༺ 𓆩 Chapter 48 — The Meeting 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
“Too hasty a judgment. I’ll stop here.”
That the blood of Goethe ran in him. That he was the eldest son of House Goethe. The praises with which the soldiers had set him up, Isaac put aside.
"Will you not, at the least, take a meal with us, my lord? We should like to know how you train, and how you came to take up the blade."
"No. I am tired."
For all the captain's pressing, Isaac flung the wooden blade down where it lay and walked from the training yard. It was the first time he had received such warmth from the men of the manse, and a glad thing it was, but he had not the slightest wish to remain in their company.
"Did some one of us misspeak, perhaps?"
The soldiers stood baffled, but Isaac let no feeling show, and gave no reason. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he walked aimlessly about the grounds of the manse.
‘I had grown careless.’
The lightness that had been in his heart from the moment of his return to the manse had, in a single breath, settled heavy. The pleasantly cool air of an early summer. The peaceful look of the manse. A life made comfortable and easy. Jonas, beginning to show his affinity for spirits. The soldiers of the manse, showing eagerness to test themselves and to grow. For a brief while it had all looked hopeful.
Yet by a few bouts alone, the gaze that had taken him for the legitimate heir of Goethe had sent the lightness in his heart, the lightness of a child, cold within him.
The soldiers had done nothing wrong.
The shift in their bearing toward him had been abrupt, but it was nothing strange. They were men who had spent half their lives in the field. Just as one might guess at the temper and life of a mage from the magics he wove, having spent his own life in their study, the soldiers, too, would judge a man so.
The fault, then, was not theirs. The fault was Isaac's, who had given them grounds for their hopes.
That he held a flowing skill at the blade. That he held, against all reckoning of his years, a body of unworldly fineness. That he held magical gifts at odds with the common sense of the present age. All of it was the fruit of a miracle. Of what he himself had wrought, only a portion was his own.
Without the impossible miracle of having been returned to the past, Isaac would have met his death within a tragedy. And the fruits of that miracle, won at no cost, had a clear purpose. To win the favor of household servants and of the manse guards was, beyond doubt, not what they had been given for.
What he had wanted was strength. He had wanted a miracle. He had wanted to keep the house. He had wanted his family, and the dependents of the house, to be happy.
That was what he had wanted.
And so, in overcoming the strange constitution of Mana Rampage, in setting down the dread that he might bring harm to those dear to him by an eruption of mana, in being able to run as he wished, to swing the wooden blade, to sweat, to study magic. In saving the son of his nurse, in saving the maids, in forestalling the bishop's foul plan, in saving Vinfeldt. In drinking deep of every freedom set within his reach, drunk upon that freedom, Isaac had, for a moment, forgotten. What it was that he, in truth, sought.
In sparring with the soldiers, in receiving the looks of admiration they had cast upon him, Isaac had taken pleasure.
And in that pleasure, he had forgotten what fruits the things he was doing would bear.
He had forgotten the deaths of Lucas, of his father, of his mother, of Jonas.
In the house of Goethe, when the firstborn came of age at thirteen, the rite of the naming of the heir was held. By the history that had been, Isaac had not been named heir. The Isaac of that day had, by his strange constitution, hurt and killed servants alike. Not a soul had acknowledged him as heir. But now. The possibility had opened that he might gain the favor of men. Since his return to the past he had not, even once, called forth a mana eruption. He showed an outstanding gift at the blade.
Favor and infamy were as a wildfire of the dry grass. Once it caught, no hand could contain it. Should the news of the victory at Vinfeldt, which had not yet reached the manse, come at last, those who looked upon Isaac with favor would only multiply.
Which would mean, in turn, strife between the vassals of Goethe and the cadet branches.
The differing eyes that fell upon Isaac's strange constitution and upon Jonas' gifts would draw lines and breed quarrels within the house.
The very moment that Isaac, who had not even been a name to be considered for heir, had become a possibility at all, the royal court, which had not forgotten the history, would set its watch upon Goethe.
Whether the marks of Zeke von Goethe were rising in him, or were not. Goethe would be watched the more closely, and there was every chance that the court would set itself against the house. Within and without the house alike, schemes of every sort would follow.
‘A fool's part.’
Even with the privilege of knowing a part of the future, the most plain of these likelihoods he had let slip from his mind. Isaac shook his head without strength.
He had to keep his wits about him.
If he had wished and longed and chosen, he had to fix his eye upon the chosen course and cast aside the rest.
If, one day, true peace should come to Goethe, then perhaps the time would come when he could enjoy all of it. But not today. Not now. Isaac repeated it to himself, again and again.
After meditating and waiting for the dark to come, he slipped out of the estate unseen.
With the Hellwolf at hand he had no need of the troublesome business of going to the stables.
Not the most comfortable of mounts, perhaps, but for Isaac, the Hellwolf served as no small means of travel. Riding the wolf with the cool wind at his face, the heaviness within him eased a little. The Hellwolf, bound to him by the King of Wolves' bond, kept of his own accord to the rough ground where men did not pass, and avoided the high road as Isaac wished.
Near the bridge of the city, Isaac sent the wolf away and chose a place where no guards stood. Bern had no city wall as such, but a moat ran along the line of the river. By that, the guards needed only to keep the bridges, and the matter of controlling the gates was made simple. The moat was wide for that reason, and deep besides. None of which made any obstacle for Isaac.
Krrk.
The moment his foot touched the surface of the moat, a thin film of ice began to set.
‘It works.’
The corner of his mouth turned up. Another gift from the King of Wolves' runestone.
A mage, by ordinary practice, leaned upon his hands to weave his magic.
The hands were the most sensitive instrument of the body, the most finely shaped in feeling. There were mages without hands who used their lips and tongues, but these could not equal the precision of the fingers.
For that reason, one of the harshest punishments laid upon a mage who had sinned was the cutting off of the hands he held dearer than his own life.
But Isaac, whose sense had risen by leaps with the King of Wolves' runestone, could draw his mana through the soles of his feet and weave his ice magic there. To freeze the entire moat, of course, was beyond him. He was forming only a slab of ice large enough to hold his weight.
Setting a slab of sufficient buoyancy took time, and to cross some twenty paces required a fair while.
Even so, one thing was certain. He was walking upon the water. At that, a smile spread across his lips. By that small satisfaction, his heart grew a little lighter.
Within the city of Bern, the place to which Isaac made his way was a fine inn newly opened beside the merchant quarter.
"Welcome, sir!"
In a city where one looked little for kindness, the keeper greeted him warmly without knowing who he was. As one might expect, no one recognized Isaac under the deep-drawn hood. Unlike the rough inns at Bern's outer edges, those who used this place were, for the most part, foreign merchants of standing. Crime was less likely here, and the chance of his being known as the eldest son of Goethe was less still. Until his eleventh year, the whole of Isaac's known life had passed within the walls of the manse, and the greater part of the fief's people had never seen his face.
"Will you be staying the night, young sir?"
A woman with bright brown hair asked it of him. Her face bore many small lines, but the skin was bright and well kept. She wore a smile of warm welcome, an expression to be seen at no other inn anywhere near, where every keeper had been worn down by the world. Isaac knew her at once for the wife of Randolph.
"I have come to meet a man."
"Whom, sir?"
"Carlson. The mistress of the house must know him."
"Carlson stepped out a while ago. Shall I tell him you have come, when he returns? Or will you wait here?"
"I shall wait. Bring me a draught of ale."
"…Will that suit you, sir? Our ale is good, but those who hold their drink find themselves the worse for it soon enough."
The mistress spoke with a touch of concern. Hooded as he was, the boy seen at close hand looked little more than a young master who had run from his house.
"All the better for it."
Isaac held to the ale. The mistress, with no other choice, drew it for him, and brought it in a cup of horn filled to the brim.
"Another."
Having drained the first cup with ease, Isaac called for a second. Since his use of the King of Wolves' runestone, he could no longer be made drunk by drink. The reason he drank ale all the same was because he had need to carry the smell of drink upon him.
Isaac had decided what bearing he would take for the sake of the house.
He would show himself to be a man far from the legitimate heir of Goethe, far from any successor of the house.
He would become a figure to draw the eye, but not so much as to make the great houses set themselves on guard.
Only by such means would Jonas come to be raised as heir without trouble, and Goethe spared the unneeded watching of the royal court.
For that, his conduct would have to seem somewhat past the bounds of decency. To go to a brothel and come away with the perfume of women upon him would be a fine method as well. Drink, however, was the place to begin.
"How many cups of ale will this buy?"
He set a piece of silver upon the bar.
"Sir, this would do for half your body to be turned to ale."
The mistress's word was of course laced with exaggeration and a small tease. A piece of silver came, by local rate, to roughly ten coppers, and a cup of ale here was a copper. For one accustomed to drink, ten cups of ale could be passed in the course of an evening's pleasure. But the boy looked, by any eye, the young master of a noble house, and it seemed a cup or two of ale would have him asleep on the bar.
"Then so be it."
"And what shall you do, sir, when you cannot finish them?"
"What is left, the mistress shall keep for herself."
"That is generous, sir."
The mistress smiled. The tone was that of one teasing a fresh-faced young master.
"Aye. In return, I should like quiet until Carlson comes."
"…As you wish."
The mistress let a small note of regret show. A young master of fine raising had come, alone, without escort, to an inn. By what tale could not now be uncovered.
For all of that, Isaac put his attention to the emptying of the ale. The lack of any rise of drunkenness in him was a regret, but he made do with the taste alone.
In places like Vinfeldt where drinking water had been short, the soldiers had drunk beer in its place, and that beer had had the taste, perhaps, of what one might find in drinking down water of an altogether other kind. Set against that, the ale of this house lacked the sharpness, but it carried a deep aroma of malt, and a strange perfume too of fruit, or of flower. Isaac, no judge of drink, found it the finest he had drunk across both his lives.
It seemed the wife of Randolph had not opened the inn merely for her livelihood. She had a sure hand for ale, of that Isaac was certain.
“Carlson, you’re back?”
Randolph’s wife greeted Carlson before Isaac, whose back was turned to the door, could see him.
"Yes.”
Carlson answered briefly. His face wore a slightly weary look. From his person came, faintly, the smell of a gutter.
"You look a sight."
"There was reason for it. Might I have a draught of ale?"
Carlson reached into his pouch for a copper, but the mistress waved her hand.
"It seems someone shall be paying for Carlson's drink today."
"Pardon?"
Carlson, brushing back the long fall of his hair, followed the line of the mistress's chin with his eye.
"..............."
Isaac and Carlson met one another's gaze, but no word of greeting passed between them. They had not, indeed, settled upon any line for such a turn beforehand.
Before leaving Vinfeldt, Isaac had only laid a command upon Carlson and said he would call upon him in a few days' time.
“You two… know each other, don’t you?”
Randolph’s wife asked into the awkward silence.
END σϝ CHAPTER