* * *

It was the fourth day since Guttorm, the second young lord of ducal House Viðing, had died.

The original plan had been for him to take control of the landing, gradually withdraw his troops, and leave once Duke Sven sent an administrator. Frankly, it was so simple and easy that even a six-year-old could have succeeded in his place.

That was why Sven had never doubted him. No, he had never even imagined it—that Guttorm would fail, and that he would die.

But one day passed, then two, then three, without so much as a message, let alone any troops returning. Only then did Duke Sven begin to react.

“I sent that idiot to work. Is he off enjoying himself instead?”

Given the circumstances, that was a reasonable conclusion.

But when he sent someone to investigate, the report came back that the landing had burned down, and neither the second young lord nor any of the knights and soldiers who had accompanied him could be found.

Only then did Duke Sven sense that something was wrong. At first, on hearing that the landing had burned and was being rebuilt, he wondered whether the fool had set it on fire and fled for fear of punishment. The Guttorm he knew was certainly capable of that.

Yet even if Guttorm had run away, why would the knights and soldiers have followed? They had vanished without a word, without a trace.

He sent men to make inquiries in Gringen, but the people there kept silent out of fear of the Black Hand.

While this strange, baffling affair remained shrouded in mystery, on the fourth day—fortunately or unfortunately—a corpse was found on the riverbank, bloated beyond recognition.

The clothing, the teeth, the mark where flesh had been cut from the chest: taken together, the evidence identified it as Guttorm, the second young lord.

After receiving the report and seeing the body with his own eyes, Duke Sven felt less grief at losing his son than fury over the ruined undertaking and this challenge to his house.

“Worthless vermin...!”

Who had done this? Who dared?

Duke Sven racked his brains. He was no fool, but his emotions were running too high for reason.

Instead, he first sought someone to blame, someone on whom to vent his anger. That person was Knut.

He stormed straight into Knut’s room.

The room was filled with mobiles, toys, and all manner of odds and ends. As usual, Knut sat beside his bed playing with a toy.

Normally Sven paid him no attention, but for some reason the sight made him even angrier.

“It was you! You did this, didn’t you?! Tell me the truth!”

With his father suddenly bursting into his room and shouting, Knut could only stare in frightened bewilderment, unable to speak.

Not content with barging in, Duke Sven began smashing and throwing everything within reach. Toys and mobiles painstakingly fashioned by skilled craftsmen were mercilessly destroyed.

Knut could offer no resistance. Still seated beside the bed, he merely raised his arms to shield himself from the fragments flying everywhere.

Then Duke Sven went further, suddenly drawing his sword and swinging wildly. He severed the mobiles’ strings, slashed the bed, and hacked at the objects piled throughout the room.

At last, some of his fury seemed spent. Panting, he pointed his sword at Knut.

“Guttorm. You killed Guttorm, didn’t you? You killed Ketil too. You and that bitch of a mother are trying to take this house, aren’t you? Answer me truthfully, or I’ll kill you.”

Knut was about to deny it when something Valeri had said suddenly came back to him.

He had asked whether he could kill Knut’s brother. And so Knut thought Valeri had killed Guttorm.

But he said nothing. Traumatized though he was by false accusations, he did not want Valeri to get hurt.

“...”

“No answer? Then it’s true. Even if the bloodline ends, you will never have this house.”

He raised his sword high, as though he truly intended to kill him. By this point, they seemed less like blood relatives than people who treated each other worse than strangers.

His heart pounding, Knut thought the time had finally come. The time to die. He closed his eyes as though accepting it all.

Fortunately, the knights waiting outside rushed in like lightning and restrained the duke.

“Let go! Let go of me!”

“Calm yourself, Your Grace!”

“How can I be calm?! Ketil wasn’t enough—he had to kill Guttorm too?! This is a clear attack on my heirs! Usurpation! Usurpation!”

Ketilmund was a concubine’s son, so his death might somehow be overlooked, but killing a legitimate son was a truly grave matter. Of course, Knut had not killed Guttorm.

Only after the knights spent a long time restraining him did Duke Sven regain even a little reason. He flung down his sword in a fit of temper, then pointed at Knut with a hand trembling with rage.

“Lock him up. Put him in the watchtower cage. He’ll stay there until he dies. Anyone who gives him food or water without my permission will be killed, no matter their excuse! Do it now!”

At last Duke Sven swept out, leaving the devastated room behind him. Knut sat beside the bed with his head bowed.

And so he was once again confined to the watchtower cage: high above the ground, where fierce winds blew without respite, where gaps in the floor constantly caught his legs, and where inward-pointing spikes kept him from leaning comfortably against the bars.

When Valeri returned from his patrol, Knut was on his second day in the cage.

Still in his patrol gear, not yet even washed, Valeri looked up at it.

It was not that the journey had been easy, but he had returned feeling as though he had set down some of his burden. Now his heart grew heavy once more.

“Maybe he’ll be all right. They let him out last time.”

Skard stood with his arms crossed and a grim expression, seemingly struggling to remain hopeful.

“This seems different. The second young lord was a legitimate son, after all.”

Arne voiced the reality none of them wanted to face. This was different from when Ketilmund had been killed.

That did not mean concubines’ sons or bastards could be killed at will, but this was a world where some lives were worth more than others. That was the class system.

“He could be fussy, but underneath it he had such a warm heart,” Yorik said.

Yorik was now employed as a servant in Torvik. He had occasionally attended Knut during the operation in Gringen and afterward, and the two were surprisingly close.

“Hey, don’t talk as though he’s already dead,” Arne warned with a frown.

“What? Th-that wasn’t what I meant...”

“Enough. Right now, none of us can do anything. We’re all in the same position.”

Skard headed off a pointless quarrel. Then, without realizing it, he naturally turned toward Valeri. Arne and Yorik looked at him too.

Valeri’s face betrayed no emotion. Wearing a surcoat over his mail, a sword at his waist and a Viking axe in one hand, he simply gazed calmly up at the cage.

“Wid,” Arne called.

But Valeri did not look at him. His eyes remained on the cage as he spoke.

“I’m the one who killed Guttorm.”

Yorik’s eyes widened. The other two remained silent, their expressions unchanged.

“And now I know for certain why this house has to fall.”

Words they would never have dared utter flowed calmly from Valeri’s lips.

“What do you mean?” Arne asked gravely.

“Even parents have no right to mistreat their children. That’s what I believe. Duke Sven cares about no one but himself. With a man like that as duke, misery spreads everywhere. This was never just about Winslow.”

No solemn resolve was needed. It was simply clear.

This was a world in which parents considered their children possessions. Nobles and commoners alike did so, and everyone treated it as plain common sense.

But to Valeri, bringing a child into the world and raising them did not give anyone the right to do whatever they pleased with that child. All the misery began there. It followed you for life.

Had any of it been my choice—being raised by someone else merely because I was born a prince, having to kill my brothers and nephews, all of it?

There were things he had seen on patrol. People embracing and weeping in a barley field. A ranger’s solitude. A large family living under one roof. Thorvald’s struggle. A frontier knight’s determination to live.

Some he had envied; others he had admired.

Having seen them, he understood now. Neither power nor violence, however great, should be allowed to destroy a happy family or obstruct the path each person walked.

Duke Sven was no better than Moneygrubber. That was what Valeri thought.

His friends, however, found his words unfamiliar. It had never occurred to them that even parents had no right to mistreat their children.

As they stood speechless, Valeri finally turned to them.

“I’m going to save Knut. That means openly defying the duke. Think carefully before joining me.”

For a while, none of them spoke. It was only natural. This was so grave, so momentous, that it felt almost unreal. Defy the duke?

Arne answered first. With a family history of his own, Valeri’s words about parents having no right to mistreat their children had struck him to the heart. Besides, he was honest by nature and could not tolerate injustice.

“I cut ties with my mother and father and decided to live as my own person. If I looked the other way, I wouldn’t be me. I’m in.”

After a moment’s thought, Skard asked, “... Do you have a plan?”

“We go to Gringen first. We already have enough money. We could form a mercenary company and move on somewhere else.”

The proceeds from the gems were ample. And rather than suddenly fleeing far away, Valeri judged it better to head for Gringen, where he already had some standing. He was famous there as the Salt Prince, after all.

Skard thought it over once more before answering.

“I wanted to become a knight, but from what I’ve seen, neither the duke nor his bodyguard captain seems particularly interested. Being a mercenary might be good too. I should take a fine horse along while we’re making our escape.”

Only Yorik remained. Everyone looked at him, though they did not seem to expect much.

Under their gazes, Yorik made a show of straightening up and assuming a solemn expression.

“How can a wild beast live only on food others give it? It must venture into the wild and fight for its prey.”

“... You heard that somewhere, didn’t you?” Arne asked suspiciously.

“Yes. I’ve learned a little reading lately. They say nobles value only what they win through fighting.”

“So you’re a noble already?” Arne asked sarcastically, somewhat dumbfounded.

“I can be noble at heart, can’t I? Besides, to be frank, I’m the only one who can humor the young lord and look after him. Are you gentlemen going to do it?”

Somehow, he seemed to be getting more eloquent. Or had he always been like that? At any rate, the four of them were agreed.

Together, they looked up at the cage that held Knut.

Knut thought of becoming a tree. Trees never complained about wind and rain. They accepted pain calmly too.

It was less a thought than a form of self-hypnosis. Since childhood, he had endured all kinds of punishment, not merely confinement in the cage. He always pictured a tree to numb himself to the pain.

'It’s all right if I’m a little uncomfortable. It’s all right to be hungry. I only have to bear the cold for a little while. Soon I’ll lose my strength and grow sleepy. Once I pass out, a lot of time will have gone by. Best of all would be not waking up.'

Midnight had passed, and Knut was now on his third day in the cage. He was holding up well enough, in his own way. Or could this really be called holding up?

He nodded like a sick chicken, dozed briefly, woke and moved a little, then nodded off again and lost consciousness.

'If this keeps up, I’ll die in my sleep.'

That was all he needed to think. It was best not to think at all, but becoming a stone was difficult, so he always thought of trees.

Ever since childhood, the first thing Knut had done to numb himself to pain was abandon hope. Hope that he would live. Hope that he would be happy.

The stars shone beautifully that night, but they offered no comfort. Beautiful things somehow made him want to live, so he turned away.

He simply surrendered his mind to the comfort of losing consciousness, of feeling his strength slowly ebb away.

Then he heard a voice that was not there.

“Knut.”

He was used to hearing things too. When it happened, he only had to let it happen. Reacting brought the pain back, so he ignored it and kept nodding off.

“Knut.”

Again, that imaginary voice. A voice... Wid’s voice.

'Hmm. Do I miss him? But I can’t see him anymore. It was brief, but it was fun. Goodbye, Wid.'

“Knut.”

He heard it again. This time it was like a tiny droplet falling onto the surface of water, sending out ripples. Perhaps it was the faintest desire to live.

Weakly, Knut raised his head and looked ahead. Someone was leaning out of the high watchtower window beneath the streaming starlight.

As he recognized him, Knut’s eyes slowly widened.

“I’ve come to get you out. You’ll have to help me a little. Can you stand?”

“... Wid?”

“Yes, it’s me. Let’s go. You don’t have to endure this anymore.”

“Wh-why?”

“What do you mean, why? We’re friends. Besides, you shouldn’t have to suffer because of me. Try to stand. There’s no time.”

Valeri laid something like a plank beneath him between the window and the cage. The wind was strong, so Skard and Arne had linked hands to hold on to him as a precaution.

Knut’s eyes grew wider still. Then his face quickly fell.

“No. Just go.”

“What are you talking about? There’s no turning back now.”

“Father will be angry. You’ll all be in trouble.”

Valeri looked steadily at Knut. Then, with not a trace of falsehood, he spoke the simple truth.

“Your suffering is worse to me than getting into trouble. And I told you last time to trust me and come along, didn’t I? Let’s go.”

At those words, Knut’s face suddenly crumpled, and tears streamed down his cheeks. He had thought his emotions had died long ago, yet now the tears poured endlessly, like water bursting through a dam.

Valeri opened the cage with the key he had stolen. Now they needed only to reach out.

Knut extended his hand. Valeri seized his arm and hauled him close, holding him firmly against his chest with one arm. He was light as a feather. There was no chance of dropping him.

“All right. I have him.”

At Valeri’s words, Skard and Arne gritted their teeth and pulled with all their strength. In an instant, all four tumbled into the watchtower.

“Drink some water first. We brought porridge.”

Supporting Knut’s back, Valeri first made sure he got some nourishment. Knut was so choked up that even swallowing the porridge was difficult, but he gulped it down nonetheless.

Before long, he passed out, his strength utterly spent.

Valeri lifted him into his arms and hurried down the tall tower. Arne and Skard hastened after him.

Outside, Yorik was waiting with four horses, including Snow. Somehow, he had also stolen the weapon that Creed the Ballsack Opener had used.

Valeri seated Knut in front and mounted behind him. Skard and Yorik shared a horse, while Arne mounted another and took the reins of the remaining horse to lead it along.

Then they left Torvik Citadel through the gate and across the drawbridge, which had been opened in advance.

There were men on night watch, but these were familiar faces. They merely stared, wondering what was going on.

Knut awoke in Valeri’s arms. His mind was not clear, though; he felt dazed, as if dreaming.

He had no idea what was happening, but as he swayed on horseback, the stars in the night sky looked so beautiful.

'Is this heaven? I hope it is.'