༺ 𓆩 Chapter 44 — Homecoming (1) 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
It was deep into the night.
Apart from the soldiers on watch, all in the encampment slept.
"Off you go."
At the gate, Bessemer offered his hand. Isaac moved to take it as a handshake, but Bessemer caught him not by the hand but by the forearm.
"Warriors greet one another so."
"Ah. Just so."
And Isaac, in turn, took Bessemer by the forearm. A grip that said: should you let go, I will not let go. A token of resolve.
Isaac and Bessemer met one another's eyes. Many words were not needed.
"Captain. I leave Elder Brother in your hands."
"And the same to you. Do not toy with the men in our absence. See to their training as it ought to be done."
Carlson and Bessemer, too, exchanged the warrior's clasp by the forearm and were done.
"Well, then. Chief."
At Hans' word from the driver's seat, Bessemer nodded. Hans flicked the whip lightly along the horse's flank, and the wagon began to move.
"Are you truly going on as you are, my lord?"
"And what of it?"
"At the manse, others may not see it, but his lordship and the Chamberlain will know at a glance."
"There is no other way, is there?"
So Isaac answered Carlson's question.
Snort—!!! Snort—!!!
The horse's breath came uneasy in its snorting. At fifty paces or so behind, a black shadow followed the wagon. In the moment when the moonlight broke through the cloud, the shape of that shadow was that of an enormous wolf. A Hellwolf.
"What excuse will you give to his lordship? That you have settled upon a future as a tamer of demonic-beasts, my lord?"
"The bond with the wolves is not yet certain. If by some chance the bond breaks, a tide of blood may yet sweep through Vinfeldt."
By the runestone of the King of Wolves, Isaac's mind had been bound to the Hellwolves. But across what distance that bond would yet hold, none could say. For that reason, Isaac had brought along the strongest of the Hellwolves after the King of Wolves himself. Among kin, the bond would carry without regard to distance. Such had been a sorcerous oath laid down as a safeguard, even before they had become Hellwolves at all. Through the memories of the King of Wolves, Isaac had confirmed it.
"It seems you are not destined to be a young master loved by the servants of the manse, my lord."
"Sharp eye, Carlson."
"The soldiers of Vinfeldt are calling you the devil who rides a wolf, my lord."
"It rather suits me."
Carlson shook his head at Isaac's easy reply.
The wagon rattled. It was a cargo cart upon which a wooden frame had been raised and a canvas drawn over. Built for the carrying of goods rather than men, it had no manner of cushioning to it, and every rut in the rough road came up plainly to the seat of one's breeches.
"If you must bring the wolf with you, at the least let me hear an excuse made with some care to it."
"I have one ready. That, unable to bear the loneliness of life in Vinfeldt, I have taken in a pet hound."
"And will that serve, my lord?"
"Why? The keeping of pet hounds is one of the customs of the wealthier nobility."
"Hm. Well. Do as you will, my lord. I know nothing of the matter."
Carlson, plainly wishing to keep clear of any vexation to come, drew a line for himself.
"My lord, we shall come back, shall we not?"
Hans asked it from the driver's seat, the reins in his hands.
"Why? Do you fear you shall come to miss Vinfeldt?"
"…I do not know. Or perhaps I shall."
Hans answered without certainty.
"We shall return. I am the lord of that place."
Isaac sat at the rear of the wagon, his chin resting upon the corner of the frame. The encampment, with its faint glow of light, fell further behind. By the history that had once been, it would have been a place where not a soul lived. By the time the Margrave of Goethe had arrived, only ruins had remained. A place where, when night came, nothing remained but the dark. So had the last of Vinfeldt been written in the chronicles of the past life.
"It has changed." Isaac murmured it under his breath.
There were soldiers there now. Soldiers who had lived through it. Old men, women, children, all of them living. And they would go on living. They would live well. He would see it so.
So Isaac thought.
***⚜***
When they passed into the direct domain of the Margrave of Goethe, an air altogether different from Vinfeldt could be felt. About the trodden-earth high road there spread broad fields in every direction, and tilled lands and small villages lay woven together among them. Folk of the fief, bearing tools or pulling carts, came and went. Wild grasses grew thickly, and wildflowers whose names he did not know. Great oaks and zelkovas, visible from far off. The familiar landscape, after his time in Vinfeldt, looked rich beyond measure.
"Hans. Set me down here." Carlson said it as the dawn was breaking.
"Here, Sir Carlson?"
It was a fork in the road.
"I have business in Bern."
"But, my young lord must have his guard… ah."
Hans' words trailed off as he caught the slight tip of Carlson's chin.
In the brightening day the great wolf stood out all the more plainly, watching them. It had circled around to keep to the unpeopled stretches at a distance of perhaps a hundred paces, but for all that, Hans felt the strength go out of his knees.
"Could, could you not come along to the estate with us?"
"This is Goethe. From here on, his lordship's soldiers run their patrols. It will be well. And if it should come to it, the help of that beast may always be had."
Carlson pointed his thumb in the direction in which the wolf stood. Hans had asked precisely because it was that wolf he feared. He wished Carlson would stay, for that very reason. But while he stammered, Carlson was already off the wagon.
"Until later, then."
Carlson set off with long strides toward the city of Bern. Hans had no chance to so much as begin to dissuade him.
"Hhhwm."
Isaac yawned and pulled himself upright. Sleep had been short of late, and what was meant to have been a brief closing of the eyes had carried him off entirely. Wrapped in his cloak, he gave a small shiver in the cold dawn air.
"Off to Bern, is he?"
"Pardon, my lord?"
"Carlson, I mean."
"Ah. Yes."
Hans brightened at the words. With Isaac awake, a measure of ease came back to him. At the very least, the young lord would not stand by while a servant was eaten by a wolf.
“Let’s go.”
"Will you not ask the reason, my lord?"
"I already know the reason."
Isaac watched Carlson's back as it grew small with distance.
The atrocity of the Old Faith. Randolph, who had died trying to forestall it. Carlson bore the weight of guilt over Randolph's death. Randolph's manor had been inherited by his wife, but his family had not wished to live in that desolate place without its master. And so his wife and children had set themselves up in the merchant quarter of the city of Bern.
"For all his talk of vengeance, fit to be made into a song, the man cares for people most uncommonly."
Isaac murmured it.
"My lord?"
"It is nothing."
Carlson was a man of much warmth. Whatever his bearing on the surface, what Isaac had seen of him said as much.
"Drive on. I would sleep a little more."
Isaac drew the cloak up to under his nose and shut his eyes. Sleep, however, did not come easily. With the sounds beyond the wagon for company, he sank instead into meditation.
When the wagon at last reached the estate.
The first servant to catch sight of Hans could not help his astonishment at the man's state. The grime that ran in dark streaks down his skin was the least of it. The foul smell, the worn-through clothing. The dark hollows beneath his eyes, and lines upon his face that seemed to have aged him by years. Two months and more of training every day under a hard sun had laid upon him a darkened skin and freckles into the bargain.
"Hans? Is that you, of a truth?"
"Ah. It has been long, Master Paul."
To Paul's greeting, Paul who served Jonas, Hans answered as if startled into it.
"Were you not gone with Master Isaac to Vinfeldt?"
“A lot happened. It’s… a long story.”
“And your face? What happened to you? Come inside at once.”
"Master Paul…"
Among the servants, Paul was of noble birth. That, despite the difference in standing, he should greet Hans so warmly, set a thickness in Hans' throat. The hardships of the past months felt as though they had been a dream. He had returned to the estate at last. There was little he wanted more, just then, than to run to see his children. Yet Hans did not forget his duty.
"Before that. I have brought the young lord."
"Hm?"
"His lordship has summoned Master Isaac."
"The young lord? Master Isaac, you mean?"
"Aye."
"And where is the young lord? I do not see him. Is he to come along later?"
Paul, search though he might, could not find so much as a shadow of Isaac.
To be sure, in the empty cargo wagon there was a boy. Wrapped in a cloak that looked little better than a sack, he was a boy with hair of dark grey, a sharp set to his eyes, and eyes of blue. He brought Isaac to mind, faintly, but he was wholly another person. Taller by a hand's breadth, with about him a more masculine, rougher air than Isaac. A glimpse of noble features about him, here and there, but by the look of his unkempt state, he might have been the bastard son of some house, set early to live by the blade.
And yet, though Paul had judged the boy could have nothing to do with Isaac, his eye kept being drawn back to him in spite of himself.
"And who is the boy? A soldier of the Vinfeldt encampment?"
"…Ahaha."
Hans gave a troubled smile at Paul's question.
"Master Paul, I think, knows him well."
"I? It has been a fair while since I last left the manse, far too long to know such a man."
Paul cast a doubtful look toward the boy. Yet that look was, in the next breath, to give way to astonishment.
"It has been a while, Paul. Is Jonas well?"
"…Master Isaac?"
The instant he heard the boy's voice, the servant answered by reflex. The cadence, the particular set of expression. That, beyond doubt, was Isaac.
"Yes, it is I. I am sorry to trouble you with it, but I should like a guest taken in."
"…Pardon?"
"Behind you."
Isaac pointed past Paul's shoulder. That Paul had failed to know Isaac as Isaac was a small matter beside what came next. The true matter was the presence of a demonic-beast such as Paul had never in his life seen.
"Sa, Saint Wigbert, deliver, deliver us from evil…"
The instant Paul felt the looming presence and turned, he crossed himself by instinct and began to pray. But the prayer was cut short before it was done. He had lost his senses, and pitched forward in a faint.
"Pa, Master Paul!" Hans, in alarm, knelt to see to him.
"Oh. Was that asking too much, then?"
Isaac scratched at his cheek.
"He has, when one comes to know him, a gentle and rather endearing side."
Isaac stepped down from the wagon and scratched the great beast along its cheek. The Hellwolf shut its eyes as though pleased and gave a low rumble.
"Master Paul, Master Paul! My lord, do something, anything!"
Hans shook at Paul.
"A monster!"
"The guard, the guard!"
The garden of the Goethe manse had broken into uproar at the sudden appearance of a great demonic-beast. Guardsmen and household soldiery were summoned. Servants screamed in their fear. Fur black to an ill-omened depth, eyes shining red, teeth like blades flashing whenever it growled. The guards of the estate could not feel sure they were able to bring such a wolf down.
The soldiers of Winterband had had the trade of demonic-beasts as their daily bread, but the guards of the estate were men hired against bandits and assassins, and not against beasts.
"D, do not fear! This is Master Isaac! Two months, three months ago, he set out for Vinfeldt, and now he has come back at his lordship's summons. Th, this wolf, that is to say, ah… my lord, say something, please!"
Before Hans had quite finished, Isaac and he, and the wolf, found themselves ringed in by armed guards. Guards who, in their fear, might at any moment take some ill-considered step.
"Mn. So, then. This fellow is a pet hound I began to keep in Vinfeldt."
"................"
Isaac offered his explanation, but it served only to worsen matters.
"Hans. It seems no one is prepared to believe me?"
"…Indeed not, my lord. As I said, did not Sir Carlson himself say that you ought to come up with something more plausible?"
"Ah, that one. Is that why he ran off to Bern, then?"
"This is hardly the time to be admiring Sir Carlson's good judgment, my lord!"
"Hm."
Isaac turned his eyes up to the window of the Margrave's private study. The curtain was drawn. Whenever the Margrave was within his study, it was his habit to look out across the garden through that window. That the curtain was drawn, then, meant that he was not within the manse.
Schiller, too, is out, and Father as well. This is a fix.
The servants did not believe, indeed, that this much-changed figure was Isaac at all. In such a state, whatever he said would only stoke their resistance.
Whuff.
The Hellwolf's ears drooped low. It seemed the beast saw that Isaac had been put into difficulty on its account.
"Declare your name! Wicked sorcerer! Otherwise…"
The captain of the guard had begun his warning to Isaac. In the midst of it, a bright voice cut clean through the gathered crowd.
"Brother!"
A boy with hair of gold burst through the press of servants and ran up at Isaac.
"Y, young Master Jonas!"
The tutor moved to keep the boy from his sudden rush, but already he had gone right up to the very nose of the wolf.
"Hh-!"
In that breath, the servants drew in their breath sharply and squeezed their eyes shut. In another moment, surely, some terrible thing would befall the beloved second young master. The coming tragedy seemed to draw itself plain before their eyes.
But not one of the misfortunes they had feared came to pass in the garden of the manse of Goethe.
"I have come back, Jonas."
Isaac drew Jonas into his arms and ruffled the boy's hair.
END σϝ CHAPTER