Chapter 3. Beauty (2)
It was at that moment. Suddenly, Ronen stopped walking and began staring intently at something. The Grand Duke, feeling puzzled, also turned his head to follow his gaze.
There stood a familiar man. The tall figure standing with the brilliant dawn sky at his back seemed unable to welcome the morning alone, possessing jet-black hair. In contrast, his vivid blue eyes were clearly looking in their direction, but no eye contact occurred with the Grand Duke.
This was because his unwavering, straight gaze was directed not at the Grand Duke, but forward—toward Ronen. Though his face was calm, the Grand Duke could not fail to recognize the tenacious look in his eyes, as if he wouldn’t miss even a single moment. The Grand Duke’s jaw tightened noticeably.
“Why is that fellow here…”
“Well? Who do we have here? Isn’t that Sir Eckart? And behind him… hmm, Sir Ardwino.”
Before the Grand Duke could finish his sentence, Hakan’s bright but somewhat awkward greeting interrupted. At his greeting, Eckart and Ardwino walked toward where they were. When they had drawn close enough, Eckart bowed his head lightly while Ardwino offered a meaningful remark.
“This is the first time we’ve met since that day.”
“Ahem… Is that so?”
“Yes. I had the feeling that you were somehow avoiding me.”
“Me? No, what are you talking about? Why would I avoid you? Not at all.”
“…Is that so? Then I’m relieved.”
For some reason, Hakan seemed to have lost his characteristic cheekiness and composure, appearing at a loss. Meanwhile, Ardwino was greeting the Grand Duke and Ronen with his usual unchanged expression.
Somehow, the two groups ended up joining together for a walk. Ronen still walked ahead, followed by the Grand Duke and Eckart, while Ardwino and Hakan matched their pace in an uncharacteristically awkward atmosphere. It would have been strange for Hakan, who always claimed Ardwino was his type and followed him around, to act this way, but no one paid attention to it. Everyone was too absorbed in their own thoughts.
Ronen found it difficult to enjoy his walk as comfortably as before. It had been so long since he’d been outside that he couldn’t even remember when, so he had opened all his senses to feel everything in the world, but they all seemed to converge behind him, making him conscious only of Eckart.
‘…He trimmed his hair.’
The black hair that had been long enough to cover the back of his neck disheveled when he first returned from the battlefield had been cut much shorter, revealing more than half of his neat forehead. This made Eckart’s ascetic atmosphere even more pronounced.
He wanted to look more closely, but he was conscious of the Grand Duke’s gaze. So as he forced himself to keep his head facing forward instead of turning around, his other senses were picking up on every detail—the sound of Eckart walking, the rustling of his clothes, even the slightest movements.
The world narrowed and narrowed further, until it almost felt as if only Ronen and Eckart were walking this path.
That strange sensation was broken when the Grand Duke spoke.
“How leisurely you must be. To have time for walks like this.”
He spoke casually, almost throwing the words out while keeping his gaze on Ronen. Eckart also responded quietly while looking straight ahead.
“Because the war has ended.”
“Ah, that’s right. Peace has no need for heroes. Rather, aren’t they fearsome beings? War heroes, that is.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Knights who have lost their purpose are dangerous beings. Do you think a sword that has once tasted blood will endure its hunger? It won’t just quietly rust away.”
The Grand Duke pointed with his hand as if he had discovered something.
“Like those over there.”
At the tip of his finger were two knights harassing a young girl, surrounding her.
“Those ones seem to have turned to lust. Isn’t that right?”
The Grand Duke’s words didn’t reach Eckart. As soon as he spotted them, he headed toward the commotion without delay. Unaware of this, the two knights were still absorbed in harassing the girl.
“Wouldn’t yours be much better than some beast’s milk?”
“If we bottled and sold the milk squeezed from your breasts, customers would probably line up to buy it. I’d be among them too.”
“Of course. Or how about letting us suck directly… Aaah!”
The knight’s lewd voice turned into a scream of pain in an instant. Eckart had approached silently, grabbed the arm of the knight reaching for the girl, twisted it behind his back, and pulled him away. The other knight, startled by the sudden attack, was about to draw his sword with a somewhat frightened face.
“If you draw that, I’ll take it as a duel challenge.”
Ardwino was suddenly standing beside him. The scabbard he held was touching the knight’s throat, and the knight swallowed hard before slowly releasing his grip on his sword.
Once the two knights were immobilized, the girl quickly gathered the milk bottles that had fallen to the ground and ran away. Before fleeing, she didn’t forget to bow tearfully to Eckart and Ardwino with eyes full of shame.
“Now I see—these are the same ones who caused a disturbance harassing innocent women before. To make a habit of harassing weak women—do you truly know no shame?”
“Let go of me! Mind your own business and go on your way!”
“So Holy Knights can use violence on anyone at will? Did God teach you to do so?”
The captured knights reeked of alcohol. Whether they had been drinking since early morning or were still soaked in liquor from the previous night was unclear, but one thing was certain—they weren’t in their right minds. That’s why they dared to cause such a disturbance without knowing their place.
“The Lord says there shall be woe to the wicked, for the reward of their hands shall be given them. (*Isaiah 3:11) You torment the weak without suspecting you might suffer the same fate.”
At Eckart’s words, the knights grew angry but couldn’t find words to retort. They could feel in their very bones how infinitely weak they were compared to these two. One of the knights glared at Eckart, then spoke with a sneering face as if something had suddenly occurred to him.
“Ah. I thought I’d seen you somewhere—who do we have here? Isn’t this the Commander-in-Chief? This isn’t a battlefield, yet you still can’t break free from playing commander? Everyone bowed and scraped ‘Commander this, Commander that’ on the battlefield, so your shoulders must have stiffened, but it’s not like that now, is it?”
“Ah! He was a commander? No wonder he looked familiar. I thought so then too, but seeing him up close like this raises even more questions. How did such a young brat become Commander-in-Chief? Isn’t that position too much for his abilities?”
Ardwino could only let out a laugh of disbelief. He could generously understand common soldiers causing trouble by flaunting their now-meaningless knight order membership, but these were just mercenaries masquerading as knights… And now, having lost their jobs and reduced to being hired for pocket change when merchants needed to cross territories, they were questioning Eckart’s abilities.
They truly feared nothing—now they didn’t even seem to value their own lives. To speak such insolence and act so brazenly toward the head of a knight order under the Papal Court. Weren’t they afraid? Even he, who had grown accustomed to Eckart’s serious expression, often felt his heart grow cold.
“Captain, it seems these fellows were lucky enough to briefly serve as common foot soldiers before quickly returning. If they had seen you fight even once, they wouldn’t dare spout such nonsense.”
“What? Nonsense?”
“These bastards—I’ve been watching and watching! Don’t act cowardly from behind—let’s settle this properly! Draw your sword!”
“That’s right!”
Now they were even challenging them to duels. One knight managed to squirm free and remove his glove, throwing it in front of Ardwino. He had clearly seen this done somewhere before.
Hakan, who had been watching them, looked at Ardwino with surprised and anxious eyes. The knight who had issued the duel challenge had a very fierce face and bore sword scars in various places. He looked like someone who had experienced every kind of battle. In comparison, Ardwino had almost no scars, looked delicate, and was even thin. Of course, Hakan knew he was a knight who had fought through a long war, but he couldn’t help feeling worried.
Unlike the worried Hakan, Grand Duke Canis muttered with a disgusted expression.
“No honor, not even a shred of conviction. For such street thugs to be called knights—it’s only a matter of time before all other knights are dragged down to wallow in the same filth.”
Grand Duke Canis paused as if lost in thought, then added with a sneer.
“No, they’re probably already rolling in the muck at the same level as these fellows. Judging by how that stench has flowed even into the Papal Court.”
As if there was nothing more to see, the Grand Duke turned away. He took Ronen, who had been standing beside him also watching with anxious eyes, toward where the carriage was located. When Ronen tried to glance back, the Grand Duke roughly grabbed his arm to stop him.
“We’re going back.”
At this, Ronen did clench his fists imperceptibly, but he obediently followed the Grand Duke. With each step, the heavy, cold shackles clinked, reminding him of his situation.
Pleased with Ronen’s compliant reaction, the Grand Duke’s expression softened somewhat as he continued speaking in a still contemptuous voice.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
