Late afternoon. As the fierce sun tilted slowly toward the west, the people gathered in the center of the plaza murmured among themselves.
"Well now, it's been a while since a knights' duel."
"Oh my, how splendid. A challenge over an insult to a lady, no less."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Some men stake their lives defending the country, and some stake their lives squabbling over a slight."
"Guarding a lady's honor is a knight's duty too, isn't it."
"Th-that's true enough, I suppose."
—Murmur, murmur.
Leaving the muttering of the crowd behind them, the two knights began their duel in the presence of a judge.
"I hereby declare this sacred duel to be established."
Under the judge's declaration, the two men, wrapped head to foot in full plate mail, brought shield and sword together as form required.
And at last the duel, with lives at stake, began.
—CRASH!
A thrusting sword blocked on the shield, then pressed forward into a charge.
—CLUNK, SKREEEK.
The opponent coming in behind his shield was met with a shield in turn, and in the contest of strength one of them slipped aside for an instant and broke the other's balance.
—SWISH, CRASH, BANG, BANG! CLACK!
The opponent turned his collapsing posture into a forward roll, recovered his balance, came up, and quickly worked his footing into a defensive form.
Both were fitted out in the finest grade of plate mail, from the smoothness of their movement. The armor looked to have the latest technique worked into it: the plating kept thin while sloped surfaces did the defending.
Hans knew a certain amount about knights' armor from his time at the front.
"They're fighting with their own weight in gold wrapped around them."
The boy gave no particular response to Hans's muttering. He simply savored the sweetness of the stick of candy Hans had put in his hand and watched the duel. His clear, transparent eyes blinked and moved this way and that, as though looking to find the hidden fun in each part of it.
—CLANG! CLANG! CLUNK, SKREEEK.
For men in plate mail, the movements were precise. The attack and defense they traded fitted together well. It was almost as if it had been arranged.
'A neatly choreographed exchange, that.'
Hans folded his arms and watched, thinking it inside himself. As a ten-commander who had done his dogfighting at the head of the battle line, he could not understand it, and he did not particularly want to.
—CLANK, CLUNK, CRASH! CRASH!
The contest of the silver-armored knights ran toward its climax. The arcs of the blades reflecting sunlight and the sparks as gear struck gear were dazzling. In itself it was more than a fine show.
"Haah!"
—CLAAANG.
—RATTLE, CLACK.
Having traded solid defense and dazzling attack from the start of the duel into its middle, the two of them began to tire as time went on. In the end they pounded away at each other with blunted swords.
—CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
The devices decorating the shields were knocked away and the shields themselves dented. Two very expensive kite shields were being given a raw quenching like that.
'Tsk, tsk, tsk. What must that all cost.'
Hans sighed inwardly. For all that, the people kept crying out in admiration and watching with great interest.
"Wheeeew."
"Whoops, look at that."
"Magnificent."
The time a soldier can put out strength in a fight is ten minutes at the short end, thirty at the longest. That is all. The act of going for one another's lives drains a man terribly. A dozen full swings with a weapon and you have to fall back and get your breath, and when that repeats, your strength runs flat. And then you die.
A knight is a being far above a soldier, but that does not mean he butchers enemies with sword energy or sword aura as in some legend. That is only a garbled account of sunlight glancing off a well-polished blade. Sword energy flying and magical fireballs churning up a battlefield had become, somewhere along the way, a story out of children's tales.
The age of knights had already set, and on a battlefield a knight held the ambiguous position of being nothing more and nothing less than heavy cavalry.
"Hurgh, hurgh."
"Hoo-ff, hoo-ff."
With the two of them staggering and pounding at each other, the edges of the longswords went blunt and became iron clubs. The dented shields had long since finished serving any function. The knights' breathing grew rough as well.
"Haah!"
—THUD! CRASH, SPLAT.
At a body charge from one side, both of them rolled to the ground together and went down face first. A long while later, one of them slowly rose. He walked unsteadily over to his fallen opponent and leveled what had been a longsword and was now a club at the throat of the man lying on the ground. The other could only drag his breath in roughly, and did not get up.
Presently the judge declared the victory.
"I declare the victory of Michel de Outzki, cadet of the Belborn Knights' School."
"Waaah!"
"Wheeeew."
—Clap, clap, clap.
—Murmur.
The crowd stamped their feet and cheered, and celebrated the victory with applause.
Once the declaration was made, the sprawled loser rose unsteadily, took off his helm and stripped away the plate mail. A man who appeared to be his squire helped him with it.
"Ah, and how will you face the marquis now?"
The knight left his squire's lament behind him, set the plate mail down without a word, and left the plaza in desolation. The gear he had taken off was collected by the judge who had declared the duel ended.
The victorious knight's squire handed him a bouquet he had prepared.
The knight went to the lady, dropped to one knee and offered the flowers, and the people cheered and whistled.
"Ohhh, wheew."
—Clap, clap, clap.
"Wheew."
The lady took the flowers, pulled off a glove and held out her hand, and the knight kissed the back of it. The people sent up another cheer and round of applause, and the noblewomen flushed and turned envious looks on her.
"Waaah!"
—Murmur, murmur.
Hans and the boy left the people behind and made their way out of the plaza.
"There are men who stake their lives charging an enemy line, and men who stake their lives to hand a woman a bouquet."
Talking to himself had become a habit with Hans. The boy walking beside him looked up with an expression that said, 'And what's wrong with that?'
***
The next day they took to the road early in the morning.
"Thank you for all your consideration, Miss Emily."
At Hans's farewell, Emily blinked her pretty eyes.
"Oh — you said my name?"
"There were reasons I could not meet people's eyes until now."
"I know. The killing intent, or whatever it's called. That was it, wasn't it?"
"It's much better now."
At Hans's words Emily gave a smile full of meaning.
"I expect we'll meet again."
"......?"
"Gale Village, you said? In the Viscounty of Bern."
"That's right."
"Gale Village has been picked as the site for one of our caravan's branches."
"Ah."
A caravan's branches are established with great cities as the standard, but with an eye to cost they are sometimes set up by developing a junction of the roads. A caravan branch does not mean simply an office; it includes a goods warehouse, lodgings and other facilities, so the funds involved are no trifling matter.
That being so, a move like this by a caravan might amount to a chance for a small country village to make an economic leap. In Gale Village's case it seemed to be going in as part of developing a staging point toward the capital and the cities of the countries to the southeast.
***
As a maid set the tea down, the scent of it filled the room.
"Mmm. Good."
—Nod.
"His Majesty bestowed it. The Lord Chamberlain brought it himself."
"Count Grace brought this in person?"
"Oho. The jasmine scent is exquisite."
"They say His Majesty is fond of it. He said he sends us a message of deep consolation. Unofficially."
"Consolation? Only unofficially?"
"Hm."
The seasoned politicians understood the meaning at once and were disappointed.
"I cannot understand it. The war ended in victory, and among our neighbors there is no state that will provoke us for some time."
"Just so. He is being handed a margrave grown too large, dealt with for him. So why?"
"......."
The old man who had been savoring the scent in silence set down his cup.
"His Majesty is dreaming. A boy's dream......."
"That His Majesty is soft of heart, we all know well."
The old man gave a short laugh.
"A sovereign who beheaded his half-brothers and sent his sisters into exile is soft? Are you not all being far too innocent? Hoo hoo hoo."
"Th-that's so. I had forgotten for a moment."
"Indeed. Before I knew it I was being taken in by His Majesty's mask."
"If you know, then tell us. The reason the king is stopping us."
The old man put force into his eyes. He looked a little angry, and he also looked as if he were seeing somewhere beyond the space past the men seated at the table.
"He thinks it is not morally right."
"Not right?"
"What does that mean?"
In an age of barbarity, what is right is 'a rule made by those who hold power.' The concept of morality was not included inside that 'rule.' Confusion came over their understanding and they were at a loss.
"He grieves over the blood we would spill by raising an internal conflict. He pities the countless lives that would die again."
"......."
The gap in understanding was wide. But the young king's intent seemed to have been conveyed well enough.
***
The cart the boy led pressed on down the road. He handled a packhorse that looked twice his own height with practiced skill.
'His former occupation is suspicious.'
Hans lay in the cart with his eyes on the sky. Watching the clouds drift along at their leisure brought his mind to peace as well.
He still dreamed nightmares. In the early days after his discharge his memories of the battlefield would come out jumbled in his dreams. Then he began dreaming of places he had never seen and situations he could not remember. He had settled on calling those nightmares.
The pattern repeated: tossing until late at night, barely falling asleep toward dawn, waking with a start in the morning. On the battlefield, a tired body reached deep sleep the moment it lay down. To sleep deeply on a dangerous battlefield and suffer insomnia in the safe rear was an irony.
Was it that a body whose tension had come loose in the peace of the rear could not adapt? With the nightmares continuing, his bed was not a comfortable place.
Hans muttered in a low voice.
"Don't push it so hard. Slowly...... let's go slowly."
—Twitch.
A vein rose on the forehead of the boy holding the reins. The cart creaked and went on with its speed reduced. There seemed to be some misunderstanding.
Before long the paved road ran out and a dirt road began. They had entered the blind spot of the watch.
"Good day to you."
—Bow.
"Good day."
One by one, travelers going the same way joined them until they were a single group. It was a place that turned to mud when it rained, so they all pressed on together and reached a low stretch of hill country toward evening.
—Flap, tap-tap-tap.
There were already a few parties who had taken spots at the roadside and were pitching tents. Hans and the boy put up their tent with practiced ease, lit a fire and hung the pot. Then they dissolved dried meat and flour in water and waited for the soup to boil. The fire crackled up and the sun was going slowly down.
And then an unwelcome guest came to them.
"Excuse me. I'm sorry to ask, but might we impose on you?"
Hans turned his head at the sound and looked at the two men approaching. His eyes went round, and the boy, who turned at seeing that, went round-eyed too.
It was the knight who had lost the duel at Belborn yesterday and forfeited his plate mail, and his squire. The knight in shabby clothes and the squire in neat ones made their request politely in front of the fire. A defeated knight who, for all that he was a noble, came up to commoners with easy nerve.
—Rustle, rustle.
The boy said nothing, and Hans simply added two fistfuls of flour and a few grains of coarse salt to the pot.
Understanding the meaning of that, the knight and the well-turned-out squire quietly sat down beside them, and presently the squire handed Hans a piece of peppercorn.
"......?"
"A spice. It brings the flavor of the food out."
Hans nodded, put the pepper into the pot and stirred.
—Clink, clink.
Flour, a little dried meat, a little dried vegetable, and then the addition of the pepper changed the taste of the soup entirely. Hans, startled, checked that the expressions of the knight, the squire and the boy had not changed, lowered his raised eyes, and savored the soup quietly.
—Slurp, smack.
—Crackle, crackle.
With fires burning here and there across the clearing, only the sound of dishes knocking together and people whispering to one another carried faintly. You could feel the careful bearing peculiar to a band of travelers, who lean on each other and watch each other at the same time.
"That was an excellent meal."
The well-turned-out squire made his thanks.
—Nod.
The knight must have been tired; he answered with a smile in place of words.
The boy and the squire went off to find a stream and wash the dishes, and the knight rummaged through his pack and brought out tea leaves.
"A rinse of the mouth after a meal has become a habit of mine......."
The knight looked up with an expression somewhere near embarrassment.
—Nod, nod.
Hans found the kettle and hung it over the fire. The hundred-commander he had served under had always drunk tea after a meal as well.
—Trickle.
***
The next morning the squire joined in and they put the place in order, and the easy-natured knight and the well-turned-out squire had somehow become part of the party.
Hans and the boy were unenthusiastic.