Part 2: I Will Call Your Name (1/7)

Diana quickened her pace. Her small feet felt light as if dancing. At last, at last — she could have Giscard. As she had expected, she hadn't been given the key to unfasten his restraint collar, but this would do.

In truth, Diana had been unable to visit Giscard all this time. Had she kept seeking out a boy who wasn't yet hers, a scandal would surely have spread that the Duke's daughter had fallen for a slave — and Mirva, ever watchful of her movements, would have seen to it that the Duke never handed Giscard over in the first place. Unable to sway her father's mind, Diana had instead sent a maid to deliver food and clothing to him.

She knew all of this. Even so, the days in between must have been hard on him. She could only pray he hadn't endured anything terrible. Diana caught herself letting out a small laugh mid-stride. What am I doing, yearning this desperately for the enemy of my past life... She shook her head and swept thoughts of Giscard away. The past no longer mattered. Only what she did next did. She arrived at the barn where Giscard was kept.

Giscard had never even been given a proper room. In her past life, too, young Diana had pitied him for it and pestered her father; after that, Giscard had at least been able to sleep in a storage room inside the mansion. Now that he was her 'possession,' she thought he ought to be moved somewhere a little better. First, though, those clothes would have to change. They would talk when she met him. Please believe me. Someday, I will free you. Diana knocked on the door. No answer came, and as she opened the door to go in, the maid who had been trailing behind her moved to follow her in as well.

It was, in its way, only natural. But Diana did not permit it. Maids were meant to attend her as a matter of course — yet for an errand like this, they were required to have her leave; even out of concern for their young mistress, the proper thing was to explain themselves first. But the maids of this house treated Diana like this as a matter of routine. For all that she was the mansion's own daughter, her wishes went wholly unrespected.

"He wears a restraint collar — he can't harm me. Stay where you are."

Diana said nothing more and opened the door. But the maid ignored her words, pressing close at her heels as if intent on following her in regardless. Diana bit down on her patience.

"I told you not to come in."

"Young Lady, you're doing something truly dangerous. You'll get an earful from the head lady-in-waiting."

"Who? Me?"

When Diana asked, brow furrowed, the maid made no reply.

"Hah."

Diana sighed. Mirva's word came before Diana's own. That was this mansion.

"Codel, do you realize that right now, you are the one endangering me?"

Startled by the sudden call of her name, the maid blinked.

"Young Lady."

"If even the maids won't obey me, do you imagine a slave will respect me?"

"…"

"If you respect me, then please, stay still. I have no wish to punish you."

When Diana spoke while looking her straight in the eye, the maid lowered her head. Only then was Diana able to pass through the door.

The room was, of course, wretched. It wasn't even truly a 'room' — just a narrow space barely large enough for two people to lie down. The musty dust nearly set Diana off into a coughing fit.

Giscard sat with his back to the light spilling through the window, a black silhouette like some great beast. The shadow at the window framed his violet eyes; sunk in darkness, he was watching Diana with perfect clarity.

For a moment, that gaze nearly stopped her breath. Face to face with the young boy's stare, Diana gripped her skirt tight. Her heart hammered hard enough to resound through her skull. She searched for something to say.

"It's been a while."

"…"

"Have you been wel— ...no. No, of course you haven't."

Diana could have bitten her tongue off. Looking at the boy slumped against himself as though everything in him had shattered, she swallowed the rest of the sentence. It had sounded like mockery. Giscard slowly straightened his spine and looked up at where Diana stood.

Then, in a flash, one corner of his mouth curved upward. It was so like the sneer she remembered from before that Diana felt her heart sink.

"So you finally remembered me?"

The slave Giscard had never once spoken to her like this. Back then, he had always used honorifics with her — it was like facing a stranger. The young Giscard she remembered had been taciturn and unreadable. This jeering boy was someone she had never met.

Why was he like this? Or had he thought this way even in her past life? But none of that mattered. Diana struggled to compose her expression.

"You're asking if I finally remembered you?"

"The young lady of this house really is fickle."

He kept up the needling.

"Is that why the maids hold you in such contempt?"

So he did hear that. Diana sighed.

"Did you know? The laborers here call you a clueless little fool. They say you're a dim, insufferable girl."

"…"

"That you're the head lady-in-waiting's puppet, and that on top of it you strain so hard to play the grown-up."

"…"

"Do you perhaps think you look rather dignified right now?"

"…"

"You do think that, don't you…"

"I'm sorry, but I've never once thought anything of how I look."

Diana looked down at Giscard.

"And besides, I don't care what the little people mutter behind my back. You needn't report it to me."

Giscard's eyes went wide as he stared at her. He looked genuinely thrown. Something inside him was warped, and he had wanted to vent that on her.

The reason the boy who never spoke was so candid now was, quite simply… he hasn't been beaten enough yet. Nothing dire enough to grind his sense of self to dust had happened to him. Diana looked at Giscard and said:

"Father has consented to make you my slave."

"Ha."

Which meant he would be a slave no matter where he went. To become the young lady's plaything now — nothing about that pleased him. As Diana watched him, she knelt down to bring her eyes level with his. Clear silver-gray met clouded violet. As though she had thrust her hand into ice water, he flinched and drew back.

"What, don't you care for your new master?"

"…"

"Even if you don't, there's nothing to be done. You're a slave."

Giscard looked at Diana. She seemed so pale and translucent she might simply vanish. Her snow-white skin was wan, and her silver-gray eyes looked chilled, and yet somehow warm.

"Even so, I will give you a choice."

"A choice?"

"I want to give you the chance to take my hand because your heart means it — not because you're forced."

The sheer sophistry of it. To a slave with no choices, even that much was impossible. Whether she read it in his face or not, Diana smiled.

"I know. That you have no way not to take my hand."

The wide skirt of her dress trailed through the dust-filled pit. Like a single petal fallen into a world choked with gray dust. Her crimson dress caught the moonlight streaming through the window and gleamed.

It was night — unmistakably night — yet Diana alone shone white, as though she alone in all that darkness carried any color. The boy watched the girl who had closed the distance in a breath.

When she reached out her hand, Giscard doubled over on reflex. He feared violence. A slave grows accustomed to violence — and growing accustomed to it does not mean it frightens him any less.

But the violet eyes went on observing this strange girl. She did not strike. She only held out her hand — a small, frail hand, one that could be crushed in an instant.

"Here."

Giscard's gaze moved back and forth between Diana and her hand. Goodness, but he is slow about it. Diana sighed.

"You understand already, without my explaining. I don't have much power in this house."

"…"

"So I want people of my own, too. Choose me."

And yet Diana had dared to put the word choose into her mouth. Whatever it took, she wanted this boy to stand with her. She could not change fate — but she could hope he would change.

"Giscard."

At Diana's words, Giscard jolted. It was a name no one had ever called. Seeing that face flood with confusion, Diana smiled, faint and gentle.

"I can't promise you protection from everything. But I won't call you 'slave.' I will call you by your name."

A hell with moments of rest, or a hell that never ends. Both are cruel choices — she knew that. Even so, if it must be hell, she wanted him to come to the one that held rest.

Diana wanted to tell Giscard of her plan. That she meant to set him free. But that, and that alone, she swallowed. A promise without a date is nothing but torture by hope.

"So — you'll have me take your hand like this again, and when you tire of me, you'll throw me away?"

At Giscard's words, Diana gave a small laugh and shook her head.

"I think you've misunderstood something rather badly…"

Best to untangle it here, before the misunderstanding grows any larger.

"I sent you clothes and food even while I couldn't come to you. You never received them?"

He shook his head; Diana nodded. It figured. Someone had intercepted them along the way. Only now did Giscard, too, piece together roughly what the situation was.

"Truly a powerless young lady."

She couldn't quite bring herself to dispute the murmur.

"I have something to ask."

"What?"

"Why on earth do you go this far for me?"

"…"

"Why bother — for a slave brat?"

Diana paused to think. To change the future as much as I can — she could hardly say that, could she?

"Just… because it's the right thing to do."

It was the only answer Diana could give. Even so, the words rang with a strange resonance.

Having ordered Giscard to wash himself, Diana rose from her knees with a sigh. Before going down, she inspected her attire — not one thread could be out of place. That was the whole difference between commoner and noble: not a single lapse permitted.

Diana descended the stairs. Servants and maids stood at rigid attention before the entrance. She steeled her expression. She had lessons of her own to teach.

"Young Lady, what brings this — and so suddenly?"

Mirva, posted at the mansion entrance, inquired. Her face wore peevish irritation — Diana had, it seemed, interrupted her cherished tea time.

As though she were the mistress of the house.

Diana looked instead to the butler who administered the estate. He was too old to contend with Mirva — a man who had long made an art of convenient compliance.

"It seems to me that everyone here has been forgetting their proper roles."

"And whatever might Your Ladyship mean by that? Forgetting their roles — what, pray, does that mean?"

"Mirva. When I speak, the proper thing is to wait your turn, isn't it? You're interrogating me."

Diana smiled, sweet and unhurried. The maids watched the standoff between the child of the house and Mirva, its true power. The little lady simply could not yet stand against Mirva — so the maids of this house had all concluded.

"So tell me, what is it? Whatever has our darling little lady so very cross, hmm?"

Twelve-year-old Diana might have been taken in by that voice. She had hungered for a mother's affection, ached with the hunger of it. But this Diana flung the pearl necklace she'd been carrying to the floor.

"Wh—?"

And she slapped the cheek of the woman who had bent her head to look at it.

Smack. The sound that rang out was chilling.

She had weighed her options on the way down, but this seemed the most efficient. Intrigue from behind the scenes was only possible with pieces to move, after all.

"A lady's maid who oversteps herself must be punished."

For the mistress of this house was Diana — not that woman.

A skin-crawling silence hissed through the halls. Not a single breath could be heard. No one could believe the scene unfolding before their eyes.

That young lady — that sweet, naive young lady — had raised her hand. Against Mirva, the de facto master of this house, no less!

Even the late Duchess had never dared treat Mirva carelessly — partly because Mirva had once been her own lady's maid, but more because once her illness deepened she hadn't the strength left for any contest. The women of this family had always been gentle by nature, and everyone had assumed Diana would be the same.

"Wh-what is the meaning of this!"

Mirva's face went scarlet. The way she bore down on the small girl was menacing — but Diana met her with a face entirely untroubled. More than one onlooker felt a cold prickle race up their spine at that detachment.

"You don't know what you did?"

"Yes — what in the world—!"

Diana huffed a laugh. She did not like violence; she loathed it. But she knew perfectly well that this was no hour to be particular about her means.

One punishes Mirva only when one holds the authority to. Diana held none. Every soul in this household — the butler included — belonged to Mirva.

"The pearl necklace."

"…"

"You knew Her Majesty the Queen despises pearl necklaces. So why did you give that one to me?"

"What on earth are you saying!"

"…"

"You wanted it, Young Lady! You said you would have it! I told you it was out of the question!"

To any observer, hers was the very picture of the wronged. Diana smirked, and let her gaze travel to the maids standing behind her. The maids dropped their eyes. They were accomplices, every one.

"Really, all of you? Did I truly want that?"

In the end, the maids squeezed their eyes shut.

"Y-yes…"

"That is what you said."

Diana marked each of them well. The maid who had hurt her hand back then kept her head bowed, hedging. Nothing she hadn't expected. Diana fixed her face hard — and turned to Mirva, whose expression now practically said look at this.

"So?"

"Yes?"

"Even if I had said I wanted it — weren't you the one who was supposed to stop me?"

Against unreason, answer with unreason. Diana was arguing pure absurdity — the very portrait of a noble convinced of her own elevation.

"Mirva, that is what a lady-in-waiting is for."

"…That's — if you wanted it, then I—!"

"Oh? For all that, you do seem to circumscribe my actions a great deal. Don't you?"

When Mirva blocked Diana, it was never for Diana's sake. It was to make plain that, by holding the house's young lady in check, she still held the upper hand.

"Say I threw a tantrum. And yet you did not stop me."

"…Young Lady, there's a misunderstanding. I didn't know what the pearl necklace meant — I didn't even know why you were angry!"

"And not knowing is itself a display of your incompetence."

Mirva's excuses collapsed one after another, helpless before Diana's words. She reached for a retort and found none. Anything more would only be trampled again beneath that honeyed tongue — it was a contest she could never have won in the first place. Formally, after all, Mirva was a lady-in-waiting bound to serve Diana!

"Anything else you'd like to say?"

Diana was their employer — and Mirva had, unmistakably, wronged her employer.

As Diana walked them through it point by point, the household began to grasp how very foolish Mirva had been acting. The Duke and the young lord cared nothing for how the house was run, and the little lady had been so frail and naive that she swallowed her feelings even when anger was her due.

And so none of them had ever truly learned how frightening a noble's unconditional fury could be. Let things go on like this, and greater humiliations would surely follow.

"Young Lady, I apologize."

She did not — absolutely did not — want to bow her head. But Mirva understood that this was the moment to do it. The cheek the brat had slapped stung fiercely; what burned hotter was the scarlet flooding her face, and the humiliation.

Watching that, Diana soon broke into a radiant smile.

"Mirva. You needn't bow so deeply. Of course I'll forgive you."

When Mirva lifted her head through gritted teeth, Diana was looking down at her with a thin smile. For one instant, those silver-gray eyes turned utterly transparent, so that no one could tell what she was thinking. It was uncanny.

"I imagine you've simply been tired lately. I'm sure you couldn't have known. Carrying everything alone was, as ever, too much for you, Mirva."

The tone was gentle beyond doubt — and it pressed down like something vast. Diana turned her head and indicated one of the maids with a finger.

"The head housemaid's post happens to stand vacant. I'll make that woman over there the head housemaid. Divide the duties."

For better or worse, the woman she singled out was one of those who followed Mirva. She had without doubt chosen the maid longest in this house's service.

"Butler — your thoughts on the matter?"

"Y-yes, quite right, my Lady."

The blockheaded butler bobbed his head, taken aback by Diana. And as the man who held the household's power of appointment nodded, Mirva said through clenched teeth:

"Thank you for your gracious consideration, my Lady."

She had to keep smiling, sweet as syrup. She was no noble — she was nothing at all… She clenched her fist as her eyes fixed on Diana. She would repay this disgrace, someday.

But the people of this house understood, for the first time: Diana was the true mistress of this mansion, and she was growing, day by day. However long Mirva reigned like a duchess, the genuine article would inevitably push her aside. One slap — with that single slap, the quick-witted reconfirmed the balance of power.

It hadn't gone badly. Mirva was shrewd, but the instant Diana struck at her weakness, she had withdrawn at once. Had Diana elevated a maid on poor terms with Mirva, Mirva would have turned on her completely. The insult she had already dealt was debt enough; now was the hour to retreat with restraint. Back in her room, Diana stopped short. A scrubbed-clean boy stood there. Black hair against the windowlight, a thin shirt stretched across those broad shoulders, dark brown trousers. He wore servants' clothes — and somehow the mere wearing of them made him look noble.

And no wonder. He was royalty. A tempered, honed dignity already dwelt in him. Diana had always loved that strange grace about Giscard: base clothes, base speech — and yet, for the lowest creature in the room, he bore himself with the proud aloofness of the highest. Her gaze had always been stolen by it.

At the sound of her approach, the boy turned. Giscard had passed his birthday and turned fifteen — the baby fat that ought to linger at that age was gone without a trace. His cheeks, hollowed by meals never properly seen to, made the boy look grown. Yes — rather like her husband…

"Are you unwell somewhere, my Lady?"

It was a courteous question. Perhaps, while changing his clothes, he had been taking stock of his situation. The insolence had drained from his eyes; as when he had faced her in her past life, he was flat, and cold.

"I'm fine."

Diana forced down the revulsion welling up her throat. No. He is not yet the grown Giscard I knew. Her heart hammered as though it had gone mad.

"The clothes… they suit you well."

Her voice trembled. Diana forced her face into order and cast about for something to say.

"Where are you from?"

She realized that in her past life she had never once asked about his past. The Diana of then had refrained for fear of stirring up bad memories in him, and after their marriage there had simply been no reason to ask.

"I am from the Lodbrok Kingdom."

"How did you become a slave?"

At that, Giscard said nothing. He simply held his silence, wearing the look of a man with something foul held in his mouth.

"If you'd rather not say, you needn't."

Giscard nodded and said nothing more. Theirs was not a bond that carried even that much trust. But she had to learn who his mother was — had to learn why, here, a prince of the Lodbrok Kingdom had been bestowed as a 'slave' upon the King of Farnborough.

"Young Lady, what are my duties?"

Giscard asked Diana. My Lady — his manner had turned deferential all at once. He, too, must have marked his place as a slave and thought through how he was to survive. Diana had long since prepared her answer.

"Learn the sword."

"Pardon?"

"Become a brilliant general."

Giscard was destined to become the Hero King who slew the Poison Dragon — the one all called a genius of the sword. If fate was fixed, he would take up arms regardless; for her to be the hand that started him down that road was no bad thing.

"A slave… a general?"

"And why not? Learn the sword — and attend to me as well."

"I am… to attend to you?"

This time, the scowl made it plain that he liked that idea even less.

"How many times must I say it? You've seen for yourself what my situation is."

"…"

"I have no people of my own. I need your help."

"…"

"Of course, I'm wringing that help out of you by way of your slavery — but what of it? I mean to take back my house."

Giscard frowned as he looked at her. With those still-chubby cheeks she looked like an endearing little child. Yet the level calm with which she spoke made her seem an adult — no, a sage more detached than any adult alive.

"The maids will be the ones dressing me. Though depending on how things fall, it might fall to you — I'll do everything in my power to see that it never does."

Diana spoke to him almost as though pleading her case. Giscard watched her as though she were a very strange creature. Fair enough — she would have thought herself strange too. Just as Giscard moved to answer, urgent knocking broke in.

"Young Lady! Young Lady! It's urgent!"

What now? Had Mirva gone to vent her temper on the maids?

"What is it?"

Diana flung the door open, and a maid with frantic eyes slipped inside.

"His Highness the Second Prince has come to call, my Lady. He says he simply must see you."