A Second Hostage-Taking Comes Naturally
Holding someone hostage the second time around felt as natural as if he'd been doing it all his life.
For a brief moment, Johan wondered if his true calling wasn't knight, but knight-errant of the bandit variety. Seize a traveler on the road, drag him off to a fortress, collect the ransom — the Bandit Knight!
“C-calm down, Sir Knight. Calm down!”
“We respect your honor, sir! Please, compose yourself!”
The knights beside him were panicking, trying desperately to talk Johan down. One of his hands held a naked blade; the other gripped Stefan by the throat.
But as alarming as that tableau was, it was Johan's freakish strength that unsettled them more.
He's carrying a man that size and waving him around like he weighs nothing. Is that even human strength?
“Th-the Troll-Slayer of Marcel!”
One of the knights suddenly remembered and shouted. They'd assumed it was just a rumor born of the chaotic punitive campaign — but it was real?
“The Troll-Slayer of Marcel was you all along?!”
“It was.”
“Then calm down and lower your sword! I swear on my honor there will be no retribution.”
“And my honor? What of my honor, which that merchant trampled into the dirt?”
“......”
The knights fell silent.
Had they been mere sellswords, they'd have simply scoffed and threatened, 'Put him down or die!' But these were men born and raised as knights, and to such words they had no rebuttal.
What kind of knight draws no blade when his honor is trampled?
“I came here to honor my pact with Count Zarfen, and in doing so I have acted without a single shred of shame. Yet this nobleman scorned my honor and mocked me for it.”
“C-calm down. Please, calm down.”
As the short sword crept, with uncanny precision, ever closer to his neck, Stefan trembled like a leaf. He was a knight's son who had never trained as a knight — utterly incapable of facing such a moment with courage.
“I... I mistook you, Sir Knight. I apologize for disrespecting your honor. I apologize.”
No!
One of the knights screamed inwardly. An apology was fatal. The moment Stefan apologized, it became established fact that he had insulted Johan's honor.
They needed to stall somehow, talk their way around it as a simple misunderstanding — but the impatient Stefan had opened his mouth first.
With that apology, everything from Doris's ambush on Johan onward became admitted truth.
“Then you acknowledge that Doris's goods and his person belong to me?”
“Yes! I acknowledge it!”
“Good. As payment for his misdeeds, I will take his property and his life. And as payment for my slandered honor, I will take this man's life.”
“?”
For a moment Stefan didn't understand what he was hearing. The knights, however, seemed to have anticipated it all along, and their faces twisted.
A knight who had risen with sword in hand over defiled honor would not simply back down — least of all with Stefan as his hostage.
“A-are you not afraid of my house?”
Damn it all. How did we end up shepherding an idiot like this?
The knights lamented inwardly.
What good was a threat like that? Even if Count Abner held a court-barony with vast lands, beyond his own territory his power meant little. If even the Emperor could do little outside his own domains, what could Count Abner possibly do?
And this was no insignificant foe — he was a knight honored in Marcel. The moment he fled to Marcel, not even Count Abner could send pursuers after him.
“Captain. They're coming again.”
“Envoys again?”
The dwarven crossbowmen posted along the battlements narrowed their eyes at the column of several dozen figures approaching in the distance.
They wouldn't be mad enough to attack with that kind of force. Envoys again, then?
“Not that our lord is the sort to surrender just because they ask nicely.”
“First time I've ever met a human that stubborn. Dwarves included.”
The dwarf mercenaries held Count Zarfen in very high regard. His pay never ran late, and his temperament was positively dwarvish.
Thanks to that, even with the castle under siege, the dwarves hadn't wavered an inch — to the point that any bold enough to approach got a bolt between the eyes for their trouble.
The dwarven centurion received the report and came running up onto the wall.
“Never seen any of those men before.”
“Envoys they sent out fresh, maybe?”
“No. Go down and report to the Count.”
The castle gates opened, and an envoy emerged from the Zarfen side. He seemed not yet to have grasped the situation.
“I am Johan of House Eitz. I have come as invited by Count Zarfen.”
“Ah... Sir Johan?!”
When Johan handed over his seal-stamped invitation, the envoy read it and started in surprise. The young knight who'd won distinction at Marcel — he'd heard the Count had taken an interest and extended an invitation.
But given the state of the county, he'd assumed any visit would come far later than this?
“The column behind you — are... are those your men, Sir Knight?”
For a knight's retinue, it was curiously splendid. As if they'd stripped a caravan of merchants down to the axles.
“By my lawful right, I seized those who attacked and slandered me, and took them hostage.”
“Ah, I... see...”
The envoy still didn't know whom Johan had taken hostage. He had something more urgent to ask.
“How in the world did you get through Count Abner's army behind you? Surely they didn't just grant you passage?”
“They did.”
“?”
How on earth?
Had he swayed them in his family's name? Paid a bribe?
The answer soon revealed itself.
Getting permission to bring his party inside the castle was no great difficulty — there were only a few dozen of them, after all.
But to march openly through gates they should never have been able to breach made the people inside suspicious of spies.
— Is there a spy hiding inside, or did someone bribe a knight to let them through?
— What could they possibly do with a few dozen men? And unless we've all gone blind, we'd be watching their every move.
— Then how in the world did they get this far?
The suspicion didn't last long.
Because the hostage standing among them was beyond belief.
“I-isn't that Count Abner's third son?”
“It is! You lowborn wretches — as a son of House Abner, I demand proper treatment!”
“Y-yes, of course. We shall treat you as an honored guest of the castle.”
War between nobles was a far cry from savage battle. It was a contest governed by long-established custom and codified rules.
When a noble was captured, he was to be held in proper comfort as a hostage until his ransom was paid. There were exceptions, but they were rarely broken.
That was one matter. The dwarf mercenaries, meanwhile, were simply astonished.
“...No, but — how does a man even get captured like that?”
“What is he? An idiot?”
The dwarves muttered behind the battlements. What kind of colossal blunder must the enemy's supreme commander have committed to end up in the hands of a few dozen men?
Perhaps sensing that mood, Stefan grew only more petulant. He knew perfectly well how foolish he looked.
“Sir Stefan.”
“...Lord Count Zarfen. It has been some time.”
“It has. I regret that we should meet like this.”
Broad as a barn door, scars strewn across his face — a middle-aged man who looked every inch the veteran warrior strode out in full armor.
Count Zarfen was a knight and warrior born, with the deeds to prove it. Under that gaze, Stefan felt himself shrinking.
“I thought you were commanding the siege. What in the world is this?”
“......”
Stefan could not answer. His face burned red.
“So long as you are under my roof, I shall treat you as a guest.”
“...Thank you, my lord.”
“But your master is not me — it is that young knight over there. So his will shall decide your disposition.”
“My lord! This is YOUR castle!”
Stefan cried out in alarm. Being in Count Zarfen's hands was far better than being in Johan's grip. At least the Count was a man one could reason and negotiate with.
“Are you begging an enemy for mercy, as a knight? Have the dignity to protect your honor.”
At the weight in the Count's single sentence, Stefan could not retort. He clenched his jaw shut.
“Take them inside.”
With that, Count Zarfen turned his gaze on Johan. Johan bowed to meet it.
“It is an honor to meet you.”
“No — the honor is mine, to meet a young knight whose name rings so loudly of late.”
The Count answered with a grin — a smile that sat strangely on that dour, weathered face.
“Walk with me a while? I'd like to show you my castle with my own eyes.”
“I would be honored.”
Count and knight began to walk slowly, the other knights trailing behind at a respectful distance.
“Do you know why I summoned you?”
“At first I assumed you were looking for a serviceable knight to throw into the war — but seeing the state of the castle now, I don't think so.”
The castle was far too intact for a lord fishing for mercenaries. The besiegers might have crumbled first, but the Count himself had nothing to fear from this siege.
“Well guessed. Even if my position were desperate, would I summon knights I'd never met and set them fighting for gold and land?”
“Then what did you summon me for?”
“I simply wished to meet the knight who slew a troll. And I was curious whether you were truly a knight of that caliber. I felled a troll myself once, in my younger days — though not alone.”
Count Zarfen wore leather armor of an unusual kind. The hide was of a texture Johan had never seen — unmistakably monster leather. Armor crafted from the trophies of his own kills.
“I wondered if you were truly the knight of the rumors. But seeing you now, I'd say the rumors undersell you.”
“You flatter me.”
“No. Humility is a virtue, but excess humility ill befits a knight. If you keep bowing and scraping, the knights behind you will hang their heads in shame.”
The knights looked at Johan with eyes equal parts admiration and envy. To walk into an enemy stronghold and walk out with its commander in hand — what nerve! Even the boldest knight could hardly claim such a deed easily.
“And thanks to you, I find myself owing you both thanks and an apology.”
“The thanks I understand. But an apology for what?”
“Because of this affair, you have now made an enemy of Court Baron Abner.”
“That much I was prepared for, of course.”
No one stirred up a scene like this without steeling himself to earn a house's enmity. That resolution had been made long ago.
And besides, if he never set foot in Abner territory, what did it matter?
“It was House Abner that first stained my honor. For the sake of washing it clean, I'll gladly bear whatever grudge comes.”
“Splendid! Truly knightly. Then the only thing left for me to offer is a reward fit for a young knight.”
At the Count's words, Johan struggled to keep his expression even.
What else would he have caused this whole circus for, just to meet the Count? His reputation was reputation — but the prize to match it was surely the real reason.
“I hear you also took the merchant, besides Sir Stefan. You'll hardly be hauling his fortune back with you, I imagine. I'll buy it from you at a generous price.”
“Not at all. In truth, I was planning to offer it to you as tribute.”
“What nonsense is this? A knight simply handing over spoils he won by his own hand? Do you take me for a man without honor?”
Count Zarfen snapped, as if the very suggestion were absurd. At the sight, Johan realized the Count had more room to spare than he'd expected.
Well, well. Looks like there's decent wealth inside these walls.
A lord without coin wouldn't have offered to buy on the spot. Judging by the mercenaries' morale, Count Zarfen's purse was clearly deep.
“If I flaunted my wealth by buying things off men, I'd be no different from a merchant. Ho there! See that the knight receives the finest warhorse in the castle, and a sword and shield wrought of good steel.”
To bestow horse and arms was the most extravagant of customs for welcoming an honorable knight — a gesture declaring, through horse and blade, one's respect for the man receiving them.
This alone was worth the journey. And the ransoms of Doris and Stefan would be tallied separately...
While Johan spun his merchant's calculations beneath his knightly face, Count Zarfen said something that struck him like a thunderclap.
“Have you any thought of receiving your formal knighting?”