“I was so young back then.”
At the ripe age of — no, the late age of twenty-seven, Hyderlin murmured to herself.
A past more than ten years gone sparkled like sunlight rippling across the surface of water.
It had probably been exhausting for Sarg, but for Hyderlin, those had been genuinely good years. Every time she looked back on them, she could smile. And they were good years she would never be able to return to.
At some point, Hyderlin had put an end to that relationship with her own hands. She could still see those grey eyes, sharp with condemnation, burning clear in her memory.
“I have no respect to show someone who knows neither the honor of a knight nor the shame of a human being.”
The rain was still pouring outside. Hyderlin walked at an unhurried pace, taking in her surroundings. Familiar scenery was interspersed with buildings she didn’t recognize.
This was the outskirts of Nadirotsa, the capital city of Lotsa.
It was a place where impoverished commoners and people engaged in illicit work gathered to live — a world removed from anywhere the nobility might be found. But for Hyderlin Biche, the former Captain of the Royal Guard, these streets were well-known territory.
Where should one go to get a sense of a country’s current affairs?
Nowhere far. Sit in a neighborhood tavern long enough, listening to other people’s conversations, and you could usually pick up a useful thing or two. If that turned up nothing worthwhile, she could always try playing the wandering stranger and striking up conversation with anyone she pleased.
Hyderlin stepped into the tavern she had frequented in her living days.
The door opened to the sound of a dull little bell, and a wave of warmth rolled out to meet her. The owner, who had been sitting at the counter polishing a cup, gave her a sideways glance but offered no welcome.
Hyderlin ordered a beer and settled herself at the far end of the bar, hood still pulled low and dripping.
“This place hasn’t changed at all.”
The same unfriendly proprietor. The same musty smell rising from the wooden floorboards. The same pot on the hearth that had clearly been simmering since some indeterminate point in the distant past. The same shouting, cursing, and laughter. And the same collection of people dressed suspiciously enough to make Hyderlin — still wearing a soaked hood she hadn’t bothered to remove — look entirely unremarkable by comparison.
And then there was the man who was very, very drunk.
He was at a table in the corner. Judging by the mountain of empty bottles and cups stacked up around him, he might well have been there since the night before. The man’s upper body was slumped face-down on the table.
His hair, which hadn’t been cut in what appeared to be quite some time, had grown out like strands of seaweed and fell across his face and shoulders. Through the gaps, the face that barely showed was covered in a short, ashen stubble — the look of someone who hadn’t shaved in several weeks.
“Hm?”
Hyderlin, mid-sip, doubted her own eyes. Beneath all the grime and neglect, there was something uncannily familiar about the man’s face.
Could that possibly be Sarg?
The Sarg she knew was categorically not that kind of person. His jaw had always been as clean as carved marble, and his hair had always been neatly grown and tied back.
And above all, he absolutely never drank.
Hyderlin smiled faintly at the memory of all her failed attempts to get that upstanding man properly drunk.
Sarg voluntarily guzzling the devil’s drink — I couldn’t have imagined it.
And yet the face that appeared in fragments through the cloud of smoky silver-grey hair was far too familiar.
Hyderlin tapped the bar a couple of times to get the owner’s attention. The unfriendly proprietor glanced at her and shuffled over.
“What.”
“Is that man a regular here?”
Hyderlin’s voice was still hoarse and rough as scraped iron — a side effect, it seemed, of having her severed neck sewn back together. At least it meant she didn’t need to disguise her voice.
The owner looked briefly in the direction Hyderlin indicated.
“Don’t know.”
“How long has he been coming?”
“Don’t know.”
“Is there anything you do know?”
“You ordering more drinks or not?”
From between Hyderlin’s fingers, a ten-gallot coin materialized. As the owner reached for it, she curled her palm shut.
“Never mind the drink. Tell me about that man.”
“Upfront.”
Hyderlin flipped the coin. The owner caught it cleanly and tucked it into his apron.
“Been a regular for years, though I couldn’t tell you how many. Comes in at least five times a week. Owes a fair amount of credit, because of it.”
“Is he broke?”
“Seems like it. You could pay off his tab for him. That’d earn you some points with him, I’d wager.”
Hyderlin ignored the suggestion.
“What does he usually order?”
“Anything strong.”
“Give me the same, then.”
The owner held out his hand. Hyderlin paid well over the going rate and continued her questions.
“Does he come alone? Does he ever bring anyone?”
“Always alone.”
“His name?”
“Don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? He’s been a regular for years.”
“What do I gain from knowing a drunk’s name?”
“If you don’t know his name, what do you put in the credit ledger?”
“Trade secret.”
“Hell.”
“If you’re that interested, just ask him yourself.”
The owner turned away, with the air of a man who felt he’d more than delivered what he was paid for. Hyderlin watched the back of his half-bald head and admitted that the advice was sound.
She picked up her glass and made her way toward the man in the corner. She set it down on his table.
“Hey.”
The man slumped over the table didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid.
Has he drunk himself to sleep?
Hyderlin nudged his shoulder.
“Hey. Wake up.”
A slurred voice thudded out of the man’s mouth.
“Get lost.”
The voice was cracked and rough in the way of someone just woken from sleep, which made it difficult to be sure it was him.
“I thought we could talk.”
“Not interested.”
The man turned his head entirely in the other direction. A deliberate dismissal.
“I think you will be.”
Hyderlin drove her foot into the leg of the chair the man was sitting in. There was a crack, and the leg snapped clean off. The now-crippled chair tipped its occupant unceremoniously onto the floor. The man, who had made an unwilling acquaintance with the floorboards, groaned and opened his eyes.
Grey irises revealed themselves — the color of ash, holding not a trace of light.
The man shook his head and squinted up at Hyderlin, still in her hood.
“What’s your problem? You’ve been picking a fight since you sat down.”
Hyderlin answered in a perfectly earnest voice.
“A lonely woman out hunting for handsome men.”
“…What?”
“And you are a handsome man.”
The man looked at her as though she had lost her mind.
“Have your eyes gone crooked?”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t question my taste.”
Brazen as the answer was, the truth was that Hyderlin’s sense of beauty wasn’t particularly refined. She had a tendency to look at paintings and sculptures that others praised as magnificent and simply think, If you say so, and move on.
Which was perhaps why she could say, with complete composure, that the man who had clearly been buried inside a tavern for the better part of a month was handsome.
“Sleeping beauty of the tavern. Have a drink with me.”
The man’s ashen brow twitched. He stared at Hyderlin for a long moment, then gradually hauled himself off the floor. He picked up the broken chair and the severed leg and carried them, staggering, to the bar. He set them on top of the counter. The half-bald owner didn’t even look at the wreck of the chair.
“Twenty gallots.”
“Put it on her tab.”
The man turned and walked out of the tavern without so much as glancing back at Hyderlin.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going!”
Hyderlin went after him at a trot. She threw a shout toward the owner, who was hollering about payment.
“Credit!”
“You absolute little—!”
A string of colorful profanity followed her out the door, but Hyderlin, being the magnanimous soul she was, didn’t let it trouble her.
Outside, the rain was still coming down in heavy sheets.
The man walked unhurriedly through the downpour without pulling up a hood. His gait was unsteady and not particularly fast, so catching up wasn’t difficult.
“Hey. Walk with me a while.”
When Hyderlin fell into step beside him, the man appeared to mutter something under his breath. The general import seemed to be just my luck. Hyderlin, being the magnanimous soul she was, decided not to let that trouble her either.
“I don’t see what’s so difficult about one drink. Is it the money? Don’t worry about it. My treat.”
“Not interested.”
“What are you interested in, then?”
“You leaving.”
“That’s unfortunate. It seems you won’t be getting what you want.”
“……”
“Have a drink with me. I’ll pay.”
The man stopped abruptly.
They were in some narrow alley somewhere. It cut tight between two buildings, a bare clothesline swaying in the wind above them with nothing hanging on it.
Hyderlin noticed, suddenly, how dark it was. It was dark because the day had gone out, naturally — but it wasn’t only that.
A deep shadow had settled across the man’s face. Something bleak and desolate had taken up residence there.
“Go away. Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.”
The man’s words came out with a drunk’s imprecision, but the huskiness that had roughened his voice earlier had cleared. What remained was a voice so low it put an itch at the back of the neck, as cold as water drawn fresh from a deep well.
A timbre Hyderlin knew well.
“How do you know what I’m going to say?”
“Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever come at me wanting to buy me a drink for no apparent reason?”
“Oh my. You’re a popular one.”
“Can’t do it. Not interested. Find someone else.”
“Pardon?”
“Take your pick. That’s my answer to whatever questions and proposals you’ve prepared. Choose whichever one you like.”
“……”
“Now get lost.”
The man walked on. Still staggering as he went. Hyderlin murmured.
“Can’t do it?”
Would that have been his answer to Margarite’s request, too?
Can’t do it. Not interested. Find someone else.
Was that how he turned away everyone who came to him asking for help?
Can’t do it. Not interested. Find someone else.
Everyone else — perhaps. But not Sarg. Of all people, not him.
He was a different kind of person from Hyderlin.
He was a rare breed that had somehow survived to the present age without going extinct — the kind of man who actually read moral philosophy rather than using it as a doorstop.
A man loyal enough to lay down his life for the saint.
A man who, in any circumstances, did not lose his light — like a sword, yes, a sword that could not rust.
The weak and cowardly creature walking away from her was not the man Hyderlin had once quietly admired.
She fixed her gaze on his back.
It was a back on the verge of collapsing. Hunched. Sad.
As his shirt clung wet to his skin, the muscles and scars beneath it became vaguely visible. Some of those scars, Hyderlin recognized. Others, she didn’t.
Four years was apparently more than enough time for new scars to accumulate on a body — and for a person to change beyond recognition.
Why is it that nothing stays the same?
Why must everything erode, and discolor, and rust, and warp, and wear away?
How sad.
Hyderlin clenched her fist. She drew a breath and then hurled her voice at his back like something thrown.
“Can’t do it? What, are you broken?!”
The man, who had been walking along quite well up to that point, nearly stumbled. Whether his legs had given out from drink or the shout had genuinely shaken him, she couldn’t say. Either way, she was satisfied to have stopped him in his tracks.
The man turned and looked at her with an expression of complete disbelief.
“What kind of — what are you even talking about?”
“You said to pick an answer. So I picked one.”
The man snapped with sudden irritation.
“Pick a different one!”
“Not interested? Broken? Find someone else? Why — because you’re broken?”
Hyderlin beamed at him and deployed her signature shamelessness to its fullest effect.
“If you want to clear up the misunderstanding, have a drink with me. My treat.”
