Chapter 3

Translator: Willia

The cashiers who worked under a lord answered to the treasurer, and during working hours they were generally required to wear a ridiculous uniform.

It was a one-piece robe that fell all the way to the feet, with a hood wrapped around the head and chin leaving only the face exposed.

On top of that, the part wrapping the head trailed back into a long pointed cone that hung down the back, and the garment itself was loudly embroidered with a polka-dot pattern.

The reason for wearing such a uniform at work had never been made explicit, but it was presumably because they handled money.

To put it simply, it was a safeguard against running off with the coin. The point was to make the wearer easy to spot from a distance and unable to move quickly.

Accordingly, a cashier failing to wear this uniform during working hours was grounds for punishment.

Returning from the forest, Valery held his work uniform in his hands and gazed down at it absently.

Then he folded it neatly, put it back in the drawer beneath his bed, and left the room in the same tunic he had worn that morning.

He passed down the corridor, descended the staircase of the keep, and reached the ground floor. When he arrived before the room where the cashier's business was conducted, he found Rok sitting in a chair he had dragged over, keeping watch.

Rok had been one of the group in the forest that morning. His face was slightly flushed, as though the drink had caught up to him a little; he seemed to have just taken over the shift.

He too was a knight's squire, and squires, when not tending to equipment or attending their knight at his side, were assigned to night watch or various sentry duties.

When Rok saw Valery, a puzzled look crossed his face. It was because Valery wasn't wearing that gaudy uniform that was required during working hours. After seeing him in it every day for nearly four years, even to Rok's eyes it was a rather strange sight.

"Huh? Where's the uniform?"

"Didn't put it on."

"I can see that. I'm asking why."

"Just didn't feel like it."

"You allowed to do that?"

"Dunno."

"......"

Rok just blinked, at a loss. Perhaps it was because of that ghostly movement he had witnessed from Valery that morning, but he couldn't even bring himself to press the matter.

In truth, seeing it he hadn't really seen it. He had caught none of the process of the sword being taken, only the result.

Above all, his duty was to stand guard, and he wasn't in any position to be telling Valery what to do.

"Open it."

Valery said. The office was kept locked, and the guard held the key.

Still bewildered, and with a faintly uneasy feeling, Rok silently turned the lock. I don't know anything about any of this.

Leaving Rok, still dazed, behind him, Valery stepped into the office. It was no better than a cramped little cubby. No, more like a cell, perhaps.

In that tiny cubby stood a strongbox and a single desk, and nothing more. On the desk sat ink, a quill pen, and a neatly ordered stack of documents. Recent contracts, confirmation lists, that sort of thing.

Valery first opened the small window with its wooden shutter. Light filled the room.

He sat down and pulled open a heavy drawer, revealing fat coin purses inside. Setting the purses, mostly filled with silver and copper coin, onto the desk, he drew the topmost document toward himself.

It listed the people, goods, and sums for which money was to be paid out or received that day.

Camellia oil, fish oil, olive oil delivered by the oil merchant, and other daily necessities besides: wax, cloth, thread, leather......

If the treasurer's job was to oversee the county's overall finances, draw up various contracts, and keep on good terms with the Tax Collectors and other administrators, then Valery's work as cashier was the direct business of taking in and paying out coin.

Disbursing wages to knights, Soldiers, and other employees; collecting or paying out sums owed under various contracts.

Important work, if one wished to call it so, but what it actually came down to was running numbers all day long. In this tiny cubby.

Valery remembered the first time he had been given this work. He had been ten. How happy he had been to finally have something of his own to do.

He had spent his days uneasy at having no place to stand as a Bastard, and he had been glad to feel, at last, that he had become a person of some use.

Above all, he had been grateful to be able to devote himself, however feebly, to his father, the father who was his only tether.

It would be a lie to say that staring at numbers all day, every day, for years on end wasn't dull, but whenever the tedium crept in, he had steadied himself, renewed his resolve, and worked with painstaking thoroughness.

And then, overnight, they had tried to kill me. Because I wasn't the real son? For the sake of advancement?

When Valery thought back on that time, it wasn't that anger didn't still stir in his chest, but perhaps because his heart had once been coldly deadened, he was in no danger of losing his characteristic composure.

The reason Count Aethelred had tried to kill Valery, the outward pretext at least, had been to prove his loyalty to Duke Sven. Duke Sven had supported the Third Prince.

But he could now see clearly that it wasn't simply for that reason alone.

For one, House Winsloe was not itself a Nordic house. They were Astrians.

Few Astrian noble houses had survived the Conquest War, but on rare occasions a handful had managed to keep their line intact. Whether because they had fought so bravely that the Nordics came to respect them, or because they had navigated diplomacy deftly one way or another.

But surviving was not the end of it. Subtle discrimination and persecution from the Nordics were a given, and at times they went so far as to make open attempts to seize an Astrian's lands.

In other words, House Winsloe was a house that had been on tenterhooks for generations, trying to protect its name and its lands.

And ironically, the greatest threat to House Winsloe at present was none other than their own Liege Lord, Duke Sven. They might have gotten along well enough under the previous generation, but not any longer.

The Duke did not meddle or obstruct directly, but he would let roving bands of warriors wander through the County of Winsloe, or goad other Vassals into picking quarrels, and the like.

And then, under the guise of friendly urging, he had pressured them into giving their son a Nordic-style name. Harold was not a name Astrians used but a thoroughly Nordic one.

It had come later, but the most damaging blow of all had been taking Harold away under the pretext of knight's training, a Hostage in all but name.

With no other child, only the one son, there would have been no choice. Kill the Prince. Or your son dies.

Valery was suddenly reminded of the innocent smile he had seen on Harold's face that morning.

Why did I kill him so cruelly, right in front of Count Aethelred? Out of a sense of betrayal? Or was it, more than that, jealousy? Because he had been chosen, and not me.

"......"

Valery calmly contemplated the truth within himself, the one he had not wanted to face, the one he had perhaps known all along and turned away from. Did he regret it? Not particularly, no. What meaning would any of it have now?

If anything had changed, it was that he now knew he was not a Bastard, and that Count Aethelred was not his real father.

And that Count Aethelred, as the Prince's guardian, likewise knew his true standing and was bound to keep the secret.

Were he to let the secret slip by accident, then under the august Edict of the First King, not only he himself but all of House Winsloe could be subject to Clan Extermination.

Valery turned over the various practical considerations in his mind. But the ultimate question still remained.

What am I going to do from here......

Motes of dust drifted slowly through the sunlight spilling in from the window. Then, in the middle of his thoughts, the door opened. The slowly drifting dust suddenly whirled into a dizzy commotion.

The one who had opened the door was Rok, and the one who walked in was some merchant.

Valery unfastened a coin purse as a matter of course. He spread the contents roughly across the desk and stacked them in tens. Not one by one, but with a simple swift flick of his hand, the coins formed themselves in an instant into stacks of ten, ten columns of them.

The merchant's eyes went wide as though he had just witnessed some sort of magic, but Valery paid him no mind, picked up his pen, looked at the document, and spoke.

"Name."

The sun was sinking slowly toward the western hills. The last of the daylight glowed gold, and the setting sun seemed to walk its path unusually quickly.

Farmers as farmers, woodcutters as woodcutters, and the people of the castle no less: each was wrapping up their own day's labor and easing toward its close.

And yet, for some reason, the entire household of House Winsloe had gathered in the inner courtyard of Winsloe Castle.

It was because Count Aethelred, who had been out for a week touring and patrolling the county, was returning.

Looking at how the household was arranged, it wasn't as though they stood about at random. Where one stood depended on one's title.

Naturally, the Countess stood in the most conspicuous spot, closest to the keep, with Harold right beside her, and the ladies-in-waiting and maids in attendance.

Next came the Advisory Council and administrators, then squires and Soldiers, and then those who did menial work; the lower one's title, the closer to the outer wall one stood.

Valery stood behind those near the wall. It was the lowliest position, not simply because he was a Bastard, but so as to stay as far from the Countess's sight as possible.

She didn't particularly mistreat Valery, but she had no wish to see him, either. Which stood to reason: to the outside world, he was a child her husband had had by another woman.

In any case, as Valery stood quietly, he felt a gaze on him; turning, he saw Harold peeking sideways at him from far across the courtyard.

The moment Harold's eyes met Valery's, he broke into a bright smile and waved. At this, the Countess quickly took her son's hand and pulled it down.

Valery turned his head away again, unmoved.

He could still feel the gaze on him, but was doing his best to ignore it when someone tapped him from behind. He turned to find the kindly, portly treasurer.

The man was looking at Valery with an expression that was somewhere between a scolding and open worry.

"I hear you didn't dress properly today?"

"And?"

"'And?' What do you mean, 'and?' Don't you know you can be punished for not wearing it?"

"I know. So what?"

"H, hey, now. You can't talk like that. It's not just you, I could get in trouble over this too."

"I won't get you in trouble."

Valery turned his head again and faced forward. The treasurer seemed at a loss, quite flustered.

There was no particular name for it, but people knew from experience that boys between the ages of twelve and sixteen went through a rebellious phase.

The treasurer figured that was what was going on with Valery, but since there was nothing to be done about it just now, he could only stew over it. What a worry, what a worry......

"He's coming."

A Soldier atop the wall had called down, scanning the courtyard. The treasurer hurried back to his place.

Before long, the faint sound of hoofbeats began to be heard, and grew steadily clearer.

At length, with the earth-pounding beat of three sets of hooves, Count Aethelred and two knights swept into the castle like a thunderclap.

Thud-thud-thud! Thud-thud-thud! Thud-thud-thud!

Count Aethelred, his short, blanket-like cloak flaring behind him, reined his horse up sharply. The horse, somewhat worked up from the exhilarating ride, turned a circle in place as if he were settling it down.

To see a massive warhorse up close was menacing enough to set the heart trembling. The deciding factor in the new generation's victory during the Beast Wars had been those very horses. The first-generation warriors had mostly sailed in ships.

Looking up at the Count atop such a beast, the people felt both dread and awe. Count Aethelred and the two knights, who had evidently slept in the open a few times over the course of the patrol, were not exactly tidy in appearance.

When touring the county, if he stopped at the residence of a Vassal or at a town, he would lodge in proper quarters, but on border patrols there were inevitably nights when one had no choice but to sleep rough.

The Count ran his eyes over those who had come out to greet him, and as always, his gaze landed first on Valery.

The Valery of the past had felt a gruff kind of affection in that gaze, but no longer. If anything happened to the Prince, not only the Count himself but the county and the whole house would be shattered, so of course he checked on him first.

Once the horses seemed to have come to a stop, two squires and the stable keeper rushed in and took hold of the reins. Count Aethelred dismounted first, and the two knights dismounted after him.

Chainmail under a surcoat, a cloak, a sword at the hip, boots: a grown man fully armed carried an overwhelming kind of presence.

"Welcome home. The sauna and bathwater have been prepared."

The Countess said, approaching. But Count Aethelred scarcely looked at her beyond one passing glance. He merely pulled off his gloves and all but tossed them to his own squire, Gidwin.

Then, one hand stroking Harold's head and his eyes sweeping over his household, he spoke to his wife.

"And the feast? I sent word ahead."

"Of course. It's ready. Audrey's cheese has turned out so wonderfully this time. And a suckling pig was slaughtered this morning and smoked over apple wood. The aroma, it's just......"

The Countess chirped on like a lark, visibly trying to draw her husband's attention. But Count Aethelred paid her words no heed, to the point of coldness.

He all but ignored her and simply turned his steps toward the keep. Perhaps because of his heavy armor, his footfalls struck the ground with particular weight.

The two knights silently bowed and paid their respects to the Countess, then followed the Count. The squires fell in after them.

Valery had been keeping himself hidden in the shadows as best he could even before the Count disappeared into the keep, and he slipped away the instant he did. For no other reason than that he did not want to catch the Countess's eye.

She believed the reason she was not loved was that her husband had never gotten over Valery's mother.

It was in the way his eyes always fell on Valery first whenever he came back from a journey, and in the way he would quietly look out for Valery even while seeming not to care, and above all, because one look at Valery's face gave a fair sense of just how beautiful his mother must have been.

Valery had nothing to apologize for, and yet he could not quite say he felt no guilt toward her either. Because she did not actually mistreat him, and rather seemed to swallow it all in silence.

If she had just mistreated him, it would have been easier to bear. So Valery thought.

Count Aethelred scrubbed the road's wind and weather off cleanly and held the evening feast.

The feast was not simply a matter of gathering people to eat and make merry: it was a chance to hear a kind of report on whether anything had happened in his absence, to observe the state of his people with his own eyes, to pass along what he himself had seen and heard on his rounds of the county, and the act itself was a form of governance.

To live as a nobleman in the present age required one to always be mindful of people. All the more so if one was a knight, or held men-at-arms under one's command. That was why the greater the king or the lord, the more ceaselessly he threw banquets.

Count Aethelred was a truly diligent man. He saw to both the inner and outer affairs of the county, and made sure no opening was left.

But to Valery's eye, the man's limits were clear. In the end, he had not been able to slip out of the net Duke Sven had laid. To survive, one had to break the mold, and Aethelred was not quite that sort of man.

In short, he was a man who worked hard in one way or another yet was forever on tenterhooks. Even if, on the surface, he carried himself as one unshaken. It was plain as day now.

The hall was laid out with a high seat and people seated along a long table. Family, along with knights and squires, the treasurer, the priest, the lawyer, and other retainers besides.

At the high seat sat Count Aethelred, his wife, and Harold. Candles burned in their holders along the table, and lanterns hung upon the walls.

So the hall was not exactly brightly lit; it felt as if darkness and light had been divided down the middle. Valery simply sat quietly in the farthest corner, keeping his place and nothing more.

The servants busied themselves ferrying food. As the drink made its rounds a few times, the merriment seemed to rise in place of the light and brighten the hall.

Harold, though he had not drunk much wine, seemed a little tipsy, and was happily chattering away about something that might well prove awkward for the Count.

"Did you know? Today was Wid's birthday. So to celebrate it myself, I gathered the boys this morning and held a little feast. Every time I've worked up the courage to ask him to come and play with us, he's always brushed me off, but today, he actually came. At the very least, at the very least, we can be friends, can't we? I held off on giving him a gift on purpose. I thought it would be better if you gave him one, Father."

The moment Valery was mentioned, the Countess's face froze, and the people who had been chatting with smiles on their faces fell abruptly silent.

Harold looked bewildered, as though wondering whether he had done something wrong. In his own attempt to patch things over, he pulled Gidwin into it.

"Right? Today was fun, wasn't it? You know, when Tommy......"

"Young Master."

Because it was a formal occasion, Gidwin called Harold "Young Master" and hushed him. But cold water had already been thrown over the hall.

Everyone watched Count Aethelred for his reaction, stealing sideways glances at Valery in the far corner.

Count Aethelred's eyes had settled on his wine cup. Whatever he was thinking, his face was simply blank. Was he angry, or merely displeased, or lost in old memories?

The manservants and maids carrying the drink and food stood frozen where they were as well. The people in the hall felt as though they could scarcely breathe. That was the sort of air that had fallen over the room.

Then Count Aethelred raised his eyes, looked at Valery seated far down the table, and spoke.

"So it was your birthday. Is there anything you want?"

The head of this house, the master of the Winsloe lands, had asked. Which meant one had to answer, whatever the answer might be.

And yet Valery's silence stretched on for quite a while. The others, if anything, were the more uncomfortable for it.

Valery was looking only at the food on the table. Unlike the disarray of everyone else's place settings, the food in front of him was neat.

There was something he had been thinking about all day. What he was to do going forward. But thinking yielded no answer. Because the answer lay in the heart.

If he were to live his life over again, what would he do? Probably not the things he had already done, but the things he hadn't; the things he had never quite managed because of the eyes of others, or whatever else had made him shrink back.

Valery raised his eyes and looked at Count Aethelred. A few, the knights among them, watched on expressionlessly; most of the rest watched the moment with their hearts in their throats, taut with tension.

"Who is my mother?"

Valery said. The instant the words were out, small gasps went up here and there.

As though they had heard something they were not meant to hear, the onlookers seemed more shaken than the two parties actually speaking. The Countess's heart pounded fit to burst.

Met with that intense gaze so characteristic of Valery, Count Aethelred's own eyes did not waver. And he spoke with finality.

"She's dead."

The silence in the hall grew heavier still.

Valery saw at once that the Count's words were a lie. But he did not press the matter any further here. He turned his gaze back toward the edge of the table and spoke.

"Starting tomorrow, I will no longer do the counting of coin. Let that count as the gift."

It wasn't an "I don't want to," nor a "may I stop." It was a one-sided notice, and on top of that, Valery rose from his seat and walked out of the hall. A seriously improper act by any measure.

With a silence so heavy that even a falling pin would have sounded loud, Valery's footsteps rang out like thunder. They seemed to pass beyond the ear and strike at the people's very chests.

Thud. Thud. Thud......

In a noble house, a Bastard was an awkward, unwelcome presence. Which was why most were cast aside; cases like Count Aethelred's, where the child was brought in and raised, were rare.

But if it was all founded on a lie, then however uncomfortable people might be, there was really no need to trouble oneself over it.

Valery walked down the pitch-black corridor. So dark that nothing could be seen. Much like the road he had lived.

Only, now he hoped that at the end of the abyss he might find a light of his own.