* * *

A castle was not a particularly good place for a small child. It was cold and bleak.

In that bleak place, little Knut would sometimes visit his mother’s room. But he never quite dared to call out to her. He would simply stand and watch.

Wine bottles scattered about, disheveled hair, a deeply bowed head. That was how he usually saw his mother. He was too young to understand her sorrow.

Though born to high station, Knut wandered the castle like someone with nowhere to go. Now and then, someone would call to him affectionately.

["Knut."]

He would turn to find his eldest brother grinning like a fool, and his second brother, who was neither fat nor prone to strange behavior, and looked healthy.

["Look at this."]

His eldest brother brought out what he had been hiding behind his back: a pinwheel woven from twigs and blades of grass. It was Knut’s first toy.

["Let’s go outside. There’s no wind in here,"] his second brother said.

["Run, Knut! Faster!"]

How could something as simple as running around with a pinwheel be so much fun? When he grew tired, his brothers would take turns carrying him on their backs.

The smiles that came so naturally, the blue sky, the wind. These were things he could never experience in the castle.

Knut would not let go of the pinwheel even in his sleep. If it broke or its leaves withered, his brother would tell him it was all right and make him another.

Then, one day...

["Father just has to go away. Then everything will be better. Mother won’t drink anymore, either."]

["Are you sure it’ll work?"]

["I’m sure. I fed it to a rabbit, and it died right away."]

Knut listened quietly to his brothers’ conversation. Something felt wrong, though he could not say why. Back then, he did not understand.

Had there not been enough? Their father did not die, and he realized that someone had tried to poison him.

["Let’s say Mother did it. Surely he wouldn’t do anything to her."]

["Huh? Uh, I don’t think we should do that."]

["You idiot, we might get more than a whipping this time. Both of us could die."]

["Knut... is that all right?"]

["..."]

Perhaps it simply did not feel real. Something terrible seemed to have happened, but seeing his brothers so frightened and flustered, little Knut wanted to help them somehow.

So he nodded.

["Yes. It’s all right."]

And from that moment on, everything fell apart.

His mother did not say a single word in her own defense. She did not protest her innocence. Her final words to Knut were these:

["I’m sorry..."]

Her standing as a princess was still respected, so she was not executed publicly. Instead of an ordinary executioner, a highborn noble swordsman beheaded her with a sword called Ulfberht.

That was when he first learned that even beheadings differed according to rank. Who would carry it out, what weapon would be used. None of it brought him any comfort.

["I am a woman of the Vǫlsungr clan. Put a weapon in my hand."]

According to an ancient superstition, the Nords believed they had to die with a weapon in hand to enter Valhalla. Valhalla no longer existed, but they seemed to believe that Heaven would be much the same.

A wooden dagger was placed in his mother’s hand.

She did not tremble with fear. If anything, she seemed relieved. I vividly remember the overcast sky that day, the damp wind, the heavy silence of the people gathered there.

["I will strike without a trace of personal feeling, wishing only that you may enter Heaven, Valkyrie. Nod when you are ready,"] the swordsman said.

Mother closed her eyes, her back perfectly straight. The swordsman took his stance, and a little while later, she nodded.

The blade passed smoothly through, as though cutting empty air. Mother’s head fell.

Even after her head fell, her upright posture did not collapse. Red flowers bloomed across the pure white burial clothes she had put on beforehand.

For a long time after that day, I could not speak.

Looking back now, I was an accomplice. So there is no one to blame. No one to resent.

It was simply my fault. Mine...

The wind blew. Knut opened his eyes where he lay in the grass. Above him was a blue sky scattered with white clouds.

“Decided to quit work already?”

It was Valeri’s voice. Knut smiled faintly without turning to look.

Valeri came over and sat beside him as naturally as could be.

Neither spoke. Yet no awkwardness could find its way between them. All they could hear was the sound of reeds swaying nearby.

SHHHH...

Suddenly, Valeri plucked a blade of grass nearby and put it to his lips. He seemed to be trying to whistle through it, but could manage no more than a few squeaks.

“Can’t get it to work. Yorik’s really good at this.”

“Let’s ask him to teach us.”

“Sure.”

After saying that, Valeri turned to Knut. He was still lying in the grass, simply gazing at the sky.

“Does your heart not hurt anymore?” Knut asked.

“No. A rune mage took care of it.”

“That’s a relief. I thought you were turning into something else, Wid. Something other than the friend I knew.”

“Right. But if you ask me, you’re the one who seems a little different, Knut.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm... I don’t know.”

“What were you going to say the other day?”

“The other day?”

“Before the last battle. You started saying something, then stopped.”

“... Oh.”

Knut seemed to remember what he had been hesitating to say.

He closed his eyes again, then opened them a little while later and spoke.

“I was wondering if you could spare my brother. There’d be nothing we could do if he died in battle, but you might have taken him prisoner. It doesn’t matter now.”

“Does it really not matter?”

“Hmm. I’m not sure.”

“You know, Knut.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re bound to make choices in life, and every choice comes with regret. Like two sides of a coin. But there’s one thing I’ve come to be sure of. The regret for something you didn’t do is far greater than the regret for something you did. If you’re going to regret it either way, you’re better off doing it.”

Valeri was speaking of things he had realized since returning to the past. If only he had been a little braver. If only he had shown a little more of his true feelings. If only a little more, a little more. Those were his regrets.

Knut mulled over Valeri’s words, then finally turned to him and smiled. It was a smile like the sound of reeds swaying in the wind.

Wails rose from the ducal army’s camp on the plains near Torvik. They came from more than one or two people. There was a sorrow in the sound of so many women weeping at once that made it seem as though the world were collapsing.

The death of a family’s breadwinner meant the ruin of an entire household. It was common for one man to support not only his wife and children, but also his parents and even his cousins.

Even those who had not supported a household had been someone’s older brother, someone’s son.

Such was war.

Still, though it was hard to call it fortunate, the fact that they could grieve was proof that life remained bearable. There were horrors worse than this, and in those circumstances, there was truly no time even to mourn.

The ducal army had numbered roughly a thousand when first mustered. Only about six hundred had returned, and of those, a hundred would effectively have to live as cripples.

Losing a few fingers or having one’s teeth broken scarcely even qualified as an injury.

Two hundred had died in the assault on Gringen alone, with countless more wounded, and another two hundred had fallen to the margrave on the journey back. Even now, some were wasting away from infections and dying.

The survivors were far from well themselves. They were starving, exhausted, and mentally ravaged by the horrors of battle.

Naturally, then, the atmosphere inside the command tent was grim. Nobles, knights, commoners: all looked like the remnants of a defeated army.

Amid them, Duke Sven alone was shouting in a fury. At his eldest son, Gunnar, to be precise.

“You fucking imbecile! You should have waited for the mercenaries in the first place! What the hell do you know about laying siege to a city? Huh?! This failed because you went charging in recklessly! What are you going to do about it?! What are you going to do?! How are you going to take responsibility for this?!”

Duke Sven was throwing things and slapping him, making an appalling scene. Gunnar sat in his chair and silently took every blow.

“What?! A dead god came back to life?! Is that supposed to be an excuse?! You couldn’t beat one bastard, and you come crawling back like this?! It’s because of you that this family is in such a fucking state!”

There had been plenty of witnesses, but to someone hearing the story secondhand, it did sound impossible.

Nor was it easy for anyone to step forward and defend Gunnar, not with the duke this enraged.

They would have to wait until he had calmed down a little before speaking. But just then, Gunnar, who had been quietly taking the beating, opened his mouth.

“... I don’t think that’s right...”

“What did you say?”

“I don’t think it’s my fault this family is in such a state...”

Duke Sven evidently had not imagined that his son would talk back. For a moment, his eyes widened and he was lost for words.

Then his eyes bulged with rage, and he began bellowing even louder than before. He fetched a riding whip and lashed Gunnar wildly.

“Now you dare talk back to me?! Useless wretch! Freeloader! You fucking worm! You’re no son of mine! I don’t need you! Get the hell out! Get out, I said! Get out...!”

By this point, it was less a scolding than outright violence.

Then, without warning, Gunnar grabbed a nearby shield and swung it.

THUD!

Whether he had deliberately aimed for it or not, the blow struck Duke Sven squarely in the head. He fell with his limbs stretched out.

It did not end there. Gunnar rose with a somewhat dazed, expressionless face, then began driving the shield down into the fallen duke’s head.

Everyone in the tent froze in horror at the shocking sight. The Earls of Winslow, Windale, and Revi, the captain of the duke’s bodyguard, and everyone else.

As he battered Duke Sven’s head, Gunnar began howling like an animal, as though a lifetime of misery had burst out of him.

“I! Told! You! Not to! Blame me! Afterward! You should’ve! Taken charge! Yourself! From the start! You! Killed! Guttorm too! Mother! And my stepmother! You! Killed them! It’s your fault! This family! Is like this! Not! Mine!”

There was no telling how many times he struck. The duke was unmistakably dead, his head crushed beyond recognition.

“Not once! In my life! Have you! Praised me! When! Did I! Ever say! I’d do it?! Did I! Start! This war?! You! Did! All of it!”

Only after battering him for a long time did Gunnar stop, panting for breath. He threw the shield, stained with his father’s blood, onto the floor.

CLATTER.

Then he slumped back into his chair. His face itched a little, and when he wiped it with his hand, droplets of blood came away.

A thousand feelings crossed within him. Relief, a weight pressing down on his chest, worry.

Then they converged into one thought. Regret. Not regret for what he had just done, but for not having done it sooner. And a sense of emptiness.

“I should have killed him long ago. It’s too late now... None of it means anything anymore...”

Everyone was too shocked to speak, too stunned even to think.

Then the Earl of Winslow turned to the Earl of Windale, with whom he had already formed an alliance. Windale looked back, and something passed between their eyes.

The duke had been murdered. But with the duke dead, who would succeed him? What were they to do about this?

The Earl of Winslow spoke quietly first.

“My lord, you should secure the army first.”

Understanding perfectly, the Earl of Windale hurried out of the tent. He mobilized his trusted men to take control of the army, while the Earl of Winslow used his knights and personal troops to secure the command tent.

Once they had made up their minds, events moved quickly. The two earls subdued the duke’s close associates and the troops directly under his command.

“Captain, come along quietly.”

“I, I...”

Guilty or not, they first needed to dismantle the ducal house’s power. Through it all, Gunnar merely sat there in a daze.

Wailing could still be heard throughout the camp, but it stopped as the soldiers hastily gathered their equipment and began moving about. The women, too, sensed that something was seriously amiss.

“Disarm them first!”

“Undo your belts! Put down your swords!”

The duke’s own knights had no will to fight. What could they do, when Gunnar had killed Duke Sven? They, too, were too shocked to judge what they should do.

The Earl of Revi, who had been tasked with opening a route through the marsh, had achieved nothing in the war. Thanks to that, however, his forces remained intact.

But as the other two earls worked swiftly in apparent concert, he must have felt that the balance had already tipped. He hurried to join them.

The duke now had roughly twenty knights directly under his command, and a little over two hundred men in all. Disarmed and gathered off to one side, they looked like prisoners of war.

Some had yet to hear the news and were bewildered. Others stood dejected, as though all their strength had drained away.

The Earl of Winslow returned to Gunnar last of all. He was still sitting in a stupor, muttering something to himself that was difficult to make out.

“I, I should have done it, should have used more, because of me, no, all because of Father, no...”

“Young Lord Gunnar, you are hereby placed under arrest. Your culpability in the killing of His Grace the Duke will be deliberated upon at a later date. Until then, please follow our instructions.”

Gunnar sat silently without answering, then merely nodded weakly.

They did not bind him. The Earl of Winslow led the way toward Torvik, with his knights surrounding Gunnar.

The aftermath of defeat, and now the duke’s death. The entire city fell silent, as though doused with cold water, scarcely daring even to breathe.