Rojas, as the kingdom's capital, is the darling of politics, economy and culture, boasting a population of a million. Counting the attached cities, the nearby port among them, that population is said to approach a full two million. This bustling city, a match for most imperial capitals, ran without rest by day and by night.
The nights of the main streets were packed with people out walking in twos and threes, people coming off work, people at their pleasures. The drinking houses in the alleys behind the city plaza were no exception, and were full.
—Clamor, clamor.
"Welcome. Do you have a reservation?"
"I don't know. I was simply told where to meet."
"Ah — would you be Sir Zimmer?"
—Nod.
"I'll show you to the reserved seat. This way, please."
The obliging attendant recognized Hans and led him to a table by the window.
—Murmur, murmur.
Hans ordered a mug of beer and sat down.
'The city's night is a splendid thing.'
Hans, who had grown up in the country, found the city interesting. In place of starlight, taverns lit by countless candles and the magic lamps of the streets lit the city. Handsome men and beautiful women with fair skin filled the streets, paired off or looking for a pair.
A young woman walking arm in arm with a man gave a quick wink. Hans, unflustered, returned it with an easy smile.
'The city is an entertaining place.'
Barely a month ago Hans had been taking the head off an enemy who was pushing his own spilling entrails back into his belly, catching an incoming arrow on his shoulder, driving a blade into an enemy's throat. To such a man, even the city's rough back alleys felt peaceful.
'It is like heaven.'
People who had finished a hard day's work talking over the day's troubles, bolstering one another, cursing others, or breaking a bottle now and then — the scene felt so peaceful that it left him drowsy. Just as sleep was coming on.
"Your beer."
"My thanks."
—Gulp, gulp.
A mug of beer put the sleep to flight. He looked out the window.
—Racket, racket.
The street, crowded even by day, seemed fit to burst once night came. In his home village too, when night came, a few idlers would gather at the village's one small tavern and pass a bottle back and forth, but this was a difference of scale.
What was buried in darkness was hidden, and what was lit was beautiful. The city's night was dazzling in the truest sense. He looked at the empty seat across from him, and thought of the boy.
'We never even had the leisure for a drink together.'
"Too young for it, maybe."
Hans's gaze went back out the window.
"In any case, he summons a man and then there's no word."
He tried talking to himself against the boredom, but fatigue came pressing in and his eyelids began to close. As he emptied his head and sank deep into the sofa, the talk of two men in the seat behind came to him.
"Here, have you heard?"
"Heard what?"
"The eldest son of House Pellone."
"Of Count Pellone's house? Ah, the one who died in the war?"
"They say it was a conspiracy."
"......?"
"An unjust death, they say. Driven out as bait in the fighting, surrounded by more than ten times his number, and he fell gloriously."
"Truly?"
"It came out through someone who lodged an objection to the merit review."
"Hah. A shocking thing."
"However much it was for a tactical victory, that is not the way of things. I do not care for the Commander of the North."
"Still, ought we not to give him credit for leading the war to victory?"
"Give him credit for deceiving his own soldiers, driving them to their deaths, and devouring alone the fruits of a victory bought with that sacrifice?"
"Ah, that, never."
"And besides, they say the commander swallowed half the Cronos Plain won by that victory, alone, without His Majesty's approval."
"Good grief."
"If a victory bought with soldiers' deaths is tarnished into somebody's profit, then in the end it is......."
Silence ran, and the man opposite threw back a drink.
"A dog's death."
"Mmm."
It was a story now so well known there was nobody in the capital who had not heard it. A brief silence ran.
"Everyone knows there was a succession struggle in House Pellone."
The other man drank, then went on.
"The story of the good elder brother who yielded the succession and left for the front?"
"You knew it after all."
"Well, it is widely known in society."
"And it turns out to have been true. Astonishing."
"......."
The man who had given no answer drank several cups one after another, then looked off into the air beyond as though sighing.
"These days, holding a blade to family for the sake of a succession, under the banner of fair competition, has become the history of noble houses."
His gaze went from the man opposite him back down to his cup.
"The death of an eldest son who left for the front to avoid a quarrel with his brother. Either way the house's honor is preserved, and the beloved younger brother succeeds to it. A beautiful story. Is it not. Kekeke."
"Quite apart from the Commander of the North's sickening victory......."
—Gulp, gulp.
"Well, it is no concern of low nobles like us."
"Haa."
At the two men's talk coming faintly from the seat behind, Hans felt hollowed out.
'That younger brother, who spoke of his brother's honor and demanded a duel?' Had that anger, which had looked so pure, been a pretense?
Had it been anger about nothing but his own feelings? The cold anger of a young noble, the colder restraint of a father, and his own act of stepping in front of it — had that been the recklessness of an ignorant newcomer?
What a clown show, he thought.
'Let me not judge hastily. I do not know them yet.'
Hans shook his head. He had heard Hundred-Commander Tomius speak of his beloved younger brother more than once.
'And it was the face of an elder brother who cherished and loved him.'
Draining a full mug, Hans muttered to himself.
'Was it a death meant to lead to a beautiful ending?'
Hans raised his cup to the hundred-commander who had chosen the road of death.
He thought suddenly of the knight who had ridden off to fight his own brother for a succession. An elder brother who handed the succession to his younger and chose death, and an elder brother who went to take the succession back from his younger. This was the life of nobles. The truth was always cruel. Hans drained what was left of his beer in one go.
"For a man of country stock, you suit a city night well."
"Ah."
"We'll skip the greetings."
The man who, with a single word, left Hans half risen and awkward was, in a word, a power without limit.
"As for address, let us use 'Sir.'"
Nimitz von Bieri, Marquis. Taking off his hat and shaking the drizzle from it, he looked like an easygoing neighbor and also like a handsome middle-aged man steeped in melancholy — an unreadable opponent.
With the detachment of a man unbound by formality he shook out his coat, handed it to a waiter, and sat down.
'One of the five highest nobles in the kingdom. A man who can send a middling noble house or two to their graves with a word.'
Seeing the settled look in Hans's eyes, the marquis let out a short laugh.
"I look like a man who could grind up a noble or two and eat them, don't I?"
That first line, tossed out lightly, was no ordinary thing either. Such a direct comparison — it was an arrogant joke that amounted to 'and what will you do about it?'
"Yes."
"Hoo hoo hoo."
Fortunately, perhaps, Hans's blunted spirit did not shrink.
Whether that was recklessness or a front, the marquis did not care. If anything he thought that, on the premise that an enjoyable conversation was possible, useless formality could be set down.
"Just so. I see why Gerald was taken with you. A knight ought by rights to carry himself as a noble does, upright and proud, the way you do, and yet when I look at the nobles these days, honestly......"
"Er, one moment. I think there may be some misunderstanding."
Remembering the talk of sodomy said to be in fashion among the nobles, Hans went straight-faced and cut in. And then he spoke seriously, with his own will behind it.
"I would like friendship and love to be clearly distinguished."
"Mm?"
The marquis tipped his head slightly and looked at Hans through narrowed eyes. And then he expressed, with his whole body, the thought that this was a relief.
"Hahaha! A joke. By way of apology, tonight is on me."
When the marquis raised a hand, a waiter came over as though he had been waiting for it and took the order.
"Thank you."
"Not at all."
'Isn't it obvious the man who called the meeting pays?'
Hans grumbled inwardly at the marquis's bluster, but let nothing show. Even a country bumpkin understands well enough what it means to keep to the line.
The marquis was intensely curious about the conversation Gerald and Hans were said to have had. This was a son he had taught for twenty years through every kind of drilling, and who had denied it all and run from home. What on earth had woken his son? That was his curiosity.
"What do you think the reason for Gerald's change was? I should like to hear it from you directly."
"I could not say. Would I dare to speak about the young master?"
"No. I like directness. I always want the conclusion."
"I was not in my right mind either. I think I simply shouted whatever my heart told me to. What inspiration that gave the young master, I have never thought about."
—Nod, nod.
"That agrees with Hunt's report in most respects."
The marquis was persistent. On the matter of what had turned Gerald's heart he wanted, beyond simple curiosity, a narrative that held together. Fortunately Hans's answer seemed to please him to some degree, and he nodded as though satisfied.
"I have not seen that report, but I imagine it has been considerably prettied up."
"Mm?"
"It is still true now, but at the time I was suffering under the stress of the battlefield, piled high with a sense of grievance, and my speech was coarse."
"Coarse?"
"And my learning is shallow — I can read and write and no more — so I am a fellow with no intellect in him at all......."
And yet the irony is that being able to read and write at all puts a man in about five percent of the continent's population, and is taken in this age for considerable intellect.
"Heh heh heh. That will not be you alone, I think. Myself included — are the men we call knights not empty tin cans?"
"But the young master was different. I merely had a fit, and he examined himself with cold reason."
"Cold, you say? That Gerald? How admirable."
The marquis had never cared for the warm side of his eldest son. To reign over the world, he held, a man must above all be cold.
"I say it again: at the time I think I was ruled by a sense of grievance. I would like to gather back every word I spat out in feeling over this past month."
"And now?"
"I remember those clumsy performances and kick the blankets off every night."
—Nod, nod.
"True enough, the Commander of the North's handling of his troops was very harsh."
Stripping out every element of chance left nothing standing but Hans's own outburst. And the marquis too seemed not to understand that 'outburst' alone.
"Looking back, at the turning points of a life I have been through my share of bloodletting. But the battlefield's version of it I cannot imagine."
And he was generous toward himself for not understanding.
"That aside......."
The marquis brought out the main point. Nobles were said to talk around a thing until its intent was hard to make out, but the marquis at least was plain. He valued his own time enough not to waste it circling.
"Just as Gerald was, I too am taken with you."
For an instant Hans wanted to overturn the table.
"I am sorry, but my orientation is......."
"Enough joking. I am not asking after your orientation."
The marquis's manner changed. He became a figure of dignity with a weighty voice, giving off trustworthiness in abundance.
"I need able men. Come under my protection."
The street, deep in night, was cool now that the rain had stopped. Staggering drunks disappeared one by one into the alleys, and lovers leaned on each other and headed for their own nests.
"I respectfully decline."
At Hans's somewhat impertinent refusal the marquis rose without regret. Whether that was displeasure at an arrogant opponent, or a wordless answer amounting to 'as you please,' did not matter.
His cup was empty, but Hans did not trouble to fill it.
"The drinking's over."