༺ 𓆩 Chapter 45 — Homecoming (2) 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
The air of Goethe was as cool as it had ever been. Yet the season had begun to lean into the early summer. To the men of the north, the air at this time of year was as warm as a mother's embrace.
Warmth stirs life into being and sets it moving. But sometimes that movement reaches a degree that is altogether too much.
"L, lord Margrave. Spare us, we beg of you. We, we only had need of food…"
The Margrave, with his soldiers, had stripped the three bandits of their arms and dragged them to the side of a broad flat stone.
The three, trussed up tightly with rope, had no recourse left them save to beg for their lives. The more so before the Margrave, who held the famed sword Valeritch, the blade of execution.
"Was it food you needed, then? And was it for that you went past mere robbery, into butchery, into rape, into the desecration of the dead?"
"Th, that was, that was for the avoidance of needless slaughter, an example only, my lord. We beg you, mercy! The blood we spilt upon the walls of Winterband has not even dried yet, my lord!"
"Your service, I shall remember. Mercy, also, I shall show you."
So the Margrave said, and gave a tip of his head to the soldiers.
Two soldiers brought one of the bandits forward to the flat stone. Schiller set his foot upon the man's back and bore down with his weight.
"My lord Margrave, please, please…"
The bandit's forehead, even as he begged, was pressed against the stone.
"In recognition of your service, I shall show you mercy. If you would go without pain, do not struggle."
Whoom!
The greatsword cleft the air with a heavy weight. Sssh.Thud.
Valeritch buried itself into the stone. The head, cleanly severed, slid from the stone and rolled upon the ground.
The Margrave saw, with his own hand, to the execution of all three of the bandits. And the blood-soaked blade he did not entrust to a soldier; he wiped and oiled it himself.
The pooled blood upon the flat stone slowly cooled. Flies came thickly to taste it.
"Cut these men into pieces and give them to the beasts to feed upon."
The soldiers, at the Margrave's word, gathered up the bodies.
"Ever since my father bestowed Valeritch upon me, I have wielded this blade. And though I have grown in years and grown in body, this blade is yet heavy each time, and burdensome each time." So the Margrave said, wiping the body of Valeritch with a cloth dipped in linseed oil.
"It is the weight of the head of the house." So Schiller answered.
"Indeed it must be. And the village of the Red Orchards?"
"Set in order, my lord."
"And of the Black Geese? A fair number of the families of the household servants live there, do they not?"
"That part has been spared. It lies more inland than the others, and is close to the manse, my lord."
"That is well."
"Pray wipe yourself, my lord."
Schiller offered the margrave a clean kerchief. The blood of the bandits had spattered upon the margrave's cheek.
"You have my thanks."
The margrave wiped his cheek with the kerchief, sheathed Valeritch, and set it back into the saddle's frame.
Valeritch was no greatsword to be employed for mere killing, nor a sword that ought to be so employed. It was a famed blade meant only for matters in keeping with the will of Goethe, by the will of the head of the house, and for nothing else.
When the margrave took to the saddle, Schiller and the two knights of his guard mounted as well, and the soldiers fell into ranks.
"And Isaac?"
"I have sent the message-pigeon, my lord. He should arrive today, or tomorrow at the latest."
The margrave gave a slight nod without reply, and slowly set his horse forward. His men followed at his back.
There were, yet, many villages still to be looked upon. As the weather grew mild, merchants from the surrounding regions came thronging into the City of Bern. For this season the farmers had raised their cold-hardy crops in the rough fields, and the herders had calculated the days and labored to see their beasts in calf at the proper time.
But where there is anything to be taken, there will be those who come to take it. From this season onward, bandits ran most rampant. Goethe lay upon the marches, and was a place where vagrants of every kind from beyond the borders crept in for one reason or another. It was also the season in which the most deserters fled Winterband.
"Schiller. Has there been word from the other fiefs about the inspector the royal court has sent?"
"As ever, my lord. They have spoken of the usual: tax records, the demonstration of fealty to the king, the demand for whores to entertain the inspector and a small offering of gifts. That, and nothing more."
"And of the corrupted bishop, and of the cult he had a hand in?"
"Nothing, my lord."
"Hm."
The margrave let out a low sound of unease.
"The Holy See will not stir up that unspeakable matter, my lord. Within the empire, the imperial throne and the papacy are at clashing points; they will not, of their own accord, dig at a thing that might prove a weakness for His Holiness."
"And what then, of the inspector of the royal court?"
"The inspector Dietrich is a cunning man, my lord. In all likelihood, he will demand something in exchange for his silence."
The Holy See, regarding the death of the bishop in Goethe, would keep the matter quiet. But should the inspector, near as he was to a special envoy of the king, bring the matter into open council, the Holy See could no longer ignore it, and a great inquiry would follow. Court factions would intervene as their interests dictated, and at the worst Goethe might be cast as the murderer of a bishop, or as profaning the sacred, and would draw the assault of the powers of the Old Faith. Then, beyond the seizure of the fief, the whole house might be set upon the road of utter ruin, by the harshest of penalties.
The inspector would use this for his threat.
"And what have you turned up of him?"
"He takes pleasure in the company of women and of men both, has gambled away half his fortune, and bears the morbid habit of slaying slaves and tribesfolk in cruel ways. He has, on occasion, kept the company of the Second Prince also."
"Nothing of any real use, then."
"My apologies, my lord. My trustworthy informants are giving it their utmost. I beg of you a little patience."
"I should hope it does not come too late."
What the margrave had wished for was a piece of useful information that might serve as a counter against the inspector's threats. But Schiller had been pressed for time, and what he had managed to learn was not enough to satisfy the margrave. Such information, in any case, was not the sort easily to be turned up. Had the man let pieces of his weakness fall about him, he would never have been entrusted with the office of inspector.
The margrave was not a man to lay his hopes on others. In all likelihood, the answer to the inspector's threat would be borne by the margrave's own word, and the weight that word carried.
"Now, then. Tell me of Isaac."
"Of the young master, my lord? Of what part?"
"Of how he carried himself in the desperate fighting against the Hellwolves."
"My lord. Have I not, on that score, talked until my mouth ran dry? This makes the eighth time."
"The bedding at the camp last night was poor, and I drank too deep. Together with the hangover, the memory of it has drifted off."
"That, my lord, is most unfortunate."
"Fortunate for me, then, that the road to the Hill of Oaks lies a fair distance off yet. It should be time enough for you to bring my lost memory back to me."
"As I have said before, my lord, I have only the testimony of the soldiers of Vinfeldt, but I shall give you every smallest detail, as faithfully as may be."
The margrave drew small circles in the air with his forefinger. The sign for go on. Schiller began.
"And so, my lord, the moonlight came down upon the ridges like the edges of blades, and the soldiers were frozen by their fear into so many stones…"
The fingers of the margrave, holding the reins, were tapping quietly. And about the corners of his mouth there was the faintest of smiles.
***⚜***
"This is curious."
Lying in the bath the servants had drawn for him, Isaac probed at the mind of the Hellwolf.
The Hellwolf, walking the garden alongside Jonas, was finding the manse of Goethe a settled and familiar place. Some of that, no doubt, was that he and Isaac had been bound together in spirit. But stronger by far than that was the warmth the Hellwolf felt toward Jonas.
‘A friend? A brother?’
Isaac tried to make out, by inference, what it was the Hellwolf felt toward Jonas.
When he had been ringed in by servants and guards, Jonas, having seen the Hellwolf for the first time, had shown not a trace of fear. Having had his fill of his reunion with Isaac, the boy had at once turned a curious eye upon the Hellwolf. He had wished to know its name, a thing Isaac had not so much as thought of giving it; what it ate, how it lived, whether the kind were always so very large, asking and asking until Isaac was hard put to answer.
Without fear, Jonas had laid his hands upon the wolf's cheeks and snout. Even the children of the tribesfolk in Vinfeldt had wept upon first seeing the Hellwolves, or had shown their fear. Only after a few days of being together with them, having judged the wolves not dangerous, had they begun to play. Yet for Jonas there had been no such steps at all.
‘Some natural affinity, then.’
Once again Isaac recalled the gift Jonas had borne in the past life, when he had come to be the head of the house. His magical talents had been remarkable, but more singular by far was his affinity with spirits. Just as men have souls, so the supernatural beings, especially those endowed with reason, possess souls of their own. They had their feelings and their moods, what they liked and disliked, their friendships and enmities. To such beings, Jonas must have been a most charming presence of mind. For when Jonas had taken the seat of the head of the house, every time Goethe had stood in danger, they had readily extended their hands to him.
That such a gift had dwelt within Jonas had only become known some years after he had taken the seat itself.
‘Ah, well. Mountains and streams, every blade and tree, every soul that lingers among the dead, all of them are called spirits, lumped together. If a Hellwolf is a spirit too, then it is a spirit too.’
Thanks to which, Isaac could spare less of his thought for the Hellwolf and turn the more of it to the comforts of his bath.
Within his head ran the broader matters of the surrounding kingdoms and the realm; Goethe's place within them, and what was to come of it; the direction in which Vinfeldt was to be developed. And, on the smaller scale, how he was to awaken the gift that lay in Jonas; how he was to see Carlson's vengeance through; how he was to draw out the magical talent of Eunet, the maid he had taken from Niers. The currents ran on without pause.
"My lord, this is Hans."
In the meantime, Hans, his body washed and his hair and beard set to rights, knocked at the bedroom door.
"I have brought Bill."
"Send him in."
Isaac said it with only his face above the bath water that had been steeped with bath salts.
"My lord, I trust you have been wel— who?"
"You appear to be hale enough, by the look of you."
Bill. He who, after Isaac had brought down Nias, had become the head of what had been the Nias ring.
His hair had been bound back behind him, and his frame had grown stouter than before. His sleeves were rolled, and along the bared length of his arms scars were scattered, several of them recent stab wounds. There were yellow and dark bruises upon his cheek and his brow.
"Bill. This is Master Isaac. You shall grow used to it. With your leave."
Hans clapped Bill upon the shoulder, then winked.
"……?"
"Hans. Take a few days' leave. Go and rest with your family."
"I thank you, my lord."
Hans withdrew from the bedroom. Bill stood there, half awkwardly, and looked at Isaac.
"…Are you, in truth, Master Isaac?"
"What of it? Do I not seem to be?"
Isaac rested his arms upon the rim of the bath. The grown muscles of his arms and chest stood out plainly. The face, sharp though it had become, kept yet a youthful look, but the body did not. It was thin still, and yet it was a body that had been worked.
"In honesty, my lord… you really are Master Isaac?"
"It is I who should be wondering whether you are truly Bill. In a few months you have, it seems, become a man of some weight. Where is the boastful chatterer who used to gossip with the servants?"
"I am coming to feel the truth of the saying that a man is made by the seat he holds, my lord."
"And what of the news I bade you report? Not a single letter has reached me. I had thought you must have lost your head, or your hand, with no voice to speak nor hand to write."
The eyes that turned upon Bill took on a tinge of yellow. Bill flinched, and without thinking gave back a step. It was an instinctive thing.
So this, perhaps, was what it was to come face to face with a great beast against which no ordinary man might dare so much as to think of standing. Bill could feel, in his bones, that the boy soaking in the bath was indeed Isaac. And that the young master he had once known had come back having become more of a monster yet.
"Take my life, my lord."
All at once, Bill fell to his knees.
END σϝ CHAPTER