378 - Leonardo's Perspective: Tina's Sketch and a Suspicious Carriage
Aaron, who wanted to move his body the most but could not, vented his frustration into organizing information. He listened to all the reports coming in from multiple directions and compiled them into one. He sorted them into high importance, low importance, concerning items, and those requiring additional investigation, even arranging the order in which reports reached me. From the west-facing Adorutoru crest, which indicated that Tina seemed to have been kidnapped toward the western Empire, Aaron's mouth produced refined reports from the western direction.
"It is harvest season now, so most of the carriages heading to the Zugarie Empire are cargo wagons loaded with food. That country has always preferred taking from others rather than focusing on agriculture and increasing their own harvest."
Though he said taking, in peacetime it is just merchants buying food from other countries and selling it within the Empire. The only times they raise an army to come take are during years of great famine, and they had been docile for the past few years.
"We have doubled the number of checkpoints compared to the average year, and border interrogations have become stricter as well. It seems they are unloading all cargo from the carriages and even checking under the floors."
There was no change in the number of people entering and leaving the Zugarie Empire, and while food did occasionally turn up from under false bottoms, the reasons varied. Sometimes it was cargo that had not fit in the wagon bed but was still on the manifest, or attempts to evade customs duties. Merchants who dealt in human goods no longer hid their cargo these days. Since about twenty years ago, even in the Ivizia Kingdom, it had become legal under certain conditions, so there was no longer any need to hide and transport people.
Among those being transported as merchants or slaves, there were children, but apparently there was no child with Tina's build. The only thing we could do was relay her hair and eye color and have them search for a child of similar build, which was a little frustrating. If we could station knights who knew Tina's face at every checkpoint, even if she were forced into some disguise, there would be a chance of finding her. But few people at the Mehl Fortress on the border knew Tina's face. She should have encountered some Black Knights when she stayed in Wiyack Valley, but that was five years ago. There were almost no Black Knights at Mehl Fortress who knew what Tina looked like now. That left the Black Knights dispatched from Grenore Fortress as our main hope, but their numbers were limited. When Tina was first kidnapped, we did not even know which direction the culprit had fled, so we had deployed Black Knights from Grenore Fortress to the surrounding areas. Thanks to the crest engraved on the ring, we now knew the direction the culprit was likely heading, but the time lost before that was significant. Even if we recalled the Black Knights sent south and east, it was impossible to stop all the merchants departing for the Zugarie Empire.
"...Sending Tina's sketch to Lugmilama Fortress was a mistake."
Because one boat had gone missing, we initially focused our search efforts on the east, suspecting the Lugmilama area. In terms of having few Black Knights who knew Tina's face, Lugmilama Fortress was in the same situation. If anything, the Black Knights at Lugmilama Fortress who knew Tina's face were even fewer than those at Mehl Fortress, where some Black Knights who had met her when we first took her in at Wiyack Valley were stationed. That was why I had sent a messenger with Tina's sketch there, but now that I knew we should have focused on the west, it was a painful mistake. It was difficult to convey Tina's face to the Black Knights at Mehl Fortress.
"Should we make more sketches?"
"Without Tina herself, you cannot draw a sketch... We cannot draw one, Alfred-sama."
If there were no sketches, we could just make more. Alfred's words were certainly correct, but without Tina there as a model, no matter how skilled a painter we brought, it was impossible to depict Tina. I could not imagine an imaginary sketch of Tina would help in finding her.
"No, there is one person. Someone who can draw Christina's sketch. A man who used Christina as a model for her current appearance and painted and sold pictures of her in the capital. He should be able to draw at least a sketch even without Christina in front of him."
I had only heard about it, but apparently portraits of Tina were being bought and sold in the capital. Tina had found that unpleasant and apparently protested that they should at least get her permission and pay portrait rights usage fees, and there was a man who had come to get permission and paint her pictures openly. I had heard his name from Tina, but I had never met him in person.
Alfred, who had left with a pleasant smile saying he would have his supposedly deceased uncle work diligently for the country and for Tina, came back the next day carrying as many sketches of Tina as he could hold in both hands. Alf was in the same state, so Master Ran-something-or-other, currently detained at the Vice Commander's residence, had probably been drawing sketches all night. I might want to go thank him once.
...But still.
"They are drawn so well. This is such a Tina-like Tina. That is Tina as she is. It only looks like Tina. It is Tina. It is Tina. It is Tina, is it not? My little sister (Tina) is cute. The slightly sulky face on the thirty-sixth one is peak Tina. The eighth one with Tina looking up from below, this is it, the Tina in my field of vision was always like this. Ah, it is Tina."
"...If you miss Christina that much, do you want to keep one?"
Alfred was concerned after my repeated chants of Tina, Tina. It seemed I had gotten a little carried away seeing Tina after so long, even if just in a picture. These sketches were prepared for Tina's search, but he offered me the twelfth one, my favorite, saying I should tuck one away in my pocket. Though I was tempted to accept Alfred's offer, I gently returned the twelfth sketch to the pile.
"They are certainly well-drawn sketches, but what I want to retrieve is the real Tina. Tucking a sketch into my pocket would only get in the way of the search, would it not?"
It was a tempting offer, but I shot Alfred a light glare, telling him not to tempt me. If I did not keep a sketch in my pocket, that was one more sketch the Black Knights could take on the search. It should be used for Tina's search now, not secured in my pocket.
"...But once Christina is safely recovered, you are planning to collect all the sketches, are you not?"
"Of course. My little sister is cute. There is no way I could leave sketches of such a cute Tina scattered about."
I joked that suitors who had seen Tina's cute face would form a line. But that part about scattering any line of suitors no matter how long, that was not a joke, it was serious. I could not give Tina to a man weaker than me.
"Commander, Aaron-dono says he has a report he needs to inform you of urgently..."
Arnold, the orderly assigned to Aaron, called out, and I peeked into the nap room. Aaron, who had been compiling reports mainly from the west, gave instructions to Arnold, and Arnold pulled out the designated reports from the piles.
"Christina may have already crossed the border."
First, take a look at the report, I was told as I received the document from Arnold and lowered my eyes to it. There were three types of documents. The names and purposes of people entering and leaving by date, the goods taken out and their customs duties, and memoranda of carriage characteristics and notable persons.
"As I mentioned the other day, the main commodity that sells in the Empire this season is food. Of course, it is not only food... but there was a carriage carrying goods that left a bit of a question mark for merchandise being transported into the Empire."
Apparently, among the carriages that departed for the Empire, there was one carrying thirty board game boards. It was a bit unusual for someone going to do business in the Zugarie Empire, where food was of high importance, to carry game boards as merchandise. I would not say it was completely impossible, but there were many commoners in that country who struggled just to eat, and entertainment like board games was not very common. Even if brought in as merchandise, the number of buyers was limited. The reason Aaron had flagged this carriage's purchasing as suspicious was that the carriage's merchandise was board games only. If it were one item among many, they might have stocked game boards, but the fact that there was no purchase of other goods like food, and they were transporting only game boards into the Empire as merchandise, that was unnatural. Game boards might fetch a decent price given their scarcity, but the sales from thirty game boards were not worth crossing the border to purchase.
"A well-dressed master, a servant, and a driver. It is not impossible to write it off as a wealthy merchant's purchasing trip..."
"It does feel a bit too light for cross-border merchandise purchasing."
I shifted my eyes from the report listing the outgoing goods to the memorandum of merchants' names and physical characteristics created during their entries and exits. The master's appearance was blonde hair and green eyes, shades I had no recollection of, but the colors of the man listed as the servant were familiar. It could just be coincidence, but brown hair and purple eyes, that was the same as Jasper. The build also matched Jasper, but the hair length was different. Jasper wore his hair in a braid, but the servant in the report had short hair.
"It was a carriage with a false bottom... but they apparently checked under the floor."
In the end, nothing seemed to have come out of it, but the carriage had a false bottom mechanism that could be said to be characteristic of Empire-made carriages. The report stated that during the inspection process of unloading all the cargo, a nailed-shut space under the floor was discovered, they peeled off the lid-like floorboard, and checked underneath. There was also a record of the Black Knight pressing the issue about how it was strange for an empty false bottom to have nailed floorboards, and the carriage owner's response. According to the carriage owner, regarding the false bottom, it was a shameful bad habit of his country, and precisely because he thought so, he had nailed the floor as a statement that he himself would never use it.
In the end, even after checking the false bottom and the space under the seats, there was neither Tina nor any goods being hidden to evade taxes. This group had caught Aaron's nose as suspicious, but their application documents had no deficiencies, nothing came out of the carriage, and they had already crossed the border.
"It really seems... we should assume she has already been taken out of the country."
We had sent out messengers to set up checkpoints on the very day we noticed the anomaly, but it was strange that nothing had been caught so far. Regretful as it was, we should probably assume she had already been taken out of the country and think about the next move instead of keeping an eye on domestic territory forever.
"You are right. It is probably better to think about the whereabouts of the kidnapped Christina and how to retrieve her, rather than searching domestically anymore."
"I will go to Mehl Fortress once and hear things directly."
I had experience crossing borders as a child when I was transported as a slave. As for the carriage, I might notice something by seeing the real thing rather than just reading the report. That was my reasoning, but Alf sent a messenger to Mehl Fortress instead. I was also the master of Mehl Fortress, but apparently it was judged that me leaving Grenore Fortress now was not very advantageous.
"If you have noticed something, say it here. You are the master in charge of the knight order. Do not wander around lightly. I cannot let you run loose without your reins (Christina)."
"No, but..."
"You are in a position to use the Black Knights as your limbs, so use your limbs before your head moves. Use your limbs."
I muttered that I was the master of the fortress, but my words were beaten down by Alfred's declaration that he himself was a prince. More likely than not, Alfred had revealed his true status to hold my reins in case of emergency. Pressed on whether I had thought of something, I showed him by spreading my palm wide.
"If there is a gap as wide as the distance from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger, you can hide and transport a person. Whether it is a triple bottom instead of a false bottom, or preparing a space in the backrest rather than the seat cushion of the chair."
"A person in a gap this wide... No, Christina is a child. It is quite tight, but it is not impossible to hide her."
"To slave traders, slaves are not human, you know. Back in the day, they would pack them in as tightly as possible."
When I added what had come to mind, Alfred's face twisted for a moment. My past was a famous story, but Alfred probably had his own thoughts about a child being sold by his parents and made a slave. He briefly lowered his eyes and let out a breath, then immediately returned to his usual expression.
"Speaking of your past, there is one thing I wanted to confirm. ...You were almost sold into slavery by your parents, were you not?"
"Yeah. ...What, now? It is a famous story, is it not? It has even been made into a book."
As the story of an orphan who became a silver-white knight, my past had been turned into an entertaining rags-to-riches adventure tale. In the story, I married a princess and it ended with happily ever after, but that part was the author's creation. The marriage proposal from a princess was real, but it fell through splendidly, and I am still single to this day. Reality does not end with happily ever after like in a story.
"I had something I was a little curious about, so I was just confirming. ...Come to think of it, in the story version, you were kidnapped by a slave trader, were you not?"
"Is that so? Well, it is content for children, is it not? Maybe it was a consideration that it is better to have been kidnapped by a slave trader than to have a child sold by their parents?"
Since it took the form of a story, the model was me, but the protagonist of that story did not walk exactly the same path as me. There was the marriage to the princess, and the difference of being sold by parents versus kidnapped by a slave trader, and there was also the element of the best friend Fred actually being a prince, which caught readers off guard.
...No, Alf actually was a prince. Thinking about it now.
Somehow feeling a bit embarrassed, I had Bart put that story away in the archives so it would not enter Tina's field of vision, but once I safely got Tina back, maybe I would tell her about it. The story was a mixture of fact and embellishment, but there was a knight who rescued the young protagonist from the hands of kidnappers. Saromon was a White Knight, but in the story, he became a silver-white knight. There was a character modeled after Tina's father. Tina might be happy if she knew.
...Happy, or maybe surprised.
Imagining Tina frozen in confusion at the reaction, the corners of my mouth relaxed for the first time in a while. Laughing at the thought of Tina's bewildered face was proof I had really lost my touch.
...I want to get Tina back soon.
I earnestly wished for that.
Master Rannvald, surprisingly useful.
Will fix typos and errors at a later date.