Chapter 3: A Certain Kind of Weeping (4/7)

Once her legs had fully healed, Diana began making the rounds of the merchant guilds under the pretext of browsing for a new dress. The truth was, she had wandered out for an entirely different reason.

Find Giscard a sword master.

Sir Liam had declared that he could teach the boy no more — that Giscard's skill had already surpassed his own. And no royal knight would ever stoop to teaching a mere slave the sword, so Diana turned her gaze toward the mercenary world instead.

With mercenaries, after all, money settled everything, didn't it?

As she went about her dress shopping, one of the rumors drifting through the market caught her interest.

The Mercenary King, Barret.

The word was that Barret himself was here. Barret — the man who would, in time, become the Mercenary King. Rumor even held that he wielded a sword aura said to reach the realm of the gods. She would have him teach Giscard before his name — and his price — climbed any higher.

And so the place she stopped at was the Gryphine Merchant Guild.

The Gryphine Merchant Guild was a small operation without so much as a flagship product — nothing like the kingdom's most celebrated houses, the Esilac Guild or the Harpy Guild.

But word had it that Barret accepted commissions only from these people. Which meant, presumably, that the Gryphine Guild wasn't really in the business of selling goods at all — it sold work itself, putting people's skills up for hire.

"I'd like to see the most valuable thing you have for sale here."

Diana stopped in front of the guild building. A mustached guard looked her up and down, then settled into a bored expression.

"Oh dear, my lady. I'm afraid there's nothing here a young lady like you would care for."

The duchy's knights had been trying to talk her out of this errand from the start, and at the sight of a middling guild guard presuming to sum Diana up at a glance, their faces twisted.

"And how would you know what I like?"

"Well — dolls and jewels, I'd imagine—"

Diana let out a soft laugh at that, and the gatekeeper looked back at her, puzzled.

"To judge a would-be customer on sight and turn her away like this... what a place, not worth trading with at all."

Diana's patience wore thin. Noble's daughter or not, she had come all this way. Would it not have been proper, at the very least, to find out whether she had a reason worth hearing? To behave like this starting from the gatekeeper was pathetic. The knights were seething.

"Let us return home, my lady."

"This is no place for House Brien."

"Wait — Brien?! My lady, one moment, please!"

"Come along."

An attitude that flipped at the mere sound of a family name — utterly vile. The gatekeeper came rushing after her and dropped to his knees before Diana.

"Oh, fool that I am — I ought to gouge these two eyes clean out! Please. Please come inside, my lady. Whatever it is you want, I'll see that it's yours."

"And if what I wanted were dolls and jewels — would you still say the same?"

"Of course, my lady! Anything you desire, I'll hand it over myself. I beg you. If the Guildmaster learns what a blunder I've made, he'll have my head."

The guard groveled shamelessly. Diana could only stare down at him. He looked desperate enough that he would hardly be repeating the same mistake twice.

Diana entered the building with her escort of knights. It was very small, nothing like the great guilds she knew. The gatekeeper announced, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, that the knights would have to wait outside — and Diana complied.

The knights protested, but when Diana accepted the explanation that it was a routine security measure, they finally agreed to wait. Besides, she had no wish to broadcast that she was 'educating' Giscard.

Hiring a tutor to teach a slave the sword was, after all, a touch excessive.

She knew that the older she grew, the more people would come to question what existed between her and Giscard. And what then, if her plans were uncovered as well?

The gatekeeper who showed her into the room closed the door and inclined his ear toward it, listening for sounds beyond. Checking, apparently, whether anyone might be eavesdropping.

What if this were a den of assassins, and I found myself in danger? Diana entertained the thought for a moment. Now that she considered it, the emptiness of the guild was suspicious. Surely nothing would happen in the middle of the city. They wouldn't actually try to abduct her... would they? Just as her thoughts began sliding toward the grim—

"My lady."

The gatekeeper's voice sounded oddly low. Diana flinched at the presence striding toward her. Gripping the necklace inside her pocket, she summoned Sylph.

"Stay back — one step closer and I'll scream—"

"Waaah! These eyes of mine, crooked as they are! I ought to just stab them out!"

…

"To think I resemble Lady Ludina this much — me, of all people. How could I not!"

Sobbing loudly, the man wiped his tears and pulled Diana into a crushing embrace. Diana did not scream. The name she had heard was strangely familiar.

Mother?

Ludina was her mother's name. Why would that name come from a guild gatekeeper? Just then, the door burst open.

"What is all this racket?! And why is the Brien ducal carriage parked out front?!"

…

"And who in the world is Ludina now?!"

So there really had been another room hidden inside the room. No wonder it had felt so cramped. A door disguised as the wall was shoved open, and people came spilling out — and the ones holding swords looked straight to the smallest presence among them. To Diana.

"Good heavens — oh, my word."

"Lady Ludina's daughter was here all along."

"Ah — my lady!"

Diana blinked. Who on earth were these people? And why were they gawking at her as though she were an exhibit...? Diana did not care to be put on display. No — she loathed it. It was like the nightmare of Lodbrok Kingdom all over again. Her face froze cold.

"What manner of courtesy is this? Explain to me exactly what is going on."

At her words, the people clapped their hands over their mouths.

"She's Lady Ludina's temper, every last shred of it."

"Oh dear me..."

"Master Anders will be so pleased — Master Anders!"

Anders? She had heard that name before. Anders... Diana strained to piece together what was happening.

"It seems this is my maternal grandfather's guild, then."

"Sharp as a tack, just like Lady Ludina."

Her grandfather's guild. Diana swept the room with cold eyes.

"Master Anders is in Lodbrok Kingdom, my lady. Send word, and he will come."

"No. There's no need."

Diana rose from her seat. A pointless waste of a trip — had she known, she would never have come here at all.

As she approached the door, the gatekeeper moved to block her path.

"My lady. Oh, please — why do this?"

…

"Well, since things have come to this — whatever you came to buy, just ask your grandfather for it!"

"I don't need anything from that grandfather."

Uncharacteristically, Diana scowled and flung out the barb. The guild's people looked visibly startled by her coldness.

"We aren't even truly grandfather and granddaughter. The way you say it, one would think we were."

At that, someone cried out.

"Now, even if your grandfather is a merchant, surely that's... isn't that going too far?"

Diana faltered mid-step. The guild's people went on talking as they watched her back. How unfair of them. They had never met her once, not from the day she was born — what gave them the right to speak to her so? Their error lay in knowing what sort of man their Guildmaster was while knowing nothing at all about Diana.

Only the gatekeeper, still holding the door, could see her face. Her eyes flew wide — and then she let out a long sigh.

"Ezio, enough. Watch how you speak to the young lady."

"What's too far is too far. And from the look of it, she doesn't even treat Master Anders as a grandfather—"

"Wasn't it your Guildmaster who never treated her as a granddaughter first!"

Diana turned back to face them. Ezio, who had been sniping with all the petulance of youth, stiffened the moment he saw her face.

The girl's expression was perfectly blank. Not a single tear fell; her brows did not so much as crease. But those eyes. Her eyes alone were desolate beyond all telling.

"You're right. I am not Anders's granddaughter."

…

"I have no need of a welcome. Or of help."

With that, Diana stepped outside. The escorting knights followed close behind.

"What did you buy, my lady?"

"Everything that guild had for sale turned out to be shabby. I decided to buy nothing."

Diana glared back at the building as though it were the grandfather himself. What was family, in the end? If blood made family, then she and the master of that guild — her own grandfather — were, unquestionably, family.

Her grandfather and her mother had been family too.

Then why... why had he never come?

Diana wept at the pity of it. Her mother had been calling for her own mom and dad, and not one of them would come. How sad that must have been — how lonely.

Back when she had still been well, her mother would sometimes tell Diana about her grandfather.

"Your grandfather was a merchant."

…

"I used to sail ships with him, you know. I even traveled a desert once."

"...I want to go too."

"No. You are a duke's daughter."

Her mother set down the book she had been reading aloud and stroked Diana's hair.

"Did Grandfather pass away?"

"No. He's alive and hale."

…

"There is something he's angry with your mother for. I doubt that anger has ever cooled."

Even then, her mother wore a bitter expression. A grandfather so consumed by some old anger that he had refused to keep vigil at his own daughter's deathbed.

That was why, in her previous life, Diana had never even thought to beg her grandfather for her life during the war. A merchant of his standing could surely have gotten her out. Instead, she had simply chosen to die at the hands of the Lodbrok army.

Of course, neither had that side ever once reached out a hand to help — so the word 'choice' was a joke, really.

That self-important grandfather had let even his granddaughter's death pass him by.

Diana climbed into the carriage. The gatekeeper who had trailed after her stared at her, stricken. Go on, then — say something, if you have anything left to say. But he only glanced around, then turned back with a sullen face.

Seeing that, Diana bit down hard on her lip.

See? Even you, his own man, have nothing to say to me. She clenched her fist against the surging feeling. Her eyes stung, for some reason.

Why? This sort of thing is familiar by now. You've been betrayed before, Diana. You've lost your own child. You are a grown woman who has endured far more wretched things than this.

So why does this one little thing shake me so? How utterly childish. She tried, with all her might, to soothe the feeling.

It was a long while before she reached home, and Diana made straight for her room. But strangely, the house was all of a flutter.

"His Highness the Prince is waiting for you."

"Which Highness, exactly?"

"The Second Prince has come to call."

…

"He is said to be admiring the garden just now."

In that instant, Diana could bear it no longer. Why Philip had come hardly mattered. She simply needed comfort. She wanted to be soothed; she wanted someone to stroke her hair.

She wanted someone — anyone — to take her side.

Diana found Philip admiring the garden. He had a hand stretched up toward a tree, gazing at it as if to measure its height — none of which concerned her in the least.

Really, he ought to keep a few guards about him. He'd nearly been assassinated once already, and with that temperament of his, it was obvious he'd taken to keeping people at his side ever since. And that was precisely why she could walk up to Philip without a shred of hesitation.

"Anne?"

Diana wrapped her arms around Philip's waist. Before she knew it, she had buried herself against him. The body of a boy on the threshold of manhood was firmer, and larger, than she had expected.

"Anne? What's happened?"

At the gentle question, tears nearly sprang free. Then, just as she had hoped, his hand came up to stroke her hair, and she choked back the sob fighting to escape. I can live. She felt, somehow, that she might.

"Sounds like something upset you."

There was never any tenderness in my life, it seems. She needed this gentleness so badly. Madly, desperately badly. She did not pour her feelings out; she only gathered up the ones that teetered at the brim, as if about to spill.

And Diana never noticed the gaze that was watching all of it.

"So the place you happened upon was your maternal grandfather's guild?"

…

"I see. What a small world."

Philip sighed. His face creased, as if he were turning something over in his mind.

"That was terrible of him."

…

"Truly terrible. You were right to be angry."

Those words were such an enormous comfort that her chest seized. Philip sat down beside her and studied her face. The girl he had always taken for an adult had a young corner to her after all. Watching the tears trembling on her lashes, he gave a soft laugh.

"Maternal grandfathers always do seem to be that way, don't they. Willful, and heartless past all reason."

Count Calcos, whose house had produced the second queen, was much the same. From what Philip had heard, the count had appeared in society only sparingly even while the second queen lived, and after her death he had all but vanished from it, pleading that the border must be held.

"We really are alike, you and I. Aren't we?"

Diana had been thinking precisely the same thing. She had never imagined that the boy she remembered only as 'the one who died' could feel this close.

Philip seemed to collect his thoughts for a moment; then he spoke slowly.

"So — here it is. I... I wish you would talk to your grandfather."

"What?"

You say we're alike — and you still don't understand? At Diana's resentful look, Philip smiled helplessly.

"Just like you, I... I thought I'd never get anything from that man. That he'd never be anyone I could lean on."

…

"When word came that I'd nearly been assassinated, my grandfather came up at once."

Diana looked up at Philip. He was wearing a soft smile.

"The moment he arrived, he pulled me into his arms and started checking my injuries, one by one."

…

"Strange, isn't it? This was a man whose grand gesture was a single birthday gift. A man who never sent so much as one letter. He had never once come to see me — I'd believed he never would, my whole life through."

…

"But the moment he heard I might die, he came."

Philip said it with a smile. Diana let her eyes fall. Philip is a fool. He had called them alike not ten minutes ago, and now he was telling her they were nothing of the kind.

"There must have been his reasons."

"A man who would not come even while I was dying is all he is."

"Anne."

Philip looked at her. Diana — she could not forget. When the army of Lodbrok invaded the capital, Tallinn, she had been left alone in the estate.

Word that Diana would remain to hold the mansion spread through Farnborough's high society. What a noble aristocrat! What beautiful pride she possesses! People extolled her as a true noble.

When all she had been doing was waiting, a little more decorously, to be slaughtered.

Yes. No one had helped her then, not one soul. She had forced down her fear and waited for death. That loneliness could never be understood by anyone. Tears spilled from Diana's eyes.

"So you don't... wish to forgive him."

…

"You don't even want to hear his side, do you? You simply... hate your grandfather."

At Philip's words, Diana nodded. Philip took her hand.

"If that is what you want, then so be it."

…

"But still, I... I think the right thing is to hear the circumstances."

"It's obvious. He simply hates me, that's all."

Philip chuckled at that.

"You think of yourself as an adult, don't you? You think everything you believe is right."

…

"I thought I was an adult too, once. It turns out I know far less than I imagined."

…

"You don't have to forgive him if you don't want to. But do hear the circumstances — find out what actually happened."

…

"You'll resent him either way. You may as well at least know why."

Should I? Diana wanted to argue back. But the permission not to forgive tickled at her heart. Yes — she wanted to know, too. Why? Why had her grandfather turned his face away from her?

Diana had considered herself fully grown. Living like a ghost in Lodbrok Kingdom, she had believed she had aged past aging — rotted through, even. But it was true: she had never finished growing at all.

"Then tell me, Philip — what if it's because he hates me? What if my very existence, the daughter of my mother and father, is repulsive to him? If he can't stand the sight of me..."

All at once, her frail ego lifted its head. That was the truth of her heart. Only then did Philip break into a bright smile.

Somehow, at those words, it felt as though her heart were being dyed in gold. Diana talked with Philip for a long while.

Even setting aside the matter of her grandfather, conversation with Philip was simply delightful. When he rose at last, saying his time was up, Diana asked:

"By the way — why did you come here today?"

"Huh? Oh... just, to see your face."

…

"Ah — and to bring you candy."

Philip held out a glass jar with an awkward smile. This one held quite a lot.

"Oh... that's a lot of candy?"

"It isn't candy this time, it's chocolate. And terribly expensive, I'll have you know."

Diana laughed. Colorful candies — no, chocolates — in a pretty glass jar. So this was what he had come all this way to deliver.

"My lady."

Just then, a voice sounded. Diana flinched to a halt mid-step, and Philip's expression turned puzzled.

"What is it?"

Diana saw Giscard, who had appeared without warning. For some reason, his gaze seemed fixed on the jar in her hand.

"Miss Alexa is asking for you."

"Alexa? What for?"

"I don't know."

"Understood. Ah — that's right. Father will be home soon. You had best stay in your room."

"As you say."

And yet Giscard did not move. Now what, then? Diana looked at him.

"Giscard — is there something you wish to say?"

Giscard held her gaze for a moment, then quickly lowered his head and shook it. Then he bowed and withdrew, making himself scarce.

Just as Diana opened her mouth to call after him, she noticed Philip watching his retreating back with unusual care.

"You said he's a slave?"

"Huh? Yes."

"Truly?"

Philip asked, as though to confirm it. What was this? Surely he wasn't about to claim he knew something about Giscard? Come to think of it, he had remarked before that the boy seemed somehow familiar.

"You saw the restraint collar yourself."

"I did. And yet he doesn't seem like a slave."

"Well, Giscard doesn't, but—"

"No — I mean you. You don't treat him as one."

Philip was sharp.

"For the way one handles a slave, you seem awfully careful with him. Tense, even."

"Me?"

Philip nodded. Diana's heart dropped like a stone. Philip really was quick to notice. She had always known it, but he never failed to strike at the exact point.

"For the record, I'm of the school that every slave ought to be freed — I'm not telling you to treat him like one."

…

"It's just... why, I wonder? Something about it grates on me. It grated on me a great deal."

Philip grumbled, knitting his brows.