The Most Perfect Stranger (9)

The curtain had risen on the festival at last.

From early that morning, the streets of Gaverum had swollen with crowds for the Founding Festival. The imperial flag snapped and billowed above their heads, and every window and balcony was draped in brilliant festoons.

Siena, quietly surveying the spectacle, let her gaze slide sideways. A few seats down sat the man who, two days ago, had given up his room for her and even prepared a new dress. Had he packed his uniform as well? The coat falling along his back and the immaculate shoulder ornaments caught her eye — that uncluttered silhouette, that restrained ornamentation. For some reason, it grated on her.

He doesn't seem to have come back to the room at all.

She tried not to care. She cared anyway. It was worse in a courtyard like this, where she could hear the servants coming and going down the corridor. As far as she knew, the man hadn't returned to the hotel once in the past two days.

Siena fiddled once with the ring on her finger and turned her eyes forward. The procession began, led by the grand blare of brass instruments.

"Bored?"

Hassar had spoken up beside her without warning. For all the crispness of his dress uniform, his face was full of mischievous delight — and at the sight of it, Siena's own carefully solemn expression crumbled.

"Of course not. Mind your dignity, Major Vice!"

"Yes, ma'am. Orders received."

Ever since two days ago, when he'd cheerfully informed his fellow officers that his sister had arrived as head of their house and that they were therefore obliged to report his every move to her, he'd been like this. The men had all found it absurd — but apparently curious about the legendary Siena Vice, they hadn't restricted her tour of the garrison in the slightest. A few had even trailed along, offering introductions as they went.

Though their manner bewildered her, Siena gathered from the process that her brother had built himself a fairly decent military life after all.

Only three years separated them, but perhaps because he'd been surrounded by adults from so young an age, he had never seemed like a boy his own age — even less so once he'd grown into a man. Hassar had been summoned before their mother and grandfather until the expression drained out of him; he'd lost friends, lost everyone he'd kept at his side, and carried himself like a man whose wants had been cut out of him. However anyone slandered or fabricated stories about him, he would only smile gently — and then see to it that they paid, in full, for what they'd done.

Siena was the only person alive to whom he showed what he felt.

And here he was, laughing and joking and roughhousing with everyone else. It looked utterly foreign to her.

She let her eyes travel over the officers seated around her brother. None were familiar faces, but every one of them was born of the imperial central aristocracy — of cadet branches, or illegitimate lines. When she considered that her uncle had deliberately sent Hassar to this place, a dry laugh escaped her.

Was the idea for him to learn his place here, and reflect on it?

That the imperial throne could never, under any circumstances, reach Hassar Vice — a cousin of the Aldo imperial line. And when her thoughts arrived there, the first thing she felt was what a thoroughly vicious thing it was.

The procession reached its crescendo, and fireworks burst across the sky in cascades of light. Dazzling explosions, roaring cheers, ranks marching in flawless order — together they felt like one vast ritual. A spectacle staged beneath the name of the Founding Festival to flaunt the majesty of the Aldo imperial house; she could not help but applaud the sheer cunning of it.

"Waaaah!"

"Waaah!"

Siena rose from her seat too, cheering again and again, her face bright.

Truly, a scheme fit for the brilliantly wicked.

"I should be getting back to the garrison. It's crowded, so head back early, Siena."

The morning events had ended, and Siena had been soaking in the festival from among the crowds when Hassar said this abruptly. The spark of anticipation — she'd resolved to enjoy the streets without a care today — drained from her face.

"Why? I want to look around more."

"Too many outsiders. Stay near the hotel if you must wander — I have people stationed around that area."

Near the hotel.

Siena seized both of Hassar's arms with an expression of pure disbelief.

"Are you serious? There aren't even any stalls around there, let alone people! It's boring, Hassar."

"Still no. Especially after sundown — it's far too dangerous. ...Hm? Claude?"

Hassar's stern face softened into genuine pleasure. At her brother's greeting, Siena whipped around — and spotted a man whose head had just bobbed up out of the crowd.

"...What on earth is that?"

A black pair of sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat, perched above a linen shirt with two buttons undone. That was Claude?

The man who never wore anything but immaculate, formal attire — his outfit was outrageously loose. When Hassar called again from behind her, the man removed his hat and sunglasses and offered a light bow.

"It's been a while. You've been well?"

Hassar welcomed him warmly. No. That's wrong. Hassar couldn't possibly like a man of House Marcel.

"It is an honor to see you, Master Hassar. Have you been well?"

"'Master Hassar,' he says. Why so stiff? You can call me casually."

"Yes, I will. Brother."

Brother? What?

Siena shot her brother a dumbfounded look — but the two men simply left her standing there in her fluster and fell into easy conversation.

"Ah, you're staying at the hotel too, right? Could you keep Siena company at the festival? Sorry — I have to report back to base."

"I was about to look around anyway, so it's no trouble."

"If he's a bother, just dump him at the hotel and go. Really, it's fine."

"You're saying this with the person in question standing right here?"

"Then I'll leave her to you. Siena — I'll come for you tomorrow morning. If there's anything you want to buy, buy it."

Hassar gave her shoulder a reassuring thump — you understand, right? — ruffled her hair once, and turned away. Not only had he handed her off to Claude without a word of consultation, but he'd pressed his wallet into her hand, telling her to buy whatever she liked.

Not that she was going to refuse the money...

Does he think I'm still a child? She was, for the record, in her fourth year attending the Imperial Assembly as a distinguished Acting Count, and a legitimate businesswoman successfully steering this very sea-route venture, thank you very much!

"That's how I look in Master Hassar's eyes, apparently."

The man beside her answered her muttering. Siena's gaze swung to him. Claude Marcel had left his dress uniform behind at the stands and was striding through the streets dressed like any other tourist — sunglasses and hat included. This loose, relaxed getup. If the society ladies ever heard of it, they'd faint dead away.

Her expression soured as she took him in from head to toe, unhurried.

"Why... do you call my brother 'Brother'?"

"We're close."

Close? Close with whom? With my brother? The heir to House Marcel is close with the next Count Victe?

What an absolutely hilarious joke.

She was too staggered to reply properly, so he stepped ahead and began to guide her instead.

"Where would you like to start? This street is all food stalls. If we cut down that side, there are stalls selling ornaments and local goods."

His introductions were remarkably thorough — like a man who'd already walked the streets once before. Siena huffed out a laugh, brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, and drawled,

"Practically a Gaverum local, aren't you?"

"For the Founding Festival, one has to be. I'm the officer in charge of Gaverum's festival, after all."

Her head whipped around again. He was adjusting his hat, in the instant before lowering his sunglasses back into place — and through that gap, she caught his bare eyes, glinting with mischief.

"You didn't know? There's a great deal you don't know."

He seemed to have swallowed the last of it, dropping his voice to almost nothing — but it lodged in her ears, crisp and clear.

"Why is a man of the Inspection Bureau in charge of a festival? Why are you doing an administrative officer's job?"

"It's a border region."

That breezy answer only stoked her irritation. As if border region were a cure-all — why was it that every question she asked got brushed aside with that one reason?

"On the day of the event itself, we're short-handed for security patrols, so I'm here on-site."

"...I genuinely don't understand. How can anything be short-handed when the Young Duke himself is doing the work?"

"It's a matter entirely separate from ducal affairs. Shall we move? We're blocking traffic."

He shifted behind her, as though shielding her from the oncoming current of people, and urged her onward. Siena, without quite deciding to, took a step forward — and had no choice but to follow wherever he guided her.

"Is there anything you'd like to see?"

"Not particularly."

She answered curtly, all too aware of what was behind her. She knew he was keeping as much distance as he could, but the crowd pressed and shoved, and his body brushed against hers — a light tap against her shoulder, against her hair, each time.

And what was this scent, tickling the tip of her nose? He hadn't put on the cologne he usually wore; it smelled something like clean fabric, a fresh, green scent, and it scrambled her thoughts — all the more when the distance behind her suddenly closed.

Thump—

She'd been jostled sideways yet again, and the moment she bit her lip and turned her head—

"......"

A hand, thick-knuckled and long, was braced against the space beside her shoulder. Shielding her, as it were, from the surging crowd.

It felt utterly strange. From a man who hadn't acknowledged her existence in eight years.

His consideration left her so dumbfounded that her mouth snapped shut.

Just then, a languid voice drifted down from somewhere above her head.

"Gaverum is famous for its wine. Made from grapes grown right on the nearby estates — it's pleasant enough for a casual drink."

"......"

"Siena?"

"Oh — yes."

She forced the words out, swallowing down the strange sensation — like chewing on grit.