Chapter 12

Translator: Willia

Valery, having finished his preparations to leave, loaded his baggage onto Snow. Now all that remained was to set his foot in the stirrup, mount up, and ride out of the castle.

Apart from his friends, no one came out into the courtyard to see him off. Everyone went about their duties and lived out their ordinary day. They only spared him a passing glance now and then.

Fourteen years. That was how long he had been here, ever since he was an infant, right up until now. The way people saw Valery had changed a great deal over the past month, but even so, there was a certain familiarity that only time could give.

Whether they liked Valery or not, losing that familiarity would not be a particularly happy thing.

The maids wore expressions as sorrowful as if one of the great joys of their lives were vanishing.

And in the midst of all this, there was one thing that left Valery flustered. It was that Gidwin was crying. Harold's eyes had reddened too, but the one whose face crumpled as tears streamed down was Gidwin.

“Sob, sob, sob...... huuu, sob......”

Valery was no good with things like this. He had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do, and it left him utterly at a loss. 'Is there really any need to cry? Should I comfort him? What's gotten into him?'

That was only natural, for before his regression the only gazes he had ever faced were ones steeped in grudge or hatred. And those gazes he had cut down or trampled underfoot, coldly and mercilessly, with a single stroke.

Having lived a life like that, Valery had no idea how he was supposed to take someone shedding tears for his sake. It was uncharted territory for him.

Hakon tugged at the hem of his clothes. The pull tipped him off balance, and he lurched forward, only to be swept straight into the arms of the weeping Gidwin. Gidwin buried his face in Valery's shoulder and bawled.

“Anyone watching would think you're marching off to die.”

Tommy said. At a moment like this, his cynical streak was almost a welcome thing.

“We'll see each other again someday, won't we?”

Harold said, laying a hand on Valery's back.

“It's two days by horse. It's not like I'm going far.”

“That's true, but this Duke and the people under him, they sound kind of frightening.”

“Not to me, though...... All right, let go of me now.”

“Whuaagh.”

Valery forced Gidwin off him. His cloak was thoroughly soaked with tears and snot. Being fond of cleanliness as he was, Valery's face soured for a moment.

Still, he could hardly snap at a man for crying, so before he could be caught again, he set his foot in the stirrup and quickly swung up onto the horse.

He lifted his eyes to the windows of the castle, but neither the Count nor the Countess looked out.

That was not because they felt no reluctance to see him go, but because, as Lord and Lady of the land, they would not let themselves waver. This, the Valery of now understood.

He simply felt grateful to Count Aethelred. However much Valery himself had forced the situation by causing an uproar and all but backing him into it, for a man bound by the duty to protect a prince, this had required a great resolve.

Put bluntly, if Valery went off to the Duke's house and died in some incident or accident, it was House Winsloe that would be ruined. The blame, that is, for having failed to keep the prince safe before the King's death.

Seen in that light, Count Aethelred had chosen to shoulder an even heavier responsibility. It was a great kindness extended to a boy who was neither his son nor his bastard.

Both he and Aethelred had been clumsy about it. It wasn't as if things were flawless even now, but this much, surely, was each of them doing right by the other.

Valery bowed his head toward the castle in a gesture of respect, waved to his friends, and dug his heels into the horse's belly. As if it had been waiting for the signal, Snow kicked off the ground and broke into a run.

Toward yet another future, one he had never lived through before.

The places where people lived were like islands. Islands adrift on a sea of forests and marshes and mountains.

The roads linking city to city, village to village, were few, and it was as good as living cut off from one another.

There were many places, deep in the forests, off in the remote mountain hollows, where no one could say who, or what, lived. There was such a thing as the realm called a kingdom, but within that realm lay a great deal of unknown land where no human foot had ever fallen.

Step beyond the lands where humans dwelt, and precisely that sort of world unfolded. A world where beasts and monsters, bandits and thugs and robbers were the ordinary state of things.

To survive in a world like that, one had no choice but to become just as much a monster, or a devil, oneself.

What was familiar to Valery was, if anything, a world like that. Not a world of peaceful days spent with friends.

The moment he crossed the boundary of the County of Winsloe, even the air seemed to change. Even the birdsong in the forest seemed laced with something faintly off.

Valery, Ketilmund, and a single attendant rode along, without any road, following the river that threaded through the forest. The river running just beside them was the very one the Nordics had once sailed up in their ships to invade the kingdom.

Perhaps that was why, here and there, stood what looked like long-broken docks. They were already thick with vines and moss, as though being devoured by the wilderness.

“Seems you got on well with the others your age?”

Ketilmund, riding a little apart, asked. Valery answered with a vague nod or two in place of words.

“How would you prefer we address each other? I don't know whether you're aware, but I'm a concubine-born son. Much the same standing as yours.”

He seemed to be trying, first, to establish some common ground. This time too, Valery merely nodded.

Ketilmund looked at a glance to be a good ten years older, which might well have offended him, yet he showed no sign of it.

“I'll just call you Wid, if it's all the same to you. And you may call me Ketil. There's one thing I've been curious about, though. How did you slice a nose clean off with a blunted practice sword?”

“......It just, you know......”

“It can feel awkward. Let's grow closer, in time.”

It was not that he felt uncomfortable or awkward, but Ketilmund seemed to have taken it that way. A man might possess remarkable skill, after all, without his mind having matured to match.

“Have you never felt it, Wid? That thought, why was I born a bastard?”

At those words, Valery finally turned to look at Ketilmund.

“I have. A great deal. Very, very much so. There were times I agonized over it every night. It seems to me my abilities fall no short of any legitimate heir's, and yet by the single fact of my birth, the outcome is already decided. By Nordic tradition, they say a concubine's child was never treated as lesser, so I can't fathom why the Founder-King rejected the traditions and customs of the Nordics and took up the laws and institutions of the Astrians. And went so far as to kill those who opposed it. Even men who had won honor in the Conquest War.”

It was honest talk. And yet within that honesty lay the intent to prod at the inferiority, the sense of injustice, that Valery, as a bastard, was supposed to carry.

And in doing so, there was the plain aim of drawing him over to his own side, and conversely, of making him harbor hostility toward House Winsloe.

Because the Valery of now carried not a shred of inferiority or grievance, the other man's intentions and aims were laid perfectly bare to him.

Still, plainly seen was one thing, and Valery fixed on the honesty of what had been said.

“I bear no ill will toward the royal house. It's just, it isn't so wrong to dream of a world where a man is treated according to his ability, is it? I only wanted to grumble a little.”

Ketilmund gave Valery a bitter little smile.

At that, Valery, who all this while had only nodded or given half-answers, spoke.

“The problem is that every mangy dog and ox goes strutting about claiming great ability, isn't it.”

“Hm?”

“By what would you judge whether a man has ability or not? In the end, the only thing that settles it is the swinging of blades. And if you bring armies to bear and fight it out, it won't end with one or two men dead, the innocent farmers will die along with them. The very expectation that a king will make the best choice is mistaken. Most of the time his choices are ones he has no choice about. That law, ‘One may keep only one primary wife, and only legitimate heirs hold rights of inheritance', is part of the very same thing. And even so, look. Not only do brothers fight one another, fathers still kill their children and children their fathers, often enough. Now suppose you grant rights to concubine-born sons and bastards as well. What do you imagine would happen?”

“......”

Ketilmund's eyes went round and his face took on a look of, huh? It was a fitting rebuttal, but the question arose in him, wasn't that a strange thing for a bastard to be saying?

“The reason the Nordics of old made no distinction against concubine-born sons or bastards was that they had no attachment to their own land. Especially after the gods died and the Blizzard of Death came howling down, all the more so. When you needed every last man who could fight, an enemy's arrows didn't swerve aside just because you were a legitimate heir. But it's not like that now, is it. One way or another, we've settled down and made our home here. Trying to divide up what little there is, that's what's brought us to this sorry state, is what I think.”

“......Remarkable. You, Wid. However did you come to think all that?”

“Living long enough, it just came into view.”

“......”

Ketilmund blinked and blinked. He'd thought that if he simply stroked the man's feelings, he would come around easily enough, so what was this depth of insight? Men who were good at fighting were usually dull as posts. It wouldn't be easy, he thought, and yet at the same time he found it intriguing.

“The road won't be dull, at least.”

“So then, how did you work out the bitterness of being a concubine's son?”

Even so, seeing that Valery seemed to hold a little curiosity toward him, Ketilmund smiled to himself.

“Fortunately, His Excellency the Duke is not so hidebound a man. If you have ability, he's one to grant you a fitting position. This much I can promise you for certain. Should you win great honors with your ability, it isn't beyond possibility that you'd be granted the title of Count.”

Inwardly, Valery let out a dry laugh. Looking at him, it seemed to him this Ketilmund was a fool who fancied himself clever.

“......And you believe that?”

“I'm the proof of it. Not only was I knighted by His Excellency, I take part in matters great and small as his adjutant. Even my half-brothers watch their step around me, so where do you suppose such standing came from? All thanks to His Excellency's favor.”

“......”

By this point it was hard to tell whether the man was naive or simply dim. No, thinking back to before his regression, it made a kind of sense. The desire to be acknowledged by one's father was a very powerful desire, and a man blinded by it might well end up like this.

Traced back to its root, hadn't Valery's own hatred sprung from that same desire?

Valery was in no position to be worrying over Ketilmund just now, but it was true, all the same, that he felt a pang of pity.

“......I do hope you'll take care.”

“Me? Ha, I thank you for the concern, but it seems our positions have somehow reversed. I'm not so untrustworthy a figure as that, so in time I'll earn your faith, little by little.”

Ketilmund laughed, full of good cheer.

Time passed, and night came on. Valery's party spent the night at a camp that seemed to be a frequent stop for people traveling back and forth between Winsloe and Torvik.

They kindled a fire, softened hard bread by soaking it in water, and ate it together with jerky, cheese, dried fruit, and the like. Having taken the edge off their hunger that way, they agreed to stand watch in turns.

More time passed, and around the hour when the stars of the night sky grew faint, Valery woke. Having simply drawn his cloak over himself and dropped off to sleep, his body was not in perfect condition. That was just how sleeping rough was, so he had nothing to complain about.

“If we press the pace a bit, we might reach it by around evening.”

Ketilmund said. Valery nodded readily.

“It's all the same to me.”

“Good. In any case, don't you normally tie your horse up......”

Thunk. Thud-thud-thud!

Thock!

“Guh!”

Thump.

It happened all at once. Out of nowhere an arrow came flying and buried itself in Ketilmund.

Valery reacted fast. He instantly dropped low, seized the collar of the fallen Ketilmund, and dragged him along the ground. As he did, he moved to the opposite side from where the arrow had come and took cover behind a tree.

“Guh. Cough.”

Every time Ketilmund coughed, blood came heaving up. The whole of his mouth was smeared red.

There was one arrow lodged in Ketilmund's arm and one in his neck. The one in the side of his neck had spared him from instant death, but there seemed no chance he would live.

Short arrows. The bolts used with crossbows, and by the sound of it, four had been loosed in all. That meant there were at least four crossbowmen, and Valery began working out, in his head, how long it would take them to reload.

Given how the arrows had converged so heavily on Ketilmund, it didn't seem they were particularly after Valery himself.

What's more, by their weapons and by their skill, these were no run-of-the-mill bandits or highwaymen. The attendant was nowhere to be seen. Of course.

Valery took in this whole tangle of circumstances almost unconsciously, judging it all in an instant by sheer instinct.

He at once hurled Ketilmund out from behind the tree, into plain sight of the enemy, and bolted the other way. As he ran, he shouted.

“Snow!”

At that, from far off came the sound of clop, clop, clop. Presently Snow came galloping, weaving through the trees of the forest.

The bridle and reins weren't on him, but mercifully the saddle and baggage were still in place. The sword, too, was tied to the saddle.

And yet Valery, once he'd swung up onto the horse, did not flee straight off but circled wide around the place where it had all happened.

Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop.

Through the trees, off in the distance, he could see them reloading their crossbows and advancing slowly. Sure enough, judging by how they were armed, these were no bandits.

At the sound of the running horse, one soldier crossing a stream leveled his crossbow and looked over.

Before that, Valery had already swung down to cling to the horse's flank, hiding himself from view. So the soldier took it for a masterless horse bolting off at random.

Valery gauged the distance by the splashing sound of the man crossing the stream, then hauled himself properly back into the saddle. And in that instant he drew the sword from the saddle and charged the soldier.

Thinking the masterless horse was simply running off into the distance, the soldier turned his head again when the hoofbeats drew near, only for a blade, pale in the light of dawn, to sweep across his throat as it passed.

Crack!

Slashing upward with the sword, Valery took off one soldier's head, then swung the blade back behind him and flung it hard at another soldier nearby.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! Thwack!

Thunk!

That soldier, too, had barely turned to look when the sword drove into his chest, and as he fell the bolt he'd fired flew off in some hopelessly wrong direction.

Meanwhile the masked men closed in on Ketilmund to make certain of his death.

Ketilmund was still alive, but his fate seemed to be to die soon. At that, one of the masked men spoke.

“Sorry, Ketil. But you got way too full of yourself.”

Coughing and hacking, Ketilmund glared with eyes brimming with resentment. Masked though the man was, he had recognized who he was.

“F...... uck......”

Ketilmund wrung out the last of his strength and cursed in a blood-choked voice. Whether he cursed or not, and even though he seemed about to die if simply left alone, the masked man moved in to finish him off.

At that moment Valery, having cut down two men in the space of an instant, had not slowed his pace in the slightest. If anything, he'd gained speed.

At that same speed he charged the spot where two men were walking together and rammed straight into them.

Clopclopclopclop.

Thwack! Thwack-crack!

“Agh!”

When the huge horse came barreling in at full speed and smashed into them and trampled them, their bones broke and their innards burst, and they died on the spot or took mortal wounds.

The three masked men who had closed on Ketilmund whipped around at the nearing hoofbeats and the death-cry.

“What the?”

At that instant Valery burst like a thunderbolt out of the shadows the dawn-lit trees had cast. Wrenching a spear that stood planted in the ground, he ran one man clean through and simply rammed another.

Thwack! Thwack!

“Gaah!”

“Agh!”

The last man, startled, scrambled to hide behind a tree in a panic. Then he fled into a spot dense with trees so the horse couldn't follow. Valery instantly pulled a dagger from his breast and hurled it with all his strength.

It flew with astonishing accuracy, but to his regret it only grazed the man's neck before lodging in a tree. He alone survived and kept on running.

That was as far as it went. The camp was in complete disarray, littered with corpses and men groaning.

Valery dismounted and checked Ketilmund's condition. In truth there was nothing to check. Blood kept surging up out of him, blocking his airway, and from the loss of it his face had gone stark white.

“I told you to take care......”

Valery said, as if in sorrow. Presently, the light drained from Ketilmund's eyes and he breathed his last.

Valery closed the man's eyes, then rose to gather the sword, the dagger, and everything else worth taking. Among the things worth taking was the sawing-off of the attackers' heads to carry with him.

On the battlefield, or in daily life, when something like this happened, such heads became important evidence, for proving merit, for claiming a bounty, for uncovering who stood behind the culprits, and the like.

In any case, that such a thing should happen before he'd even reached Torvik, it nearly drew a sigh from him, and yet he found it almost funny.

He might well turn back to Winsloe, but after a night's sleep already behind him he had no particular wish to do so.

Someone facing such a thing for the first time might have gone back, shaken and afraid, but Valery was not that someone. Rather than let matters grow needlessly tangled, he found it easier simply to handle it himself.

“How fun.”

What was all this for, at the crack of dawn? Valery said, briefly, but there was no one at the scene to hear him.

While even the early-rising birds kept their silence, the only sounds in the forest were the babbling of the stream and the steady rasp of sawing.