Chapter 48 - Stalker vs. Stalker (3)

“Oh my, Miss Einarsdottir. I see you have a new violin?”

“Ah! Yes...”

“Goodness! Isn't that from the Frauschlitz line?! Something this expensive... Wait, wasn't your last violin one too?”

“Yes... M-my uncle bought it for me.”

“I'm so jealous!”

Those eyes held more envy than admiration, and more contempt than envy. It was a familiar, dispiriting look to Esidisi.

They acted as though they had forgotten how she had stood up to the Knight Department freshmen, even sacrificing Fiddle III in the process. This was how Esidisi was always treated in the Orchestral Music Department.

Perhaps it was only natural. Droan was a major power among the United Kingdoms, but it had not earned that position through culture and the arts. Uncivilized barbarians with nothing but brute strength. That was the extent of the country's reputation.

And here she was, enrolled in the Orchestral Music Department with no particularly remarkable talent. Yet she always carried the finest instruments, and frequently broke even those. She was no great conversationalist, either, and the strange man she called “Uncle” had enrolled as a freshman and constantly came to visit her.

Esidisi had always been a beloved girl. Her father was a king, after all, and one of the handful of mightiest warriors not merely in his own country but on the entire continent. For a girl like her, this environment was far too cruel.

“Ooh... Mm... Hic...”

When it was time for the next class, she shut herself away in the empty ensemble room and sniffled. No one had told her that the class had moved to another building, leaving her trembling and sobbing all alone.

Holding Fiddle, she drew the bow a few times before her hand fell limply to her side.

“Daddy... Uncle...”

She clutched Fiddle as she fought back tears, then placed it in its case with trembling hands and lifted it.

This was a moment when she wanted to give up. In truth, every moment had been like this. Every moment she had held an instrument and sung.

To the people of Droan, the violin was an unfamiliar foreign instrument. A proper one was absurdly expensive, and for all that, it was a fragile thing that broke easily.

Droan was a dry place. Even brief exposure to the wind outside would warp the fingerboard and body, ending its life as an instrument. Daily tuning made no difference. String instruments were, by their very nature, luxuries requiring the delicate care of an experienced hand.

The Huscarls thought the king's daughter was indulging in extravagance, and the teachers they had gone to such trouble to find were ignorant folk, no more than wandering minstrels. So she had spent a long time teaching herself from sheet music she had barely managed to obtain.

How overjoyed she had been when she finally gained admission to the Orchestral Music Department at St. Jansk University, whose College of Music was renowned throughout the world.

“... Sniff.”

Esidisi gently stroked the case slung over her shoulder.

All her life, at every turn, she had wanted to give up. She had thought it might not be so bad to let everything go and live quietly as a princess. But to live as a king's daughter meant being preserved in stillness and put on display as an expensive commodity.

Weaving to raise her value, singing to sweeten her voice, occasionally practicing martial arts. All to marry the warrior best suited to carrying on the royal bloodline. That would have been her destiny.

She did not want to live that way. She wanted to learn an instrument. She wanted to study music. The violin, in particular.

It had begun ten years ago, with a conversation beside a campfire. With a story told by a man whose face she could now barely remember.

* * *

Einar was a logical man. Granted, his was Droan's logic, but he was nevertheless an excellent father capable of rational thought. Therefore, he took his wife and all his children to war. There were several reasons for this.

First, any child of his ought to experience the air of a battlefield firsthand.

Second, Droan's Jarls could not be trusted.

The latter reason mattered more. Einar was a great warrior, already without equal in Droan even then. If he survived the war and returned home, there was every chance that one of the Jarls would take his wife and children hostage.

And so Esidisi knew war. She also knew the Hero's Party as they had been in those days.

She remembered the retreating backs of heroes who always returned wounded. They came back with shattered limbs, sometimes missing one, sometimes crushed. They wiped away the blood, wrapped their wounds in bandages, and sat exhausted by the campfire, sharing drinks.

And so, back then, she had asked a question of the man on the party's fringes who always suffered the worst injuries.

[“Why don't you run away, Uncle?”]

[“Hm?”]

He was ten or fifteen years younger than her father, though still at least ten years older than she was. Apart from the Saint, he was the youngest of the people in this party, so Esidisi often struck up conversations with the taciturn man.

He gazed at the campfire for a moment, then answered with a faint smile.

[“Where would I go if I ran? The world is turning into hell.”]

[“But that's still better than going off to fight. Going somewhere you could die at any moment, every day, every single time.”]

[“This isn't a subject you need an early education in.”]

He sometimes used terms she could not understand. She thought that was rather wonderful, and secretly admired him for it. Children, after all, tend to think difficult words are impressive.

[“Esidisi. There's a reason your father and I take up our axes. Why Maximilien and Gilles Vert take up their swords, why the Saint does whatever she can to keep us alive, and why Enrique risks her life sneaking behind enemy lines. Just one reason.”]

[“What is it?”]

[“Because we hope we'll be the last.”]

He examined his axe blade in the firelight. Its edge was dangerously chipped, on the verge of breaking.

[“Living with a weapon in hand, having to kill an enemy's tomorrow to survive another day yourself. We want that life to end with us. We want you and your younger siblings, all the children who will come after us, and their children too, to hold plows instead of weapons.”]

The war could not be allowed to drag on any longer. The United Kingdoms could not endure further war and remain intact. No war should last beyond a generation. Even victory after that would not be victory in any true sense.

Their generation was the final line beyond which people could no longer have lives, and nations could no longer function as nations. With that meaning behind his words, the man quietly set down his axe.

[“So don't grow up to be like your father.”]

[“Well... Um. What should I do, then? I'm, uh... I'm good with an axe!”]

[“I know. Give you a little more time to grow, and you'll be quite something. But if you can, try taking up something other than an axe.”]

[“I'm not very good at sewing...”]

[“It doesn't have to be sewing. Hmm.”]

He looked at Esidisi helplessly. He was not good with words, and had little confidence in his ability to explain things at this little girl's level. After stroking his chin for a moment, he spoke.

[“If you must take up something, an instrument would be better.”]

[“An instrument?”]

[“Weapons kill people, but instruments give them life.”]

Across borders, cultures, and languages, fine music alone could serve as a bridge between people. If an age of peace arrived, instruments would be among the things needed most.

Esidisi stared at him in a daze. Ash-gray hair, eyes of piercing blue, their clean lines as he quietly watched the campfire. The little girl admired this steadfast man.

[“What instrument do you like best, Uncle?”]

[“I'm not sure. I don't know much about the instruments in this world.”]

Looking at a loss, he stroked his chin. It was a habit of his whenever he was deep in thought.

Ah, but he thought there had been one instrument in common. He tilted his head, considering it. Having spent ten years slogging through battlefields since his days as a conscript, he had not had much exposure to musical instruments...

Probably the instrument he had seen at a victory banquet hosted by his Great King. He remembered that it existed in this world too, under the same name.

[“Was it the violin...?”]

[“The violin?”]

[“Mm.”]

Esidisi repeated the name over and over, committing it to memory.

Ten years had passed since then. In that time, she had gone from the daughter of a great warrior to the daughter of a great ruler.

A world had arrived in which the Great King no longer needed axes to rule his kingdom. It was an age that called for eloquence rather than axes, written treaties rather than eloquence, and gold. Just as Uncle had said, a world that no longer needed weapons had come.

Esidisi took up the violin. Resolutely, despite her parents' worries and her other uncles' criticism. She pressed the fingerboard until her fingers blistered and drew the bow until her wrist gave out. She did it with the resolve to visit, someday, the uncle who had ultimately fallen in the war, and leave him the most perfect requiem.

She had heard that his remains were buried in the national cemetery in Prizhenkaya, Krasilof. And Krasilof was home to the continent's most prestigious College of Music. Her enrollment at St. Jansk University was as good as destiny.

So she would not give up. Never, ever.

* * *

Esidisi wiped away every trace of her tears, stood, and left the Orchestral Music Department's main building. She had effectively skipped today's class without permission, but there was plenty of room to practice at home.

She would never give up.

“Instruments are a bridge between people...”

Never.

* * *

“Morde.”

“What?”

“You can stop coming now.”

“... What?”

Ivan spoke quietly as he surveyed the mountain of laundry Morde had finished off.

“The orphanage's financial losses have increased significantly during your time volunteering here.”

“... Urgh...!”

“Are you aware that doing laundry means cleaning fabric, not tearing it to shreds?”

“Urrgh...”

Morde bit his lip and avoided Ivan's gaze. But he had an argument of his own.

“I... I've never done laundry in my life!”

“Even someone who had never done laundry in his life should have been able to wash children's underwear after two months.”

“Grrgh...!”

Ignoring the wounded Morde, Ivan walked away.

He was abandoning his plan to keep the man here and use him to monitor the spies Droan would have sent. Now that he knew someone among those “spies sent by Droan” was after Esidisi's life, he had no reason to keep Morde occupied.

Morde was an idiot, but at least he genuinely cared for Esidisi. He was one of Great King Einar's trusted retainers.

For Esidisi's safety, Morde needed to return to his proper duties. He had not actually enrolled at the university to take classes in the Knight Department, after all. His role was to guard Esidisi.

'And if Morde stays by Esidisi's side, someone is bound to approach him.'

As long as Morde guarded her, Esidisi would be safe. Someone from Droan would attempt to contact him, if only to separate the two. Ivan planned to keep watch over Morde and, once he found such a person, follow the trail back to its source and eliminate it.

Ivan watched the middle-aged man leave the orphanage with a sorrowful expression for a long while, then turned away.