Watching The Fire Across The River

“I— I never meant to strike her.”

Cedric’s reply all but sank into the floor. Herman looked him over slowly, then at last released his grip.

His pride, it seemed, was stung that he hadn’t managed to break that grip. He rolled his wrist with an irritated scoff, unwilling to admit he’d lost.

“Good. I’m glad you’ve changed your mind.”

Herman spoke on, unruffled by Cedric.

“Because if you’d laid so much as a fingertip on my wife, you’d not have escaped a lawsuit and a settlement.”

He tilted his head and folded his arms, his whole posture declaring he had nothing to fear. And in the meantime, I found myself nudged, as a matter of course, behind his back.

“Did you just say a lawsuit and a settlement?”

Gloria cut in about then, her voice shrill.

“Why should we be the ones to pay damages? By any measure, we’re the ones who were insulted!”

Herman’s back was far too broad. Only Gloria’s voice reached me from the other side of it, and unable to make out how things were unfolding, I felt thoroughly hemmed in. I tried to peek out around his side, but he might as well have had eyes in the back of his head; he blocked me at every turn, and every attempt failed.

“Look at this. The one who flung her gloves in our faces, poured a drink over my head, and stamped on my husband’s foot — that was Gloria.”

Herman’s gaze moved back and forth between Gloria and Cedric. The pair looked far too disheveled for him to feign ignorance and let it pass.

“So I see.”

He hummed, rubbing his chin, then answered without the slightest hesitation.

“The House of Ernst will make good on both — madam’s gown and the Count’s medical fees.”

This was absurd.

Why should Herman be the one to pay for it?

I was the one who’d kicked up this ruckus. All he had to do was declare, before everyone, that he was casting me off. That was the whole stage I’d set for him. He would take a new wife, I would win the freedom to see my own business through, and every one of us would walk away with what we wanted.

And yet here Herman was, shielding me after all. I couldn’t make sense of why he was coming out this way.

Better that I be the one to bring up divorce first. At this rate, I’ll do him real harm.

For a moment I’d forgotten that the name ‘Gloria’ now had ‘Ernst’ fixed to the end of it. I had been conscious only of being ‘Gloria.’

“Wait a moment, Herman.”

I hurried out from behind Herman’s back, meaning to hold him off. But hot-tempered Gloria was a step quicker.

“Your Excellency, do you truly think this is a matter that damages alone can settle?”
“I do.”
“Then have Gloria offer a sincere apology for all of this. My husband and I simply must have it.”

At that, Herman let out a laugh, as though he could scarcely credit her nerve.

“An apology, is it. Funny — I rather think that’s owed to our side as well.”
“What do you—. Are you saying we’re the ones who ought to apologize to that girl?”
“Because the two of you were the first to drag my wife’s honor through the mud with your baseless conjecture.”

“Hah. Your Excellency.”

Gloria let out a loud scoff.

“I saw it with my own two eyes, plain as day — Gloria following after my husband as he made for the retiring room. So I came after them, just in case, and this was the situation I found. Tell me — what part of that is conjecture?”
“That part.”
“…What?”

Herman took one long stride toward Gloria.

“My wife most certainly made for the retiring room before your husband did.”
“H-how can you be so sure of that?”
“Because I had my eyes on my wife the entire time.”
“…”
“Then let me ask you this. What in the world could possess the Countess to stage such a farce at the triumphal banquet of the great Empire of Balter?”
“A farce? Hardly. I am simply telling you exactly what I saw. And a person is apt to make mistakes now and then — yet Your Excellency speaks as though I’d concocted some slander.”

Gloria muttered it with the guilty, twitchy air of a thief giving himself away.

“Is that so. For a mere mistake, though, you rather herded a crowd along — as if you knew perfectly well what was about to happen, didn’t you?”

His words sent the crowd’s murmur flaring up again like a brushfire. Now that they’d heard Duke Ernst’s side, there was something contrived about the whole affair.

“It is Your Excellency who conjectures too far. I understand your wish to protect your wife, but are you not thinking far too one-sidedly?”

Just then Cedric, alert to the crowd’s mood, cut in abruptly.

“By anyone’s reckoning, the Duchess is plainly the one at fault. Shielding her like this will do no good — that is my point. I’d meant to hold my tongue, for fear it would be discourteous, but the more you defend the Duchess, the more Your Excellency’s own honor suffers for it.”
“Ah — my honor.”

Herman looked at Cedric, cocking his head at a crooked angle.

“Thank you for the counsel. I’ve had such trouble readjusting to society, having been away five whole years on account of the war.”

He brushed Cedric’s shoulder with a couple of careless pats.

“Thanks to you, I expect it’ll be a great help, Lord Drake.”
“…”
“Ah — no. Count Drake.”

There was a barb hidden in it. To speak of the war and then name him plainly as ‘Count Drake,’ the bare rank stripped of any honorific, was as good as sneering at Cedric, who had taken no part in the war at all.

So that was his meaning — how dare you prattle to me about honor.

For a man five years gone from society, I thought, he had a far surer command of the language of the salon than I’d ever have guessed.

In truth, of all the nobles who had marched off to war under the banner of ‘noblesse oblige,’ none ranked higher than Herman Ernst, the more so as the heir who would one day carry on his house. And as the Grand Order of the Empire of Balter, bestowed on him at the triumphal ceremony, attested, he was at that moment the single most honored man in the land.

In one stroke, Cedric had become the fool who’d presumed to lecture so great a noble on honor.

“How on earth could he blunder so — and to Duke Ernst himself.”
“Tsk. Just so. Whatever else, this has nothing to do with His Excellency’s honor.”

With public opinion refusing to flow the way he’d counted on, Cedric looked more than a little flustered.

“Th-that isn’t what I meant at all. You misunderstand me.”
“No, no. You’ve been a great help.”

Herman shook his head slowly, waving the words aside.

“In that same spirit, let me offer some counsel of my own. The Drakes’ retiring room lies in quite another direction, does it not? Your memory seems to be giving you trouble — you’d do well to see a physician before long.”

The finishing blow only made the watching nobles whisper louder still.

“That may be the retiring room, granted, but I was on my way to see to some business. Must I really lay out such private matters for you?”
“Business — and you had to see to it here, of all places.”

Herman put his finger right on it.

“There are private rooms much nearer at hand, surely?”
“Well, that side was rather crowded…”
“A likely story.”

Cedric’s eyes darted this way and that like something broken, and he dragged a hand down his ashen face.

I gazed up at Herman, utterly dazed. He seemed to possess a remarkable gift, and not for battles of the body alone but for battles of words as well.

“Countess — I’d say this is more than reason enough for my wife and me to be owed an apology too.”

For some reason, I wished the floor would open and swallow me.

‘My wife and me,’ he’d said.

Every time Cedric had shielded Gloria and taken her side, it had filled me with resentment and fury, true, but…

Being on the receiving end of it, I find, is harder to bear still.

I couldn’t fathom how the two of them had pulled this off every single time. The mortification was enough to set my face ablaze and my very soles itching.

Just then Herman turned and took hold of my wrist, and as though it were the most natural thing, settled my hand on his arm.

At that very instant, Gloria’s face stiffened, just slightly. I couldn’t have said why, but that girl’s heart seemed as easy to read as the bottom of a clear pond.

Extraordinary, Gloria. To be jealous, of all things, at a time like this.

While Gloria bit down hard on her lower lip, Herman gave a light nod of farewell, as though his business here were concluded.

“Well then — let us not go trading apologies neither side means to give. Only, from here on, you’d best give up hounding people on nothing more than your husband’s word.”

With that warning dressed up as counsel, Herman drew me along and stepped away.