PDCOO Chapter 19

Riding was manageable. The narrow alleys were the problem. Running on two legs and asking everyone he met haven't you seen a large gloomy man with black hair had made him feel exactly like a debt collector, and it had been excruciating.

But right now he could behave like a knight tracking a villain.

Erich asked in his most authoritative voice:

"I have a question for you as well, my lady. Have you by chance seen a tall black-haired man? He will be somewhat unkempt."

Lara did not immediately think of Bertram.

Partly it was because Bertram had gotten considerably cleaner during his time at Anna's house. But mostly the problem was that in Lara's mind, Bertram was not a tall person. He existed beyond the ordinary vocabulary of tall and short. He was simply vast. If the knight had said looks like a bear, she would have understood immediately.

Lara shook her head and asked, in perfect innocence:

"I'm not sure. What sort of person is he? Is he a criminal?"

"He is not!"

"Oh, goodness. You're looking for someone who isn't even a criminal?"

"...There are circumstances which prevent me from speaking freely. I ask for your understanding. In any case, if you encounter him, please let us know. We are staying at the inn by the central square."

"Oh, understood."

Erich smiled, bitterly.

He couldn't exactly announce he was searching for a missing prince, so the investigation that wasn't quite an investigation was encountering considerable difficulty at every turn.

Having concluded his performance as suspicious knight searching for suspicious person, Erich bowed with some elegance before the country girl. Lara stared at him with a slightly dazed expression.

"...The inn by the central square, you said? I very much hope to see you again."

"The inn by the square. I will likewise be waiting."

"But really—unkempt, tall, black hair. That's hardly anything to go on. Is there nothing else?"

"You'll know him the moment you see him. He is genuinely very large. Broad in the shoulder, as well."

In Lara's imagination, the featureless someone-or-other she'd been picturing suddenly shot upward in scale.

Unmistakable at a glance? Bertram was the first person who came to mind.

Lara asked, with a small, uncomfortable stirring of certainty:

"Don't you know his name? Is that a secret too?"

"...If you promise not to tell anyone else."

"I promise!"

"Yes. The person we are looking for is named 'Bertram.'"

Lara's face went very still.

Erich, who was in a hurry, did not notice.

"I ask for your cooperation. Please remember the name 'Erich.'"

After Erich left.

Lara ran up the inn stairs. She still had a minute remaining, but this was not the time to observe that.

"Anna, something's happened! There's a suspicious person—"

Lara threw open the door and was, once again, dismayed by what she found.

"What are you doing..."

Why was Bertram shirtless? Why was Anna reaching toward him?

'Thirty minutes wasn't... enough?'

Anna went rigid at Lara's shriek of a question.

'What are you doing?'

The tone suggested she wasn't particularly curious.

It was more: how dare you do that sort of thing where I can see you.

The only correct response in a situation like this was obvious.

It's a misunderstanding.

Approximately five minutes ago.

Bertram had confessed that the cause of his emotional loss was not injury but a curse.

It was the kind of statement that made one immediately question his mental health. But the blue gem he'd exposed by removing his shirt—set into his ribcage, pulsing to violet with each heartbeat, like a drop of blood dissolving into seawater—was a thing that could only be explained by magic.

She had glimpsed it days before. It had not been a trick of the light.

Bertram explained his curse.

"A mage drove this into my heart."

"He told me it would take everything. My tears. My laughter."

"Not long ago, when you said 'cute,' this place went—" He searched briefly for the word. "—tingly. Even though it is a part of me that should feel nothing."

The moment tingly settled on Bertram's tongue, the gem flushed red—

And Anna reached toward it without quite deciding to.

Then Lara burst in.

Anna opened her mouth to say it's a misunderstanding, but as always, the scrupulously honest Bertram got there first.

"We were having a consultation."

"...What?"

"The rest is personal. I am unable to speak of it."

Bertram put his shirt back on. Lara, her face scarlet and her attention fixed exclusively on Anna, missed the gem in his chest entirely.

Anna said, belatedly:

"It's a misunderstanding!"

Lara said, with the coolness of someone who had already done considerable thinking on the matter:

"So it wasn't a consultation."

"...No. It was a consultation. But more importantly—you said you were giving us time, and then you came right back up! And what exactly did you think was going to happen?"

"Well, when two people are alone in a room together... I did arrange the time for you... but... hm? What can you actually accomplish in thirty minutes?"

Lara's eyes were spinning. Her face had gone scarlet, and Anna—who could see with perfect clarity exactly what her younger friend was thinking—went red as well.

As misunderstanding layered magnificently upon misunderstanding, Bertram then made a deeply considered contribution to everyone's understanding.

"As it happens, Anna and I had been discussing precisely that—what could be done—just a moment ago—"

"Stop! Enough! Don't say another word for the next minute!"

Anna picked up a pillow and hit Bertram in the back with it. Repeatedly. Bertram decided to maintain a dignified silence.

With Bertram in the corner clutching the pillow, Anna finally managed to reclaim control of the conversation.

"Lara. What's happened?"

"Oh, right! I was so shocked I completely forgot. Someone is looking for Bertram!"

"What? Who?"

"He claims to be a knight... his name was Erich, I think."

Anna and Lara turned to look at Bertram simultaneously.

Bertram shook his head.

"That name is unknown to me."

As far as he knew, there was no knight named Erich in the royal palace. Bertram supposed it was probably someone who had received his knighthood after Bertram's departure.

"What did this Erich say about me?"

"Large, black hair, and unkempt. And that you're not a criminal."

The not a criminal was reassuring enough that Anna let out a small breath.

Unaware of this, Bertram's brow furrowed slightly.

"Unkempt? ...Erich. I'll remember that name."

"Ha, well, you were unkempt! You're perfectly presentable now, but—"

"That is precisely the problem. It is natural to use appearance as a clue when searching for someone, but relative and easily altered descriptors—clean, dirty—only make tracking more difficult."

"Why are you worrying about it on his behalf?"

"Occupational hazard."

"Right. You were an officer."

Bertram thought.

He didn't know who Erich was, but the moment he returned to the palace, he would need to advise Franz to improve his training of new knights.

"In any case. This is unwelcome news."

"Do you have any idea what it's about?"

"I have a hypothesis."

It had been three years since he left the capital, Schleisen.

His uncle—who had taken the throne in his nephew's place—would have been comfortable enough for the first year or so. The thorn in his side had gone.

But at three years, unease would be beginning to stir.

The prince who had lost his emotions—called a monster—had a very poor reputation. But if that prince, who had fought for his country, were to die wandering the world, the question of what kind of person are you would land squarely on the uncle's head.

And so: partly to confirm he was still alive, partly to encourage his return—he would have sent a knight.

"It seems my uncle is looking for me."

"It's family!"

Lara's expression eased. The detective-novel premise of knight pursues vagrant had become something ordinary and recognizable, and she looked considerably relieved.

"If he's going to the trouble of sending a knight, he must really want to find you! Are you going to go back with him?"

The question came from Lara.

But Bertram turned to Anna. And answered Anna.

"Anna. Am I a burden to you?"

"What? No, of course not!"

"If I have been of some help to you until now, and have not caused trouble... would you help me?"

What he was asking for was one thing.

"I do not want to lose the thread of change. Allow me a little more of your daily life."

He was asking to return to the village together.

Anna nodded before she'd decided to.

Morning.

Franz and the soldiers gathered around the table, their faces tired.

They had been out until late the previous night with nothing to show for it. The unexpected obstacle: the residents had far more aversion to the soldiers than to any black-haired vagrant. People had openly avoided them, and those who occasionally stopped to talk had trailed off and left the moment they were told no criminal was involved.

Franz's forehead creased.

"The further from the city you get, the worse this becomes. They never encounter legitimate authority, so they don't trust it—just guard their own doorsteps."

"Should we make an official request through the local offices?"

"We can't invoke His Majesty's name in a place like this. Try the local guards again."

"We checked that already. Most of the guards are being deployed to a village festival today and won't be available."

"This is why the countryside is hopeless!"

Franz picked up the jam jar. But being a nobleman with something approaching self-control, rather than throwing it he shook it vigorously over his own bread until the contents surrendered. Erich, who had not yet gotten any jam, deflated.

His blood sugar replenished, Franz continued.

"What sort of festival?"

"A pig festival, apparently. The highlight is a game where you run from wild boars released into an enclosure."

"So it culls the overconfident. What's the prize?"

"The fattest pig, I'm told."

"There's no chance His Highness would attend a festival. He avoids noise, for one thing. And he'd have no reason to want a pig."

Erich ventured a hesitant counterpoint.

"Mightn't he want the pig for food? Pigs are a very good food source."

"Nonsense. The pig would rot before His Highness finished it alone. He's a man who understands the value of food—he wouldn't countenance that kind of waste."

"The guards mentioned His Highness had been in the company of two country women. If he has companions—"

"With his personality, companions. Those would be women he briefly accompanied after rescuing them from a trafficking ring."

The soldiers nodded. 

This all sounded right. Stated with such certainty—surely he couldn't be wrong.