The Sweating Commander-in-Chief
Piracy had always been a business with handsome returns, traditionally speaking — but even so, it was a trade one had to pick carefully when and where to practice.
Try dragging a ship around the Edene Sea with its lining of city-states, and sooner or later a fleet hired by those same city-states would sail straight into your harbor.
And then it was the gallows for you, with your name branded as a rogue knight!
“What exactly do you take me for...”
“Ah. My apologies. That wasn't what you meant, was it?”
“Naturally, if I were to turn to piracy, I'd do it with the right partner in hand. Surely among all those cities, there's at least one that would love to plunder the Emperor's own territories.”
“......”
Caenerna was, frankly, impressed.
When the subject of piracy had come up, she'd expected a man weighing simple gains and risks. Instead, he was thinking three moves ahead, hunting for allies who would move in concert with him.
This knight had been born with the instincts of a raider.
Brigandage could not last long on courage alone. What it demanded, above all, was restraint.
“War is always a profitable trade, so long as you win it. And there's no shortage of enemies nearby worth fighting.”
Caenerna knew the local situation well enough herself. This was a very different landscape from the Empire's western domains.
The west was a tangled web of imperial noble houses, all entangled and watching one another — a place where a knight like Johan could hardly stir up a war on his own whim.
But with the Brudhe name offering its protection, the neighboring powers suddenly became worth fighting. It wasn't as though Johan lacked confidence in his own sword arm, either...
“Still, wouldn't you need some measure of preparation, for the Duke's dignity's sake?”
“I've already settled terms with the mercenaries I brought. They say they'll follow.”
Suetlge nodded with an expression that said she found it entirely unsurprising. Johan's grip over men was astonishing. Innate ferocity backed by fat payouts had bought the mercenaries' absolute loyalty.
“I intend to call on the tribal warriors as well, so far as I can.”
“The eastern tribes?”
“Is there a problem?”
“They won't be persuaded.”
Caenerna asked as if the very notion were absurd. It wasn't a matter of terms. The barbarian tribes beyond the eastern frontier simply did not think like imperial men.
Imperial mercenaries would gallop anywhere in the world so long as the gold was there, but the eastern tribes would rather gallop off and take the gold themselves. Only a duke's authority had any hope of commanding them.
“They say they'll come along? Apparently they're delighted that I'll be sharing out the spoils.”
“?”
Leaving Caenerna to her confusion, Johan turned to Suetlge and worked through the details of the plan.
Gather what soldiers could be gathered, then once winter broke, join forces with the Duke's army and march on Umdim!
The people of the Zarfen house, too, acted as though it were their own affair, beaming and offering one piece of advice after another.
They had come on the Count's orders, yes — but for Johan to have already caught the Duke's eye ahead of so many other knights...
No wonder they felt proud.
“By the way, Lady Suetlge — will you be all right coming with us? I hear you're being summoned all over the place...”
“Most of those summons are questions that can wait for their answers. Nobles always want to know the future — even though they'll never be able to tell whether it's true.”
Caenerna nodded in knowing agreement.
“Taking prophecy the way you do may well be the most profitable approach there is. In any case, I'll be coming along. Storming a city will be a great battle, and you'll need my help.”
Johan gave his thanks. Everywhere in the world, a great mage was a mage in demand. To refuse such summons and join an army instead was a thing only friendship could accomplish.
Caenerna's participation, however, was a surprise. Johan had assumed she would remain in the city.
On the steppe, her terrible luck had put her life in danger three times over, but a city gave her no such excuse. Even the Emperor's faction had no nobles out for her blood.
“...Well of course it's because my excuses are getting thin. Do you think there's no one from the Emperor's side in this city?”
Caenerna asked with an air of exasperated disbelief. She was currently tagging along under the pretense of being a captive. Act too freely, and suspicions would rise.
Hearing this, Johan studied her with a look of fresh scrutiny.
“It's not my place to ask, but how do you intend to clean up after this later? Is the Emperor really so forgiving a man?”
“No. He's capricious and quarrelsome. But I'll manage the cleanup myself, so don't trouble yourself.”
Whatever excuse she offered, she could not escape the eyes of suspicion. And yet there she was, perfectly composed about it.
Confidence as a mage, I suppose.
It was not something one could manage without a rock-solid certainty of holding the Emperor's trust.
“I see. Then can I count on your aid when the siege comes?”
“Of course.”
Caenerna said it with a lazy waggle of her pipe-stem. If anything, she welcomed it.
I've racked up far too many debts.
Johan's way of thinking and a mage's way of thinking were different beasts. As Suetlge had said, a debt of life was no light matter among mages.
And in Caenerna's eyes, his connection to Johan was singularly uncanny. She had left after making three oaths — and had been rescued exactly three times. Whatever way you looked at it, that was a revelation.
Three sets of three. Nine times, if I help him enough...
A siege would give her chances to shine any number of times. Distinguish herself properly, and the debt on her conscience would shrink a little.
The three oaths could wait. First, the debt of the heart needed tending...
“Suetlge is a great sage, but her magic keeps its distance from anything destructive. And war, now and then, demands a touch of wickedness.”
“Wickedness suits me fine.”
Suetlge sneered, but she did not dispute the point. When it came to vicious methods, Caenerna was the better hand. Every strange bit of arcane business in the Emperor's court had her name woven through it, no doubt.
“Hold on — do you happen to know anyone who can command trolls?”
“I wield the flames of prophecy, not trolls... Couldn't you have asked the wildmen of the Black Forest?”
“Hm.”
Caenerna, unexpectedly, seemed not to know. Johan asked whether other mages served under the Emperor. She nodded as though it were obvious.
“Dozens a day come calling, claiming to be mages. Most of them are frauds, but one or two of them usually stay...”
“There's always some fool with more nerve than sense.”
Suetlge said it with a thin smile. A fake mage exposed faced punishment of exquisite cruelty. A painless death was off the table. Defrauding nobility was a grave crime indeed.
So there's someone else who can control trolls?
“Why do you ask, anyway? Is there some mage you're looking for?”
“No. Just curious.”
It was, after all, a calculated move on his part.
The other side had to verify things through rumor all the same, so neither of them was in any position to pass accurate judgment.
As armies streamed toward Bayen and encampments rose around the city, the whole region began to stir.
Winter was about to end — so where in the world were they marching?
“Count Ganelwood, sir. It is an honor to meet you.”
“Y-you must be Sir Johan. I've, I've heard a great deal about you.”
“...?”
Johan was startled, but he kept his face perfectly still. Wearing one's heart on one's sleeve was for green recruits. He'd learned to freeze his expression and think behind it back on his own lands.
This man is the commander-in-chief?
Count Ganelwood, dabbing away sweat with a handkerchief again and again, was a gaunt, small-framed, timid-looking man. The dark shadows under his eyes made him look even more like a clerk.
He'd expected a commander to lead the Duke's army to be a hearty lord, or at least something of a soldier...
“Is there anything I should keep in mind?”
“N-no. Nothing. Lead the, the army you've brought with valor.”
The armies of this age were not disciplined organizations so much as bundles of retinues, each lord trailing his own gang of fighting men.
A commander-in-chief could issue no absolute orders, and the nobles who had brought their own soldiers could act independently at will.
Custom was one thing, but on an occasion like this, most commanders would at least make a show of it — the Duke has granted me his authority, therefore you shall obey — and yet...
“Understood. I will do my utmost to fight a battle we need not be ashamed of.”
“Y-yes. Go on, then.”
After seeing Johan off, Count Ganelwood retreated back into the tent. His hands and face were slick with sweat.
“How was he?”
“C-certainly. He's, he's remarkable.”
Inside the tent, an old knight sat wiping down his sword.
Sir Carpati — the knight known as the Lion of the East. Renowned as one of the Duke's most loyal vassals, he had come to the city for this campaign of subjugation.
“For you to say so, my lord, he must truly be an exceptional knight.”
“N-not the equal of yourself, of course. But y-yes, a remarkable knight.”
Ganelwood lowered himself into his seat with a creak. His frail constitution made the cold wind a trial.
Most knights, upon seeing Count Ganelwood, could not hide the disappointment in their eyes. His bearing fell short both of a noble's and of a knight's.
Johan, however, had not wavered by so much as a flicker of the eye. Sincere or not, either way it was staggering composure for a man so young.
“And, and he's brought a great many soldiers. There were, there were even eastern barbarians among them.”
“Even those warriors? It reminds me of my own youth — though they surpass anything I was at that age, my lord.”
“Y-you were always one for modesty.”
“Only shameful, measured against you, my lord.”
As said before, Count Ganelwood was not a popular man. Yet in spite of those shortcomings, he had governed his county for years and held the Duke's favor all the while.
Wisdom that never showed itself on the surface. That was the Count's true weapon.
Sir Carpati knew it well, which was why he minded his manners in the Count's presence. It was more than a matter of rank — the respect in him was genuine.
“Has His Grace promised you Umdim?”
“H-hardly. Absurd talk.”
The Count waved a hand as if swatting the idea out of the air. Umdim was not a city to hand to another. The revenues of a well-developed river port were staggering.
“O-one of the Stars of Breudhe will receive it.”
“Good heavens. Still?”
Sir Carpati let out an exasperated groan. He knew, and the Count knew.
Duke Brudhe was a flawless ruler in every respect but one: the succession.
A problem he could have solved by simply passing it to his firstborn, he instead turned into a contest among his children, determined to select the most capable heir.
It's dangerous, the house could fracture if this goes wrong — no matter how his vassals pleaded, the Duke's stubbornness never budged.
“That's the practice of heathens, and nothing better...”
“Y-you tell him, then.”
“If he were going to listen to me, he'd have listened years ago.”
The custom of heirs competing for the prize was the way of the heathen emperors across that sea, and nowhere else. Sir Carpati found the Duke's imitation of it deeply distasteful.
“Then your role, my lord, will be to stand behind whichever Star is chosen.”
“Y-yours as well.”
“Yes. Simply give the order.”
The Duke's children still lacked experience, all of them — but Count Ganelwood and Sir Carpati between them could shore up any one of them amply. That, no doubt, was the very reason the Duke had summoned them.
“The weak, cowardly stammerer?”
“Mind your tongue.”
Aclada squared his shoulders and drew back his bowstring. While they waited out the winter, Johan and the warriors had been riding out to hunt again and again.
Johan could perfectly well have stayed put, but the tribal warriors kept pestering him to go out with them.
I'm not running a kennel here...
He was grateful they'd taken to the proposal so eagerly, but these warriors had their own quietly exasperating corners.
“I wondered about it myself. But I reckon there's a reason the weak, cowardly stammerer has held the Duke's favor for so long.”
“It's been a while since His Grace lost his wife — don't tell me he's been comforting him with his body?”
“...Try listening seriously for once, Aclada.”
“I was being serious in my own way, mind you...”
Johan stared at Aclada's expression in horror. He was being serious.
“I'll be the one dealing with the Count in the end anyway, but still — be careful around him.”
“Have no fear, my lord. You'll be astonished at how courteous I can be to imperial nobles.”
As the party rode back toward the encampment outside the city, they narrowed their eyes at a banner visible in the distance. The flag of House Brudhe. The Duke himself would hardly be lounging out here in person...
The youngest, then.
Johan dismounted and offered a respectful greeting. The Duke's youngest fixed him with a gaze as clear as glass.