The Sword the Emperor Cherishes
"I shall prepare a formal invitation in accordance with protocol and send a carriage to the Grand Ducal House."
"Viscount, I had no intention of attending the hunt——"
Ervan murmured, low enough that only she could hear. "Then let us meet at night, rather than at dawn. I will prepare something else that might interest the Grand Duchess."
Laila was innocent, but she was no fool. Having caught the blunt meaning of that invitation, her eyes wavered helplessly. And then—
"Grand Duchess! I'm back! Did you wait long?"
"Your Highness!"
Ariel came running up at a brisk clip, calling out to Laila as she came.
The maids trailing in her wake wore anxious faces, but Laila's own brightened immeasurably—thanks to Ariel, she had found a way out of the awkward moment.
Ariel stopped before Laila, who had sprung up from her seat, and catching her breath, opened her mouth wide and near-shouted:
"Father says we're all to have dinner together! Viscount Ervan too!"
Laila nearly wanted to weep.
Ervan did not much care for the Empire's aristocratic society.
As a starving boy he had admired them once, but after he made his name as a mercenary and left hunger behind, that admiration had withered away.
The noble title granted to such a man had never been an honor, nor had he ever wanted it.
On the day the Emperor conferred the viscountcy upon Ervan, a grand celebration was held at the Imperial Palace.
It was an occasion to laud his great merit in ending the war—and, at the same time, to proclaim that the Empire still stood unbowed.
'So he's commoner-born.'
'If not for the war, would the likes of him ever have set foot in the Imperial Palace to gawk?'
'Look at that lowbred manner.'
The assembled nobles regarded Ervan the way one regards a beast.
Those eyes—as if beholding some unknown creature of an entirely different nature from themselves—made him come to genuinely despise this whole class.
Save for a single exception.
'If not for Viscount Ervan, a banquet like this would be beyond imagining. We owe him such gratitude.'
'His Majesty the Emperor himself bestowed the title, so whatever his origins, he is a noble now. Respect is his due.'
She was a woman who stood out even among the ladies in their splendid gowns.
The ladies always clustered around her, busy echoing whatever she said or flattering her.
'How can Lady Laila have so kind a heart as well?'
'The Lady is quite right. It was Viscount Ervan's exploits that brought the war to so swift an end. My brother came home safe and sound thanks to him.'
Ervan soon learned that this lady, called Laila, was the daughter of the Empire's one and only Grand Ducal House.
The nobles' judgment of her was unanimous. Kind to all, never once letting her grace slip—she was the very image of the 'noble' the young Ervan had once looked up to.
But Ervan soon noticed.
A smile that curved elegantly, without a hair's breadth of error. A dignity so complete that not a single strand of hair escaped control. A polished eloquence that made no enemies.
His instincts, tempered through countless brushes with death as a mercenary, were telling him:
'That is something made.'
And then he began to see it—the thin ice of desperate perfectionism she walked upon.
She was driving herself with brutal severity. All to perform perfection.
Ervan did not dislike those who strove.
And so he concluded, easily enough, that unlike the other nobles she did not repel him—because she was someone who worked for it.
The day after the hunting contest, on his way to the Imperial Palace, Ervan passed near the Grand Ducal residence and caught a sound drifting over the fence.
'Lucas, would you teach me how to shoot a bow?'
'Me?'
'Yes. Help me.'
Ervan stood there for a very long time, eavesdropping on the sounds beyond the fence.
The hiss of arrows cleaving the air. The crisp thunk of shafts finding the target. And even the voice of one called Lucas, astonished at the Grand Duchess's skill, and the conversation flowing between the two.
'That hardly seemed like skill worth heaping such praise upon.'
Listening with his eyes closed, Ervan called to mind the Laila he had seen the day before.
The hand that had drawn the bowstring without a moment's hesitation had been hopelessly clumsy—the hand of one who had never once been formally taught the bow.
Ervan did not dislike those who strove.
So he had wanted to help her. There had been not a shred of personal motive in recommending the hunt to her. That, at least, was what he had truly believed.
Ervan fiddled absently with the collar of his imperial uniform. It was stiff and lavish enough to smother a man.
For one more at home on the packed dirt of a training yard than on the palace's spotless marble, the white dress uniform was among those garments he never grew used to, no matter how often he wore them.
But such trifling discomforts mattered little. Laila was seated right beside him.
"It is an honor to be received at so gracious a table, Your Majesty," Laila said with impeccable courtesy, her voice elegant.
The Emperor favored her with a gratified look.
Ervan looked at her as well. His gaze, resting on the reddened lips that offered such polite thanks, drifted before long to her battered fingers.
'Let go of my hand, Viscount. It's nothing—just a scratch.'
When he had seen that snow-white hand, each knuckle split open and seeping blood, Ervan had felt an uncanny sensation he had never known even on the battlefield.
That plunge of the heart had been a fury like a vicious thirst, and an ache like possessiveness—as though his own palm would be crushed.
'Give me your hand.'
It had been the moment he carefully spread salve over Laila's torn wounds and breathed gently upon them.
When Laila's small hand, trembling finely where it lay atop his palm, and her white nape, burning red, came into view—
'...Ha.'
In that instant Ervan understood. He was past the point of merely not disliking her; he harbored something far beyond that.
That he wanted the true face beneath the mask Laila wore.
"I shall count the Viscount's greeting as rendered."
The Emperor's voice pulled Ervan out of his thoughts.
To drift elsewhere at dinner with the Emperor was a grave discourtesy. Yet the Emperor did not chide him overmuch.
He was being magnanimous—understanding that a man who had lived as a commoner could hardly master noble etiquette in so short a time.
To the Emperor, Ervan was a sword he cherished rather dearly.
The Emperor's gaze followed to where Ervan's own rested.
The kindly smile on the Emperor's face turned strange at the sight of the white cloth swathing Laila's fingers.
As though she felt their eyes upon her, Laila slyly closed her fist to hide the scrap of handkerchief.
"Let us eat."
With the Emperor's unfurling of his napkin as the signal, the meal began.
Onto gleaming golden tableware, one tempting dish after another was set down.
To commoner-born Ervan, the imperial table—gaudy enough to make the eyes sting—was something like an examination.
Hands adept at wielding a keenly honed blade proved hopeless with a dinner knife no bigger than a palm.
"Viscount, I have reviewed the matter of the Order's year-end provisioning—"
The Emperor remarked, almost in passing.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Every voice has argued the budget must be raised. And yet you, Viscount, hold a different view, I see."
Ervan, waging war with the salmon steak before him, set down the knife as he answered.
Tap—
Against the hush of the room, the sound of the knife meeting the table rang out, alone and loud.
Ignoring the scornful glances of the attendants stationed about the table, Ervan spoke.
"More urgent than raising the budget is inspecting the goods that actually arrive."
"Inspection?"
"The farther the supplies travel from the Imperial Palace where Your Majesty resides, the poorer their quality and the smaller their quantity. It means someone is skimming them along the way."
"Someone dares—dares skim the budget allotted to My Order?"
The Emperor's brow rose. The Emperor, who so rarely betrayed his anger, looked ready to roar for the culprits to be found and punished this very instant.
"And what does the Grand Duchess think?"