Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume Short Story-2 - Chapter 12

Barthold — Hidden Wrath

Description: A short story that takes place during the Ehrenfest purge in Part 5 Volume 1. Barthold, whose parents were both name-sworn to Georgine, was the only student who knew the full extent of what the adults were planning. How did he feel about Matthias reporting them, and what transpired when he gave his own name?

Author’s Note: This particular story was written as a sales bonus, so I wasn’t able to develop it as much as I wanted. I would have liked to write more about how Barthold interacted with Oswald after giving his name, and it hurt not being able to include his future machinations in Part 5 Volume 2.

Matthias’s self-report meant that we of the former Veronica faction had a far more unusual start to the Royal Academy than we’d expected. We had all gathered in a room when Cassandra, my little sister, immediately strode toward me. Her light-green hair, which marked us as siblings at a glance, swayed with each step she took.

“Brother! Oh, how horrible things have become! Are Mother and Father okay? They were close to Lady Georgine, were they not? And then there’s Tibertha in the playroom...”

I took Cassandra’s hands in mine and tried to calm her down. She looked tense, and fear swirled in her dark-green eyes. I, too, was worried about Tibertha, but easing my sister’s worries came first.

“We just need to pray she won’t get wrapped up in all this,” I said. “The children in the playroom should be spared without question. Matthias bargained for our lives, after all.”

“Indeed. I must express my thanks to him for going to such great lengths to ensure we were not deemed guilty by association...”

I nodded in response, though my anger toward Matthias raged beneath the surface. If his father, Giebe Gerlach, was getting arrested for his connection to Lady Georgine, then our parents would doubtless be charged with similar crimes.

“No matter what happens, Cassandra, I will make sure you are safe, at least. Just don’t lose your head and do anything that could put you at risk.”

“Thank you, Brother,” she replied with a smile. “Speaking with you has helped to ease my nerves. You are right that we must stay in control of ourselves. I must choose to believe in our parents.”

I smiled back at Cassandra and gave another nod.

She’s my sister. I need to protect her, at least.

“Welcome back, Lord Barthold,” my attendant Liewes said when I returned to my room. He handed me a sound-blocking magic tool. “Is something the matter? You seem quite dour.”

“Matthias betrayed us,” I said at once. “He revealed Lady Georgine’s visit and a portion of the winter plan as soon as the archduke candidates arrived.”

“He couldn’t have...!” Liewes exclaimed, understandably shocked. Giebe Gerlach had stood at the very center of Lady Georgine’s plan to acquire Ehrenfest’s foundation; he must never have expected his own son to betray his house.

“He could and did. I’m in awe that he managed to hide his intentions from that paranoid father of his. Suppose I should expect nothing less from Uncle’s spawn.”

I couldn’t contain the anger bubbling up inside of me. The house Lady Georgine favored above all others belonged to Giebe Gerlach, to whom I was related on my mother’s side. Matthias had apparently been allowed to greet Lady Georgine at the end of summer, owing to a combination of several reasons: he was the youngest son, he had achieved excellent grades, almost everyone else in his family had given their name to her, and he had sworn to give his own name upon coming of age.

Though I’d envied my cousin for the great opportunity he’d received, I’d also been immensely proud of him. I’d seen him as something of a role model and striven to use Lady Georgine’s mana compression method to increase my mana and become an honor student as he had.

That bastard...

“Matthias learned Lady Georgine’s compression method and even swore to give her his name,” I grumbled. “How dare he leak our plans to the archducal family and then play the victim?! Trying to ‘protect us,’ was he? Well, he’s a fool. An ungrateful fool!”

Liewes gritted his teeth, sharing my fury. “For what it’s worth, his betrayal might have come too late. It will take time to assemble the Knight’s Order, and we have allies among its ranks. There is still a chance that Lady Georgine will complete her plan, or that everyone will escape safely...”

“Perhaps.”

As I understood it, there was no better time for us to enact our plan. Students were still teleporting to the Royal Academy, which meant Aub Ehrenfest couldn’t leave the castle, and Lady Rozemyne’s adult retainers were bound to be too occupied with the start of winter socializing. As we spoke, Father and the others were gathering for Lady Georgine.

“As long as they aren’t found, we should be able to feign innocence,” I said. “But...”

“Did it have to be today, of all days?!”

“He must have been determined to completely wipe us out. Gah! Curse him!”

Matthias’s words echoed through my mind—his declaration that the archducal family knew about our plot and his sophistic remark that he had only acted to save us. Laurenz was supporting him, though I couldn’t pinpoint why. He might have bought into Matthias’s deception, or maybe he’d been involved from the start.

“I can’t see why Laurenz would get involved...” Liewes said. “The archduke candidates’ reactions should have made it clear that Matthias was spouting nonsense.”

I, too, found it extremely hard to believe that the archducal family knew about Lady Georgine’s scheme. The surprise on those two archduke candidates’ faces had aroused enough suspicion, and their retainers had even said they would need to send word back to Ehrenfest at once. I would admit, the existence of their plan to save our lives meant the archducal family had probably known something was amiss, but I saw no reason to assume they had figured out the details.

“From what you’ve said, Lord Barthold, I would assume the archducal family knew only that something was happening. Nothing more.”

“If only that moron hadn’t said anything. Lady Georgine would have obtained the foundation while the aub was investigating us, sparing us all this trouble!”

In such a case, our lives would never have been in danger to begin with. The Leisegangs would have been the ones looking over their shoulders. Matthias might have fooled the others, but he had caused this entire mess in the first place. He was the reason we would need to give our names.

“He put everyone in danger yet claims he wants to save us?” I groused. “How shameless can one man be?!”

“He must have spoken knowing that we cannot openly declare him a traitor. Lord Barthold, I admire your restraint.”

I balled my hands into tight fists. Liewes was right—there was no way for us to call out Matthias. My mother and father had told me the details of the plan because I was the oldest of all the apprentice scholars whose parents were involved, and they would need me to lead our students at the Academy when Lady Georgine obtained the foundation. Not even Cassandra, my full sister, knew anything.

“If we reveal that we know more of the plan than Lord Matthias, we will simply be imprisoned as traitors,” Liewes said plainly. “Until we can learn more about the state of things back in Ehrenfest, we should rely on Lady Cassandra’s reactions and carry ourselves as if we, too, know nothing.”

We would need to play dumb and publicly thank Matthias and the archducal family for saving us. The very idea made my blood boil.

“The archduke candidates were especially quick to contact Ehrenfest,” I said. “Can we still reach Father to warn him of the danger?”

“Not via the teleportation circle.” It was unlikely that the knights stationed there would pass on our letters and even more unlikely that our correspondence would ever reach Father. It might even be used as an excuse to search our estate.

“Liewes, could you exit the dormitory and contact someone from Ahrensbach?” I asked. “You should be able to leave through the back and travel by highbeast.”

The brooches that allowed passage between the dormitory and the central building were given to students and the attendants of archduke candidates. Regular students’ attendants weren’t permitted to have brooches, as they seldom had reason to step outside their dorm, but they could always leave through the back door if they wished.

“Would an ordonnanz not be faster and more reliable...?” Liewes asked.

“No. Lord Oswald gave me some advice—or perhaps a warning. He said that Lord Ferdinand did something to the dormitory before leaving.”

Though a sudden change of plans had driven Lord Ferdinand out of Ehrenfest sooner than expected, he had started tampering with things well in advance. Members of our faction had always said that he was the greatest threat to Lady Georgine’s schemes, and they certainly hadn’t been exaggerating.

“How much can we trust Lord Oswald?” Liewes asked.

“He’s name-sworn to Lady Veronica—or so my father said. If nothing else, he has reasons not to want the eradication of our faction.”

To put it simply, one could say the former Veronica faction was in reality the anti-Leisegang faction. It comprised those who had devoted themselves to Lady Georgine, such as ourselves; those who had given their names to Lady Veronica, such as Lord Oswald; and more neutral nobles who wanted to leave the faction but couldn’t due to family relations. Though we didn’t always share opinions or desires for the future, we could exploit others as we needed.

“It seems wise to trust him, then. But if our ordonnanzes are being intercepted, then it stands to reason that we are being watched as well.”

“Certainly. And those watching us would not be so thick-witted as to let one of our attendants wander the Academy alone. We could use a servant, or... No. Commoners are useless here.”

“Indeed; they lack highbeasts and would never be able to find their way from one dormitory to the next.”

As I pondered how else we might get the word out, Liewes muttered, “It might be wise to give up on leaving the dormitory at all. There was a meeting for which all attendants going to the Royal Academy came together. There, Lord Oswald said that no matter what happened this winter, we were not to leave the dormitory and should instead devote ourselves to serving our charge in the dormitory. Considering what he said to you in private, that must have been another warning.”

The archducal family had, in fact, planned something against the nobles of the former Veronica faction. Lord Oswald knew the circumstances, which was why he’d done everything he could to caution us.

“It won’t be easy to warn our faction without leaving the dormitory or sending an ordonnanz. Still... they can’t keep us locked in here forever. Could we not use the fellowship gathering to contact Ahrensbach?”

Our archduke candidates would strive to hide this incident from the other duchies, cautious that rumors of the aub’s incompetence would spread. For that reason, I doubted they would prevent all students of the former Veronica faction from attending the advancement ceremony or the fellowship gatherings; it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the Academy started to suspect something.

“As an elder student, I would attract far too much attention and risk an especially harsh punishment,” I muttered. “A first-year, on the other hand...” One particularly nervous student had arrived at the Academy for the very first time, only to be told that he might never see his family again. Nobody would consider it strange for him to act on his fear.

“Would that first-year not still receive a harsh punishment?” Liewes asked.

“I doubt it,” I said, waving a hand to dispel his concerns. “That oh-so-compassionate Saint of Ehrenfest would intervene before anything serious happened. It would seem that she has already asked the archduke not to punish us by association. ’Twas a foolish move, to be sure—she acts only on emotion without considering why such systems exist in the first place—but who am I to complain when it saved us? The other archduke candidates might call for the first-year to be punished, but Lady Rozemyne would go to any length to oppose them.”

Lady Rozemyne’s new industry and success with creating trends meant she had more than enough of a sway over the Ehrenfest archducal family. If she stuck her neck out for the student, the other archduke candidates would need to back down. Our plan was to gauge the perceived value of the first-years and just how much we could push our luck.

In the end, the first-year I manipulated into writing a letter home was caught by Laurenz before he could even leave the dormitory. All students of the former Veronica faction were subsequently forbidden from going to the advancement ceremony or the fellowship gatherings.

Our letter might have been intercepted, but maybe the other duchies will notice that something’s wrong.

Even without the letter, at least a single student of Ahrensbach would realize that the Ehrenfest students they normally associated with were mysteriously absent. I would rather not depend on something so uncertain, but I could not act carelessly and allow our foes to extinguish the last embers of our faction.

There is still a chance that my father and mother escaped.

“Stop this foolishness!” Matthias shouted. He and Laurenz weren’t mincing their words; in fact, they were being harsher with the first-year than the archduke candidates. “The words and deeds of a single person decide our fates!”

The other students stared at him in silence, their eyes tinged with frustration. I couldn’t help but feel the same way.

Matthias put us all in this predicament to begin with. How does he, of all people, have the nerve to be so arrogant?

If only everyone knew the truth—then, their appreciation of Matthias would vanish in an instant.

“Matthias, Laurenz,” I said, “there’s no need to be so harsh with him.”

“Oh, but there is, Barthold. He put all of our lives in danger. If we do not make the severity of the situation clear, then—”

I stood protectively in front of the first-year, not a hint of warmth in my eyes as I glared at Matthias. “It is normal to respect one’s family and to lose one’s calm when their lives are in danger. Not that I expect someone who betrayed his family to understand that.”

“Barthold!”

Matthias went rigid as Laurenz barked my name. It did nothing to ease my intense hatred of the former; Matthias’s report had doomed my entire family.

“I understand,” I said, sympathizing with the first-year. “You only wanted to warn your loved ones. I consider that a virtuous trait—not one deserving of such scorn... but it certainly was dangerous. Do you understand me?”

“Yes. I’m sorry... I won’t do anything like that again.”

The first-year sat in the corner of the room, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped. We had all been brought here to be kept under close inspection; we couldn’t return to our chambers or hide away in our hidden rooms. The boy being scolded wasn’t even allowed to cry.

Matthias watched on with sorrow, seeming to have realized to at least some degree the cruelty of his words and actions.

The first report of the purge had arrived. I didn’t know the details, but information leaking was no longer seen as a problem, and the students of our faction were allowed to return to their usual routines. My father and mother must have been captured.

“Those associated with criminals may wish to start considering whether they will give their names.”

Lord Oswald was here to represent Lord Wilfried, Roderick to represent Lady Rozemyne, and Natalie to represent Lady Charlotte. Each of the three retainers stated the virtues of the person they served.

In truth, I couldn’t stand to see Roderick acting so high and mighty. He had once been at the very bottom of our faction. He was lecturing us about how wonderful it was to serve Lady Rozemyne, but the very thought of putting my life in the hands of a Leisegang turned my stomach.

“Barthold, who will you give your name to?” Cassandra asked. I could see my face in her worried green eyes.

“Lord Wilfried,” I said. “Who else?”

He was the only archduke candidate of our faction; there was nobody else for me to choose. I would never give my name to a Leisegang—especially not one rumored to have been a commoner—so Lady Rozemyne was out of the question. As for Lord Sylvester, he was Lady Georgine’s enemy. I could never trust someone who imprisoned his own mother and cut apart his faction from within. Lady Florencia was another poor choice; she had been aligned with the Leisegangs from the moment she married into the duchy. Lady Charlotte and Lord Melchior would surely lean toward the Leisegangs under her.

Though, Lady Charlotte wouldn’t be a bad choice for a girl. In the long term, she’s destined to leave Ehrenfest for another duchy.

“You can’t serve Lord Wilfried as an attendant of the opposite sex,” I said. “It would make more sense for you to give your name to Lady Charlotte.”

“Oh, but why? Lady Rozemyne might be a Leisegang, but she seems trustworthy—at least based on her treatment of Lord Roderick.”

Lady Rozemyne’s naive idealism didn’t suit me, but nothing about her made me think she was a bad person. I could easily imagine her treating us as equal to her other retainers if we gave her our names, and as she was promised to the future archduke, she would make for a safe choice in the long term. The only issues were her being a Leisegang and potentially a commoner. I didn’t want to lose more of the former Veronica faction to the opposition.

“You aren’t wrong. In many ways, she’s the ideal lady to serve. However, she is of poor health, and as your elder brother, I would not feel comfortable with your life being bound to hers.”

“Ah...” Cassandra blinked at me, having not considered that point. The others nearby shot us looks that made it clear they were listening.

I raised my voice and explained the concerning elements of being Lady Rozemyne’s retainer. To begin with, attendants who served someone with poor health had a much harder time securing good grades. There was also a chance that, upon her return to Ehrenfest, the adults would prevent my sister from living as she was able to here. Lady Charlotte, on the other hand, would probably marry into another duchy and prompt the women in her service to search for partners there as well.

“I am in awe, Brother,” Cassandra said when I was done. “I was not thinking that deeply.”

I’d only spoken the truth, but that was enough; barely anyone wanted to give their name to Lady Rozemyne now.

“Lord Barthold, may I have a moment?”

“Lord Oswald.”

Lord Oswald was a man with Lady Veronica’s trust. He had survived the Ivory Tower incident and to this day remained the head attendant of a member of the archducal family. It must have taken an immense amount of skill.

“I am pleased that you resolved to give your name to Lord Wilfried and that you spoke the truth about Lady Rozemyne,” Lord Oswald said. “Because of the purge, Lady Veronica’s former faction has been reduced to but a shadow of what it once was. Your choices saved most of our remnants from being absorbed into the Leisegangs.”

I gave a curt nod in response.

“Your main objectives under your new lord shall be to secure a foothold in the very heart of Ehrenfest’s administration and to obtain as high a status as you can. Lord Wilfried is slated to become the next aub—not Lady Rozemyne, as the Leisegangs so desperately desire. We shall aim to eventually rebuild our faction around him, though we have many concerns about doing so.”

Lord Oswald elaborated, sharing information with me that was far too sensitive to discuss in the castle with the archducal couple around. Lady Florencia had been ostracized by Lady Veronica for refusing to adopt the duchy’s ways of doing things. That was why she had sided with the Leisegangs. Now that Lady Veronica was out of the picture, Lady Florencia was apparently doing whatever she could to bolster her authority.

In particular, Lady Florencia had started to criticize the quality of education Lord Wilfried was receiving. Many thought that was strange of her, even if she was his mother, as it was Lady Veronica who held and attended his baptism.

“She does not seem to understand why archduke candidates are moved away from their parents and into the northern building upon being baptized,” Lord Oswald said. “Lord Wilfried is recognized as an honor student here at the Royal Academy and no longer needs his mother to guide him. That is why I am trying to keep them apart. My lord is honest to a fault and therefore very easy to manipulate.”

Indeed, it would be problematic for the next Aub Ehrenfest to get any closer to the Leisegangs when he was already engaged to Lady Rozemyne.

“Furthermore,” Lord Oswald continued, “I am aware that both Lady Charlotte and Lady Rozemyne have reservations about Lord Wilfried being treated as the next archduke. They try to steal the credit he deserves and refuse to give him his due. It really is deplorable—especially now, when the archducal family should be rallying behind the future aub.”

As I recalled, Lady Veronica had done the same thing to make Lord Sylvester the archduke. Such practices must have been the norm in Ehrenfest. Lady Georgine had been pushed aside and eventually relocated purely for being a woman. I sympathized with her now more than ever.

“It gets worse,” Lord Oswald said. “A wedge is being driven between Lord Wilfried and the former Veronica faction. The archducal couple wishes to cast our faction aside and side fully with the Leisegangs.”

I gritted my teeth. The same archduke who had cut ties with his own faction had executed my parents. My father’s voice arose in my mind: “Lady Georgine would make for a much better Aub Ehrenfest than Lord Sylvester.”

Father was absolutely correct.

If not for Matthias’s report, Lady Georgine might have made it in time. She might have obtained the foundation. The longer I dwelled on that thought, the angrier I became.

In its current state, Ehrenfest deserves to be destroyed.

I had nothing against our duchy’s three archduke candidates. The maelstrom that swirled in my chest was driven by the ambitions of my father and mother, my sympathy for Lady Georgine, my rage toward Matthias, and a desire for revenge against the aub.

“I was a tad uneasy about giving my name to Lord Wilfried, but I see now that I will find good company among his retainers.” I knelt before Lord Oswald, lowering my head to keep my emotions hidden. “I ask for your guidance going forward.”