III
It was twilight when Olivia’s platoon arrived at Fort Charna on the way to the Holy City of Elsphere. The sky was painted deep orange, fading dreamily into ultramarine blue. Two weeks had passed since they set out from Galia Fortress.
“So this is Fort Charna...”
“Here at last,” Olivia said. Claudia nodded, looking up at the fort. It was a cylindrical tower, not large but sturdily constructed. From its walls hung banners emblazoned with silver wings, the national emblem of Mekia. The guards at the gate gripped their weapons warily as Claudia announced their identity. Then, she unfolded the official invitation sent by Sofitia herself to show them.
“So you are Lady Olivia’s retinue from the Kingdom of Fernest. We’ve been expecting you.” The guards’ attitudes changed at once. They saluted with the utmost respect, and one called out in a ringing voice, “Open the gate!” There was the creak of a winch turning as the left and right halves of the gate slid away, bringing into Claudia’s view the figure of a man who had come out to meet them. He wore a lilac and white military uniform with an insignia of silver wings embroidered on the upper sleeves. Judging by the quality of the fabric, which a glance showed to be very fine, Claudia guessed he was a high-ranking officer. And, proving her right, the man introduced himself as Senior Hundred Wing Valencia Heim, the man in charge of Fort Charna. He welcomed the platoon into the fort, explaining the schedule as he went.
“—Now, was all of that clear?”
“My thanks for the thorough overview. That all sounds acceptable to me.”
“Not at all. I have sent a fast rider to the Holy City of Elsphere, so I imagine an emissary will arrive for you tomorrow. I’m sorry that I can only offer such shabby accommodations, but please, stay here for tonight and rest from your journey.”
“You’re too kind, going to all this trouble for us,” Claudia said, bowing.
Valencia made a show of waving her off. “It’s nothing, I assure you! My mistress, the seraph, has given orders for your stay to be made as smooth as possible. Please do not hesitate to call me if you encounter any inconvenience.” Turning, he added, “These women will see to it that you are looked after during your stay here. You may ask them for anything.” Where he was looking there stood a row of servants, their heads bowed. Claudia guessed that they hadn’t been prepared to be summoned—several of them were breathing so hard that their shoulders quivered.
She thanked Valencia once more. At a word from him, the servants all sprang into action, and they were each escorted to the rooms that had been prepared for them.
“Please, go ahead and eat. I only hope it is suited to your tastes,” Valencia said with an air of apology as he welcomed them to dinner. The broad table before them was buried under platters of food.
He hardly needs to worry about that, Ashton thought, surreptitiously looking over the spread. Every dish looks like a work of art.
Nothing here could be called everyday fare, not by any reckoning. It was the sort of cooking you’d find on the tables of the highest-ranking nobles back in Fernest. No matter how rich the Holy Land of Mekia might be, there was no way Valencia dined like this all the time, even as the commander of a fort. It had obviously been arranged for Olivia’s sake, no doubt on the instructions of Seraph Sofitia. She had already worked her way into Olivia’s heart via her stomach. The unnerving speed with which Olivia wielded her knife and fork made that clear enough. While Sofitia’s motives for inviting Olivia into her realm remained a mystery to Ashton, he couldn’t shake the sickening feeling that everything thus far was going as Sofitia had planned it.
Claudia, who sat beside him, didn’t even glance at him as she said, “There’s no point in worrying about it now. It’s not every day you get a meal like this. Enjoy it.”
Ashton was privately astonished. It was as though she had once again seen right through to his innermost thoughts.
“You look surprised,” Claudia remarked.
“Well, yes...”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “You wear your thoughts remarkably openly. I’d recommend learning to conceal them better, if you’re going to be a tactician. Soldiers watch their superior officers closely, even if you don’t notice them doing it,” she advised him, then took a mouthful of herbed roast chicken. The self-assurance with which she held herself even in the middle of what was essentially enemy territory practically made her seem relaxed.
“D-Dear me, I see you aren’t one to flinch in the face of a good meal,” Valencia said, with a nervous smile. “Most heartening, I say.” He clapped his hands lightly, then instructed a servant to bring out more food at once. Given that the new dishes appeared only moments later, Ashton had to assume that word had spread of the deep pit of Olivia’s stomach. It would seem it had not, however, been communicated to the servants, who stared, transfixed, at Olivia’s voracious eating, even as they carried out the plates.
Meanwhile, Ellis, who sat opposite Ashton, was tucking into her meal with gusto, her eyes glittering. Evanson sat beside her, a similar look on his face.
“Delicious,” Ellis said, letting out a sigh of delight. “To think, if we were still guarding towns, we’d have gone our whole lives never eating anything this good.”
“I have to agree with you there,” Evanson said.
“Right? And all of it, every last bit, is thanks to my big sister, my beloved goddess, Olivia.” Ellis turned to look at Olivia with scorching devotion in her eyes.
“Ellis,” Evanson warned, lowering his voice, “under no circumstances are you to put your condition on display. Luke gave you strict instructions before we left, didn’t he?”
“You and our brother are so annoying. All I’m doing is praising Olivia and you call it a ‘condition’? Careful how you answer, or I might forget that you’re my little brother by blood...” Ellis set down her knife and fork and fixed Evanson with a smile totally devoid of human warmth as she ran her hand over her left sleeve.
Evanson shot a look of alarm at the guards who stood along the wall. “Don’t touch those knives you keep hidden in your sleeves. It’s not funny,” he hissed. “These people won’t turn a blind eye if they catch you out.”
“That’s funny. Now, how did you know about my hidden knives? You must really love me. But I’m afraid even if you loved me so much you couldn’t live without me, I still couldn’t marry you, so you’d better go find another woman.”
“Who said anything about marriage?! And seeing as you seem to have forgotten, may I remind you that I am your superior officer?”
Listening to how the pair talked from day to day, one tended to forget that Evanson did in fact hold a higher rank than his older sister. In the military, rank trumped family hierarchy. Ashton himself was now a major. Whether he’d wanted it was irrelevant; he now found himself in a position of command over a great number of soldiers. The proper thing for a superior officer to do here would be to reprimand Ellis...
But then, even I don’t show proper military courtesy to Olivia, he thought. Olivia, cheeks bulging as she added sauce to her plate, noticed his gaze and cocked her head. Ever since she had forbidden him from calling her “ser,” he had dutifully carried out the order. Or, more truthfully, he had used it as a pretext to avoid using the term entirely. Public appearances were one thing, but something about the idea of using stiff military formality with Olivia from day to day made him cringe. Though Claudia had objected to the impropriety at first, these days she gave her full, if tacit, acceptance. Part of it was probably Olivia’s public assurances that she didn’t mind, but Ashton’s private interpretation was that, for better or worse, Claudia’d loosened up a bit.
“So what if you’re my superior officer?” Ellis retorted. “This is a chance for you to learn something, so listen closely. The bond between older sister and younger brother is infinitely more sacred than that of superior and inferior officer. So, I have no obligation whatsoever to defer to you. Got it?” She glared coldly at Evanson, who looked in turn at Ashton, a cry for help in his eyes.
“Um, this salad is delicious, isn’t it?” Ashton said, taking a mouthful of the brightly colored salad and pretending he hadn’t heard a word of what they’d said. If he tried to defend Evanson and failed, then Mad Dog Ellis would turn her fangs on him next. Maybe Gile, who got on well with Ellis, could have smoothed things over, but he’d stayed behind in Fernest. Of course, if Olivia would only intervene, she could resolve the matter with just a word. Given the way her knife and fork continued to dance, though, any hope of that was futile.
In other words, this is the best solution. With a silent apology to Evanson, Ashton devoted his full attention to chewing his salad. Evanson, who could read the room, sighed pointedly, then set about painstakingly cutting up the piece of meat on his plate.
“I’m relieved that our nation’s cuisine seems to agree with you,” Valencia said, pleased. With that, he turned the conversation to an inoffensive discussion of Mekian delicacies, which adequately eased the tension at the table.
Still... Ashton looked around the table once more. His eyes found Olivia, the personification of gluttony, still shoveling food down her throat. Then there was Ellis, content to continue drinking Olivia in with her eyes, while beside her the worry-prone Evanson still sighed to himself. Finally, there was Claudia the Yaksha, detachedly going through the motions of eating.
He sighed to himself, wondering, Are they really going to be all right? Ashton didn’t get around to considering his own faults.
The next morning, they enjoyed a breakfast that, while not on the scale of the dinner, was splendid in its own right. Partway through, Valencia came to inform them that the emissary had arrived, and it was decided Ashton and the others would gather in the commander’s office.
“I’m glad to hear you met with no trouble on the road,” she said when they arrived, then introduced herself. “My name is Historia Stampede, and I will be accompanying you to the Holy City of Elsphere.”
With Historia in the lead, Olivia’s platoon left Fort Charna and headed west, heading for Elsphere. What set this leg apart from the journey thus far were the members of the Seraphic Guard, clad in ornate full plate armor, who rode on either side of the platoon. The Seraphic Guard were apparently entrusted with the protection of Seraph Sofitia herself. Their presence made it clear that she was trying to show Olivia every possible courtesy.
“She’s very beautiful...” Ashton murmured, staring at Historia, who rode ahead of him on a majestic, pure white Ailish Spinea—a rare breed of horse. Claudia, astride her own equally stunning pure white horse, the Adalucillan that Olivia had named Kagura, shot him a cold look.
“Wh-What?”
“You like women like that, do you?”
“Excuse me?” Ashton gaped at her.
“I asked if you like women like that,” Claudia repeated, the irritation clear in her voice.
Ashton finally caught on. “I— No, I didn’t mean it like that at all...” he stammered. He’d only meant it as you might look at a flower and think it was beautiful. He hadn’t expected to be interrogated about what sort of women he liked.
Claudia brought Kagura up alongside him. “Then what did you mean?” she said aggressively. Perhaps it was his imagination, but Ashton thought Kagura looked angry at him as well.
Ignoring the horse and wishing Claudia would leave off picking fights over everything, Ashton replied, “I only said what came into my mind, that’s all. I didn’t mean anything by it...” He added, “She reminds me of you in a way, Colonel Claudia. I mean, you’re beautiful too.”
There was a slightly awkward silence. “I don’t want your flattery,” Claudia said at last, glaring at him.
Ashton, who hadn’t had the slightest intention of flattering her, didn’t hesitate to defend himself. “That wasn’t flattery. I’m telling you what I really think,” he said earnestly. At this, Claudia drew back, looking flummoxed. She maintained an air of aloofness for a while afterward, smoothing down her hair incessantly. Ashton wasn’t used to seeing her like this, and so eyed her with deep suspicion.
“Very smooth, Major Ashton,” came a whisper in his ear. Ellis had pulled up her horse beside his.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come now. No need to be embarrassed.” Ellis elbowed him in the ribs, grinning conspiratorially. Ashton had no idea what she was talking about. He frowned, which caused Ellis’s smile to wilt rapidly. “You don’t mean...” she began.
“Mean what?”
Ellis gracefully ignored the question, stealing a glance at Claudia. Before too long, though, she gave a hopeless shrug. “Knock on wood, I don’t want to speak out of turn and end up getting throttled again.”
“Ellis, what are you talking about?” Ashton asked, getting annoyed. Ellis heaved a deep sigh, then with one fluid motion she reached out and laid her hand on Ashton’s head.
“A slip of the tongue. Don’t worry your head about it.”
“Come on, you can’t just say that now...”
“Pay it no mind, Major Numbskull!” Ellis tugged on her reins, turning her horse and heading back to Olivia.
Major Numbskull? Ashton thought. It can’t be—Ellis doesn’t think Claudia has feelings for me, does she? Shaking his head at this absurd notion, he cast his gaze forward and to the right—and found himself eye to eye with Claudia, who had been looking his way too. Claudia, looking mortified, immediately made a show of looking everywhere except at him. For a moment, the gears of Ashton’s mind all ground to a halt.
No. No way. At best she thinks of me like an annoying little brother, that’s all, he told himself. Right? He looked back at Claudia, but she was already engaged in conversation with Evanson. See? You’re reading too much into things. Ashton decided that Ellis had gotten the wrong end of the stick and turned his attention to what lay ahead.
We can’t let our guard down around Sofitia Hell Mekia. Keeping a tight guard on Olivia is our main goal, but we also need to work out what she’s after. If I’m going to do that, I need to know more about her, but it’s not even certain if I’ll be permitted to speak with her...
She was, after all, the ruler of a whole nation. Ashton, on the other hand, was a mere commoner. Under the natural order of things, he wouldn’t even be allowed to speak to her. In truth, he wasn’t even sure he’d be let into the audience chamber.
“Major Ashton? What’s the scowl for?” Ashton looked up and saw Evanson had come over to ride alongside him. There was concern in his eyes.
“What do you think about Sofitia’s invitation to visit Mekia, Evanson?” Ashton asked.
“So that’s what you’re thinking about.” With one eye on Historia ahead of them, Evanson went on. “I was just talking to Colonel Claudia about the same thing. I think it’s clear the seraph is interested in General Olivia.”
“Yes, she probably is.” Sofitia wouldn’t have snubbed the royal family to make her invitation to a mere soldier like Olivia unless she was interested in her. The question was what Sofitia saw in Olivia to rouse said interest. The first thing that occurred to Ashton was the military prowess that had made Olivia into the feared Death God in the eyes of the imperial army.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do but wait to see what move she makes. We’re here on an official visit, after all. We can’t afford to cross any lines, whatever she might be plotting.”
“Still, I think we ought to consider all the possible eventualities.”
“Of course, but please don’t do anything risky. Just like there’s only one General Olivia, there’s only one of you too, Major Ashton.”
Ashton nodded, his face hard.
With the Seraphic Guard alongside them, the roads were as peaceful as could be. They saw no more second-rate bandits like the Warriors of the Sunrise, and around a day after setting out from Fort Charna, Olivia’s platoon arrived at the Holy City of Elsphere.
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