Knot-Tying

“Could you… tie me up?”

“…”

Pretending not to notice the brief silence, Keith hurried to get another word in before the impression that he was some kind of pervert could pile any higher.

“I know how strange that sounds.”

“Mm, yes. It does sound very strange.”

Pai checked once more that the door was properly shut, then folded her arms loosely and looked up at him, steady, as though she were listening closely. The instant their eyes met, the vein down the nape of his neck gave a hard pulse. Keith swallowed, his mouth dry.

“I have a condition. Sleepwalking.”

“…”

“And it… is rather severe.”

“Do you ever hurt other people?”

That was the heart of the sickness he carried. Without ever knowing it himself, he hurt people. Like a man out of his mind, like a castaway who has lost all bearings in the desert, he would thrash through his surroundings in a frenzy, injuring whatever stood in his way. It did not happen often. But it was not something that never happened, either.

“A rope with binding magic cast on it should help.”

He held the rope out to Pai, evading a precise answer. With binding magic added, even a woman of little strength could hold him down, at least to a certain degree. Only to a certain degree, though: once he sank into deep sleep, he would break the rope in the end. How long could her knots keep him? Thirty minutes? Twenty? He did not know how strong she was, but whether it was twenty minutes or thirty, the time was precious to him. The one saving grace was that the sleepwalking never came on in shallow sleep, and so Keith Paragon’s strategy was simple: hold out, and sleep as little as he possibly could.

“Once you’ve tied it tight, there’s no need for you to stay beside me.”

“Understood.”

That was all she said. She swept past Keith and out toward the next room, and he trailed after her, flustered and meek.

“I haven’t finished explaining—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Pai turned the door handle without a moment’s hesitation.

“I want to get it over with and go to bed. I’m sleepy.”

The weaknesses Pai had marked out in Keith were two.

The first was Ardine Paragon, the niece he loved. For the sake of protecting his one and only niece, he would do anything at all. That he had turned down the seat of Regent Duke in the previous life was, in that light, a sound choice.

The second was the strange illness. Keith had suffered from it since he was small: he saw things that were not there and heard things that were not spoken, and there was the sleepwalking besides. The world called a person with such symptoms mad, and a madman was not treated as a person; he was locked away, or abused, or even killed.

Keith’s mother had hidden the boy’s madness by every means she could. It must never be shown, she taught him; it must be kept hidden. That teaching served him well in the years after. He lost her early and spent a long stretch of his life as a slave, but that one strict lesson he never forgot.

Yet there was no such thing as a perfect secret. To keep one, a little of it had to be let slip, the way a perfect lie carries its single drop of truth. So he had protected himself by letting the people who needed to know in on part of it. As he was doing now.

“You tie each wrist to a post. Failing that, bind both hands together first, and…”

“Yes.”

“Once you’ve tied the knot, tear off the part sticking up here like a hangnail, and…”

“Yes.”

“…”

Pai did not so much as look at the rope. She only glanced around the room, comparing it with the one she and the young lady were staying in, so it was a beat late that she realized Keith had stopped explaining and was staring straight at her.

“Go on. I’m listening.”

At that, Keith gave her a doubtful look.

“…Tell me what I just said.”

“Wrap your whole body round and round in rope like a silkworm, and cover your eyes with a black blindfold — that’s it, isn’t it?”

“…”

“It’s a joke.”

Keith did not laugh.

Pai perched herself on the end of the bed and looked up at him politely.

“I know about binding magic too.”

“…”

“Tying both hands into one seems as though it would be far too uncomfortable, so I’ll tie each of them to a post.”

“…Very well. I’ll show you a knot that doesn’t come undone easily.”

“No need.”

Pai settled her shawl back around her and let a smile show.

“I know at least ten ways to tie a knot.”

“Ten…? Is that a joke as well?”

But Pai shook her head.

“It’s true. Better than your average mercenary, wouldn’t you say?”

“Why on earth would you know ten of them?”

“Mm, I thought they’d come in useful working as a maid. I picked up a bit of this and that.”

“…”

“While I was wandering the continent…”

She said it slowly, watching his face for a reaction, though she had no reason to. Keith, standing there awkwardly with the rope still in his grip, let out a small sigh.

“A distinctive career.”

Pai had no idea that Keith was suppressing the urge to say, ‘It seems you never learned how to brew tea.’

She patted the flat mattress lightly with her palm.

“And that’s how I came to be hired at the White Castle, isn’t it? When I think all that hardship was for this moment, it doesn’t feel quite so unfair.”

“Do you like the White Castle?”

“I like cold weather.”

“Why?”

“Because the harsh weather means people don’t smile much.”

“You like people who don’t smile much?”

“No. I like making them smile.”

“Did you happen to learn how to be a jester as well?”

“And if I did?”

“I was wondering whether you might teach me.”

“There must be someone whose smile you want to see.”

“…”

Keith climbed onto the bed like a well-behaved cat.

Pai, who had been sitting at the foot of it, rose and crossed to the head of the bed. She braced a knee beside his ribs and took the thick rope he held out to her.

“I’ll start. Tell me if it hurts too much.”

“…”

“Don’t hold it in.”

It was a line that called up other imaginings. Both of them registered how delicate the nuance was; neither bothered to say so aloud.

Keith stared at the stone ceiling for all he was worth, as though he meant to count every stone in it.

Pai wound the rope around his left wrist first. Against bare skin the coarse fibre would have scraped it raw, so she made the knot over his sleeve. When she put her weight into it and hauled the rope taut to either side, Keith groaned, ‘Ngh.’ Pai flinched violently.

“D-does it hurt?”

“That’s not— um.”

“Shall I make it a little looser?”

“No. It’s good. It’s good, but…”

“It’s good, but…?”

“You’re… tremendously strong. More than you look.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is one.”

Pai let out a small puff of a laugh and tied the other end of the rope to the bedpost. When she tore off the slip of paper that stood up from it like a hangnail, just as Keith had told her, a white radiance coiled around the rope and vanished.

“Done.”

She murmured it to herself and crossed to the far side of the bed, where she repeated exactly what she had just done.

Rustle, rustle came the whisper of thin cloth against his collar.

Now, instead of glaring at the ceiling, Keith had quietly closed his eyes.

“Are you still curious?”

“…About what.”

“How to make jokes.”

“It would be good if I could learn i— agh!”

Just then, at a sensation like his wrist being severed, Keith reflexively yanked the rope, and Pai, who had been holding the line easily, lost her balance and toppled onto him.

“Ah—!”

Her upper body came down folded across his broad chest. The wool blanket slid off, and her hair spilled loose to tickle his jaw and cheek. It was faintly damp, and a clean scent of soap rose thick between them.

It struck Keith how long it had been since he had been this close to anyone. Living cheek by jowl with women mercenaries tended to leave a man indifferent to their bodies, but…

— Gulp.

The sound of his swallow rang through the small room like thunder. Keith was so rattled his chest heaved.

“Sorry, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

Pai pushed herself up, bracing lightly against the heaving chest beneath her. She drew the fallen blanket back over her shoulders and, as though nothing whatever had happened, tied the end of the line to the bedpost once more.

— Rustle…

“Mm. Finished.”

“…”

“Want to try putting some force into it?”

Keith turned his wrists this way and that, pulling them taut to test them. The line was just the right length, long enough not to chafe but not so long as to give him much freedom. He pressed his elbows into the mattress and pushed himself up to sit.

“It’s about right.”

Then he studied the knot at his own wrist, thoughtful.

“That’s a knot I’ve never seen before.”

“It’s the way sailors do it. They know dozens of ways to tie a knot.”

Pai rolled an elbow lightly and added:

“Knot-tying, I can teach you.”

“Knot-tying ‘alone.’”

“Sadly, jokes are the one thing I can’t teach you.”

“Who did you learn from, Miss Pai? Introduce me to that person.”

“My, you are desperate.”

“I’m told I’m boring rather often.”

“That’s sound advice. Be sure to keep whoever said it close by you.”

Keith said it was Enri who had teased him so. Pai answered that she had thought he must be a good man, for all that he was frivolous.

“What taught me jokes was life.”

Pai withdrew slowly toward the door. One hand on the handle, she curved the line of her mouth gently upward.

“Once you’ve died and come back, life seems like a joke, and a joke seems like life.”

“…”

“Well then…”

“Sleep well.”

Keith wrenched his reddened face away.

Pai nodded.

“Dream well too, Lord Keith.”

She left the room as quietly as a shadow.

The door closed, and Keith buried his face in his two great palms. Unbelievably… his insides were in a stir.