Chapter 56

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Late that night, Benholm’s tavern was teeming, as always, with idle layabouts who fancied themselves swordsmen. Useless nuisances with neither skill nor courage, swaggering about with a cheap sword at their hip.

Anyone competent and trustworthy went to the outpost villages near Hod Forest. They had no reason to stay here. In other words, the people here were worthless dregs who could not even make proper thugs.

Oder, the self-proclaimed headman, tossed these dregs equally paltry scraps of work—like bones thrown to dogs with barely any meat left on them.

The reason he employed such low-quality men was simple: cost. Proper fixers, mercenaries, and elite troops were expensive.

Spend as little as possible, somehow bring in revenue, and pocket the profit. That was an unchanging principle of commerce, from the first human trade into the distant future.

The recent pillaging of the village had happened for the same reason. To save every coin he could, he had picked the more serviceable men from among the trash and ordered them to occupy it.

“Boss, did you hear? That northern duke croaked a while back.”

A thug sharing Oder’s table spoke up.

“And?”

“His own son killed him.”

“And? Get to the point.”

“Well, apparently a prince showed up and pardoned the son.”

“... Bullshit.”

“It’s true! A friend of mine in the Silverrich Company told me!”

“How would a loser like you have a friend in the Silverrich Company?”

“But it’s true...”

“Listen, you ignorant fool. Before a prince shows up, some noble house always gets wiped out. Nothing like that has happened, so what fucking prince are you talking about?”

“Surely there’s no rule that a house has to be wiped out...?”

“What would you know? This is boring. Drop it. A prince, my ass.”

“Anyway, boss, will you get promoted once you finish up here?”

“That’s the only reason I came to this fucking shithole. If they don’t promote me, I’ll have it out with them.”

It was all bluster. Unless he wanted to die, a man like Oder would never dare defy the Lokir Trading Company. Still, the talk of promotion was not entirely unfounded.

The company did assign people various tasks, then give important positions to those who performed exceptionally well.

Earn its recognition, and a mere employee could rise to management: a regional manager, a manager responsible for a particular commodity, or one overseeing guilds and skilled craftsmen. Within the company, that was effectively becoming nobility.

Naturally, tax-collection rights were not its main business, merely one of its many ventures. Dirty, dangerous work that caused endless trouble, and could turn a good profit or a poor one depending on how it was handled.

It was a sort of seasonal venture. Squeeze out a reasonable amount of money, sell off the collection rights, and be done with it.

“By the way, those men you sent out a little while ago. If they still haven’t got any money out of the farming village, I reckon they’re a lost cause.”

“They were only meant as a warning to begin with. I’ve made arrangements. Don’t worry.”

In truth, he had made no particular arrangements. Unless sending Valeri and his companions counted. To use the industry’s terminology, Oder was pretty much fucked.

He was doing his best to act unruffled, but things were not going well. He was bringing in some money by collecting debts and finding odd jobs, but that was pocket change.

The real money was in taxes. He needed to bring in roughly a fifth of this autumn’s oat harvest to make the venture pay.

“Of course. You’ll have it all in hand, boss. So, if you get promoted, where will they put you?”

“Who knows? Could be the docks at Nearcaster, or they might give me the cloth guild. Somewhere in a big city, I should think.”

“Then, heh heh, take me along, won’t you? I may not be educated, but you know I put my heart and soul into running errands. Leave the women to me. I’ll handpick the finest-looking girls and bring them to you, boss.”

The man fawning beside him was one of Benholm’s pimps. It was hard to imagine a decent man groveling so shamelessly, but Oder rather enjoyed it.

“Naturally. Even monasteries run brothels these days. Why shouldn’t we? A man with your talents ought to be playing in the big leagues, not wasting them in a place like this.”

“Right!? You think so too, boss!?”

“So, got anyone fresh tonight?”

“Who do you take me for? I’m the Lark of Benholm!”

What a lark had to do with anything was anyone’s guess, but that was what he called himself.

“Getting sleepy. Time I got going.”

Having discreetly made his desires known, Oder rose. He picked his way around the drunken men sleeping on the tavern floor and went outside.

The night was pitch-black. A cold wind blew.

He headed for the brothel with his pimp lackey. In fact, he had been enjoying this hospitality for the past several months without paying a thing.

By the faint moonlight, they skirted the marketplace and headed toward the graveyard. The brothel stood beside it.

At some point, however, the pimp walking and joking beside him fell silent. Oder heard something thud into the mud and turned. The man was sprawled facedown, asleep. Drunk, apparently.

“Heh, you fool. Sleep out here and your face’ll freeze crooked.”

He crouched, meaning to look after the man in his own way, only to find that the head that should have been there was missing. Blood was spurting from the severed neck.

Oder shook his head violently, wondering if the darkness was making him see things. Then an unfamiliar voice spoke beside him.

“Paying your respects to his soul? How long are you going to stare?”

A chill shot down Oder’s spine, and before he knew it, he had fallen backward into the mire.

Valeri was looking down at him as though he were both pathetic and contemptible. Oder’s pupils widened. He recognized him at once.

“Y-you...!”

“Why did you lie? It was bound to come out soon enough.”

“W-what?”

“Get a grip and answer properly, or you die too.”

“... Now, wait. I don’t think you know who I work for. Don’t do this.”

“The Lokir Trading Company, isn’t it?”

“You know?”

“I asked, and they told me everything.”

“You know, and you’re still doing this? What are you playing at?”

“Playing at? I asked why you lied. Thugs hadn’t occupied that farming village. Instead, the thugs you sent were busy pillaging a nearby village.”

“Does that really matter? Isn’t it better if you have a little less guilt to deal with? Wait, could it be? Did the company send you?”

When people were badly startled and flustered, their minds tended to race. But a racing mind did not necessarily arrive at the right answer.

More often, bits of information became hopelessly jumbled, producing irrational, unreasonable conclusions. Oder had decided that Valeri was some sort of inspector sent by the company.

Valeri inwardly marveled at the absurdity, but decided to play along.

“And what if they did?”

“The deadline—the deadline hasn’t passed yet. Surely it’s enough if I settle things before then? Please, don’t do this.”

“Isn’t that a rather tired excuse? Hmm. Then let’s do this. Where’s the deed to the tax-collection rights? You’re dismissed, effective immediately. The company will take the rights back. That’s your punishment.”

Oder breathed a sigh of relief. At least it seemed he was no longer about to die.

A close examination of Valeri’s words would have revealed plenty of holes, but Oder was in no state to spot them. He promptly took a parchment deed from inside his clothes and held it out.

The parchment had been folded four or five times. It stated that the earl transferred the right to collect taxes, specified how much the original purchaser would pay and what fraction of the collected amount was owed to the earl, and so forth.

At the bottom was a jumble of seals beside the signatures of those who had bought and sold it.

For a moment, Valeri wondered what this wretched scrap of paper could possibly be worth, for so many people to have died and suffered such tragedy over it. The injustice struck him.

He tucked the deed away inside his clothes and spoke.

“Sorry, but the company didn’t send me.”

“... What?”

“Unlike you, I don’t tell lies that gain me nothing. Farewell.”

Valeri drew his sword as he spoke. Its blade was polished like a mirror, gleaming darkly. Whether that gleam came from moonlight or starlight was impossible to tell.

“What!? Wait! Just wait! You can’t do this! Don’t you know how terrifying the company is? What are you doing? I don’t understand! Do you even know what you’re doing!? You tricked me!? You actually tricked me!? Can you handle the consequences!? This is Lokir! The great Lokir Trading Company! Did you think you could cross the Lokir Trading Company and get away with it?”

As a last resort, Oder chose threats. Despite all his squawking in the middle of the night, not a soul came out to look.

When Valeri merely looked down at him in silence, Oder felt one last glimmer of hope. Of course he couldn’t cross Lokir. Yes, that had to be it, he told himself over and over.

“Hah, hah, hah...”

Then light began to gather in Valeri’s eyes. Drawing on too much power could tire him out, so he raised it only moderately. His eyes shone as though stars had been set within them.

Oder’s mind began to go blank, and his heart pounded.

Valeri spoke.

“How dare a mere trading company presume to threaten a prince? Who is crossing whom? I promise you, if your company lays a hand on me, I will crush it.”

“...”

Oder was speechless. No, he could not think at all. He only felt as though he were dreaming.

An oddly irrelevant thought came to him: they called a prince’s eyes the stars of the dawn, and they truly did shine like stars.

Then the pimp’s earlier words flashed through his mind.

[“Well, apparently a prince showed up and pardoned the son.”]

That was his final thought, his final moment of awareness. Neither repentance nor regret.

The darkly gleaming blade flashed, and Oder’s head fell. His corpse slumped into the mud. With the pimp lying nearby, they seemed a fitting pair for the journey to the afterlife.

It had looked as though it would rain, but the clouds cleared, and several majestic shafts of dawn light pierced the vast fields like the spears of a god.

The men of the farming village were loading the wagon. There was food—smoked leg of lamb, smoked ham, and cheese—as well as tough canvas for tents, poles, iron stakes, shovels, pickaxes, and the like. They loaded sheepskins and wool too.

It was their repayment for what Valeri and his companions had done. In truth, considering the trouble the three had dealt with, even this was not enough.

Only the very wealthy or the nobility could afford to hire a skilled swordsman. It was beyond the means of country folk like these to begin with.

In addition, Valeri briskly wrote something on a piece of parchment: a deed transferring the right to collect taxes.

<This deed was acquired as spoils after the person responsible for the Lokir Trading Company’s false representations in a commission was executed. Transferred to the farming village in Westlanding. Vǫlsungar Valery Helgisson.>

“What is your name, headman?”

“Hedmund, sir...”

“Were you nobility?”

One could recognize a noble name on hearing it. Ivy, for example, meant a climbing vine, and names like that were mainly used by commoners.

Although Nords and Astrians had somewhat different naming customs, noble names generally carried meanings such as victor, valiant warrior, strong spear, or wise counselor.

Hedmund meant noble protector.

“I’m told we were nobles until my grandfather’s day. It means nothing now, though.”

“Hmm...”

Valeri added another line to the deed.

<Hedmund, headman of the farming village in Westlanding, acknowledges receipt.>

“Sign here.”

“What is this?”

“The deed to the tax-collection rights.”

“Pardon?”

Headman Hedmund stared at the deed in bewilderment. But he was illiterate and could not read it.

“I don’t know my letters.”

“Make a circle, an X, anything you like. Then this belongs to your village.”

“What happens then?”

“No more strange men coming to demand money. If anyone does, they’re bandits.”

“... You mean all this misery is over?”

“You could say that. But life is suffering, isn’t it? There will be other hardships. Find your way through them. Anyway, sign it quickly. I have to go.”

Valeri held out the pen and parchment again. With a trembling hand, the headman drew a crooked X where Valeri pointed.

Valeri blew on the ink to dry it, then folded the parchment and handed it to him.

The headman accepted it with an indescribable expression. When people were overwhelmed with emotion, their faces could look closer to sorrow than joy.

“Your name—what is your name?”

“Valeri.”

“I’ll tell my children, and have them tell theirs. We will remember you forever, I swear it. I can’t leave a written record, but I can do that. I’ll tell them that Valeri the hero saved this village.”

Valeri gave a faint chuckle and mounted Snow. Looking down at the headman, he said,

“You saved yourselves. How many people did you save by taking in those refugees? All I did was swing a sword a little. Live well.”

Valeri turned his horse and rode out of the village. Yorik was driving the wagon, but he was still inexperienced, so Knut stayed beside him.

The wagon, drawn by two horses, slowly left the village as well. Hooves clopped and wheels rumbled. Ivy rode among the baggage.

Valeri seemed to wait for his friends outside the village. Once they had the wagon moving reasonably well, he rode on alone again.

All the villagers came out to watch him leave. The young hero on the black horse grew smaller and smaller in the distance, yet they did not look away.

He was heading far away, toward a place where dawn light pressed through the clouds and billowed like curtains. Somehow, it seemed there might be heaven above those clouds.

Chapter 13 – A Prince’s Duty. End.