MB Chapter 17

Kolave Peroto, relieved of his remaining overtime, set aside the minor disappointment of not having managed to set his employer's face on fire, and left for the day in excellent spirits.

Entzi watched the space Kolave had vacated with a cold expression, then recovered his usual smile the moment Goiyo called for him.

The master bedroom sat on the fourth floor, the topmost level of the estate, accessible from the central staircase on the first floor by a portal connected to the carpet. Only a handful of registered people could use it, Entzi explained, and he added Goiyo's registration then and there.

A portal inside a private residence. In a building this size.

Marrying a mage is not so bad, Goiyo thought.

At the very end of the fourth-floor corridor, two doors of nearly identical design faced each other across the hall. Like everything else in the estate, they were engraved with intricate patterns worked in fine, precise detail—which no longer surprised her.

"This is the bedroom," Entzi said.

"Ah, my bedroom." Goiyo glanced at the door opposite. "And your bedroom—is that room across the hall?"

"…Pardon?"

"Pardon?"

Both of them tilted their heads at the same moment and looked at each other with identical expressions of mild confusion.

"I've lived in Runabern for a year now, so I thought I knew the city reasonably well," Goiyo said, "but—do couples in the capital sleep in separate rooms?"

"Ah. No, that's not generally the case."

"Then you're expressing a preference—that you'd like separate rooms from me?"

"Mm, not particularly…"

A brief silence. The corners of Goiyo’s lips pulled and shook, barely.

The back of her neck grew faintly, indistinctly warm. She was glad her hair was long.

She’d grown so accustomed to sleeping in a separate room from Therio that she’d assumed the same would apply with Entzi. It was only upon seeing his startled expression that she understood he’d had no such intention—and the belated realization brought on a sudden, pointless embarrassment, so that her fingers curled at her sides without her quite deciding they should.

Entzi’s gaze passed briefly over the reddening at the back of her neck.

“Then there would be no objection to sharing a bedroom,” he said, smiling as though he’d noticed nothing.

"Oh, yes. Certainly."

"The honor is mine, Madam."

Goiyo decided this was a very strange conversation.

Where he'd arranged for all those staff members to be stationed was a mystery, because Entzi himself opened the door for her—and come to think of it, he'd been the one showing her around since they arrived, with not a servant in sight.

It couldn't be that he had nothing to do. And it couldn't be that he'd suddenly developed a desire to tour his own estate. He was simply behaving according to the mask he wore.

A meticulously tender mask. Bitter enough to leave a taste.

"There's only one bed," Goiyo said.

"It's a marital bedroom."

“Goodness—are you embarrassed, Madam?”

"Pardon?"

"Now that I look, you seem to blush rather easily."

So that’s what the separate rooms were about, Entzi said, leaning against the wall beside the door with a knowing smile. The intention was perfectly clear.

Why on earth would someone this hopelessly naive in that area bother with that as a weapon. Regrettably, Goiyo Bethelgius was not a naive person.

"You look more burdened than I do, if anything."

“Myself? The bed is ornate, certainly, but such things are hardly unfamiliar to me—”

"Not the bed. Sharing a bed. And then whatever might come after that?"

She'd meant it as a tease, but the effect exceeded all expectation.

Entzi managed a valiant attempt at nonchalance and then failed it entirely, choked on nothing, and spent a long moment with one hand pressed over his face, coughing dryly. He looked thoroughly mortified.

'I won.'

The conversation having gone in this direction anyway, Goiyo decided to raise something she'd been putting off. Now that the wedding was behind them, she couldn't defer it any further.

Whatever else this marriage was, it had been entered into by two people with their own purposes, and in the timeline she remembered, there had been no child between Melishi and Entzi. She had no reason to think he wanted one now.

But he didn't know that she knew that—and it seemed more natural to ask. So Goiyo said it plainly:

"Do you need a child?"

"…Pardon?"

"We're married, so it's the obvious question. I have no intention of avoiding a conjugal relationship. But I think family planning is something to approach with care—so I wanted to hear your thoughts."

Entzi went quiet.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered it. Marriage was marriage, even a political one, and it would be strange not to have considered what sharing a bed implied. He still remembered the throwaway remark he’d made to himself: everyone does it, nothing special—and had moved on without a second thought.

He wasn't cavalier about it.

Growing up, he’d observed more than a few people who moved from one encounter to the next as easily as changing clothes, and he’d understood that their values simply differed from his. But Entzi Bethelgius had always felt that this particular kind of act required a particular kind of responsibility.

To speak truthfully, it was closer to a slight fear than responsibility.

He was convinced he had been born of a mistake.

The late Emperor had loved Entzi's mother, but he could not have wanted an illegitimate son. And yet Entzi had come into the world regardless, and then—

Entzi Bethelgius had married Goiyo Rubiette. By the conventions of their respective titles, Goiyo had transferred her household registration from Rubiette to Bethelgius, and changed her name accordingly.

No one could look at them now and say their relationship was irregular. He had lost the excuse of irresponsibility.

He had no intention of having a child.

A vague fear, a reluctance—these had kept him at a distance from such things. From the act itself, and even more so from what loving someone might require of him. He had stayed where he was.

But he had magic. A near-perfect method of contraception, if he chose to use it. Most people didn't trouble themselves with that application, but he thought he might.

This marriage would not last long in any case. It's too early—that would be enough. Or if she said she wanted a child, he could simply ensure one didn't come.

He could take responsibility for Goiyo Rubiette’s life. He could not take responsibility for Goiyo Bethelgius’s. So: no child. That was what his reasoning had already determined.

He'd arrived there without accounting for Goiyo's opinion at all. And rationally speaking, even now, he didn't think he was wrong. The place he occupied had not been reached by sparing thought for others. He had climbed over any number of necks, used any number of bodies as footholds. An altruistic disposition would have gotten him nowhere, or buried him in a pile of beheaded corpses himself.

Besides—from her perspective, too, this was the better option. Raising a child alone, with no one to share the weight, was a brutal thing. And between them, there was no feeling to build a family on.

The probability that Goiyo Bethelgius would say she wanted a child was too low to calculate. And even if she did, it would come from obligation, not from any real wish.

So why did it bother him?

Entzi had never in his life let emotion interfere with a decision. The faint snag of it—that small, obscure irritation—was entirely unfamiliar.

The name of the irritation was Goiyo Bethelgius—her name rolled across his tongue, and for a moment felt unfamiliar.

He broke the silence that had stretched a little too long. His smile, when it came, was slightly off—something he didn't notice, and something Goiyo, deep in her own thoughts, didn't notice either.

“No. It is, I think, a little early for that.”

"Then I'll take a contraceptive. Is Lukurue Alto the right person to contact, if there's something I'd like procured?"

"“No—wait. I wasn’t—what I meant to say was—"

"The relationship itself?"

"…Yes. That."

It followed logically: if there would be no relationship, there was no need to discuss a child. Their time together was already finite. He told himself this, and was aware, as he did so, that it sounded like an excuse even to him.

“Politically arranged as it is, we have known each other very little time. I think it would be—difficult. For both of us.”

"You're right. There's no urgency."

Entzi felt a small, quiet relief at her easy agreement. He hesitated a moment, then added:

“It would be better to avoid the contraceptive pill, if possible. They are not good for the body.”

He said it for no reason at all.

They slept in the same bed that night, and still they were strangers to each other, so they lay with their backs turned, not quite touching.

The distance between them was small enough that even fingertips might almost reach—and still they did not touch. Even so, Goiyo found herself holding tension she hadn't noticed—taut and alert—until exhaustion pressed her down and she slipped under.

Long after, when the deepest part of the night had settled, Entzi's eyelids opened slowly.

He glanced at Goiyo, still asleep, and eased himself out of bed with careful, unhurried movements.

The bedroom door closed.

"This way."

Ekser opened the iron door when they arrived. It ground against its frame with a heavy, protesting sound, and Entzi stepped through into the dim space beyond.

He had entered a storage room of some kind. No one had touched it in years—rust had crept across every surface he could see, and a small window had been boarded over with sheet metal so that nothing of the outside showed through. Until the door opened, the room held nothing but dark and a close, damp smell—old air sealed in, slightly sour. Then moonlight seeped through and the interior came faintly into view. Several shadows stretched long behind Entzi as he crossed the threshold.

The iron door closed with a low, resonant clang as Ekser pulled it shut. In the same instant, Entzi snapped his fingers.

In the center of the lightless room, a faint, formless illumination gathered—just enough to read a face by, drifting upward as though pooling at eye level.

Three or four men stood in it. Ekser, just entered, made a fifth. At the point where all their attention converged, a man of middle years knelt with his wrists bound behind him.

"Long time," Entzi said.

"Ungh… who—who are you…"

The man on his knees had been squinting at the new light, turning his face away. Now he finally forced his eyes open. The breath he drew was one of pure, involuntary horror.

"Count Eliom, yes? Good—you know my face. That saves us some time."

"Anzik—Anzik Solaris, the Imperial Prince—"

"Dear me. Imperial prince is quite a title for a bastard. I wonder if you've missed my name. Allow me to introduce myself: Entzi Bethelgius."

Entzi bent his knees and lowered himself until he was looking up at the man from beneath, though Eliom was the one on the floor. The expression on Entzi's face was pleasant. No one looking at his eyes would have called it a warm pleasantness.

Eliom's eyes went wide enough to split.

'That's the Marquess?'

"Yes, I am the Marquess in question. A commoner by birth who achieved a rather astonishing title through military merit alone—the sort of thing that might feature in a pulp hero's tale, don't you think? I really hadn't expected you not to have known. You've been hiding quite thoroughly, haven't you—for a man with your former standing, Count Eliom."

"Nonsense—you're mocking me! I know what happened—sold you to the slave traders—how did you—"

"As it happens, the one who bought me was Balverdi."

What is done with a slave is, naturally, the buyer’s concern.

The understanding, however incomplete, of what was happening began to settle into Count Eliom's expression. His eyes darted to every corner of the room.

Then, in a voice so fractured with trembling it was barely intelligible, the Count opened his mouth.

"I—I had nothing to do with any of it. I don't know anything. All of it was Rubiette—Rubiette was behind it, every bit of it!"

"Of course you knew nothing. Of course it was Rubiette's doing."

Down to the part where you whispered the existence of a bastard son into the Empress's ear—that was all House Rubiette, I'm sure.

At Entzi’s words, Count Eliom’s mouth opened to protest—and his face was kicked off the floor.

Khhk— The Count hit the stone floor hard, coughing blood, his cheek blazing. He writhed.

Entzi stepped forward until he was standing over him and looked down.

“My patience is short. Don’t push it—between us.”