As befitted a great city of a hundred thousand, Bahama had its shadowed side as well. Given the double nature of men, there is no denying that the underworld exists that way, feeding off them.
The alley off Fourth Street was a textbook slum, dim even at midday from the shadows of the buildings. Coarse graffiti and trash carrying a stale reek lay scattered any which way along the ground.
Where the light that came in through a gap between the buildings fell like a stage lamp, wooden pallets were stacked and a bald man sat on them. The four big bodies surrounding Hans looked up at him.
"What'll we do, Boss?"
"Work him over a bit first."
"Right."
—THWACK, THWACK, THWACK.
—CRASH, BANG.
The big men laid into Hans, who offered no resistance. When he went down on the ground they simply started stamping on him.
Hans did not fight back. Now and then he twisted his body or raised an arm in something that looked like guarding a vital point, and that was all.
"Kuk kuk kuk."
Hans found it funny. Set against the mad frenzy of a battlefield, where men slit open the bellies of living prisoners and sawed through their necks, a lynching by back-alley punks was simply laughable. To a man with the vivid memory of muscle torn open and healed shut again, the scratches these bodies left were no more than mosquito bites. If anything, the perverse relief that the pounding on his skin sent down into his chest made him laugh under his breath.
'I was going mad. No — perhaps I already have.'
Even now he could have taken them as they came to hand and opened their throats with nothing but a thumb and forefinger, but Hans did not. He was not a beast.
—THWACK, THWACK.
"Huff, huff, huff."
A beating tires the man giving it as much as the one taking it. The big men's breathing was getting rough by degrees.
"Enough."
They hauled Hans up off the ground where he lay face down. His face was a ruin, and he dragged his breath in hard.
"Hoo-ff, hoo-ff."
The Fourth Street boss, called Bald Walter, asked him politely. Of course, with a face that vicious, it could only be heard as a threat.
"Name?"
"Kek."
"Where are you from?"
"Kekeke."
Hans let the laughter leak out of him like a man out of his mind.
"This son of a bitch — the Boss asked you a question."
—THWACK.
—CRASH, BANG, BANG.
Knocked flat by the single blow, Hans let the laughter come anyway.
"Kh kh kh khk."
Flinch.
"Mmh......."
At something chilling in the air the big men backed off, little by little.
"This is strange, Boss. You don't think he's mad, do you?"
Walter had given the order to drag him in and take his measure because word had come that there was a face nobody knew. Now he snapped. As if the Fifth Street crowd creeping into his territory lately were not stress enough, some vagrant was laughing at them. He picked up a length of timber.
"I'll stop that laughing for you."
The tendons stood out on Walter's forearm as he gripped it.
—Tromp, tromp.
It was the moment Bald Walter's great shadow fell across the fallen Hans.
"Hey, you sons of bitches. Freeze right there!"
A bellow came ringing from the mouth of the alley.
"Mm?"
"What is it?"
"......!"
He had seemed to be walking up, snorting with anger, and then all at once the middle-aged man was on them at a run.
One of the big men, the well-mannered sort, greeted him properly.
"Sir, good after— kuh!"
—CRACK.
"You sons of bitches."
—THWACK, THWACK, THWACK.
"I."
—THWACK, THWACK, THWACK.
"Told you."
—THWACK, THWACK, THWACK.
"Not to do this sort of thing."
—THWACK, THWACK, THWACK.
"And yet you put an innocent man in this state?"
The big men, so full of swagger a moment ago, could not move a muscle in front of him.
"Hey, Walter."
"Sir."
"That club you're holding. Bring it here."
—Snap.
Walter hurried it over and handed it across respectfully.
"Down on your hands, you sons of bitches."
—Snap, snap, snap.
As the five men dropped into position, the middle-aged man rolled up his sleeves and came toward them, taking menacing full swings as he went.
—Whoosh, whoosh.
"Didn't I tell you not to touch ordinary people? This is perfect. Today I'm going to make the lot of you......."
Just then someone took hold of the middle-aged man's shoulder.
"Which son of a bitch?......Ah, you."
"Kekeke."
Hans was standing there, smiling, his face covered in blood. In a dank alley at the hour when darkness was beginning to settle, with blood running between those white teeth, the sight of him was grotesque.
"Hey. Are you all right? Ah, the blood — damn it all. Hey, Walter. On your feet."
"......."
"On your feet, you punk sons of bitches."
Scramble.
"Fetch a doctor. No — first bring me something that will do for bandages."
"Sir."
"Three minutes. For every second you're late, count on something of yours getting broken."
CRASH, BANG, BANG.
The men scattered in a flurry, and Hans, watching the whole performance, seemed to find it entertaining and went on laughing.
"Kuk kuk kuk."
***
In a dark great hall, moonlight came through the terrace and lit the room.
Where the moonlight fell, the silhouette of a man leaning against the terrace rail raised a cup.
—Gulp, gulp.
"Khaa."
A few swallows seemed to open his throat and cool it, but then the heat came climbing back up. He set the cup in his right hand down on the rail, took off his crown, and held it.
The man's eyes, looking down over the beautiful garden with the moonlight lying on it, were unfocused and vacant.
He lifted the crown in his hand up to the level of his eyes.
'I never knew a golden crown could weigh so much as this.'
It was a throne he had climbed to after butchering his brothers. The deep helplessness he felt from that seat had led him down into the pit of despair.
The crown rolled out of the hand he let fall.
—Tunk, roll, roll.
It rolled and came to rest at a man's feet.
He picked it up and set it down at the king's feet with both hands, respectfully.
"Your Majesty, the night turns cold."
The king turned his head.
"The Lord Chamberlain. You have not retired yet?"
"I shall retire once I have seen Your Majesty to your bedchamber."
—Pff.
"You have your work cut out for you, with a king so full of problems."
"How can you say such a thing? We have won the war, and we have taken a vast plain for our spoils. You shall be praised widely by those who come after."
The king laughed under his breath.
"Nonsense. I shall be remembered as the sovereign who let the margraves push him about and weakened the crown."
"Y-Your Majesty."
The royal finances, consumed by the war, were expected to run a deficit again this year. The crown lands around the capital were sick with the news of the dead among the young men they had sent off as soldiers, while the great nobles of the frontier devoured the spoils alone.
"There is no way out. No way out."
At this rate the royal house would slowly wither. When the treasury dried up, talent would leave, and that would lead to the end of the dynasty.
"Is there no method at all?"
"If you will grant me a little time, your servant shall find one."
The obvious question asked on the off chance came back with an answer as disappointing as ever. But he did not let it show before a loyal retainer.
"Very well. I shall rely on you."
"The night has grown deep. Let me see you to your bed."
—Nod, nod.
The king, well into his cups, staggered, and the Lord Chamberlain took his arm and led him to his chamber.
And so the night deepened over the palace.
***
Hans sat on a bench with the moonlight on it, his face wrapped in bandages. Beside him the middle-aged man sipped at a drink.
"How are the injuries?"
Hans shrugged instead of answering.
"That's a relief."
Hans tipped his head back and looked up at the night sky. The man, sipping and glancing over at him, asked carefully.
"You don't look like a man who'd take a beating from thugs like that, though?"
"It cleared my head. It felt like a stiffness coming loose."
—Nod, nod.
At being told the assault had been about the level of a massage, the man laughed out loud.
"There was no real killing intent in them...... and I had no wish to cause trouble."
"Hm......."
The middle-aged man let out a breath of relief and turned his eyes to the night sky.
"How many watch officers do you think there are in this city?"
"Who knows......."
"Thirty. Damn it."
"Thirty?"
"A city of a hundred thousand and thirty watch officers...... hoo."
"......."
"They say the guard corps reinforces us in an emergency, but you know how that goes, don't you? Cooperation between outfits is a handsome apricot — all color and nothing but sour underneath."
"That's true enough."
"And that's where we are."
—Nod, nod.
"I'm in the state where I'd borrow a cat's paw if one were offered. Those pieces of trash from earlier, I mean."
Hans, staring up at the night sky with unfocused eyes, answered.
"The lads in the ten-man squad I ran were mostly trash too."
"......?"
"There was one called Markov who was drafted into an assault unit for raping a woman in a village, and died. One called Simpson who was transferred to a scouting unit for striking a superior, and never came back."
"Ah......."
"There was one who died drinking stolen medical alcohol. I can't even remember his name now."
"Good grief. Tsk, tsk, tsk."
"The good ones died first, but the less good ones soon followed. The worse a man was, the later he died. Either way, they all did their share for the fatherland before they went."
"......."
"Three years passed like that. They died and I survived. Coming to it now, which of us was the trash...... I don't know."
"Mmm."
"When I think about it, I was trash too. Even so, if a man can be put to some use that does this world good, I think there is meaning in that as well."
"There is."
"That's why the command of the man giving the orders matters. Wouldn't you say?"
—Nod, nod.
The watch officer nodded without a word and threw back his drink. What the man had said dissolved a self-loathing that had been tormenting him for a long time.
He liked this returning soldier he had met for the first time today. Setting aside age and station, it was as though their hearts fit together and they had been friends for years.
—Glug, glug.
"There's a mouthful or two left. Will you have it?"
He offered what remained, but Hans shook his head.
"I'm in the middle of scrubbing the killing intent out of my body. Drinking doesn't help with that......."
The watch officer nodded and sipped down what was left. At an hour still a long way from dawn, only the moonlight fell, lonely, on the backs of the two men sitting on their bench.
After that the watch officer never had him watched again.
'Subject appears capable of rational judgment and appears to be taking a period of social readjustment by his own decision. No risk factor.'
After submitting his report to his superiors, he gave a warning to the outfits in every district.
"Go ahead and lay a hand on a man who spent three years eating and sleeping on a battlefield butchering human beings. If your life means nothing to you."
The outfits complied readily. It was not a matter of one or two returning soldiers; there was nothing to be gained from making trouble with the hundreds and thousands of them who would soon come flooding in. And of course they were well aware that a request for cooperation from the authorities was not something they could ignore either.
Now and then a guard patrol, out at the watch's request, would come near him, check his face, and turn away without a word.
"Squad leader, why is that man doing that? It's confusing."
The senior man glanced back at his junior and answered.
"I heard he's bleeding off the killing intent of the battlefield into a crowd."
"......."
"Last week you helped the second squad arrest a murderer, didn't you?"
"Ah, yes."
"How was it?"
"Sir?"
"How it felt, arresting a murderer."
"Ah...... hm......."
The younger man thought for a moment and answered.
"The feeling that the second I failed to put him down, I'd be the one dying?"
"Right. You felt it properly, then."
"......?"
"That man held out three years on a battlefield. He's the returning soldier who beat down that fellow calling himself the Guardian of the Forest."
"......."
"How many do you suppose he killed in three years? The killing intent of one murderer who took a single life is enough to make us flinch. What do you think the killing intent of a discharged soldier who shot down dozens, maybe hundreds of enemies is like?"
"Ugh...... that's terrifying. Hundreds."
"He's trying to bleed that off and erase it. If he fails, I hear there's nothing left but to spend his whole life shut inside himself and hiding."
"I see."
The senior man lowered his voice and went on.
"The nobles will be talking up one another's merits, sitting on a pile of spoils and patting their bellies."
—Nod, nod.
"Someone should recognize what the rank-and-file went through, shouldn't they? Even if it's only us."
"That's true."
"We need to look at him as a comrade, with a warm eye. That's the consideration owed to a hero trying to fit himself back into the world, and it's good manners besides."
"Yes."
And so the senior and the junior went on with their patrol in silence.