Because of a Promise

"So. How does it feel to be the youngest knight commander there's ever been?"

Ilya flung the door of the commander's office open on the taunt, and a sheaf of papers came whipping out of nowhere. He snatched them from the air with practiced ease.

From behind the mountain of documents piled on the desk, a man staggered into view, both hands tearing at his hair.

"It's true the order's short of men, but... why me, of all people, when you've got veterans of a hundred battles sitting right there..."

Like Ilya, he wore the black stains of a murderous workload beneath his eyes.

"And where's your adjutant gone, leaving you to drown in all that paperwork alone?"

"That damned bastard went on extended leave the moment he got back. Something about having something to find. Or so he says."

Naz plucked a cookie from the basket on the table and held it out. Ilya took it with a face like winter and chewed the thing anyway, sweet enough to look cloying at a glance.

"The guard knights for my lady and the young master. That's what I mean."

"Why? Not a single man willing?"

"There are only ten senior knights, and every last one of them fought in the Tatar war... The moment I so much as speak the name Mardus, they draw steel on me..."

So that's why he fed me something sweet first. Ilya said it as if it hardly mattered.

"Take one from my personal guard. Leave things as they are, and before long I'll be a pitiful man who's lost both wife and child."

"There's a suitable knight among those promoted to senior rank this time."

Naz dug a letter of recommendation out of the heap and passed it over. Ilya read the thing carefully from top to bottom—ten long pages of it.

"The vice-commander recommended her? A lady knight. Didn't even join the Tatar expedition, and a rigid stickler for principle... She'll do, won't she?"

"Then the two senior knights are settled. The other two, from among the junior knights..."

"You won't find anyone willing there either. If it comes to it, squires will do. Young, that's all. There are a few little monsters among them."

At that, Naz broke into a wide grin, as if a particular face had come to mind. Ilya said nothing more after. He only went on chewing the cookie.

Naz studied his lord from the corner of his eye. Ilya was glaring at the map of the empire on the wall.

The Seis Empire was divided into six regions. In the north lay the Azantis Archduchy, cradling the vast Skaran Mountains; across its border waited the barbarian Tatar, and the archduchy was the Empire's Shield. The center belonged to the Mardus Marquisate, sweeping over the fertile granaries. To the east, the Vasili Marquisate took in the ports and islands of the coast. In the west, the Loren Marquisate held the continent's greatest gold mines, and the southern Flor Marquisate, warm of climate, boasted abundant goods and a teeming population. Last of all was the southeastern imperial domain, ruled directly by the throne.

With imperial authority sunk to the dirt, those five territories were independent states in all but name.

Ilya's eyes traveled down the map and stopped dead at the middle. The languid blue-gray of them went sharp.

"People talk as if the war is over... You know better than anyone that it isn't, Naz."

Tatar, sharing a border with the Azantis Archduchy, was uncivilized, but it was a nation of vast lands. Nomads, its people boasted formidable strength built on superb horsemanship. A struggle over the succession had only paused the war. It had not ended it.

"There's a saying among the bastards living soft in the capital. In the north, there is only a very cold winter, and a winter that's slightly less cold."

"Well, they're not wrong, haha."

Thanks to that brutal weather, the archduchy could not grow even half the food it needed.

"That damned food. Food, food!"

Ilya ground the words out between his teeth.

"The Mardus bastards hold grain hostage and play their games whenever they please... What's worse is the imperial house lending them a hand."

"They want us playing the faithful hunting dogs that guard the house, and the moment we actually have power, they're terrified of it. Pathetic."

Men with no courage to bleed for themselves, and nothing in them but greed. A thick revulsion passed across both their faces.

"In truth, the only reason Your Grace could marry the Marquis of Mardus's only daughter was that we were at war."

The imperial house had wanted the north thoroughly isolated. A union between the Empire's Shield and the greatest granary of the center was not to be allowed. But when war with the barbarians broke out without warning, the emperor had no means of feeding the north or arming it. Lacking any pretext to forbid the match, he permitted the marriage.

"Everyone welcomed my lady beyond measure. Wheat, barley, oats, and rye enough to see us through the winter... and an endless procession of cattle and horses."

"Naz, when you put it like that, it sounds as if I was sold into marriage for grain."

Ilya remembered the princess of Mardus arriving in the north amid cart after cart of supplies.

"People are fickle things. When was it they welcomed Evelynn with open arms? Now we'd be lucky if they don't throw stones."

"It's a shame. What crime has my lady committed, really."

Ilya shot a sidelong glare at the man who was both his subordinate and his friend. Soft to the bone.

"What does the Marquis of Mardus have left? The eldest son's head has already flown. What's left is the second son, and my beloved... wife, is it?"

"......!"

"Ah. There's one more. That little clot of blood—the one the marquis meant to set up as master of the north in my place..."

At the sight of Ilya smiling faintly while he called his own son a clot of blood, a chill ran down Naz's spine.

"My lady and the young master... what do you mean to do with them?"

He had no idea how he was supposed to treat Evelynn, the archduke's wife. The archduchess's chambers, opening onto the archduke's own, stood empty. Ilya had never told his wife to move into them, and so she remained in the Annex with their son. Nor was he leaving her alone. The servants and knights who had seen Evelynn dragged to the bedchamber that day whispered that the archduke used his wife like a whore.

"The moment she's of no use, I'll cast her off. So spare me the useless talk of archduchesses."

"......?"

"Because every night, because of that woman... I feel as if I'm going to lose my mind."

Ilya spat it out as if the words were something he had to chew. The meaning failed to reach Naz's brain, and he sat blank for a long moment. Then he shot up from the sofa and shouted, jabbing a finger at him.

"Your Grace! You had no interest in my lady at all. What do you mean, now of all times!"

Ilya slumped back against the sofa, one hand covering his eyes. Since the funeral, the sleepless nights had returned. The sweetness of sleep, tasted once, tempted him without end. Crush that soft body. Drink her blood.

But if he was alone with the wife who had wept and called his brother's name... this time, he felt he might snap her throat.

"You couldn't stand women or men. Why on earth... They say once a man loses his head over a woman there's no saving him, and of all people, why..."

Naz muttered it to himself, looking as if his soul had stepped out of his body.

"That I... lost my head over that woman... Ha. Ridiculous..."

Ilya closed his eyes. Memory dragged him back to that time, which had been a nightmare.

A staggering number of torches embroidering the night sky. The sound of fire arrows ripping the air. Black knights groaning with thirst and hunger.

Through a blurring field of vision, the faces of comrades who had died in the gorge flickered past.

The north remembered. Always.

Whether it was a grudge, or a kindness.

"My boy, it's time to sleep now. Hm?"

"Mama, snack. Snack."

Evelynn, toweling her son's hair dry, burst out laughing. Sophie, seated beside her and working him into his nightclothes, smiled as well.

"I think our young master's going to grow up to be a general, my lady."

"Doesn't he, though."

"The very first thing out of his mouth wasn't even Mama. It was snack."

Evelynn smiled at the joke. He had eaten so much and was still hungry, it seemed; watching her son seize his own finger and chomp down on it, she thought she might die laughing.

"No, Liber. It's bedtime."

"Uuuuung."

She gathered the fussing child into her arms and stroked his back. The solid weight against her arms made her feel, all over again, how much he had grown.

"Oh, that's right. The gift my sister sent—I still haven't shown you, have I?"

Sophie's older sister worked as a maid in Mardus Castle. She was clever with a needle, and from time to time she embroidered pretty cloth and sent it to Sophie and Evelynn. At the archducal castle every shipment and letter from the Mardus house was watched, but trifles addressed to a maid were left alone.

"Ta-da. Three of them this time, including one for the young master."

The three handkerchiefs were all different. On the first, a golden fox had been stitched, a blue crown on its head, so vivid it seemed ready to leap free of the cloth. On the second, an orca breaching over the sea. On the third, a priest hurling a golden disc.

"My lady, don't you think my sister's art gets harder to understand every day?"

"I know. What is that even supposed to be."

A golden fox and an orca... and on top of that, a priest throwing a disc of gold. The corner of Evelynn's mouth twisted upward. For someone of her gentle nature, it was a rare expression.

That was when it happened. A murmur rose outside, and then someone knocked at the door in haste.

"Huh? Who is it? No one's supposed to come at this hour."

Uneasy, Sophie hurried to the door.

Surely not... it can't be... Clutching a heart that hammered hard, Evelynn looked toward the doorway.

The man standing crooked in the open door, one hand on it, was her husband.

Evelynn rose in a rush. What do I say? Should I at least ask how he is? Ah... what do I do? Even as she fretted, the knights standing behind Ilya came into view.

At the sight of the black light armor the escorts wore, the stir that had risen in her sank.

Black Forest Knights. I am Mardus. Half the blood of the child in her arms was Mardus as well.

Ilya, who had only stared at the two of them without a word, crossed the room in swift strides. As he came closer she retreated several steps before she knew it. The corner of his mouth twisted up.

"Why? Afraid I'll harm the child?"

"You... promised. I believe you."

Looking up into her husband's face, Evelynn's eyes shook without mercy.

"Yes. A promise. That's why I've come to you... now."

The moment he reached an arm toward her—

"Mama, mah-mah-mah-mah."

The child in her arms, as if cramped, began to thrash his arms and legs.