having finished all the tasks concerning the island of Sicily, the weather fully cleared as well.
"Castle Lord! Where are we heading next?"
"Give the order, wherever it may be."
The warriors under Eugene's command were already beginning to itch with anticipation.
"We want to show those mainland dandies the might of House Meyer as soon as possible."
"Is it not that you wish to show off your armor?"
The knights draped head to toe in the viper pattern looked sheepish.
The same was true of the archer corps. Just as Cassandra's dance had enchanted the people, the composite bows made from hydra sinew and muscle had bewitched the archers.
It was said that among them, there was even a madman who slept clutching his bow in bed.
"I wish to shoot at human armor, not monsters or beasts."
"That is rather grim talk."
"I wish to shoot at the armor of bandits and pirates."
"A pious attitude."
Fortunately for his subordinates, Eugene, too, had been thinking of leaving Sicily.
For there was still much work to be done, and his army had taken sufficient rest.
"My precious knight."
Varda clasped Eugene's hands in both of hers.
"It is time to go reclaim your rights."
The time had come to end his long bachelorhood. And to collect the dowry while he was at it.
End
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