Hyderlin told the girl to bring up a single meal at both lunch and dinnertime, paid in advance, and sent her on her way.
Once the girl was gone, Hyderlin stripped off the old funeral shroud and dressed herself in the new clothes.
They fit well. The girl had bought to the right measurements.
She pulled on the stiff, not-yet-broken-in boots and threw the cloak over her shoulders, and the overall effect was presentable enough to step outside.
Hyderlin moved several valuables into a leather satchel.
“Where are you going?”
Margarite, who had been lying in bed, pushed herself upright and asked in a faint voice. Hyderlin pressed her gently back down against the pillow. She pulled the blanket up to her chest and tucked her in, and then spoke in a remarkably pleasant voice.
“I’m going to convert some of the jewelry into coin. And while I’m at it, I want to see what kind of shape Lotsa is in after four years. I likely won’t be back until evening, so don’t wait up for me — please sleep first.”
“You’re not going to run away and leave me, are you?”
Run away to where, exactly? Hyderlin had nowhere in this world to go.
But Margarite was afraid that Hyderlin might slip away somewhere — her mind had grown fragile, and all manner of anxieties had taken root in it.
Hyderlin shook her head.
“I am not.”
Margarite still looked uneasy. Hyderlin added one more word.
“On God’s name, I am not.”
Only then did Margarite settle.
“…Come back early.”
Hyderlin exchanged the jewelry for coin and then stopped by a blacksmith. Most things she had asked the girl to fetch for her, but a sword was something she needed to choose with her own hands.
She browsed for a long while and managed to find one that suited her well enough. Once she had paid and settled the sword at her hip, she felt — solidly, unmistakably — reassured.
Reassured.
Hyderlin felt a faint wave of something she could only call sentimentality.
That’s right. She had loved swords.
Every time she had closed her hand around a hilt and swung, she had felt something like deep, absolute satisfaction.
Once she had grown old enough for it to matter, the sword had shifted from being an end in itself into a means to an end, and that pure, uncomplicated joy of her earliest years had been lost to her. But thinking back now, it had not always been entirely absent.
There had been a time — around the age of seventeen — when she had felt it again.
The princess Hyderlin had been renowned from early childhood as a prodigy with the sword.
Sarg Gloriosa — a member of the Kroitze Order of Holy Knights, chosen by the saint herself — was a holy knight.
There were many nobles who were curious to know which of the two would emerge the victor in a one-on-one match. And so, in the spirit of fostering goodwill between the royal house and the holy order — and to satisfy the curiosity of the more leisure-minded among the court — a friendly sparring match was arranged.
It was at that match that Hyderlin first laid eyes on Sarg.
“Princess. I have long wished to spar with you once. I am honored that this occasion has come.”
Sarg spoke with great courtesy. The silver hair he wore grown long and tied back gleamed white in the early autumn sun. His face, as though carved from polished marble, looked as if the angel of victory had stepped living and breathing out of a religious painting.
Hyderlin was involuntarily struck with admiration.
“You’re more handsome than I was told…”
“…Pardon?”
“They call you the Knight of Radiance — you genuinely look like you’re glowing. You really do live up to the name.”
With each additional compliment Hyderlin offered without any apparent embarrassment, Sarg’s face grew increasingly sour.
“Are you mocking me?”
“Mocking you? I mean every word. You look absolutely like an angel just descended from the heavens. A remarkable specimen. Though not quite as handsome as Chesa.”
“Chesa?”
“My younger brother.”
Hyderlin tilted her chin toward the viewing gallery.
Just beside the king and queen’s seats, a dark-haired boy was seated. His gaze was sharp, but a playful grin tugged at his lips.
Chesa caught Hyderlin’s eye and waved.
“Sister! Defend the honor of the royal family! Don’t you dare lose!”
Hyderlin called back with bright enthusiasm.
“Of course! I’ll bring you the victory cup! You’d better have some decent wine ready for me!”
A silver cup, set with pearls and diamonds, was the prize to be awarded to the winner. The pearls and diamonds had been provided by the royal family, and the cup itself had been consecrated directly by the saint — making it precious as both a treasure and a relic.
Hyderlin had no doubt at all that she would win. It was partly a matter of temperament — she had always been somewhat arrogant — but also a matter of record. She had never once encountered a warrior whose skill surpassed her own.
The peers her own age were simply no match for her, and even knights who had spent years in real combat tended to acknowledge defeat against Hyderlin with wounded pride.
Given all of that, it was natural that her confidence should be high. Even if her opponent was the famous Knight of Radiance, he would not be a match for her — of that she was certain.
“Sarg! Victory isn’t what matters. Give it your best!”
Then the saint — Margarite — seated right beside Chesa, jumped to her feet and called out her words of encouragement.
The girl immediately went pink with embarrassment at the attention her outburst had drawn, and she sat back down with careful delicacy.
Hyderlin stifled a grin.
“Hm. Sarg — it sounds like the holy saint doesn’t have particularly high hopes for you.”
Of course, the saint’s meaning had been perfectly clear — it was a friendly exhibition, so there was no need to feel any pressure; just enjoy it. Hyderlin understood this perfectly, and had deliberately twisted the interpretation to needle him.
Sarg’s perfectly shaped brow twitched. Hyderlin grinned to the corners of her mouth and needled him further.
“Well, it’s all right. The order has its dignity to consider, so I’ll take it easy on you. You are, after all, the knight chosen by the holy saint — it would be embarrassing to be thoroughly thrashed by a princess who hasn’t even been formally knighted.”
A spark flared in those grey eyes. The tendons on the back of the hand — still on the border between boy and man — stood out in white ridges.
Sarg stared at her, his voice tight with suppressed anger.
“I, the sword of God, Sarg Gloriosa — I swear I will present that silver cup to Margarite.”
Yes. That’s what I was waiting for. That competitive fire. Hyderlin bared her teeth in a grin.
The girl and the boy squared off to face each other.
Hyderlin stood lazily, her hand trailing loose and slack, while Sarg bowed his head briefly in the formal pre-duel salute.
The judge’s sword struck the ground.
In the same instant, a blade point drove straight toward Hyderlin’s shoulder.
The hairs along her forearms stood on end. She twisted her body instinctively and cleared the path.
A few strands of red hair drifted through the air and fell.
Hyderlin stared at the silver blade that had shorn them loose — and at the silver-haired boy whose hair was still settling from the motion.
The gazes of the girl and the boy crossed in midair.
Hyderlin could fight three grown knights with her eyes closed, and for opponents her own age, she could manage twice that many without effort. Countless people had struggled and fumed and failed to so much as graze her hem or touch a single hair on her head.
And yet.
She looked at the red strands lying on the ground.
Are those truly mine? That pale boy actually cut my hair?
There was no time to be astonished. More blows came, one after another. Every line of approach was clean and razor-sharp.
Hyderlin danced back on quick feet and thought.
He is not someone to be taken lightly.
When Hyderlin put distance between them, the boy said coolly:
“Have you had enough time to warm up?”
“How very gracious of the Knight of Radiance, giving me a moment to prepare.”
Hyderlin’s tongue was as easy and light as ever. But her eyes, unlike a moment before, were focused and earnest.
This was a rare opponent. She ought to face him seriously.
Something stirred in her chest — bright and restless, reaching.
She closed her hand around the darker-hilted of the two swords she carried at her hip. A birthday gift from her father the previous year.
She pulled it free with force, and a blade of beautiful rippled steel revealed itself beneath the autumn sun.
“Here I come!”
She pushed off the ground and launched herself forward. Her flashing blade cut and erased the space between them. The sword point bore down on the boy’s face in an instant.
Steel rang against steel.
Clang!
A note sharp enough to ring through the bones. The weight and vibration transmitted through the blade. The taut, even-matched impasse where one slip of force from either side would send the other tumbling.
How long had it been since she had felt this?
Hyderlin stared across the crossed blades at the boy on the other side, and felt herself shiver with something that was not quite cold and not quite fear. She smiled — wide, involuntarily, helplessly.
In that same instant she caught Sarg flinch, and pressed the advantage.
The attack she drove in was blocked at once and answered with a counter. They slashed and parried and clashed again, and with every collision, every muscle in her body was shouting.
More.
Senses dulled by long boredom were coming back to life.
More.
More of this.
She swung and blocked and dodged as if in a trance.
She saw nothing but the snowflake-pale blade.
The silver of his hair.
And grey eyes — the color of a clouded winter sky.
The blades sprang apart and clashed back together, tangling and breaking loose again. Every trajectory was extraordinary, every approach potentially lethal, which meant Hyderlin could not afford to release the tension even for a moment.
And that was what made her so terribly, unbearably glad.
“Stop!”
Hyderlin ignored the judge’s call and drove forward.
It was only when the judge physically stepped between them that she finally halted. She rounded on him furiously.
“How dare you! The match is not yet decided!”
The heat in her head had not cooled in the slightest. Steam seemed to rise from her. Her heart hammered at a wild pace, and every exhausted muscle hummed with pins and needles. She wanted more.
Clap… clap…
The sound of applause drifted from the gallery. Margarite — cheeks flushed a warm peach — had gotten to her feet and was clapping.
The small, delicate sound of her hands was soon overtaken by a louder pair. Chesa, seated beside the saint, had begun to clap with his large hands, and then rose to his feet as well.
When two people of such noble standing stood to applaud, no one else could very well remain seated. The entire gallery rose. The sparring match appeared to be over, dissolved by applause rather than by decision.
No — no, not yet — it can’t end like this—
Unlike Hyderlin, still burning with the heat of it, Sarg calmly sheathed his sword. Without a sword in his hand, there was no way to keep the match going.
Hyderlin had no choice but to stand down.
Next on the program was a series of matches between members of the Lotsa Royal Guard and the Kroitze Order. Hyderlin looked once at the arena and once at Sarg, who was already walking away. Then she went after him.
“Sir Gloriosa! Sir Sarg Gloriosa!”
Whether he had not heard her or was deliberately ignoring her, Sarg did not look back once.
“Hey! Sarg!”
Hyderlin bellowed and grabbed him by the hair.
Sarg — who had been growing his silver hair long, tied back over one shoulder — spun around at the feel of it seized in a fist. His face was contorted, and marble-pale, but his neck was flushed red with heat.
Oh. I may have miscalculated.
Hyderlin felt a private twinge of guilt and quietly released the fistful of hair.
But I called out so many times and he didn’t even turn around once — surely some of this is his fault.
Hyderlin, whose face had never known shame, brazened it out without missing a beat.
“Your hair is very nice. Is this what happens when you wash it in holy water?”
Sarg’s brow gave a sharp twitch. The white-faced boy stared at her with flat, cold eyes for a moment, then said shortly:
“Did you have some business with me?”
“Ah, yes. I wanted to apologize. I underestimated you earlier, and I’m sorry for it. You were genuinely excellent. It has been a very long time since I swung a sword and simply felt it. I enjoyed myself.”
“……”
“Let’s do this again sometime. Next time, we settle it properly. What do you say, Sarg?”
Sarg’s brow twitched again. He said coldly:
“Princess.”
“Yes?”
“I have not given you leave to use my name.”
Hyderlin pressed her lips together to hold back a smile.
“How particular. As you like. Sir Gloriosa.”
Sarg appeared to find even that displeasing. He gave a stiff reply.
“…Sarg will suffice.”
“All right then. Sarg.”
“……”
“Spar with me again.”
Sarg fixed her with a cool grey stare, as flat and unyielding as a winter sky. Hyderlin met it without backing down. It was Sarg who looked away first.
“I am presently in residence at the knight’s hall of the Kroitze Cathedral. If you wish to arrange a match, please send a letter there.”
He answered in a voice stripped of any inflection and turned to walk away. Hyderlin laughed and waved at his retreating back.
“Good! Just wait a little while!”
A few days later, Hyderlin did not send a letter. She went directly to the cathedral’s knight hall.
She charged at Sarg — who was looking at her as though he could not quite believe what he was seeing — with a wooden training sword in hand, and Sarg blocked her with the log he had been splitting.
Sarg despised Hyderlin, and yet he never once turned away from the provocations she walked up and offered to him directly.
Looking back on it now, he had been a boy of remarkably generous spirit.
