Cadet William
The man who had introduced himself as William began to explain slowly.
“We are peasants who served under the Duke of Urey’s domain. As you know, after the Grand Council, Duke Urey levied excessive taxes, and the number of those who abandoned their homes only grew.”
“I’m well aware. Nearly a hundred like you have already come through.”
“We, too, came to the far east in pursuit of a dream.”
“Does that dream include ambushing a merchant’s caravan and slaughtering them?”
“I understand how the Regent might easily misunderstand that incident.”
One wrong word and his head would fly. William swallowed hard and poured every scrap of sincerity he could muster into his voice.
“I swear to you—we had nothing whatsoever to do with that ambush. We only found that caravan because someone told us about it.”
“Someone told you?”
“Yes.”
William laid out the events as he remembered them.
“While we were on the road toward the Grand Duchy, some people approached us. Their clothes looked much like ours, but they were armed. At first we thought they might be bandits coming to rob us of whatever little we still had, so we kept our guard up. They weren’t. Instead they showed us kindness.”
“What sort of kindness?”
“They said they could give food to those who were hungry.”
Ferda tilted his head.
“You don’t look stupid enough to believe that.”
“Would you believe it, if you were desperate enough?”
When a man is desperate, what won’t he believe? Ferda decided to let it pass.
“Go on.”
“Anyway… the place they led us to was the very scene of carnage Your Grace saw. Bodies everywhere, fresh provisions scattered across the ground, weapons lying about for the taking, even precious jewels.”
Ferda saw the intent behind the words and asked bluntly,
“The fact that you bothered to mention the jewels—are you trying to prove your innocence?”
“As I said earlier, we are starving refugees. All we felt at that moment was hunger. Gold cannot be eaten. So we left it alone.”
“For people who claim that, you still made off with things that can’t be eaten.”
Ferda thought of the missing weapons and pressed him.
“We took the weapons because we needed some means of protecting ourselves on the rest of the journey. After seeing an ambush like that, there was no guarantee we wouldn’t be next.”
“So the food would only have rotted, and you needed a way to defend yourselves. Is that the story?”
“Yes.”
Ferda looked at him and laughed as though he found the whole thing absurd.
“Fine. Let’s grant those reasons for the moment. Then what about the gold coin you took?”
“Pardon?”
“Did you pocket it just in case we refused to take refugees in?”
“I… I don’t understand what Your Grace means…”
“Don’t play dumb. How do you think we managed to track you all the way here?”
William’s face was pure incomprehension. Whether the man was shameless or truly hearing this for the first time, Ferda could not yet tell.
“Lord Ferda.”
Isabella cut in without warning.
“That gold coin was not taken by the one called William.”
“Then who?”
Isabella pointed toward one of the refugees who still kept his head bowed. The tip of her finger was not precise, yet among the crowd one man trembled so violently there could be no mistake.
“William. Bring that rat over here.”
“Yes.”
William hauled the man Ferda had indicated to his feet. The face that had been hidden beneath a lowered head came into view. The thief, caught red-handed, was streaming with cold sweat.
William glared at him and barked,
“Empty your pockets.”
“…”
“What are you waiting for? Show him at once!”
With shaking hands the man turned his pocket inside out.
Clink—
A single gold coin tumbled free.
Ferda picked it up. There was no doubt—it was ordinary currency.
“Quite a sum for a refugee to be carrying, don’t you think?”
William seized the man by the collar, betrayal blazing in his eyes.
“Evans! I told you never to touch the valuables! Didn’t I say that meddling with a dead man’s treasure brings disaster!?”
“I-I’m sorry. But chances like this don’t come often—who knows when another will? I thought one gold coin wouldn’t hurt…”
“You fool! Do you have any idea what that single act has—”
“Enough.”
Ferda cut their argument short.
“Spare me the farce. On your knees.”
William and the man both dropped to their knees again. The one called Evans shook uncontrollably; William began listing everything he had done, pleading.
“Regent, I beg you—look with mercy upon the foolish mistake born of ignorance.”
“Why should I?”
“Though we could not bury the bodies for fear of hindering the investigation, we gathered every corpse and performed funeral rites for them. And when I learned the caravan had been bound for Concilus County, I went there myself and reported the matter. If you take me there, they will recognize me.”
“You reported it and held a funeral, so now you want me to overlook what you did?”
“Please forgive the trespass of these foolish people and grant them one chance. God lives in their hearts.”
William’s voice rang with conviction. Yet the eyes looking down at him remained ice-cold.
“Once you laid hands on the property of a merchant belonging to the Grand Duchy, I no longer regard you as simple refugees. You are rats trying to sneak into the Grand Duchy, and I see no reason to show you clemency. How can you guarantee you had no part in the murders?”
“…”
“Even if you claim you tidied the scene to honor the dead, the fact remains that you stole from a merchant’s purse. Hunger is only an excuse. The moment you grow desperate again, you will steal again. Am I wrong?”
It was a question no one could answer cleanly. In the uneasy silence Ferda spoke once more.
“There is, however, one way.”
William’s head lifted at that thin thread of hope.
“What is it?”
“The one who committed the crime must receive fitting punishment.”
Ferda tossed the sword that lay beside him so that it landed in front of the man called Evans.
“Wash the sin away with your blood.”
“W-what do you mean…?”
“Did I speak too difficultly? Let me put it simply.”
Ferda drew a finger across his own throat.
“It means kill yourself.”
All color drained from Evans’s face.
“If you die, the rest live. Is that not a fair enough trade?”
“I… I…”
“Regent!”
William stepped in.
“He is a fool, yes, but a good-hearted one. In this bitter winter he only risked himself for his companions. I beg you—show mercy.”
“I will not. Finish it quickly.”
Ferda was adamant, yet William pressed on without yielding.
“I am the representative of these refugees. Will you not take one of my arms instead and stay your anger?”
“One arm?”
Ferda’s expression twisted with distaste.
“What a ridiculous thing to say.”
“If that is not enough, then something else—”
“Did I not already tell you? You are rats. If a young rat raids the granary, do you think cutting off one of the mother rat’s arms will satisfy anyone?”
What shone in his eyes was pure loathing.
“Mother or pup, leader or follower—a rat is a rat. A life for a life. If you mean to take Evans’s place, only your own life will do.”
Life.
William glanced sideways at Evans’s face. The man was trembling, paralyzed with terror. He did not want to die. That was only human.
William closed his eyes and thought for a brief moment.
“I understand.”
He accepted it without further protest and pulled the sword lying before Evans toward himself. At once the refugees who had been kneeling raised their voices in protest.
“W-what are you doing!”
“You can’t!”
“After everything you did to bring us this far—!”
Bang—!
“Eek!”
A sharp detonation from Ferda’s hand silenced the uproar.
“There will be no next time. If any of you wish to die in his place, by all means speak up. As I said—rat for rat.”
No one opened their mouth again. Every man knows his own life is dearer than another’s. When several minutes passed without an answer, Ferda spoke with open contempt.
“This man stepped forward for all of you, yet not one of you has the courage to step forward for him.”
He shoved the sword aside with his foot and laid a hand upon William’s head instead.
“I shall end it for you myself, painlessly. Any last words?”
Standing at the brink of death, William answered in a trembling voice,
“If you will take these people safely into the Grand Duchy, I will have nothing more to say.”
“I heard you.”
Mana gathered in Ferda’s palm. The impact of that concentrated force struck William’s skull.
Thud!
With a heavy sound William’s body crumpled limply to the ground.
William had never been an ordinary peasant. Nor had he ever needed to become the leader of refugees.
He had been a knight cadet—one who stood out among his peers. He understood honor, and he never neglected the duties that came with privilege. His martial skill was excellent; he had even earned merit in the war against the King of Hudret. Everyone believed without question that he would become a knight.
Yet his path was far from smooth.
On the day his knighting ceremony drew near—when only a single final trial remained before the title was his—the war against the King of Hudret was brought to an end by the Grand Council.
The fate of the defeated is always wretched. The people of Duke Urey’s domain suffered most of all.
As the loser, Duke Urey was saddled with a reparation of sixty thousand golden. For an ordinary noble in peacetime the sum would have been nothing; yet the duke had already poured his fortune into the war, and sixty thousand golden was an enormous burden. It was also far too late to borrow from anyone else.
In the end he began to squeeze every surrounding village dry in order to pay. Refugees who abandoned their homes multiplied. Duke Urey was never going to let them go. Population is power. He tracked the refugees down, enslaved them without exception, and executed some with deliberate cruelty as an example. Under the banner of “unity,” tyranny began.
William, too, was ordered to take part. His final trial to rise from cadet to knight was the pursuit of those refugees.
He led the soldiers and at last succeeded in tracking them down. When he first accepted the mission his spirit had been full of righteous fire. Refugees were a blight. When the domain was in turmoil, citizens who fled rather than help were unforgivable. They were sowers of chaos, a force of evil—bandits who deserved punishment without question.
What confronted him, however, was a reality far more complicated than any ideal. Or rather, not complicated at all. While he had been stacking books and honor, he had simply failed to look at what needed to be seen.
The people who were supposedly plunging the ducal domain into chaos were gaunt and powerless. Nothing remained of them but skin and bone; even the infants who should have been plump could only gasp for breath, too weak to cry. Their only weapons were pokers and shovels. Every last one of them was forced to stand against an armed company for one simple reason: they wanted to live.
In that moment William asked himself what it was he had sworn to uphold.
The people serve their lord. A king exists to serve his people. What remains of a king who does not serve his people?
The answer was simple, yet within that brutal mission William agonized. Just once. If he closed his eyes just this once, like a blind craftsman pretending not to see, his life would unfold smoothly from then on.
He chose.
The sword that should have pointed at the refugees turned instead upon the soldiers who followed him. William wounded those men so that it would appear he himself had been betrayed, then sent them away. Afterward he cut the throat of the horse he had ridden and fed its meat to the refugees.
He could never become a knight, yet William felt no regret. He never doubted that this was the reason he had taken up the sword in the first place—and so even this death he now faced was not wasted.
“Gah!”
William jerked upright like a man clawing free of a nightmare. He had been certain he was dead; there should have been no rising again. He patted his own body and muttered,
“I-is this the afterlife?”
“This is still the world of the living.”
“Gah!”
William startled a second time. The same voice that had insulted and despised him only moments ago now spoke from beside him. He turned his head and found Ferda.
“You were out for an hour.”
The eyes looking at him no longer held what he had seen before. For a moment William wondered whether he had truly been cast into another world.
“I… I’m not dead?”
“Of course not. What struck your head was a simple stun spell.”
“Why… why didn’t you kill me?”
“Because killing a well-trained knight would have been a waste—nothing more.”
William’s eyes went round. Ferda regarded him with open pity.
“Did you think you had hidden it well? It was so obvious I nearly wept.”
“I see…”
In hindsight it was hardly surprising. He had been wearing half-plate and carrying a sword, after all.
“But I am no knight. At best I am a mere knight cadet—a nobody.”
“Even a knight cadet mixing among refugees is hardly ordinary.”
“True.”
“Then you betrayed your lord.”
At that William gave a bitter smile.
“I did something that deserved death. For a knight to betray his master…”
It was open treason, and William did not deny it.
“It doesn’t matter. You yourself said you were only a cadet—a nobody.”
“That is so, but…”
“You were never formally knighted, so there can be no betrayal either. You are nothing more than a common deserter.”
As a man of a knightly house, Ferda understood the distinction well.
“I have a question for the man who just returned from the brink of death.”
“Please ask.”
“Was it worth it?”
Ferda turned his head. The refugees were there, happily sharing out stew.
“You were ready to sacrifice yourself for them, yet not one of them was willing to sacrifice himself for you. Even so—was it still worth it?”
What Ferda spoke of was something William remembered clearly. When death had stood before them, Ferda had invited anyone who wished to take his place to break the silence. No one had.
It would have been natural to feel betrayed.
“No one wants to die.”
Even so, William smiled.
“That is precisely why I lead them.”
His lord he had betrayed; his conviction he had not.
“I see.”
Ferda watched the quiet satisfaction on the man’s face for a moment, then looked aside. A man knelt nearby—the one who had stolen the single gold coin. Evans.
“Evans, was it?”
“Y-yes, that’s right!”
The kneeling man nodded hard enough to rattle his neck.
“This man took the punishment for your foolishness. What do you make of that?”
“I… I owe him a debt.”
“Not any ordinary debt—a life. From this day forward you will be William’s loyal servant. If he dies, I will show you exactly what a beggar’s existence feels like. Understood?”
“Y-yes! I understand! I’ll carve those words into my heart!”
Having said all he meant to say, Ferda rose to his feet.
“Then we shall meet again later. Sir William.”
“Yes. Please go carefully.”
The moment Ferda left him, a single syllable lingered in William’s ear.
“Sir…?”
Sir.
A title only a knight may bear. Yet William had never become a knight. Had Ferda simply made a mistake? Or was he deliberately acknowledging him as a true knight?
To the William of this moment it remained an unanswerable riddle.
The investigation into the caravan ambush seemed to be yielding little of use. Just as Ferda was about to return to the castle with Ruri, Isabella called him back.
“Regent. During our inquiries we found people who may serve as witnesses. I believe you should hear what they have to say.”
Her tone suggested the witnesses were of some importance. Standing beside her were a woman and a child.
Ferda addressed the woman.
“You have something to tell me?”
“Forgive my presumption, but it is not I who know—it is my child…”
The person he needed to speak with was a six-year-old snot-nosed brat.
“What is your name?”
“I’m Ian.”
“Child, you must say ‘I am.’ Forgive him, Regent—he is still young and unmannered…”
“I care nothing for petty titles. Ian, do you have something to tell me?”
The little boy nodded.
“When the reaper uncle and the knight uncle were talking to each other…”
“Reaper uncle?”
The mother answered for him.
“He was wearing a black robe pulled up over his head, so the child thought he looked like a reaper.”
“I see. Continue.”
“Yes. So that reaper uncle got on a horse and rode away somewhere, and I saw him drop something. Nobody else seemed to notice, so I picked it up secretly to give to Mama.”
“What did he drop?”
“Th-this.”
The woman who had been keeping it produced the object and held it out to Ferda.
It was a scarf. Fashioned of green cloth, it appeared ordinary at first glance—until Ferda saw the emblem stitched into the corner, and his mind changed.
This is…
Ferda narrowed his eyes. Unless he was badly mistaken, that distinctive scale motif belonged to House Pascal.
And among their branches, the one that places two swords behind the scales is…
There could be no doubt.
It belonged to the Pascal Mercenary Company.