༺ 𓆩 Chapter 52 — Aspiration and Envy 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
Carlson first made his way to the building of the city council.
Before it the rchants pressed in like a market in full cry. Their air was no different from that within Mistress Randolph's inn. The mayor's death had clearly cost them no small loss, for every face wore the sa gloom. A few argued heatedly over what was to be done, over where the bla was to be set, but for n who did not know so much as the face of the assassin, the most they could do was to shout in that manner.
"What in the na of the gods has he done."
Carlson walked among the clamoring throng, murmuring it.
Unease and fear could be seen not in the rchants alone but among the city's folk besides. Sensing his mont, an old priest stood preaching on the street against evil, exhorting n to faith. A traveling peddler hawked cheap daggers, telling n they had best defend their own lives. Even the off-duty watchn had been called up, it seed, for the watchn passing in the streets numbered far more than usual. They were going from door to door near the mayor's manse beside the council building, taking statents.
Carlson asked about among passersby and learned where the inspector from the royal city had taken his quarters. Only to be told that it was at a fine inn near the council building was enough; the matter of finding the inspector was a simple one. By reason of Mayor Baris' death, the soldiers were thick about the inn.
"I have co to call upon the Marquis."
"Be off, if you would not take a blade."
The soldier ran his eyes up and down Carlson and growled.
The inn, sealed off by soldiers as it was, could not be entered. The strip of vellum Isaac had given was not a thing that needed to be put into the Marquis's hand in person.
"Then at the least see this delivered. It is a ssage from Mayor Baris to the Marquis."
"What manner of pig's drivel is that?"
"If it were known you had not passed it on, it would not go well with you. You would be letting slip a thread by which the assassin might be caught."
"…Hand it here!"
The soldier took the slip of vellum from Carlson. He unfolded it and stared. As one might have guessed, the man could not read; he only turned the slip about, holding it upside-down, glancing from it to Carlson and back.
"By whom shall I say it is sent?"
"It will be written there."
"Rather than that, co inside, and we shall speak of it at our leisure."
"There is not, alas, ti for that."
"Seize him!"
The watching soldiers, who had eyed Carlson suspiciously, threw themselves at him. They could neither seize him nor pursue him.
"What manner of bastard…"
Carlson, having slipped past their ring of n with ease, had gone up the wall of the building to the roof.
"You there, you bastard, if we catch you, it is the gallows for you!"
The roused soldier shouted, hoarse-voiced, but Carlson had already passed beyond the line of the roofs. A few of the soldiers tried to follow as he had, catching at window-fras and rails to climb the wall, but they only slipped down and landed on their backsides.
The judgnt laid upon them was a harsh one.
"Cripples."
In any case, by Carlson's suspicious bearing, the soldier reported the slip to his superior, and the slip passed in turn from there to the inspector's attendant, and from him to the Marquis.
The Marquis, his head muddled by Baris' wretched death, had since morning been in the arms of a fine courtesan, sipping wine.
The seat of mayor of Bern, a new man would be set in it.
But a man as quick at sums and as wide in influence as Baris would not easily be found. And even if such a one were found, to begin afresh and to build the bonds anew would cost both ti and coin.
The matter of the assassin, above all else.
An assassin whose face and whose aim he did not know, was what weighed most upon the Marquis. Through the long intriguing of the court he had co to know the principal bands of assassins reasonably well, but he had not heard, nor seen, of such an art of killing. To die thus, ringed in by so many bodyguards. Should such an assassin set his eye upon him, the Marquis himself would not pass through unscathed. At the thought, a coldness ran along the back of his neck.
"This was delivered, my lord, by so suspicious fellow."
Taking the slip from the attendant, the Marquis, his eyes hazed with drink, ran them over the words written in the common tongue, again and again. From the smooth running cursive he guessed at once that a noble had written it, but the aning of it he did not at once take in.
"This city is not your purse…? What is this?"
He gave little thought to the na written below it: Isaac von Goethe.
He thought it could not be that a brat afflicted with a strange constitution had carried out so bold a thing, nor that such a one could know the city's tangled affairs, nor truly understand what trade was.
What weighed upon him, rather, was the matter of the note itself. And the aning of the one who had used the na of Margrave Goethe's eldest son so freely.
Holding his head, which would not turn for the drink in him, the Marquis turned the note over in his mind, and then called the attendant back.
"Tell Weissmann that we shall et. I must know what manner of wretch is trying to set us up."
***⚜***
Having shaken the soldiers' pursuit with ease, Carlson bought a sword fit for his hand, and a chain, at a smithy.
Then he set off for the brothel in the slums to which the swordsman had directed him.
In a stinking alley of the slums he sat and ate the bread and cheese Mistress Randolph had given him. Hungry beggars ca round him, and each ti Carlson drew his sword.
The beggars, having little left to lose, did not give back.
On the contrary, they drew out their own blades, of every sort. Carlson cut every one of them. He did not kill them. He let them go, limbs cut, bleeding, fleeing. "Devil-spawn," one of the wounded beggars spat at him, but Carlson took no notice. With bloodied hands he calmly stuffed what was left of the bread and cheese into his mouth.
Parched with thirst, he entered the brothel building.
To the courtesans who ca swarming to greet a custor he called for sothing to drink, and took a cup of sour wine. The wine was spoiled and not worth selling, but it had been kept for the vanity of those who ca calling. Carlson flung a copper to each of the won and passed the ti in idle banter. It drew old mories out of him. The mory of his being raised among prostitutes. From his days as a rcenary, the mory of washing the sll of death and of blood from himself with the cheap perfu and powder of such won. To Carlson, a cheap brothel, anywhere one went, had sothing of the feel of a childhood ho.
Today, of course, he had not co to take pleasure in mory.
"Well now. The sixth swordsman of Weissmann. So you have at last graced us with your arrival."
The swordsman appeared in attire that was, to Carlson, sowhat distasteful. A dress that bared chest and shoulder and back boldly was, by any eye, the garb of a courtesan, but it was being worn by a swordsman of broad build and heavy with hair. Together with thick paint upon the brows and powder upon the cheeks. Even so, the swordsman wore a belt and a blade at his hip.
"That is an uncommon taste of yours."
"Ah, this? I thought I should try to feel what it was to be a woman. In truth, it was the dress of a woman I killed. A garnt of many anings, this one. A sort of rite to rember her by. A ga, you might say."
"……"
Carlson let no feeling show. As a rcenary, or as a soldier of Winterband, he had seen madn without count.
"But you, today. You seem of a different air."
"Is that so?"
"It is. You have the look of a man who has co to kill. Surely it is not ?"
Saying that, the swordsman fixed Carlson with a level gaze, his face set in the bearing of one who had already drawn his own conclusion. To hide the killing-air wholly was a height Carlson had not yet reached. Before such a man, all the less so.
"It is you. You depraved bastard."
Carlson drew and rushed in. The swordsman drew in his turn and t him.
Klang!
And sparks flew.
***⚜***
[Do you know the difference between admiration and envy? Aspiration is a pure feeling. It is respect, and it is longing. A strong feeling that rises up out of the deep place of the heart.]
[…But within envy there boils a desire. It is the jealousy and the resentnt a man feels when another has what he himself does not. He hungers for that which the other holds, and wishes to take it from him.]
Isaac was recalling a book he had read long ago. It was Lucas who had set the book in his hand.
[Those who dream of being knights say they aspire to be knights. In truth, they envy the knight. They are jealous of what the knight has. More tragedies than one might think co of mistaking aspiration for envy.]
In that hour Isaac had not understood what those words ant. He had not even tried to.
But now he could see.
[Among the histories, the kings who aspired to the great deeds of their forebears most often made just that mistake. The territories the forebear had taken, the rich lands, the great strength of arms. Blinded by that brightness, they set aside the very virtues and the wisdoms they ought to have learned. They envied. They did not aspire.
And the difference?
For a mont, the realm may grow strong. For that was what they sought. But they could not win the steady rule or the people's love such as the great forebear had had in his day. For the most part, rebellion would rise, or they would et an unhonored death.]
So Lucas had said to him, in his tenth or so year of taking up the blade in the past life. Across nearly ten years, Isaac had never once taken the upper hand against Lucas. His wooden blade had never once touched Lucas' body. Isaac had felt that the gift was not in him, and had lost his interest in the training itself.
[My lord, do not mistake aspiration for envy. You envy my swordsmanship. You do not aspire to it. What you truly aspire to lies elsewhere, does it not?]
What Isaac had aspired to in those days. It had not been swordsmanship. He had never aspired to be a knight. What he had aspired to was that, through the training of the blade, he might co into a sound spirit and a sound body and so overco his strange constitution. Beyond that, to be a pillar of the house. And to bring peace to the house.
That was no different from what Isaac aspired to now.
The favor of the servants, the soldiers, those about him, their acknowledgnt, their respect, their love. Such things could, for Isaac, be objects of envy, but they were not objects of aspiration. His aspiration was in the peace of the house. In the laughter of dependents who had not a single trouble between them.
‘Lucas, I shall try this ti to aspire as one ought to aspire. But it grows wearying.’
Isaac pinched between his brows with his forefinger, and let it fall.
In the blue of his eye there was the face of a prisoner crying out in pain. One of Weissmann's five swordsn. When the man had first been dragged in by Carlson, he had caught the eye for the strangeness of his dress and the three missing teeth at the front of his mouth, but now such things were no matter.
"Answer. Who is the head of Weissmann? Where is he in hiding?"
"Krrraaaagh!"
Carlson tore out another of the man's fingernails.
Isaac felt no twinge of conscience. Only this morning he had co from the killing of Baris, mayor of Bern.
In that mont, Isaac had shivered.
The feel of mana running through him had co to him more living than at any ti before. Not mana flowing, but as though fire were running in his blood; every vein had felt hot.
It had not been the rush of having killed a man.
It had been the joy of having brought a magic of such a long range to fruition, a magic that had no place even in the future he knew. It had been the joy of having broadened the narrow horizon of human magic by even a hand's breadth.
The aftertaste of it, however, had not been sweet. The proof of a successful long-range magic was, in itself, the death of a man. The history of magic to co would run in the sa way. The swift growth of human magic would find itself deeply indebted to war and to death.
‘Even so, that this is my road shall not change.’
This was a weight he had resolved to bear from the mont of his return to the past. There was nothing new in it. What price the miracle of having returned to the past would exact, he did not know, but if it were this manner of burden upon the heart, then the price was a small one.
"Eat shit, you sons of bitches! Every man with a worse taste than mine is gathered here, it seems."
"One more. There is no need to draw it out cleanly."
"Krrraaagh!"
The underground prison of the manse. The prisoner's anguished cries spilled past the walls. Upon the guards' faces a look of revulsion sat. In the midst of it, Isaac oversaw the questioning.
"My lord, however we set to him, he will not open his mouth. Might it be ti to put an end to it? Without his lordship's leave to act this way…"
"Do you ask for rcy upon a parasite gnawing at Goethe?"
A guard, no longer able to bear it, had stepped forward. Isaac did not so much as listen.
"It is not that, my lord. This, this seems sohow amiss. And the sll of drink reeks from you."
"Do you think drunk and playing the fool, then?"
"……"
"Then stop . Carlson, take another."
"Aye."
"Krrraaagh!"
The guard's face turned cold. Another of the guards lost what color was in his face.
This would, in turn, spread as another rumor. And it would weave together with the figure Isaac ant from now on to present to the wider world, and his infamy would swell like a snowball gathering size. The servants of the manse would fear him the more, or co to fear him.
It was needful.
He had resolved not to mistake aspiration for envy. He had resolved to set envy down and to choose aspiration.
For that reason, the bloodying of hands in the shadow was a thing he himself and those he had chosen would shoulder, and it would suffice. The soldiers of Vinfeldt, Hans, Bill, Carlson, Bessir. They were the ones with whom he would build, together, the bridgehead of the Goethe he longed to see. They were those who would shed blood with him. Because of that, he had saved those who had been destined to die. He had saved them from an unfortunate future. They were Isaac's people.
But the people of this place, the people of the house, were another matter.
They were his father's people, his mother's people, Jonas' people. They were those who must put their strength to the flourishing of Goethe. They had no need to shed blood in the shadow. For that reason, Isaac needed to win infamy and to sever the unneeded bonds with them.
"What manner of doing is this?"
A cold, low voice rang of a sudden through the underground prison.
The eyes of those within turned upon the speaker. They went pale at once.
A campaign clearly hard upon him. A shaggy beard, golden hair lying matted any which way, the hem of a coat hanging in tatters. A breastplate where blood and mud and gobbets of flesh and the hairs of dead n were caked together. The Margrave, with the look of a tired man, was standing there. By that one entrance, anger upon his brow, those in the prison felt as though the very air pressed down upon them.
"You have been long away, Father."
Only Isaac, of all those present, made his greeting to the returned Margrave as though it were nothing.
END σϝ CHAPTER
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