Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Thanks to a flawless laundering of his identity, no one knew he had come from a back-alley fighting pit.

Viscount Calio might know, though.

“Well, then…… I’m not swaggering around just because I’m a baronet. I’ve had it drilled into my ears to be polite until it makes me sick. So I’ve decided to be polite only to my master. Just take me for an ill-mannered fellow.”

“……Are you from a fighting pit?”

The one who asked was not Michelle, sitting beside Hawk, but Heath, who sat far off on a broad rock, tending the blade of a large axe.

Why was it that, even though he held a wood-splitting axe rather than a battle axe, he looked like a bandit and not a woodcutter?

Hawk nodded, casually letting pass the startled gaze that Michelle stabbed into the side of his face.

“How did you know?”

The answer came from Michelle’s mouth, not Heath’s.

“That man’s disciple once said the very same thing you just did.”

Somehow her voice was dark.

Hawk, whose mood sank along with a memory that surfaced on its own, gave a bitter smile.

“Well, he did brag about it. That the pit instructors are picked only from the foul-tempered and the cruel-handed.”

There was no one from the pits who had never had a limb broken. Once dragged into the training room, a man had his limbs broken one by one before the training began.

Since they had to be worked as combat slaves, the instructors usually handled it so there would be no lasting trouble, but now and then there were instructors who could not master their tempers and left a man half crippled.

“I never expected to hear news of a fellow trainee in a place like this. What was the disciple’s name?”

“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t know it. That man took on that disciple more than ten years ago…… and he’s already dead.”

“Ah, is that so?”

Hawk scratched the back of his neck a few times.

“May he rest in peace.”

With those words, the air around them sank very heavily.

‘Somehow…… this isn’t the kind of mood one man’s death should make.’

Quick on the uptake as he was, Hawk knew what could and could not be said.

Of course, he was not the sort to fret over an awkward atmosphere, but these were people who had taken in and raised his master’s fiancé.

Rather than blurt out something wrong and spoil the mood further, Hawk opened his mouth wide and pretended to yawn noisily.

“I’m tired, so I’ll just……”

“Never mind that, tell us about the job. What exactly is the reason you have to rush to the Elpiers domain? And with such a big carriage, too.”

“Well……”

“It’s obvious. What other reason could a knight have for playing coachman and hauling a carriage along?”

That curt voice belonged to Bin, who lay on his blanket with his clasped hands neatly resting on his belly.

‘Wasn’t he asleep?’

As if he had read the question Hawk had raised inwardly, Bin stirred and sat up.

He looked at Hawk with bulging eyes, as if protesting that Hawk had woken him from his sleep. No, more than that, with the eyes of a man looking at some sworn enemy.

“You’re going to fetch Lady Jenis, aren’t you?”

It was nothing he needed to hide, so Hawk nodded.

“That’s right.”

“But here’s what I’m curious about. Is there any reason to fetch the lady in such a rush? And by sending a knight rather than a servant, no less?”

Bin looked Hawk up and down with eyes full of suspicion.

“Of course, it isn’t unheard of to send a knight to invite a guest. But in that case, they’d be mindful of onlookers and make the escort as formal as possible. A lone knight, hiring mercenaries as guides on top of that, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Oho……. You seem to know the workings of noble houses well?”

“Try rolling around as a mercenary for twenty years or so yourself. You’ll hear plenty of stories you’d rather not know. Anyway.”

It was apparently not a pleasant topic, for Bin asked again as if to change the subject.

“The job the baronet asked of us was guiding you to the Elpiers domain, wasn’t it? Which means that once we arrive in the Elpiers domain, our contract naturally dissolves.”

Hawk was not unaware that those words were a threat directed at him. Michelle, who was watching his reaction with a flustered face, added certainty to that thought.

“Hey, Bin.”

“Baronet or no baronet, if you do anything strange to Lady Jenis, I won’t leave you be. Understood?”

“You seem well acquainted with the count’s daughter?”

“It’s not just that we’re well acquainted……”

“Oh my, I think there’s a wild boar in that forest! Bin! Let’s go catch it! Tomorrow morning’s breakfast!”

Michelle leapt to her feet, hoisted Bin up onto her shoulder, and ran off into the forest.

“Put me down! You! Remember my words! If you try anything improper with our lady……!”

Earlier he had been dragged off by Heath, and now by Michelle as well. Watching Bin vanish once more in someone else’s grip, Hawk scratched the back of his head.

“…….”

A heavy silence settled over the small clearing where only Hawk and Heath remained.

‘This isn’t how it was supposed to go……’

He had wanted to dig up information about Count Elpiers, but when he came to his senses, he was alone with this taciturn man.

Pumping this man for information was probably impossible.

Hawk glanced at Heath, who tended his axe without a word, then thought, oh, whatever, and lay down.

‘These mercenaries seem to be on good terms with the count’s daughter, too. That’s unexpected.’

Count Elpiers was a mercenary by origin, so that was understandable.

But Jenis Elpiers had been born a count’s daughter. She was by no means of a station to socialize with lowly mercenaries.

‘Did Count Elpiers become the stepping stone? Looked at that way, the count and his sister must be close as well……’

In any case, one thing was certain.

If he told them “the reason we have to hurry this much,” they would dash to the Elpiers domain without even stopping to sleep like this.

‘Count Miles was targeting the count’s daughter from the start when he pressed for the debt to be paid. Their second son is a considerable scoundrel, so…… no one is willing to hand over their daughter.’

‘They aren’t thinking at all that Ray will pay off the debt. By now they have probably sent people to the domain. To drag the count’s daughter away by force.’

‘It seems there is still time, but…… if you should be late, storm straight into the Miles household. If you explain the situation to the mercenaries, they will probably help you.’

‘If you need it, use that. Feel free to abuse it as much as you like.’

‘I wonder if I’ll ever really have to use this……’

Hawk fiddled with the bag at his waist and let out a sigh.

Pretending not to notice the gaze that glanced down onto his cheek at the sound.

* * *

Thirty million Larks.

Count Miles’s eyes wavered like water as he looked down at the check.

“This check…… is it genuine?”

“If you cannot bring yourself to trust it, please go to the bank and confirm it.”

Leonard gave a small nod, his face brimming with confidence. That face already said it. The check was real.

But Count Miles could not bring himself to believe it.

Not three hundred thousand Larks, not three million Larks. The amount written on the check was thirty million Larks.

Thirty million Larks, no less.

Knowing full well the circumstances of the Elpiers family, he could not possibly believe that the golden seal of Jacqueline Bank stamped on the check was real.

In the end, he examined the check with a face half convinced and half doubtful, then called his aide.

“You called for me, my lord?”

“Take this check to Jacqueline Bank and confirm whether it is genuine.”

The aide who took the check also widened his eyes at the sum of thirty million Larks.

“Understood, my lord. I shall be back shortly.”

After the aide stepped outside, Count Miles looked at Leonard with a face in which suspicion still had not settled.

“I am sorry to doubt you, but please understand. It is simply too large a sum to accept readily.”

“I understand. I would have done the same.”

While the aide was at the bank, Leonard took a sip of the liquor Count Miles had offered.

Fortunately, here at Rultun Castle there was a branch of Jacqueline Bank. It would not take long for the aide to confirm the check’s authenticity and return.

“Would you care for another glass?”

“I must decline. I plan to return straight to my domain once this is done.”

“I see.”

Silence hovered for a while between Count Miles and Leonard.

This was the first time that silence had not felt uncomfortable or burdensome. Leonard looked down at the ice in his glass and sank into thought.

He had visited this place three or four times because of the debt. He had been served liquor then too, but he had never been able to bring the glass to his lips as comfortably as he did now.

Now that magical power had vanished from the world and mages had become exceedingly rare, ice in midsummer and flowers in midwinter had become expensive luxuries.

Jewels could be resold later, but flowers wilt and ice melts.

To Leonard, who had come bearing as interest money that could not buy a single piece of ice, there was no more elegant mockery than the liquor Count Miles had casually set before him.

Leonard had not even known it was mockery. And not only here, but in the social activities he had engaged in during the year since he became count, it was the same.

What had shamed Leonard was not the mockery itself, but the moments when he belatedly realized that it had been mockery.

“Have you finally found the late Countess’s inheritance?”

“Pardon?”

“Otherwise, there would be no way for you to bring thirty million Larks.”

Count Miles summoned an attendant with a light wave of his hand and told him to bring a fresh glass.

The glass holding ice that had not yet melted even halfway was taken away, and amber liquor was poured into a new glass of fresh ice.

Count Miles swirled the glass round and round so that the clinking of the ice could be heard, and gave a small “hm.”

“You may not know this, but the dowry the late Countess took with her upon her marriage was a great topic of conversation at the time. It was fifty million Larks, no less.”

Fifty million Larks, twenty years ago. Taking the rise in prices into account, it was worth one hundred million Larks today.

The only women who could bring that much as a dowry were the daughters of ducal houses or the princesses of the empire.

Or else, well, Marchioness Blair.