The Night Heavier Than Wine

The only one thoroughly drunk on the road back to the imperial palace was Matheus.

He had kept drinking to dodge the Emperor's increasingly impossible questions, and before he knew it, he'd blown past his limit. For a knight who normally took his duties far too seriously to touch the stuff, it was a rare sight indeed.

"Your Majesty… you are… truly… petty!"

Hanging off Franz's shoulder, his legs dragging along the cobblestones, Matheus finally spat out what was really on his mind.

Daisy, meanwhile, simply strolled alongside them. If a woman so much shorter than the two men had tried to support Matheus, his knees would have been scraping the ground the entire way.

"What did you say?"

"You stole a measly thirty kope from me and spent it on wine! How petty can you be, Your Majesty!"

Despite the Emperor's dangerous tone, Matheus spared no words.

"Do you have any idea how much you lot ate? I paid fifty kope over what I took from you. The innkeeper bowed so low he nearly hit his forehead on the floor begging me to come back."

Franz grumbled, genuinely irritated.

"Well, isn't that a good thing? At least one more person went home happy."

Daisy had to twist the knife, of course.

Knowing her as he did, Franz was certain she'd drunk herself stupid purely to avenge her stolen money. Was that why she'd looked so pleased with herself all night?

And now here he was, the Emperor, being called petty by his own vassal.

"Have you seen the state of her clothes, Your Majesty? A knight of the Emperor, parading around in rags. She finally scrapes together some money to buy proper clothes, and you go and confiscate it to drown yourself in wine…"

"What? What's wrong with how I dress! Clothes just need to be clean, that's all!"

Daisy glanced down at her attire and shouted at Matheus.

Having taken down both targets in one stroke, Matheus smacked his lips and closed his eyes as if nothing had happened. "Can't just dump him here and walk away, I suppose," he muttered.

Gritting his teeth, Franz hauled Matheus up onto his back.

"It's not that I can't buy clothes. It's that the money was stolen."

Daisy made the excuse despite herself—Matheus's jab had clearly gotten under her skin.

"I know. You have land inherited from your father, a knight's salary that's nothing to sneeze at, and on top of that I just granted you a new territory. I'm well aware you're richer than half the nobility in the empire."

"…"

"So why don't you spend any of it?"

Franz asked the question quietly as he walked, carrying the man's considerable bulk without the slightest sign of strain.

"I spent my whole life from childhood doing nothing but hunting Demonic Beasts, so there was never time to spend money. And now that I have the time, I honestly don't know how."

As she said it, Daisy thought of Arisa.

A woman who knew exactly how money ought to be spent. Someone who understood better than anyone how to make herself shine.

"If you don't know how to spend it, then don't. Go throwing money around at random and you'll end up ruined."

"So you're telling me to keep going about like this?"

"You just said it yourself. Clothes only need to be clean."

Franz had a gift for saying exactly the right thing—right enough that there was nothing to say back.

Then, perhaps pleased with himself, he broke into a bright, easy smile.

It had been so very long since she'd seen that smile.

Yet the expression on Daisy's face, which had mirrored his own, soon dimmed.

There had been a time when one look at that smile could carry her through days on end. But now she felt nothing at all looking at it—and that absence both gladdened and grieved her.

If she felt nothing for him, did she really have any reason to remain at his side? She had sworn to devote her loyalty to him for the rest of her life regardless, but the truth was that in an empire where Demonic Beasts no longer roamed, the need for a knight had undeniably faded.

"I need you."

Franz said it abruptly, as though he'd read her very thoughts.

"Your Majesty?"

"I have always needed you. I need you now, and I always will. So don't waste your thoughts on nonsense."

Just then they turned into a dark alley without a single lamp, and his expression vanished from view.

Which meant she had no way of knowing with what heart he spoke those words.

Not that it mattered. Even if she could have seen his face, it would have worn that same unreadable look as always.

She was still lost in such thoughts when three hulking men appeared from who knew where and blocked their path.

"Oy, there, milords. You look like gents with deep pockets. How's about givin' us poor souls a hand?"

It was thug-speak through and through, yet something about it rang oddly desperate. As if they were being chased.

"Blocking a man's path and asking for help. What exactly do you need?"

Daisy stepped forward.

"If you don't fancy gettin' hurt, ladies clear off. Tall one there—empty your pockets. Everything."

Sayron was a well-kept city precisely because the imperial palace stood within it. That was why merchants could trade deep into the night and people could wander the streets until dawn without fear.

And yet here they were, ambushed by common thugs in the middle of the capital.

Daisy rolled her shoulders forward and back, then slowly cracked her neck.

"Milord. Would it be permissible for me to finally get some exercise? My body's been itching so badly I could go mad."

"Go ahead. I'm carrying a bear as it is. He's heavy, so make it quick."

As Daisy loosened up and advanced, the thugs shrank back step by step.

"Miss! You'll get hurt!"

Strangely enough, they seemed genuinely worried for her.

"Let's see who ends up getting hurt, shall we?"

Daisy kicked off a wall and launched herself into the air. Even without a sword, three rugged bandits were nothing she couldn't handle at once.

She drove her knee down into the leftmost man's shoulder the instant she was airborne, snapped a spinning kick into the second man's face, and finished the last one with a straight punch to the solar plexus.

All three hit the ground before they knew what had happened.

"What's the matter with you lot? The Demonic Beasts are gone—why are you living like this?"

Daisy crouched down in front of the fallen men and asked. From the state of things, it was hard to tell which party had been the thugs.

"We're sorry. We had no other way to survive."

The men knelt, nearly weeping as they spoke.

"No other way to survive? You've got healthy bodies—there's honest work to be had for men like you."

When Daisy pressed them, the story the men spilled was enough to sour Franz's mood considerably.

They were from Chafe, in the empire's northeastern reaches.

Chafe wasn't as cold as Lanke, but it was close—frigid and barren all the same. Though it bordered the sea, the waters ran deep and the currents ran fast, so fishing brought in precious little. Nor was there much fertile soil worth farming.

And so nearly everyone in Chafe with strength in their arms went east to work in Ayepol, laboring at the fisheries or in the shipyards.

But that was where the trouble began.

Whenever the catches fell short of expectation, or a finished ship showed the slightest flaw, their promised wages simply never came.

"They just refuse to pay, saying there's plenty of other men who'll do the work. What were we supposed to do?"

"That's right. And when we so much as complained, the lord's soldiers came out threatening to send us back to Chafe. We couldn't collect a single coin."

"Even if we went home, there was no living to be made there. So we figured we'd try our luck in the capital."

The men poured out their grievances through their tears. It didn't sound like a lie. Daisy had once met a maid from Chafe back in the palace, and she'd told much the same story.

The men apologized over and over, saying they'd been so close to starving that their minds were going, and that they were sorry for resorting to something they knew was wrong.

"You've been through hell."

Franz approached, having at some point dumped Matheus flat on the ground.

"No, milord. We're the ones who should apologize."

Franz pulled a few silver coins from his pocket and held them out.

"Use this to keep yourselves fed and sheltered until you find work."

"Oh—no, milord, please. We can't take a sum like this!"

The men jerked back in alarm, but Franz pressed the silver firmly into their hands regardless.

"If you'd only tell us which household you belong to, we'll earn the money back and repay you, I swear."

When the man Daisy had punched spoke up, Franz shook his head.

"This is something I ought to do. Think nothing of it."

The men thanked him again and again before finally departing. Franz watched their retreating backs for a moment, then turned around.

Daisy was standing there with Matheus's arm slung over her shoulder. His shins and the tips of his toes were dragging along the ground behind her.

"What exactly do you think you're doing?"

Franz asked, utterly dumbfounded.

"It's been so long since I hit anything, my body's finally loosened up. I'll carry him the rest of the way."

"…Are you trying to destroy every bone in Matheus's legs?"

"A little road rash doesn't make legs disappear."

It wasn't her own legs dragging on the ground, after all. She looked profoundly, magnificently irresponsible.

Franz sighed.

"Am I to carry you too, then?"

Grumbling, Daisy handed the arm back over, and once again Franz shouldered Matheus toward the palace.

"I'll have to look into what's happening in Ayepol."

"It appears they've been squeezing the people of Chafe dry."

"The people of any territory are shaped by the lord who rules it. I knew the lord of Ayepol was no saint, but it seems he's a more cunning creature than I gave him credit for."

Franz's face hardened once more.

Upon reaching the palace, he deposited Matheus onto his own bed and left him there—vowing, silently and sincerely, never to let the man near wine again.

"Then rest well, Your Majesty."

Daisy bowed with impeccable form and walked off down the shadowed corridor.

Should he send her to Ayepol?

Franz stood watching her receding figure for a long while, turning the question over in his mind.

Drinking together, the three of them, just like the old days—being with her tonight had felt almost like before. If he gave her work the way he used to, perhaps she really would come back to herself.

But then he remembered how he'd felt the day he learned she'd gone to the Forest of Illusions, and he knew he couldn't send her anywhere beyond the reach of his sight.

Franz bit his lip.

It was one of those nights when he could do nothing—neither this, nor that.