Postscript

“This is preposterous!”

The moment the reading of the will ended, Count Luigi Husslix let out a roar. He strode over to the walnut desk and wrested the will out of the estate steward’s hands, his shoulders and chest heaving with the sheer heat of his temper. He skimmed the document, then flung it down on the desk.

“This will is pure nonsense! I ask you — is a man who walked out of this castle on his own two feet fit to be Regent Duke?”

Luigi’s goading did its work, and complaints broke out here and there around the room.

“The regency ought to fall to someone who has watched over Ardine closely all this while, and who knows the North well.”

Count Luigi Husslix was not wrong. The problem was that he wanted the regent’s seat for himself, and was hauling the argument out to shove Keith aside.

Pai gripped a fistful of her skirt to keep one corner of her mouth from tilting up.

Just look at the way this is going.

It was impossible not to sneer. Of the dozen-odd people gathered in the study, not one had gone looking for Ardine Paragon since arriving at the White Castle. True, she was said to have locked her door against the shock of losing her father, but anyone who truly cherished her would at least have tried knocking. Not one of them had.

Elrod Paragon was truly blessed in the people around him — very nearly. Look at the ones who call themselves his blood: a pack of jackals, every last one.

If there was a saving grace, it was that Elrod Paragon’s eye for people had never failed him. Keith Paragon was the only person who could protect his only daughter from any threat. Provided he accepted his elder brother’s last wish.

“I raise an objection.”

The left hand that went up was, of all people’s, Keith’s. The uproar cut off unnaturally short, and Pai turned to look at him with the air of someone who had seen it coming.

“I respect my brother’s wishes. But seven years ago I cast off the name Paragon. And to my knowledge, Regent Duke is a title only a blood relative of the late Duke may hold.”

Legally, he was right.

Do you really suppose Elrod didn’t know that?

Benevolence alone would only carry a lord so far across a territory this vast. Elrod Paragon must have been a wise man, and a calculating one.

“So, regrettably, I am in no position to carry out my brother’s last—”

“A moment. Might I have your attention?”

Bishe, who had held her peace until now, spoke up. She nudged her monocle back into place, drew a key from the pocket of her house robe, then stepped around behind the walnut desk and opened a drawer with it.

— Clunk.

Out of the deep drawer came a second envelope, and she raised it high so that everyone could see. On the back, a stamp of dark brown sealing wax bore the shape of a frost rose, the crest of House Paragon.

“Th-that isn’t — surely not…!”

Count Luigi Husslix cried out in a hopeful tone. Bishe tucked her chin slightly inward.

“The second will of His Grace, Elrod Paragon.”

“You had such a thing all along and kept it slyly hidden? This is absurd!”

Titled the same as Luigi, a countess in her own right, Bishe was nonetheless a noble without lands. Luigi seemed to have spent the last of his patience on the first will; he carried himself far more insolently now.

“It carried a condition, so I could not disclose it at once. I ask your understanding.”

Bishe went on speaking, as punctilious and as cold as ever.

“What condition?”

“The condition reads: ‘In the event that any person raises an objection to the will.’”

Bishe straightened her back and raised the parchment to eye level.

“In the event that Keith Paragon, that ungrateful wretch of a boy, raises an objection to my will, I set down this postscript.”

“…”

“Under Imperial law, the right of regency may be conferred only upon a legally recognized blood relation… That was the clause you meant to trot out, wasn’t it? I don’t need to look to know.”

“…”

“You may have thrown Paragon away and left, but your name is still sitting there in plain sight on the family register. Which is to say: Keith ‘Paragon’ is still, in the eyes of the law, a blood relation of mine, Elrod Paragon.”

“…”

“Did you imagine striking a name from the register was done overnight, just like that? You ought to have settled it cleanly to the end before you went. This is all because you left your tail hanging out the door¹ — so what is to be done? You’ll simply have to abide by your elder brother’s wishes. Ha. Ha.”

Bishe acted out even that final laugh convincingly, then folded the parchment neatly in half.

“…That concludes it.”

The ‘postscript’ turned the assembly on its head, but Pai found the drollery of it to her taste. Until she came to the White Castle she had known nothing whatsoever about Elrod Paragon. Now she knew, at the very least, that he had been a wise man with a sense of humor besides. And that he had truly cherished his half-brother.

There was a pleasure of another kind in watching Keith Paragon, the man whose dismissal had itself been dismissed. He must have been at a loss, stripped of his one lawful way out, and yet a faint smile had spread across his face all the same.

Longing, after all, is not always a negative emotion. He missed his elder brother, and summoned him up into his own memory. The ‘postscript’ was the catalyst.

Funerals are fun. I’d like to do another one.

Pai was on her way to the crematorium.

Bishe had announced she would give the maid who had been discourteous to Luigi a thorough dressing-down, and had then said virtually nothing of the kind. All she had actually done was order her to carry tea out to Keith, who was waiting alone at the crematorium.

— Rattle-rattle-rattle.

The crematorium stood a good ten minutes’ walk from the main castle. Its door was shut tight, as though refusing to admit so much as a breath of wind, and she shoved it open as if kicking it in.

“Colder than I expected…”

Even indoors, the temperature was hardly any different from outside.

“Well, naturally. Pouring magic into a building like this would be a waste.”

Heating the whole structure served no purpose. There was only ever the one guest, and for that a stove in the waiting area was enough. Just as she had predicted, a faint warmth hung in the waiting area, where one could keep watch over the kiln.

“Pardon the intrusion.”

She gave the trolley a hard push. Keith, sitting all alone on a backless chair, suddenly raised his head.

Once the reading of the will was over, several of the inheritance candidates left the White Castle at once. They meant to confirm Elrod’s message, due to be delivered to their homes, at the earliest possible moment. But several others, Count Luigi Husslix among them, decided to stay on a few days more.

Which means they intend to watch what I do next.

Whatever they chose to do, Keith set out for the crematorium. A cremation usually took two hours, but Elrod Paragon had been a big-framed man, and would take longer than that.

Once the deceased was reduced to a handful of ash, it was handed over to a craftsman, according to the tradition of the North. The craftsman mixed aurorastone into the remains and completed a jewel unlike any other in the world. With that, a funeral of the North came to its close.

Which meant the time Keith had to put his thoughts in order was only the few days it took to cut the jewel. The lawful means of refusing his brother’s last wish was gone, but he had no intention of becoming Regent Duke regardless. In that case, the authority to appoint some other Regent Duke would fall to—

“Pardon the intrusion.”

Just then the waiting-room door opened and a trolley came in.

— Trundle, truuundle…

The maid coming straight toward him was the woman he had seen in the study. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were pink with cold.

“I’ve brought you some tea to warm you up. The housekeeper asked me to.”

She behaved matter-of-factly, as though they had never exchanged a word in the study. She poured the tea into a cup, dipped a small silver spoon in and drew it out again, then held out the tray.

“Please, drink.”

“…Thank you.”

The problem was that the tea… plainly looked like it was at a rolling boil. Steam billowed off it like mad.

“It’s my first time brewing tea. I do hope it suits your palate.”

“…”

The woman’s mysterious eyes were shining with anticipation.

Keith Paragon was a man of the North. Better to scald his throat raw than to disappoint a woman. He swallowed dryly and took a sip of the tea.

“…”

Now that he tasted it, the heat was not the only problem. The tea was astringent enough to leave his tongue tingling.

Astringent to what degree? To the degree that he briefly wondered, Is this poison?

With the most natural motion he could manage, he set the tea back down on the trolley.

“Thank you for the tea.”

“You won’t have any more? It’s colder in here than I expected — it quite startled me.”

“That…”

Keith made his excuse, straining to suppress his discomfort.

“It’s so delicious…”

“…”

“I’m saving it.”