Chapter 10

Translator: Willia

Torvik, the principal city of Nordlanding, one of Duke Sven's directly held domains, was in some ways an inconsistent sort of city.

For before the Nordics settled here, the Astrians had lived on this ground, and before the Astrians there had been other peoples, and before them still others, whose traces yet remained.

When humans had first staked their hold here, no one could say; but Torvik was a city shaped by the fact that none of those traces had ever quite been erased, its fabric built up through ceaseless repair and expansion.

In its most recent history, during the Conquest War, Torvik was the first place the Nordics put to use as a stronghold after making landfall, the foothold from which they launched their full invasion of the kingdom.

Named for the Thunder God among the Dead Gods, the city was christened in the sense of "Anvil of Thunder," and the name also carried the prayer that the majestic ringing of its hammer-blows might resound across the whole of the kingdom.

At the point within the city where its two rivers met stood the citadel of Torvik. The stone castle, raised in ancient times, had served as a fortress even then, and served as one still. It was here that Duke Sven made his home.

A short way down from the heights on which Torvik Castle stood, the bearing of a proper military stronghold revealed itself: barracks, stables, a smithy, a guest wing, even a garden.

The breadth of the citadel's inner courtyard was on an entirely different scale from that of Winsloe Castle.

The walls around the main gate were built of solid brick, while the rest of the rampart was in some places of brick, in others of stout timber palisade. Stretches that had crumbled with the passing of ages had been patched with wood.

In any event, whether judged by historical weight or by practical function, it was a citadel fit for one only a step below a king: a seat in which a Duke might reside without anything wanting.

Through the garden within the citadel ran a single narrow path, and following it to its end brought one to a clear pond.

Rare, uncommon fish swam there, flaunting the colors of their forms across the water.

And at the edge of that pond, a middle-aged man wrapped in a wolfskin pelt crouched on his haunches. With a single flick of his hand he scattered feed, and the fish swarmed up and fell upon it at the surface in a frenzy.

In an instant the feed was gone. Yet the fish scrabbled and jostled against one another and would not easily leave their spot.

Just as, after a time, they were about to disperse, the man scattered feed once more. The fish then fell upon it even more ferociously than before.

As the man looked down quietly at the scene, someone approached and softly called out to him.

"Your Excellency."

The one seated by the pond scattering feed was none other than Duke Sven. Without so much as turning to look at the one who had called him, he answered.

"......Mm."

At that, the man, who seemed to be his adjutant, knelt on one knee beside the Duke to bring himself level with him, and drew out a small wooden box.

He opened the box and held it out. Inside lay a severed nose. It was Gael's nose, the very one he had lost, he who had been sent as envoy.

Duke Sven had already been informed of it. That in the course of an instructional duel, Gael had had his nose sliced off and had been blinded. This was the proof.

The Duke looked for a moment at the nose inside the box, then picked it up with his fingers and flicked it into the pond. The fish pounced and began pecking at it voraciously.

The adjutant closed the box and tucked it away at his breast as he spoke.

"Should we not take some measure? He was dispatched as an envoy."

"It was a duel, was it not. And by all accounts, the man himself proposed it."

"That is so, but...... it is a matter of standing, is it not."

A Duke had sent an envoy to one of his vassals. And that envoy had been blinded and had his nose cut off. Taken at face value, it could be read as a challenge to the ducal house.

"Standing? Whose standing? Ketil, do you think my standing has been diminished?"

"It has not. Who would dare."

"Then there would be no need to go and reassert it separately, would there?"

"Then you mean to let the matter pass as it is?"

"Let it pass or not, there was one thing to be gained from it, was there not."

"...... You mean the bastard?"

"Yes. That boy, he would make a useful pawn."

"Certainly, his natural talent does seem out of the common sort. But would he take our side?"

"Ketil, what is your opinion?"

"Conciliation would be the better course than coercion."

Duke Sven laughed and shook his head.

"You still have far to go."

At those words, the one called Ketil darkened in the face considerably.

"...... Forgive me."

"No, there is nothing to forgive. If I am to give you the answer: a bastard of outstanding ability is nothing but a threat to the family's future. Leave him alone and, given time, he is in himself the seed from which internal strife will one day sprout."

At the Duke's words, it felt to Ketil as if a light had kindled before his eyes. So deep were the Duke's insight and the designs he laid that their profundity was of another order entirely.

"Indeed...... I have learned much."

"Still, only someone of your caliber will understand it. The others would not even grasp the thing."

The Duke said it as though shielding his adjutant. There seemed some personal feeling mixed into the words, and with reason, for Ketil's proper name was Ketilmund, and he was Duke Sven's concubine-born son.

The difference between a bastard and a concubine-born son lay in whether the child was born out of wedlock. To put it plainly, a concubine-born son meant the child of a concubine rather than of a lawful wife, whereas a bastard was the child of a woman who could not even lay claim to being a concubine.

At the Duke's words, Ketil was quietly pleased, yet spoke as though somewhat abashed.

"You overpraise me, Father."

Duke Sven cast feed to the fish and smiled faintly. Gael's nose had been torn to such tatters by now that its shape could no longer be made out.

"Still, rather than leaving him be, it would be better to lend him a little strength. He needs to grow a proper head on his shoulders if he is to rebel in earnest."

"When you say lend him strength......?"

"I mean I shall raise him up myself. And when he is sent back to Winsloe afterwards, would that not be a sight worth seeing? Bring the bastard here. Let me get a look at his face."

"As you command."

Ketilmund bowed to his father and liege lord both, and withdrew.

The fish in the pond were still, as ever, bewitched by the feed the Duke scattered. Even when he cast none, they seemed unable to slip free of his grasp.

Night insects chirred and chirred, and the birds that moved by night cried mournfully too, as though longing after someone.

In a night sky without a single cloud, a bright, brimming full moon had risen and was flooding the world in a deep blue.

A night of full moon was unlike any other; one could see the surroundings as clearly as in the early morning.

And yet that peculiar cast of color made the world feel unfamiliar, and stirred the unease that somewhere out there in the dark some dreadful thing might be waiting.

In truth, on a full-moon night one had to beware of Werewolves. To set out on a night's journey rashly, thinking the way was clear enough to see, was to risk some ghastly calamity.

Awooooo......

From very far off came the cry of a wolf. The sound carried all the way to Winsloe Castle.

Count Aethelred, unable to sleep until late into the night, sat lost in brooding in his study. The wolf's cry did not reach to the depths of that brooding.

Then came a knock at the door, rap, rap. The door opened, and Valery stepped into the study.

"You sent for me, I hear."

"......"

Even with the words Valery offered, Count Aethelred said nothing for a time. After a long stillness, as though his state of mind itself were spilling out, he spoke.

"It was rash."

He meant the blinding of the envoy's eyes and the cutting of his nose.

Valery's inborn talent, no, surely the boy was a genius. Yet the trouble Valery had stirred up had nothing to do with that skill or talent.

As a Count bearing the weight of family and fief, he could not help but be consumed with worry.

"Well now, I don't think so."

Valery, however, answered with an indifferent air. That the one who had caused the trouble should strike such an attitude while the Count himself was in grave earnest drew an involuntary scowl to the Count's face.

"......What on earth am I to do to get this defiance of yours to ease off?"

At the word "defiance", Valery laughed, a low chuckle as if the very notion struck him as absurd, and answered.

"Defiance, you call it. That is precisely your problem, Count."

"What did you say?"

"Your failure to see the heart of the matter. What, would it have gone better had I given him a measured beating? Would that have let the matter slip past without ruffling the Duke's temper? Let us grant that it would. What then? When the Duke hatches his next scheme, will you mean to skate by halfheartedly then as well?"

Count Aethelred had not imagined, not for a moment, that Valery would come at him like this, and he was thrown off guard. And that bewilderment soon curdled into anger.

Just as he was about to speak, Valery gave him no opening and carried on.

"However diligently you patch a leaking roof, once the storm breaks upon it, all your labor is for nothing. Either tear the foundations up at the root and undertake a sweeping renovation, or pull the house down altogether and build it anew, or else take someone else's house from them. That you lack so much as that much gall is precisely your problem, Count."

"......"

Whether because Count Aethelred had missed his moment to be angry, or because the edge of the criticism had left him without words, the surge that had risen up within him sank back down and stayed there.

"Allow me to give you the answer. First, form an alliance with the Count of Winddale. Harold is not yet betrothed, so he may serve as a valuable diplomatic card. If Count Levi too can be drawn in, the Duke will not be able to handle you lightly. Should it come to it, you might well raise an army and try your mettle against him. If that does not please you, then second, kill the Duke. We are not the only ones with grievances against him. Nor only the vassals. He may appear adept in schemes and stratagems, but in the end he is nothing more than a hollow shell. One who rules by sowing dissension and division loses, in time, the trust of those beneath him. You may be surprised how little difficulty assassination poses. Now then, which of the two would you rather?"

As words scarcely to be set on the tongue, or alternatives past radical into the outright shocking, poured forth without hitch or stumble, Count Aethelred could hardly gather his wits.

The Count was unquestionably a capable man. Added to that, he was a man who gave his utmost to every affair.

And yet to Valery's eye, above all a lord had to possess decisiveness. Regrettably, in Count Aethelred that quality was lacking. He was no more than a man who worked hard within the bounds of what he already had.

Through the age of upheaval, which is to say the War of Royal Succession, Valery had come out the final victor at last, and to him all the circumstances hemming in House Winsloe were trifling.

To speak plainly, to Valery, Count Aethelred was nothing more than the lord of some backwater, and Duke Sven too, measured against truly formidable foes, was an easy mark.

"Even when the storm breaks upon you, yes, you'll do your best to meet it all the same. But if it can't be avoided, why not rouse the storm yourself instead? Only you haven't the mettle for that. Have you?"

Valery's speech, at some point, had shifted into casual address.

Count Aethelred half wondered what on earth had got into the boy, was half reeling from the sheer shock of what he had heard, and was half overwhelmed by the charisma that the person Valery himself gave off.

The Count, who was ever one to hold his composure, found it hard to hold it now. And so he even stumbled in his speech.

"......You, Wid, you......"

Whether he did so or not, Valery, hands clasped behind his back, began to move slowly toward somewhere.

Moonlight spilled in through the window and lit the study, yet in a corner of the room there lay a patch of shadow peculiarly dense, so dense that nothing seemed to exist in it but blackness. Valery went and stood there.

And that deep, deep shadow fell across half of Valery's face.

When Valery turned his gaze back upon Count Aethelred, a light appeared, manifest from the depths of both of his eyes. It was that sacred gaze, the one said to be handed down only to the Princes of House Vǫlsungr.

Meeting that gaze, Aethelred felt his head go cold. Gooseflesh rose along his spine. And the astonishment did not end there.

"Valery. Valery Helgisson. Man of the Vǫlsungr line, great-grandson of Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer, grandson of Sigmund the Avenger, the Founder-King, and the fourteenth son of His Majesty the reigning King. I'm no bastard, and I'm no Wid. You know that too, don't you?"

At Valery's words Count Aethelred jerked hard, as though struck by a bolt of lightning. His hand shook like an aspen in the wind.

Valery looked on at the Count for a while and then spoke. Whether it was the atmosphere, or simply their nature, the luminous eyes of House Vǫlsungr were less sacred than something close to the skin-prickling uncanny.

"Does having charge of a Prince frighten you? Does it weigh on you? Had it been me, I would have wielded it as a powerful card. But you couldn't. And you won't, hereafter, either."

Valery's voice was calm. It was the sort of calm that seemed it would cut the hand that touched it.

And yet, listened to closely, there was something like sorrow in it too, something that seemed to carry a shade of pity.

But Count Aethelred, at the moment, had too little of himself left to catch such fine shadings.

"That is the tragedy between you and me. You aren't a vessel fit to hold me, Aethelred."

So saying, he stepped out of the room.

When the door of the study clicked shut, Count Aethelred's strength drained clean out of him. Whether he had been unable to breathe all that while, he drew in gasps of air.

He reached for drink to steady himself, but his hand was trembling so badly still that he was forced to give it up.

He sank back into the chair as though slumping into it. His wits would not readily return to him. Even when, after a time, he came back to himself, nothing had changed. It was the grip of a terrible helplessness.

Regrettably, not even the gentle moonlight could bring him any solace.