347 - Virup Fortress's Familiar Faces 2
Leonardo and Jean-Jacques's match ended, as might be expected, with Leonardo's overwhelming victory. Since I don't know what Jean-Jacques was like before, I can't really tell, but apparently Leonardo was reasonably satisfied with the degree of improvement. I couldn't hear the details from a distance, but after the match-ending salute, Leonardo said something to Jean-Jacques, and when that was done, Jean-Jacques sprawled out on the ground in a starfish shape. I thought maybe he'd just lost his tension, but the knight who'd been refereeing peered at Jean-Jacques, called people over, and began carrying him off, so he'd probably lost his tension and passed out. Back at the Grenore Fortress martial arts tournament, Alf had ended up in a similar state, if I recall.
"Welcome back, Leonyaldo Big Brother."
There was no way I could make him wipe his sweat with his jacket, so I smiled and offered him my congratulations. It would have been nice to have a towel, but we hadn't come to Virup Fortress for a match in the first place. There were some packed as luggage in the carriage, but retrieving them right now was impossible.
...Huh? But Leonyaldo-san, aren't you not sweating?
Leonardo returned to my vicinity, but he didn't seem to be sweating at all. Even looking at his forehead and the nape of his neck, there was no sweat trickling down.
...No, that's not it. He might be sweating, but it's evaporating immediately.
As Leonardo came closer, I felt the surrounding temperature rise with a hazy warmth. His body heat must have gone up during the match with Jean-Jacques, and the sweat was probably evaporating as soon as it came out. It wasn't exactly a pungent odor, but it did smell a bit sweaty.
...I don't want to be stuck with a sweaty-smelling Leonyaldo-san on the way back.
Thinking that, I decided to sic Aaron on fetching a towel from the carriage. Aaron normally kept quiet and stood by like a proper guard, but he seemed to have an itch about Leonardo's matches. He'd been watching the match with Jean-Jacques with a look that said he wanted to have a match with Leonardo too.
"Aaron, you can go have a match with Leonyaldo Big Brother if you like. Leonyaldo Big Brother, I'll go to the carriage and get a towel."
Saying that and leaving with only Giselle might have been a mistake. At Virup Fortress, there were also sons of nobles who would become White Knights in the future. And what had increased in the two years I'd been summoned to the capital were female knights meant to be assigned to me. Naturally, there were female White Knight apprentices training at Virup Fortress, and every time I walked down the hallway, I got greeted.
...Yeah, troublesome.
I wished they'd all come at once and get it over with, but probably due to the hierarchy of house rankings, there was an order among them for when to speak to me. Starting with the daughters of the Loyalty Peerage, then the Merit Peerage, then the Flower Peerage. The Flower Peerage daughter shot envious glances at Giselle, while the Loyalty Peerage one showed blatant contempt.
...Good thing Giselle was with me.
Their attitudes toward me, their future mistress, were all properly deferential, but toward Giselle, who was a future colleague and also Flower Peerage, there was no need to be deferential. With the Loyalty Peerage, that thinking was openly visible. Giselle made good bait for learning what those girls were really like.
...Well, girls who have no intention of coming to Grenore are hopeless.
When I subtly probed whether they'd be willing to come to Grenore, it was a bit amusing to see the young ladies who'd been trying to stretch out the conversation start saying their goodbyes. The Flower Peerage daughter did bite, saying it was an environment with a meritorious husband candidate (Leonardo) nearby, but compared to the capital there was no glamour, and she seemed troubled after all.
...Yeah. Probably won't increase.
For the time being, Giselle would be my only White Knight guard. Someone who couldn't get along with Giselle would be a problem, and if they had no intention of coming to Grenore, they wouldn't become my guard.
When I told a knight I met on the way to the carriage that I was going to get a towel, he said towels were available at the fortress and prepared one for me. I tried to take it and carry it myself, but he kindly offered to bring it. I thanked him and accepted his kindness, and when I returned to the plaza where the match had been held, the number of people lying on the ground had increased. Aaron was catching his breath by the wall, while Leonardo was facing off against the apprentices in the center of the plaza.
...Ah, this looks like it'll take a while.
With Leonardo's matches starting up again, I handed the damp towel to Aaron first. As I was distributing damp towels to the apprentices who'd apparently exhausted themselves from their matches with Leonardo, Leonardo came back after laying them all out and pouted. Apparently he'd wanted to look cool in front of his little sister. Unfortunately, that little sister had only watched the first match against Jean-Jacques.
After the matches, Leonardo cleaned himself in a prepared room and rested until nearly evening. Traveling through the desert is better when the sun is down than when it's up. While at Virup Fortress, retired knights and knight apprentices who were acquaintances of Leonardo kept coming to talk to him without end, so I wasn't sure he was getting much rest, but Leonardo seemed to be enjoying himself, so I suppose it was fine. It was a feeling I, with my merely average stamina, couldn't understand.
"Speaking of which, Lusio was at Virup Fortress..."
Come to think of it, I asked Leonardo about the sight of Lusio I'd seen in the plaza. He'd grown taller, so I couldn't say for certain it was Lusio, but he looked like Lusio to me. Why was Lusio, who was supposed to be aiming to become a scholar at Menhishumi Church, at Virup Fortress, which trained knights? When I asked Leonardo if he knew anything, Leonardo made an embarrassed-looking 'big brother' face. That face was supposed to be exclusively for me, his current little sister, so making that face about Lusio was cheating on his little sister. It annoyed me, so I pulled on his earlobe.
"...Black Knights earn better money than scholars."
At Leonardo's "ow ow" as he held his ear, my irritation quickly subsided. I was willing to share my brother with Mirshe, and though I'd have to meet them to know for sure, I could also share with Leonardo's blood-related siblings. But I didn't want to share with someone else's child. I was very narrow-minded and jealous. I didn't want Leonardo making that big brother face at Lusio, a child from somewhere else.
"Did Lusio need money more than becoming the scholar he wanted to be?"
"Well, it seems Lusio found someone (.) he wants to buy from me. He said he'd save up money no matter how many years it takes, so please don't sell to anyone else."
"Something he wants to buy from Leonyaldo Big Brother that he doesn't want sold to anyone else..."
Thinking about what Lusio would want that Leonardo owned, a certain image came to mind. Putting flowers in her hair at the Spring Flower Festival, worrying more than anyone when Teo disappeared... there had been behavior suggestive of it for a while now.
"Are you going to sell Mirshe-chan?"
"I told him I have no problem selling, but I'd only sell if the person being sold wanted to be sold."
It would take years just to become a Black Knight, and it would take time to save up enough to buy a person. He'd probably win her over in the meantime, Leonardo said. As a candidate for Mirshe's future husband, whom he was already keeping close to his heart, Leonardo had apparently been making that 'big brother' face.
"Tina, do you have a problem with Lusio buying Mirshe?"
"...Lusio is fine. He's always looked after Mirshe-chan."
Actually, I felt it was more accurate to say I was relieved knowing there was someone to welcome Mirshe. If that was the case, it wouldn't hurt for Mirshe to learn menial work from now on, so she could get by adequately as a commoner's bride.
"Lusio has a goal, so even if it takes time, he'll become a Black Knight."
"From the way you say that, is it difficult for Jean-Jacques?"
"Well, Jean-Jacques seems to intend to aim for Silver-White Knight now that he's been sent to Virup Fortress."
His raw skill had improved, but apparently he still fell a bit short to become a Silver-White Knight. In a match format, he'd be about evenly matched with Alfred. Evenly matched, but that was only in a match, and in practice, it seemed he couldn't match Alfred.
"Does Jean-Jacques have a chance of becoming a Silver-White Knight?"
"...Manners and courtesy are also important for a knight. Especially since Silver-White Knights work near royalty and nobles, so in that sense, it'll be difficult for Jean-Jacques."
Leonardo said that if his attitude toward me was only in private and came from the familiarity of knowing me since I was a little girl, that would be one thing, but if he acted the same way toward other ladies, he'd never become a Silver-White Knight. For me and Jean-Jacques, it was business as usual, but today Jean-Jacques had acted that way toward me when I greeted him as a lady. Looking back at that attitude after hearing he was aiming for Silver-White Knight, it was definitely a mark against him.
"What about in terms of ability?"
"That's difficult too. To become a Silver-White Knight, you need recommendations from all twelve knight commanders and approval from the Silver-White Knight commander and vice commander. I know Jean-Jacques, so I can judge him as 'about this level' including his personality, but I can't imagine other knight commanders writing recommendation letters including that personality."
"...But come to think of it, Leonyaldo Big Brother alone can give me four recommendation letters."
"That's right. So I gave Jean-Jacques some conditions to meet if he wants to aim for Silver."
Since getting Leonardo alone to approve would mean getting a third of the commanders' recommendations, I couldn't help feeling this was advantageous for Jean-Jacques. That thought lasted only a moment. At the condition Leonardo mentioned without any particular strain, even I, who wasn't a knight, could imagine how difficult it was.
"I told him to go take a win from any one of the twelve knight commanders. If he can do that, I'll write him my recommendation."
"...Jean-Jacques just lost to Leonyaldo Big Brother, but can he beat the other commanders?"
"He'd need to be able to do at least that. Silver-White Knights are also the royal guard, and Jean-Jacques was the third seat at Grenore. The first and second seats at Grenore Fortress are Silver-White Knights who've stayed on. Originally, Jean-Jacques could have been the master of a fortress."
"...I never even considered that possibility!"
But it was probably true, as Leonardo said. Being the third strongest at Grenore Fortress, with the ones above him being the Silver-White Knights Leonardo and Alf, meant Jean-Jacques was number one among the Black Knights. And precisely because he had that much ability, Jean-Jacques had probably been given various preferential treatment. He was given the Words Disease medicine that worked on early symptoms even back when there weren't enough doses, when he was well past the early stage. And despite bringing the disease into the city, even if by accident, he was given a mountain of punishments short of the death penalty and kept alive. The lenient treatment of Jean-Jacques was because of his recognized skill.
...I never in a million years would have thought that Jean-Jacques, who seemed like nothing but a small-time thug, was as strong as a commander-class knight.
The return journey from Virup Fortress went just as smoothly as the trip there. At the town on the border between the desert and plains, we swapped our camels (azukara) for horses, and at Monbrune town, we changed from covered wagons to horses. By the time we reached Monbrune, it felt like there wasn't much difference in distance between returning to the capital and going to Grenore, and I couldn't help thinking.
"...I want to go back to Grenore like this."
"We left Kalisa, Elke, and the others behind so we could travel light this time. We can't very well not return to the capital."
I'd only said it out loud because I felt an irresistible temptation, but Leonardo's dutiful reply made me pout.
"I know. I was just saying it."
We'd left Kalisa, Hermine, Elke, Petrona, and Kokumaro behind in the capital. The feeling that it would be fine to head to Grenore like this was welling up, but I obediently decided to return to the capital.
I had planned to quickly finish up the rest at Virup Fortress at the start and return to the capital, but when I wrote it, it turned into another chapter at Virup Fortress. Next is the capital.
Will fix typos and errors at a later date.