The Poisoned Cup
It was a trivial difference, really — the servant had carried in the cups set upright, when they were customarily brought over overturned. But from that alone, Johan's instinct drew a single conclusion, along with the man's tension, the faint tremor in his hands, and the way his eyes kept darting about.
Assassination!
"Don't move."
"Wh-what's the matter, my lord?"
"You drink first."
Johan pointed at his own cup. The servant obediently poured the wine and drank. At the sight, Stefan stared at Johan as if he had lost his mind.
What in the world is he doing?
"S-satisfactory?"
"Then drink from this one."
"......"
Cold sweat began to bead on the servant's face. Johan spoke with a face of ice.
"Drink."
"I... I have sinned!!"
After the enraged knights had dragged the servant away, the first words out of Stefan's mouth were not gratitude but an excuse — the protest that it hadn't been him.
"I didn't do it!"
"...What do you use those eyes for? The poison was in your cup, not mine."
The inside of Stefan's cup had been coated with poison. Stefan failed to grasp the words at first, then belatedly turned ghost-pale.
"Someone... someone was after me?"
"What, have you never once in your life done anything worth holding a grudge over?"
"No... well, no, but..."
Then the trembling Stefan suddenly lifted his head and shouted.
"I know who did it!"
"?"
"It was that woman Ulrike! It has to be!"
Johan marveled at a man who would suspect his own family with everyone else standing right there. Truly a nobleman's instincts.
"Why do you think that?"
"Because she's the only one who doesn't want to pay my ransom!"
Count Abner, as his father, might well pay for his release — but to the heir who would succeed him, Stefan was nothing more than an unpleasant little brother.
Gold spent on a sibling like that could only look like a waste.
"That's reasonable."
"Rea— reasonable? What kind of nonsense is that!? Attempting to poison your own family is a grave sin even God will not forgive!"
"Throwing accusations at me without a shred of evidence... Well, regardless, you're still alive, aren't you? Just hold on tight until the ransom is paid. Then no one will come for you again."
At Johan's breathtaking indifference, Stefan could only gape.
"You... you honorless wretch of a..."
"Your head still isn't working, I see. Who in this castle wants you protected more than anyone?"
"C-Count Zarfen?"
"Wrong. It's me. If you die, I don't get paid. In fact, didn't I just save your life this very moment?"
"......"
"So if you'd like to return home in one piece, I'd suggest behaving yourself. Wouldn't you agree?"
Count Zarfen, upon learning his hostage had nearly died, flew into a rage and turned the castle upside down. The foreigner who had bribed the servant had already fled the territory long before.
He had paid gold in advance, promising a further sum of equal weight should Stefan die — but no one believed it. Even if the plot had succeeded, the servant would surely have been silenced on the spot.
"I trusted you and let you inside my walls!"
"I deserve death, my lord! I thought it didn't matter, seeing as I was no kin to your house!"
The moment the interrogation ended, the servant was executed without delay.
And that evening, Count Zarfen invited Johan to his table.
"I owe you thanks for saving my honor, Sir. Had it not been for you, word would have spread that I couldn't even protect my own guest-of-war."
"I merely did what needed doing."
"I hear you've been keeping company with Stefan. Is that going well?"
Count Zarfen knew Stefan's character well. It was far removed from that of an honorable knight.
"We are opening our hearts to one another in earnest conversation."
"Really? Astonishing. I wouldn't have thought it possible."
"Do you have any suspicion as to who ordered the assassination? Even a guess?"
"House Abner. Someone beneath the Count clearly decided the ransom wasn't worth paying. If the hostage dies, they need never bear the disgrace of having refused to buy him back. There are honorless men everywhere."
The Count's guess was nearly identical to Stefan's. The circumstances were simply too convenient.
"But there's no need to worry. As of now, the knights ride out at first light. Count Abner has agreed to pay the ransom and make peace — there's no reason to linger."
"!"
At the news that Count Abner had capitulated, Johan clenched his fist.
The enormous ransom was within reach at last.
"I trust the matter of the marriage has been settled?"
"Ah. You heard about that. Yes — I've agreed to send my youngest daughter. There's nothing to gain from grinding Abner into the dust, so we must preserve a measure of his dignity."
Having paid out ransom and reparations both, Count Abner was a cornered rat. Push him any harder and he would bite that much more savagely. He needed breathing room.
They were to be family bound to one another, after all.
The dowry might not glitter with silver, but it would restore enough of the Count's face.
"Which house will provide the adopted heir?"
"Hard to say. I haven't heard — it's Lady Ulrike's decision to make."
When two of the same sex married, an adopted heir was customarily brought in from a collateral branch of the family.
What mattered was the family's land — not the couple's feelings or preferences. Once the vows were spoken, each was free to take a lover and live however they pleased.
"As a matter of fact, I did consider you for it..."
"!"
When the talk drifted from a mere knighthood ceremony to the granting of actual land, Johan nearly choked. To marry off an untrained son was tantamount to granting the other party land worth the dowry itself.
No wonder knights prowled for landed widowers and widows. A single well-made marriage could turn a man into a lord.
Johan had never laid eyes on his intended bride, but that wouldn't have mattered. If a lordship was on the table, one endured far worse than that.
"But had I done so, you'd have made an enemy of the entire House of Abner."
"That's true enough."
Johan feigned regret, though he showed none of it. In truth, the prize had been far too large for him to swallow.
"Ah — would you permit me to join the escort returning Sir Stefan?"
"I've no objection... though it will be no pleasant march. The war ended barely days ago, and the roads will be crawling with mercenaries and bandits. You'd have to hunt them down as you go. Couldn't you rest a while longer? The man I mentioned before will be in contact soon."
"What use is a knight at leisure?"
"Spoken like a true knight."
Johan's answer pleased the Count to his very core.
Johan's inner thoughts, of course, were all about Stefan. A ransom that valuable was far too dear to entrust to the knights alone.
I will bring him back alive and collect the ransom face-to-face!
Whatever coin came in from the bandit-hunting was simply gravy.
"Then I shall have a place prepared for you in the column."
If not quite to the degree of the elven knights, Count Zarfen's men respected Johan. They were not, however, above jealousy. Having heard of his exploits, they strained to compete with him.
And Johan crushed them with sheer skill.
As the column swept the bandit gangs from the roads, Johan tore through the enemy as if possessed, felling and trampling them until Goiden came running and shouting that the horses needed rest.
It took the knights little time to acknowledge him.
"Hah!"
Hearing the sound of birds taking wing, Stefan ducked in a panic, mistaking it for the whistle of an arrow.
"You're afraid of birds now?"
"We reach the castle soon! You can't be too careful, I tell you!"
Stefan was thoroughly terrified. And he had every right to be — Count Abner's lands, unlike Count Zarfen's, were far more dangerous ground for him.
To the knights, of course, such behavior was contemptible.
A knight who thought nothing of fighting his own battles and did nothing but hide!
"Sir Johan. There's no need to sully yourself with such a man. Let the soldiers guard him."
"No. As long as I hold him, I will see him tended faithfully until he reaches his house."
The knights bowed to Johan with expressions of genuine admiration at his honorable conduct. Stefan, meanwhile, listened from behind with disbelief — the man threatened with a fire poker was lecturing on honor.
Bandit scum talking about faithfulness...
Yet Johan really was guarding Stefan with the utmost care. Not only with his own person, but by deploying Karamaf as well to seal off every approach.
Frankly, if anyone could breach that perimeter and kill him, Johan honestly wanted to see how.
"Still, if a man frightens that easily, wouldn't returning to his own lands be the real danger?"
If the mere sight of an assassin brought his siblings' faces to mind, then inside his own territory was deadlier than outside it.
H Johan's way of thinking, the man should have simply bolted.
"Ha. Once I speak to Father, that woman Ulrike won't dare act rashly."
"Hmm..."
Judging by his manner, Count Abner was quite fond of this third son. Well — granting him a knighthood and plopping him down as an army commander was hardly the act of a father without affection.
"So guard me properly! If you want your ransom!"
"I will, so shut your mouth. When you carry on like that, Karamaf gets angry."
Whatever grudge he held against Johan, Stefan had come to grasp one thing beyond doubt over the course of this journey: the man's strength was real.
Seizing him openly inside a tent full of armed knights was one thing, but the monstrous power he displayed against the bandits beggared imagination.
Things might change once they reached Abner lands, but for now, the man was as good as his lifeline.
"We'll arrive tomorrow. Let us lodge in this village tonight."
When they moved under the banner of House Zarfen, the reception was of a different order entirely. Though they stood in another noble's territory, the village headman and the serfs beneath him came running to tether the horses and see to every errand.
"We brought our own provisions. You may withdraw."
"Th-thank you, Sir Knight!"
Befitting Count Zarfen's knights, discipline was iron in such matters. Stefan grumbled with a sour face, demanding to know why he wasn't being fussed over.
Just as the pleasant meal ended and the knights were settling down to sleep, a body of riders appeared outside the village. The banner they bore snapped in the wind — the banner of House Abner.
And at the head of that party rode the Count's eldest daughter, Ulrike.
"The troll-slayer of Marcel... that would be him over there?"
"Yes, Lady Ulrike."
The knights received Ulrike's approach with visibly strained faces. A count's heir was not a person they welcomed dealing with.
"I have fine wine fit to honor such a knight. Will you come to my tent?"
"...!"
The knights wore expressions of deep alarm. Certainly, breaking one's word as a noble was social suicide — but this was, unmistakably, enemy ground.
And Johan in particular was the very man House Abner had most cause to gnash their teeth over.
They could not in good conscience send him off to that tent alone.
"Our apologies, my lady. Night has fallen, and Sir Johan fought today — he must be exhausted."
"I didn't ask you. Who exactly is being insolent right now?"
"...F-forgive me."
They had come as an embassy of victory, but the gulf of rank remained. Outside the terms fixed for negotiation, the knights could scarcely hold their ground before Ulrike.
"Enough. I shall go."
"...Sir Johan. Be careful."
"Shouldn't the one sharing my tent be the one taking care?"
At Johan's jest, the knights forgot their situation entirely and burst out laughing. Truly astonishing nerve.
He entered the tent, and before the wine had even touched his lips, Ulrike spoke.
"Kill Stefan. I will pay you gold equal to the ransom, and this grudge between us will be cleanly forgotten."
Johan, mid-swallow, set his cup back down with a sour expression. It was an offer sour enough to ruin even the wine already in his mouth.