Chapter 98: Gord (5)
Chapter 98: Gord (5)
In Gord, tournaments were held more frequently than in other countries. The people were belligerent by nature, and since the contests were infantry battles, hosting them was comparatively easy.
Even by the reckoning of the spectators, who had seen more tournaments than those in other lands, today's match was special. Never before had they witnessed anything so thrilling and so rich in spectacle.
"The gods will surely be pleased by such abundant offerings."
The bishop seated with them smiled with satisfaction.
Ordinarily, clergy looked unfavorably upon men fighting one another for sport, but this was Gord. A grand martial tournament was regarded not merely as human entertainment but as an extension of the rites offered to the gods.
And when, as today, mighty warriors distinguished themselves violently yet without a single death and with little blood shed, it was acclaimed as an offering of the highest order.
"It seems the victors have been given sufficient time by now," Count Andar remarked.
The winners, hoisting their weapons aloft, had drunk deeply of the crowd's acclaim, their expressions content. It was a privilege they had earned.
'Does that fellow feel nothing at all?'
Yet Eugene, the one who was to carry away the greatest glory of all, remained impassive with his iron bar resting across his shoulder.
"I'll leave it to you."
"Leave it to me."
At a glance from Count Andar, the bishop rose and proclaimed to all:
"The blessing of the gods shall be with the warriors who lit up today's contest. The match is now ended. Leave behind any unspent fighting spirit and all your excitement upon this field. A prepared feast awaits you all!"
Cheers erupted on every side, born of the anticipation of free drink and free food to follow the exhilarating spectacle.
Eugene was puzzled. Declaring the end of a tournament was a right bound up with the host's authority. No matter how greatly the bishop was esteemed, it was hard to understand why the host would yield that prerogative.
When Eugene asked Badel, he replied in a tone more courteous than before the match had begun:
"Today's contest ended with uncommon tidiness. Ordinarily there would be several times as much blood spilled, and that in turn accompanied by many times as much sweat and cursing."
By now, under normal circumstances, a desperate fight would still have been raging toward its final phase. Knights would be rolling about locked in grappling duels, and men with broken limbs would be groaning as they were carried out.
"The spectators may enjoy it, but the participants often harbor resentment even after the match is over."
At this, Eugene formed a rough guess.
"You mean that if the host declared the end rashly, he could end up drawing their grievances onto himself. Like the man who tries to break up a fight and gets punched instead."
"Exactly. Things may be milder now, but when the two peoples had only just come together in this land, hosts who mishandled the closing declaration were sometimes challenged to duels."
It was exactly what you would expect of a place reputed to be the most savage among the continent's civilized nations.
"So the clergy were made responsible for the closing in order to deflect that?"
"For however enraged a man becomes, no lunatic would challenge a clergyman to a duel."
Badel surveyed the floor, which remained conspicuously free of bloodstains, and smiled.
"If you have the chance to observe the other tournaments here, you will understand. Today ended in a truly gentlemanly fashion."
With those words, Eugene and Badel exchanged waves and parted. Once the bishop declared the end, the combatants were obliged to leave the arena swiftly.
In a sense, the existence of a common threat—Barsia—might have been a stroke of good fortune.
A warlike national character, the instincts of raiders, and conflict between the old native nobility and the newly risen nobles. Gord seemed to have every bit as many internal problems as Roman, making it difficult to regard the country as a single unified whole.
'Which works well for me, I suppose.'
For Eugene, an outsider, it could hardly have been better. A perfectly stable country would close ranks against foreigners out of cohesion, but in this atmosphere, men were bound to extend their hands for their own advantage.
Aisha peeled off the white gloves that covered her to the elbows. Merely watching the contest had roused her so intensely that the clamminess of sweat was unpleasant.
"Thank you."
"Not at all, my lady."
After washing her hands with water a maidservant poured from a bottle, she asked her father.
"Who will you name as the victor?"
Respecting the wishes of his co-hosts, Count Andar had sanctioned the team composition that broke the balance. In exchange, he had secured a valuable right: priority in designating the victor.
"Under ordinary circumstances I would have given it to Sir Badel, but if I did that this time, an uproar would follow."
"Naturally. It would cause a great deal of talk, wouldn't it?"
Nobles, knights, and commoners alike already seemed to have settled on who the victor would be.
Eugene had swept the knights like fallen leaves in an autumn gale, swinging his great iron bar like a storm. To name anyone else as winner would be tantamount to a joke.
And not least, the other two counts who were co-hosts had simply assented: 'If it's Sir Eugene, who could possibly harbor any complaint?'
Quite apart from the skill shown in the match, it was also a matter of saving face. It stung far less to see a foreign knight claim the honor of victory than a knight of the Clear Current faction.
And so Eugene was chosen as the victor.
"Thank you for bringing the good news."
The clerks who visited Eugene's lodging to announce the happy tidings were taken aback by the unexpected sight that greeted them.
"What's the matter?"
"Ah, nothing at all. Congratulations once again on your victory. We shall send word the day before the awards ceremony to inform you of the protocol. It is not complicated; a brief instruction will suffice."
In the comfortable chamber that Count Andar had personally arranged for him, some twenty paintings were hung.
'Is he fond of artwork?'
'A rather unusual taste for such a fierce knight.'
They were not the currently fashionable works depicting mythology, nor were they portraits for display or battle scenes. They were landscapes that captured natural settings just as they were. A few of the paintings looked vaguely familiar even to the clerks, as if they depicted real places nearby.
"If you have an interest in painting, shall we arrange an appointment for you at the city's art gallery?"
"No need. I am grateful for the kind thought."
Eugene was not especially interested in art. He had collected the paintings only because he needed them.
When the clerks had departed, Rex approached Eugene.
"What do you think? I picked out the most decent-looking pieces I could find on the market."
"These won't do. Too much of the artists' own interpretation has crept in. The depictions are too exaggerated, too hazy, or too dreamlike."
The Wandering Castle did not require its master to have personally visited every place where it could descend. Eugene was not the one doing the moving, after all. Long ago, the castle itself had roamed the world and retained memories of countless places.
What mattered was for Eugene, the castle lord, to visualize the destination clearly and vividly. A painting faithful to the real place might let him draw out the castle's memories and teleport there without ever having visited it himself.
"Should we commission a painter and supervise him directly, then?"
"That seems the only way."
Eugene had come to Gord with several aims in mind.
The first was to participate in the tournament and lay his hands on the enormous prize money.
The second was to conduct a preliminary survey that would enable the Wandering Castle's teleportation. Other knights, with the tournament behind them, were likely absorbed with thoughts of enjoying the feast and expanding their connections, but for Eugene, the real work was now beginning.
A tournament was at once bread and circuses for the common folk and a marketplace where the powerful recruited new talents.
The nobles spent the time between the winner's selection and the award ceremony sending people out to investigate the knights who had distinguished themselves in the competition.
They inquired in detail about their family circumstances, their financial situations, whether they were married or not.
It was their specialty to lure a knight in debt with the offer of patronage, to match a promising knight with a suitable bride, and so draw them into the family.
The one they inquired after most intently was, naturally, Eugene. And in the process, the nobles discovered a remarkable fact.
"The Wandering Castle? The one that supposedly appeared in northern Roman?"
"Yes. The castle that suddenly appeared and vanished on the plains of Rostock is now said to be in the forest north of Bonyard. We've confirmed the testimony of laborers who have been there. They say there is a massive ice storehouse inside."
"It's not some baseless rumor, is it? The lowborn are naturally given to wild boasting."
"The information was obtained through bribes paid to the merchant guild there, so it is certain."
Being so close to Bonyard, the legend of the Wandering Castle was well known even to the nobles of southern and eastern Gord.
The region was already buzzing with the recent rumor that the castle had genuinely appeared. They could never have imagined that its lord was participating in the tournament.
"His martial prowess seemed almost god-given, and now I see there was good reason for it."
The seemingly impossible feat Eugene had displayed in the match almost made sense in light of that. Someone chosen by a legendary relic was bound to be extraordinary.
"Why don't we all go see that forest while we're at it? The distance is convenient, as it happens."
"And if the castle vanishes, wouldn't we be making a wasted trip? Since the lord of the castle is here, we ought to ask his permission."
The nobles, who loved entertainment more than anyone, were burning with curiosity but had to restrain themselves. Custom dictated that they could not freely approach Eugene before the winner's award ceremony concluded.
Count Andar, too, was just as startled when he heard the news. It was reflected directly in the award ceremony.
Amid the splendid music of the bands and the ceremonial rites of the honor guard, Eugene stood alone before Count Andar.
As he moved to kneel on one knee as he had been taught, the count personally stopped him.
"There is no need for that. A nod of the head will suffice."
"If that is the Count's wish."
Count Andar looked mildly hurt as he regarded the bewildered Eugene.
"You really are a mischievous fellow. You knew how much owning the Wandering Castle meant, yet you kept it quiet."
Eugene realized only then that the rumors had already spread throughout Gord.
"I had no particular intention of hiding it. I never silenced those who came and went from the castle. I simply felt no need to go about loudly proclaiming it myself."
'What a tempting prospect.'
Count Andar began to seriously covet the knight standing before him.
Any other noble would have gone about boasting of a feat worthy of the history books, but this one had entirely refrained. Just as he had remained unruffled even while basking in his tournament victory.
He was every bit the cold-blooded knight Count Andar had taken him for at the trial by combat. And in Gord, calling a knight cold-blooded was not necessarily an insult.
Aisha, all dressed up, came forward carrying a splendid flower crown and placed it on Eugene's head.
"Thank you for showing us such a magnificent match and for bringing honor to the first tournament you entered. May boundless glory lie ahead of you."
As the scribes had informed him in advance, there was no ceremony for the bestowal of a weapon. In other lands, a ceremonial sword or a fine steed was often granted, but here, there were many warriors who did not use swords.
Instead, true to a nation of merchants, they pragmatically bestowed gold. For with gold, whatever one needed could surely be procured.
"I hope you will generously understand that our customs differ from those of Roman."
"I understand perfectly. I have already fallen in love with Gord."
At Eugene's easygoing answer, Count Andar, the other two counts, and the observers all laughed good-naturedly.
Afterward, a feast was held to celebrate the successful tournament.
Food was laid out enough that even beggars could eat and drink their fill, and from the city's darkest corners to its brightest halls, voices praising the lord overflowed.
However, Eugene attended only the first few days as duty required. After that, he ventured out with a small escort.
Rex and the tribal warriors, who loathed the atmosphere of a hall packed with humans, accompanied him.
"Would it not be better for you to enjoy yourself a little more, Sir Knight? As the hero of the banquet, you would be treated most lavishly."
To receive the praise and respect of all at the feast as the tournament's victor was a pleasure akin to a drug for knights.
"The food's good, but the way the nobles keep staring at me is a little much."
"Hahaha. Indeed. Give them the slightest opening and they look ready to lead you around by the nose."
Had Eugene been merely a tournament victor, the attention would not have been this intense.
But as additional information poured in from Bonyard, greed coiled in the hearts of the high nobles.
"His martial power as a knight is tremendous, and on top of that, he possesses a magical castle beyond all price. Which noble could possibly resist coveting him?"
"They'd start out sounding as if they were simply congratulating me, and before I knew it, they'd smoothly worked the conversation around to marriage. Those sly old foxes."
Even as he chatted, Eugene kept his surroundings entirely within his field of vision.
The places his gaze rested on now would not end as mere memories tucked away in some corner of his mind.
It was akin to planting signposts for where his castle could descend.
"What of the hired painters?"
"They have all gone to different areas to paint the scenery. The men accompanying them will be watching like hawks to make sure they reproduce it exactly, so you can trust the results."
"They were instructed to target lands outside the lords' domains, I trust?"
"Naturally."
Placing the castle on land that already had an owner could drag him into troublesome disputes. It would naturally offend the lord who controlled that territory.
But countless stretches of undeveloped land remained in this world, and the territory actually controlled by humanity was smaller than one might think.
Places beyond the lords' territories, or lands where effective rule did not reach even if technically within them. Such locations held no risk of dispute, even should the Wandering Castle appear.
Eugene intended to survey such places intensively.
The usual disadvantages of undeveloped land—difficulty finding water or danger from beasts and monsters—were not problems for him.
Water could be procured from the castle, and monsters were even more helpless before the castle than men were.
"Have there been any worthwhile requests?"
And there was a third and final objective.
"Of course. With so many nobles gathered together."
At Eugene's question, Rex reported the list of commissions he had gathered as though he had been waiting for him to ask.
"We have received countless requests since first forming our mercenary company, but never before have we had such freedom from constraints."
"Normally it's, 'We can't do this because of that, and we can't do that because of this.' It was downright exciting to consider jobs we would usually have given up on immediately."
"Who would refuse when the honorable tournament champion comes offering to solve their problems?"
The tribal warriors added their own remarks and laughed.
A mobile fortress, and the Black Hand Tribe, a people of warriors. A new way of life that combined the two.
Taking the first real step toward that new way of life was the true purpose of this visit.
After all, this was the kind of life Eugene and those who followed him would be living from now on.
Fresh from winning the tournament and earning renown among so many nobles, Eugene could not have asked for a better opportunity.