What I saw in Vermeer’s eyes was fear and awe.
"No one expected the Capital Sentinel Command to move so suddenly. No, no one in all of Breisburg could have predicted it. The moment the slums came under full-scale attack, the balance collapsed."
"And who do you suppose moved the Capital Sentinel Command?"
Mühe looked at me with a playful smile. I was the one who had set Viscount Loewenbert in motion. Michael’s written orders and my formal request were more than enough justification for the viscount to act.
Knowing all too well how terrifying schemes can be, I had learned that the proper way to counter one is to smash the board itself. That was why I moved the Capital Sentinel Command.
They had built their scheme around the slums, so I simply destroyed that stage altogether.
"Sir Streit, we were all thrown into confusion. Who could have imagined someone would shatter the board so boldly? Who on earth did it? Was it Viscount Loewenbert acting alone? Or the Military Department?"
"The moment I spotted Anton of the Streit family and the Gale Knights, I knew."
I hadn’t specifically ordered them to hide their identities, so Anton and his men must have moved about openly. In truth, it amounted to a kind of warning. They didn’t seem to know about Beort, though.
"I learned for the first time that you possess the foresight to intervene in capital politics from the far edge of the duchy. The Baron I knew was merely a capable cavalry commander."
Among the nobles, the prevailing view of me was that of a highly skilled cavalry commander. The sort of noble who shines only on the battlefield. Vermeer had shared that prejudice as well.
But at the very moment that taut balance held, I, all the way out in the east, had intervened and shattered the stage in an instant. Only then did they realize I wasn’t a noble whose reach ended at the battlefield.
"Sir Streit, all this time I thought you were simply a lucky noble, skilled, yes, but blessed and beloved by the Lord. Through this affair, though, I’ve come to realize that the most terrifying person of all is you, Sir Streit."
I had moved Viscount Loewenbert out of concern for Bodo’s safety, and a chain of butterfly effects I’d never imagined had unfolded one after another. Whatever the trigger, the board had tilted enormously in my favor.
"How did you ever think to move the Capital Sentinel Command?"
"Bodo went missing in the slums, so I figured he had to be held somewhere inside them. I was certain they wouldn’t harm him, which is why I sent Sir Beort and Anton in first."
"Indeed, a swift and bold strategy."
Vermeer seemed genuinely impressed.
No one had expected anyone to smash the board outright.
"With the slums coming down around them, the ones thrown into the greatest panic were the Viscount Neunil family. They had hidden the kidnapped Bodo in the deepest part of the district and meant to negotiate, but the duchy’s army sealed the whole place off."
"Wait, Sir Vermeer. Negotiate, you said? With whom?"
"With you, Baron, naturally. They meant to have Bodo recognized as a member of Elsheimer and hand you the benefit of it. Once Mort had eliminated Adelbert and seized Reinfeldt as planned, what he needed most was the backing of a prince like you."
Kidnap Bodo and then have the gall to negotiate? Then again, looked at another way, Mort’s read on the situation was shrewd. On the surface, Reinfeldt and I are political enemies. Mort was aiming at exactly that.
However it came about, if Bodo could be recognized as Elsheimer’s heir, it would be a clear gain for me. It was a chance to bring Breisburg’s tax collector family under my wing.
"But once the Capital Sentinel Command moved, Mort and Neunil found themselves facing a situation they had never anticipated. We snatched Bodo out from under them in the middle of the chaos."
"I’d already seen his talent when he tracked down the noble spreading rumors about the crown prince, but this child is truly clever. Even while being dragged off by Neunil’s men, he left slum markings here and there along the way."
Mühe’s people recognized the markings and followed the trail, and with Vermeer and the Mainhof family’s retainers mobilized as well, they rescued Bodo. A fierce fight broke out, but the boy came through unharmed.
As a result, Mort and the Viscount Neunil family had lost their final card and were completely cornered. I had already ordered my men to keep the Gale Knights ready to deploy at any moment.
These two hadn’t rescued Bodo out of pure goodwill, that much was certain.
But whatever their reasons, the fact remained that I’d been helped.
That Bodo could sleep so peacefully was thanks to Mühe and Vermeer. For a boy with such sharp ears to sleep through all this chatter, he must have been through an exhausting ordeal.
"Thank you, truly, for saving Bodo."
"Opportunities to sell a favor to a prince are rare, you know. And they’re worth every bit of the risk. Especially when the prince is you, Sir Streit."
"...Whenever anything comes up, I will help you without hesitation."
Mühe knew my promise was worth its weight in gold. What a fox of a woman. Still, precisely because the deal was so clear-cut, it inspired more confidence than clumsy kindness ever could.
I looked down at Bodo and sighed. It’s not as if I have some power to see the future, so I really don’t know how I ended up taking this kid in. This was the enormous gap, the sheer disconnect, between the game and reality.
"I took pity on a poor child left all alone after losing his mother, and this is what it led to..."
"Your meeting with Bodo must have been the Lord’s will."
"Lady Mühe, for all your conduct, it seems you’re a devout believer."
I said it cynically, but Mühe calmly pressed her hands together in quiet prayer, entirely unbothered. She had taken three husbands, and all of them had died. It was no fault of hers, yet she had come to be called a husband-devouring woman.
Even so, she seemed to regard it as a trial and a fate the Lord had handed down to her. The same went for Vermeer, who was making the sign of the cross. Was his estrangement from Franz a trial of his own?
Christianity teaches that, set against the Lord’s immense power, humans are mere creations, too weak and helpless to change their fate, and yet that fate can still be overcome through faith, devotion, and penance offered to the Lord.
My coming to the world of Medieval Knight by the hand of that being called the operator is fate too. And had some such thread been strung between Bodo and me? I gazed quietly at him.
"All this commotion around him and the man himself sleeps like a log."
"Isn’t he adorable? I had a child like him once, you know."
"Adorable isn’t the word for it. He’s a little gremlin."
Feeling oddly spiteful, I pinched Bodo’s cheek. His face squished like a soft rice cake. Annoyed, Bodo swatted my hand away in his sleep. And what came out of his mouth next was really something.
"Ugh! Who dares wake a noble from his nap?!"
"What? A noble’s nap? It’s me, you brat!"
"Huh? Wha? Whaaa? Master, why are you here?"
Waking to find me there, Bodo shot upright in a fluster. I could practically see his eyes spinning in their sockets. Rather than rap him on the skull, I pulled the boy who’d been through so much into a hug.
"You’ve been through a lot. It’s all right now."
He’d braced himself for a scolding, so when I patted him and told him he’d done well, it was Bodo who ended up flustered. It was hardly how I usually treated him. Prying himself out of my arms, Bodo asked,
"Master, did you take a hard blow to the head out east or something?"
"Is that any way to speak to a master who’s comforting you?"
"You comforting me is exactly what’s so weird!"
Bodo was the same as ever. If he doesn’t shrink before a master who happens to be a prince, he’s hardly going to cower at suddenly becoming a noble. In any case, I was truly glad Bodo was safe. There was no longer any reason to hesitate.
I turned my gaze to Mühe and Vermeer.
With firm resolve, I told them,
"The Gale Knights will move."
"When?"
"Right now."
A scheme ends in one of two ways.
To live, or to die. That is the question.