Chapter 58

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Valeri's party arrived in Helsenborg, the capital of Westlanding. There was a castle with a village around it, but it was not a directly governed domain encompassing a city.

Perhaps it could be called a larger, more prosperous version of Winslow. Broad fields, forests, and a river came together here.

"The earl? He's not here. Been a year? Two? Anyway, it's been a while. He's off courting that Valkyrie. Nobody'll complain if you make camp by the river," said a farmer leaning on his hoe.

Armed travelers, especially those in larger groups, needed permission to camp near a lord's castle. Yet apparently its master was away.

In Valeri's opinion, this was no way to run a domain. Even if there were no immediate problems, vermin such as bandit gangs would infest it in time.

Others kept quiet under normal circumstances, only to rear their heads when the opportunity arose. Trading companies, for instance, or organized gangs like the thieves' guild.

Unless kept in check, such groups would rot a community from within through usury and extorting fees for the right to do business.

Frankly, judging by what was happening in and around Benholm, things were already going to shit. Nothing could possibly run properly when the owner neglected what belonged to him.

Still, the area around the lord's castle seemed to retain some semblance of peace and order.

Valeri replenished their food and other necessities in the village, then found a campsite by the woods and river.

Though he wasn't supposed to, he went into the woods, felled a tree of suitable thickness, and chopped it into firewood.

Fleet-footed Yorik surveyed the surroundings like a scout, while Ivy lit a fire, set the pot over it, and prepared their meal.

Knut whittled bits of wood. Aside from assisting Valeri with assassinations or in battle, he generally did little more than play.

Their new companion Sigbold carried the heavy loads. The elderly priest, who was not his biological father but whom he served as one, helped Ivy prepare the meal.

Everyone had something to do.

Having finished chopping wood, Valeri returned to camp with his sleeves rolled up and the axe in hand. Stew bubbled in the pot.

When he settled down in a convenient spot, none other than the elderly priest brought him a wooden bowl of stew.

"My benefactor, if you don't mind my asking, where did you get that axe?"

Wiping his face with a towel, Valeri glanced back at the axe he had embedded nearby.

Nord-style carvings adorned the flat of its blade. Thorvald had given it to him, and he had been finding far more uses for it in daily life than in battle.

"A man named Thorvald gave it to me."

"Thorvald? You mean Thorvald of the Elding clan?"

"Yes."

"How do you know that boy?"

"Boy? He hardly seemed like a boy to me. I once served as a patrol officer in Eldeira, and I met him while making my rounds. Why do you ask?"

"I didn't mean to pry. I know him myself, you see."

The priest smiled gently as he spoke. Sigbold brought him some stew as well.

For a while, Valeri and the priest paused their conversation to blow on their stew and eat. Without spoons, they had to drink it and pick out the solid pieces with their fingers.

That was simply how things were. Noble or commoner, believer or unbeliever, everyone ate the same way.

As Valeri drank his stew, he caught a glimpse of a faded tattoo beneath the old priest's robes, near his collarbone. His long sleeves covered his hands, but there were tattoos on their backs as well.

Only a little was visible, yet they were unmistakably traditional Nord tattoos. The old kind, no longer practiced these days.

Among the Nords, tattoos were not something one could get simply on a whim. They inscribed a person's origins, status, proof of strength and courage, achievements, and victories in battle upon the body.

If he had tattoos from his collarbone to the backs of his hands, they probably covered his entire body.

Halfway through his stew, Valeri asked, "How do you know him, Father?"

"An old comrade, you might say? When I first met him, he was still running errands for his father, but he grew into a fine warrior. How is he these days?"

The elderly priest was about twenty years older than Thorvald. He was not merely old, but very old—roughly seventy or eighty.

Thus, during the War of Conquest, the priest before him had fought as a full combatant, whereas Thorvald, still a child, had been no more than an auxiliary.

"He's in excellent health. He works as a carpenter and has his granddaughter with him. He seemed quite happy with his life, and he's far more vigorous than most young people."

"Just like him. I'm glad to hear he's well. The last news I heard was that his clan had been exterminated, so I was very worried."

Even calling the War of Beasts horrific did not do it justice. The war itself had dragged on, and even after it ended, enemies had been relentlessly hunted down and purged.

The Elding clan had held out as long as it could through all of that, only to be all but wiped out.

"If you don't mind my asking, Father, what is your name?"

"Eirik."

"Could you be Eirik 'Red Axe'? Of the Dragonslayer Clan?"

Valeri had ventured the question based on his age, his membership in the Jomsvikings, his acquaintance with Thorvald, and his tattoos.

The priest merely gave a faint smile without answering. Valeri took that as confirmation.

Whether the story was true or not, the legendary warrior Eirik had earned the nickname Red Axe because the blood on his axe never had a chance to dry.

The Dragonslayer Clan had been a band of warriors led by Valeri's great-grandfather, the Dragonslayer. It was the precursor to the Jomsvikings and, of course, a legend in its own right.

In a world where people married young, had children young, and died young, someone of seventy or eighty really did belong to Valeri's great-grandfather's generation. In other words, he might have fought shoulder to shoulder with the Dragonslayer.

The old man studied Valeri closely. Almost embarrassingly so.

"You look so much like him. Unbelievably so."

"Like whom?"

"The most perfect human I ever knew. The human closest to a god. A man who bore his sorrow for the world alone, and yet had so many shortcomings precisely because he was human... That sort of man."

Perhaps because of his advanced age, the old priest sometimes had moments when his mind was not entirely clear. Looking at Valeri, he saw him overlap with someone he had once known, as though dreaming of days long past.

He remembered the commander he had once followed. Not his legendary deeds and might, nor his great and noble death, as the world knew them, but memories of a very human side of him.

At night, after they made camp and went to sleep, he would sometimes talk in his sleep in terrible anguish.

["Mother, I'm sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me..."]

The priest had said Valeri resembled him not only because of his features, but because he sensed a similar, indefinable sorrow beneath the surface.

Regin, and now this priest too—everyone seemed to think Sigurd and Valeri looked remarkably alike. Valeri assumed it was simply because they were ancestor and descendant.

The sunset shone on the camp, bidding farewell to the day. The wind that had blown all afternoon had softened, seeming to caress the travelers gently.

At some point, Yorik's cackling rang out. He must have played some sort of prank.

Looking over, Valeri saw Knut fuming, while a smile spread across the lips of the girl who had endured such tragedy—a sign that she was healing.

Valeri finished the rest of his stew and asked, "Father, what do you think happiness is?"

"Once, I too believed it was something a warrior ought to shun. Something only farmers, or women and children, sought. Not anymore. Happiness is embracing this painful life with all your heart. Not resenting the days when you were hurt, nor yearning for glorious memories, but simply living out the life you have left with equanimity. I believe happiness comes naturally when you accept that in its entirety."

"... The words are different from what Thorvald said, but somehow they feel similar."

"Do they? That boy must have healed from his many wounds as well."

"Were you the one who founded the Jomsvikings, Father?"

"I founded it with like-minded comrades."

"Was there a reason?"

"For the lost beasts. The king saved lives by killing, while my comrades and I built a refuge through faith."

During the War of Conquest, many Nord warriors had, in truth, been killers beyond redemption. Beasts of tremendous violence, so steeped in slaughter and plunder that they could not imagine any other life.

There was no denying that each had fought on the front lines and helped found the kingdom. Nevertheless, both the founding king Sigmund and the reigning king Helgi, Valeri's father, had spent a very long time killing them in the name of purges.

That was what the priest meant by saving lives through killing. A desperate effort to somehow make this thing called a kingdom work.

The Jomsvikings, by contrast, guided the beasts through faith and discipline. Through strict control, they restrained their violence and offered them a life in which they could achieve inner peace.

The king's methods and those of the Jomsvikings were polar opposites, but ultimately their purpose was the same.

"By the way, do you know where your enemy is? The traitor who stole the holy remains."

"I hear he's selling them. The holy remains. They say the Valkyrie staying in Nearcaster is seeking the world's treasures. I suspect it may have something to do with that."

"What will you do if the Valkyrie has already received the remains as a gift?"

"Politely ask her to return them."

"And if she won't?"

"That would be regrettable."

"What about the traitor?"

"We have our rules. He will not escape punishment."

"Hmm..."

They would be taking the same road as far as Nearcaster. Valeri wanted to help them along the way if he could, and he felt he would be quite disappointed if they had to part without accomplishing anything.

He had ample personal justification. The buying and selling of his own great-grandfather's skull was hardly pleasant. Who could object to a descendant reclaiming it?

Still, at the end of the day, it was only a skull. The difference between Valeri and the priest and Sigbold was whether they considered that skull sacred. To Valeri, a skull was simply a skull.

Valeri had no faith.

Valeri's party spent a day in Helsenborg and departed the following morning. They could reach Nearcaster in two days at the earliest, or three or four at the latest.

Traveling east along a paved road built in ancient times, they finally reached the boundary of the earldom of Westlanding.

There was a village here too, and as Valeri surveyed it from horseback, he found the people's faces gloomy, just as he had expected.

It did not seem as though anyone was coming in and killing people indiscriminately, as in Benholm, but the villagers generally looked drained.

It was nearly evening, and rain seemed likely, so Valeri decided to spend the night here.

He asked whether there were any vacant houses. If it rained, staying indoors would be far better than sleeping outside.

"There's an empty house. It's a bit of a mess, but once it's tidied up, it'll be plenty big enough for six."

Valeri agreed and tried to pay, but the villager refused.

"Could you give us food instead of money?"

"The harvest can't have been long ago. What's happened?"

"... It's the usury. They suddenly raised the interest rate."

"Who did?"

"The Aria Trading Company..."

Usury was bad enough, but changing the interest rate midway through a loan was truly despicable.

Valeri decided that, as an Einheri, he ought to deal with something like this. Just as a territorial patrol officer oversaw affairs within a domain, an Einheri was both the king's guard and a patrol officer for the entire kingdom.

Authority to act independently. Immunity. What good were those powers if he never used them? Whether he had to threaten them with his sword or resort to something else, he would burn every document related to their illegal usury.

Valeri could not understand why people did this shit. Unless they were in desperate need of something right away, squeezing people dry was bad even for themselves in the long run.

For now, he would rest today and deal with it tomorrow.

Since Nearcaster was not far away, he kept only two days' worth of provisions and distributed everything else among the villagers: cheese, smoked meat, grain flour, and the like.

Then they borrowed the vacant house, parked the wagon beside it, and let the horses rest.

"You did well," said the priest.

Valeri hadn't done it for praise, but he simply nodded.

The party intended to rest in the vacant house for the night and leave the following day. They lit a fire in the hearth and settled down to sleep. At some point, they heard water beating against the roof. The rain had come.

When they woke the next morning, there was no sound of rain. Fortunately, it seemed to have stopped during the night.

Valeri dressed and strapped his sword to his waist. Then he left the house to investigate the usury.

Outside, the overcast sky still left the world dark, but he saw people gathered in one place, murmuring among themselves.

Wondering what was happening, he went over. Someone stood atop a low hill.

On closer inspection, the man was not simply standing there. He had split a person in half lengthwise and hung the halves on either side of himself, taking his place between them.

He stood with his feet slightly apart, both hands clasped in front of his groin, and his head bowed.

Just then, the clouds parted slightly, and sunlight streamed in from the distant east. It was the morning after a rain, and dew covered the world. Those countless droplets glittered in the light.

It was a majestic, solemn, and cruel sight. The man at the center of that staged tableau slowly raised his head. All its charisma seemed to converge upon him.

"The Aria Trading Company brazenly murdered one of our own at the Lokir Trading Company and exploited you through usury. As a human being, I could not help but feel anger and anguish. I have stepped forward and killed this rotten man. If you believe I have committed an unlawful killing, let any one of you cast a stone at me."

His words were more than mere speech. They sounded like a passage lifted straight from sacred scripture.

The villagers could not help but marvel. The carefully balanced spectacle of grandeur and terror even moved them deeply. As though witnessing a scene from myth, they stared at the man with wide, spellbound eyes.

He was none other than Lucas, the de facto head of the Lokir Trading Company.

Just as he had intended, he had succeeded in impressing upon everyone exactly what happened to those who crossed the Lokir Trading Company, and exactly what sort of man he was.

His prediction that the true culprit would be terrified upon seeing it, however, had missed the mark.

For Valeri, unlike the ordinary onlookers, felt not the slightest admiration at the sight, much less fear.

All he could think was that the preparations must have begun before dawn, and was it really necessary to go this far?

Choosing the location, sawing a person in half, hanging the halves on either side, standing in the middle at just the right moment.

In some respects, Lucas resembled Valeri in his meticulousness and boldness. When it came to Valeri's preference for simplicity, however, they were nothing alike.

After all, Valeri had lined those thug mercenaries up in two columns and killed them all in one go.

And so his first impression of Lucas was: a bit of a poser.