Chapter 23: Victory Banquet
Chapter 23: Victory Banquet
A banquet was held to celebrate the victory in the Hall War.
"Did you see the last knight go down? Thud! Just flopped over like a frog, hahaha!"
"The Volks fellow was far more satisfying to watch. Built like a mountain, but once you got him by the armpits he went rolling around like a child throwing a tantrum."
"Come now! Our cups are empty!"
Was it a reaction against all that time spent groaning under a gloomy cloud? The city notables drank and made merry like madmen.
"These foolish humans!"
Panis watched the spectacle, his cheeks quivering with indignation.
It was true enough that this was a banquet celebrating Bonyard's victory. Yet the guest of honor should have been Eugene. Was he not the knight who had appeared at the city's hour of crisis and struck down every foe?
This was a matter quite apart from his personal feelings. The esteem in which a city held a hero who had bestowed such grace was a matter of civic dignity.
Seeing the very people who ought to have been showing him the most ardent reverence instead carousing merrily among themselves made his blood boil.
"Be understanding, Chief Magistrate. You have been following the course of events all along, but those people were trapped in pitch-black darkness, were they not?"
The Executor, one of the few who still had his wits about him, offered consolation.
"At least we are fortunate that a person of greater station than ourselves remains at Sir Eugene's side."
"Hoo, you are right. A moment's lapse and I would have lost all face before the knight."
Their gazes turned toward the Roman noble who was chatting amiably with Eugene.
It was common, though not obligatory, for an observer to be invited to the victor's banquet.
Benjamin, the chief observer, was the second son of the ancient Morad family. Highly learned and eloquent, he enjoyed considerable prestige across many kingdoms.
He was a busy man who normally returned home as soon as a matter was settled, but this trial by combat seemed to have left a deep impression on him.
"Sir Eugene, would you accept a drink?"
"The honor is mine."
"Please, no need for that. The honor is mine if I can offer wine to an All-Conquering Knight. My family grew the grapes and made this wine ourselves."
The wine Benjamin poured was exceptional even in color, to say nothing of its deep, mellow bouquet.
"I mean no disrespect to Bonyard, but it will be finer than any vintage to be found here."
Roman, at the center of the continent, possessed the broadest plains relative to its territory. Its soil and climate were ideal, and it had long been famous for producing the finest wines.
For him to offer a bottle he had brought for his own drinking suggested that the knight before him pleased him greatly indeed.
"Truly excellent. I have never tasted a wine like this before."
Benjamin accepted the praise without false modesty.
"I have attended countless trials by combat, yet never one so remarkable as this. You are a man blessed not only with heaven-sent martial might, but with mercy as well."
"Sir Volks did die, however."
And he had killed him rather brutally at that. Eugene himself had wondered if he ought to have simply taken the head clean off.
"Ha! To call such a savage 'Sir' is a waste of the title. Put fine armor on a man and dub him knight, but base blood will never change. He deserved to die like a beast."
As if the mere thought left a foul taste in his mouth, Benjamin downed his wine.
"I once observed another trial by combat in which that Volks fellow took part."
"He was brutish, yet his skill was genuine. Of the three, he was the most dangerous."
The armor Goffrey had bequeathed was excellent, but Volks's two-handed axe could not be ignored. The plate might protect the torso, but anywhere guarded only by mail could well have been torn asunder.
"That is why he was called upon by this side and that. The last time I saw him, he was unspeakably cruel."
Benjamin shook his head.
"He brought his axe down into the mouth of an opponent who pleaded for his life with both legs already cut off."
"How appalling!"
"The top of his severed head rolled across the arena, and the whole place descended into bloody chaos."
"Cruel though it was, is that not the nature of a duel? Blood is bound to flow."
"The essence of the duel is the judgment handed down by the gods. The weapons of men are mere pens in their hands."
Eugene refilled Benjamin's empty glass.
"Just as a prophet transcribing the divine word must not insert his own opinion into scripture, a warrior who enters a trial by combat must also show restraint with his weapon."
"Lord Benjamin is right. The blood spilled in the arena is like ink; too much of it only stains the scripture."
"Hahahaha!"
Benjamin burst into hearty laughter.
"Did I not say there will never be another knight like you? The world has need of more such knights, yet it grows ever more barbarous by the day. What a lamentable state of affairs."
Unlike Eugene, who remained unaffected no matter how much he drank, Benjamin was becoming thoroughly drunk. At some point he had begun grumbling about the internal situation in Roman.
"They call themselves heirs of the Ancient Kingdom, yet they usurp the title of emperor! The world is going to ruin, I tell you."
'Oh! This is exactly the sort of intelligence I wanted.'
Eugene poured more wine into the man's empty glass.
Gulp, gulp!
Benjamin was usually a man who kept the virtue of moderation, but tonight he had loosened his restraint for many reasons.
"I understand that incident has thrown the Roman Empire—no, the Roman Kingdom—into turmoil."
Having emptied his glass, Benjamin furrowed his brow.
"Khaa! You may as well call it an empire. They are already rewriting the entire legal code. If they cast aside the laws they inherited and cease to be a kingdom, in what sense are they heirs of the Ancient Kingdom?"
The attendant tried to intervene at the sight of his lord uncharacteristically discomposed, but Homi blocked his way.
"Squire, if you would clear the path..."
"Grrr-."
"Hiiik!"
Her towering height, icy expression, wild eyes, and sharp fangs made the attendant feel as though he stood before a predator. He backed away in fright.
"Good heavens, just what does Lord Benjamin have so much to say that he's glued right to his side?"
"Exactly. Is the knight short of people wishing to make requests of him? He really ought to spare a thought for those of us waiting behind him. Tsk, tsk!"
As a result, those who had hoped to praise Eugene while slipping in petty requests could only fidget impatiently.
Eugene swept a cold gaze over those figures. He was well aware that it was only Benjamin keeping those hyenas at bay.
"Sir Eugene. Before long, a great war will break out."
"...!"
If Benjamin said so, then it would surely happen.
"There are already nobles who have been stripped of their titles, and nobles whose heirs, held as hostages in the capital, have died."
"None of them will stay quiet."
"They are already gathering into factions around the great nobles. Civil war will follow. I think it will begin in the Holden region..."
Benjamin, who had been spilling every detail, finally slumped over. Eugene gave Homi a meaningful look.
She cleared the way, and the attendant, having rushed over in a fluster, carried Benjamin away.
'They say the farmer lives on peace, but the knight lives on war.'
Eugene had entered the city merely hoping to earn his living expenses, yet he felt a far greater ambition stirring inside him.
He really had become a knight. The thought of war stirred not fear, but anticipation.
"To drink that much and still look perfectly fine—impressive."
Karas came out to the balcony where Eugene stood taking the night air.
"You look perfectly steady yourself."
"I barely drank. After tasting the liquor of my homeland, the swill they serve here won't go down."
"You certainly take pride in your homeland."
"It is the only thing stronger than my sword."
"Disappointed you never got your turn?"
Karas laughed and took a place beside Eugene.
"At first I thought so, but watching turned out to be plenty entertaining on its own."
Karas straightened his hand and made a sawing motion at his own armpit.
"Watching that great lumbering bear turn blue was a spectacle worth seeing."
"Have you come from attending Kresi's funeral?"
A funeral for Kresi was underway near the banquet hall.
He may not have been of any help, but he was a knight who had died fighting in the city's hour of crisis. Giving him the best funeral they could was a matter of the city's pride.
"He was hardly worthy of being called a knight, but for a short while he was still our comrade. Besides, I don't like banquets. All that praising each other to the skies while laughing and smiling."
Karas shrugged.
"So I paid my respects at the funeral, laid some flowers, and ate a meal there."
Just then, a commotion arose behind them. Some drunken city notables who had tried to enter the balcony were being blocked by Homi.
"Out of my way! Do you know who I am, to block my path? Hmm?"
A wealthy textile merchant of the city, flushed with drink and bellowing, suddenly broke into a broad grin.
"What's this, why is your tail so long and thick? How curious. Where do you hail from?"
"G-good sir! This person is..."
A friend who still had some sense tried to stop him, but the liquor flowing through a man's veins could turn anyone into a warrior.
"Hey! I'm Gazel! Gazel! Wherever I go in this city..."
The red-faced merchant abruptly fell silent when his friend grabbed his head and forcibly turned him toward the balcony.
As the wolf-like stares of the two knights bore down on him, the drink left him in an instant.
"M-my apologies! I didn't realize you knights were here!"
The merchant beat a hasty retreat, staggering all the while.
"I used to wonder why you went about with a squire who cannot speak. Now I see the reason."
Karas showed him his wrist, where a red handprint was stamped.
"Homi wouldn't let you through, I take it."
"Indeed. She takes your alone time seriously. The way she stood there blocking me with that firm expression—she wouldn't budge."
Karas massaged his wrist, as though the ache still lingered.
"How did you manage to get in? Don't tell me you overpowered Homi?"
"Perish the thought. I'm not one to be easily bested in a contest of strength either, but your squire was more than I could handle. In any case, she suits her master remarkably well."
"Thank you for the compliment."
"I told her I had come from Kresi's funeral. I said I wished to honor his death alongside you, and she let me pass."
Karas looked at Homi with genuine goodwill. The squire's disciplined posture at the entrance had a soldier's bearing.
"I've always detested having someone trailing behind me and gone about alone, but seeing this, I find myself a little envious."
Karas absently rubbed his own rough, stubbled chin and throat. Eugene's face, by contrast, was always clean-shaven.
"This is your chance. Find yourself a squire."
"If I can find one such as that, I shall."
"Then I suppose you will be going about alone for the rest of your life."
Eugene laughed, teasing him.
"So, what does the esteemed All-Conquering Knight plan to do next?"
"I plan to stay in the city for a while. I'm a greenhorn who has only just stepped out into the world, so there's still a lot I don't know. Staying here is useful because all kinds of information reaches me."
Karas found it curious that the knight before him so readily called himself a greenhorn.
With skill like his, Eugene could have swaggered all he wanted, yet he maintained an oddly detached cynicism. Though he had earned honors anyone would covet, he seemed almost unmoved by them.
Eugene gazed at the banquet hall being tidied up, a regretful look on his face.
"They said they invited the mage from the nearby forest to the banquet too, but she never came. I really wanted to meet her."
"You mean the Lady of the Forest?"
She was a mage of such renown that even Karas had heard the rumors.
"I've never met a mage before, so I was curious. There are a lot of things I want to ask about magic, and I'd like to talk with her."
The peasants of Kingdom's End had dismissed magic as something that belonged only in old tales.
But Eugene had experienced supernatural power firsthand. He was deeply interested in mages.
"What does a knight intend by getting tangled up with mages? You really are an odd one. Though, come to think of it, that brute monstrous strength of yours might as well be magic itself. Perhaps like calls to like?"
To common folk, a mage was a figure like a fairy sage who helped the poor farmer in children's stories.
To a knight like Karas, however, they were disquieting beings who wielded incomprehensible power and distorted the world.
In the eyes of an orthodox knight who forged his path through effort, sweat, and courage, a mage existed somewhere between a ghost and a human.
Whooosh—!
At that moment, an eagle-owl flew overhead, briefly blotting out the full moon.
"That thing has been circling around here for a while, hasn't it? Creepy."
Karas looked up at the sky with a foreboding air. To the people of this age, owls and eagle owls were symbols of misfortune.
They often appeared in tales of beasts commanded by wicked mages.
"It probably came to catch the rats drawn by the banquet. And it is quite a magnificent-looking creature."
But Eugene, unfettered by superstition, was simply delighted to observe an animal he rarely saw. It was large enough to blot out the full moon completely.
Yet there was one strange thing.
'Is it just me? It feels like that thing has been staring at me for a while.'
As though it had no interest in hunting, the eagle-owl alighted on a distant rooftop and stared fixedly at Eugene.