MB Chapter 39

What surprised Goiyo, if anything, was Razine Eliom's behavior—conducting herself as though she had committed some grave crime, over something this small.

She had noticed it before, in fragments. The knight standing before her resembled, to a striking degree, the knights of heroic novels. Outwardly, and within.

"It's fine—don't trouble yourself over it. You've been of help to me as well."

"Ah, that's—"

"I'll forgive you, if you need it. If that would put your mind at ease."

Razine, caught off guard by the unexpected words, let the silence that followed settle her agitation.

A mind restored to composure whispered to a knight who was not slow—what that face meant: unmarked by even a fraction of hurt, not disturbed by even a fraction of surprise.

Razine smiled, and the smile was bitter.

"You never expected anything from the start."

No expectation, no disappointment. A simple enough truth.

"I thought you regarded me with some degree of warmth."

"I believe that isn't so different from what you think. Of those outside the household, you're the one I've spoken with most, of late."

"That's not what I meant—"

Razine's lips pressed shut before the words could take shape. When it came down to it, she was the one who had approached with an ulterior purpose—making complaints of hurt feelings was a strange business, all considered.

She wasn't particularly eloquent, but she had rarely found herself at a loss for words. In this situation, though, whatever she might choose to say seemed to land ambiguously regardless.

'I'm the one who's disappointed, aren't I.'

Razine knew she grew attached easily. She hadn't known she would do so even when her approach had been deliberate, when the person hadn't been the point. She found herself feeling, of all things, brazen.

Goiyo was a type Razine had not encountered before. Steady and unhurried—that evenly calm manner, with neither peaks nor valleys, put one at ease in her presence.

Throughout all the time she had spent talking with Goiyo, Razine had never once felt a burden. Not even during the period when she had been wondering how to extract information about her father.

If she were to find a comparison: Goiyo Bethelgius was like the sound of rain heard in a quiet dawn. Learning that such a manner was possible only because she held no expectation of the person across from her—that, Razine had to admit, gave the quality a subtly different shade.

And yet. Razine rather liked Goiyo.

The hesitation she'd felt even in confessing her true purpose had been because of that liking.

That she was reaching to preserve the connection even now, in this sordid little state, told her how deeply it had accumulated—this liking, person to person, and more than she'd realized.

"Aren't you angry, my lady?"

"I've suffered no loss."

"I don't mean gain or loss. Emotionally speaking. By some measure, it's a betrayal."

"Dame Eliom."

Goiyo caught the circling tail of words and pulled it straight.

"When you speak that indirectly, I can't tell what you're trying to say."

Razine moved her lips without sound, then let out a thin sigh. Since it had come to this, being a little more brazen about it was probably the more comfortable path.

"The truth is, I have no female friends."

"I wouldn't have expected that."

"And so I find myself reluctant to lose the small degree of closeness I've built with you, my lady. If it's all right—would you be my friend?"

At this unexpected turn, Goiyo found her hands curling inward without her having decided they should.

It was not the first time someone had asked her to be their friend. More than twenty years ago now—counting the time she had returned to—a boy with the same hair color as the person before her had smiled and said:

'We'll be friends forever.'

The word friend had sounded so sweet, then.

Within the Rubiette household and without, Goiyo Rubiette had been particularly inept at keeping company with others. And yet she was not ignorant of loneliness—she had watched, quietly, from the margins, as peers gathered and moved together in ways that seemed to come naturally to everyone but her.

When the boy with the bright smile had come to her so warmly, her heart had swelled so full she hadn't even been able to conceal the smile that came pouring out.

Goiyo's only friend had been Therio Alte.

Others her age had approached with the clumsy sophistication of children who had learned to read surnames before they had learned to read people, or had been too occupied ridiculing Goiyo's quiet and unremarkable nature—Lanthe Prityl among them.

Fortunately, Goiyo's loneliness was deep but narrow. One friend had been enough.

Had been. Past tense. Yes.

The outcome of pouring her entire heart into one person had not been good—

And so Goiyo had come to find something unpleasant in every name they had carried for each other—every label worn.

Husband and wife. Lovers. Friends.

Every one gave off a bad smell.

And yet—from one of those labels, Goiyo could no longer detect it.

Whether because the person had changed, or because the relationship had. Strange.

Then perhaps other things could change too. Perhaps the word friend could be remembered differently.

What does she want from me. The face watching her with something like slight tension—Goiyo noticed it, freshly, as unfamiliar.

"Even tied to me in that way, there isn't much to be gained from it. I may not appear so, but I'm not someone who has a great deal to offer."

"You needn't give me anything. It would be enough to spend time together now and then, when you're free and when you feel like it. Just—like this."

Goiyo could not read Razine with any precision, but the time they had spent in conversation had not been unpleasant. She thought, perhaps, it might even have been a little enjoyable.

"Of course, if you'd rather not, you're welcome to refuse. I'll simply return to being a friendless solitary once more."

"You sound exactly like my husband."

The word friend still felt strange. And she was not entirely certain there was nothing else beneath the surface.

But even if Razine Eliom did want something more, she would not be able to take it.

Goiyo had left Rubiette and was already Bethelgius's. And it was already settled that she would be cast off by Bethelgius.

If Razine truly wanted a genuine closeness with her, that was going to be an unfortunate thing.

Counting the undetermined date that had drawn to within a year—or less—Goiyo's eyes settled cold.

'I'm not generous enough to pity others.'

On a small impulse, Goiyo reached her answer before deliberation could catch up with her.

If she was curious whether this person had something else in mind—

If she wanted to know whether the feeling attached to the word friend could be different—she could simply find out.

An impulse, as such. But she didn't particularly bother denying that some small liking for the person sat at the bottom of it.

"If nothing is going to change from how things have been, you needn't make it sound so grand. Dame Eliom—I tire of seeing only the household staff myself."

"Oh—If you’re going to be so breezy about it, I find I’m tempted to ask for more."

"Pardon?"

"The form of address that's been slipping for some time now, and hasn't recovered. I'd like you to use my name. No honorific—just the name. And if possible, I'd like to speak informally. Though if that's too much, you're of course welcome to refuse."

"Soliciting pity isn't the most elegant style of speech. I'm sorry to say I'm rather well acquainted with that technique."

She summoned the face—now easier to trace in her mind than any other—and allowed the corner of her mouth to tilt, just so.

"Ah, then I suppose it will be difficult after all."

"No. If you're asking me to speak informally—there's nothing stopping me."

"Oh... I'd thought it wouldn't work—"

Thank you, Goiyo.

Looking at that face—caught off guard and yet laughing so freely—Goiyo thought that Razine's popularity could not be explained by a handsome exterior alone.

"Oh—I'd almost forgotten. There's something else I've been keeping quiet. When you asked before what emotion had called the water spirit, I said I didn't know."

"You knew."

"I'm sorry. It was awkward to say outright—"

It was resignation.

Goiyo swallowed her tea without words. The black tea, gone cold while they talked, soothed the inside of her in a cooler shade.

The emotion that had called the whale was resignation. The emotions that called other attributes were much the same—not, in any case, the sort that made one think cheerfully.

Razine must have known. Goiyo could understand, a little, why she had kept quiet until now—

Yet she found herself wondering, on the other hand, what Razine had made of her resignation.

But such curiosity vanished without a trace in the presence of others.

"Thank you, then."

Goiyo said it with a smile.

By the time Goiyo returned to the Bethelgius mansion, Entzi was already there.

Seeing the same face that had seen her off, now waiting to receive her at the same spot, gave her a sensation that was curiously new. Since she had come to the mansion, seeing off and receiving had always been her part to play. It wasn't an unpleasant reversal.

"You're back early."

"My lady is late."

"You're the one who's ordinarily late."

"I hadn't anticipated retaliation."

It was beginning, slowly, to look like spring—but evenings were still cool. Entzi settled the shawl he'd brought over Goiyo's shoulders and escorted her inside.

"What were you talking about to run so long?"

"Nothing remarkable. Only that we'd keep in touch going forward."

As she recounted the afternoon to Entzi, Goiyo thought she resembled a young Melishi reporting the day's events to her father.

"We became friends. Though I'm not entirely sure this is how one ordinarily becomes friends."

"Friendship needn't be complicated. Intimate exchange is what makes people friends. You and Dame Eliom have been speaking at length for some time already."

"That's true, but—"

She couldn't call it quite that—a connection that had started from ulterior motives. Goiyo moved her lips, considering whether to relay the apology she'd heard from Razine, and then decided against it.

Entzi hadn't wanted Goiyo to know the truth; there was no particular reason to announce that she had learned it regardless.

As she turned this over, Goiyo noticed, suddenly, that her instinct to let people believe what suited them had begun to resemble a certain person's.

The hidden guards would report it in any case—so perhaps it was better to mention it first. She frowned faintly at the uncertainty and changed course.

"Do you have friends, Entzi?"

"You've struck a tender spot rather suddenly."

"Really? None?"

"I am perpetually traveling between the imperial palace and this estate."

"I'd have thought you had many people you associate with."

"It isn't that there's no one I associate with intimately. Only that they wouldn't be called friends."

"Doesn't that contradict what you just said?"

"Whatever others might think—in my own understanding, a spouse occupies a category above friends."

"Ah... you were referring to me."

"There is no one else I talk with intimately."

"I wouldn't be so certain."

Goiyo passed through the gate Entzi held open and said it with perfect composure, as though remarking on the weather.

"Viscount Peroto, for instance."

"...My lady. That joke is wearing out its welcome."

Goiyo laughed out loud at the expression on his face—

Like a man who'd bitten into something unripe.

Through her laughter, her eye caught a passing attendant. The figure bowed as it went, and its hair was a color similar to one she had seen that afternoon.

"Speaking of which—I saw the young lord of House Eliom today."

His appearance was gentle and kind-looking, almost to the point of seeming soft—but the resolve visible through those sky-blue eyes had seemed firmer than Razine's, if anything.

He had arrived as though in some hurry, breath short, and had bowed to Goiyo and offered a careful apology—which suggested he had known about Razine's situation.

Evening had been closing in, and she'd been about to return, so they hadn't exchanged many words—but the atmosphere around him had been distinctive enough to leave an impression even independent of his appearance.

"You mean Young Lord Iell Eliom. I've heard of him. There's word he'll be inheriting the countship."

"Yes—within three months, he says."

"Come to think of it, there's another rumor circulating about him."

"Another rumor?"

Recalling the rumor surrounding those siblings—as famous as Razine herself—Entzi's smile turned slyly provocative. The intention to tease was perfectly plain.

"Is he handsome?"

"Yes."

"I beg your—"